Part 10 (1/2)

Afra, the Rowan didn't by any chance remove Damia from daycare, did she?

No, Tanya. Why? Afra felt the first spurt of panic.

Damia isn't anywhere in the creche. She was asleep in her cot when I last looked.

Did you ask Jeran and Cera?

Oh, them! Tanya's tone was disgusted. They told me she went out waving her wand.

Hold it a moment, folks, and Afra spoke to everyone in the Tower, missing person problem.

Damia? Brian asked and groaned. Why did kindly notions dissolve into disasters? Can't you spot her, Afra?

If you'll give me the quiet to do so. Afra had already begun to cast his mind about. He could usually 'hear' her infantile stream of consciousness anywhere. Whether or not he could trace her wherever she had got to in the compound was another matter. He'd better or the Rowan would skin him for garters. Afra started at the daycare rooms, casting about the main compound.

Then Brian and Joe Toglia came stamping up the stairs to the Tower and began flicking on the screens to interior monitors, examining one area after another of the four domes that comprised the station. The screens showed no small figure trundling about.

'How long's she been walking?' Brian asked Afra.

'Long enough to be pretty good at it.' Cursing under his breath, Brian programmed a decko of the tunnel links. There were so many places that could shelter a small body from the optical sensors.

'She's not tall enough to reach the doorplates, is she?' asked Joe, thumbing through views of the bas.e.m.e.nt levels of the supply section.

'Wait a minute! And, with sudden inspiration, Afra leaned across the console and accessed the remote in his own quarters. And there Damia was, toddling about his living-room after Ringle and two other c.o.o.nies, trying to bean them with the dowel-wand in her hand. 'And that's how she activated the doors. - waving her wand!' Afra 'ported into the room, sweeping the stray child into his arms.

'Al'a! Al'a!' she squealed with delight, patting his face with her free hand and waving her 'wand' furiously with the other. He carefully unwrapped her fingers from the dowel before she stuck it in his eye.

'Damia shouldn't leave Tanya!' he said, knowing how futile scolding this imp could be. Merrily she grinned up at him, her huge blue eyes rounder than ever with her excitement.

'Al'a! Al'a?' She began to squirm free, 'Ingul, Ingul,' and she twisted her head to find Ringle, arching her back to get free.

'No Ringle now, Damia. I'm taking you back to Tanya.

'Tan'a? Tan'a.' That name emerged as a sort of guttural grunt and the twisting became more violent. 'No, Tan'a.

Ingul. Wan Ingul.

'Not now, baby!' Bearing in mind the Rowan's dislike of exposing her children to Talented actions, he secured her writhing form in his arms and walked her back to the creche where an anxious Tanya waited at the door.

'Ingul, Ingul,' Damia was saying over his shoulder, suddenly ceasing to fidget. 'Ingul. Goo Ingul.' Turning his head, Afra saw Ringle dutifully following him.

'How could she have got out, Afra?' Tanya said in a near wail as she reached out to relieve Afra of his burden.

'She had a wand, a dowel stick with a star on the end of it,' Afra told her.

'And used that to activate the doorplates?' Tanya was amazed.

'The little minx. Well, I'll get Forrie to touch code them tomorrow.

She won't try that one on me again.

Where's the Rowan?' Tanya anxiously looked across the compound.

Afra could well imagine how she had dreaded confronting an irate mother, especially a Prime, whose child she had just misplaced. Damia tried to launch herself head down out of Tanya's arms, both arms reaching for Ringle who had entered the creche. Deftly, Tanya righted the child, placed her on her feet so that she could reach Ringle who scampered off, Damia following as fast as she could churn her short legs.

'The Rowan arrived this morning looking like h.e.l.l warmed over,' Afra began.

'She did look exhausted when she dropped the children off,' Tanya remarked, and made a rueful noise with her lips.

'So we sent her back home for some rest. Afra did not mention his abortive mention of acquiring a pukha for Damia, though these 'comfort toys' could be programmed for any number of responses to soothe a fretful child.

'Tanya, how do you get Damia to take her naps?' The girl regarded him with surprise. Not for the first time Afra thought that she was little more than a child herself, for all he knew she was twenty-nine.

She was a daintily made girl, all brown: brown eyes, brown hair, light brown skin, with small hands and feet. If Gollee Gren hadn't expressed an interest in her, Afra would have been tempted to try his luck.

'Well,' and Tanya pointed to the rocking chair just visible in the nap alcove, 'if she won't settle, I rock her and sing a lullaby. She goes right to sleep for me.' She caught her lip with her teeth, looking sheepish, and fluttering one hand in dismay. Afra could 'hear' her distress at seeming to criticize her Prime.

'Just a lullaby?' 'Just a lullaby,' she replied firmly. 'You know how the Rowan feels about mental coercion. Actually, any song will do the trick. I use different ones so I don't get bored.' 'I know how the Rowan feels but what she doesn't know, won't hurt,' Afra said, having come to a decision.

The Tower demanded some adjustment to her directive.

He called Ringle to him. 'And it will sure help all of us.' Brown eyes widening, Tanya's jaw dropped in consternation. 'Afra, I don't think we should.' 'We both know that a mild therapeutic post-hypnotic suggestion doesn't in the least inhibit the developing mind of the Talented child,' Afra said as he reached down to stroke the obedient Ringle.

Trotting up behind him came a giggling Damia, dark curls bouncing on her shoulders. So Afra captured his victim and asked Tanya to teach him the tune and the words. By the time he had learned them and implanted the command in Damia' 5 mind, she had yawned herself to sleep in his arms.

'I'll send Forrie to change the ps, Afra said and went whistling back to the Tower, crisis over. At least, he amended privately, this one.

When the Rowan, much refreshed, returned to the Tower, everyone was very careful not to think of the morning's brief crisis. And Afra waited for an opportune moment to suggest a sure-fire remedy for Damia' nocturnal restlessness.

Brian listened, his mouth slightly ajar, as Afra recounted a totally fictional account of how his sister, Goswina, had dealt with his sleepless nephew'A rocking chair?' the Rowan asked in surprise.

'Rocking chair,' Afra said and implanted the appropriate image in his mind for her to see. Then set it moving, and placed a Rowan and a Damia in it. 'Between the motion of the chair, the repet.i.tive rhythm in his mother's rea.s.suring voice, my nephew was soon fast asleep.' 'I'm willing to try anything. But I don't know any lullabies. Jeran and Cera never needed any.' 'I know a good one,' Brian said. 'My mother used to say how often she had to rock me when I was teething.' In a rather strong baritone voice, he launched into a rendition of an ancient folk tune about what a daddy would buy his ll'l baby if it would hush.

Afra countered with Tanya's 'Rock-a-bye baby'. 'That one was a sure-fire sleep-inspirer.' What's going on in the Tower? asked Jeff Raven. It is working hours.

Sony, boss, Afra said with absolutely no remorse.

Ready, my lovely? Jeff asked the Rowan, we have some paying customers.

And, instantly and of one mind, Callisto Tower turned into a smooth functioning facility.

'Wanna play,' Damia told her two siblings. They were all in their home play-room while their mother was in the kitchen, preparing lunch.

Jeran and Cera were building a complex structure of blocks. Damia had been in a corner crooning to herself as she trotted her herd of ponies about an obstacle course and in and out of their stable. The intense silence of her siblings' concentration attracted her.

'G'way,' Jeran told her.

'Y'g'way,' Cera added, waving her sister off.

'Wanna play,' Damia repeated. Then changed her tactics. 'Can't I play with you?' Jeran blinked at her, recognizing grown-up syntax for their parents never used baby-talk. 'No, Damia,' for he could speak just as good grown-up as she could, 'Cera and I are playing together.' He waved towards her corner. You play with your horses.' 'Ponies,' Damia corrected him absently in a vague hope of provoking further attention from her brother. But Cera nudged him, indicating a block in her hand and, in their private garble, requesting his opinion on its placement.