At the moment, she was devouring Regency romances from Old Earth. The download in her head had included Brontë, at her mother’s insistence. Perhaps this had biased her, but she certainly enjoyed historical romances.
Fluff, on the other hand, did not. His objection was not to the genre as such, but to the activity itself. Because of the soft-cyber in the little galago’s head it could read. But Fluff considered reading an effeminate pastime—and, what was worse, the wrong effeminate pastime. While Virginia was reading she was ignoring her far-more-important feminine duty, which was to pay attention to him.
He was most disgruntled. Was there anything more important to a macho hidalgo than the attentive admiration of a beautiful woman? Was there anything more natural than that she should adore him?
“Virginia, why do you read-read-read all of the time?” The little creature perched on her head and swung his long tail with its soft fur-ball at the end (that she so admired!) in front of her eyes. He knew that otherwise she wouldn’t even notice him.
She plucked him off her head. Huge, limpid, dark eyes set in the tiny face of the long-tailed lemur-like creature stared back into her blue eyes. He blinked.
“So what else do you want me to do, Fluff?” she demanded. She was a bit irritated. Vernon had been on the brink of declaring himself to Frederica!
“Well . . . You could brush my fur, or”—hastily, seeing the start of a headshake—”we could dance?” This was a real sacrifice on his part. His soft-cyber had left him with a penchant for Wagner. She liked Viennese waltzes for similar reasons.
“Why don’t you read a book instead?” she asked crossly. “I’m nearly finished with this one, and—”
“Then you will just start the next!” he protested.
Her door burst open. A ball, three feet in diameter and covered with rows of red-purple spines, came in, ambulating along on flexing spines. Virginia lowered the book and smiled broadly, her momentary pique quite forgotten.
“Professor!” There was no mistaking the delight in her voice on seeing the Korozhet. Most people found the sight of the sea-urchin-like alien somewhat unsettling. But Virginia thought the Professor was just darling. “What brings you here at this time of night?”
“Oh the relief of it! Oh, Miss Virginia! Oh, I am so glad to see you are unhurt!”
Virginia sat up straight, her eyes widening. The Korozhet’s voice, transmitted through the device attached to its intricate speaking organ, expressed nothing in its tone. But Virginia, over the months, had learned to interpret many of the subtleties of the Professor’s spine movements. (Much more, she sometimes thought with quiet pride and pleasure, than the Professor himself realized.) She had never seen that peculiar rattling of the spines before, but the motion and the noise practically shrieked: anxiety!
She began to ask a question, but the Korozhet cut her off. The Professor was already at her bedside, rattling its spines on the comforter. The hard organo-carbonate points left little tears in the cotton which enfolded the down interior.
“Quickly, Miss Virginia. Quickly! Come with me. We must flee at once.”
Virginia flung aside the comforter and scrambled off the bed. “What’s wrong?” she asked. But she didn’t wait for an answer before gathering Fluff and planting him on her shoulder. An instant later, she was reaching for Mister Ted and Mrs. Wobbly. If it was a fire she must . . .
“Leave your possessions, Miss Virginia, leave them! It is you who are in danger, not they. Come quickly! We must away! The killers may still be here!”
“Killers?” She stopped.
“Keep moving, Miss Virginia! Your poor parents have been foully murdered! I have just now stumbled upon their corpses. The dreadful manner of their dying leaves me in no doubt: there are Jampad assassins here!”
Virginia gasped. She’d heard of the Jampad, from the Professor. “But I thought there were none of those . . . terrible things on the planet?”
“They must have approached secretly somehow. Oh, sorrow! That they should kill such worthy citizens!” The Korozhet was now trying to drive her towards the door. Virginia resisted long enough to put on more suitable clothing. She couldn’t leave her room in her nightgown, after all. Her parents would be furious if she let the servants see—