The Aliens of the Flaming Red Sun/2 Crime and rescue
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[edit] Crime and rescue
The boy in the water could swim easily. All Centaurians can. Still watching him was pathetic as he struggled to keep up with a powerboat.
“Help me! Help me!” he screamed.
Blue Tentacles reached out. [1] The other boy grabbed his tentacles and clung on so tightly it was frightening. Blue Tentacles managed to grab the railings and stop himself being pulled into the sea as well. The other boy was holding onto him so tightly he couldn’t have let go if he’d wanted to.
“Please help my young friend” Brown Tentacles pleaded, “Alas, Alas, my old tentacles. I’m too weak. I can’t help.” Patricians nearby heard the Plebeian manner of the old fellow and did nothing. Young Blue Tentacles could feel his grip slipping.
“Help us!” Blue Tentacles shouted in the manner of a much younger Patrician boy. Patricians rushed to help. Soon both boys were brought back onto the deck. The other boy’s tentacles had faded from bright yellow and were almost white with fear. Nobody paid much attention to him.
They started telling young Blue Tentacles off yet again. How could he risk his life for some Centaurian who was just a Plebeian stowaway? They understood that he needed a servant with him, he didn't just need a chaperone, he needed a servant to stop him being silly. Others came up and said, they knew that Blue Tentacled boy is feeble minded. They told elderly Brown Tentacles off as well. Why hadn’t he done more to help his young charge? Patrician Centaurians demanded to know who his employer was so they could tell him how lax the servant had been. The Attendant who pushed the boy into the sea was arrested. What he’d done was out of order even by Centaurian standards and he’d got a Patrician boy into danger.
An adult Centaurian rushed out from the cheapest area and grabbed the other boy. What have you been doing? The boy clung onto her with all the strength in his tentacles. When he was with his mother he became a bit yellow again. Meanwhile they gave the arrested attendant antidotes to the intoxicants he’d taken. The prisoner tried to get away. In the commotion all four who hadn’t paid slipped away to the cheap area. Yellow Tentacles’ mum found her husband sprawled on the deck with a pile of half consumed intoxicants beside him. She started telling him off.
“How could you? I was relying on you to look after the boy!”
The drunk mumbled something incoherent. Mother turned her attention to her son.
“What were you doing, running away to where we haven’t paid to be? You’d have starved to death in the mid ocean. How would you ever have found land?”
“I’d have kept swimming towards the sun till I got somewhere, I think.”
“Are you sure the land’s in that direction?” Mother told a story about some Centaurian who’d been picked up by a boat half starved and exhausted after swimming and swimming, she didn’t know for how long.
“You’d have starved to death before anyone rescued you.” She finished. Then she turned to young Blue Tentacles. His whole body was becoming pale bluish white with fear as he began to realize what could have happened. The other boy’s mother put her tentacles round him, gently stroking.
“You saved my son’s life. I’ll never forget how brave you were.”
A new emotion swept through young Blue Tentacles, it was something he had never experienced before. Blue Tentacles felt self esteem, he realized that he had done something very well.
The Aliens of the Flaming Red Sun/3 They really respect me
Footnotes
- ↑ We already know that Blue Tentacles has a reckless kind of courage. He can act without thinking when he upsets a whole planet or when he rescues someone in danger.
