Across the Spectrum Read Online Free PDF Page B

suckahhh . . . !”
Only this time Hog just laughed out loud and didn’t even bother to look as he
headed for the cameras, as the Vegan’s voice faded back into the waves of HOG
DONOVAN! HOG DONOVAN! TRICRYSTAL EARTH . . . !
    Bye-bye Lotusflower, Lotusflower bye-bye!

Feef’s House
Doranna Durgin
    “Feef’s House” is one of my few science fiction pieces, which
means I stretched to write it for the original editor; because I enjoy that
editor so much, I felt confident enough to really go for it. And in the end, it
does a lot of things that I wanted it to do; it feels like all the layers come
together in a big click of completion at the end—and every darned time I read
it, it makes me cry a little. This story is also one of the ways I dealt with the
events of 9/11.
    ∞ ∞ ∞
    The interact screen stared sternly at Shadia, showing her
a form full of questions to which she had no answer. To which no duster
would have an answer. Local personal reference . No chance of that. It
was why she’d chosen the temp form.
    Commonly known as the duster form, but only if you said it
with a sneer.
    Local address . Wherever she landed on any given
night.
    Last posting . Three weeks Sol-ward on Possita IV.
    Shadia scanned the form with the contempt of a duster for
the mag-footed perms and then, recalling that she sat in front of an interact
screen connected to Toklaat Station’s temp job placement system, hastily
schooled her expression to something more neutral. Jobs no one wants, jobs
with no guarantee of security . The first she was used to; the second suited
her. She didn’t want to be here still in the first place and she certainly
didn’t want to tie herself to work or community.
    There. There was an empty form-line she could fill. She
manipulated the interface with absent ease.
    Instantly, a woman’s face filled the hitherto blank square
in the upper left of the screen. “You had a terdog? A real terdog?”
    A real terdog?
    I didn’t want to be here in the first place. Not filling
out forms, not pretending it suited me, not remembering the sight of my friends
boarding the hydropon repair ship, buying passage with three weeks of shoveling
’cycle products and glad to do it. Not hiding my reaction to such a question. A
real terdog? Was there any other kind?
    Politely, Shadia said, “A kennel of real terdogs, sir.
Belvian Blues, which we used to find subterr rootings for export—”
    “Yes, yes,” the woman said, rude in her eagerness. “I have
just the position for you. It pays well and suits your unique skills.”
    Her unique skills? She had a duster’s skills. A little of this,
a little of that, learn anything fast. Take what gets you off-planet or
off-station when you feel like going. Just like so much space dust.
    Unless, of course, you fall on your ass in front of a
zipscoot and rack up such a medical debt that you’re stuck on-planet until you
repay. Stuck. In one place.
    Stuck.
    Most wary, Shadia said, “What’s the job?”
    Her application screen rippled away, replaced by the
familiar format of a job listing. Almost familiar . . . except
for the header logo, which caught her eye before she had a chance to focus on
anything else. Permtemp . “There’s been a mistake, sir,” Shadia said. Her
recently healed thigh cramped with the sudden dread that it wasn’t actually a
mistake at all. She forced herself to relax. “I’m not a perm. Just a temp. I
put it on my application.”
    “This is a priority position, young woman. In such cases we
extend our search parameters.”
    “Apologies, sir, but temp is a preference, not a
restriction.”
    The woman’s eyes flicked aside, to her own interact screen
where Shadia’s partially filled form would be displayed. Her demeanor cooled,
enough to give Shadia that same prickly unease she got any time she stepped out
of duster turf and into perm areas. “Shadia,” the woman said, pronouncing it
wrong, shad-iya instead of shah-diya.
    Shadia didn’t