Читать книгу Galena's Gift - Rosemary Nelson - Страница 8

Instructions for Galena

1. Change nourishment bands as needed. Make sure Galena utilizes the vegetables as well as the desserts.

2. Galena must spend most of her time with the IDs. These are disks containing all of Earth’s history and information to the present day. This is her education about Earth. Make sure she uses all of them, as she may prefer some over others.

I rooted through the little suitcase. That was it for instructions? I’d expected there would be a whole manual of instructions—at least as many as you get with a Nintendo game! It was eight o’clock, time for my morning chores. Mom might check at any moment to see why I hadn’t come downstairs yet.

All the suitcase contained was the piece of paper with the instructions, two small boxes, and three more purple space suits.

Galena perched on the edge of the bed watching me, Tedu still clutched in her hand. Roper sniffed at one of the boxes in the suitcase. I picked it up. Nourishment Bands was printed on the outside. Inside were several wide band-aid like strips with rows of colored bumps. Many bumps were in shades of green, the rest were white, red, orange, brown, yellow, purple and even black. There were also a couple of bumps that had weird colours I couldn’t name. On the bottom of the box it said: “Warning: not for humanoid use”.

Fat chance I’d ever try them, I thought to myself, wrinkling up my nose.

“I can’t believe it smells like food to you, Roper. I bet it’s not even close to food as we know it,” I commented as he sniffed at the bands.

I looked up at Galena. “Do you need one of these now?”

She shook her head and held out her wrist. I pulled back the edge of her sleeve. The band she had on was almost full of bumps. She pressed a white, and then a brown and yellow bump.

“I hope that was a wise choice for breakfast,” I muttered to myself, sitting down beside her.

“I have to go, Galena. I don’t know how I’m going to explain to people what you are and why you’re here. You’re going to have to stay up here and be very quiet while I do the chores and think of something. Do you understand?”

Galena nodded as she climbed down off the bed and got the box of IDs from her suitcase. She turned it upside down on the bed. Hundreds of tiny gold coloured disks about the size of a dime fluttered out. I picked one up to examine.

“The Fall of the Roman Empire!” I picked up another. “The History of the Nuclear Age!” I read in disbelief. What kind of super kid was this anyway!

Solemnly, Galena took one of the disks from me and climbed back up on the bed. She propped herself against the wall, popped open a little compartment on the side of her translator box, inserted the disk and pushed a button. As the coloured lights blinked on her belt, she became motionless, as if in a trance. I waved a hand in front of her eyes, but she didn’t respond.

“Maybe it’s like virtual reality,” I said to Roper, who eyed her with interest. “You know, it’s as if you’re experiencing the whole thing. She’s certainly tuned into something.”

Roper just looked at me without wagging his tail. I guess he just understands “dog” things like “walk”, “dinner”, “cat”—stuff that really means something to him—but not “virtual reality”.

“Come on, Roper, we’ve got to go,” I said, opening my door. But Roper wouldn’t come. He whined, looking back at Galena, and then lay down on the floor beside the bed.

“You want to baby-sit? Okay, good dog. I’ll be back soon,” I said, patting him on the head.