She didn’t doubt he’d come if she asked him. She’d put a condition on the asking though: She’d share him with the others, but Sarkia would have to let the two of them live together as man and wife.
The prospect brought warmth. It would work, she had no doubt. She could make it go right.
7: Tigers!
She slept through breakfast and most of the morning, wakening slowly, aware finally that she’d slept the clock around. Up! she told herself. Up and face the day! Then burrowed deeper into the security and comfort of the thick feather mattress.
But when she peeked again, the clock (which bore the name Westclox on its face and had been made in Norcross, Georgia, in another universe) said 11:32, and she discovered she was hungry. So dragging herself from bed, she washed and dressed, and by noon had joined a growing crowd of attractive women, ages twelve to perhaps ninety, in the dining room. She was among the earlier arrivals, and there was room beside her, but somehow Liiset, when she came in, took a seat at the other end of the room. Without acknowledging her wave or meeting her eyes.
A guardsman intercepted her as she left. (Recognizing identities among look-alikes was a talent that turned on early in the Sisterhood, with both girls and boys, even among those like Idri who did not see auras.) His face told her nothing, and his aura scarcely more, for this errand meant little to him, but she followed with an empty feeling. To the Dynast’s office.
When she entered, she knew at once that here was trouble, the trouble she’d avoided thinking about. Two persons awaited her. One was Idri, with a look of hard-eyed satisfaction. The other was the Dynast, older than any other Sister, ever, by at least a century. A Sister of awesomely long life and memory. She’d been Dynast when Curtis’s great-great-grandfather had run away. Yet she could pass easily for twenty-five, if you ignored her eyes and aura.
“Welcome home, Sister Varia,” Sarkia said amiably. “I see you’re pregnant.”
It didn’t show physically yet, but any Sister who could see auras could tell.
“You realize why you’re here, of course.”
Varia nodded. This would be her hearing for refusing an order, and perhaps for desertion. “Yes, Sister Sarkia.”
“Very well.” The Dynast recited the charges in an almost kindly tone. “Do you deny either of them, in kind or in spirit?”
“No, Sister Sarkia.”
“Can you cite extenuating circumstances?”
“Only that the events at Ferny Cove were described to me as much more drastic than they actually were. It seemed to me that the Sisterhood had been destroyed.”
The Dynast’s eyes and aura showed no agitation. “But obviously it was not,” she said. “You lacked faith, no doubt because of your long separation from us. Well. We must get you back into the spirit of service and discipline. Yours is our most fertile clone, and you and Will Macurdy much our most fertile pairing. You should have brought his nephew through, as ordered.” She paused, seeming to consider. “I’m assigning you to duties in the crèche; this will go well with your pregnancy. Meanwhile you’ll maintain your physical health by participating in the morning drills.”
She stopped there and sat wordless for a minute, her eyes holding Varia like a bug on a pin. “Then, after a suitable post-partum recovery, you will be assigned to a Tiger barracks for re‑impregnation.”
A sudden stone sat heavily in Varia’s bowels. The Tiger clones had been bred and culled for a hardness of spirit, and they were notoriously infertile. And there was more, she realized; the Dynast was not done.
“During your assignment in the crèche, you will be supervised by Sister Maliv. During your assignment in the Tiger barracks, Sister Idri will see to your welfare, and make sure you are properly chastened and corrected.”
Varia had never seen Idri smile before.
* * *
While living and working at the crèche, Varia managed mostly not to dwell on her sentence. Only occasionally did she think of it, sometimes at the sight of a Tiger striding lithe and hard down some path. And sometimes when she wiped and washed some boy infant, or awakened from nightmare. Gestation seemed scarcely to take weeks, though she’d been in the Cloister more than four months when she was taken to the lying‑in ward. To her surprise and dismay, Sarkia was there, and Idri.