Antaska was eager to see what holographic displays would be shown in M. Hoyvil’s classes that day. She went to both classes and sat next to him. His teachers silently pointed out alien planets, life forms, and other features of outer space that she had never seen in Earth space school. Antaska sat peacefully, putting the problem of her fitness trainers out of her mind. She remembered her decision to ignore the whispering sounds, and she tried to pull up the mental wall to block them. It had been easy the day before, but today it wasn’t working—as if the muscles of her mind were worn out from the previous day’s use.
“I’ll just have to ignore them today,” she thought.
Oddly, the act of ignoring the whispers made them louder and clearer. Antaska could now hear whole strings of words instead of just individual words. Phrases like “Ophiuchus constellation, the lost thirteenth sign of the ancient Earth human zodiac,” and “there will be a quiz on Friday” came into her mind, but she didn’t pay attention to them.
Later at dinner, Antaska told herself that she wouldn’t look at Eegor. And she continued to ignore the whispering noises, even though longer and longer strings of words and even sentences now flowed through her head.
In the dining hall, there seemed to be many voices coming from all directions and all talking at once. The jumble of words and phrases was much more confusing and seemed to make even less sense than what Antaska had heard in the class. So it was easy for her to ignore them, even though she was still couldn’t put up her mental wall to block out the sounds.
As usual, M. Hoyvil ate and talked telepathically and with hand signs to his friends all at the same time. Antaska ate her food and looked around with interest at the other nearby diners. At each of the two tables on one side of her, adolescent Verdante females sat with two or three Earth human companions each. Three large, light green-skinned Verdante males of M. Hoyvil’s size sat at tables on the other side. They had one human companion each.
Antaska recognized many of the humans from the gym and M. Hoyvil’s classes. They smiled and waved, and she waved back.
Surrounded by friendly people and filled with a nutritious meal, Antaska felt happy and confident about dealing with her gym instructors and about the trip into space in general. In her relaxed state, despite her intention to ignore the whispering sounds, she found herself fascinated by a strange conversation taking place between two female voices.
“Are you going to breed your new pets when we get back home?” asked the first voice.
“Of course, what else is there to do for 300 years while we wait to be old enough to create our own children? I picked out one with green eyes and one with blue especially for a new look I am planning. The pet geneticist told me it’s possible to produce a baby with one green eye and one blue if you tweak the DNA just right.”
“That sounds really cool,” said the first voice. “Can I have one if you end up with extra?”
“Oh, definitely,” answered voice number two.
Antaska tried to tell herself that she had imagined the conversation, but discussions about pets usually caught her attention. The one she had just heard was particularly thought provoking. On Earth, pets like cats and dogs, even the so called pure breeds, were allowed to reproduce as they would in the natural animal way.
Antaska had never heard of anyone creating genetically designed pets in vitro in the same way that humans were created by the Earth governments’ scientific baby labs. Shockingly, it sounded like the genes of these pets were being combined and designed not in the interest of health, evolution, and genetic diversity, but for more superficial entertainment reasons.
Then Antaska’s thoughts turned to Potat. If the Verdantes practiced production of pet babies from mixed genetic material, she wondered if someday she could get a new kitten created from Potat’s DNA. That possibility had never occurred to her before.
Antaska knew that she had only a short time to be with Potat. The cats of that time in history had a very short lifespan, only forty to fifty years, and Antaska didn’t know how old Potat was.
She thought about how much she would like to have a kitten made from Potat’s genes to be her companion and remind her of Potat after she was gone. Then she felt guilty about having those thoughts. As nice as it would be to have a kitten who looked like Potat, it wouldn’t be the same cat. No cat, however cute and smart, could ever take her place.
“Is something bothering you? Are you worried about gym class tomorrow?” M. Hoyvil asked her.
In a short time, it seemed like M. Hoyvil had become quite good at reading Antaska’s facial expressions.
“I wasn’t worrying about the class, I was thinking about Potat. I know it sounds silly, but I was feeling sad thinking about how short her life will be,” Antaska answered.
“That doesn’t sound silly at all,” said M. Hoyvil. “I understood exactly how you feel. Would you like to go out with me tonight to the game room and space viewing lounges? That might cheer you up. Potat can come along again too.”
Antaska felt energetic and agreed to the plan.
They finished eating and carried their trays over to the drop-off counter. Despite Antaska’s best intentions, her thoughts turned back to Eegor. She couldn’t resist a last look in his direction. With a thrilled mixture of excitement, relief, and shame, she saw that he was again looking her way.
As usual, Tilde was looking too. Antaska’s face flushed with heat. She wondered for the first time if other people in the room, especially M. Hoyvil, noticed this embarrassing scene. Antaska looked up at M. Hoyvil, but she saw with relief that he seemed to be looking everywhere but at the two trainers.