Variable Star by Robert A HeinLein & Spider Robinson

happening. The trouble was, I knew my imagination just wasn’t good enough to manufacture a hallucination like this.
    I recognized, from the other direction, the intersection where I’d collided with little Evelyn earlier. I approached it with some caution, this time, listening carefully for someone swooping through the air on a skyboard. But of course I had no clear idea what, if anything, one sounded like. I eased up on the intersection, hooked one eye around the corner for a quick peek—
    —nearly bumped noses with Evelyn.
    She tried to keep a straight face, did pretty well for a few seconds, and then lost it. As soon as she did, I whooped with laughter myself. The tension release was welcome, almost too much so. I laughed a little bit harder than necessary for a little bit longer than I should have. She finished before I did.
    Maybe it shook loose some brains. When I finally spoke, what I said surprised me. I expected to hear myself say something polite, banal, phony. What came out was, “Can you tell me how to get a cab around here?”
    As I heard the words come out of my mouth I realized I very badly wanted to be away from here. To be back home. Alone. As quickly as possible. So I needed transportation. And I had no idea how to get any. And here before me, by happy chance, was about the only person in the entire compound, including Leo the AI, that I felt comfortable asking.
    She just stared at me, unblinking.
    “Transportation from here back to the Lower Mainland,” I amplified.
    When she stared like that she looked remarkably like an owl.
    “I came here in Jinny’s car, but right now she’s taken it offsite, and I need to get back home as soon as p…you’re imitating an owl, aren’t you?”
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “Yes, I was. I’ll stop.”
    “Thanks. As I was s—”
    “I’m not really sorry. But I’ll pretend, as long as I don’t have to do a very good job.”
    “Evelyn, honey—”
    The owl lit up. “You remember my name.”
    “Look, I really need to—”
    “Most grown-ups don’t.”
    “Evelyn, how do—”
    “You can’t get a cab here, silly. There’s no here.”
    I nodded. “I figured as much. But that implies there has to be some way to get guests where they need to go, when they need to be there. Do you know what it is?”
    I nearly lost her with that question. Then her ferocious frown relaxed. “I deserved that. I was the one playing dumb. Yes, Joel, I do know. I’ll help you.”
    I sighed. “Thank you, Ev. Will it take very long?”
    “Is there anything in your room you have to go back for?”
    I thought about it and shook my head no.
    “Follow me, then.”
    Three turns and perhaps a hundred meters later, she stopped, and touched a wall, and an elevator door opened up where not even a visible seam had been a moment ago. She touched the wall just beside the door, in a different way, and the wall developed a monitor and extruded a keypad—at a height convenient for a seven-year-old. She typed something on it, with only her index fingers, but at a speed that would have been remarkable even if she’d been using all ten. Finally she made a small grunt of satisfaction, and turned to me.
    “You’ll find a car waiting at ground level. Just state your destination; it’ll find it.”
    “How do I—”
    “When you get where you’re going, just get out and say, ‘Dismissed.’ It homes.”
    Of course it did. I started for the elevator, then paused. “Ev, honey?”
    “Yes, Joel?”
    “Is this… I mean, are you going to get in trouble for this?”
    She grinned. “Not unless you rat me out.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Guest cars aren’t a secret. Anybody could have called you one.”
    “But won’t the record show that it was you who did?”
    She grinned again. “The record says Jinny did.”
    I nodded. “Okay, then. Thank you. I owe you one.” It didn’t seem adequate. I bent, took her hand in mine, lifted it to my lips, and planted one just behind the