“We’re the widow and orphans brigade,” the woman said. Her voice was too even for the soul behind it to be calm. “I’m Seraphina Suares. I said I’d look after children who’d been, who’d, you know. I lost my husband when the aircar crashed.”
“Ah,” Blohm said. He extended the converter’s doubly-telescoping base and opened the top flap, focusing on the task with needless concentration. He didn’t know why he felt embarrassed. Hell, he’d been an orphan himself; raised by the state in Montreal District.
Mrs. Suares checked the feet of one of the younger boys for blisters. The ten-year-old was changing the infant’s diaper. Several of the kids were bandaged though the silent one, Mirica, didn’t seem to have received any physical injury. She was about the age of the Spook he’d killed in the doorway at Active Cloak.
Blohm stuck one end of the root into the converter; the box began to hum. He steadied the root with his gloved hand, feeling a faint vibration. Converters dissociated organic material at the molecular level, not by grinding or other mechanical means, but it was as fast a process as combustion.
“I’ve got it set for chicken and rice,” Blohm said. “That seems to do as well as anything. Do you have something to put this in, ah, ma’am?”
“Children, take out your cups and spoons,” Mrs. Suares said. “And Mr. Blohm, please call me Seraphina if you can. Is your nickname Snake?”
The children were taking a variety of containers from their little packs. A six-year-old raised an ornate metal mug that had set somebody back in the order of a year’s pay for a striker. The mug and the clothes on the kid’s back were the only things remaining of his family.
“Hold it here,” Blohm said, drawing a cup down to the output spigot. A gush of thick gruel spurted until the child drew back. “Next one, step up. It’s not that bad and it’s got all the vitamins and whatever.”
The bad light was actually an advantage. The flavor of food from the converter could be varied somewhat, but the color was always gray. In daylight, you had to remind yourself you weren’t eating wet cement.
Another kid stuck her cup under the spigot. Others were staring at the first one as he dug his spoon doubtfully into the glop. Mirica was as still as a stump, but at least she’d taken out an eared mug in the shape of a grinning face.
“Ah, snake’s not a nickname, ma’am,” Blohm said. “Not exactly.”
It’s what veterans call each other instead of miss and mister, which we’re not . . .
Rather than say that aloud, Blohm muttered, “My name’s Caius, ma’am. I guess it doesn’t matter a hoot what you want to call me.”
“Caius, then,” Mrs. Suares said with satisfaction. Blohm didn’t remember anybody calling him by his given name before.
They got through five of the kids without a problem. Two ate with something like enthusiasm, which said more for their appetite than the meal. Mrs. Suares was feeding the two-year-old from her own bowl.
Mirica took the filled cup and even tasted a spoonful. After a moment she cradled her head in her arms and began to sob. The mug slipped from her hand and oozed its contents onto the ground.
“Oh, sweetheart, darling,” Mrs. Suares said with sad concern. “Please, darling, you’ve got to eat. We all have to keep our strength up so that we aren’t a burden on people like Caius here. Please, Mirica. Please sweetheart?”
Blohm detached his mess can from the bottom of the converter. “I know how she feels,” he said to Mrs. Suares. “They had a hell of a time getting me to eat at the creche when I was a kid too.”
He didn’t think about the creche much, but it wasn’t that he’d had a bad time there. It was a lot like the army. Not great but mostly okay; and anyway you better get used to it because that was what life was going to be until you died.
“Are you all right, Caius?” Mrs. Suares said.
“Sorry,” Blohm muttered. He must have been staring at her or some damned thing. “Sorry.