Part 31 (2/2)
”I'll do the water,” he said, and did it for Andy's too. That was fair. It made Andy happy.
It made Andy so happy Andy let him curry the Horse with him, and go with him to the special barn where they had the baby, which was a she, protected against everything and fed with a bucket you had to hold. He wasn't big enough to do that yet. You had to shower and change your clothes and be very careful, because they were giving the baby treatments they got from the Horse. But she wasn't sick. She played dodge with them and then she would smell of their fingers and play dodge again.
He had been terribly relieved when Andy told him that the horses were not for food. ”What are are they for?” he had asked then, afraid that there might be other bad answers. they for?” he had asked then, afraid that there might be other bad answers.
”They're Experimentals,” Andy had said. ”I'm not sure. But they say they're working animals.”
Pigs were sometimes working animals. Pigs were so good at smelling out native weeds that drifted in and rooted and they were so smart at not eating the stuff that there were azi who did nothing but walk them around, every day going over the pens and the fields with the pigs that n.o.body would ever make into bacon, and zapping whatever had sneaked inside the fences. The machine-sniffers were good, but Andy said the pigs were better in some ways.
That was what they meant in the tapes, Florian thought, when they said one of the first Rules of all Rules was to find ways to be useful.
ii Ari read the problem, thought into her tape-knowing, and asked maman: ”Does it matter how many are boys and how many are girls?”
Maman thought a moment. ”Actually it does. But you can work it as if it doesn't.”
”Why?”
”Because, and this is important to know, certain things are less important in certain problems; and when you're just learning how to work the problem, leaving out the things that don't matter as much helps you to remember what things are the most important in figuring it. Everything in the world is important in that problem-boys and girls, the weather, whether or not they can get enough food, whether there are things that eat them-but right now just tile genes are going to matter. When you can work all those problems, then they'll tell you how to work in all the other things. One other thing. They'd hate to tell you you knew everything. There might be something else no one thought of. And if you thought thought they'd told you everything, that could trick you. So they start out simple and then start adding in whether they're boys and girls. All right?” they'd told you everything, that could trick you. So they start out simple and then start adding in whether they're boys and girls. All right?”
”It does does matter,” Ari said doggedly, ”because the boy fish fight each other. But there's going to be twenty-four blue ones if n.o.body gets eaten. But they will, because blue ones are easy to see, and they can't hide. And if you put them with big fish there won't be any blue fish at all.” matter,” Ari said doggedly, ”because the boy fish fight each other. But there's going to be twenty-four blue ones if n.o.body gets eaten. But they will, because blue ones are easy to see, and they can't hide. And if you put them with big fish there won't be any blue fish at all.”
”Do you know whether a fish sees colors?”
”Do they?”
”Let's leave that for a moment. What if the females like blue males better?”
”Why should they?”
”Just figure it. Carry it another generation.”
”How much better?”
”Twenty-five percent.”
”All those blue ones are just going to make the big fish fatter and they'll they'll have lots of babies. This is getting complicated.” have lots of babies. This is getting complicated.”
Maman got this funny look like she was going to sneeze or laugh or get mad. And then she got a very funny look that was not funny at all. And gathered her up against her and hugged her.
Maman did that a lot lately. Ari thought that she ought to feel happier than she was. She had never had maman spend so much time with her. Ollie too.
But there was a danger-feeling. Maman wasn't happy. Ollie wasn't. Ollie was being azi as hard as he could, and maman and Ollie didn't shout at each other anymore. Maman didn't shout at anybody. Nelly just looked confused a lot of the time. Phaedra went around being azi too.
Ari was scared and she wanted to ask maman why, but she was afraid maman would cry. Maman always had that look lately. And it hurt when maman cried.
She just held on to maman.
Next morning she went to playschool. She was big enough to go by herself now. Maman hugged her at the door. Ollie came and hugged her too. He had not done that in a long time.
She looked back and the door was shut. She thought that was funny. But she went on to school.
iii RESEUNE ONE left the runway and Jane clenched her hands on the leather arms of the seat. And did not look out the window. She did not want to see Reseune dwindle away. She bit her lips and shut her eyes and felt the leakage down her face while the gentle acceleration pressed her into the seat. left the runway and Jane clenched her hands on the leather arms of the seat. And did not look out the window. She did not want to see Reseune dwindle away. She bit her lips and shut her eyes and felt the leakage down her face while the gentle acceleration pressed her into the seat.
She turned her face toward Ollie when they reached cruising alt.i.tude. ”Ollie, get me a drink. A double.”
”Yes, sera,” Ollie said, and unbelted and went to see to it.
Phaedra, sitting in front of them, had turned her chair around to face her across the little table. ”Can I do something for you, sera?”
G.o.d, she needs to, doesn't she? Phaedra's scared. ”I want you to make out a shopping list. Things you think we'll need on-s.h.i.+p. You'll have to place some orders when we make station. There's an orientation booklet in the outside pocket. It'll review you on procedures.” ”I want you to make out a shopping list. Things you think we'll need on-s.h.i.+p. You'll have to place some orders when we make station. There's an orientation booklet in the outside pocket. It'll review you on procedures.”
”Yes, sera.”
That put a patch on Phaedra's problems. Ollie was walking wounded. He had asked her for tape. He-had asked her for tape, azi to Supervisor; and she had refused him.
”Ollie,” she had said. ”You're too much a CIT. I need you to be. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
”Yes,” he had said. And held up better than she had.
”One for yourself too,” she yelled at him, over the engine noise; and he looked around and nodded understanding. ”And Phaedra!”
Peggy came up to Ollie's side at the bar, wobbled as the plane hit a little chop and then ducked down and took out a pair of gla.s.ses.
For Julia. Back in the back. Julia and Gloria.
”You've mined my life!” Julia had screamed at her in the terminal. Right in front of Denys, the azi, and the Family that had come to see them off. While poor Gloria stood there with her chin quivering and her eyes running over. Not a bad kid. A kid who had had too much of most things, too little of what mattered, and who stared at the grandmother she had hardly ever seen and probably looked for signs of ultimate evil about her person. Gloria had no idea in the world what she was going to. No idea in the world what s.h.i.+p discipline meant, or the closed steel world of a working station.
”h.e.l.lo, Gloria,” she had said, nerving herself, trying not-G.o.d, not ever-to compare the kid against Ari-against Ari, who might hear a plane take off and might look up and realize it was RESEUNE ONE. RESEUNE ONE. Nothing more than that. Nothing more than that.
Gloria had run over to her mother. Who was about to hyperventilate. Who managed, atop it all, to impart a sense of the ridiculous to their departure. It was probably just as well they were traveling with Reseune Security. There was no trusting Julia not to bolt and run in Novgorod.
Irrationally afraid of the shuttle, the void, the jumps, all the things that involved a physics Julia had never troubled herself to learn and now decided she could not personally rely on.
Too bad, kid. I wish I could make a bubble for you where things work the way you want. I'm sorry it all overwhelms you.
It did from the moment you were born. Sorry, daughter. I'm really sorry about that.
Sorry you're going with me.
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