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  "No! Didn't you hear me, lady? I said
no!
That's capital N, capital O, N-O,
no!"
He gave me a frightened look, as if he expected me to shoot him for that.
  "You're just tired," my mother said, picking up her fork again. "You'll feel better after a good night's sleep. Always works for me – I used to feel this way after slaving all day for Lynn's father, and then he'd come home drunk, mess everything up – " she tucked some stroganoff into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "I just had to get a system, you know. Work with a system and you can conquer the world. And I really thought Lynn's father had finally gotten his mind right at last. You know, we did have to chain him in the cellar for a while. That was awful, even with the soundproofing. But he was doing so well and then – " she shrugged. "Well, we salvaged what we could and there's no use crying over spilled stroganoff. Such as he is. I must say he's not half as gamy as I thought he'd be for the age he was." My mother twiddled her fork in the noodles. "You're much younger. You've got a chance now. Go with it, hon. I really would cry over spilled Milt."
  He looked down at the stroganoff and turned almost as white as my mother's uniform.
  "May I be excused?" I said, wiping my mouth. I've got some stuff I'd like to do and obviously I haven't been able to get it done today."
  "Go ahead. Milt will clean up. A week's training here," she added to him, "and then you can wear the uniform. Have a good six-month probationary period, and I'll let you ride up front with me in the van, where Lynn's father used to sit. L
ynn!"
  I paused in the doorway. "What?"
  She held out her hand and snapped her fingers. "The
gun
, silly."
  I'd carried it off without thinking. And of course, that was when Milt finally made his move. But he wasn't thinking either; he just lunged at my mother and she smacked him right in the mouth with the heel of her other hand, knocking him off the chair onto the floor. When I left, she was dabbing at his split lip with a napkin, holding the barrel of the gun under his chin. I resisted a joke about crying over split Milt.
  Upstairs in my room, I fired up the computer, turned on the modem and got into the police computer. That was one of the few things I had learned that my mother hadn't taught me – in fact, I think it was the only thing she herself couldn't actually do. I tried to show her how once, but she just couldn't get it. Couldn't
hack
it was the way she put it, and she didn't even understand why I laughed when she said it.
  Fortunately, the police still hadn't run Milt's prints, so I jiggered some stuff around to fix it so that they never would. In a town of this size, there's very little urgency to run someone's prints – nobody expects someone on the ten most wanted list to turn up on a shoplifting charge. My mother would say they were just lazy, good thing for us. Perhaps she was right, but I preferred to think that it was more like maybe the police were closing one eye and working with the Busy Hands system. There are lots of police families on my mother's client list, and you can practically eat off their floors.
  I suppose it was cold, but I couldn't bring myself to feel particularly bad about my father. He'd never been a very good father; if he had, my mother would have given him a lot more latitude. I took care of his records while I was in the police computer – Carol would appreciate the favor – and then downloaded the arrest reports for the day. My mother wouldn't be going out to the jail again for a while, but it's always good to keep current. And who knew but that Carol might have another rush job to fulfill? She would appreciate that favor, too.
  And she'd remember all these little favors I did her, so when I turned eighteen, she'd back me up when I finally went to my mother and told her how I felt. I mean, Busy Hands is a wonderful service and I'm very proud of the way my mother started it with nothing and built it into the fine operation it is today. But the fact is, I really, r
eally
hate housework, even when someone else is doing it. It's just so boring.
  But I think I've developed a real taste for the catering business.
Deep Space Adventure #32

Je
rey Ford

On the second giant planet in orbit around the star that defines the stinger of the Scorpion constellation, at a spot along its vast equator, in the mazelike crystal gardens, where sharp shards of clearas-water atomic lattice structures thrust into absolute night, some smaller than the width of a pencil, some taller than skyscrapers, Colonel Rasuka, famous explorer and two-fisted astronaut of the Deep Space Corps, donned in bubble helmet and sporting his jet pack that allowed him to float among the formations like a goldfish through coral holes in the deep sea of the Far Tortuga, turned his lantern slightly to the right, and unbeknownst to him, awakened a dormant, ineffable entity that latched onto that stream of a beam of illumination only to ride its reflection back into the eye of Rasuka, who later that day returned with the alien presence percolating in his gray matter back to his ship,
The Empress,
where he moved among the crew, becoming more and more bizarre in his proclamations and twitching movements, until, all of a sudden,
pop
, out of the top of his head shot a brainiac thing with pulsing cerebellum and a dozen long tentacles, two of which sported the obligatory bug eyes, searching out other crew members in order to feed off their energy by slipping a tentacle up their nose and draining out their bodily essence until finally the creature was stopped by the Robot Friend of Man, Executor 1000, looking for all the world like a metal scarecrow with twinkling Christmas-light eyes and a screw for a nose, who zapped the thing with a ray gun, disintegrating it into a pile of wet ash, but not before all of the humans had been killed, leaving the robot alone in space, lost in space, to whisper in his voice like the whir of an electric can opener, "Good riddance, " to one and all.

The Wild Girls

Pat Murphy

I was thirteen years old when I met the queen of the foxes.
  My family had just moved from Connecticut to California. It was a hot summer day, and the air conditioner in the new house wasn't working. My father was at his new job, and my mother was unpacking boxes while she waited for the air conditioner repairman to come. I helped my mother unpack a box of dishes, but when I dropped a china plate (one of a set of twelve), my mother suggested that I go out and play. There was an edge in her voice.
  I didn't argue; I went outside. The backyard wasn't much: an expanse of tired-looking grass bordered by dusty shrubs and flowers. A high wooden fence blocked my view in all directions.
  I opened the gate in the back fence and looked out at a dirt road that ran alongside a rusting set of railroad tracks. Our new house was on the very edge of a development on the very edge of town. On the far side of the railroad tracks, was a walnut orchard – rows of trees with dark rough trunks and smooth pale branches.
  If I turned right, the dirt road would lead into town. If I turned left, it would lead away from town, into unknown territory.
  I turned left.
  For a hundred yards or so, the dirt road ran parallel to our neighbors' back fences, then it left the housing development behind. To my right were the railroad tracks and the walnut orchard; to my left, another orchard and an open field. Farther along, the dirt road and the railroad tracks passed near a small creek. I clambered down the embankment to walk along the creek.
  It was cooler by the water. Soft-leafed green trees shaded the gully. Moss grew on the rocks and jays shrieked at me from the trees. The creek turned, and a tiny path led up the bank through a tangle of bushes and vines. I climbed the path and entered an overgrown woody area, where gnarled old trees shaded the weedy ground. Through the trees, I caught a glimpse of something orange – a brilliant, unnatural, day-glo color. I followed the path toward the color and found a small clearing where the underbrush had been cut down. A large armchair, upholstered in fabric that was a riot of orange daisies on green and turquoise paisley patterns, sat under a twisted tree. In front of the chair was a large, flat-topped boulder; on the boulder was a teapot with a broken spout. Boards had been wedged among the branches of the tree to make shelves. Haphazard and not quite level, the shelves supported an assortment of odd items: a jar of peanut butter, a battered metal tin, a china cup with a broken handle, two chipped plates, a dingy teddy bear.
  "What the hell are you doing here?" a girl's voice asked.
  I looked toward the voice, startled. A girl about my age, dressed in ragged jeans and a dirty T-shirt, sat on a low branch of the tree to my left. Her face was streaked with red-brown clay – vertical stripes on her forehead, horizontal stripes on her cheeks. Her hair was a tangle of reddish curls, held back with a rubber band and decorated with a blue jay feather.
  "I . . . I was just looking around," I stammered.
  "Who said you could come here?" she asked, her voice rising. "This is private property."

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