On Whetsday Read Free Page B

deeply etched shell from snagging on the door. He was so old that the hinges of his shell didn't really flex well anymore, and the whole thing moved like one stiff, hard bowl. Long before he was completely in the room his broad eye pads had scanned the handful of humans. The Overcontroller held his heavy, hooked forelimbs folded across his chest as he raised a smaller mid-limb in greeting.
    “Humans,” he said, his voice sounding in an echoey sigh that came from all around his shell, “enjoy.”
    Denny wasn’t sure if the Overcontroller meant to say he enjoyed being with them, or was wishing that all the humans should enjoy their meal. The older cithians became, the harder they became to understand, and Hiser Grismalamacata Omicradiscrad was about as old as a cithian ever got.
    The Overcontroller finally managed to get all his bulk into the room and crossed slowly toward Auntie Talla. His hard feet clacked off the tile floor loud enough to stir echoes around the nearly empty room.
    A second figure appeared in the blue doorway. This one was smaller in every way than the Overcontroller. A rounded head that was roughly the same color as the blocks of Human Assistance Authority chez looked around the edge of the opening.
    Denny smiled. “Omi!” he called.
    The young cithian raised the orange-red edges of its mouthparts in reply, which Denny knew–or at least thought–was the cithian equivalent of a grin. “Deee!” he shouted back. Omicradiscrad had recently been through a molt, and the softness of his shell, including the noise-plate cithians used for speaking, made it hard for him to pronounce Denny’s name.
    Omi waddled toward them. He was wearing a temporary shell on his back made of tough plastek, which was meant to protect his fragile body until his exoskeleton hardened after the molt. Until a few cycles before, Omi had been small, lean, and covered in a narrow shell that was a bright, orange-spotted yellow. He had looked quite unlike an adult cithian. With this latest molting Omi had taken on more of the rounded shape of the adults, though he was still only half their size and his form was still much sharper. Unlike the adult cithians, Omi wore clothing over his slow-hardening body and limbs. Enough of his head and forelimbs had hardened up that he had pulled the cloth back from those areas, but still the loose gray folds of heavy cloth completely hid the contours of his thorax and joints of his hind-limbs. Denny thought that, except for the big dark patch of his eyepads, Omi might have passed for a human with a tub strapped to his back. He’d thought that even more when Omi had been completely wrapped in cloth just after his molting, but Denny had never told this thought to Omi. He didn’t want to insult his friend by comparing him to a human.
    It took some time for the little cithian to reach them. Even Omi’s feet were soft, and he walked with a peculiar roll from side to side. By the time he got close, Denny could see that Omi had grown after the last molt. His eyepads were now almost even with Denny’s face. “Look how big you are!” said Denny. He shook his head. “Another molt or two, and you’ll be an adult.”
    “Yes, yes,” Omi agreed. His voice sounded funnier than usual as it bounced from the plastic shell. “One or uuoo...or two.”
    Omi joined Denny and Cousin Sirah at a small table. They talked and waited while Talla served the Overcontroller and the rest of the humans. At the far end of the room, old Nonni Hacci came in. Shortly after that, Auntie Yue and Auntie Fro joined her at a table. Everyone was there but Poppa Gow, but his absence wasn’t unusual. Poppa Gow had been sick for a long time, and he needed a wheeled chair to get around. Denny would take some Restaurant to Poppa Gow later. He didn’t mind. He liked seeing all the things that Poppa Gow kept in his compartment.
    Denny offered Omi some of his food, but Omi’s mouthparts were still too soft to eat most of it. At the