Angry Young Spaceman Read Online Free PDF

arms they had been close. Go figure.

    “Just talking about the Unarmoured,” Hugh said. “The only thing I’m an authority on.”

    A group of lunarians walked by and waved at Hugh. He waved back distractedly, looking around. “Where’s Matthew?” Hugh asked. “We could have our whole sector crew here.”

    “He went bowling with a bunch of people. To that place we passed on our way back from that green planet.”

    Hugh’s eyes widened. “The one with the bowling pin carved out of a meteorite? Blast, I wanted to check that out.”

    “It’s gotta be two meteorites stuck together. It’s too huge,” I said.

    “He said he wanted to send a picture of it back to his girlfriend,” 9/3 said.

    After a moment, Hugh said cautiously, “I know very little about relationships on your planet, 9/3.”

    “There are no relationships on Roboworld. Officially.”

    “Officially?” I asked. “So there are relationships.”

    9/3’s eyes blinked assertion.

    Hugh said, “I met a roboman who seemed to travel endlessly. He talked about being involved with an offworlder. He said he didn’t want to go back to Roboworld.”

    “Really?” I said.

    9/3 said, “It is unacceptable for a roboman to have singular emotional congress with another. Those who do are said to be defective, and treated accordingly.”

    Defective. That made me feel a little sick.

    Kalen passed by at that point, one of the Earthlings with an eye on Hugh. “Hey Sam. Hugh.” We nodded, Hugh scraping up the last of his potatoes. “Lunarian style,” Kalen pointed out.

    Hugh flashed her a brilliant smile. “Right you are.”

    Kalen patted 9/3 on the head. “Hi 9/3-0001!”

    “Hello.”

    “See ya later,” she said, and sauntered off.

    No one said anything, the clinking of fork against plate being the main sound. 9/3 finally broke the silence.

    “Flirt.”

three

    “Do you realize there’s a low level hum coming from your torso?” I asked him, finally.

    We had been waiting for a full hour, and that weird hum had been there the whole time.

    “Oh. Sorry,” 9/3 said. “I did not notice that.”

    I felt bad, snapping at him like that. “It’s my nerves. Just a little worried that our co-teachers haven’t shown yet.”

    “I am, too. That is what caused the sound — it is an imperfectly muted warning alarm caused by stress.”

    Huh. I didn’t know robomen got nervous. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that there’s a human brain swimming around in that iron case. Not that that made them human, exactly, but it looked like some things still held true.

    The transfer spaceport was quite dead, which was good. It was a small place and I didn’t think I could take Montavians crawling all over me. There were a lot of them, but not enough for their famed different-concept-of-personal-space to kick in. Montavians and Octavians passed by in equal numbers.

    The Octavians, naturally, were of particular interest to me. They lay on their sides on their floating platforms, their bodies insupportable in the oxygen atmosphere. They were soupy bags of flesh, a single tentacle raised to the controls. I stared at them openly, thinking that this spaceport may be the last place that I could look at them as aliens. Soon, I’d be the outsider.

    9/3’s nervous hum started up again. I looked at him and it stopped instantly.

    I chuckled. “Hey, 9/3, if you had Richardson in front of you right now, what would you do?” 9/3 had been suspicious of the co-ordinator’s competence since the beginning, and now that he had warning alarms going off because of him...

    The roboman’s arm stretched out and a flame-thrower nozzle protruded past his tri-pincers. The pilot light popped on like an exclamation mark.

    “I would think of something,” he said.

    I barked a laugh. 9/3’s static-tinged voice suited his low-key dry wit perfectly. The people passing by were staring openly at us now, veering away, and you couldn’t really blame them. When 9/3