Baby lived in a big gray city on Jupiter's moon named Ganymede. The city had this weird light around it and made it not so good to be in, but Baby could somehow muddle the place through, since her families lived there anyway.
Strictly speaking, the city wasn't entirely gray – as on Earth, it had green and yellow patches numerous enough for Baby even to feel herself happy. Green patches were formed by grass and trees, yellow – by windows, the rest – edifices, people and machines – were, well, the big gray one.
Baby's current family was a common family. Baby had a mom. Her mom was a shop assistant. And Baby had a dad, and her dad was a computer guy.
She had her own room, and it was facing Big East Spot. In the mornings there was tremendously large Jupiter up in the sky, and artificial yellow sun, and real gulls, and plumes of vapor rising above the nuclear power plant.
Baby's room was small. There were walls there covered by blue paint, the white puffy carpet and two beautiful bonsai trees on the windowsill.
While Baby's family was a common family, she herself wasn't a common baby. Baby's ex-kin were travelers from the Outer Land. They have left her at the airlock of the Information Department of the local authority four years ago. It took three days for her to cross airlock, and another three to pick the decent father of the inhabitants. At those days she was all over the place, out of time, alone and scared. She felt that she wouldn't have choose anyone if it wasn't for fear.
But here he was, this guy – smart, intelligent, and here was her fear, and Baby made up her mind. He brought her home, and there was his wife there, and small room covered by blue paint, and six months later they had a baby, and Baby has become a human.
The first year with a new family was hard for Baby. A month-old kid who knows two languages does look strange, isn't it? And what if one of these languages is an entangled language of creatures from the outside?
She was six months old before she let herself a basic set of words, and one whole year passed before she rushed for the rest.
Inside the premises small children on Ganymede to a large extent were left to themselves – since you don't count voice digital assistants, of course. But usually there are no one who doesn't – usually VDass is too smart to be dismissed. Like any other ass.
Baby used to have such an assistant, too. His name was Nigel.
People love to name. From time to time Baby thought this human ability knows no bounds.
Do you know what a trick a digital being is? It has a voice, a face, even a temper. It is programmed to be as friendly as possible, and at the same time it is blocking you at every turn.
But things change when you're smart, too.
Baby visited her ex family after her third human birthday. As a general rule, a three-year-olds don't go on outside the city on their own, but Baby had managed to get away: one night, when her parents fell asleep, and their condo turned quiet, she just unplugged serial port, put on her spacesuit, took the elevator and went outside. Not the condo, – the city. The airlock isn't hard when you have got hands.
It was bright enough and cold out there, and Jupiter was shining over her head. She just stood there for, like, twenty minutes and listened to the sound with which spacesuit air shifted in and out of her lungs.
And then they came. They were small and black like fine coal dust.
They have fallen out of nowhere, swirled, and Baby kind of got scared a little at first. She felt like crying, she even protruded her low lip a tiny bit and gave a sob.
"Hush, human," said dust, "where are you, small drop of void?"
"Here," whispered Baby.
"Well," said dust, "we're here, too. Just remember you're not alone in it. No matter how far away from you we are, we'll always be your family."
But then her human father stormed out of airlock, his face as white as a ghost's in a bubble of headgear, grabbed her of her feet and ran back in.
Later that night, she heard her mother whispering furiously to her father, "It's nonsense! Do something, Rishi, fix it! Can't you?"
After that incident Nigel got fixed – he has become uninterruptible. And it was hard time for Baby who was small and still required guidance – until she figured out how to fix it again.
If you can't beat them, join them.
"Morning, honey," Nigel said.
"Morning," Baby said.
"Mommy says you have to get up."
"You really have to say it? I know I have to get up."
She turned in the bed, stretched, got up and went to the bathroom to pee.
"Think I figured out your problem," Nigel said in the bathroom. "You think if you do all the stuff yourself, it will be better. But it doesn't."
"You want to pee for me?" Baby asked.
In the bathroom mirror slightly above her face appeared a wide boyish grin.
"You can do something with the way you joke," it said. "I just meant'd like to help you."
"I see," Baby washed up, brushed her teeth, and watched appliances went out. "I'm hungry."
"What would you like?"
"Blueberry ice cream."
"Very funny. I have these flake things, milk and apple for you."
The bathroom light went out, thus inviting Baby to go out, too.
"No!" she protested. "I want to do it myself!"
"To do what?"
"Turn out the light!"
The light went on.
"As you wish."
Baby with the satisfaction turned the light out. Great.
Everyone knows today that VDass is a servant, centurion and a tutor at the same time. It's also trying to look like your friend, but actually it's not. Why? Well, maybe because it doesn't actually care about you? All it really cares about is an order. It takes care of your health and appropriate education, but not because it loves you. It does this because it thinks there is less trouble with you when you are well, well fed and well trained.
"So today, I'm going to tell you about the alphabet," Nigel said.
Baby rolled her eyes and sighed a sigh.
"It can be used to look up words in large dictionaries," Nigel said.
Then there was a bunch of stray letters floating on Baby's screen – like lazy silver fish in ocean water. Then one of them flickered and turned back against the current.
"It's A," Nigel said. "Through the force of symbols…"
"Warning! Depressurization! Initialization emergency system!"
The wailing of sirens started somewhere high above.
"What is it?" Baby asked.
"I think some ship crashed," Nigel said. "It hit the dome."
"Wow… What kind of ship? "
"I don't know," – Nigel said. "I've never seen this ship before."
Baby ran to the entrance hall and grabbed her spacesuit.
"Just stay where you are," Nigel said.
