Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

demonstrated with a deft flutter of fingertips. Numbers were easy.
    “Good. Even a lot of grownup humans never learn how to do that.”
    He escorted Bram down the spiral ramps to the street; this was an old defunct orthocone whose lower septa had long since been scooped of life and its nutrient pool filled in, allowing a ground-level entrance to be added beneath the original overbridge. He hailed a pentapedal carrying-beast and gave it detailed directions to the terminal before lifting Bram to the passenger howdah. Bram looked about eagerly. The white sun-bleached spires and filigree bridges of the city spread endlessly and magically before him; he had every intention of countermanding Voth’s instructions as soon as the beast was out of sight, and doing a little roundabout sightseeing on his way to the terminal. He knew he could do it. The transport creatures responded to voice as well as touch.
    A string of bubble cars passed overhead on their invisible cable. Bram gawked at them, hardly able to believe that soon he would be traveling in one without supervision, just like an adult Nar. Even Tha-tha had never been allowed to do that.
    “I’ll call ahead and have them tell Jun Davd you’re coming,” Voth said. He tapped one of the upright limbs that formed the framework of the howdah and Bram felt himself rising high into the air as his vehicle straightened its five stiltlike legs. A moment later the beast was trotting down the causeway that led toward the terminal. Bram turned back once to wave to Voth. The old decapod waved back in imitation of the human gesture. Bram thought that somehow Voth seemed sad, but he couldn’t imagine why.
     
    “Do you think we could look at Original Man’s galaxy now, Jun Davd?” Bram asked.
    “In a little while,” the tall man said—tall for a human, though Jun Davd would hardly have topped Voth’s brachiating midsection, even on tiptoes. “But first I’m going to give you some lunch.”
    “I’m not hungry, Jun Davd, honest.” He looked around impatiently at the enormous chalky chasm that housed the observatory’s big eye. Massive machinery loomed overhead in steel cradles. The interior extruded convoluted catwalks of polycarbonate that reached every nook and cranny. Across the immense floor was the eye itself, a great bowl of living jelly that seemed to Bram to be the size of a swimming pond. Aproned Nar attendants, some of them wearing optical girdles, glided silently about, seeing to its needs.
    “I promised Voth-shr-voth I’d feed you,” Jun Davd said, smiling down at him. “Don’t worry—your galaxy won’t go away.”
    Bram smiled back. Jun Davd was very nice, with a kindly, creased face that was several shades darker than Bram’s, almost the color of stained wood. His hair was a bush of pure white. He was old for a human, and had risen as high as a human being could go—to a shadowy status somewhere between an apprentice and an intern.
    “All right, Jun Davd,” Bram said. He took the slender gnarled hand and let himself be led from the fascinating chamber to the cubbyhole where Jun Davd worked and lived amidst a clutter of instruments and a spartan few personal possessions.
    They were stopped several times along the way by Nar personnel who wanted to greet the little boy and inquire after the absent Voth-shr-voth. During the past year they had become accustomed to the sight of the human child who was brought by his Nar guardian from time to time to be shown some of the distant wonders trapped by the big eye’s living system of mirror optics, and to be given some rudimentary tutoring in astronomy by Jun Davd. Voth-shr-voth was held in high esteem, and every courtesy was extended to him—though why he was encouraging a fruitless interest in astronomy in his human ward was unclear, since Voth himself was renowned for his bioengineering achievements, and presumably if he wanted to make a place for the boy, he would do it in his own touch group.
    Bram presented the palms of his hands to meet the proffered tentacle tips and answered their inquiries gravely and politely. A nudge from Jun Davd reminded him to add the honorific; it was hard to remember that the eminent Voth-shr-voth was the plain old Voth whom Bram had known since his nursery days, when his own principal gene mother, mama-mu Dlors, had given over the largest part of his care.
    Even the observatory’s director, the venerable Pfaf-tlk-pfaf, showed Voth a special deference. Voth was