The Xenocide Mission Read Online Free Page A

Shared memories told her nothing about him. ‘And you are?’
    ‘Third Son of the Family Barabadar, Learned Mother. Will you come this way? We need to get to the Waking Hall.’
    Oomoing made an amused tone as she fell into step beside him as they made their way through the trees to the edge of the bowl. ‘You’re a grown male. I can’t call you Third Son.’
    For a moment there was a note of shyness. ‘My chosen name among my friends is Fleet.’
    A questioning tone from Oomoing.
    ‘I was always a fast runner, Learned Mother.’
    ‘Then I would like to call you Fleet, because I hope we’ll be friends.’
    ‘Thank you, Learned Mother.’ There was no mistaking the shyness. Oomoing made a mental note that this young male was not good at concealing; but then, pups never were. By contrast, it had already crossed her mind that if she were to think of breeding again then the Third Son of the Family Barabadar might be a good prospect . . . but she was controlled enough never to show thoughts like that at any level.
    And speaking of family . . . She looked around and hummed with curiosity.
    ‘None of your family were able to attend your wakening, Learned Mother,’ Fleet said, as if reading her mind.
    ‘Because?’ Oomoing said in surprise.
    ‘They’re all on Homeworld, Learned Mother.’
    This was one feeling Oomoing didn’t even try to conceal. ‘
What?
’ she bellowed. The surprise wasn’t that her sons and daughters were on Homeworld. It was the implication that she wasn’t.
    Then they came out of the trees and Oomoing saw that this wasn’t her usual waking bowl. The design was the same, but then, waking bowls were all similar: a crater or a natural hollow, studded with sleeping caves around its rim, and a forest carefully stocked with feeding animals to restore the sleepers’ strength. But the bowl she always used, the one back at the Institute, was a natural crater. She could see at once that the rim of this bowl was artificial, though sculpted to look natural. And the town they were heading for was completely different. And now she came to think of it, with her waking frenzy well and truly over, there were thousands of tiny differences. The smell, the taste of the air . . .
    She bounced experimentally on the balls of her feet. Was she just a little bit lighter than usual?
    ‘If I look up, will I see the sky?’ she said.
    ‘Of course, Learned Mother,’ Fleet said, sounding surprised. Oomoing toned relief and looked up.
    ‘And the ground above that, naturally,’ Fleet added. But she had already seen the land where there should have been the horizon; it stretched up above the bowl, up through the wisps of vapour that passed for clouds, wrapping itself together to meet above the axial sun, with tiny little Kin and ground cars passing above her head like minute insects. She had looked up several times during the hunt, but then the trees had obscured the view. Now . . .
    ‘I’m on a space station!’ Oomoing roared. Several Kin paused in their to-ing and fro-ing and glanced at her, not concealing their amusement.
    ‘This way, please, Learned Mother,’ Fleet said quickly, and took her arm.
    ‘Which one is it?’ she muttered. She kept her head down, her eyes straight ahead, not attempting to disguise her fury. She was dimly aware of buildings and Kin around them. Fleet had got her out of the bowl and they were heading quickly for the Waking Hall.
    ‘Habitat One, Learned Mother,’ Fleet said with pride. ‘The original.’
    ‘Hmmph.’ So, she was a very long way from home. Habitat 1 was a giant cylindrical space station with an orbit between the Dead World and the first asteroid belt. Out of the corner of one eye she saw a servor trundle along on its tracks, the air whistling in and out of its intakes. Servors derived their energy aerobically, without recourse to the inconvenience of nuclear power: you only ever saw them on space stations or in spacecraft, and if she had seen this one earlier she