Back...and
forth...Back...and forth… Each pull of the chains sent Victus’ swing rocketing
higher into the sky.  The rhythmic
building and release of weight as he swung made him feel almost giddy. He
wondered if it would ever be possible to swing so hard that the swing flew all
the way over the top bar, to keep swinging around and around, faster and
faster, until he was nothing more than a furry, grey blur.

He
stopped pulling on the chains and let his momentum ebb, counting the number of
swings he made back and forth until he was almost still again.  Reaching down with his toes, he traced
patterns through the sand and gravel with his toe claws.

A
scent on the breeze made him look around for the source, and it didn’t take
long for him to spot Sister Caroline. 
The orphanage’s Sister in Residence always smelled pleasantly of tea
rose,  a light, delicate scent which was
a perfect match for her personality. 
When she saw him sitting alone on the swingset, she steered her path
toward him.

Other
boys vied for her attention, but she eventually made her way over to the
swingset. “Where are your shoes?” she asked, her voice soft and kind.

Victus
shot a glance over his shoulder at the door to the dormitory. “Inside. They
told me I couldn’t wear them when I’m out here.”

Sister
Caroline took a moment to think about this, then asked, “Did you run off
again?”

Victus
sighed, but did not flinch from admitting his offense. He nodded his head.
“Yeah.”

“Am
I supposed to be talking to you?”  She
asked, setting her swing into motion with the push of her feet. “If we can’t
talk, I can still enjoy the swing with you.”

Victus
smiled at her kindness. “I don’t think they care.  They didn’t say I couldn’t talk to people.”

“That’s
good,” she said, the black fabric of her long dress flapping through the air
like raven’s wings in time with her movements as she swung back and forth. “I
like talking to you.”  After a few
moments, she asked, “I didn’t think there was any place to go around here that
was worth getting in trouble for. Where did you go?”

“I
went to the bazaar,” he said, wanting to share his discovery with one of the
few people in recent memory who’d shown him kindness. “I met a teacher there
from the monstery.”

She
laughed gaily. “I think you mean monastery.”

“Yeah,
that!” Victus shared her laugh, then grew quieter as he remembered. “He was
nice.”

“Do
you remember which monastery he was from?” She asked. “There are four nearby.”

“He
said he was a Kenzine, but the guys here don’t believe me.”

The
creaking of the chains as they moved back and forth was the only sound while
she gathered her thoughts. “I guess there are five monasteries,” she corrected
herself, after a moment’s pause.  “Be
very careful, Victus.  They’re not a
religious order the way the rest of us are. Nobody knows what they do in
there.”

Victus
was confused by her response. She seemed uncomfortable, but he didn’t know
why.  “But he was nice,” he
reiterated.  “He bought me lunch, and
some spray that made my skin stop itching.”

She
considered that for a moment. “Did he ask you to do anything for him in
return?” she asked, unable to mask her suspicion.

“I
don’t know,” Victus shrugged his shoulders and thought for a moment.  “Not really. He asked me to be careful when
I was holding a really old sword at some Chinese guy’s shop,” he remembered.
And he asked me to take my shirt off and turn around, I guess.”

“Oh,”
she said, her lips thinning slightly with disapproval. Galise had been infected
by immorality, and there were many who wouldn’t think twice about taking
advantage of a young boy of any species. She spoke cautiously. “It sounds like
you liked him.”

An
approaching voice caused them both to startle. 
“He didn’t just like him, Victus fell in love!”  The two other boys picked up on Bront’s lead
and started making kissing noises.  “He
can’t stop talking about his ninja friend. 
Oh,” Bront stopped himself, looking aghast at his mistake.  “I’m sorry - his Kenzine friend!”  All four of the boys shared a laugh over
that one.

Victus
rolled his eyes. “You’re the one who keeps bringing him up, Bront.”

“There
is no him, you idiot,” Bront spat. 
“Either you’re lying, or you’re stupid and he tricked you.” He pulled a
small reader from his back pocket and flipped to the part he’d bookmarked so he
could rub the dog’s nose in his mess. 
“I can prove it!” As he read aloud, a grubby finger against the screen
followed his halting progress. “Although one point two percent of the
population is now varius and a consid-er-a-ble number have been educated at
Kenzine schools, no gen-et-ic hybrid has ever been approved to serve by the
Kenzine council.”  The other boys
clustered around Bront, giving him far more attention than they’d ever give to
one of their teachers. “Given their superior physical char-ic-ter-is-tics, the
only logical reason for this is that the Kenzine do not believe that the varii
are mentally stable.”

He
looked at Vick with triumph. “They all think you’re crazy.”

“That
passage you read was from Hidden Empire by Peter Stanford, was it not?”  The deep, male voice surprised them all.
They whirled as one to see Mister Dagen standing a few feet behind them,
holding a lumpy plastic pharmacy sack in one hand. “It was widely discredited
only days after it was published.” 
Walking almost silently across the crushed gravel that surrounded the
swingset, he stopped where Sister Caroline and Victus could see him without
craning their necks.

“Most
of his facts are correct, but the conclusions he draws from them are not.”  He held out a hand for Bront’s reader. “May
I see that, please?” Able to think of no good reason to refuse an adult’s
request, Bront complied, but looked very unhappy about it.

Bront’s
eyes narrowed in suspicion as he examined the man holding his reader, searching
for proof that the man was a fake.  He’d
spent countless hours reading about the fabled Kenzine Warriors, and how they’d
scaled themselves back after The War to call themselves Protectors
instead.  The man standing in front of
him was wearing the correct robes for a Teacher, and he was wearing them in the
correct way, but he certainly didn’t look like someone who could kill another
man with his thoughts.  He was short, Bront
thought, and even looked a little dumpy.

Dagen
spent ten seconds tapping away at the screen before handing it back.  “I have taken the liberty of granting you
access to several other books on the Kenzine establishment.  Some of them expose certain things which
many Kenzine would rather have not been written about, but they are generally
considered to be well-balanced reports, instead of muckraking exposes like
Hidden Empire.”

Bront
looked at the reader with narrow-eyed suspicion.  He was certain the man was trying to trick him the way he’d
tricked the dog.  But he knew a few
tricks, too.  Calling up the first book,
he was certain that he’d find that it had been borrowed from the public library
or had been hacked from the interwebs like most of his books had been. When he
saw that the book’s origination code was authentic, his eyes went back to being
wide.  If this man was a fake, he was
throwing an awful lot of money around in his efforts to look real.

“The
third book?” Dagen gestured to the tablet. “The Kenzine Way? In the back, it
has moving pictures of the practice forms that all candidates must learn before
they qualify for Adept status, in case you’re ever interested in actually
becoming a Kenzine instead of just reading about them.”

He
turned to Victus and his expression brightened.  “Are you ready to go?”

Victus
stared at him.  Dagen was picking him
up?  Now?  Here?

Dagen
sounded perplexed. “Did mistress Blovena not tell you I was coming today?” 

Stunned,
Vic could do nothing but shake his head back and forth.

Sister
Caroline stood, her posture pristine. “This is highly irregular.” She faced off
against Dagen with the courage of a chihuahua barking at a bulldog. “You can’t
come in here without written permission and pull a child out on a whim!”

Dagen
took a step back, acknowledging her authority with his body language.  He pulled out his comm. “Perhaps I got the
date wrong.  May I verify the correct
date with Miss Blovena?”  He played
thick fingers over the device as he spoke.

“I’m
afraid that won’t be possible,” sister Caroline said, staunchly. “The offices
are closed on Sundays. You’ll have to leave and come back during normal
business hours.” 

Dagen
paused, furrowed his brow in concentration, then cleared his communicator and
tried a different tack. “That’s all right. 
The primary administrators are probably listed on the educational
decree…  No?” he said to himself, when
his search came up empty. “Perhaps in the home’s emergency contact information…
Aah!  There she is.”  He pushed one final button, then stood
patiently with the device to his ear, his other fist planted on his hip.

Victus
felt the world crashing down around his lupine ears.  Now that he’d finally found a friend, the only other person who
liked him was trying her best to keep them apart!  He wanted so badly to escape the orphanage with Dagen, even if
only for a few hours.  But he also
wanted to please sister Caroline.  For
one to succeed, the other must surely lose, and his relationship with one of
them, maybe both of them, would be damaged. 
He anxiously looked back and forth between mister Dagen and miss
Caroline, not knowing what to hope. 

“Mistress
Blovena?”  Dagen nodded at whatever
response she gave. “This is Teacher Dagen from the Kenzine monastery.  I’m sorry to disturb you at home, but I
brought a supply of anti-fungal soap for Mister Entrades to your school.  I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly, “I should
have known you wouldn’t be here every day of the week and called ahead.” He
chuckled, happily. “Where is my mind?”

He
listened to her for a moment, then said, “As long as I’m here, I’d like to pick
up Victus for the afternoon. I’ve been assigned the task of renovating our
monastery’s garden, and given the fact that he’s already on restriction,
perhaps some physical labor might reinforce the lesson?”

He
pushed a button on the face of his device, and the unmistakable voice of Miss
Blovena rang out for all to hear. “...more than happy to help.  We’ll let the paperwork catch up on Monday.”

“Thank
you very much, headmistress.” Before disconnecting he looked up at the younger
woman. “Do you have any concerns, sister Caroline?”

“I
have several,” she said, indignantly.

Looking
troubled, Dagen pushed the button which disconnected the speaker and handed his
comm to the sister.  “Please,” he
offered, “share your concerns with mistress Blovena.”

With
a glare, sister Caroline held the unfamiliar instrument up to her ear.  “Hello?” 
She plugged her other ear with a finger and took a few steps away from
the others for privacy, but did not turn her back on them for an instant.  The rest of her conversation was muffled,
but Victus could tell that she was arguing to keep Dagen away from him.

Finally
one or both women ran out of words and the sister handed the comm to Dagen with
an unhappy glare.  “Have him back by
four-thirty,” she demanded.

Dagen
double-checked that the comm was disconnected before slipping it back into his
pocket, then looked to Victus, smiled and cocked his head to one side in invitation.
“Well?  Would you like to help me?”

A
happy smile washed across Victus’s face. He jumped out of the swing and ran to
Dagen, doing his best to wrap his arms around the man’s middle but not quite
succeeding.   Disengaging, Dagen looked
down and saw shadows of worry clouding the happiness in his young friend’s
eyes.  His own smile immediately
faltered.  “What’s wrong, my boy?” he
asked. “Is everything all right?”

Victus
looked back at sister Caroline uncertainly. 
“Are you...mad at her?”

Dagen
immediately sank to one knee so he was at eye level with Victus.  “Heavens no, boy!” he reassured, rubbing the
boy’s arms. “I’m pleased that she cares enough to make sure you’re safe!”  He shot a quick glance back at the nun. “It
takes a lot of courage to stand up in defense of the people you care about.
That must mean that she cares very much about you.” He gently poked a finger in
Victus’s chest in emphasis.

Dagen
looked around for some place clean to sit, found none, then sat down
anyway.  “Would you mind so much if we
stayed here? For a while, at least? 
Perhaps if we spent some time here, your friend might not feel so bad
about our leaving?”

Victus
was clearly not thrilled about the idea. 
“You were sitting on the swings,” Dagen commented.  “Would you like me to push you?”  This suggestion went over much better, and
Victus climbed back into the swing, his brushy black tail wagging happily back
and forth behind him.  

As
Dagen pushed Victus to thrilling heights on the swing, he took advantage of the
opportunity to speak with sister Caroline about her order, her past, and her
role in the orphanage.  Ten minutes
later he was teaching Victus and a half dozen other boys to do headstands on
the grassy area to the side of the school, and an hour after that he instructed
a substantial group of boys in the primary Tai Chi forms. 

Each
boy vied for the attention of this magnificent new stranger, but Dagen took
special care that, no matter how many children were around them, Victus
remained the center of his attention. 
Now that the varius had something they coveted, the other boys were
treating him with far more respect than they had even an hour earlier.  “Please!” they begged, “show us how to use a
sword!”

Dagen
was momentarily tempted, but this was not the controlled environment of a
Kenzine school.  Teaching these boys the
tranquil, meditative movements of Tai Chi was one thing.  Teaching them to wield a sword, even in
play, was quite another.  “You’ll have
to ask Vic about that,” he told them. “He knows the primary sword form.”  He looked down at his friend. “Do you
remember how it goes?”

Victus
nodded his head with enthusiasm, and Dagen added, “But you must receive
Mistress Blovena’s permission first, do you understand?  This must be her decision.”  Dagen felt satisfied with that answer.  There was no way in seven flaming hells that
mistress Blovena would agree to such an outlandish thing, and the rest of the
boys would see Victus as possessing secret, forbidden knowledge that was too
dangerous to share.  What delicious
cachet, for a seven year old to have!

Sister
Caroline was gathering the boys up for their lunch, and Dagen thought that now
might be a good time to cleave from the group. 
“Sister?”  he called.  “Would you mind if Victus and I took lunch
off campus?”

“We’ll
see you back here at four thirty,” she called, smiling as she pushed errant
strands of hair back into containment. 
“Have fun!”

Victus
waved goodbye and followed mister Dagen to the waiting groundcar, his tail
wagging happily behind him.  For once,
he was going to be the one to leave campus while everyone else watched!  He was considerably less enthusiastic when
Dagen pushed open the gates to the almost mythical Kenzine compound to reveal,
not hidden riches and tempting treasures, but a battered garden in sore need of
weeding.  His voice was plaintive. “I
thought you were kidding!”

Dagen’s
expression was stony.  “Kenzines do not
kid.”  But then he smiled, and when he
did, the world around Victus seemed to grow far brighter.  “Actually, that’s not true.  We do have our share of fun, here.”  His gaze shifted to the garden before
them.  “Unfortunately, I wasn’t kidding
about this.” 

He
sighed. “Gardening has never been my favorite activity.”  Walking to a barrel at the corner of the
garden, he withdrew a long-handled hoe. 
“I suppose if I enjoy eating the delicious meals that Master Franchesca
prepares, I should also learn to enjoy growing food for her to cook.”   Inexpertly wielding the implement, he began
chopping up the soil surrounding the roots of long-dead stalks and vines.  “Work like this is good, though,” he
commented as he worked.  “It builds up a
healthy appetite so the food tastes better!”

Out
of the corner of his eye, he noticed Victus move to the tool barrel and peek
inside.  Dagen kept up a running
commentary on his work, but was far more interested in watching what Victus was
doing.  The boy was so engaged in
exploring the contents of the barrel that he wasn’t really listening, 

One
by one, Victus pulled each of the tools free, carefully examining each in turn.
He struggled to remove an odd-looking contraption with two wooden handles on
it.  “What is this?” he asked, hefting
it up where Dagen could see.

The
teacher looked up, pausing in his work to wipe sweat from his brow.  “It’s a post hole digger,” he said.  “you use it to dig round holes in the
ground. Although,” he said, looking around them to examine the spare paddock
which housed the monastery garden, “I must admit that I don’t really know why
we have one, since we have no fences which would require a post.”

The
day was sunny, and Dagen soon found his robes excessive for the weather. He
stripped them off and hung them on a rake handle near the door.  Victus had wandered to an adjacent corner of
the garden and was experimenting with the post hole digger.  Dagen watched him for a moment, then moved a
few feet closer. 

As
he hacked away at the dry ground, he covertly watched the boy to see his
reaction.  Many canine varii were highly
possessive, especially when they were figuring out something new.  His friend Rob had certainly been that
way.  Dagen and Sam had learned to sit
back and watch whenever something new came into Rob’s life.  Rob would pick, poke, pry, test, and
research to death whatever novel thing came along.  Only after either mastering it or losing interest were Sam and
Dagen permitted to try their hand. He loved Rob with all his heart, but his
friend’s excessively possessive nature could be annoying.

To
Dagen’s delight, Victus quietly moved closer and worried the earth nearer to
where his friend was working.  After a
few minutes watching Victus fumble with the unfamiliar tool, Dagen paused his
labors and asked.  “Would you like me to
show you how to use that?”

Victus
stared at the diggers for a moment, then dragged them over to Dagen.  “Yes, please.”

Dagen
smiled and put down his hoe.  “Hold them
like this,” he said, demonstrating to the boy. 
“They are heavy, are they not?”   
Victus silently nodded his agreement. 
“That is the effect of gravity pulling against the mass of the tool.
Have you learned about gravity in school yet?”

Again,
the boy nodded.  “Yeah,” he said,
sounding perturbed, “they taught us about gravity, but they won’t say anything
about dinosaurs.  They act like they
never even existed!”

“That’s
a shame,” Dagen shook his head, dizzy at the thought that such ideas still
existed, in their day and age. “Gravity was around when the dinosaurs walked
the Earth, you know.”

“Sure,”
Victus agreed. “It kept the dinosaurs from floating off into space!”

“So
they do at least teach about space?” Dagan said.  “That’s a relief.”

“Of
course they teach about space.”  Victus
answered.  “But they also tell us that
we need to get back to Earth as fast as we can, because only people on Earth go
to heaven.”  He looked inquisitive.  “Is that true?”

“I
certainly hope not,” Dagen said, trying to keep his eyes from rolling. “Does
sister Caroline believe that?”  But
before Victus could answer, Dagen  held
up a hand to silence him.  “On second
thought, I don’t want to know.” But what you should know,” he said, returning
their conversation to more productive topics, “is that some scientists think
that dinosaurs used gravity to their advantage.”

Victus
looked awestruck.  “Really?”

“Really!”
Dagen chuckled at his young friend’s expression. “You can use gravity to your
advantage as well.” He held up the hole digger.  “See how gravity pulls the heavy end straight down?  Watch this.”  He let go of the tool, and neither of them was the slightest bit
surprised when it fell to the ground, burying itself a few centimeters into the
soil Dagen had just loosened. 

Dagen
appeared thunderstruck by what had just happened.  “Look at that!” he cried, pointing excitedly at the business-end
of the post hole digger, which was now standing straight up in the air, “It dug
itself in the ground all by itself!  It
must be...magic!”  He clasped his hands
over his mouth, his eyes wide with shock.

Victus
laughed happily at Dagen’s over-the-top vaudeville performance.  “No!” he almost shouted in  his excitement, “it was gravity!”

“Absolutely!”
Dagen said, triumphantly.  Gravity
helped me do work, and that’s what at least one of the dinosaurs did.  I forget which one, but they say it could
only lift its tail up!  If it wanted to
bring its tail down on something, it had to let gravity do the work.  Now,” he said, pulling the diggers free of
the ground, “take hold of the handles, but gently this time.  I’ll lift them up for you, and you can help
me drop them.  But watch where your feet
are!”  They counted to three together,
then let the digger fall. 

They
repeated the exercise a half dozen times before Dagen suggested that Victus
keep his hands on the digger as it fell. 
“That way, you stay in control of where it goes.”  When the tool was once again falling
straight down, Dagen backed away and watched as young Victus went through the
motions by himself.  On the surface it
appeared to be be a simple exercise, but Dagen was busy harvesting vast amounts
of information about the boy’s strength and coordination, his ability to follow
directions, his inquisitive nature, and how he handled the unexpected.

His
young friend was conscientious, keeping his feet clear as he worked, and
repeating the motions exactly as he was taught.  But the movement exercised unfamiliar muscles, and Victus’
shoulders soon grew tired.   “You’ve
done well!” Dagen sounded impressed. “But you will need to wear gloves if
you’re going to use those any more, and I’m afraid we don’t have any here that
will fit you.

“But
you’re not wearing gloves,” Victus observed, peering over the tool in Dagen’s
hands with a great deal of concern. “You didn’t hurt your hands, did you?”

Dagen
was touched by the boy’s authentic worry for him.  “The Kenzine’s first tool, and sometimes his only tool he has, is
his hands,” Dagen explained. “We work them very hard to make them tough.  See?” 
He held his hands out for examination. 
Victus traced a finger over the thick callouses and ridges on the man’s
fingers and palms.

More
interested now, the boy took one of Dagen’s large hands in both of his, rubbing
over the palms with his thumbs.  He
hesitated for the barest of moments, and Dagen guessed what he wanted.  “Go ahead,” he said, nodding his head.  “It’s okay.” 

Reassured,
Victus leaned over and smelled the man’s palm.   Several times he renewed the scent, breathing out the exhausted
air and breathing in a new bouquet that revealed much of what the man had done
in the past few days.  Under the man’s
base scent Victus detected the smell of varnish from the tool’s handle,
essences of cooking herbs and spices from the last several meals, more of that
unusual smoky incense, the clean smells of soap, shampoo and shaving cream, and
a hundred others that he could not yet identify.

The
wealth of knowledge was exchanged in a few seconds, and Victus let go of
Dagen’s hand.  A second later, on
impulse, he offered his own palm to Dagen. 
The Kenzine looked surprised, then smiled gently and bent to inhale over
the boy’s hand.  “I wish I had your
sense of smell,” he said, straightening. 
“Paw pads all smell like corn chips to me.”

Victus
laughed and smelled his own palm.  “You
think they smell like that?” he asked.

Dagen
shrugged and shared in the boy’s amusement. “I do!  We all have things we’re good at, my friend.  You’re good at smelling things, and I’m good
at hoeing.  Speaking of which…” he
looked back to the untended garden, “this garden will not tend itself, I’m
afraid.”

Victus
put the post hole diggers back in the barrel and pulled out a hoe identical to
the one Dagen was using.  “Can I help?”

“I
would appreciate it!” Dagen said, smiling appreciatively.  “This plot of soil is large, isn’t it?” Victus
nodded, and Dagen took a moment to show him the proper way to swing a hoe.  Once the boy was established in his work,
Dagen remarked, offhandedly, “I’d guess that this garden plot is about one
hundred square meters.  Victus looked at
the plot they were tending, and again nodded his head. 

After
a few moments working silently, Dagen said, “Victus?  When we finish, if we both do the same amount of work, how many
square meters do you think you’ll have hoed?”

***

Dagen
ran his hand through his hair, sighing in frustration. 

“You’re
already getting thin up there,” his friend noted.  “Don’t make it worse by aggravating what’s left.”

Dagen
chuckled and pulled his hands away from his scalp.  “Every time I think about that young boy’s situation, more of my
hair falls out.”

“So
this is about your little protege?” the Abbot asked.  “What happened now?”

“Don’t
get me started,” Dagen fumed. “They may have good intent, but they’re doing
huge damage to that child.”  He leaned
over and refilled his tea mug. “I know for a fact that he’s not getting a
proper education.”  He leaned forward
and rested his elbows on the table. “Would you believe that they still teach
creation out here?  And only
creation?  And that only people who are
on Mother Earth when they die can go to heaven?”

“Astonishing,”
Wesley agreed, knowing that any attempt to say more while his friend was on a
tirade was pointless.

“When
I brought him back to the orphanage yesterday, I made a special point to tell
the headmistress about the problem with his skin.  I go back today, and what do I find?  It’s as damp as ever. 
Apparently their policy of daily showers is more important than a policy
of good health.”

“Do
we need to buy them a dryer?”  Wesley
asked.  “We could certainly scare one up
somewhere.”

“Perhaps,”
Dagen sounded uncertain. “But given the circumstances I’m not certain how long
something like that would last.  The
other boys manage to break everything he’s been given so far, so this would
probably be little different.  It’s a
systemic problem.  They have one varius
child among a hundred sapiens, and no matter what happens, he gets left out in
the cold.”  He sighed.  “I brought some antifungal soap with me when
I visited.  That should tide him over
until we can find a permanent solution.”

“Hmm…  Did you keep the receipt?”

“Of
course,” Dagen said.  “I know how rabid
you are about matching up paperwork.”

“Good!”
The abbott rubbed his hands together in anticipation of receiving such a
prize.  “It will make a dandy tax
deduction.”

“Don’t
get too excited,” Dagen warned him. “It was only about twelve credits.”

“Every
little bit helps,” his friend countered. 
“The way tax law is structured on that planet, we can actually come out
ahead if we mind our P’s and Q’s. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is
it?  Is there nobody in the orphanage
who can see to his needs?”

“There
is one young woman,” Dagen said, “a sister from one of the local religious
monasteries has been assigned there. 
She’s a good woman,” he added, “but she’s overwhelmed.” He selected a
cookie from the assortment on the tray and munched on it somberly.  “The best solution for that young man’s
problems would be to find him some place to stay that’s more in line with his
needs.”  He was so wrapped up in his
problems that the flavor of the cookie didn’t register until after he had swallowed
it.  He worked his tongue around his
mouth to capture more of the taste. 
“That’s a damned good cookie, by the way.” 

“You’re
welcome,” the Abbot smirked. “I have them imported just for you."

"Don't
let word of that get out," Dagen warned. "We all know what happens
when someone else in a facility thinks they see favoritism."

"Yes,"
the Abbot said, dryly, "you wouldn’t get your special cookies."  He sobered. 
"You think I treat you any better than anyone else?"  When Dagen waved a cookie at him, Wesley
sighed. "You get cookies,  Uhlu gets
tortilla chips… Franchesca hardly eats, so I send her opera recordings."

"Is
that where she's been getting those dreadful things?" Dagen
complained.  "Next time, instead of
cookies you can send me earplugs."

"They're
not everybody's cup of tea, I have to admit," the Abbot chuckled.  "Modern opera sounds like someone
strangling a cat. I know Galise isn't everyone's idea of a good time, so I try
to make life as bearable as I can." 
He inclined his head toward the camera. 
“Let me know if the cookies lose their savor, or I’ll still be sending
them to you twenty-three years from now.”

Dagen
chuckled.  “Very funny.  But there’s no way I’m staying on this ball
of mud for anything near that long.”

“Never
say never!” The Abbot said, brightly. 
“You might end up absolutely falling in love with that place.”

“Hmmm”
Dagen hummed as he stroked his chin, pondering the Abbot’s words.  “No.” 
He sighed.  “Now that I’m all
settled in and I’m even making a few new friends, are you finally going to tell
me the real reason I’m here?”

“I
told you,” the Abbot insisted, switching to a more formal delivery, “you are to
expand your horizons.  When they have
been sufficiently expanded, you are to return and tell me why you were there.  In the meantime, since you appear to desire
direction…” he paused and picked up a tablet. Scrolling down, he quickly found
what he was looking for.  “Put those
teacher robes to work.  Master Nolan is
going to be out on sabbatical for an indeterminate period of time starting next
week, and you are to take his place until he returns.”

After
a moment spent consulting his notes, the Abbot continued. “You’ll be expected
to maintain office hours, thus, you will be moving into the teacher’s
quarters.”  He put down the pad and
turned his attention back to Dagen’s image. 
“Since you’re assuming Nolan’s class, you might as well assume his
quarters as well.  I’ll have him move
his personal things into storage before he goes.”

Dagen
whistled softly.  “Doesn’t Nolan have
that room in the corner? The one with all the windows?”

“Yes,”
Wesley confirmed.  “It’s quite a bit
bigger than the guest quarters you’re in now, but don’t get used to it,” he
warned.  “When he finally does return, I
assume that he’ll want to have his room back.”

“Still,
it’s quite a bit more spacious than here,” Dagen mused, looking around
himself.  If teaching Nolan’s students
was what it took to get him out of this broom closet of a room, he was all for
it.

The
Abbot chuckled. “If you find yourself rattling around in all that extra space,
perhaps we can find you a roommate. 
Perhaps Franchesca would enjoy acquainting you with modern opera?

Dagen
frowned his best, ‘don’t even think about it’ frown. “Good night, Abbot
Wesley,” he said, acerbically.

All
the way back on Earth, Abbot Wesley of the Kenzine Order donned his most
beatific smile.  “Good night, Teacher
Dagen.”