Sylvia Chapter 14 (WIP)
Grandfather was there to greet them as they came through the teleportal, his eye twinkling as he saw the packages hanging in the sling below the antigrav disk. "Your trip was productive. Was it also enjoyable?"
"I enjoyed it." Oma jumped down from the platform, changing in size and appearance as her feet reached the floor, and then slipping her arms around her husband. "How was your day?"
"Also productive." He put an arm around her as he turned his attention back to Sylvia.
"I had a lot of fun, and learned new things." She smiled shyly up at him. "But we spent a lot of credit."
"That is no crime." He gave Oma a light kiss on the head, and then let go of her so that he could reach with his free hand for Sylvia.
"Here, I'll take the packages." Oma's eyes were twinkling as she scooped the antigrav disk and its cargo into her hands.
"What are you hiding?" He paused in the act of holding Sylvia close and rumbling to her to eye his wife with good-natured suspicion. "You were not gift shopping?"
"Weren't we?" Oma grinned and headed for the hallway.
"You were." Grandfather made what haste he could to follow. "And I see a plot against myself in your actions."
"What plot? No one was plotting against you."
Sylvia hid her cheeks and her grin as she watched the interaction between her elders, her eyes dancing as she saw the twinkle of laughter in Grandfather's eye.
But then she looked down with a frown of concern as she registered the creaks. "Don't strain yourself, Grandfather. You really need an oil bath."
"Ah..." He slowed and looked down at her, blinking. Then he shook his head and rumbled laughter. "Do not distract me. Your Oma is teasing me, and I must see why."
"In your dreams!" came the laughing rejoinder as they came into the living room.
"We shall see." He laughed again as he gently touched Sylvia's hair and then set her on the coffee table before starting the laborious process of settling into his chair. "Sylvia, you wished to taste tea."
She snapped her gaze down from her grandparents to the snack that sat waiting on the little coffee table. "...You've given me tea flavoured milk?"
"I did. The flavour is very similar to high quality green tea from Earth, as I remember it." He sighed and leaned back, his hands clasped together on the head of his cane.
"You shouldn't taste organic things." She frowned at him. "You only have basic sensors, and if that got into your processing tanks..."
He chuckled gently. "I was careful, Sylvia. Do you wish to consume your snack before you and your oma share your purchases?"
"No. I can eat while Oma shows you what we brought. There's still more coming by post, too." Sylvia bounced a little, and then forced herself to sit down. "Show him yours first, please, Oma."
"I'll show him my favourite thing first." Oma looked up from emptying the sling and setting the things out on the table next to Sylvia's living room furniture. "Then you'll be able to relax and eat your milk and fruit."
Sylvia blushed and picked up her glass, but her eyes were riveted on her grandmother as that lady picked up the carefully gift wrapped and decorated package that was about the size of an average human man's head.
Grandfather was also watching, and he rumbled with amusement as Oma came over and presented the package to him. "I was correct. I knew it. Thank you. Ah... you've made it so I cannot look through the package."
"We didn't want to spoil the surprise." Oma grinned at him. "Open it now?"
"Very well." Grandfather set down his cane and gently opened the wrapping, then paused. "It is a dormant piece of organic matter. Will you tell me the significance of it, airy one?"
She shook her head slowly, her eyes bright and teasing. "No. You're going to have to wait till the rest of it arrives in the post in a few weeks."
"A few weeks!" he repeated, startled. "This whets my curiosity."
"It's supposed to." Oma grinned. "But don't worry. We have other gifts for you that don't contain any secrets. Some..." She looked up as a bell chimed. "...Have just arrived. But you must see the first ones that Sylvia chose for you first."
"Very well," he said again, intrigued. "What did you bring me?
"Little plants that sing." Sylvia put down her untasted glass and hurried to pick up the package and open it so that she could show him.
"Vocalithops!" He leaned forward with interest. "I have not seen these in many years. I recognize the percussion, but what tones do the others carry?"
"We don't know yet." Sylvia set the three pots down on her coffee table. "The shopkeeper only told us that they sing like the crystals in the memorial gardens, and the care file just says 'a clear tone' and 'a slightly deeper tone'."
"Flute and clarinet," said Grandfather promptly. "Or perhaps piccolo and clarinet. These are indeed a treat. Thank you, Sylvia."
Then he gently set down the corm-tuber and reached for another package. "This is some sort of holographic emitter."
"It's a lightfish emitter for the fountain." Sylvia bounced. "The fish are supposed to look like koi fish from Earth."
"Ahhh, that will be lovely." Grandfather gently sorted aside several packages that held garments and ornaments. "I can see that we will soon be having an enjoyable time installing new things in the atrium. What is this? I cannot see through this package." He looked up quickly to Oma, and then down at Sylvia, who grinned back and then hid her face in her hands. "Is this also for me?"
"It is." Grandmother was grinning widely.
"Hrrrm." Amusement and curiosity showed on Grandfather's face as he carefully unwrapped what to him was a small package. "Is this another mystery? Ah! No..." He gently lifted the little enclosure to study the cybernetic creature inside. "This is one of those toys that have been advertised recently. The nanometal pets."
"Do you like him?" asked Sylvia, slightly anxious. "I thought he'd be nice company while you worked at your desk."
"I appreciate both the gift, and the thought." Grandfather opened the cage and then held his hand near the opening, rumbling encouragingly. "I can see that he is a cat, but I am unfamiliar with the variety."
"He's a fantasy coloured serval," said Sylvia. "They were a species of African wild cat on Earth. The product sheet that came with him says that he's programmed as accurately as possible to act like a real serval, except that he hasn't got their habit of eating thing that aren't good for him. He'll only eat the food for nanopets."
"I may be able to interest him in... ah..." Grandfather's voice softened slightly as the cat stepped onto his hand and sat up to look at him with curious deep blue eyes. "Hello. Do you think you might like to become my companion in work and study?"
Sylvia chuckled softly as the cat licked a paw and then lay down to look around. "I think he said yes."
A massive finger gently stroked the pet between his ears and along his back, causing his tail to go up and a thread of rumbling to be heard. "I was not aware that they made the nanopets so large."
"The company that advertises them don't." Sylvia opened another parcel and started taking toys and accessories for the cat from their packages. "The company that made him does custom work for people who want a fancier looking companion than the usual mechadrones."
"Ohhh. Purr purr." Zeta Zelda suddenly appeared at the top of the coffee table staircase. "Sing sing?"
"Zeta Zelda!" Sylvia put down the bowl she'd been removing from its backing card and held out her arms to her small friend, who scooted over and accepted the hug with happy chirps and peeps. "You aren't our only cyberpet anymore. Grandfather has a companion drone too now."
"Pet pet?" The little mechadrone turned her head, bright eyes scanning and then stopping as they rested on the white form of the serval. "Ohhh. Big big."
"He's only a little bigger than you." Sylvia chuckled and cuddled her close, waiting for her verdict on the intruder into what had been her sole territory for nearly ten years.
"Pretty pretty!" Zeta Zelda decided. "Preeeetty preeeeetty." Then she looked around. "ZZ toys?"
"Yes. Right here. I bought you a squishy doll like the one that you saw on the holo ad." Sylvia reached over and brought the bright toy within her friend's sight.
"Ahhhh! Mine mine?" Zeta Zelda reached out stick-like arms and wriggled her fingers appealingly, then chirped and squeezed the doll gently to make its eyes light up. "Mine mine. Thanks lots!"
"Where are you going?" Sylvia asked her as she gently wriggled free. "Don't you want to see what else we've brought home? And meet Grandfather's cat?"
"Baby-baby needs bed." Zeta Zelda held up the doll, then chuckled and shifted to spider mode before scooting away.
"Ah, I can envision the sort of interaction the two of you will engage in," said Grandfather quietly as he watched the serval sit up to watch Zeta Zelda go.
"Do you have a name for him yet?" asked Oma, smiling as she looked up from a pretty ornament that she'd bought for herself.
"I do." Grandfather gently tipped his hand to see if the cat would leave it, and then chuckled as it instead scaled his arm till it reached his shoulder. "I will name him for a common feline behavior. He will be Prowl."
Oma looked at him quickly, but then chuckled herself. "I like that name. Here, look at everything else we've brought now."
* * *
"No, Grandfather, you shouldn't lean down this far." Sylvia planted herself between her grandfather and the planter that he wished to attend to. "Let me do it."
"That container is far beyond your strength, Sylvia," he rebuked gently. "I refuse to let you damage yourself by attempting to move it."
"You two..." Oma pushed between them gently and lifted the planter in one hand. "Where do you want it?"
"Thank you, love." Grandfather gave Sylvia a sheepish look as he straightened up. "Will you set it by the end of the bench beneath the trellis arch?"
"Hmm, it will look pretty there." Oma walked lightly down the path and set the planter down, then set to work removing the decorative pebbles that it had been filled with and leaving them in a neat pile on the bench seat. "So what are you putting in this? I was watching the flying flowers over by the ivy and didn't hear."
"The vocallithops," said Sylvia. "Grandfather thinks that they'll be safest in the planter. And it will make a pretty little rock garden, won't it?"
"Little." Oma laughed. "You could walk in this planter, Sylvia."
"Well, it's little for you and Grandfather." Sylvia laughed too, then squealed softly as Prowl darted out from behind an apple tree to bat at her leg with a paw before vanishing just as quickly.
"Prowl, what are you doing?" Grandfather turned to look at his new pet, and then chuckled as he saw the serval give Zeta Zelda the same treatment, only to be chased and scolded cheerfully.
"No, no! Stay off the nanoviolets!" Sylvia ran to establish boundaries, her feet flying in her old clear foot gloves.
"Do you resent the time taken from your writing and study?" asked Oma softly as she inserted the substrate tray into the planter and topped it with lattice.
Grandfather startled and blinked, distracted from his watching of grandchild and pets interacting, then looked down at her. "No. This is good for Sylvia. And enjoyable for myself. I cherish such times as this, because I know how brief they will be."
Oma looked up as she detected static in his voice.
"I will still be here," she said softly. "Even when Sylvia has gone to meet the Maker of all, you will not be alone."
"I know." He tipped his head back and looked toward the ceiling where the flying flowers played around the grow lights. "But that does not still the sorrow at how soon I know I will have to say goodbye. Human lives are painfully brief in this world... and I do not know if I myself will see her and those who have gone before her when God has repaired the worlds and set them to rights at the end of time."
"Trust." Oma stood to put her arms around him. "He would not have made us sentient beings with our own minds and hearts if we were only pieces of our Source. Someday we will once more be surrounded by those we love, both cybernetic and organic."
"Hrrm." His free arm curled around her as he lowered his face over her head. Then he looked once more toward grandchild and pets, and started to laugh.
"What?" Oma turned, and then started laughing herself. "What are you doing in that tree?"
"Running away from the pets!" Sylvia laughed, her face bright and flushed with happiness. "We're playing."
"Silly." Oma shook her head and gave Grandfather a last squeeze, then knelt to finish preparing the planter for the singing plants.
"I enjoyed it." Oma jumped down from the platform, changing in size and appearance as her feet reached the floor, and then slipping her arms around her husband. "How was your day?"
"Also productive." He put an arm around her as he turned his attention back to Sylvia.
"I had a lot of fun, and learned new things." She smiled shyly up at him. "But we spent a lot of credit."
"That is no crime." He gave Oma a light kiss on the head, and then let go of her so that he could reach with his free hand for Sylvia.
"Here, I'll take the packages." Oma's eyes were twinkling as she scooped the antigrav disk and its cargo into her hands.
"What are you hiding?" He paused in the act of holding Sylvia close and rumbling to her to eye his wife with good-natured suspicion. "You were not gift shopping?"
"Weren't we?" Oma grinned and headed for the hallway.
"You were." Grandfather made what haste he could to follow. "And I see a plot against myself in your actions."
"What plot? No one was plotting against you."
Sylvia hid her cheeks and her grin as she watched the interaction between her elders, her eyes dancing as she saw the twinkle of laughter in Grandfather's eye.
But then she looked down with a frown of concern as she registered the creaks. "Don't strain yourself, Grandfather. You really need an oil bath."
"Ah..." He slowed and looked down at her, blinking. Then he shook his head and rumbled laughter. "Do not distract me. Your Oma is teasing me, and I must see why."
"In your dreams!" came the laughing rejoinder as they came into the living room.
"We shall see." He laughed again as he gently touched Sylvia's hair and then set her on the coffee table before starting the laborious process of settling into his chair. "Sylvia, you wished to taste tea."
She snapped her gaze down from her grandparents to the snack that sat waiting on the little coffee table. "...You've given me tea flavoured milk?"
"I did. The flavour is very similar to high quality green tea from Earth, as I remember it." He sighed and leaned back, his hands clasped together on the head of his cane.
"You shouldn't taste organic things." She frowned at him. "You only have basic sensors, and if that got into your processing tanks..."
He chuckled gently. "I was careful, Sylvia. Do you wish to consume your snack before you and your oma share your purchases?"
"No. I can eat while Oma shows you what we brought. There's still more coming by post, too." Sylvia bounced a little, and then forced herself to sit down. "Show him yours first, please, Oma."
"I'll show him my favourite thing first." Oma looked up from emptying the sling and setting the things out on the table next to Sylvia's living room furniture. "Then you'll be able to relax and eat your milk and fruit."
Sylvia blushed and picked up her glass, but her eyes were riveted on her grandmother as that lady picked up the carefully gift wrapped and decorated package that was about the size of an average human man's head.
Grandfather was also watching, and he rumbled with amusement as Oma came over and presented the package to him. "I was correct. I knew it. Thank you. Ah... you've made it so I cannot look through the package."
"We didn't want to spoil the surprise." Oma grinned at him. "Open it now?"
"Very well." Grandfather set down his cane and gently opened the wrapping, then paused. "It is a dormant piece of organic matter. Will you tell me the significance of it, airy one?"
She shook her head slowly, her eyes bright and teasing. "No. You're going to have to wait till the rest of it arrives in the post in a few weeks."
"A few weeks!" he repeated, startled. "This whets my curiosity."
"It's supposed to." Oma grinned. "But don't worry. We have other gifts for you that don't contain any secrets. Some..." She looked up as a bell chimed. "...Have just arrived. But you must see the first ones that Sylvia chose for you first."
"Very well," he said again, intrigued. "What did you bring me?
"Little plants that sing." Sylvia put down her untasted glass and hurried to pick up the package and open it so that she could show him.
"Vocalithops!" He leaned forward with interest. "I have not seen these in many years. I recognize the percussion, but what tones do the others carry?"
"We don't know yet." Sylvia set the three pots down on her coffee table. "The shopkeeper only told us that they sing like the crystals in the memorial gardens, and the care file just says 'a clear tone' and 'a slightly deeper tone'."
"Flute and clarinet," said Grandfather promptly. "Or perhaps piccolo and clarinet. These are indeed a treat. Thank you, Sylvia."
Then he gently set down the corm-tuber and reached for another package. "This is some sort of holographic emitter."
"It's a lightfish emitter for the fountain." Sylvia bounced. "The fish are supposed to look like koi fish from Earth."
"Ahhh, that will be lovely." Grandfather gently sorted aside several packages that held garments and ornaments. "I can see that we will soon be having an enjoyable time installing new things in the atrium. What is this? I cannot see through this package." He looked up quickly to Oma, and then down at Sylvia, who grinned back and then hid her face in her hands. "Is this also for me?"
"It is." Grandmother was grinning widely.
"Hrrrm." Amusement and curiosity showed on Grandfather's face as he carefully unwrapped what to him was a small package. "Is this another mystery? Ah! No..." He gently lifted the little enclosure to study the cybernetic creature inside. "This is one of those toys that have been advertised recently. The nanometal pets."
"Do you like him?" asked Sylvia, slightly anxious. "I thought he'd be nice company while you worked at your desk."
"I appreciate both the gift, and the thought." Grandfather opened the cage and then held his hand near the opening, rumbling encouragingly. "I can see that he is a cat, but I am unfamiliar with the variety."
"He's a fantasy coloured serval," said Sylvia. "They were a species of African wild cat on Earth. The product sheet that came with him says that he's programmed as accurately as possible to act like a real serval, except that he hasn't got their habit of eating thing that aren't good for him. He'll only eat the food for nanopets."
"I may be able to interest him in... ah..." Grandfather's voice softened slightly as the cat stepped onto his hand and sat up to look at him with curious deep blue eyes. "Hello. Do you think you might like to become my companion in work and study?"
Sylvia chuckled softly as the cat licked a paw and then lay down to look around. "I think he said yes."
A massive finger gently stroked the pet between his ears and along his back, causing his tail to go up and a thread of rumbling to be heard. "I was not aware that they made the nanopets so large."
"The company that advertises them don't." Sylvia opened another parcel and started taking toys and accessories for the cat from their packages. "The company that made him does custom work for people who want a fancier looking companion than the usual mechadrones."
"Ohhh. Purr purr." Zeta Zelda suddenly appeared at the top of the coffee table staircase. "Sing sing?"
"Zeta Zelda!" Sylvia put down the bowl she'd been removing from its backing card and held out her arms to her small friend, who scooted over and accepted the hug with happy chirps and peeps. "You aren't our only cyberpet anymore. Grandfather has a companion drone too now."
"Pet pet?" The little mechadrone turned her head, bright eyes scanning and then stopping as they rested on the white form of the serval. "Ohhh. Big big."
"He's only a little bigger than you." Sylvia chuckled and cuddled her close, waiting for her verdict on the intruder into what had been her sole territory for nearly ten years.
"Pretty pretty!" Zeta Zelda decided. "Preeeetty preeeeetty." Then she looked around. "ZZ toys?"
"Yes. Right here. I bought you a squishy doll like the one that you saw on the holo ad." Sylvia reached over and brought the bright toy within her friend's sight.
"Ahhhh! Mine mine?" Zeta Zelda reached out stick-like arms and wriggled her fingers appealingly, then chirped and squeezed the doll gently to make its eyes light up. "Mine mine. Thanks lots!"
"Where are you going?" Sylvia asked her as she gently wriggled free. "Don't you want to see what else we've brought home? And meet Grandfather's cat?"
"Baby-baby needs bed." Zeta Zelda held up the doll, then chuckled and shifted to spider mode before scooting away.
"Ah, I can envision the sort of interaction the two of you will engage in," said Grandfather quietly as he watched the serval sit up to watch Zeta Zelda go.
"Do you have a name for him yet?" asked Oma, smiling as she looked up from a pretty ornament that she'd bought for herself.
"I do." Grandfather gently tipped his hand to see if the cat would leave it, and then chuckled as it instead scaled his arm till it reached his shoulder. "I will name him for a common feline behavior. He will be Prowl."
Oma looked at him quickly, but then chuckled herself. "I like that name. Here, look at everything else we've brought now."
* * *
"No, Grandfather, you shouldn't lean down this far." Sylvia planted herself between her grandfather and the planter that he wished to attend to. "Let me do it."
"That container is far beyond your strength, Sylvia," he rebuked gently. "I refuse to let you damage yourself by attempting to move it."
"You two..." Oma pushed between them gently and lifted the planter in one hand. "Where do you want it?"
"Thank you, love." Grandfather gave Sylvia a sheepish look as he straightened up. "Will you set it by the end of the bench beneath the trellis arch?"
"Hmm, it will look pretty there." Oma walked lightly down the path and set the planter down, then set to work removing the decorative pebbles that it had been filled with and leaving them in a neat pile on the bench seat. "So what are you putting in this? I was watching the flying flowers over by the ivy and didn't hear."
"The vocallithops," said Sylvia. "Grandfather thinks that they'll be safest in the planter. And it will make a pretty little rock garden, won't it?"
"Little." Oma laughed. "You could walk in this planter, Sylvia."
"Well, it's little for you and Grandfather." Sylvia laughed too, then squealed softly as Prowl darted out from behind an apple tree to bat at her leg with a paw before vanishing just as quickly.
"Prowl, what are you doing?" Grandfather turned to look at his new pet, and then chuckled as he saw the serval give Zeta Zelda the same treatment, only to be chased and scolded cheerfully.
"No, no! Stay off the nanoviolets!" Sylvia ran to establish boundaries, her feet flying in her old clear foot gloves.
"Do you resent the time taken from your writing and study?" asked Oma softly as she inserted the substrate tray into the planter and topped it with lattice.
Grandfather startled and blinked, distracted from his watching of grandchild and pets interacting, then looked down at her. "No. This is good for Sylvia. And enjoyable for myself. I cherish such times as this, because I know how brief they will be."
Oma looked up as she detected static in his voice.
"I will still be here," she said softly. "Even when Sylvia has gone to meet the Maker of all, you will not be alone."
"I know." He tipped his head back and looked toward the ceiling where the flying flowers played around the grow lights. "But that does not still the sorrow at how soon I know I will have to say goodbye. Human lives are painfully brief in this world... and I do not know if I myself will see her and those who have gone before her when God has repaired the worlds and set them to rights at the end of time."
"Trust." Oma stood to put her arms around him. "He would not have made us sentient beings with our own minds and hearts if we were only pieces of our Source. Someday we will once more be surrounded by those we love, both cybernetic and organic."
"Hrrm." His free arm curled around her as he lowered his face over her head. Then he looked once more toward grandchild and pets, and started to laugh.
"What?" Oma turned, and then started laughing herself. "What are you doing in that tree?"
"Running away from the pets!" Sylvia laughed, her face bright and flushed with happiness. "We're playing."
"Silly." Oma shook her head and gave Grandfather a last squeeze, then knelt to finish preparing the planter for the singing plants.