Shelby and Shauna Kitt and the Dimensional Holes. P. H. C. Marchesi

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СКАЧАТЬ you control your temper?” Lendox asked. “We were not about to let anything happen to Tippy.”

      “He made me mad,” protested Shelby. “He’s such a bully!”

      “He is, but bullies are predictable. If only the son were as predictable as the father.”

      “What do you mean, Lendox?” asked Marina. “What’s wrong with Dale?”

      “I am not sure,” replied the vice consul, frowning. “Usually, I can sense a person’s energy. I am generally able to tell a lot about someone from that. In the case of Dale, however, I sensed nothing – until he looked at Shauna. Then I finally felt something, but only for a moment.”

      “But how’s that possible?” asked Marina.

      “I do not know,” confessed Lendox. “Do you know anything about him?”

      “Not much,” said Marina. “I never really got to know Jeannie Falconbridge. She was pregnant when I got fired, and all I knew was that it was some sort of high-risk pregnancy. I remember that a lot of people thought the baby wouldn’t survive. I guess they were wrong, though – after all, he’s alive, isn’t he?”

      “Clearly,” said Lendox, looking thoroughly baffled.

      “Do you think he could be the spy?” asked Shelby, who was much more interested in that possibility than in any other speculation.

      “He certainly would have access to a lot of information,” said Lendox. “However, there is nothing at present that indicates any guilt on his part. We must not simply assume he is guilty, Shelby, just because we do not like his father.”

      “Yeah, I guess,” said Shelby. There was something wrong with Dale, though, and Shelby silently told himself, as he followed everyone out of the meeting room, that he would figure out what it was.

      As for Shauna, she would have preferred to go in the opposite direction. She had found Dale’s lifeless eyes extremely unsettling – as far as she was concerned, the further away from him, the better.

      The Candidates

      After taking them through several corridors, the general finally marched through a double door that led into some kind of dining area, where boys and girls in their teens, sitting on long tables, were having lunch and chatting enthusiastically.

      “There certainly is a lot of energy here,” said Lendox, cheerfully. “Perhaps fifty will be enough, after all.”

      “Enough to eat us out of house and home,” retorted the general, looking with disgust at a boy who squeezed a whole dinner roll into his mouth.

      “I feel like I’m back in school,” said Marina. “Where is everyone else from the base?”

      “They don’t eat here,” answered the general. “For security reasons, we are trying to keep contact between candidates and army personnel to a minimum. It’s bad enough we have to teach them to fly our planes.”

      “We get to fly?” cried Shelby, his eyes shining with excitement.

      The general ignored Shelby, and turned to Lendox.

      “Don’t you think it’s ironic,” he said, looking outraged, “that we have to depend on kids who aren’t even old enough to drive?”

      “The universe has its own sense of humor,” Lendox replied.

      The general’s face turned red, and he looked as if he were about to say something nasty, when a friendly voice interrupted them.

      “There you are!” said a tall, thin woman with a pleated, dark brown skirt and an ill-fitting silver blouse. She had straight, dark hair combed carelessly into a bun, and light blue eyes peering from behind large glasses.

      “This is my wife, Jeannie,” said the general, as she rushed to meet them. “Jeannie, you remember Marina.”

      “We met once or twice,” she said, pleasantly. “I hope we get a chance to get to know each other better now!”

      Marina smiled awkwardly and shook Jeannie’s hand. Shelby and Shauna were surprised – and relieved – to see that Jeannie Falconbridge was nothing like her husband. She was friendly and approachable, but Shauna noticed that her gaze always returned to Dale, as if to certify herself that he was really there. Dale, however, was either not aware of her constant attention, or had no wish to show it: his expression remained unchanged, and he did not once look at his mother. Shauna was just wondering whether Dale ever smiled, when she felt the weight of his gaze on her. She unconsciously tightened her grip on Tippy, who immediately started wriggling in her arms.

      “And who’s that?” Jeannie Falconbridge asked, as Shauna eased Tippy down to the floor.

      “It’s my cat,” Shauna replied, as Tippy trotted off towards the kitchen. “I think she’s kind of hungry, actually.”

      “I’ll have someone from the base get some cat food for her,” Jeannie offered. “Meanwhile, how about some lunch?”

      Shelby and Shauna could barely hide their enthusiasm at Jeannie’s suggestion. They were starving, and apparently they were not the only ones: Marina eagerly followed Jeannie Falconbridge, who was explaining to Lendox what macaroni and cheese was.

      “The kids like it,” Jeannie said, somewhat apologetically. “I’ll have someone bring you some from the kitchen, since it looks like they already took everything away. Lunch is usually nearly over by now.”

      She gestured towards five empty chairs at the end of one table, and started looking around, scanning for more empty seats.

      “We have two places here, if you’d like to join us,” said a pleasant voice, which belonged to a man sitting at a nearby table.

      “The two of you can sit there with Ian,” the general told Shelby and Shauna. “Off you go.”

      Shelby gave the general a resentful look, but he was too hungry to pick a fight, and followed Shauna as she meandered over to where Ian was.

      “Welcome to the detention table,” Ian said, brushing his straight, dark blond hair aside.

      “Detention table?” repeated Shelby, shocked. ”There’s detention here?”

      “The general seems to think there is,” replied Ian. “Whoever heard of not being able to play music after midnight?”

      Shelby laughed. He already liked Ian.

      “So where are you from?” Shelby asked.

      “Hawaii, most of the time,” said Ian, fixing his name tag.

      “Your last name’s Thurston?” asked Shelby, seeing Ian’s tag for the first time. “There’s a building in Manhattan called Thurston Tower.”

      “It’s named after my dad’s company,” explained Ian. “He’s the one with all the money. All I have is positive energy.”

      “Money can’t help you against the klodians, anyway,” ventured Shauna.

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