Anton's Odyssey Read Online Free

on the bright side. She’s not bad looking, and if her kids piss on the floor, at least we can find something for her to do.” They laughed.
    The underling in orange walked back over to us.
    “Is there a problem?” mo ther asked, concerned.
    “No problem, ma’am. We are very happy to have you aboard. Go find the steward to get assigned to living quarters.”
    Mom smiled at him as we walked by. I sneered menacingly , and picked up my elbow as if I were about to throw a punch. The guy flinched, which felt rather rewarding after the verbal venom he just spewed about my family. What really hurt was that some of the things he had said about mother were true.

I was surprised to find that the passageways in the Magic Sky Daddy weren’t much different from the corridors in public housing. The floor of the ship was covered with almost identical carpeting; dreary, worn, and grey but previously dull green or burgundy in a past life, and best ignored. There weren’t any square windows of course, just a few small round portholes at the peripheries of the ship. The passageways varied more in size than the hallways at our old place. Some passageways were very narrow, some were very wide. We got lost several times, but we were able to find the steward without my mother completely melting down.
    The steward also wore an orange jumpsuit, the uniform of an ordinary starman. He was skinny with thinning brown hair and well-trimmed side burns. On a white strip over his left front chest pocket were printed the words, “Bob Blunt, steward.” He authenticated our personal pocket modules so they would work as chip keys for our living quarters. He handed my mother an orange baseball cap and three orange jump suits, the adjustable one-size fits all variety.
    “You must wear the cap and jumpsuit anytime you are on duty, but take the cap off when you eat.”
    “Yes sir!” mother said with enthusiasm. Bob rolled his eyes. Like his two crewmates outside, he didn’t think much of us.
    Our living quarters were right around the corner. Mom’s jaw dropped when the door slid open. The main livin g space was quite small, only about two meters in width and three in length. A small table was bolted to the far corner. A vid screen was integrated into the wall on the right. There were four chairs that swiveled around on wheels.
    “Hey those are the kind with locking magnetic wheels!” Cotton yelped. He picked a chair up, flipped a switch on the side, and placed the wheels against the wall. The chair clung tightly, defying gravity.
    “That’ s so cool!” I cried.
    There were doors on both sides of the room. Beyond the right door was a thin chamber that ran the length of the living room. A two-story bunk was bolted to the wall. Clearly this was the room for Cotton and me. We were used to sharing a room, so the cramped quarters caused us no distress. Beyond the door on the left was another room, slightly wider than ours but with only one rack, mother’s room.
    “It’s so small!” m other said, her voice trembling.
    Somebody tapped on the door. It took mother a minute to locate the button that opened it. Bob Blunt, steward, stood in the passageway looking rather impatient. He held a faded red bundle of cloth.
    “I’ve just been informed by the personnel officer that there’s been a mistake,” he said.
    “Yes, ” mother responded optimistically, “in the packet it said we would have a two bedroom living space with full bath and kitchenette. This place is tiny and doesn’t even have a toilet or sink.”
    “Those were the accommodations offered to you on the Larg o. This is the Magic Sky Daddy!” Bob scoffed, arrogantly.
    “But you can’t change the terms of the c ontract, can you?” mother asked sheepishly.
    “Your official government-approved contract, and not the drivel printed in some other company’s info packet, specifies ‘living quarters for one nuclear family.’ These quarters exceed the United Nations Standards for Adequate