OUTWORLD: Stellar Evolution

OUTWORLD: Stellar Evolution Part 4

It was a lovely day. The sky was a pastel blue, interrupted only by the thinnest of clouds, and the sun blazed, coating everything in a golden shimmer. The stream trickled at the bottom of the field, and birds swept overhead, their wings aflame in the light.

Kate sat with her back to her favourite boulder, watching it all, transfixed by how beautiful her homeworld was. It could always amaze her on the most ordinary of days, and so it had now. She'd seen paintings of landscapes – meadows, towns, forests – and none of them compared to this. The sun ran over her fur, warming it, and it sent a shiver of ecstasy through her. A million smells touched her nose, and she took it all in.

One such smell she recognized was that of her mother's cooking, and she followed it almost subconsciously towards the house, where a column of steam was venting from the kitchen window. Her floppy ears picked up the sounds of bubbling pots and clattering pans, and her feet began to move, bringing her up the stony path from the field to the house.

From the back door emerged her mother, her smile wider than Kate had ever seen it. From behind her mother's ample frame appeared her father, and Rebecca was there, too, her tongue out in the typical greeting she reserved for her sister. Kate ran faster, her sneakers bashing up clouds of rock dust, her arms out to get at least a goodly chunk of her mother between them. She embraced her, and yapped like a puppy.

"Well, this is nice," her mother said with a smile in her voice. "It's good to see you."

From off to the left came Rebecca's squeaky voice. "Who is she, Mom?"

A thudding chunk of cold dread hit Kate in the stomach, and her eyes snapped open. She looked up into her mother's face; the look of friendly curiosity was worse than any snarl. "What do you mean? I... I live here."

"No, you don't," Millie Holloway said, her face still friendly. "We're just about to have lunch, and you can join us if you like. You look like you've been walking for miles. You from the city?"

"Mom, what are you doing?" Kate asked pointedly, her attitude barely covering the hopeless terror welling in her. "I'm your daughter! My name is Kate, and... and..." She felt her lip tremble as the terror overrode any outward sign of control. "You're my momma!"

"Millie, maybe we should tell the security team," Rufus, her father, said. "We've got a distressed minor who looks to be suffering a slight delusion."

"Delusion?" Kate cried, tears falling down her face. "No! I live here! I'm your daughter, and she..." She pointed at Rebecca. "She is my sister!"

"No, I'm not," Rebecca snorted, giving her the look Kate knew she reserved for whatever mystified or annoyed her. She looked back to her – Kate's – mother and tugged at her skirt. "Mom, call someone."

"No!" Kate wailed. "You're my family, and I live here, and... and... I..." She found herself running out of words, and her father – or just Rufus to her now – nodded.

"I'm calling the security team," he decided. "You two come in with me. You," he said to Kate, with that horrible detachment clear on his face, "you stay out here for now. They're coming to get you." And with that he slammed the door on her.

Kate sobbed and stumbled back down the path, drifting across the grass and collapsing against her boulder - the boulder. It was no longer hers, it would seem.

Had it ever been?

She sniffled and curled up in front of it. "Someone help me," she sobbed.

"Someone – help... muh!" Kate cried muzzily, jerking awake and slamming up against the back wall of her bed space. Her clever eyes darted about crazily, trying to make sense of this new world. Wait – it was the dormitory of that ship.