*****
Parting in the morning was painful. The alien tried to get onto the hover bus with him, and only stopped when Keelic, at his father’s insistence, told the alien to stay behind.
Gray loneliness shot through with stabs of abandonment struck Keelic, causing tears to well in his eyes all the way to school. The boy in the seat next to him teased him about it, and Keelic, without thinking, hit him in the belly as hard as he could. The boy folded up, holding his middle. Keelic looked at the pilot, but the man was concentrating on flying the bus. Keelic settled back, glaring out the window.
When the bus landed, he got off first and hurried through the wind into the schoolhouse. He didn’t expect the boy to tell who hit him, no one told here, but Keelic did not want to be there if the boy did. Keelic was surprised that he’d done it, and felt guilty. He hadn’t meant to hurt the kid, just make him be quiet.
The foulness of his mood deepened when he saw Thom in the hall. The Chief Instructor’s son smirked as he passed Keelic. Keelic turned to watch Thom’s swaggering back, and vowed revenge. He would have to be careful. Thom had many friends and they were all against him now.
He barely noticed Ermol Life and History, or Expansion History, as he was plotting multiple ways of destroying Thom. All his thoughts of havoc and revenge did nothing to brighten the day, and his loneliness swirled together with his anger and shame. And fear.
When Keelic stomped into the Study Hall, Mr. Hallod speared him with a penetrating look, then proceeded to ignore Keelic’s mood and push him harder than any day previous. Keelic worked till he was sweating, forgetting his cares in the struggle to understand and solve the equations Mr. Hallod threw at him. Mr. Hallod praised his hard work, and Keelic found that Thom didn’t matter quite as much for the rest of the day.
On the bus ride home, Keelic felt pale bluish tugs of anticipation, a green recognition swirl, and a happy light-reddish-umber urgency. His father and the alien were waiting for him as the bus battled against a powerful wind to reach the hover pad.
A gust shoved it away, but the pilot gunned the craft and plopped it down. Keelic’s dad walked up to the door as Keelic jumped out. A gust caught him and nearly tumbled him to the ground, but the alien reached out and steadied him. Keelic felt an orange glow of friendship.
Keelic’s dad stuck his head into the bus, glanced at the two remaining children, and said to the pilot, "Are you sure you want to continue? We have plenty of room. You are welcome to stay until the storm blows over."
The driver looked at him like he was being silly, and shook his head. "Been out in worse in these weak-field buses. Looks a be the first norther of the season. These puffs are but the start."
Nodding, Keelic’s dad moved away. Fans screamed and the bus leapt skyward.
Braced against his dad, Keelic peered north at the churning mass of clouds stretching across the horizon, dwarfing and obscuring the mountains. Electric-blue lighting danced on the cloud face, occasionally leaping kilometers ahead to stab the forest. A bass rumble was carried on the wind.
Raising his arms, Keelic leaned forward, letting the wind support him. A gust toppled him back, and strong hands stopped his backward progress. His dad, holding him, shouted above the wind, "We have to go in now."
Keelic was reluctant, but his father insisted. Inside, the sound of the wind was muted, but the deep grumbling of the thunder penetrated. The family went up the north tower to Keelic’s room to watch the storm front approach.
The Patamic tree leaf-stems pointed south before the wind, springing back with each lessening, only to be pushed harder in the mounting winds. The top of the forest rippled as the wind played over it, a sea of waving leaves. An occasional one was ripped off its trunk and sent flying over the forest top. Father tuned Keelic’s console to the planetary weather analysis, and tied it into Anny’s sensors.
He said, "There are two-hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds in that front, and hail five centimeters in diameter."
Mother asked, "Are you sure the house can take it?"
"I can take it, Sarah," replied Anny. "My braces go to the bedrock and I am rated to withstand eight-hundred-kilometer gusts. Embedded within my entire matrix is an integral sensor net with a ten-micron resolution. I can withstand, without structural damage, the impact of a mature Patamic stalk falling from eight kilometers. My infrastructure is composed of dynamically adaptive polymers that provide stress dispersion, impact absorption, and damage repair."
Keelic’s mom smiled. "Thank you Anny. I know you can take it—that storm just looks frightening."
"I understand."
The cloud layer stretched from ground to blue-black sky, darkness spreading beneath it, consuming everything within its extent. The wind rose to an undulating moan, and the tower began to vibrate.
Sitting on the bed with the alien, Keelic put his arm around him, and they shared each other’s excitement. An image of Leesol leapt to mind. He wondered if she was somewhere watching the storm, too. In a pang of longing, Keelic dropped his eyes from the window.
Mother gasped. Keelic looked, but saw with very different vision. He could see the wind itself. He could discern the contours of the clouds, and almost distinguish individual raindrops.
Across the space between storm front and house, a tremendous downburst was racing, ripping up leaves. As it approached, Keelic grabbed for something to hold on to. The blast struck the house and the tower shuddered. Leaves hit the window with loud cracks and raindrops splattered and streaked themselves on the glass. In a blue flash, in which Keelic saw the individual branches of energy, a bolt of lightning struck a Patamic tree at the base of the hill. The tree exploded, pieces whipped away by the wind. The crack-boom of thunder made everyone jump, and Keelic lost the alien’s vision.
He was about to tell his parents what he had seen, but more lightning strikes silenced him. Hail came next, smashing against the windows and leaping in the grasses on the hill. Keelic wondered where the seed-hoppers went for shelter.
They sat on the bed and watched until rain completely obscured the window. The house shook as vicious winds tore at it. Clouds covered the sky and it became night, lit by brilliant strobes of blue, the darkness between filled with the patter-cracks of hail strikes and booms of thunderous violence.
Father brought up the house control panel on Keelic’s console and checked the house’s integrity. Color-coded stress patterns played through the structure. Keelic waited for Anny to say something, but she was silent, and Keelic silently told his dad to turn off house control because Anny wouldn’t like it if he didn’t believe her. His father turned on the countermute, enabling conversation, but no one spoke. A fresh wave of hail began to pummel the house.
His parents offered to have him sleep with them, but he declined, mildly insulted. How old did they think he was? They tucked him into bed with the alien and left. As soon as they were gone, he turned off the mute, sat up with the alien, and watched the storm until late.