01 Taxilas Children

TAXILA'S CHILDREN
"Do you realise that it cost me fifty credits every time I had a trim on A90? You could have
saved me a fortune - if I'd have known."
"You did not enquire. I have a function menu. Do you wish to enquire?"
"Negative! You might get an inflated sense of your own importance!"
He cleared away his fallen tresses. He wondered if they might fetch a price with the local
population - a personal memento of the man from outer space. He decided against it, and
washed off the clinging residue. He dressed in one of the borrowed tunics and went off to
meet the world. It was nearly afternoon and as usual, the place seemed to be deserted. He
wondered where they went, he couldn't visualise them working in the fields like those of
Jabez's community.
He wandered aimlessly down a path at the side of the house, which entered the standing
crop. To his unqualified eye it didn't seem quite mature. It looked like something they served
at the evening meal. He turned a corner and nearly knocked over Maia. Her eyes widened
perceptibly, when she looked at him. He felt a surge of undiluted conceit and pride. He hadn't
lost his devastating effect upon women.
"I wondered for a moment if it was you, then I knew that only one man could be so
conceited!"
He refused to be put down, broadening his grin and laughing at her.
"Do you always hide behind bushes to pounce on a man? If I didn't know better, I'd think
you were following me - but you dislike me too much for that, don't you?"
She returned his smile with a stony stare, she was very much the Thane's daughter. He
continued to grin.
"I would have thought you would have been more concerned with the woman you brought
here."
He gave her the satisfaction of letting his smile fade.
"You are right. Hara is my responsibility. I will find her and try to talk some sense into her
head."
He made a slight bow and tried to pass her. She put her hand on his arm.
"No. Wait."
It would have been fantasy to say that a current of electricity surged through him and that
he swept her into his arms and she was his. It didn't happen, he waited for her to say her
piece. She sounded a little breathless.
"It's no good trying to find her. Hara has gone away to a community of women. She will
stay with them until her child is born."
He stared at her with out blinking.
"How do you know that she is going to have a child? It's only a few days."
"Time enough for my mother to tell. She has a special ability which the Gift gives. She felt
the mind of the unborn child."
"Surely it would be too small - too immature?"
"She can tell."
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