Read Early Byrd for Free Online Page B

about but never actually experienced.
Which made sense, I supposed, since I lived on a ranch out in the
middle of nowhere. But then I'd never been held hostage before,
never been abandoned (however unwillingly) by my parents in the
name of the greater good of humanity and forced to smile at a
smelly alien and call him "Beloved Uncle." I was in for a whole
series of new experiences, apparently. And so far they sucked,
sucked, sucked!
    Then I was weeping again, broken inside and
ashamed to be broken and wanting to be strong and tall but still
too young to be anything more than a snot-nosed boy whose world was
falling apart at least as completely as that of any other boy
before him. It wasn't something I rationally thought through;
before I knew it my door was open and I was running down a blurry
hallway in bare feet. At a touch, the only door with a human face
waiting behind it swung open. Then I was dashing through the dark
toward the bed in the back, praying that Timmy hadn't seen me
making such a babyish fool of myself.
    But I needn't have feared. For there Tim
already was, on his knees with his arms clamped around Mr. Li,
sobbing his heart out. I knelt down as well and buried my face into
the freakishly-muscular man's torso next to that of my brother.
    "It's going to be all right," Li reassured
us over and over again, and the words helped even though we all
knew they were a lie. "We're going to see this thing through,
despite everything. We'll come out on top.
    "Or at the very least, someone somewhere is
going to answer for this atrocity. I swear it!"

10
     
    "So," Uncle Rapput declared just before lunch the
next day, looking first Tim and then me directly in the eyes. "I
understand you two had a rough time last night?"
    Mr. Li answered for us, which I was glad of.
The last person in the universe I wanted to admit a weeping fit to
was Uncle Rapput, though I wasn't quite sure why. "It was separation anxiety, sir,"
he explained. "This is commonplace among our young under far less
stressful circumstances than these. Indeed, further bouts are to be
expected. Thank you for allowing them to sleep in."
    The big alien nodded. "Our own youngsters
are vulnerable to the same sorts of developmental issues, though
mostly among the lower clans." He shifted uncomfortably in his
chair. "In a way, I suppose what we're doing here might even be
seen by some who don’t understand the grand plan for the greater
good as capricious, or perhaps even cruel." He frowned. "You have
my standing permission to excuse them from family meals and other
such activities, Li, whenever you feel they're not up to it. At
least for the first few months. We'll revisit the issue if this
privilege is employed to excess."
    Li bowed. "I'm grateful for your trust."
    Rapput speared a pork chop with his
eating-knife and chewed on it thoughtfully. "Tell me about
yourself, Li," he said. 'I've read your file, yet there's still
much I don't understand about you. For example, you weren't born an
English-speaker. So how do your loyalties come to be to that tribe?
You're not even physically akin to them."
    He smiled and half-bowed in his seat. "I was
born in North Korea," he explained. "Not at all a pleasant place, I
assure you. When I was fourteen, my father—who held a privileged
position as a high-ranking military officer—was able to defect to
the South."
    "Defect?" Rapput asked, clearly unfamiliar
with the term. "They judged your family somehow defective and drove
you out?"
    "The word has different meanings in
different contexts, sir. In this case, to 'defect' means to leave
one human-type clan for another without the permission of the clan
that's being left."
    Rapput's mouth dropped open. "Is such a
thing even possible ?" he demanded. “I’ve read that humans
switch clans as one changes robes, but . . ."
    "Our history has shown that it's difficult
to keep humans in a clan they have no desire to be part of," Li
explained. He bowed again. "Of course, your own kind do