Alone in his room, Victus sat on his bunk and waited for the rest of the boys to finish their dinner.  His fear that he would have to go to bed without his supper had become reality, but the punishment wasn't nearly as bad as he'd anticipated.  True to his word, Mister Dagen had brought him back to the orphanage and talked to Headmistress Blovena in his defense.  Victus smiled when he remembered how mister Dagen had spoken up before Miss B had a chance to complain about his running away, praising the orphanage for doing such a wonderful job raising young men.  Only, instead of an orphanage, he'd called it a "school",  and he'd gone on and on about how helpful and well-behaved Victus had been.

Victus had been pleasantly surprised that Mr. Dagen had even gone so far as to ask to see him again, which was a difficult request for Mistress Blovena to deny, since the main job of the orphanage was to eject the children under its care at the earliest possible opportunity.  They really didn't care where the boys went, Victus thought, as long as they went somewhere else.   

Miss B had confiscated the small bag of candy Dagen had handed him before he left, but she'd missed the small, carefully wrapped meat pie that the man had covertly slipped into Vic's back pocket as they'd hugged goodbye.  It was tastier than most of what the cafeteria had served, and was sufficiently filling that his stomach wasn't grumbly at the thought of missing dinner. 

He liked it when the room was quiet like this, without a gaggle of young boys yelling and screaming and whining and making a general nuisance of themselves.  He pulled out the small, plastic motorcycle that Dagen had bought him to play with. It was small enough to hide in his sock so nobody would find it, but large enough that his name could be written on it.   Things with your name on it could still get broken, but they didn't go missing as often as unmarked toys did.

He folded his pillow over to make a hill, then zoomed the motorbike up the improvised mountain and down the other side. Before the motorcycle reached the thin bedspread, he twisted the throttle in his mind and turned the old fashioned wheeled bike into a modern, flying speeder that zoomed through the sky.  As it passed over his head, he could see where Mister Dagen had carefully written his name around the front wheel with a marker borrowed from a vendor.  He spun the wheel, watching the blurred lines resolve themselves as it slowed.  Victusvictusvictus victus. Victus..Victus.....Victus.........Vic. 

He put the toy aside and pulled out the paper napkin Mister Dagen had given him to wipe his nose.  Putting it up to his face, he smelled the man's scent. It was somewhat dulled through the competing odors of incense and shrimp rolls, but it was still very much there.  Victus thought it was a nice smell, without the underlying odors of aggression or fear that so many people exuded without even knowing they were doing it.  

Even though Dagen had asked Mistress Blovena if he could come back, Victus couldn't help fearing that he might not.  He didn't have time to worry much about it.  Dinner had apparently let out, because a herd of boys was stampeding down the hall toward the television room. Jovial and rambunctious after their usual Saturday dinner of hot dogs and beans, most of them would retire to the vid room to fight over which action adventure movie they'd watch that evening.  "You've got to be more social!" his case worker had told him.  "Nobody wants to adopt a grumpy little stick-in-the-mud!"  

If being social meant watching people get shot and be burned to death in the 3D vids that the other boys found so enthralling, Vic was much happier being alone.  Victus usually found the explosions and gunfire in those movies to be more disturbing than entertaining, and it wasn’t unusual for him to sit alone in the bedroom or tuck away in the study room reading a book or watching an educational vid.  

Vic's ears swiveled as four sets of feet separated themselves from the herd and came closer to the bedroom.  Sighing, he shoved the motorcycle behind his bed and picked up the school tablet he used as a decoy.  As predicted, it was snatched out of his hands moments after Bront and his lackeys walked in.  "Thanks, asshole," Bront spat, as he tucked the reader into his back pocket.   It was a particularly weak opening move, Victus thought.  Tablets were as common in the orphanage as dirty socks and he could access his books with any of them, so he didn't even try to get that one back.

"You're welcome," he replied, politely, then offered them silence.

After an uncomfortable moment, one of Bront’s toadies filled the still air. "Thanks to you we had to clean the bathrooms today. We're gonna make you sorry you did that."

"I wasn't the one who messed up the bathroom," Victus said, calmly.  "I know it was you who did it." 

"You're a fucking liar!"  one of the other boys accused, from behind the safety of Bront's back.

Refusing to be riled, Victus stared at the boy.  "You didn't have anything to do with the mess," he said, confidently.  He pointed to each of the other boys in turn.  "You, you, and you did, though."

"That's bullshit," Bront shook his head to shore up his lie.

Victus inclined his head slightly.  "I can't prove it was you who smeared it all over the bathroom, but I know for a fact that it was your poop." He looked disgusted. "Five minutes after you take a shower, you start smelling like your poop again."

"You can’t prove it,” the fourth boy said, sounding alarmed.  Victus thought his name was Darryl, but he wasn’t sure.  The boy was new to the school, and had quickly ingratiated himself with the school bully.

Bront was harsh. “Shut up,” he told his most recent follower. He turned back to Victus, and his smile was mean.  “Danny was right.  We’re going to make you sorry you did that.”  He cracked his knuckles but no sounds came out. It was supposed to be intimidating, but from a ten year old it just looked silly. 

Bront took a threatening step toward Victus, but paused when the young varius spoke. “I took the tape off the camera lens,” he said, calmly.  “If you hit me, everyone’s going to know, and you’ll go straight to juvie.”

That stopped Bront in his tracks.  The school for juvenile delinquents had so famous a reputation that its mere threat gave pause to the most recalcitrant of children.  In their case, it was more than an idle threat.  An unprovoked attack on another child, even if that child wasn’t fully human, immediately resulted in a  transfer from the poor but safe orphanage to the well-funded but prison-like conditions of juvie.

Guiltily, Bront glanced back up at the security camera to confirm what Victus had said.  Sure enough, the strip of opaque tape they’d placed over the camera’s lens earlier that day was gone. Every time the stupid, smelly mutt got in Bront’s way he got less pleasant, and today the mutt had crossed him a number of times. “I wasn’t going to hit you, little puppy,” he crooned, “I was just going to pet you a little bit, ‘cause dumb animals are supposed to like that.”

“He’s a liar,” Darryl said. “He told Miss B that he met a ninja in the bazaar.”  Laughing at Victus’s foolishness, the boys immediately fell upon each other with imaginary karate chops, some pretending to attack while the others pretended to defend. 

“It wasn’t a Ninja,” Victus said, impatiently, “he’s a Kenzine.”  When he saw the gleam in Bront’s eye, Victus wished he hadn’t spoken.  

“Now I know you’re lying,” Bront said, confidently.  “I’ve got a book about them.  They’ve been around for a thousand years, and they’ve never let a varius in. They hate you guys!"  He smiled down at Victus, watching him closely to see if any of his barbs had struck home.

Victus had learned that when Bront was being an ass, his best option was to ignore anything the other boy said and do his best to not react.  He was afraid he'd failed in this when Bront saw something in his eye that made him smile in triumph. "Come on, guys," he said, backing toward the door.  "Let's go watch the movie.  Hey!" he said, as if only then remembering.  He turned to Darryl and asked, "What's for snack tonight?"

Danny’s mean little smile echoed Bront's.  "Ice cream."

"Oh, wow, I love ice cream!" Bront said, with too much enthusiasm to not be forced. He looked back to where Victus sat, and smirked.  "But you can't have any!"

"Enjoy your ice cream, Bront," Victus called, then muttered to himself, "I hope you get a brain freeze." 

***

Abbot Wesley sighed.  "You're really going to make me ask it, aren't you?"

"If anyone can throw a turd in my punchbowl from a billion miles away, you're the man to do it," Dagen said, leaning back in his chair and covering his face with his hands in a subconscious effort to withdraw from the grilling his friend and erstwhile teacher was giving him. "Go for it."

"If this kid is so fantastic, why is he still stuck in the orphanage after over two years?  Why aren't people lining up around the block to adopt him?  There has to be a good reason."

"On Galise?" Dagen huffed, "You've gotta be kidding.  The Sentient's Rights movement hasn't made it out this far." Abbot Wesley opened his mouth to say something, but Dagen unwittingly cut him off. "Varii are genetically programmed to be sensation-seeking adventurers, so they make great colonizers, right?  They should be all over the place out here."  The Abbot attempted to say something, but again Dagen didn't notice.  "Nope.  In the month that I've been here-"

"Three weeks," Wesley interjected, but Dagen didn't seem to hear him.

"-I've seen exactly six varii.  Six!  You see that many in five minutes on Earth. They don't have doctors, they don't have lawyers, and they sure as hell don't have representation in the government," Dagen fumed.  "They're squeezed out of every segment of society, and the only reason he's even in that orphanage and not out in the streets is that they operate under a mandate of compassion and couldn't turn him down without losing their funding." 

Dagen had run out of steam on that topic, leaving space for Wesley to add another question. "I guess you would have told me if you'd had any luck finding a relative?

Dagen rolled his eyes.  "Okay, now that's where this gets really weird.  The whole reason this boy's family came out here was to visit his great-aunt...or was it his great-great-aunt?" he waved it away. "It doesn't matter.  She was elderly at the time, and has died since then. Other than her, neither of his parents seem to have had contact with any of their relatives for years.  The ones we've been able to track down... get this," he said, leaning closer to the comm. "After they know why we're calling, none of them will pick up the comm.

"That's the weird thing.  They all ask the same question, and they all respond in exactly the same way.  The only thing they seem to care about is how old he is.   And after I tell them, not a one of them will return my calls." Frustrated, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "I thought sapiens had a problem with only wanting blue-eyed infants, but this is even worse.  He's absolutely adorable," Dagen railed, "but nobody seems to want him once they learn he's not a baby!"

"Insane, isn't it?" The abbot agreed.  "So should I begin investigating the possibility of bringing him back to Earth, where he'll have a better chance at finding a home?"

"Maybe," Dagen said, chewing thoughtfully on the corner of his thumb. He had the feeling that his friend was changing the subject, but had no idea why he would.  "I don't know.  Probably."  He looked dissatisfied with that answer. "He doesn't have many options if he stays here."

Both men were quiet for a few moments, but neither wanted to disconnect.  Finally, Wesley broke the silence. "In our last conversation, didn't you say that his mother was someone prominent?

Dagen raised an eyebrow. "Yeah.  Psylla Entrades." He waved a hand. "Look her up when you have a minute.  The search results are clouded by a bunch of obits that were written when she died, but if you can get past all those you'll find some pretty interesting stuff.  She founded a varius-centered think tank that sponsored panels on everything from community banking to trans-varius rights."

That got Wesley's attention. "I thought lupine varii were supposed to be the conservative ones."

"They are," Dagen chuckled.  "Maybe that's why her family didn't want to have anything to do with her."

Wesley shrugged.  "Perhaps.  Families have split over less. What does Sam think?"

Dagen hesitated a bit too long. "You haven't told him, have you?" Wesley guessed.  "Why?"

Dagen looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Sam's got his own problems, " he said, finally. "You know what a softie he is. First thing he'd say is, 'ship the little bastard to me and I'll whip him into shape!'" His imitation of his friend's gruff, thick-lipped speech made both men laugh, then he sobered. "It would kill him to know there's someone who needs help, and he can't give it."

"Probably true," Wesley admitted. "It was a thought." His ruminations were distracted by the buzzing noise of another incoming call.  Wesley turned his attention to something outside the frame and pursed his lips in annoyance. "It's Vatican City again."

"Huh," Dagen grunted. "Always on the job, right?  You need me to call you back?"

"No," Wesley said, blowing out a frustrated breath. "hold the line. This shouldn't take but a minute."

The screen went blank on Dagen's end, and he endured five minutes of bland instrumental arrangements of songs that had gone out of style twenty years prior. He was glad he'd called collect.

Wesley pipped back onto his screen, looking harried. "After well over two thousand years, you'd think those people could solve their own problems by now," he said, on a huff. "It's really not that hard."

"Other peoples problems rarely are," Dagen said, thoughtfully. 

“You might do well to remember that when dealing with this child,” Wesley said, pointedly.  “He’s someone else’s problem - not yours.”

Dagen thought long and hard about this, and why the comment had angered him, for many hours that night as he sleeplessly contemplated the ceiling of his bedchamber.