Child's Play: 3/?
by Linda Garrick
Edited and Revised by Nancy Smith
Chapter 3
As the aircar pulled away from the Paff Spaceport, Linley glanced at his partner. "What was it?"
Alan shrugged, trying to dismiss the feeling that had disturbed him back at the spaceport. "I don't think it was anything. I just had the feeling that we were being watched. It went away right after we got in the taxi."
"Nothin' else? No feelin ...g of menace?"
"Well ... just a touch, maybe. But it went away, too."
Linley glanced back. "How about you kids?"
The three shook their heads in unison. Alan shrugged. "I feel fine, now. There's no crime to speak of on Bellian."
"Yeah, but it's a crime to see us and not report it."
"I suppose. Still, most people probably wouldn't. Most honest people, that is."
Mark made a face. "I guess. But I still don't think it'd be a real good idea to stay too long at the Kilkenny Lodge."
"I think you're right," Alan said. "We'll check in and then leave right away and camp tonight in the wilderness."
"Sounds good to me." Linley relaxed back in the seat, glancing back over his shoulder at the three children. "You kids gonna be able to stand two weeks in the forest? No videos out there, you know."
"Yeah!" Jill and Jennifer chorused the word. Marky glanced sideways at the two girls and grinned without answering.
Kilkenny Lodge was located deep in a valley, surrounded by thick woods. Mark and Alan registered at the lodge under their assumed names, put together their camping gear, and the little party headed out into the wilderness.
It was mid-afternoon by that time, and the air was softly warm. Brightly-hued birds flitted through the trees above and leaves crunched beneath their feet. The sky overhead was a deep, cloudless blue. Mark had been to Bellian only a couple of times in his life and immediately felt the spell of the place take hold of him, just as it always did. Julia had spoken of her home world now and then, but no description could do it justice, he thought, not for the first time. Exotic ferns and brilliant flowers grew in rank abandon beneath the great spreading trees. The brilliant, tiny orchids of Bellian, similar to those of Earth, grew wild in the valleys and woods here, and the bigger ones, some of them twice as large as his hand with its fingers splayed, peered down at them from their perches on the limbs of the trees, and their perfume filled the air. And the animal life was abundant. In the first hour, they saw two creatures that looked like Terran squirrels dancing up and down a gnarled, pitted tree trunk, another creature that vaguely resembled a Shallockian marshhopper, except for the prehensile tail, with which it swarmed up another tree trunk and out of sight, and a third native, the like of which he had never imagined. It had tentacles, thousands of them, projecting from its body, and appeared to roll along the forest floor, making no effort to conceal itself. It was over half his height and the tentacles writhed unpleasantly, propelling it slowly along. It appeared completely uninterested in the Terrans, but lumbered on past, not acknowledging their presence. A few moments later it disappeared into the underbrush.
"Man!" he whispered. "I wonder what that critter was."
Alan flipped through one of the leaflets that had been supplied to them at the lodge. "Says here it's a crevatoss. They're scavengers that eat mostly dead animals and vegetation. They're protected by law."
"A crevatoss, huh? Wonder who came up with that one. I take it they ain't dangerous?"
"Not unless you provoke them, according to this. If you bother 'em, they can strangle you with those tentacles in about two minutes."
"Let's leave 'em alone, then." Mark grinned and they tramped on. "You kids ever hear about the time Alan had to fight something sorta like that in an arena on Lord Scwinthzor's estate?"
"Tell us, Daddy!"
He was well aware that they had heard this one before, too, but they never seemed to tire of it. As they hiked along, he again wove the tale of Alan and his newfound friendship with Lord Halthzor, the Viceroy of the Rovalli Sector, his sadistic cousin, the odious Scwinthzor, and how together the Viceroy and the Little Giant had defeated the villain in the end. Marky sighed rapturously.
"I wish *we* could have adventures like that, Uncle Mark!"
"You probably will, someday, kid."
"But it's not fair!"
"What isn't?"
"All we do is go to school! It's dumb! Nothing more exciting than spelling and arithmetic!"
"They teach us self-defense," Jill said quietly. "And blaster use and repair. And how to use our powers so that it's hard for other psychics to detect them. They must think we're going to need it someday."
"Oh yeah, big deal! Half an hour a day to shoot at an old fake Jil! Anyone could tell he's not real!"
Mark smothered a grin. "You want to shoot at real Jils, huh?"
"Yeah!"
"It's not a game, Marky," Alan said quietly. "Jils are fast, and they're very, very dangerous."
"You've shot a bunch of 'em, Dad."
"Alan's fast, too, kid," Mark said. "If he wasn't, we'd both be dead. But most people ain't that fast. Don't *ever* try to outdraw a Jil unless there's no other choice. You could end up dead. Your dad's still got a scar on his shoulder where Snathvor winged him."
"Mark's right, kids," Alan said soberly. "Listen to him."
"Okay, Dad," Marky said, more soberly.
"Tell us another story, Daddy," Jennifer begged.
"Let Alan tell one," Jill suggested softly. "Tell us about the time in Luna City, Uncle Alan. You know, when Woody Peaks got into trouble and Wendlemere got him to steal Terran secrets, and you got to meet Lola Davenport --"
**********
The day passed pleasantly. Toward evening, they stopped in a clearing beside a fairly respectable stream. Alan built a fire and Mark, with the children beside him, headed for the water to "catch some fish for dinner."
Alan, left alone, sat back, popping open the lid of a soda. The evening had turned cool and he was pleasantly tired. The warmth of the fire felt good on his aching legs. Around him, the night-life of Bellian hummed, sang and strummed. He drank the soda leisurely and then got up to erect their tent.
It was a more difficult task than he had anticipated, but at last he succeeded. The light was fading and he extended a light telepathic nudge toward his son to say that it was about time for them to head back to the campsite. Marky's mind responded immediately and after a few moments, Mark appeared from the trees, accompanied by the three children.
Mark was leading them in a song that Alan had heard him sing before in the privacy of their quarters, with no women or children present, and for a moment he was horrified. Once an officer in the Viceregal Patrol, Mark had a vocabulary that embraced some of the ripest speech that Alan had ever heard, and that vocabulary included songs. The singers approached, and the lyrics finally became intelligible, and he relaxed with a small, shamefaced grin, as he realized that his partner had modified the lyrics to accommodate the ears of his youthful listeners. Mark had become a father in every sense of the word.
"... And the Viceroy's pants fell DOWN!" Mark sang to the enthusiastic accompaniment of his audience. The song concluded on the final note and the little girls squealed, clapping their hands. Marky laughed and Linley grinned devilishly, raising an eyebrow at his partner. Alan applauded politely.
Linley bowed grandly. "Thanks. Ah, I see you got the tents up. Good."
"What did you catch?" Alan glanced at the fish dangling from Marky's hand.
"Three!" his son informed him. "I caught one of 'em -- the middle-sized one."
"I hadta beam 'em through the heads with needle beams," Mark told Alan. "Else the girls would've made me throw 'em back."
"The poor things were suffering," Jill said, unhappily.
"Well, we gotta eat," Mark said. "We can only pack so much food, and fish are free."
"I know, Daddy. As long as they don't have to suffer...." Her voice trailed off.
"Okay. I promise no fish will suffer on this trip." Mark took the catch from his young namesake and dropped down before the fire. "I'm starved. Let's get these things cooked. Alan, what else do we have in there?"
Alan produced a small package. "Wild rice with herbs?"
"Sounds great. Okay, Jen, lemme show you. First you cut the head off, see?" Mark removed the fish's head skillfully. The three children watched with poorly concealed expressions of horror as he removed the scales, the guts and the tail. "There. Now it's ready for cooking, and it'll be great. Got the frying pan ready, kid?"
"Right here." Alan produced the item in question.
"Good. Marky, d'you think you can do the next one?"
"Sure." The boy took the knife manfully and picked up a fish. "First the head, right?"
Jennifer looked the other way. Jill swallowed. "I ... *can't*, Daddy!"
"That's okay, girls. Cleanin' fish is sort of men's work anyway. You get over there to the fire and help Alan cook 'em. How you doing, Marky?"
"Fine," the boy muttered. He discarded the fish head distastefully into the fire.
"Yuk!" Jennifer whispered.
Marky straightened his shoulders. "It's not so bad. Now the scales, right, Uncle Mark?"
"That's right. Scrape hard or they won't come off. Harder than that. There, you got it. And watch your eyes. They sort of fly around when they start coming loose."
Marky grimaced, pausing to remove a scale from his nose. Alan hid a smile and slipped the large, white slabs of fish into the frying pan.
"Here's how you cook 'em, girls," he said. "Make sure the oil's hot, but not too hot or it'll spatter and the fish'll burn before it's cooked through. Let it sizzle a while and when it's light brown on the bottom, you flip it. A little lemon salt at this point makes it real tasty. Thanks, Jill." He took the container from the little girl and sprinkled the fish liberally.
"Where did you learn to cook, Uncle Alan?" Jill asked.
"My dad taught me when I was no older than you, honey."
"And did a terrific job, too," Mark put in.
"Dad was a very good cook. So was Mom. I guess I'd be pretty stupid if I hadn't learned how. Now the fish is ready to turn," he added. "You ease them over like this, see, so the oil doesn't splash and they're just right. Jen, put on a little more lemon salt, please, and Jill, will you fill up that pot with water for the rice?"
"From the stream, you mean?" Jill looked doubtful.
"Sure. The water around here is pretty safe, but just to be sure, we'll boil it good before we put the rice in. That'll sterilize it."
"Okay." Jill picked up the pan. "Be right back."
"Be careful. Just dip it and come right back. Mark, maybe you'd better go with her. It's at least fifty meters to the stream."
"I'll be okay," Jill announced. "I'll stay in telepathic contact." The little girl vanished into the darkening woods.
`Alan followed her progress mentally through the forest to the stream. He felt her push branches aside, then kneel, dipping the pan into the rippling waters. *Okay, Uncle Alan, I'm coming ... hey! What's that?*
*What is it?* Alan was on his feet, alarmed at the start of fear in Jill's mind. Jennifer jerked around and Marky jumped up, the fish dropping to the ground.
"Whassamatter?" Clearly Mark's grasp of grammar had deserted him. He was also on his feet and starting in the direction that Jill had disappeared.
"It's okay!" Alan said quickly. "Wait!"
"She's okay?"
"Yes, she's coming back."
Linley relaxed. "What was it?"
"I don't know. She'll tell us when she gets here."
A few moments later, Jill appeared through the shrubbery and set the pot of water beside the fire. "Here. Now what do we do?"
Alan set the pot over the flames. "When the water boils, you add the rice and stir."
Mark squatted down beside his daughter. "What happened down there, baby?"
Jill looked up at him, her expression a little sheepish. "I thought I saw something on the other side of the stream. I guess I was a little scared. It was sorta spooky down there."
"What did you see?" Mark, through experience, wasn't inclined to take a psychic's "imaginings" lightly.
"I thought I saw something move on the other side of the stream. It was sort of dark and shadowy, you know, and ... well, it was like I saw this thing move out of the corner of my eye. I scanned, though, and there wasn't anything."
"An animal?" Marky suggested, sawing hard at the recovered fish's tail.
"I don't think so. I didn't sense any minds -- not even animals. Oh, small things, maybe, like little mice, but nothing big."
"Maybe I oughtta go have a look." Mark stood up.
"There's nothing there," Alan said. "I've been scanning."
"Well ... okay." Linley sat down again. "We'll assume it was her imagination for now. That fish about ready, kid?"
Marky was already discarding the guts into the fire. "Yeah." He sounded a little breathless.
Alan took the ragged pieces of fish and slipped them into the pan. They filled it completely, and Mark was already working on the third fish. There should be plenty for all.
They ate, relaxed around the campfire. Except for the hum of insects, the peep of some kind of amphibian in the direction of the stream, and the calls of night birds, the darkness was very still, and yet, during a trip to gather more wood for the fire, Alan found himself giving a half-glance over his shoulder. Mark noticed it and frowned at him. "You sensin' something?"
"I don't think so." Alan glanced involuntarily over his shoulder again. "I just keep having the feeling that we're being watched. It's not even a feeling, really. I keep scanning and there's nothing there."
"Then why are you feeling it? That's what worries me."
"But I feel fine," Alan said, patiently. "There's no sensation of menace or anything. And look at the kids. They're all three precogs, and Marky's a medium range. He isn't worried."
"Let's check in with the station." Mark pressed the button of the communicator on his wrist. "Lawson to Eldridge."
There was a pause, then: "Eldridge here. Receiving you."
"Everything cozy back at the ranch?"
"Absolutely. You?"
"All cozy here, too. Thanks." Mark switched off the unit and shrugged. "Maybe we got a hermit with natural shielding interested in us."
"Probably. Honestly, I feel okay, so it can't be anything too serious." Alan picked up a bundle of wood and carried it back to the campfire.
The children were bickering over the last of the doughnuts that Alan had packed. Mark settled the argument by taking it for himself. "Now, you guys want another story before you hit the hay?"
"Yeah!" Marky sat up straight. "Tell us about the time Dad was a prisoner, and Uncle Kevin took the Viceroy hostage --"
Mark popped the last of the doughnut into his mouth and reached for a beer. "Ah; you got my favorite," he told Alan.
"Of course," Alan said. He opened one for himself.
"Can I taste it, Dad?" Marky asked.
Alan considered, and then gave him a tiny swallow. Marky made a face. "Why do you like to drink it?" he asked.
Alan raised an eyebrow at Mark. "Well, that's the way beer tastes. Now you know."
"Ugh," Marky said, making no pretense of liking the brew. "It's nasty."
"Well, kid," Mark said, "now, when your friends tell you how great it is, you'll already know better. Get yourself some soda if you're thirsty."
Marky did. Linley commenced with his tale.
By the time he was finished, the children were nodding. The two adults ushered them off to bed in the roomy tent and then returned to the campfire, relaxing, and each drinking a second beer. The sensation of being watched had departed, or else it had faded so much that Alan no longer noticed.
He looked at the stars. The white sparkle of Sol was directly overhead. It had been several years since he had been back to his home world, and he found himself thinking wistfully of his long-ago home and family. His parents were dead, of course. The Jils had seen to that, but his sister, uncle and cousins were alive. His mother's sister, his aunt Lyla, had vanished, but he had still found no definitive proof that she had been taken by the Jils. Maybe she had escaped them, somehow. He fervently hoped so. The Underground had an ongoing search for her, but so far, no results had emerged.
His partner was leaning back against one of the big trees that surrounded their clearing. Mark was as much part of his family now as his sister or parents, and Mark's children were as important to him as his own. It was strange how things could work out sometimes, he mused.
"This place reminds me of Midgard," Mark said suddenly. "In the summer, anyway. Midgard in winter ain't even fit for a trenchcrawler."
"Yeah," Alan agreed. "I wonder how Miki and Jeel and their people are getting along."
"Last I heard, they'd doubled their population and were well on the way to makin' it triple," Mark said. "We should go and visit them, someday, when we're in the neighborhood."
"That's for sure," Alan said. "Next time we're on Midgard, I vote we make an unscheduled side trip."
"Sounds good to me," Mark agreed. He stretched. "It's too bad the girls couldn't have come."
Alan knew he was referring to Julia and Lyn, not his daughters. "Yeah, so do I. Matt can be a real worrywart sometimes."
"I'm glad he is. Julia's too blasted adventurous for her own good. Six months pregnant with twins, she ain't got any business hiking all over the countryside."
"You're right about that."
They talked idly for another hour, relaxing in the quiet solitude of the Bellian forest, the friendly darkness around them and the light of the sputtering campfire. Alan began to feel drowsy -- a combination of the quiet, the fire, the activity of the day and the beer he had drunk. He yawned.
"Yeah, me too." Mark rose and stretched tremendously. "Let's crash. The kids'll be up at the crack of dawn, I'm sure."
"No question," Alan Agreed. He glanced at the remnants of the campfire to assure himself that there was no danger of it spreading, and got to his feet.
They entered the dark tent and crawled into their sleeping bags. Alan managed it without mishap, his clairvoyance guiding him in the darkness, but he heard Mark hit something with an ankle and a soft cussword. The children didn't move, lost in slumber as children can be. Alan wiggled farther down in his sleeping bag, made himself comfortable and relaxed.
The unaccustomed noises and surroundings kept him awake at first, but at last he began to doze. Then exhaustion took over and he slept soundly.
He wasn't sure what awakened him. Certainly it wasn't a sound, but suddenly his eyes were wide open, staring up into the darkness, and he was sure that someone was moving around outside their tent.
He felt Mark stir and turn toward him. "What's the matter?" It was barely a breath, and certainly no one but a psychic could have heard it.
"Someone's outside."
There was a faint rustle of movement as Mark brought the blaster from beneath his pillow. "Who is it? Can you tell?"
"I don't know. I'm not sensing a mind."
"Then how --" Linley shut up and with another faint rustle was out of his sleeping bag and crawling across the floor of the tent. "Stay there," he ordered softly as Alan started to follow.
Alan ignored the command, wiggling from his own bag, and reached the opening in the tent at the same instant as Linley. Together, they peered cautiously out into the darkness.
All was still, and now the sensation of movement had ceased. Alan scanned with clairvoyance, searching for the presence that he had sensed. There was nothing but silence and stillness.
"He's gone," Alan whispered. "He must have heard us."
Mark switched on his handlight and crawled from the tent. Alan followed, as his partner began to flash the beam around the campsite. "Looks quiet."
"He was out here. I'll swear that."
"Oh, I believe you; don't get me wrong. But what did he want and who was he?"
"I don't know. I didn't sense any danger."
Linley grunted and went over to their supplies. "Hmm. Looks like a few packs of food are missing."
Alan bent over another pack. "He took one of the medical kits."
Mark peered in. "You're right. Why would he take that?"
"Maybe he's sick or hurt. No," Alan corrected himself, "he couldn't have moved that quietly if he was. Maybe he has a friend or relative that's sick."
"But stealing? There isn't s'posed to be any crime on Bellian."
Alan shrugged. "There's a little -- mostly petty stuff. There are always tramps and renegades, no matter where you are." He glanced around, letting his clairvoyance probe the area. "I still don't sense any danger, though. I don't think he's out for our blood. I think he just needed supplies."
"Ah, hell, let him have 'em. That much less to carry, and we've got another medical kit. You think he'll be back tonight?"
Alan considered the impressions his extra senses had given him of their mysterious thief. "I doubt it. If he does come back, it'll wake me up. I don't think there's anything to worry about."
"Okay." Mark yawned. "Let's go back to bed."
They went back into the tent. The children still slept soundly, apparently unperturbed. Alan crawled back into his sleeping bag, and was asleep within seconds.
**********
tbc
