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Subject: "The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Ardaniel
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Jul-22-08, 03:34 AM (EDT)
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"The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story"
 
   6423 Boulevard of Champions
Fort Organa, Alderaan
Monday, April 29th, 2391

"Chad? Wake up!" his mother called.

Chad cracked an eyelid and grunted. The clock next to his bed read 0600, an ungodly hour, especially given that it was "teacher planning day" and he didn't have school. What did his mother want now?

"I.. whuzzzproblem?" Chad roared back. (He couldn't really help the roaring. He'd tried. He just couldn't get the hang of raising his voice like everyone else yet.)

"I've cooked breakfast!" his mom replied-- a little too cheerily, if you asked Chad. "Come down, your father and I have a surprise for you."

Chad groaned, rolled over, and whuffed at the air a couple of times. Bacon, eggs, sausage... slightly burnt toast...

His eyes widened in alarm. Whatever that last smell was, it wasn't any breakfast food he was familiar with. He rolled out of bed and found a pair of jeans and one of his T-shirts, got dressed, wandered into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face, arranged his fur a little more decorously, and wandered downstairs with some trepidation.

The back porch door was open, and he could hear his father in the brush that led into the woods out back. His mother smiled, hugged him absent-mindedly, and pointed him at the kitchen table. Chad whuffed the air again-- breakfast, parents... and some sort of prey animal.

"So, uh, what's up?" he said.

"Oh, we're so proud of you, honey!" his mother replied, beaming. "It's your birthday!"

"Well, yeah," he said. "But why the early wakeup call?"

His mother turned back to the stove. "Well, we were looking through the reference books, and..."

Chad cringed inwardly.

"--and it's your Feast of Spilt Blood, son," his father said, coming in the door in a set of dirtied work clothes, rubbing a spot on his leg that seemed to pain him somewhat. "Your first solo hunt, your first real kill!"

"Kill?" Chad said, eyeing his bacon with alarm.

"Well, of course, it won't be anything like it would be on Kilrah," his father said with a laugh. "But we did get you a little something."

Chad heard it in the yard-- a faint animal noise. A Terran sheep. His eyes widened. Don't get sick on the table, he reminded himself. Don't get sick on the table...


Chad padded out into the backyard, testing the air. It wouldn't be too hard to track a sheep out here-- there weren't any other sheep in Fort Organa, as far as he knew, and they had a fairly distinctive scent. But kill it? And eat it? And come back showing off the corpse? Sure, his father and brother were hunters. He'd gone out with them and seen them shoot deer, or feral pigs, plenty of times.

He wasn't into eating raw meat, though, and he didn't really relish the thought of digging his claws into a defenseless animal who'd been brought in just for the purpose. Never even mind the "for the glory of Sivar" and the whole coming-of-age bit, he just didn't want to go there. It wasn't the same.

But his folks were expecting him to come home with a fresh kill...

He sighed heavily and scented the sheep again. "C'mere, you," he muttered. "We've gotta go talk to Tramm."



Tramm Wigzell was a pretty heavy sleeper, and Chad knew it. That was why they'd rigged the trellis near his window to be Kilrathi-accessible; of course, they'd never considered that Chad might be hauling up an outraged live animal to pay Tramm a visit. He tucked the sheep under one arm and started to climb haltingly...

...only to be kicked soundly in the hip. He lost his balance, dug his claws into the side of the house (he hoped Tramm wouldn't have to fix that later, but this was an emergency, dammit), and dangled helplessly for a moment.

"Urf!" he said, hauling himself up by the pads of his feet. "Dammit, you, fluffy THING, now I know what you did to Dad-- maybe I WILL kill you when-- ack!"

The siding let go where he'd dug in, and he pitched off the side of the house into Tramm's mother's favorite azalea. He reflected grimly that they'd known the risk when they selected the secret approach to Tramm's window, got a better grip on the wildly flailing sheep, and laid back to consider his options.

Right about then, the window opened and Tramm stuck his head out, knocking a cephalic lobe against the window frame. The Selkath boy was a couple heads shorter than Chad, and had a perpetual expression of piscine amusement. He scratched at the wayward lobe and squinted.

"Chad?" he called quietly. "Was that you... by the Progenitor, that's a sheep."

"...perceptive as ever, Little Mermaid," Chad growled. "Get DOWN here already."


Tramm idly scratched the sheep, which was placidly chewing on the lawn. "And so... we have a sheep, and your parents," he said. "And mine, if your fall woke them."

"They sleep on the other side of the house, and they sleep even sounder than you do," Chad said. "I hope."

"True," Tramm said reflectively. "And they also have the noise generator. They don't mind living on land, but they still find the sounds disconcerting at night."

Chad nodded. "Aside from the wonders of Selkath psychology," he said, a trifle irritably, "what else have we got going for us here? My parents want to see a fresh kill on the doorstep by the time they get back from work. That doesn't give us much time."

"You could just..." Tramm made a very descriptive hand gesture.

"No!" Chad said. "What did it ever do to me?"

"Potentially," Tramm pointed out, "get you in trouble with your folks."

"It's already kicked me in the hip once," Chad grumbled. "Maybe that really is enough to--"

He bared his fangs and licked one experimentally. Tramm shuddered. Chad frowned.

"...can't do it, sorry," he said.

"Well, I suppose that's heartening," Tramm said wryly. "What do you propose to do next, now that you've failed to summon your bestial nature and dispose of the prey as Mighty Sivar intended of you?"

Chad shot him a withering look.

"We could take it to the circus!" Tramm suggested brightly.

Chad's expression didn't change. "Tramm," he said. "What in the galaxy is a CIRCUS going to do with a SHEEP?"

Tramm broke. Chad cuffed him with one paw.

"Come on, fishboy," he said. "We gotta get the sheep out of here... and then we've got to figure out how to make a convincing-looking kill without actually killing something... assuming, of course, you don't bug me any more today. I wonder how Sivar would feel about me giving him a dead Selkath? You probably taste pretty good."

Tramm got up, ignoring Chad with great asperity, and eyed the sheep. "Well, first of all, we need some better way of getting it out of here, as heroic as carrying it might look," he said.


Chad jogged ahead and peered down the street. He whistled the all-clear back to Tramm, who proceeded down the street as nonchalantly as a Selkath with a sheep on a bright orange extension-cord leash could manage. Under the circumstances, Chad had to admit that his best friend was holding up pretty well.

"So," Tramm said. "Where to, mighty warrior of Sivar?"

"Don't start," Chad replied. "I... don't know."

Tramm sighed. "You know, it's not like I know these things any better than you do. I only got out of my encounter suit last year. You've been out here with the air-breathers your whole life."

"Yeah, and I'm a Kilrathi," Chad countered. "Every time I go anywhere, the Salusians look at me funny. Not to mention the kinds of questions my parents get. And now I'm going to go into town with a Selkath and a sheep. That's not going to help my reputation."

Tramm snorted. "Like you have a reputation," he replied. "Except for that time you fell asleep in math class and had the chasing-the-rabbit dream and flipped your whole desk ov—"

"Can it, fishboy," Chad replied, bristling. "How much you got in your pockets?"

Tramm stuck his hand in the pocket of his shorts and fished around. "Eight credits, and a pack of hydration lozenges, which won't help you," he replied. "You?"

"Fifteen credits, my knife, a P-38, and a T2 Torx bit," Chad replied with a sigh. "You think twenty-three credits is enough?"

"Enough for what?" Tramm said.

"I mean, lamb's expensive at the store," Chad said, apparently to himself as much as to Tramm. "That might not be enough to look convincing, unless I pretend I'm really full for the rest of the day. And then I'd miss birthday cake. There's got to be some other way."


Chad strode into the grocery store and hoped he looked at least vaguely like an adult. He was pretty big even for a Kilrathi, anyhow. It might work.

He approached the meat counter and rang the bell. A burly Daxamite butcher came out from the back, wiping his hands on a cloth, and looked down inquiringly. "Help you?"

"I have..." Chad began haltingly. "That is, I'd like to trade my live sheep—which is just outside— for your, uh, prepacked dead sheep. Preferably on a one-to-one basis."

The butcher squinted at him.


Tramm stood outside, having secured the sheep's improvised leash to the shopping-cart return, and tried to look nonchalant. "Nothing to see here, air-breathers. Just a bipedal stingray with a sheep. Move along," he muttered to himself.

It worked, mostly. No one really seemed to care that he was standing there... until the giant black van reading ROYAL ALDERA SPECIAL WEAPONS AND TACTICS UNIT pulled up. Tramm sighed. It really was going to be one of those days.

The van pulled into a parking space, its driver apparently oblivious to the Selkath boy and his charge. The door swung open, and a red-haired young man in a severe-looking armored commando uniform stepped out, frowning. His gaze swept across the parking lot and zeroed in on Tramm.

The authorities had sent a ninja. Tramm held his breath, which was even more uncomfortable than he'd expected it would be. He thought longingly of his encounter suit. Maybe no one would notice if he pulled it out when they got home.


"You want what, exactly?" the butcher said. "Son, I've got to tell you, we're not in that line of work here. I can't just take any old sheep and sell it. There are rules about that kind of thing."

"My dad takes... I mean, I take deer to the processor all the time," Chad replied.

"Sure, the processor," the butcher said. "We don't do that—and where'd you get a sheep, anyhow?"

"It's..." Chad began, then trailed off.

The butcher sighed. "Where are your parents, son?" he finally said. "Do they know you've got one of their sheep and you're looking to get it cut up?"

"No!" Chad said. "I mean, no, no, I don't want to cut it up. I want to trade it for one that's already cut up."


Tramm gulped as the policeman strode over to him. "What's going on?" the cop said, peering at him intently over a pair of dataglasses.

"Er, nothing, sir, nothing of interest," Tramm replied. "I and my sheep are waiting for my... associate... to finish grocery shopping."

"I'm curious as to where you got the sheep," the cop replied.

"Well!" Tramm said. "That's, uh, a very long story, yes. I assure you that this is, in fact, my, uh, lawful sheep property."

"I wasn't really worried," the cop replied dryly. "Is there something else..."

He removed his dataglasses.

"...going on?"

Tramm bit the corner of his cephalic lobe and looked around guiltily. "Actually, sir, there is," he said, in the tones of a man confiding the details of a grand conspiracy. "It's about my friend."


Chad sighed and exited the store; the butcher had been nice enough to let him get a Coke before throwing him out, at least. He headed over to the shopping cart return, dejected. It looked like Sivar would win this one anyways. He began to steel himself for the long walk home, after which he would commit murder in the back forty.

He'd almost made it back to Tramm before he noticed the dark-suited figure standing there with the younger boy. Tramm was waving his arms animatedly and pantomining... some sort of kicking motion. Chad scanned the parking lot and saw the SWAT van parked nearby. He took a deep breath and tried not to panic. No one actually knew what they were doing. There was no reason for a fully-armored SWAT commando to be on the scene... he hoped. On the other hand, Tramm seemed awfully nervous.

"Tramm's going to get me arrested," Chad muttered, heading over to intercede.

Tramm had stopped his re-enactment by the time Chad trotted up. "—and so we've got to do something, you understand," the Selkath was saying earnestly. "I just can't leave my best friend to face the prospect of homicide."

"Well, son, we usually call it 'animal cruelty,' except in certain religiously-motivated cases," the cop said. "Your friend could be exonerated on those grounds. Is this him?"

Chad looked from Tramm to the police officer. He tried to say something, anything, that would make some kind of sense. He locked eyes with Tramm for an uncomfortably long moment.

"Way to GO, Danny Ocean, spilling the plan to the cops!" the Kilrathi finally spluttered.

"Pfff," Tramm said, unconcerned. "I've got everything under control now. Officer Caine is going to help us fix this."


On the ride back to the house, Chad reflected on their sudden good fortune. Officer Caine had helped them fix it—he'd escorted them back into the grocery store, and persuaded the butcher to provide a bag of assorted offal, which Chad was now dubiously holding. The sheep had been loaded into the back of the van, to be taken to the Aldera Animal Protective Services' rehabilitation facility. The former sacrificial victim had protested wildly for a while, then appeared to settle into sleep. Chad couldn't really blame it.

"See?" Tramm said blithely. "Now we can present evidence of your warrior prowess, and get back to the important things. Birthday cake. Presents. Annoying your brother."

"We've still got to make it look convincing," Chad said grimly. "And we've only got about an hour and a half before my parents get home."


Tramm leaned on the shovel and sighed. "I can't sweat, you know. This is obviously air-breather work."

Chad tugged at an undefined mound of entrails with his claws. "Keep digging. I've got to at least try to tear some of this up, and your claws don't look anything like mine. They'll know."

Tramm grumbled and kept digging. "How's that? Oh, and don't forget your muzzle. Can you just stick your head in the bag a few times?"

Chad ignored that, inspected the shallow hole, and grunted. "Looks pretty good, let me just put in the claw marks..."

His head whipped around and his ears perked. "...oh, no, it's my dad's truck. They're home early. Quick, Tramm, run, get the shovel, stall them somehow while I get this all put back together."

Tramm was only too happy to run to the Colliers' machine-shop-cum-garage and dump the shovel before heading to the front yard. Meanwhile, Chad took a deep breath, held it, and shoved his face into a pile of unspecified cow parts for as long as he could bear it. Coming up, he tried not to gag and began to dump the entrails into the hole, furiously shoving loose dirt over them with both paws.

"Chad, honey!" his mother called from the kitchen. "Do you want to bring some of your kill in here?"

"Uhhhh, no thanks, Mom!" he yelled back, desperately trying to get rid of the bag. "I'll, uh, I think I should just eat it out here in the grass!"

He hurriedly smeared some of the giblety bits on his shirt and sat back on his haunches. His dad was coming out the door, a big smile on his face. Chad sighed. It was going to be a very long evening at the Collier residence.



"Man," Chad groaned, flopping out full-length on his bed. His birthday dinner was finally over, and he and Tramm were back in his room.

"Yeah, your mom's birthday cakes just get better every year," Tramm said. "And that camera Scott got you is sweet. We can make a movie this summer when I get back from Manaan."

"Not THAT," Chad said, shooting Tramm a look. "What am I gonna do?"

"Bask in the glory of Sivar War-God?" Tramm said, flipping an errant cephalic lobe out of the way. "Go to school tomorrow and horrify all the girls with tales of your conquest?"

"I can't do that!" Chad protested. "That's awful! And I lied to my parents."

"By Kilrathi standards, you're a man now, yeah?" Tramm replied. "Men lie to their parents all the time. You might as well get used to it."

Chad rolled over and buried his muzzle in his pillow. "Except for that whole part where I didn't actually kill anything," he said, voice muffled. "And the bit where I'm twelve and live in Fort Organa, not on Kilrah. And the part where I actually feel bad about this."

Tramm shrugged. "My people have a long and proud history of deception," he said. "If you can learn Selkatha, maybe you can come on vacation with me. My parents could speak to the officials and have you named an honorary Selkath."

Chad roared into his pillow. "I should have sacrificed you," he said.

Tramm shrugged again. "Some of us don't have these pressing moral concerns," he said airily. "Where'd you leave the camera?"


Later that night, Chad lay in bed, uneasy. His father was out in the machine shop across the yard, working; the blue light from his welding torch illuminated Chad's small fleet of starship models with its acetylene glow. Chad stared up at it and felt none of the usual comfort.

He tossed and turned for a while longer, and then gave up. He didn't care what Sivar thought of anything at this point—heck, he didn't even know if believed in Sivar—but he did care about what his parents thought of him. He got up and headed for the kitchen.

His mother was sitting at the table with the Sunday paper, separating out the ads and clipping the occasional coupon. Chad padded down the stairs silently and sat down at the table. "Mom."

Judy Collier looked over at her son. "You need a glass of water? Did you have a nightmare?"

Chad shook his head and bit his lip. "I—" he began, only to choke back tears. "I messed up."

"Did you have a fight with Tramm?" Judy asked. "What's wrong?"

"I messed up!" Chad repeated, feeling the tears start to spill. "I didn't want you to be upset with me and I wanted to do it right but I couldn't kill that stupid thing even after it kicked me."

He shuddered to a halt and drew a long breath. "So we had Officer Caine—he's from the SWAT team, we met him at the grocery store— take it away and we bought a bunch of junk off the butcher. And then I pretended I'd killed and eaten it. But I was wrong and I lied to you and..."

He looked back up, lip quivering. His mother said nothing, and met his gaze evenly. Somehow, that just made it worse.

"I— I wanted you to be proud of me," Chad finally managed. "Only now I'm not proud of me, and I'm sorry."

His mother looked at him and sighed. "Oh, Chad," she said. "Come here."

He looked down at his paws and went into her embrace. She rubbed his back gently and kissed the top of his head. "Little tiger," she said. "All we wanted was for you to understand where you came from. But... maybe that's not as important as appreciating where you are now."

"I know you want what's right," Chad said quietly. "But I think maybe it's OK if what's right for me means being like the other kids, like Tramm and my friends at school. I know I'm Kilrathi, but it doesn't matter to me as much as being... I don't know, me."

His mother smiled for moment, then turned serious. "It was good that you told me," she said, "but you did go to pretty great lengths to lie to us—you said something about the SWAT team?—and, well, I can't just let that go, even if you were trying to live up to some unreasonable expectations."

Chad flinched.

"Mrs. Wigzell tells me there's some nasty holes in the siding at her house, right under Tramm's bedroom window," his mom continued. "On top of that, her trellis is hanging off the house on one side, and her favorite azalea was partially crushed when she came home earlier. Now, I don't know if you know anything about all that, but I think it would be nice if you came right home from school this week and helped Mr. Wigzell and Tramm fix that up. Your father's got supplies in the shop; he'll show you what to do."

Chad's ears and whiskers drooped. "Yes, Mom," he replied. "I'm sorry."

His mom ruffled his ears gently. "You're my son, Chad," she said. "I love you because you're you, not because of what you do or don't do."

Chad rested his head in his paws and sighed. "I'm sorry," he said again. "That seems like all I can say now."

"You should get back to bed, tiger," his mother said. "You've got a busy week ahead of you."

Chad padded back up to his room and crawled into bed. This time, the blue light on the ceiling was soothing, as if something fundamental had been restored to working order. He got comfortable and fell asleep. He'd had a very long day, after all. A man could only take so much of this coming-of-age business.

"The Sheep Incident" – a Future Imperfect mini-story by Janice Collier
Special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2008 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


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The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story [View All] Ardaniel Jul-22-08 TOP
   RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story BlackAeronaut Jul-22-08 1
      RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Ardaniel Jul-22-08 3
          RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story BlackAeronaut Jul-23-08 13
   RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story BZArchermoderator Jul-22-08 2
   RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Pasha Jul-22-08 4
      RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Wedge Jul-22-08 5
          RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story BZArchermoderator Jul-22-08 6
              RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Rickdominated Jul-22-08 7
                  RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Ardaniel Jul-22-08 8
   RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Pasha Jul-22-08 9
      RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Ardaniel Jul-22-08 10
      RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Rickdominated Jul-23-08 14
   RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Ginta Jul-23-08 11
      RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story O_M Jul-23-08 12
          RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Ardaniel Jul-23-08 15
          RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story Wedge Jul-24-08 17
              RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story jhosmer1 Jul-25-08 18
   RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story mdg1 Jul-24-08 16
      RE: The Sheep Incident: A Future Imperfect Mini-Story BobSchroeck Jul-27-08 19


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