On Whetsday Read Free Page A

was just that he had started to notice that Sirah was very smart, and often kind, and also kind of pretty.
    “Did you see any skynx at the port?” she asked.
    “I did,” said Denny. He circled round the table and dropped into a chair across from Sirah. “And some dasiks, of course. And a chug. And two klickiks. “
    “Klickiks?” Sirah dropped a bent froon onto a plate with a clatter. “What were they doing?”
    Denny shrugged. “They were leaving. They got on the first shuttle this morning.” He knew Sirah liked the klickiks, with their tall purple frills and hard red limbs. Once, one of them had come to the quarter, even come to Restaurant, and Sirah had watched it so closely she spilled a whole bowl of mummions.
    Sirah finished spreading the plates across the table, took another stack in hand, and then set them back carefully. Denny saw that she was looking across the room to where a dozen or more tables had been stacked and shoved into the corner. Denny could just remember when there were enough people in the Jukal Plex to fill all those tables.
    “I don't suppose...” Sirah picked up a handful of tarnished froons and started to put them beside the plates. “I don't suppose you saw any other humans at the spaceport?”
    “No,” said Denny. “Not today.” Not on any day.

 
     
     
     
     
    5
     
     
     
    Denny took up the plates and helped Sirah set the tables. Mostly the plates went down in ones and twos, scattered at round tables and square tables around the big room. As few people as there were now in Jukal, they might have all sat together at just one of Restaurant's larger tables. Instead, they all sat where they used to sit when there were more cousins, more aunts and uncles, more nonnis and poppas. Restaurant used to be a place to talk, now it was a place to remember.
    While they were getting things ready, Poppa Jam shuffled in and haggled with Auntie Talla. Talla always made Poppa Jam pay more for his Restaurant than the others, but that was only fair. Poppa Jam had more than any of the others. Probably more than all of them put together.
    Behind him, Cousin Kettle came in, still wearing his blue cover-ups from the spaceport. He joined his mother, Auntie Flash, who was already sitting at the corner table. Auntie Flash had been sick, and despite several visits to the Human Assistance Authority doctor, she still trembled when she walked and she talked with a strange slowness. Denny knew that Kettle had used a lot of the credits he made at the spaceport to take Auntie Flash to see a klickik doctor who was supposed to know a lot about humans. It didn’t seem to have helped Auntie Flash, but knowing that he had used his credits for his mother made it hard for Denny to stay mad at Kettle.
    Sharing a table with Kettle and his mother was Cousin Yulia. Yulia was actually just days younger than Auntie Talla, but no one had ever thought to call her an aunt. She had strange, pale eyes, and she always seemed so frightened. Yulia had come from Halitt Plex, the last human in that whole plex, and before she was consigned to Jukal, she had been alone for a long time. It had made her...different. She was quiet. She rarely looked at anyone. She had a big jacket, big enough that it looked like it was made for someone much larger than Yulia, and she huddled down in that jacket so much that it seemed like she wanted to disappear.
    Before the rest of the remaining humans could come into the room, the other door opened—the blue door at the far side of the space.
    Sirah jumped and spun around. Denny turned more slowly. Half of him was afraid that it was the patrol come to consign them all to some other place. Half of him hoped it was.
    But this time, there was only a single, very large, very old cithian in the doorway. Hiser Grismalamacata Omicradiscrad, Overcontroller Human Assistance Authority, pushed his way slowly into the gather room. The big cithian had to move carefully to keep the burrs and notches of his