Mary Caraker: Suffer the Children

It was the second week of the journey, and Anna, while not as noisily exuberant as Daisy, had come out of her shell to what Morgan considered a remarkable degree. “Mo-ga,” she said, jerking at the pants’ leg and looking up at Morgan, “Mo-ga see Anna.”

“Yes, I see you,” Morgan said. She reached down and picked up the child and hugged her. “And I think you must be the smartest little girl I’ve ever known.” She settled Anna on her lap, gave her another spoon and watched proudly while the small, nimble fingers fitted them together in a variety of ways.

“It’s true,” she said to Regina. “I’ve taught enough kids, human and otherwise, to know, and Anna’s way out ahead by a mile.

“Daisy, too,” she amended politely, though privately she thought the boisterous Daisy was not nearly as advanced as her quiet, clever Anna. The speed with which Anna had learned to talk—whole sentences, even—was a marvel. “Time to get up,” she had chirped this morning, in an almost perfect imitation of Morgan.

Daisy’s voice was gruffer, more like Regina’s throaty tone, which had a determined rasp, now, as she spoke. “I’m not giving her up, you know.”

Morgan looked at her friend in shocked surprise. It wasn’t that she hadn’t expected such an announcement, or even thought of it in relation to herself, but so soon… and Regina sounded so definite.

“She’s mine,” Regina continued. Her gaze fixed hungrily on Daisy and she lifted her chin belligerently. “She’s my child, the one I’ve always wanted.” Her voice softened. “All those years in the Med Corps, when I couldn’t have any kind of a personal life, I dreamed of a little one just like her. I’d thought, I don’t know how many times, of retiring early, giving up the space track and settling down. I had a few opportunities when I was younger, there were a few men I could have loved enough to team up with, but something always came up. I was needed somewhere, or there was a wonderful assignment I couldn’t turn down. The years just went by, and I’d given up, thought I was too old. Until now. Daisy is like a miracle; a gift I may not deserve, but that I can’t refuse. And I don’t need a partner any more; I can raise her perfectly well by myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But… what about the Salassans?” Had Regina refused to think it through, or had she become temporarily blinded by her emotions? “She’s theirs, you know. Do you really think they’ll give her up to you?”

Regina dismissed the objection with a wave. “Daisy’s not property, she’s a person. She has no parents, and probably no relatives, which should make her adoptable in any culture. As for my qualifications as a parent, I’ve a clean record, I’m responsible and financially secure. The Salassans can’t be totally unreasonable, for all their strictures about us keeping our distances from the children. When they see how improved Daisy and Anna are, compared to the others, they can’t possibly be angry with us. And when they see how attached to me Daisy has become.”

Morgan felt herself nodding. They were all arguments she had thought of herself. Regina’s description of her life in the service could have applied to Morgan Farraday as well, in almost every particular. There had been a certain officer on Parth and a mining engineer on the Centauri asteroids, but both times further adventure had beckoned and she had bade them goodbye. Always, there had been children, and it had been easy to sublimate her maternal instincts. There had been a special few—Lurrp on Parth and Leila on Hedron II—who had been almost like daughters, but when she had had to part with them she had learned not to become too attached to other people’s children.

But Anna was an orphan. Perhaps… it might just be possible. There were no rules in the SEF worlds, as far as Morgan knew, regarding inter-species adoptions. She doubted if it had come up often enough to become an issue.

Anna would fit in on any human world. She was considerably smaller than a normal human child, but now that she was gaining weight she didn’t look so much different. Her face had filled out, and she now had a nose and lips and a chin. Her skin had lost its unhealthy, mottled gray pallor and was becoming rosier every day.

Yes, she was absolutely perfect, Morgan thought, and she felt such a welling of love that tears came to her eyes.

“Mo-ga cry,” Anna said. “Anna cry too,” and the child’s eyes filled as well.

Morgan tightened her arms around the small form. No, she would never give her up. Surely, no one would expect her to.

Daisy ran to answer a rap at the door, and Hogan came in with a tray of food. “Now, isn’t that a pretty picture,” he said of Morgan and Anna. “She likes them spoons, eh?”

Daisy started to bang again on the pot. “Look at Daisy!” she shouted.

Regina shushed her and distributed the rations to the four youngsters on the cot. They received them as lethargically as always, their dull eyes showing no signs of intelligence and their sunken faces more corpselike than ever.

“They sure don’t look good,” Hogan said. He addressed Regina. “You sure you can’t do nothin’ for them?”

“I told you, I can’t,” the doctor replied. “And you won’t.”

“Well…” The fat cook shifted his gaze from the sickly, gray figures to Daisy and Anna. He scratched the strip of hair on his crown. “I’d hate to see the little nippers die.”

“Then, pick one of them—any one,” Regina said.

“Are they boys or girls?”

She shrugged. “They’re pretty much anatomically neutral.”

Morgan started, wondering how she could be so mistaken. Anna, as soon as she had begun to put on flesh, had been unmistakably female. She started to say it, but Regina frowned in her direction and she remained silent.

Hogan chose the frailest one of the children, picking it up with his hamlike hands as carefully as if he feared it would shatter on contact. His first attempts to feed it were awkwardly ineffectual, but as he and the child both relaxed it went better. When the water flask and bowl were both empty, he grinned widely and did not immediately put the child down.

“I did it!” he exclaimed. “The little nipper ate it all!”

Morgan and Regina exchanged glances. She ought to warn him, Morgan thought. But then, again, why should she? Hogan didn’t look the type to become attached to a child, and even if it happened, what was the harm? The Salassans were so clearly wrong…

Hogan was still holding the child when Zed came by for one of his fruitless attempts to woo Morgan. He regarded Hogan jealously. “What’s he doin’ here?”

Regina answered. “What I’ve asked you to do, many times.”

Zed looked at Morgan. She knew he would take on the feeding of a child, as a favor to her. She had held off asking him, not because she couldn’t handle the lovesick bos’n, but because she would then be every bit as guilty as Regina in the eyes of SEF and of the Salassans.

Zed waited, the three remaining children on the cot stared listlessly into their bowls, and Morgan abandoned her last scruple. “Please. Pick one—any one.”

It was the third week of the voyage. Anna had continued to flourish, and Morgan was as determined not to part with her when they reached Salassa as Regina was to keep Daisy. Anna was learning the Terran alphabet, eating regular ships’ food, and she appeared so human in every important way that Morgan could scarcely associate her with the two Salassan children who still remained in their unaltered condition.

Though all Morgan’s years of experience told her that she was indulging in wishful thinking when she believed Anna more human than alien, that she knew nothing of Anna’s true biology, such reason was no match for the emotional attachment that grew stronger every day. So what, Morgan thought, if the attachment was pheromone-induced? It was as real as anything she had ever known. Cold reason had no chance at all.