The human pulled Delta close and hugged her. She gave Delta a kiss on the forehead.
The kiss made Delta sob even harder for a moment or two. Then, as suddenly as Delta started crying, she stopped; although she still pouted and sniffled as she held up her hands for the keeper to assist her with the gloves.
“These are a bit tight, aren’t they, Sweetie,” the keeper remarked. “No wonder you’re having such a hard time keeping them on. When we finish classes this afternoon, I’ll walk you to Requisitions to get a larger pair.”
The keeper then turned to walk back toward the center of the compound and beckoned Delta to join her. Delta sidled up and started walking with her. The keeper put her arm around Delta’s waist and kept her hip to hip as they walked.
“We’re having your favorite for lunch today,” the keeper said. “Ground steak with gravy. That sounds divine, doesn’t it, Dear? I can hardly wait.”
Delta looked at the keeper and tried to smile. She wanted to cry again for some indefinable reason, but didn’t. She remained quiet till they reached the mess hall.
Chapter 2
After classes were over and they had visited Requisitions, Delta and the keeper walked through the barracks toward the front gates of the compound. Delta didn’t know why, but after she received the newer, larger gloves, she was feeling less like crying and more like smiling. The keeper rubbed Delta’s back as they walked and she smiled at Delta whenever the child looked her way.
Delta loved the attention she received from this keeper. Like other felines, she had no parents of her own. She’d spent most of her childhood housed in a barracks with other females her age.
Feline children were cared for superbly by the adult felines assigned to the compound, but human keepers were always available to treat injuries or upset stomachs and to supply hugs and kisses when needed. Even though the felines got along fine in the barracks, it was a special treat when a human keeper took a feline child for family socialization. Delta’s socialization periods had become much more important to her since she was having the difficulties that came with an unusually early female adolescence.
This keeper was particularly nice and Delta desperately hoped all her remaining family socialization times would be with her. She was Delta’s language arts teacher and had a library full of interesting books in her home.
Delta loved nothing more than to sit around with this keeper on long evenings and read the stories written by people from the home world’s ancient past. Delta was especially fond of reading love stories about heroic women and the gallant men who swept them off their feet.
The primary sun was low in the sky as Delta and the keeper walked past the males’ barracks on their way to the human housing at the other side of the compound gates. Some of the adolescent males were engaged in sports as others rough-housed on a large athletic field laid out between the two largest buildings.
As Delta and the keeper passed by, a few of the males took notice and paused their activities long enough to give Delta the once over. Delta tried hard, but couldn’t keep herself from turning her head to glance at a couple of older males running the length of the field, kicking a football back and forth.
While her head was turned, Delta nearly lost her footing in some gravel. The slip quickly got her attention back to watching where she stepped. Her face turned red as one of the boys laughed when she nearly toppled headlong to the ground.
Delta took a last nervous glance around, hoping none of the other males had seen her temporarily lose her footing. She became more self-conscious when she saw a particularly athletic male watching her closely.
Instinctively, Delta pulled her school uniform jacket tightly around her when she caught him taking in her body. She reached over and grasped the keeper’s hand stealthily. She turned her head back in the direction she was walking and fought the urge to look again to see if the male was still watching her.
“Is something bothering you, Sweetie,” the keeper asked in amusement. She kept her voice low so only Delta could hear it.
“Am I funny looking?”
“Of course not, Sweetie. How could you think such a thing?”
“All this term, the older boys have been staring at me and smiling,” Delta whispered.
“If I had my guess,” the keeper replied, “I’d say they do that because you’re turning into a beautiful young lady.”
“No. That couldn’t be it,” Delta replied, in a matter of fact tone.
The keeper laughed, but not loudly enough to draw any more attention to Delta than she was already receiving. “You are absolutely adorable, Sweetheart. Do you know that?”
Delta had no idea why the keeper was laughing, but the compliment that came after reassured her it wasn’t out of scorn for her having said something silly. That meant a lot to Delta, because of late, she had been feeling very silly.
As soon as they were inside the keeper’s front door, Delta headed directly for the library.
This keeper’s library contained over a thousand books. All were bound in the same drab, utilitarian manner and lacked elaborate covers.
The keepers brought digital copies of every book ever written on the home world with them. They were freely available for transfer from the ship’s library to personal tablets, but the keepers brought equipment with them to bind paper copies if needed or desired. Being a teacher of language arts, and loving classic literature, this keeper took full advantage of the binding equipment.
Delta looked through the books while the keeper prepared the evening meal. The second sun was just coming up so Delta would be able to sit by the library window and read as late as she wanted while the keeper slept in the next room with the windows shuttered to keep out the light. There was no school tomorrow, so the keeper wouldn’t mind if Delta slept in.
“Delta, Sweetheart,” the keeper called from the dining area. “Dinner is ready. Come eat.”
Delta grabbed her selection from the shelves and hurried to the dinner table. She put it down beside her plate and prepared to eat.
Delta was starving, even after a larger than usual lunch. Since the beginning of the current term, it seemed to Delta that she could never eat enough, and it caused her to be even more moody because she was gaining weight in what she considered embarrassing places.
The keeper placed a container of cow’s milk at the center of the table and asked Delta to pour them both a cup. She quickly glanced at Delta’s book selection before walking to the small kitchenette in the corner of the dining area to retrieve the food she had prepared. “Pride and Prejudice, eh? I thought you already read that one.”
The keeper returned with some dishes and set them next to the container of milk in the center of the table. She took a large spoon and transferred some greens from one of the dishes to Delta’s plate. She then forked a couple of slices of pork from another dish and set them in front of the feline.
“There’s a wild mummy cat with some kittens living in the old potting shed,” Delta reported as she attacked her plate. After chewing on a mouthful of pork for a few seconds, she added, “They came out from hiding while I was there and I got to see all of them. They’re so cute. Do you think I might ever be able to pick one of them up or pet them?”
“I don’t know, Dear.” The keeper smiled lovingly at Delta, who had not looked up from the plate since she started eating. “They won’t come any closer to you than the mother cat. You will have to win her trust, first.” Her smile then faded. “Even then; the kittens might not lose their fear of you.”
“That would be so sad,” Delta said between bites. “They’re so tiny and fluffy. I want to hold one of them so badly.”
After dinner, the keeper herded Delta to the lavatory and prepared her for a shower. She handed Delta a towel and a bottle of body wash, then left closing the door behind her.
Delta showered quickly and headed for the keeper’s bedroom with a towel around her. Her hair and mane were still a bit damp.
The keeper’s dwell
ing had space for another bedroom but she used it for the library. There was a comfortable portable bed set up in there for Delta’s visits though, and Delta found it more than acceptable since she rarely left the library’s confines whenever she was there.
The keeper went to the closet and pulled out a sleep jumper she picked up at Requisitions anticipating Delta’s increase in stature and weight from her previous visit. Delta dropped the towel from around her and the keeper made a close inspection of the young feline’s body. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except that she was maturing unusually fast.
Male and female felines were always housed apart, but schooled side-by-side until adolescence, when they became too distracted by each other to train effectively. From then until they were ready to begin their military training, the males and females were schooled separately. The separation usually came at five and a half years, but Delta was barely four and a half and the keepers were considering moving her early.
Delta donned the jumper quickly and spun around as if modeling it for the keeper. As she spun, she saw herself in the keeper’s full-length mirror and froze. She gawked at her reflection as if she were seeing herself for the first time. The form-fitting sleeper accentuated her emerging curves.
The keeper watched Delta admiring herself in the mirror and then looked down at her own body. She was in very good shape for a middle-aged woman, but showed ample evidence of the stressful journey from Earth to Terra Nova.
The keeper motioned for Delta to sit next to her on the foot of the bed. She grabbed Delta’s shoulders and positioned her so she could towel the feline’s head a bit more and then brush out her hair and mane before bed.
Delta loved it when the keeper fussed with her hair. She sat smiling and looked at their reflections in the mirror. Delta studied the keeper’s expression as she brushed.
“You enjoy grooming my hair, don’t you?”
The keeper looked up from Delta’s head and turned to the mirror to see the child looking back at her with an expression of genuine happiness on her face.
“Yes, I do, Sweetie. I enjoy nothing more than taking care of you.”
“I enjoy it, too.” Delta’s smile disappeared and she lowered her head.
“Is there something you want to talk about, Dear?”
“Can I come and live with you forever?” Delta looked as if she already knew the answer would be negative.
“I don’t know about forever, but, I’ve asked to keep you for the rest of your schooling.”
“Do you really mean it?” Delta almost squealed. She was more excited than she had ever been about anything.
“If I can arrange it.”
Delta hugged the keeper tightly. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she bawled uncontrollably.
Feline children rarely had anything to look forward to in life, and Delta had seemingly just been given everything she could ever imagine wanting. For the next few moments, she held onto the keeper as if she were afraid somebody would barge in and drag her away at any second.
The keeper rocked Delta and stroked her mane until the child calmed down and relaxed her embrace. She then kissed Delta on the cheek and pulled her back around into a position beside her on the bed to finish grooming her hair.
As the keeper brushed Delta’s mane, the child once more studied her in the mirror.
“Do you love me?”
The keeper put down the brush, smiled back into the mirror and hugged the child again. “Now, what do you think?”
Delta smiled as she hugged the keeper back. “If I had my guess,” she replied, with a tone indicating she had given the matter quite a bit of thought, “I’d say you wish I could be your little girl, for ever and ever.”
The keeper laughed at Delta and smothered her with kisses. She then started tickling the child who fell from her lap down to the bed beside her in a fit of gleeful laughter.
“You are such a smart one. I certainly do want you to be my little girl for ever and ever.”
The two then sat on the edge of the bed and looked silently into the mirror. Delta kept looking back and forth from her reflection to that of the keeper. Pensively, she asked, “Why are we so different?”
The keeper turned, kissed Delta on the cheek and looked back at them both in the mirror.
“We aren’t so different, Sweetheart.” After a moment of smiling the keeper added, “We are much more alike than you could ever imagine.”
Delta stared again into the mirror once more alternating glances between the reflections. After a few moments the two faces started to melt into one…
Chapter 3
11-May-2210 (Three years before the signing of the Zunnuki Accord)
On board the CEF Star Carrier SS Neil A. Armstrong, on station above Terra Nova (Alp Cen A IV).
Morning Grass woke with a start. She fiddled around in the darkness, probing her nightstand for her personal locator. She toppled over a holograph of Teacher sitting there and knocked her tablet to the floor. The locator was nowhere to be found.
She cleared her throat and shouted, “Lights. Forty percent.”
The room lighting in her cabin came on and increased slowly until it was at forty percent of total luminance.
Morning Grass reached down along the side of the bed and grabbed her uniform jacket. She reached inside one of the vest pockets and found the locator. She pressed the touch pad on top of it, then cried out, “Locate. Major Russo. Dawn Marie.”
The locator beeped and in five seconds a sleepy voice came out of it. “Russo here.”
“Dawn Marie, it’s Morning Grass. I just had another dream. I think I might be remembering more.”
“Understood. You don’t sound well. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know, Dawn Marie.” Morning Grass’ voice was weak and shaky. “May I talk with you for a while?”
Russo took a moment to think. “Maybe you should come to my cabin.”
Chapter 4
5-February-2410 (Two years before the beginning of the Quorum/Illuminati Rebellion)
League of Aligned Planets Space Fleet Academy, Thosa (Tau Ceti V).
Colonel Herbert George Zheng sat at his desk and examined the malfunctioning tablet. He wasn’t sure if the cold-fusion battery powering the device had failed or there was a problem with the mechanical switch that turned the ancient personal computer on and off. He was certain, however, it hadn’t been damaged on one of the frequent trips between his apartment and office. He’d made certain to treat it with the utmost delicacy.
Colonel Zheng, who was also known as The Historian by his many students at the Academy, acquired the tablet by questionable means. It was likely only those who sent it to him were aware it was operable in the first place, so it wasn’t a problem if he returned the tablet in non-working condition. Even defective it was an important artifact. Its importance to Zheng, however, was as a tool to read the many antiquated holographic memory cards sent to him through unofficial channels.
Most of the cards came from the League of Aligned Planets’ Space Fleet derelict yards in orbit around a large, dead, rocky planet that circled Barnard’s Star. It was the final resting place of all the decommissioned spacecraft belonging to the former militaries of the individual planets that made up the League. The time was nearing when Zheng would have to send the tablet, and the cards, back to the derelict yards.
Zheng had transferred most of the data to his more modern personal tablet, but there were still a few cards left he hadn’t studied. Without a working device to read the cards, he would have to return them without knowing what was on them.
Zheng wrung his hands in frustration after a negative result from one final try of the power switch. He placed the non-functioning antique in his briefcase, along with the memory cards. As he closed and locked the case he heard a knock at his office door. “Come in,” he yelled.
The door opened slowly and a young female cadet, a feline named She Who Pounces on the Bison While They Drink the Still Water, tentatively poked
her head through. “Cadet Still Water reporting as ordered, Colonel, Sir. I can come back later if this is an inconvenient time.”
Zheng motioned for Still Water to enter. “I’m sorry, Cadet. My annoyance was not aimed at you. Please come in and sit down.”
The cadet closed the door behind her and took a seat at Zheng’s desk. Zheng noticed she was clutching a small satchel in both hands as she sat there fidgeting.
“Is there something concerning you, Cadet? Other than explaining some of the suppositions you made in the essay I assigned you for extra credit, I mean.”
“I have no concerns about my essay, Colonel, Sir. I have solid proof to back up my suppositions.” Still Water then took on a less confident tone. “My problem is I don’t know for sure if you will allow the source I used.”
“I see. Your scores have me quite concerned, you know? As bright as you are, you shouldn’t be having any trouble with this material. You practically sailed through last semester.”
“For that matter,” Zheng added, “Freshman Military History rarely gives even my least motivated students as many problems as you seem to be having. I find your performance particularly frustrating because we are currently studying contributions made by feline warriors. You should be at the top of your class.”
“I do know what your text and the other required reading says,” Still Water replied, “but, those texts do not tell the whole story.”
“I assume the resource you used is not on my official list, then? I can think of no other reason why your essay isn’t what I expected.”
“No Colonel, Sir. My reference is not on the official list.” Still Water fumbled around with the satchel, but didn’t open it.
“Is your source material in the Academy’s library, then? I would be quite interested in reading it. Based upon your essay, it sounds like something out of the ordinary.”
War Orphans (The Terra Nova Chronicles) Page 2
