Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr Read Online Free PDF Page B

voice was matter-of-fact, almost like she was reading a product manual.
    “You are starting to talk like them,” thought Thor. “Be careful with that thing.”
    Leona looked at Thor and a shudder passed through her body. Her chin quivered and tears squeezed out from her eyes. Her throat convulsed, and she rubbed the ache there.
    “Oh, Thor!” she squeaked.
    Leona’s lips clamped even tighter than they had been, and her mother walked over and gathered her daughter into a hug.
    “Sweetie,” she whispered to Leona.
    Leona nodded and hung her head a moment, then released the hug and stepped back toward Thor.
    “I will never be like them! ” she hissed. “Their whole economy and all their technology is based on taking and enslaving and killing innocent people!”
    Thor nodded. He awkwardly went and sat down on the floor near the women to relieve the soreness that was developing in his neck. Too much looking down! “Did you find out why you can access their computer, but your mom and dad can’t?”
    “I think so.” Leona’s expression lightened a bit and she seemed a little embarrassed. “Mom,” she said to Mary, “Thor has asked why I can access the alien computer and you two can’t. I think it might have to do with the courses he and I had at university—and how we met.”
    “You were studying psychology, you said,” answered her mother. Her expression relaxed a little too, as if remembering old times helped to relieve some of the stress of the last few hours.
    “Yes, both of us took this silly ‘bird’ course as a degree requirement. He needed it for the arts elective in his engineering studies, and I needed it as a psych elective for my sociology degree. And then, we got hooked! Both on that course and the following levels that followed, and…we got hooked on each other.”
    Leona smiled, and her mother patted her shoulder.
    “Yes, we could tell. Whenever we visited or talked on the phone, you enthused about that fantastic course and a certain wonderful young man, and your voice told us that you were falling in love with him.”
    Thor felt an itch behind his ear, and scratched it. Ah, that was good.
    “Well,” said Leona, “that course and the ones that followed were a mix of cognitive psychology—how the brain thinks—and experiments in parapsychology, to see if any part of the brain could be linked to ESP, and we kept being in the same classes. So we learned the same…things, and hung around together, and became stronger and stronger friends. And somewhere along the way, we started being able to send thoughts and images to each other and receive from each other.”
    “Oh,” thought Thor, “psych courses.” A series of memories rose in his mind. Endless series of cards with circles and stars on them, MRI sessions, talking excitedly with the professor (a tall man wearing brown clothes, with eyeglasses and a receding hairline), sitting over drinks and food talking with each other. Good times.
    “So, really?” Mary sounded incredulous. “Really ESP?”
    “Yes, Mom, really ESP. And…” Leona shrugged. She waggled her head back and forth, as if to say, “Yeah, it’s weird, totally weird, so what!” But her voice was respectful and her manner forthright. “And, the more experiments we did, the better we got at it. Professor Shore noticed there was an area in our brains that lit up when we were doing the card series, and on the basis of that activity, he could predict whether the responses would be accurate or not. It was awesome!”
    Mary looked bemused. She huffed a little, and ran her fingers through her tangled grey hair absentmindedly. Then she smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Well, it’s a good thing you two got so good at it, then. And, I guess I can understand why you didn’t tell your dad and me.”
    “Yeah, not the kind of thing we could tell anyone outside the department. But there was a whole group of us that kept doing the courses. We were a little community.”
    Thor