Voyagers!

More than He Can Chew

by

Jake Crepeau

The image on the memory-reader still had the power to make Jeffrey shudder, and he choked back tears as once more he watched Bogg quietly let them tie him to the stake; the same determination settled on his face as he watched himself leap through the flames. He'd do it again.

Garth, leaning forward in his chair as he watched the scene with the other tribunes, fell back in his seat, his jaw hanging. Never in all his considerable number of years had he met a child who would do what he had just seen this one do; in fact, if he hadn't just seen it himself, he never would have believed it. His eyes strayed to the boy before him, and he saw the same grim expression he'd worn when he'd wormed his hands out of those manacles; suddenly, he wasn't sure he wanted to see what else that boy might be capable of in the face of any threat to Voyager Bogg.

He hid his own wry grin. No, Phineas wasn't the valedictorian of his class, but Jeffrey did have it right in his assessment—He's the best Voyager you've got! the boy's unfounded claim still rang in his ears, and, despite the objectivity his current duty required of him, Garth was in full agreement. He'd seen it himself, a certain indefinable something that had made the student Voyager stand out from the rest, despite his quite natural distraction with Susan. Yes, he'd been aware of the deep crush Bogg had had on the girl; Susan herself must have been blind not to see it. Had it not been for the raging hormones of the barely twenty-year-old Phineas, he could have walked away with every record in the place. That potential was the reason he'd allowed the man to graduate, letting him believe he'd passed by the skin of his teeth, never telling him that, in fact, he had failed the course altogether.

Now he was seeing that same something in a twelve-year-old boy. Drake, you fool, he chortled to himself. This time, I think you've bitten off more than you can chew.

Finis