[JodyJames]

Thomas awoke slowly. The room was bright and huge. He sat up slowly and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He couldn’t clear his head. Where was he? And why was the bed so high off the ground that his feet wouldn’t reach the floor. He slipped off the bed and his legs collapsed under him. He slowly pulled himself back up, and looked at himself. He was naked, but that wasn’t unusual, he’d spent a lot of his life naked alone on the ship. What was different was his legs were short -- very short.

Then he remembered. They’d done it. They’d rejuved him. He was no longer 15. They said he’d be 6 and he looked like it. He remembered that was his age when his parents died, or he remembered being told that. He didn’t really remember them too well, but the Ship’s Auxiliary Mind, SAM, the Artificial Intelligence on the ship had told him about his parents. They’d been killed on the bridge when a meteor had hit the FTL drive. Tom and SAM had been left stranded light years from any planet with no FTL drive or FTL radio. SAM had of course sent distress signals by regular radio, but they took years to reach anyone – a bit more than nine years.

SAM could still run the impulse engines, but that could only take them around the uninhabited solar system Tom’s parents had been exploring. They could extract oxygen and pre-biotic materials from the atmosphere of a moon of the large gas giant. SAM could replicate what he needed. The gas giant also provided hydrogen for the nuclear reactor. Yes Tom had everything he needed to live — everything except parents or any other people for him to interact with. Given that shortcoming, it wasn’t surprising that Tom grew up to be self-centered with no empathy for others. There weren’t any others except SAM, and SAM didn’t act like a person really. His, or its, feelings couldn’t be hurt.

When Tom'd finally been rescued, this was a problem. He just didn't know how to interact with others. And it wasn't just a matter of annoying them. When he was hungry he simply picked up food and ate it. If one of the other foster children was using something, he might take that as well, and he was by far the oldest in the group -- oldest physically in any case.

And there was another problem. His immune system was messed up. He had never been sick, because he had never encountered anything that could infect him or even give him an allergic reaction. Now he was constantly having allergic reactions or getting sick from things most people could shrug off.

Finally, just a few weeks after his rescue, in his own best interests the authorities decided he'd been rejuved back to age 6. And here he was. But it wasn't a medical rejuve. Given his antisocial behavior it had been decided to rejuve him as to soft-time penny/medical status.

He tried the room’s door, it was stuck. He pulled harder, but his now-small frame couldn't budge it. Actually it was locked, but he had little experience with locks so it didn't occur to him. He looked around the room. There was a one piece jump suit in light blue. It had velcro down the front just like the shirts he'd worn on the ship. He didn't understand what the velcro fasteners in the back were for, but then there were lots of things he'd never understood.

With a lot of work he slipped the suit on and sat on the bed. He called out SAM, but of course the ship computer didn't answer here. It had been weeks since it had answered him. Then he heard the door open.