Don’t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee (little red riding hood ebook free .TXT) 📕

my circle, I was suddenly feeling so droad and alien with all of them, but in the end I officially cut myself out, which was easier and then I sat on the steps of Jade Tower under the dragon roars and sprays, and cried.

I mean, it’s polite to cry when you’re cut out of anyone’s circle even if it’s your own. But it went on and on. I couldn’t stop.

I think I cried all night.

PART TWO

1

I got home about morning, and found my makers were in the act of splitting up.

“Home is yours,” they said kindly, “we’ve made our own arrangements.” Older People can do that—just pack up and leave each other and go off with someone else whenever they like. They were both still male.

Robots were moving out their stuff. It felt odd, seeing them go, just like that, not that we’d ever been close or anything. You never are with makers, even if they do stay in the same place with you after hypno-school is finished.

“Don’t worry about the home-payments to the Committee every third vrek,” they added. “We know how you hate paying, so we’ve made provision to pay for you, alternately. It seems only right, after so long.”

I was almost glad when they’d finally gone. I felt so peculiar about it all.

And home sort of … echoed. I don’t know.

Hatta signaled me ages afterward, or perhaps not so long, really, it just seemed ages. His voice invaded my privacy, but without any image—probably just as well, knowing Hatta.

“Attlevey, Hatta,” I sighed.

“What’s all this,” Hatta demanded, “about cutting yourself out of your own circle? You can’t. It’s not—well—it’s not ethical.”

“Oh,” I said.

“No,” said Hatta. “Are you feeling low because of the annulment with Danor?”

“No,” I said; I wasn’t sure.

“You need cheering up,” Hatta told me. “I’ll take you for a meal.”

“No. Thank you.”

“Well, the Adventure Palace, then? There’s a new Upper-Ear symphony in Fourth Sector. Fire-riding?”

“Really, Hatta. I honestly can’t—”

“Look, ooma, I’m serious,” said Hatta seriously. I cursed him, but rather wearily. “I’d like so much to marry you. Just for the afternoon.”

“Let’s see you,” I said coldly.

“Well, er,” said Hatta.

“Your image,” I said. “Now.”

“There’s something wrong with the control. I can’t seem to get an image through to you—”

“Nothing ever goes wrong with the control,” I said. Well, it doesn’t. Hatta muttered. And then, there he was.

“Oh Hatta!” I shouted. “You utter thalldrap! You floop! Oh go away!”

He was huge, bluish, shiny, limpy, but it was the two heads that really got me down.

“But ooma—”

“No. Nonononono! If you want me so much, get yourself a reasonable body.” He hung around in midair, undecided, and so drumdik I nearly went out of my mind. I threw an abstract stone thing, with moving colors in it, at him, and thrust down the nearest recluse switch.

I felt better, though, after throwing something at Hatta. More my bad-tempered self, I suppose. The pet came crashing in from the gardens and bit me, and I chased it all ever the place, trying to land it one with a big furry cushion, and with machines clucking and clicking disapprovingly around us, as they tried to get on with the cleaning. It was quite merry.

Eventually the pet curled up warily on a suspended flying floor, just out of my reach, and went to sleep, keeping one orange eye open and one fang delicately protruding, just to remind me I suppose.

I ate a meal and began to think.

I was tired of being Jang.

2

I took my bubble down Peridot Waterway, with the pet sitting on a passenger couch, staring at me. I’d tried to leave it behind, but hadn’t got the bubble side closed in time. It had developed a new game in between starings, trying to swat my bee as it zoomed overhead, always threatening to come down. I noticed that the bee seemed to keep aloft much better with six white paws and a mouthful of teeth careering at it.

I tied up a little way down from the Zeefahr and took a moving street to Second Sector’s Committee Hall. The pet bit legs on the street, and things got a trifle noisy, though the Older People seemed to forgive me as I was Jang. Ironical!

We tumbled off, me, my bee, and the pet, and went into the Hall, which is black and imposing. They make it look as antisocial as possible to keep everyone out, but it doesn’t seem to work. The place was packed.

I sat down in a free space in one of the gently revolving circles of chairs and pressed the Attention Required light. Everyone seemed to be complaining today. Complaints about picture-vision programs not being erotic enough, and old-established aphrodisiacs and laxatives that didn’t seem to work any more. Moans about fading silk-grass in the parks, falling leaves being heavier than last vrek, the starlight being late or dim or something over First Sector last night. People saying they were paying too often for their homes, and thank-you-hysterics who said they weren’t paying often enough.

A robot arrived in front of me.

“Request?”

“Age and status change,” I said.

There was a sort of hush, and I could feel eyes peering at me and tiny minds thinking: “Whoopee! A freak!”

“Registered,” snapped the robot, then couldn’t resist adding: “One-A, First-Class Unusual. Do you have medical grounds for this?”

“No.”

“Do you have any grounds at all?”

“I think so,” I said. “You probably wouldn’t.”

And I glared around at those peering eyes and suddenly noticed the pet was glaring at them too, snarl-hissing nastily. I stroked its pale head and just managed to get my fingers out of its reach in time.

The robot had gone away, but very quickly a messenger flew up to me and signaled me to follow. Everyone else grumbled. I’d jumped to first place, due entirely to originality. Probably somebody felt like a good laugh before getting on to the usual boring routine.

I went up the moving spiral after the messenger and was ushered through glassy corridors to a