“You’ll get caught,” she said, halfheartedly hoping he wouldn’t press it. It would get them both in trouble, probably… perhaps. And yet it tied them together, probably….
“I won’t get caught. I’ll come there during my free time, I’ll stay right there and read, then I’ll leave the things there, pushed down behind the tree. Oh, I know you will. Please, Stavvy.”
“All right, Chernon,” she promised him, giddy from that liquid, furtive feeling he gave her, a feeling which she assumed was “infatuation.” She had no other name for it. Lending him a few books seemed such a small thing to do to keep that stricken, wounded look away from his face. She couldn’t bear to see him looking like that.
SEVERAL DAYS after carnival, Myra went to the medical center, taking Stavia with her for company. After an hour, Myra came out looking angry and ill used, and they walked toward home together.
“Have you got something?” Stavia asked.
“No, I have not got something. I’m healthy.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just—they’re so rude. Always the same questions. When was my last period? She knew. It was just before carnival, and she gave me an exam then. Was I taking my supplements? Did I have any sexual problems?”
“That doesn’t sound too rude.”
“It was something else. She had me up on the table all spread out like a split fish with that metal gadget in me, squirting me with syringes and stuff, and then they called her out for an emergency and she left me there!”
“There are emergencies, My. There really are.”
“Well, somebody could have come and let me loose. I was there for half an hour, flat on my back.”
“Does she think you’re pregnant?”
“She says she can tell in six weeks or so.”
“Do you want to be pregnant?”
“Sure. I mean, I have to start sometime, right?”
“But do you really want to be pregnant? By Barten?”
“It would be the prettiest baby, Stavvy. I have always hated this hair. And freckles. I hate freckles. Barten’s baby will have dark hair and blue eyes and skin the color of spun wool.”
“You can’t be sure of that, Myra.”
“Well, it’s a good chance.”
“I’m just saying, don’t count on it. The baby may have hair and freckles just like you, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to let it know you were disappointed.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Stavia, you are not the only person in this family ever to have taken childrearing courses! I swear to God, some days you sound just like Morgot. You’re only eleven and I wish to God you’d act like it!”
Stavia was so astonished that she stopped short, letting Myra walk on by herself. It was true. She did sound like Morgot. It struck her for the first time that she even thought of herself as a kind of Morgot. A smaller version. It seemed unfair that Myra had reminded her she was only eleven. It was true, but it didn’t mean anything, except physiologically. She had no breasts. She had no menses as yet. Presumably these would come. When she lay in her bed at night, touching herself for her own pleasure, she thought of Chernon, longing for the years to pass until…. She flushed, aware of the heat in her body. That meant she was quite normally sexual. And she did have a womanly mind.
Her thoughts flowed on: If it was true that Morgot and Stavia were much alike, then Morgot would understand Stavia’s giving Chernon the books, understand and approve of it….
The thought abruptly drained out of her, like irrigation water flowing down through some hidden gopher hole, all her easy, consoling rationales pouring away to leave only a soggy certainty behind. She, Stavia, might be as like Morgot as one twin to another or as mother and daughter could be, but Morgot would not approve giving books to Chernon. Morgot would quote the ordinances. Morgot would say, “If he wants books, let him return to Women’s Country and he may have all the books he likes….”
It was true. Joshua had books. Many. And so did little Minsning, and so did any other servitor who wanted them.
But not the warriors. A man who chose the warrior’s lot chose to fight for his garrison and his city. A warrior needed all his powers of concentration. Having other, irrelevant thoughts in his head could be risky. Also, it could be dangerous for a warrior to know too much about certain things. Metallurgy, for instance. A warrior might obtain an unfair advantage if he had learning that other warriors didn’t. Out of loyalty to his garrison, a warrior might make some device which could return them to the time of convulsions. Only equal match between equal warriors at arm’s length could decide things fairly without imperiling others, without threatening devastation….
She could hear Morgot’s voice. But she could also hear Chernon’s. “Please, Stavia. I want them so bad! There’s things I need to know….”
When he pleaded with her like that, he melted her. As though she were no better than Myra, turning to mush when some man begged her. “Please, Stavvy.” His eyes were as clear as Jerby’s, childlike still. His hair was soft gold, like Beneda’s. He looked so much like Beneda, too, with that lovely, bony face, all planes and angles.
No. She could not say anything to Morgot. And Chernon must be told firmly that he could have all the books he wanted if he would only come back.
Except that he wouldn’t let her talk about that. He had begged for books where he was, not where he might someday be.
She stamped her foot angrily, biting her cheek on one side and bearing down until it hurt. She couldn’t stop giving Chernon books now. Not now. But it wasn’t really wrong, not yet. He wasn’t really a warrior yet. Not until he was fifteen….
“Shit,” she murmured at the stones beneath her feet. “Oh shit.”
