NOWHERE LEFT TO FALL
Uncle Slovius took him up on his shoulders. They were going to watch the bad machine being killed. He put his hands over Uncle Slovius’s forehead and got him to crinkle it, which felt funny and made him squirm and wriggle and laugh and meant Uncle Slovius had to hold his ankles tight to stop him falling off.
“Fass, stop wriggling.”
“I fine, honest.”
He already knew you were supposed to say, “I’m fine,” or, “I am fine,” but saying things like “I fine’ was better because it made adults smile and sometimes hug. Sometimes it made them put a hand on your head and make a mess of your hair, but never mind.
They went through the port door. It was spring and so that was the house they were in. He was big. He’d lived in all the houses except the Summer House. That one came next. Then he would have lived in them all. Then you started again. That was how it worked. Uncle Slovius ducked as they went through the doorway so he didn’t bash his head.
“Umm, mind your head,” he heard his dad say quietly somewhere behind him.
His mum sighed. “Oh, stop fussing. Dear.”
He couldn’t see his mum and dad because they were behind him and Uncle Slovius but he could hear them.
“Look, I wasn’t fussing, I was just—”
“Yes, you—”
He got that funny feeling in his tummy he got when Mum and Dad talked like that. He did a slap-a-slap-slap on Uncle Slovius’s forehead and said, “More about history! More about history!” as they walked down to the flier.
Uncle Slovius laughed. The shake came up through Uncle Slovius’s shoulders into his bottom and whole body. “My, we are a keen student.”
“One word for it,” his mother said.
“Oh, come on,” his dad said. “The boy’s just inquisitive.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right,” his mum said. You could hear her breath through her words. “My mistake. Pardon me for expressing an opinion.”
“Oh, now, look, I didn’t mean—”
“More about Voerin!”
“Voehn,” Uncle Slovius said.
“I’ve got a Voerin! I’ve got a big one that talks and climbs and swims and jumps or can walk under the water too. It’s got a gun that shoots other toys. And I’ve got lots of little ones that just move. They’ve got guns too but they’re a bit small to see but they can make each other fall over. I’ve nearly a hundred. I watch Attack Squad Voerin all the time! My favourite is Captain Chunce cos he’s clever. I like Commander Saptpanuhr too and Corporal Qump cos he’s funny. Jun and Yoze both like Commander Saptpanuhr best. They’re my friends. Do you watch Attack Squad Voerin, Uncle Slovius?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever caught it, Fass.”
Fassin frowned, thinking. He decided this probably meant “No’. Why didn’t adults just say no when they meant no?
They sat in the flier. He had to come down off Uncle Slovius’s shoulders but he got to sit beside him in the front. He didn’t even need to tell people he’d be sick if he sat in the back any more. A servant sat on the other side of him. Great-uncle Fimender was behind with two old ladies who were girlfriends. He was laughing and they were too. His mum and dad were further back, talking quiet. His mum and dad were old but Uncle Slovius was really old and Great-uncle Fimender was really, really old.
The flier went up into the air and went through the air making a noise like the Attack-ship Avenger did in Attack Squad Voerin. His model of the Attack-ship Avenger flew but only in Supervised Areas Outdoors and shot guns and missiles and made the same noise. He’d wanted to bring it with him, but not been allowed, even after he’d shouted. He hadn’t been allowed to bring any toys. No toys at all!
He pulled at Uncle Slovius’s sleeve. “Tell me about the Voerin!” He tried to think what had made Uncle Slovius laugh. “More about history!”
Uncle Slovius smiled.
“The Voehn are the Culmina’s bully boys, child,” said Great-uncle Fimender from the seat behind. He was leaning over. His breath had that funny sweet smell like it usually did. Great-uncle Fimender was fond of a drink. His voice was funny also sometimes, like all the words were sort of one big word. “I wouldn’t fixate too enthusiastically on the scum that stole our species birthright.”
“Steady, now, Fim,” Uncle Slovius said. He looked round at Great-uncle Fimender but looked first at the servant except the servant didn’t move or look back or anything. “If the wrong person took you seriously you might find yourself joining this rogue AI. Hmm?” He made a smile at Great-uncle Fimender, who sat back again in the seat between the old-lady girlfriends and took a glass with a drink in it from a picnic tray.
“Be an honour,” he said in a quiet voice.
Uncle Slovius smiled down at Fass. “The Voehn went to Earth a long, long time ago, Fassin. Before humans made spaceships — before they made sea ships, almost.”
“How long ago?”
“About eight thousand years ago.”
“4051BCE,” Great-uncle Fimender said, though only just loud enough to hear. Uncle Slovius didn’t seem to hear. Fassin wasn’t sure if Great-uncle Fimender was disagreeing with Uncle Slovius or not. Fassin stored 4051 BCE away as an Important Number anyway.
“They met human people on Earth,” Uncle Slovius said, “and took them away with them on their ship, to other stars and planets.”
“Kidnapping the prims!” Great-uncle Fimender said. “Sampling the barbs, with prejudice! Eh?” He didn’t sound like he was talking to him and Uncle Slovius. Fass didn’t understand what Great-uncle Fimender was saying anyway. The old-lady girlfriends were laughing.
“Well,” Uncle Slovius said, with a small smile, “who’s to say whether humans were kidnapped or not? People in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and China were too primitive to know what was going on. They probably thought the Voehn were gods, so they might have gone with them without being kidnapped and we don’t even know that the Voehn took whole people. Maybe they just took their cells.”
“Or babies, or foetuses, or excised a few thousand fertilised eggs,” Great-uncle Fimender said. Then, “Oh, thank you, my dear. Oops! Steady, there.”
“In any event,” Uncle Slovius said, “the Voehn took some human people and put them down on planets far away from Earth and the human people grew up with other people, and the Culmina had the other people help the humans so that they became civilised quickly, and invented all the things humans back on Earth ever invented, but these human people on the other planets always knew they were part of a galactic community, hmm?” Uncle Slovius looked at him with a question-look on his face. Fass nodded quickly. He knew what a galactic community meant: everybody else.
“Anyway, people on Earth kept on inventing things, and eventually invented wormholes and portals—”
“The Attack-ship Avenger goes through wormholes and portals,” he told Uncle Slovius.
“Of course,” Uncle Slovius said. “And so when human people went out and met other alien people and joined their worm-hole up with everybody else’s wormhole, they found out that they weren’t the first humans the alien people had met or had heard of, because the humans who had been taken away to the other planets by the Voehn were already quite well known.”
“Remainder humans,” Great-uncle Fimender said from the seat behind. His voice sounded funny, like he might be going to burst out laughing or something.
Uncle Slovius looked round at him for a short bit. “Well, the terms don’t matter too much, even if they might sound a little harsh sometimes.”
“Carefully chosen to keep us in our place, remind us we owe them, either way,” Great-uncle Fimender said.
“The Culmina tell us they had people look after Earth after the Voehn took the humans away to the other stars. They made sure that nothing bad happened to Earth, like it being hit by a big rock.”