Thereafter, Genevieve “borrowed” periodicals whenever she could do so unobserved, reading and rereading them in the privacy of her own room before returning them to the discard pile, thankful for the private room that let her read without being questioned. All the girls twelve or older had private rooms, for being alone was something girls had to adjust to. When one became mistress of an estate, one would need to occupy long stretches of solitude without being lonely. Otherwise, one might actually engage in improper behavior, start fraternizing with the maids, chatting with the butler, or flirting with good-looking stable boys, which was not the thing. Not at all.
“No matter how lonely you get, do not get into the habit of chit-chat with the servants.” So said Mrs. Blessingham.
And whom might one chit-chat with? One’s friends from school, who could be invited to come visit for a fortnight or a season. One’s parents or siblings, if any. One’s children if one had any and if they and oneself lived to a conversational age. Everyone seemed agreed that women should talk as little as possible, in order not to offend.
Or, Genevieve thought as she stood in her open window staring out at moonlit trees, one might simply have a tower room, above it all, where talking was unnecessary. When she imagined her future, Genevieve equipped it with a tower room, one even higher than this, above the clouds, where the night music would sound clearly and she could sing at the top of her lungs without being heard. This dream was slightly confusing, for if she wanted to be separated from humanity’s troubles, why did she read the librarian’s periodicals? It was puzzling.
3: The Planet
During the human dispersion from Old Earth, a surprising number of habitable worlds were discovered more or less by accident. Haven was a typical example. Te Matawaka Whetu, the largest ship in the Ark Fleet from Old Earth, blew a modulator while transitting a worm hole and was expelled through an unexpected nexus. The ship emerged too near Haven to avoid discovering the planet rather more violently than the crew would have preferred. Te Matawaka Whetu, which had been headed toward another planet in quite another direction, was pulled into a rapidly decaying planetary orbit that ended with the ship crashing into the worldwide ocean where it soon broke up and eventually sank, though not before the crew escape pod was launched along with the Mayday beacon array.
The site of impact was between two landmasses—the only two land-masses—near an arc-shaped isthmus where the escape pod came to rest with all its emergency supplies intact. Some of the wreckage washed up on the smaller continent to the south, as well as upon a number of islands.
Even under the press of disaster, the experienced captain had included in the Mayday signal the fact that the planet was habitable but uninhabited. This guaranteed the rescue of the survivors, for any habitable world was worth at least one rescue mission. When the rescuers arrived they found the crew safe and well, through they could find no significant remnant of the ship, which was listed as having sunk together with all cargo and the cargo handlers. The planet was subsequently registered for settlement—along with several others that the rescue ship located in the immediate area—and when it was officially surveyed by the Office of Planetary Settlement it was listed as having two continents connected by the mountainous isthmus, plus some thousands of islands.
The land area was too small to tempt most investors, though nearby planets discovered by the rescue mission were settled rather soon: Dephesia by a farming society, Chamis by a group of terraformers, Barlet’s World by a group of militant greens,- forested Ares by veterans of the final lebensraum wars among Earth, Luna, Mars, and the Jovian moons that had left all of them uninhabited and uninhabitable. Eventually the exorbitant claim fee for Haven was paid by a small consortium of wealthy men who wished to retire from Urbana-eight, a planetoid which they had much profited from gutting, to something more natural and charming. The group did not care that Haven’s land area was small. They preferred it that way, as it would be more exclusive. Easier, so they said, to keep out the riff-raff.