Read The Children Star for Free Online

tables reminded Rod incongruously of mealtimes at the Guard Academy.
    Soon the bowls of four-eyes stew came passing down, with red and green loop-fruits the boys had cooked up from the garden. Since Rod could not yet eat them, Chae brought him his two cakes of standard-grade food from the synthesizer. The synthesizer reshaped organic matter at the molecular level and filtered out toxic metals. An economy model, it put out two flavors, fruit or flesh; Rod had eaten them for so long that he forgot which was which. But the first bite reminded him he was famished. He ate quickly, forgetting his usual insistence on “civilized” conversation.
    Someone was kicking him beneath the table. It was T’kun, managing to eat with his left arm. “T’kun, remember your manners,” Rod warned. “The Spirit is watching.”
    A commotion erupted at the far end. A helicoid asleep on the ceiling apparently had fallen onto someone’s plate. The children were shrieking; Mother Artemis calmed them, while Rod released the helicoid outdoors. Looking upward, he saw two more helicoids hanging by their suckers from the rafters, their propeller rings turning idly. The hall really needed cleaning out.
    Returning to his place, he found that T’kun had crawled under the table because he did not like the pudding for dessert.
    â€œCome out and sit down,” Rod warned, slightly raising his voice.
    T’kun dutifully emerged. “I
am
sitting down.”
    Mother Artemis came over and leaned by his ear. “Rod, I’ve just heard from Station. Patella can’t recover here—he must ship back to Elysium.”
    His last hope died. There was nothing they could do for the injured sentient except ship him back across the Fold to Elysium. Poor Patella. “What will we do?” he whispered. It was hard enough with just the two of them managing here, until Geode brought the babies home; but even then, they needed a doctor. It would take some searching to find either a sentient willing to come, or a human physician willing to be lifeshaped, with two years in the gene tank before she or he dared set foot here without a skinsuit.
    Mother Artemis said, “The Reverend Father will find someone.” The Most Reverend Father of Dolomoth, a large Valan congregation, had founded their colony and was ultimately responsible for it. “Meanwhile, I could take on a medicine module. It would overload my processor somewhat and slow my reactions, but—”
    Rod shook his head. “You can’t do that. You have to keep alert around here—you don’t want to . . . to get hurt like Patella.”
    Mother Artemis thought a moment. “There’s always Sarai.”
    Sarai was a Sharer lifeshaper. Sharers were a human race who had settled the ocean world of Elysium ten millennia before the “immortals” did, shaping their own genes for aquatic life. Sari, however, was a rebel among her kind.She had left her ocean home for Prokaryon, to dwell deep within the rock of Mount Anaeon. Rod frowned. “Sarai is hard enough to reach.” And not usually receptive to visitors.
    â€œShe is as skilled as any Elysian doctor, and she would help the children.” Mother Artemis added thoughtfully, “More contact with fellow humans will be good for Sarai.”
    Rod prayed the children stayed well.
    Commotion erupted again, this time from Pima and Pomu, who were attempting to rise from the table. Under the table T’kun had tied their shoelaces together.
    After dinner everyone gathered outside. The sun was just setting beyond the distant singing-trees. The llamas groaned at the sun, their regular habit in the evening.
    Mother Artemis stood, and her nanoplastic hair waved above her head as if charged by an electrical storm. She spread her robe, and her skirts came alive with bears and lions. Strange story figures shimmered and stepped out around her; the nearer children tucked in their feet and