Mary Caraker: Suffer the Children

While Nils tried to reassure her, Morgan’s second thoughts grew. Leaving for six weeks when she wasn’t firmly established definitely wasn’t a smart career move. She had acted on impulse, speaking before she thought, as she was too wont to do. Hasty actions had gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion, but she had thought she had learned her lesson.

Apparently, she hadn’t. She wouldn’t argue, she decided, if Commander Prescott refused her suggestion. She would be disappointed, sure, but it might, after all, be for the best. She entered the office with her fingers mentally crossed.

The commander greeted her with a strained smile. “You win,” he said. “Go home and start packing.”

Morgan watched through a viewport as the shuttle disappeared from sight. “You don’t know how glad I am you’re here,” Dr. Quarles said. “Once you see the children, you’ll understand. Do you want to come now?”

“Sure. Why not?” Morgan followed the older woman into a low-ceilinged corridor. Perhaps she wasn’t really older, Morgan corrected herself. Regina Quarles might be close to Morgan’s age, but the years in space had not been kind to her. Her short, bristle-cut hair was peppered with gray, her body was thickened at the waist and her mahogany-colored skin had the leathery look of too many years spent on outposts under unfriendly suns.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” Morgan said. “I thought… the order from SEF said…”

“I’m not supposed to be here,” the doctor said. “I’m expected on Elyria—I should have taken that shuttle—and there’ll be hell to pay when I don’t show up. But I couldn’t leave the children.

“No, not even with you here,” she said in answer to Morgan’s unspoken question. “They’ll need both of us. You’ll see.”

“You’ve had sole charge of them?” Morgan asked. “Since leaving the colony, I mean?”

“Since we found them,” the woman said. “They’re orphans, you know. Everyone else in the colony was dead. Had been for at least a week. God knows how the children survived. The oldest can’t be more than eight years old, and the youngest is scarcely more than a baby.”

“Dr. Quarles—”

“Please, call me Regina.”

“Regina. And I’m Morgan.” They shook hands for the second time, establishing a basis of informality. “Are you the only medical person on board?”

“The only extra-crew person. We didn’t know what we were going to find when we received the SOS, only that we had to deliver the serum fast. The Dutchman was the only ship available, and I was the only doctor. Even if we had known about the children, there was no one else to send. And now—you saw some of the crewmen. None of them knows how to care for a child, let alone one of these.”

Morgan nodded. The Dutchman’s crewmen who had ushered her on board had been the usual hard-bitten trader types. She could understand Regina Quarles’s concern.

“I did the best I could,” the doctor continued. “But I needed help. You’ll see what I mean. The Salassans kept sending orders to get the kids back to their planet ASAP. They didn’t even want the ship to stop long enough to take you on, but I made enough noise to SEF that they had to agree.”

Morgan supposed she ought to be grateful that the doctor had a loud voice, but all those oblique warnings about the children… She was more curious, though, than worried. She had taught a variety of aliens, not all of them pleasant, and the Salassans were reportedly humanoid at least in appearance.

The corridor narrowed. It was dimly lit, but even so Morgan could see corroded spots on the walls and cracked floor-plates. The air was thin, and had an unpleasant, metallic smell. “It’s an old tub,” Regina said with a frown. “But it’s got a hyperdrive, and that’s all that matters to the Salassans. We could have waited for more suitable transport, but like I said, they’re crazy to get the children home.

“Here, they’re in this cargo hold. It’s the only space they had.”

Morgan entered a windowless, enclosed bay. It contained six cots arranged in two rows, but the children were all huddled together on the farthest one. A bearded crewman sat on the cot closest to the entrance, absorbed in his hand-held electronic game. He sprang to his feet as soon as Morgan and Regina entered, and sidled toward the door.

“Is everything all right?” Regina asked.

The man shrugged without glancing at the children.

“OK, thanks,” Regina said. As soon as he left, she vented her disgust. “Totally useless. You’d think he was afraid of the poor things. I’ve explained until I’m blue in the face that they’re not carriers—they’ve gone through decon and I’ve done every test—but it’s like talking to the wind.” She approached the silent children without hesitation. “So—I wasn’t gone long, was I?” she crooned. “And I’ve brought you another friend.”

She held out her arms, and the smallest figure detached itself from the others and ran to her.

“She’s my special darling,” Regina said, picking up the child. She patted several others on their lumpy, bald heads. “Go ahead, talk to them.”

“Do you have a voder?” Morgan asked. The big-eyed children stared so blankly, she doubted that they understood Terran words.

Regina unclipped a small, square box from her waist and handed it to Morgan. “It’s keyed in to level one Salassan, which is as much as we have of the language, but I haven’t been using it lately. It doesn’t seem to help.”

Morgan understood why when she spoke into the voder. The impersonal voice that translated her greetings seemed to have no effect on the children: they stared as blankly as before.

The young Salassans, dressed in cut-down ship jumpsuits that hung in tent-like folds on their diminutive frames, sat cross-legged, shoulder-to-shoulder, as still as statues. Their skin was a mottled gray, completely hairless, their faces were flat, and except for their eyes, almost featureless. With lipless slits for mouths and the merest suggestion of noses and ears, they had the unsettling appearance of clay figures that were not quite finished.

Creepy. That was what the tattooed bos’n at the airlock had said when Morgan had asked about the passengers. Traumatized, Dr. Quarles had said.

They were both right, Morgan decided. Little as she knew about Salassans, the frozen behavior of the youngsters couldn’t possibly be normal. Only the child in Regina’s arms exhibited any signs of liveliness, and she turned her attention to it.

“You see, she’s different already,” Regina said. “All I’ve been giving her is a good dose of TLC, and she’s been blossoming like a little flower. I call her my Daisy.”

Daisy, who though tinier, looked about the equivalent of a human two-year-old, indeed appeared markedly different from the others. Her mouth curved in what might almost be a smile, and her cheeks were slightly rounded. As Morgan peered closer, she saw that a thin fuzz was even growing on her skull.

“Yesterday she made a sound,” Regina said. “I’m going to keep her with me as much as I can, and see if she repeats it.”

“None of the others talk?”

“Not a word—not even when they’re alone. It’s the shock, I’m sure. They hardly eat, either. I’d call it marasmus in humans, and prescribe affection and physical closeness. None of the regular crew will help, which is why I needed someone like you so badly. Though I wish… no offense, Morgan, but I was hoping for someone older. More of a grandmotherly type.”

Morgan made a wry face. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but I really am older than I look.”

“You’ve had a rejuv treatment?”