O Master Caliban Read Online Free PDF Page B

saw that she had turned red.
    “Only about how many extra vertebrae you had,” she murmured. “I wanted to be a doctor. A surgeon.”
    “Can’t you be?”
    “I’m short two vertebrae. My grandparents were fitted for some planet with cold climate and low gravity. The colony went fft and the kids all got left this way, built like servos and with poor coordination.” She added bitterly, “That’s why I’m the Ox to people like Mitzi.”
    “Don’t they do most surgery with machines?”
    “Not in medschool, or in emergencies.”
    “They should have terraformed the planet.”
    “Yeah, like here.”
    He finished dressing. “If I could learn to coordinate, you can.”
    “You have an advantage. Dahlgren is—”
    “What?”
    She swallowed. Dahlgren is your father. Oh yes, tell him that. He was half a meter taller than she, seventy-five kilos heavier. And he was Dahlgren’s heir all right, all the arrogance waiting to develop in good time. “Nothing ... Dahlgren’s going to GalFed Central and he’ll be taking the ship with him. I don’t know what you want to be, but I won’t get to be anything if we stay here.”
    He stood looking at her, not arrogant yet. He didn’t know what to do.
    A black streak crossed the sky, whooping. Esther, finished with her morning exercises in the trees, landed on the thatch and slid to the ground. She yawned. “I need more sleep than I got last night.”
    “We’d better get the others up,” he muttered.
    Shirvanian appeared in the doorway. a peculiar look on his face. “I wet my pants,” he said.
    Esther tousled his hair. “Then I guess we’d better clean you up before your friend Mitzi the Mouth has a chance to use it on you.”
    Sven grinned. “Hey, Mutti, is he taking my place?”
    Esther yipped. “You want your pants changed too?”
    While Sven and Esther made breakfast, Ardagh and Shirvanian waited by the house watching the veiled sun rise in a sky the color of a poison mushroom. The day heated, dim with mist; an enormous butterfly with glass wings and a black body hovered over a red-belled wildflower in the cabbage patch, settled to uncurl its long tube into the nectar.
    Koz came out with Joshua, both neat, the one by nature and the other with effort: Koz’s long napped robe caught dust, straw, and whatever else was light and loose; it took time to comb and braid his long hair, depilate his heavily bearded jaw. The ill nature had washed out of his face for the moment with his complicated grooming. “Where’s Alpha Centauri?”
    “That way.” Shirvanian pointed a negligent finger.
    Koz went back into the house and brought out a small gold statuette with a black wooden base. The idol was in the shape of a humanoid female dressed in long ceremonial robes, backed by a three-legged symbol of the sort he was tattooed with. He planted it on the ground toward the distant star and was about to kneel when he happened to glance up. “Hey, look at that!”
    The others whirled. A magnificent blue-black gorilla was coming out of the forest on four limbs, in measured steps, an empty string bag slung casually over one shoulder.
    Esther jumped out the door. “Hey, Topaze!” She hopped up and down, then ran to the great beast, plucking the bell-flower, butterfly and all, as she went. Topaze sat down between cabbages, resting hands on knees. Esther skipped up the huge belly, planted the flower behind his ear, kissed him, and unhooked the string bag from his arm.
    Joshua moved closer, head cocked. “Friend of yours?”
    “Just for breakfast.” Esther grinned. “Don’t scare him, now.” She dashed into the house and brought back the bag filled with garden fruits and vegetables. She tossed it to Topaze, who caught it easily by the handle, picked out a fruit, and ate it peaceably. They stepped closer.
    “Go ahead, pat him if you like, he’s fairly sociable.”
    Ardagh moved up cautiously to admire the pitted snout, sharp eyes, and crested skull.
    “He’s my blood