A Wintertide Spell (5 page)

“Really, Miss James, it’s all
right.” Chamblin’s eight-fingered hand chopped the air as he motioned me down. “Just
relax and enjoy the unique and yet wholly secure experience of Space Station
Freedom.”

I could tell I was making the guy
uneasy, so I cast a hard glance at my known troublemakers and ended with Geiger.
“Do not kick my seat again, mister. I don’t care if your toes are growing out
and it feels good.”

With an expert twist—I didn’t spend
two years in the Planetary Peace Corps for nothing—I did as Chamblin asked and
buckled in. Disciplining the students was always up to me, despite my two TAs.
Lem and Lon were mostly useless, alternately simpering at any adult female or
gazing at me in bemusement when the children acted like, well, children instead
of the sims in their training holos.

You’d think male Zhie would be
accustomed to kids and their ways, but hey, it was a new generation, IPSSE
education notwithstanding. Next thing you knew, female Zhie would start
interning with the Centauri Ballet or something. Now that would be a show worth
New Broadway prices.

Chamblin waited for me to settle
before he continued. “As I was saying, the early Humans didn’t know about
dimensional cross points, which is why the Zhie stumbled across the Humans
instead of vice versa. The Space Station Freedom was where the Zhie initiated
first contact. This is one of the actual transport shuttles used by our
ancestors. Retrofitted for safety, of course.”

The first contact story was old
news for all citizens of Galaxy Prime above the age of three. If we didn’t get
through this portion of the tour soon, Chamblin was going to have a starship
full of mutinous Phantasms on his hands, bored senseless into rampant
destruction.

“And now,” he said, with a dramatic
gesture at odds with his monotone delivery, “brace yourselves for the ride of a
lifetime.”

He thumbed the button on the end of
the pilot chair’s red lever.

For a moment, nothing happened.
Children tittered. Lem might have too, or maybe Lon. Geiger tapped my seat with
his toe, no doubt thinking I wouldn’t notice. Chamblin’s face pinked up again,
which looked inflamed against the khaki of his uniform cap and black hair, but
then the wide holoscreen behind him crackled to life, displaying Earth as it
appeared from orbit.

The screen, to my dismay, remained
flat.

Really? No projective capabilities?
They’d had projective capabilities last year. Not a wise redesign choice. A
flat screen would definitely not soothe my small, savage beasts, nor any
others. I’d say at least eighty percent had been in orbit for real at some
point. That screen had to be nearly as antique as the shuttle.

“Pure caca,” I heard Geiger
whisper.

“The teacher said be quiet,”
Clarice hissed. Perhaps he was grating on her nerves too. Unicom knew the
singlet would test the patience of a Human saint, much less a nine year old
Human girl.

The pod shuddered and jolted. The
holoscreen fuzzed white, emitted a piercing whine and clicked itself off.

Chamblin frowned. The kids groaned.
Their complaints began as whispers and rose like an ocean wave.

At least until the screen burst
outward in a shower of red, fiery shrapnel.

~  *  ~

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