Mary Caraker: Suffer the Children

“I’m staying,” Regina said. “Morgan?”

Morgan cast about desperately. “Please… can’t you wait even an hour or two? What about the trade talks? Surely you can’t be finished so soon.”

Jaworski snorted. “A waste of time. They’re not interested in trade. All they ever wanted from SEF was the starship drive, so they could colonize, and now that they have it they’ve closed their doors. To me it was thanks, goodbye, and don’t come back.” He barked a curse. “The next time they’re in trouble, it sure as hell won’t be me to the rescue.”

“SEF will reimburse you,” Regina said.

“Sure. Expenses.” He gestured impatiently at Morgan. “So. Are you coming?”

Regina took pity on her indecision. “You can still have a child of your own,” she said. “I can’t.”

“But it won’t be Anna!”

“There are hundreds of families here, waiting for a child.”

“But will they love her?”

“Yes. They’re strongly attached to their children. The bond is—” She looked at Morgan, then away quickly. “Well, you know what happens.”

Morgan fled with the captain. She tried to make her mind a blank and refused to hear Anna’s cries. She didn’t speak to the Salassan guides, and later she remembered nothing of the return journey to the Dutchman.

She slept, sedated, for most of the three weeks back to Elyria. There, she was grateful for the accumulation of mind-numbing work, though it didn’t always help as much as she could have wished. Her healing was long, and though years later her head told her that she had made the right decision, her heart was never totally convinced—especially when she awakened, as she often did, with tears from a dream of a bird’s wing fluttering against her cheek.