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

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СКАЧАТЬ He had dark brown skin, and thick, wavy black hair. His jet-black eyes shone brightly, and Shauna was immediately struck by how handsome he was. She smiled shyly as she scanned the name “Jitendra Sengupta” on his name tag.

      “That’s what happens when you’ve been here for a while,” said Ian. “You end up telling most of your secrets to a fourteen-year-old who plays electric guitar in the dining hall after midnight.”

      “Hope the general doesn’t confiscate this as well, or I’ll go bonkers,” complained the boy, with an accent that Shelby and Shauna guessed was British. “I guess he’s never felt the artistic call in the middle of the night.”

      “He doesn’t strike me as the artistic type,” said Ian, laughing.

      “Are you from England?” asked Shauna.

      “Yeah - from London,” said the boy, not taking his eyes off the video game. “I go by Jit.”

      “Don’t they have a base in England?” asked Shelby.

      “They do. That’s where most of her Majesty’s kids are.”

      “So how come you’re here in Colorado?”

      “I was already in the country,” explained Jit. “My dad’s a visiting professor at Carnegie-Mellon.”

      “Cool,” said Shauna, watching him finish playing his game. She did not know anything about video games, but she could tell that he was really good.

      “Are you two related?” Jit asked, when he finally put the video game down and looked at Shauna and Shelby.

      “We’re twins, actually,” said Shauna. “Fraternal.”

      “I thought you looked like each other a bit,” he said.

      “Except for the different hair color, and the different eye color, right?” asked Ian, teasingly.

      “It’s not my fault if you can’t see past the superficial stuff,” Jit told him. “People are not just looks, you know. Look at me, for example: underneath this extremely handsome exterior lies an even more gorgeous interior.”

      “Ignore him,” Ian joked. Jit turned to Shelby now.

      “So how come you only arrived today? Did your parents have a hard time letting you come?”

      “Not exactly,” said Shelby. “Mom got attacked by a klodian.”

      “She got killed?” asked Ian, appalled.

      “No, but she’s gonna take a long time to recover,” added Shauna, as a man in an apron arrived with two plates of macaroni and cheese.

      “If it hadn’t been for Lendox,” said Shelby, wolfing down several forkfuls one after the other, “she probably wouldn’t have made it.”

      “Lendox is one of the aliens?” asked Ian.

      “How did you guess?” asked Shauna, her fork stopping halfway in the air.

      “Everyone’s looking at him,” Ian replied, nodding towards Lendox’s table. The mirian vice consul had a growing audience gathering where he sat. In his usual pleasant and polite manner, Lendox seemed to be answering questions one by one – much to the irritation of general Falconbridge, who looked furious at the lack of ceremony with which his conversation had been interrupted.

      “I guess they finally figured out who he is,” said Shelby, going back to his plate. “Maybe he should have kept his sunglasses on.”

      “Who’s that next to him?” asked Jit.

      “That’s Marina,” Shauna said. “She’s awesome. She builds planes.”

      “Is she single?” asked Jit.

      “I think so,” said Shauna, surprised. “Why?”

      “There you go, Ian,” said Jit. “There’s still hope for you.”

      Ian smiled, looking highly amused at Jit’s apparent concern for his bachelor status.

      “I think Lendox is gonna make some sort of announcement,” said Shelby, seeing Lendox stand up and wait patiently for everyone to quiet down.

      “I knew you would be curious about my world,” the vice consul began, pulling what looked like silver key cards from his jacket. “I am happy to say that I brought some surprix tickets with me.”

      “What are they?” asked the general, frowning.

      “They are virtual tickets,” explained Lendox. “With them, one can visit all the most famous attractions on Miriax. We use them for virtual sight-seeing. The sand-people of Jumara, for example, cannot leave their habitat, so they do all their sight-seeing virtually.”

      The general looked as if he could not have cared less about the sand-people of Jumara.

      “But how do the tickets work?” he insisted.

      “Each ticket randomly picks a surprise location on Miriax,” said Lendox. “Surprix tickets are very popular. They make excellent birthday, wedding, and graduation gifts, as well as –”

      “Is there any kind of risk involved?” interrupted the general, lowering his voice. “I don’t want a lawsuit here.”

      “A lawsuit?” asked Lendox, raising his eyebrows. “Why would lawyers oppose sight-seeing?”

      The general sighed in exasperation, and Marina stifled a laugh.

      “Fine,” he said. “You can give them to the kids, but only if Dale gets one.”

      Lendox glanced at Dale, who had his eyes fixed on the surprix tickets, and Shauna suddenly caught herself thinking that his eyes were like those of a dead fish, unblinking and still.

      “You should see his room,” whispered Jit, noticing her staring at Dale. “I went past it the other day, and he was there with the door open. It’s so neat it’s disturbing.”

      “He has a room here at the base?” asked Shelby, suddenly interested.

      “A pretty large room, too,” said Jit. “His mum and dad both work here, so I suppose that makes sense. Anyway, when he saw that I was looking in, he shut the door right in my face.”

      “Can you show me where it is?” asked Shelby.

      “You want to go there now?”

      “It’s the perfect chance,” said Shelby. “No one will notice, ’cause everyone wants those tickets.”

      “Everyone including me,” said Jit, seeing that Ian was already making his way forward to stand in line for the tickets. “I’ll see you later.”

      “But what about Dale’s room?” insisted Shelby.

      “It’s on this floor, right next to the infirmary. You can’t miss it.”

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