Dream CL

I was an alien merchant in a giant ship terminal.  The terminal was so vast that parts had to be reached by a series of pneumatic, personal-sized tubes.  Because of the size, parts of the station were run down and rather seedy, and so were the clientele that seemed to live there.

I was minding my own business.  Over in one corner, a representative of the Psi Corps had set up an information booth, and several beings went over and began asking loud, stupid questions.  He answered very politely.  One pale being took out a weapon and shot the officer; a scraggly but young-looking human then leapt on the booth and urinated on the body.

The creatures responsible for the murder began terrorizing the witnesses until they fled; one young female creature was killed by a freezing-shrinking device.  For some reason no one bothered me.

I rose and left sometime later, and stood in line at a booth to get a kind of ice-cream like dish.  In the line behind me, people pointed to a young girl and said she had witnessed the murder earlier.  A young human woman behind me said she was going to get the girl some ice-cream.

I took a bowl from the stack, and thrust it at the young girl; she recoiled, and everyone in line began to berate me.

"Look," I said, "you were going to get her ice-cream.  I showed you that she did not want any.  You would have wasted your money and the ice-cream."  But the others were not fully convinced; the young woman insisted that had she bought the ice-cream, she could have comforted the child.  I said, "Just because my appearance is not pleasing doesn't change the nature of the ice-cream."

Later, after I left the line and was waiting for my ship to arrive, I reflected on the incident.  I wondered if the young woman would have succeeded.  Some time after that, I saw the young woman waiting at a bench.  I went over to her and apologized for the earlier incident.

"That's all right," she said.  "You didn't know.  I found the girl later and reunited her with her folks."  Just then, a small ship passed overhead, looking at the benches.  The young woman waved.  "That's my ride!" she said, and went back into the terminal.

I followed, unsure of myself.  I saw her get into a tube to take her to port 927, and she vanished into the system.  I thought about taking the same tube, to speak with her further, but no other tubes arrived at the node.

I got on one of the larger tube crawlers and rode back to where my own ship should be waiting.  As I sat in the bench, a creature next to me fell asleep and leaned against me, snoring.  I was about to shove him away when I saw another young girl, looking at me and smiling at the spectacle.

I smiled back, rolled my eyes, and jerked my thumb at the other creature, as if to say, "What can you do?"  The little girl laughed delightedly.