RAISING HELL

or

"Children of Auron—shut up!"

by Celeste Hotaling-Lyons

(Yet another in a series of ‘D.S.V. Universe’ stories)

"Oh, what a mangled mess we leave, when first we practice to conceive."

—Richard Milhous Shakespeare

"Enough is enough, Cally," Avon said in silky, insulting tones; "six days in this kindergarten has to be sufficient for anyone, even someone such as yourself whose maternal instincts have gone rusty with disuse." He took the sting out of his words with a slight smile when she shot a dirty look at him.

Avon had been staring with some amusement at his right-hand guerrilla fighter as she dangled a small, pudgy child in mid-air, cooing to it. A dozen other children clutched at her knees, begging and crying that they, too, wanted to be picked up. The opportunity to view this rather sweet, if uncharacteristic, scene was the only good thing to come out of taking this little R&R on Kaarn, also known as "New Auron", and he really couldn’t see it was worth the trouble. The colony had been set up a year ago and was slowly but surely attracting other Auronae adults who had been off planet during the Laughing Plague of ’78, so it wasn’t all screaming children, but it was nearly so. Despite that, he was comfortable where he sat, a cool drink in hand, even if his deck chair was on a porch overlooking a noisy playground.

"Seven days, Avon, we voted on seven days," Cally answered him back primly, gently putting the gurgling toddler down, where his individuality disappeared among the upturned faces of his sibling group. "Besides, the rest of us are enjoying ourselves, even if you aren’t. Dayna and Tarrant seem to enjoy taking the larger children for nature walks; I’d never have guessed Tarrant was once an Eagle Scout...."

Avon leaned back, basking in the warm glow of Cally’s disapproval. He sipped his margarita, allowing her complaining voice to fade to a comfortable back-drop. His gaze passed idly over the child-covered landscape, past the respectful gazes of the pre-schoolers—they’d quickly learned that Uncle Avon’s person was persona-non-grata and always kept their distance—past the small troop of second graders hanging head-down from the monkeybars, past the matched set of six toddlers playing in the sandbox. …eh? No, they weren’t quite all matched; one little girl was darker-haired and darker-eyed than her playmates. Interesting. She was tiny, probably cloned, birthed and force-grown to this stage not three weeks ago, yet Avon felt he somehow knew her. Her hair was a fuzzy butch-cut, but then all the children’s heads resembled those of marine recruits, for obvious sanitary reasons. But those large, liquid eyes of hers tugged at Avon’s memory. It wasn’t until she’d bashed one of her playmates over the head with