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Jake, Me, and the Zipper [MultiFormat]
eBook by Rajnar Vajra
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$0.90 |
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$0.77 |
eBook Category: Science Fiction AnLab Award Winner
eBook Description: On Fey's World, the natives communicate via incredibly elaborate body-language. Sometimes it's easy to forget that in nature, form tends to follow function.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2003
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [98 KB], eReader (PDB) [39 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [26 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [24 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [72 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [96 KB], hiebook (KML) [88 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [55 KB], iSilo (PDB) [21 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [27 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [55 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [39 KB]
Words: 7512
Reading time: 21-30 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
"Rajnar Vajra returns to Analog for a second month in a row with "Jake, Me, and the Zipper." This is a story reminiscent of the best of the Heinlein juveniles I loved in my youth, with a sufficient dash of modernity to feel contemporary. I think it may stand the test of time almost as well. And like the old Heinlein work, perfectly satisfactory to an adult reader. (There is an identity thread here, too, but it is of culture-switching, not body-switching.) Hans, the narrator, is of elementary school age, living on Fey's World in a family including an adopted son from the native race, the Labiles. The story covers a day in their life, where things go from good to bad to worse in the tradition of juvenalia and good fiction for all ages and genres. Engineering, biology, and heroism come to the forefront, as you might expect."--Jay Lake, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)
Feyford City is always hot in early fall, but this was special. Jake, me, and the Zipper were practically melting on the sidewalk, squinting up at Gramma leaning out the window of her third story apartment. "Ready, Hans?" she called as she does every school day. "Ready as I'll ever be," I replied for about the millionth time. "Here it comes. Bombs ahoy!" Then she dropped a twisted piece of newspaper holding two half dollars, a quarter, and a decim. Enough to buy three boxes of Cha-gum candy. Last year, when I was eleven, we wouldn't have needed the decim. "Run amok inflation," Gramma calls it. Today her aim was off, the bundle was going to hit Zip square on the head ... he lowered his furry skull at the last moment and caught the paper neatly between his ears. Wish I could do that! But the most we humans can do with our tiny ears is wiggle them. Jake and I applauded and Gramma giggled. We kids gave her a goodbye wave (I blew a secret kiss), then headed toward Bunder's General, the nearest source of Cha-gum. "First you pulp it, then you gulp it," I sang, improvising. Maybe I don't have the best voice in the world but you should hear Jake's! "First you chew it, then you blew it," Jake grumbled. He only ate Cha-gum to be sociable. Candy, yum, said Zipper, but not out loud. The natives here on Fey's World (like Zip) don't use sound to talk. My dad says that Labiles speak "body-language" better than anyone in the galaxy and that humans get only a fraction of what they're saying. He's wrong. I understand my adopted brother just fine, thank you. I've only grown up with him since pre-school! A loud sniff startled me. Labiles are built for sniffs; six nostrils ring their piggy noses. Right now, Zip was testing the air and that made me nervous. Nervous because this was Crazy Season, when solar flares make the Weather Service into a liar's club and everybody has to watch the sky for "clumping." No dark smudges were floating up there so I relaxed ... about two percent. * * * *Fundrastorms are no joke. You're dead if you can't get inside when a storm is coming. Dad says that dry air, fundra-spores, and solar flares are a bad mix. The spores are electrostatic and get super-agitated in Crazy Season, attracting and repelling each other like "fickle magnets." Once I saw a dog that hadn't made it to shelter. The poor thing looked like it'd lost a fight with a belt-sander. I wouldn't care for that to happen to me or Jake, but with Zip around it wouldn't. Labiles evolved on this planet and can smell storms coming from miles away. But today, Zip seemed worried about something lower than the sky. He kept sniffing and looking around. I glanced over at Jake and we both shrugged.
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