The door opened again, admitting the stragglers. “Sorry we’re late,” Antonio said. “Dana asked to look in on the children.”
Did the little ones hate Dana, too? Did they avert their eyes, burst into tears, even back away, when Dana entered the nursery? Rikki was too ashamed of her failings ever to have asked.
“Not a problem,” Li said. “But it’s good that you’re here.”
“Do I smell chicken?” Dana asked.
Li beamed. “You do.”
So Queen Li means to take credit for a melee among the chickens? Despising the woman, Rikki changed the subject. “How was everyone’s day?”
Antonio shrugged. “Another day. Another few…calluses.”
“About that chicken?” Dana prompted.
As Li started to explain, Carlos emerged from the kitchen pushing a serving cart. With the grand flourish of a magician, he raised the domed cover.
The roast chicken’s skin was a crackly, golden brown. Clear juices oozed from punctures where he must have tested the bird’s doneness with a fork.
Rikki’s mouth started to water.
Nor did the feast end with the chicken. The greenhouse had contributed everything for a tossed salad: lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and cucumbers. There were baked potatoes, too, with synthed butter and dollops of faux sour cream. There were bowls of what looked like chocolate pudding.
When Carlos began carving the chicken, his hands were steady. If nothing else, the man could hold his liquor.
What were they celebrating, Rikki wondered, beyond Li’s largesse with the bounty to which everyone but she contributed?
“It’s a shame,” Rikki began, sadness and sudden anger commingling.
Carlos stopped carving. Heads turned toward Rikki.
“Tonight feels like a Sunday family dinner. Only there’s no family.”
“We’re family,” Li said.
“Of course,” Rikki said. “But I’m thinking bigger. I’m thinking of the children.”
I’m thinking of bonding with them, or, rather, them bonding with us. Only Li doesn’t see it. Li spends her days with the children, and they love her just fine.
Silence. Beneath the table, Blake gave Rikki’s knee a pat. Maybe he meant it as comfort. It felt patronizing.
Forget your wish upon a star, fella.
Rikki plunged ahead. “We don’t treat those kids—our kids—much different than the chickens in that egg factory down the street. We feed them and clean up after them like they’re on some sort of production line. Apart from regular baths, they might as well be chickens.”
“Except that we don’t eat the children,” Carlos said dryly, as he resumed carving.
Dana asked, “What do you have in mind, Rikki?”
“Dinner is the only time we’re together,” she answered. “We should eat with the kids. We should let them hear genuine conversation among adults, not abdicate to Marvin teaching them to speak.” And so much else.
“That’s seventy children.” Li answered in the slow, calm, reasoned manner that drove Rikki up the wall, in the affected tone of voice that reminded: I’m the professional here. That reminded: they love me. “This year we’ll add another sixty, more or less.”
“And we want all of them to be civilized,” Rikki said. “Or they’ll be fighting like the chickens, too.”
“Because during a sixteen-hour work day, on a short day, I would never think to speak to the children,” Li said.
Spoken calmly and reasonably, damn the woman.
“We control the rate of births,” Rikki said, “not the other way around. We shouldn’t”—we mustn’t!—“let an arbitrary decision shape how we bring up these kids.”
“It’s not arbitrary,” Antonio said. “If we don’t…raise the children while we’re still alive, with firsthand knowledge of technology, culture, and civilization, they’ll be savages. If that should happen, they…won’t long outlive us.”
Carlos again stopped carving to offer, “And we need genetic diversity.”
More variety within your future harem, Carlos? Rikki bit her tongue. The children having children, no matter with whom, would not become an issue for years. She said, “They’ll be savages if we don’t slow down the pace, if we don’t invest the effort to make them something better.”
If we don’t show them love.
“I agree with Rikki on this,” Blake said.
On this? What hadn’t made the cut?
“I’ve made a suggestion,” Rikki said. “Let’s discuss it.”
“We have discussed it,” Carlos said. “You’ve been told why it’s impractical to—”
Dana cleared her throat. “Let’s discuss options first. We could bring a few kids every evening. Rotate them through, making sure each child sees something like a normal family setting at least once a month. See how they fare in a social setting. Learn how we have to adapt.”
Blake’s pocket trilled; tonight was his turn on call. He took out the folded datasheet, glanced at it, and stood. “Sorry, people. Marvin needs hands in the nursery.” He gazed with longing at the feast, not yet even on the table. “So very sorry.”
Faster than Rikki could offer, Li said, “We’ll save some dinner for you.”
Rikki’s thoughts—and her gut—churned. Hands. That’s all we are to these children. What will they be like when they grow up?
Once again, Carlos returned his attention to the chicken. Blake set off toward the kitchen, perhaps for something he could eat while at the childcare center. Antonio, taking a serving bowl from the cart, managed to knock the salad tongs to the floor. He headed for the kitchen for, presumably, another set. Dana studied the forest scene.
The sudden silence was deafening.
It was as though Rikki had never spoken. As though she weren’t even here. “We’re running the universe’s biggest, most impersonal orphanage,” she said.
Leaning across the table, Li patted Rikki’s hand. “This isn’t about ‘the children,’ you know.”
Rikki yanked away her hand. “Enlighten me. What is it about?”
“A particular child.”
A nonexistent child. Though Rikki hated to admit it, even to herself, Li might be right.
There could be no denying the clanging of Rikki’s biological clock, but she refused to accept that she was a slave to it. She leaned back in chair, trying to be objective, to separate motivations, to sort out her feelings. And ended up worried: do I crave pregnancy for a sense of worth?
Li was responsible for everyone’s health, from day-to-day bumps and bruises to reversing the endless complications that cropped up in
