Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman Page B

whole impression was strength. He’d be a good friend in a fight and would probably blitz the arm wrestling competition. Was he good looking in his culture? Maybe they didn’t even consider looks. Remembering the Elders with their huge jowls, I’d say Mav was movie star material. Then again, they probably didn’t have movies. I spooned up a huge mouthful as he collected his food from the delivery tray.
    â€˜Joss?’ he sang hesitantly.
    I grunted. My mouth was too full to get a word out.
    â€˜I am happy you heard the healing song. I am much less alone now.’
    I swallowed quickly.
    â€˜I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ I mumbled.
    Mav smiled, keeping his secondary mouth closed. He was learning. He picked up a handful of food in the scoop he had made out of his thumbs, pushed it into his secondary mouth, mulched it, then closed the primary mouth over it. Grisly. I smiled back, making a mental note to never again chew with my mouth open. We finished eating in silence.

Time-jumped
    Half an hour later, Sergeant Wolfendon and her merry men arrived to take us to PT class. I was under my bed looking for my other gym shoe. Mav was calling out helpful suggestions from the living area, but somehow I didn’t think my shoe would have jumped into the air duct or crawled down the waste-disposal unit.
    Wolfendon wasn’t so sympathetic.
    â€˜Get a move on, Aaronson. No one’s late on my watch.’
    Now there was a woman who badly needed the stick extracted from her bum. I picked up my other pair of jeans. Maybe the shoe was stuck in the leg somewhere. I had a habit of pulling everything off at once. Wolfendon’s armscreen beeped and she walked back into the living area, murmuring into the voice pad. I felt along the jeans leg and pulled out a pair of undies.
    â€˜Okay Aaronson, you can stop looking,’ Wolfendon said, standing in my doorway. ‘There’s been a change in plans. Instead of PT this morning, your class is touring one of the labs.’
    I threw my jeans back on the floor. What a rush! We were finally going to see one of the Time-Jumpers. Maybe eventouch it. I’d seen loads of holos, of course, but not the real thing. Only Centre personnel and students got to see the real thing. I picked up my badge and traced the gold circular arrow. Well, from now on, I was a Centre student and in six years I’d be a qualified time-jumper. Then the fun would really start. I could go to the jazz joints of the 1930s, see Toots Thielmans record with Quincy Jones, even sneak into the famous Rogue Henry/Dada Wells jam session.
    That was my plan, anyway. I’d applied to specialise in music history — Blues and Jazz — but you don’t get confirmation of your main research area until second year. According to my calculations, I had a good chance of getting the go-ahead. There were only six other music specialists in the Centre: four Classical, one Eastern, and one Rock. The place needed a Blues/Jazz expert.
    Wolfendon and her men surrounded us in a protective diamond and we marched out of the suite. Mav was so excited that he was trying to bounce and walk at the same time. The guard beside him nearly got pushed through the virtual wall by a high-flying ear joint.
    â€˜Do we get to use the time mover today?’ Mav asked, as we scanned out of P3. He sneezed, barely catching the double load of snot in a wad of tissues.
    â€˜Time-Jumper,’ I corrected, ‘And no, we don’t even get inside one until the end of second year.’
    He made an odd noise, a combination of a high A and a raspberry. My sentiments exactly.
    The four labs were in the Daniel Sunawa-Harrod Building which was in the dead centre of the university. The Time Building, as it was called, had no windows and only two entrances, front and back. The security measures were supposedto be somewhere between paranoid and homicidal. Dr Harris, our class coordinator, was waiting beside