"What's
wrong with you young ones?" a woman said, as Tress followed Dafna out of a
shop that sold long scarves like slices of rainbows and mist.
Both
of their identity wristbands had flashed twice, meaning they had five minutes
until they had to meet E'bett and the other two girls back at the lift.
"Ma'am?"
Dafna said, turning around before she reached the door of the shop.
"Don't
you like anything? Or are you looking around to get ready to come back and rob
me later?"
"No,
Ma'am. Everything is pretty. We're just not allowed to touch."
"Who
told you that?" The woman laughed, but it wasn't a nice laugh.
"Our parents. Our teacher. Our captain." Tress unclasped her hands and reached to take hold of Dafna by her elbow. The other girl flinched a little, then looked over her shoulder, nodded, and continued stepping out of the shop.
"We're
very sorry if you're offended, Ma'am," Dafna said.
"So
you say. I still think something's wrong with young ones acting like that.
That's what's wrong with your whole Fleet, maybe your whole Alliance. No wonder
my folk don't want to join you people. You don't let people think for
themselves."
"We can think whatever we want," Tress said. "We're just not allowed to touch."
The woman burst out laughing, but it still wasn't nice laughter. The two girls held hands and ran a few steps, until a light in one of the security scanner strips in the ceiling ahead of them flashed yellow. That was the reminder that people weren't allowed to run. Later, when Tress told her parents over dinner about what happened, her father snorted and muttered something about the woman being partly right, but there were good reasons why there were so many rules on a space station.
No comments:
Post a Comment