“It is so, Gentlefem.” I treated her statement as a question and gave answer.
“At least you’re young.” She continued to stare at me. “The data said you are well grounded in teaching. You’re from the creche – ” There was a note of curiosity now, as if my background gave her a measure of interest. “You understand this employment is only temporary. We have to go to this awful frontier world for a year, maybe two, because my husband is stationed there. Are you a good spacer?”
As to that, how could I tell, never having lifted on any ship. But I do not think that she was really interested in me, for she swept on.
“I am not, not in the least. I go into voyage sleep at once, just as soon as we take off. But Bartare and Oomark cannot do that for the entire trip – they are too young. You’ll have to take care of them during wake periods. I don’t know – you’re young – ” What appeared to have faintly pleased her earlier now seemed to provide a question. “Bar-tare is quite difficult, very difficult. She has to have guidance.
Her learning level is near eight and will increase, they tell us. You must provide mental stimulation that will induce that increase. But then, you’re crech-trained, so you ought to know all about that. And I haven’t time or strength to interview a lot more dreary females – or unsuitable ones. You’ll have to do.”
That she considered her choice the final settlement of the matter was plain. And though I had read into her outpouring some hints of a demanding and exasperating future, I knew that Lazk Volk had been right. This was probably the only door that would open for me, and in this way I could have a different future.
She hardly listened to my assent. Instead, she issued a series of instructions as to where I must meet them. And I learned then that I could have only two days before leaving. This I did not like, but before I could protest, she gave a last order.
“The servo will show you to. the children’s room. You should meet them, and they must see you. That way, and remember – at the eleventh hour on Seven Night Day.”
I did not get a chance to finish the farewell-of-ceremony before the servo ushered me out of the room and into a hallway. There it paused before another door and sent in an announce-call, though it did not wait for permission to enter. It would seem that Gentlefem Zobak treated her children with no more ceremony than she did her employees. I was sent to view and be viewed, and that was that.
It was true that I had taught children at the creche. But the situation there had always been one of restraint and discipline. Creche children were most carefully screened. Those with problems of personality or temperament were early given professional treatment elsewhere. The children I had taught had been good and willing scholars, already set in the patterns of applied study. I was used to bright children who wanted to use their brains to a purpose. So my employer’s comments about urging her daughter to best efforts made sense and were familiar to me. But some instinct warned me, even as I entered the room, that this was not going to be like my almost casual schoolroom supervision in the creche.
The room was as luxurious as the one their mother occupied, but it was purely a sitting room. Strewn over a table under a lamp was a muddle of odds and ends such as had littered their mother’s bed. But one item seemed of such interest now that neither child looked up.
Bartare was small, fine-boned, and delicate-looking, like her mother. But she had no languor. Instead, there was such a tension of concentration about her small, thin body as reminded me disturbingly of that I had seen Lazk Volk display on occasion. Her hair was twisted back from her face, which came to a point with a small, sharp chin, with silver cords that gleamed the more because the hair they confined was dead black. She had very well-marked brows, which met over her nose, so they formed a solid bar across her face. And her eyelashes were unusually thick about eyes, almost as deeply sable as her hair. In contrast, her skin was pale, having no trace of color in the cheeks and only a faint tinting of lips.
Her dress was dark green, an odd color for a child, yet one I would always thereafter associate with Bartare. With a strip of material of the same color, she was now wrapping one of the small carven images the country folk set up in their kitchens for protection against the powers of darkness, only this one, crude in its beginning, had several refinements. Metallic wires had been twisted around the head to form a crown – for one.
Watching his sister robe the image was Oomark. Though he was the younger in years, he was perhaps a finger’s breadth the taller, big-framed and solid-looking. His face had still a babyish roundness, and now it wore an odd expression, almost as if he were both fascinated and alarmed by what his sister was doing, too unusual a look to accompany the dressing of a doll.
He glanced up at me. Then he leaned over and touched his sister on the arm, almost diffidently, suggesting he was in awe of her and yet knew he must attract her attention.
“Look, Bartare – ” He pointed one finger at me.
Bartare raised her head. Her stare was deep, measuring, and somehow very disturbing. I felt almost as shaken as if I had encountered, behind the outer shell of a small girl-child, something old, authoritative, and faintly malicious. But that was gone in a flash. Bartare laid down her doll with the care of one putting aside an important piece of handiwork and came away from the table to sketch one of those curtsies used by children of her class as a polite greeting.
“I’m Bartare, and this is Oomark.” Her voice was clear and pleasant. It was only when she shot a sudden glance at me from beneath that eyebrow bar that I was a little chilled.
“I’m Kilda c’ Rhyn,” I answered. “Your mother asked me-”
“To see us and let us see you. I know.” She nodded. “That means you’re the one going to go to Dylan with us. I think – ” She hesitated a moment and then used an expression that was rather odd. “I think we may suit.” But was there or was there not a stress on the word “may” that hinted at reservations and could be a warning?
I cannot remember now much of what we spoke about at that first meeting. After his recognition of my being in the room, Oomark never spoke at all. However, his sister displayed not only excellent manners but also the fact that she was a child of superior intelligence and poise. She- well, I could have said nothing but good of her. Yet I had reservations, an uneasiness all the time we were together, as if we were both acting parts.
Once I saw a tape from Lazk Volk’s files portraying a theatrical production on another world. The actors and actresses carried elaborate ceremonial masks mounted on sticks. Each had several of these, fastened by fine chains to their girdles. In time for their speeches, they chose one or another of these masks and held them before, but not directly against their faces, as they recited their lines. This came to my mind now, for it seemed to me that both Bar-tare and I were holding masks and that what was behind our masks and our stilted, polite conversation was very different.
Yet I was not so disturbed that I would refuse to take the position. In fact, once I had subdued that initial sense of unease, I was intrigued by Bartare, and I thought that I might find the next year or so interesting for both of us. I also judged that Oomark was too much in his sister’s shadow, and he might well benefit by special attention. In any event, I returned to the creche well enough pleased with the bargain Lazk Volk had aided me to, prepared to cut ties with my old life and lift off-world to a new.
2
I was not long in saying good-bys at the creche. Save for Lazk Volk, my close ties there now were few. By his influence I had stayed a year longer than others of my age group, being, as I had said, perilously near to the time when I would have been forced to leave whether or no. My leaving fees were paid to me, half in clothing suitable for my future on Dylan, the rest in a small number of credits that I clung to, knowing them to be my barrier against misfortune.