The food the cat-people had taken out of the bags seemed more voluminous than the bags themselves, but Glory didn’t comment on that, which was dreamily appropriate. When the crawdads were cooked, the four of them took the shells off and ate a bit of them and a bit of grum stalk, which Glory said was spicy and tart and a little peppery, and then a whalp berry or two, very sweet, then a bite of apple, and then some more of this or that while the little wind sent wavelets clucking around the splintery lopsided pier and terci-crows cussed at each other in the trees.
The two cat-people were full of questions about the Judsons and the farms and what they raised and what did best, like turnips, and what didn’t do so good, like anything fancy they might get more than fifty cents for. Glory waded out into the pool to get the jar of kinda-lemonade she kept there, where it stayed cool, and when she came back, they passed the drink around, and along about the third drink, the smaller one wiped her mouth on one paw—it did look like a paw, but it had fingers like a hand—and looked Glory straight in the face.
“Gloriana Judson, could you find the goodness in your heart to do us a favor?”
Glory looked suddenly skeptical, and I knew she was thinking of Bobby Duane Hansen’s Crusade of Help. Bobby Duane lived over in Repentance, but he was always crisscrossing The Valley in a wagon, suggesting very strongly that people find it in their hearts to help him out. Pastor Grievy thought Preacher Hansen was a poor excuse for a Ruer since Ruers weren’t allowed to connect their religion to money, and it was usually cash money Bobby Duane was asking people to help him out with.
“What’s the catch?” Glory asked.
They looked confused, so she said, “Usually, when somebody asks you to find it in your heart to do something, it means the heart’s going to find heartache right soon in the doing. At least that’s what my daddy says.”
“Heartache?” said the smaller one to the big one.
“Displeasure,” he said, trying it out. “Pain, suffering. No, no. No suffering, no expense, no pain or adversity.”
Lou Ellen was looking at Glory sadly, as though Glory had done something really unpleasant, slapped a baby, or kicked a puppy.
“It’s no nevermind,” Glory said, catching sight of Lou Ellen’s face. “I’m just shooting off my mouth. Grandma says I give the wrong impression because I do that all the time, and it’s a defense mechanism from being teased for being a mutant, and it’s one I should grow out of. You go ahead and ask your favor, and I’ll let you know can I do it.”
The two cat-people exchanged looks, then the larger one asked, “Why are you suspected of being a mutant?”
“Oh, because I’m taller than any girl my age, and I’ve got this hair so black it sometimes looks blue, and my eyes are a weird color. I don’t look like any of the Judsons, not any of ’em.”
“I believe you are within the range of human variation,” said the smaller person. “I, personally, know several people much like you, and it is unlikely you are a mutant.”
The larger one was silent for a moment, nodding quietly, as though to affirm his companion’s judgment. Then he stood up very straight and said, “We have a girl-child, very young. Though she is scarcely more than a baby, a great mission is foreordained for her, a duty to perform when she is a little older. Others, our enemies, will seek to prevent her doing this. Since our child must be old enough to walk and talk, at least, before she can undertake this great duty, she needs an unlikely place of safety and warmth in the care of an improbable custodian.”
Glory looked at Lou Ellen, who whispered, “Why didn’t they leave this baby with her grandma?”
Soft-spoken as she was, they heard her fine. “Our enemies would think first of that. She would not be safe anywhere our people are known to live or in any district where we are known to visit. This is a place we have never been before and may never come again, and this will assure she is well hidden.”
“Isn’t there anybody else to do this thing you’re talking about her having to do?” asked Glory.
The little one reached out for the big one’s hand and held it tightly. “When a task is unequivocally assigned by great wisdom, there is no point in complaint or argument. It will be done by our child, Falija, or it will not be done at all. We hope only that she will be staunch-hearted and that we can return to help her when the time has ripened.”
This was said with terrible sadness.
“You’re going away?” Glory asked. “You’re leaving her?”
“We must. To protect her, by leading our enemies away,” said the littler one, with a strange, choked sob.
Lou Ellen whispered: “How old’s the baby? Is it weaned yet? Is it potty-trained?”
Her question made perfect sense. Glory’s brothers, Till and Jeff, were sixteen, so she’d never had any experience with potty-training or baby feeding, but after Lou Ellen there’d been Orvie John and little Emmaline plus several babies in between who’d lived a little while before they died. Lou Ellen knew all about babies.
“Weaned?” said the smaller one. “Oh. Mammalian feeding of infants, yes, no, that is, Falija is old enough to eat food such as we have just eaten. She is also omnivorous. She can drink water from a cup. She can digest milk, but she prefers meat or vegetable things. She is still very little, not yet knowing how to…read? Write? Or speak very much. Our babies are…potty-trained almost from birth, and we use a low sandbox for the purpose.”
“How long you figure you’ll be gone?”
