Damia Read Online Free PDF Page B

wanted so desperately for so long to leave home. Much too abruptly for courtesy, he flung himself out of the house and strode as fast as his long legs would take him to the personnel launch cradles of the Station.
    He’d seen the procedure often enough to know exactlywhat to do. The personnel carrier was comfortable enough; certainly, no different from any of the drills or the few short distances he’d been teleported. A T-10 he knew checked him, grinned as he closed and locked the cover, slapped it in casual farewell, and only then did Afra remember that he hadn’t contacted Goswina.
    Gossie
 . . .
    Afra! You have a genius for picking the most awkward moments
 . . .
    Gossie, I’m going to Callisto
 . . .
    Afra
, Capella’s firm mental voice interrupted him then,
on the count of three . . . I wish you good luck, Afra.
    The next moment he knew he was being ’ported across the incredible spatial distance to Callisto. That didn’t take as long as he had somehow assumed it would. He was aware of the ’portation, the sensation of disorientation that he knew he was expected to feel. Small wonder Primes, being so sensitive, had problems even on passenger liners. He was certainly aware when the changeover was made, when Capella released his capsule into the Rowan’s control.
    Afra? Did you tell your sister that the Rowan kept her promise?
    The Rowan’s mental tone, so different from Capella’s, from anyone else’s he had ever encountered in his lifetime, chimed silverly in his mind. The contact had a brilliance, a vivacity, and a resonance which immediately enthralled him.
    I told her I was coming to Callisto.
    Well, you’re here. Come to the Tower. You are welcome, Afra.
A silvery laugh shivered in his mind.
You know, I think Goswina was right. We’ll see.
    The cover was unlocked and a rather anxious-looking man, wearing Stationmaster’s tabs on his collar, extended a hand.
    “Afra? Brian Ackerman.” The man’s anxiety began to fade as they clasped hands. “Capella grows ’em long, doesn’t it?” he said, grinning as Afra got to his feet, standing centimeters taller than the stockier stationmaster. “TheRowan can play games, but don’t let ’em get to you, huh?” he added in the tight, low tones that suggested to Afra that Brian had his mental shields in place to deliver that brief advice.
    Afra nodded soberly and followed the stationmaster to the Tower. It was only then that he noticed, and swallowed against his surprise, that Callisto Tower was a domed facility. In fact, a combination of domes plus the big ship launch area with cradles that ranged from the single he’d been landed in to the immense complex metal affairs that accommodated large passenger liners or naval vessels. Above them loomed Jupiter. Afra controlled the instinct to hunch away from the giant planet. No doubt he would get accustomed to its dominating presence.
    He also found himself breathing shallowly, and controlled that reaction as well: there was plenty of air on this moon.
    “You get used to it,” Brian Ackerman said with a grin.
    “Is it that obvious?” Afra asked.
    Brian grinned. “Everyone feels the old man and, sometimes, the whole alien feel”—he made a sweep of his arm to include the domes—“can really get to the planet-bred.”
    They had reached the facility by then, a Tower more by grace than fact, for there was only the one raised section that could be termed a tower. The administrative building was compact, three-storied, the only windows the clear Plexiglas that wrapped around the tower portion, giving the Prime three hundred sixty degrees of visibility. Lights under the fascia boards of the roof beamed down on the plantings, counterfeiting sunlight enough to encourage growth. Luminous Jupiter’s light did not suffice earth vegetation. To Afra’s surprise, he saw a small copse of trees at the back of the terrain-hugging residence off to the right of the Tower complex.
    “The Rowan’s,” Brian