Child of Earth (11 page)

“Does that mean Tildie and the gargoyles might come back too?”

“I don't think so. They were having a lot of other problems fitting in. Tildie's little adventure was a convenient excuse for them to quit and be righteous about it. But it wasn't any secret among the parents that the Administration was thinking of dropping them from the program. That's why they accused Jaxin of hurting Tildie. So they could quit and not be penalized. They forgot that the Administration has cameras everywhere.
That's why we don't speak English even here in our private quarters. We have to think like Linneans, just like Administor Moffin said. And that means we have to live like Linneans everywhere.” Mom-Woo pulled the covers up to my chin. “Now get some sleep and tomorrow we'll talk about sewing you a new kilt.”

But just because we said it, that didn't mean we could do it as easily. After Tildie's family and the others left, things felt different—like maybe the Gate Authority wasn't as much on our side as we'd thought. And I got the feeling that some of the parents resented the scouts now. Nobody said anything, but I saw people exchanging looks or lowering their eyes or just not raising their hands in Meeting anymore.

It bothered me, because Tildie's family had made its own choice. In fact, Administor Moffin made a big speech, saying the same things Mom-Woo had said, about how all of us would select ourselves in or out by our commitment. Nobody did it to us, we did it ourselves, so we had no one to blame for our mistakes. We had all agreed to the Covenant with the Mother Linnea when we entered the dome, so we had no right to complain when they asked us to keep our agreement. It made sense when Administor Moffin explained it that way, but it still annoyed a lot of folks, because so many of the agreements seemed so silly. But they only seemed silly if you looked at them with an Earth-mind. If you looked at them with a Linnean-mind, they didn't seem silly at all.

And Jaxin told us kids the same thing. We'd see the importance of our lessons once we got over to the other side—if we got over at all. The incident with Tildie's family had caused the Training Board to reevaluate large parts of the program. Originally the idea was to train us as rigorously as the scouts, but if families couldn't handle the training, then perhaps it was a mistake to send families over. But they didn't dare reduce the level of the training either.

Finally, about two weeks later, the Training Board held a special meeting about it. Administor Moffin presided. He didn't look any friendlier than before. I'd heard he had a lot on his mind. Some kind of incident had occurred on the other side, but nobody would tell us what had happened. Anyway, he rang his bell and started talking almost immediately.

“We cannot reduce the level of your training. We cannot. We will not risk your lives, nor will we risk the lives of any of our scouts. The Gate Authority has a contingency plan and they've authorized me to present it to you. You have a choice. Any family here can abandon participation in this program,
without penalty
, and we will transfer you to a different
program, a different gate going to one of the uninhabited worlds—or you can recommit to a higher standard.”

“What do you mean by a higher standard?” That was Da-Lorrin.

“For one thing, we may have to lengthen your time in training. For another, we may not let as many of you pass through Callo City on Linnea as we had planned. Some of you will have to head directly west instead. We intend to reevaluate everything for its appropriateness to the long-range plan. And no—” he added, “this has nothing to do with the Cretonne family. Some of you may have heard that they've filed a lawsuit. We expect the court will dismiss the suit, as it has done with similar suits in the past. In the meantime, we have to protect all of our people on Linnea, and all of you who want to cross over. So spend some time among yourselves, talking it over. Talk to our scouts, ask them what they think. We'll talk again next week.”

Walking up the slope back to our cabins, Gampa said, “A cold splash of water really wakes you up, doesn't it?” Rinky and I started a fire and Gamma put up water for tea. The family settled around the big table and Mom-Lu started slicing bread and put out a plate of fresh-churned boffili butter. We hadn't earned enough points for jelly yet.

Morra and Bhetto and Irm sat quietly at their end of the table, not speaking, but looking very grim. So finally, Mom-Lu said, “For God's sake, Irm, spit it out before it poisons you.”

“We can't quit,” said Irm.

“Of course not,” said Parra. “You've already made plans for our money.”

“No. Uh—no—” said Irm, struggling hard to find the right words in Linnean. “We can't quit because...because—oh,
shit
.” Irm couldn't find the right words and shifted to English. It sounded strange to hear English words again. “We can't quit because this is the best thing this family has ever done. Look at the children, they're happier than I've ever seen them. For God's sake, they have roses in their cheeks like real kids should! And look at yourselves, you all smile and laugh and joke like you're having the time of your lives! Yes, it's hard work—but so what? It's the kind of work that makes us happy to get up in the morning and get started. I don't want to quit because I'm having too much fun—a lot more fun than I ever had on Earth. And so are the rest of you!”

For a moment, everybody just stared at Irm. Even Morra and Bhetto looked shocked. And then Mom-Lu wiped her eyes with her hankie and Mom-Woo started laughing quietly. And Da-Lorrin walked over to Irm and offered his hand. And then everybody was hugging and crying all at the same time.

After a bit, Irm said, “When we got here, during those first few weeks at the beginning, I saw what you were all going through, the way you looked at Morra and Bhetto and me. How you all kept grimly pushing on, just so you wouldn't have to listen to us say, ‘I told you so.' I'll tell you, that hurt. We felt like outsiders. We felt like ... like you didn't believe our commitment to the success of this family. So we pushed ourselves harder than any of you. I don't think you noticed, but we didn't want you going over with any thoughts that Morra and Bhetto and I didn't fully support you, because we do. We've talked about this a lot, looking for ways to make up for our bad beginning. But I guess that was just something we had to do so we could get here.” Auncle Irm said, “I know I won't fit in over there. Just look at me. That's why I was afraid of this. I didn't want to be abandoned. I didn't want to lose you. Because I love you all. I guess I need to say that more. But in the last two weeks, well ... it feels like all the joy around here has died. And we've all had our noses rubbed in it, what it looks like when a dream is abandoned. And I don't like it any more than any of you do. I don't like seeing my family this way. I love you too much. We're not quitters. We're not failures. No thanks. As far as we're concerned—Morra and Bhetto and I—tomorrow, we all go back down the hill and sign this family up for whatever training it takes. This family doesn't quit.”

And then there was a whole bunch more hugging and laughing. Gampa clapped Irm on the back and Rinky ran over to smother all of them with kisses, and Cindy and Parra apologized for everything they had thought. And for a while, it felt like the old times again. We knew it wouldn't last—the job had suddenly gotten a lot harder—but somehow in that moment, we all knew that we would handle whatever came our way.

MOUNTAIN

AFTER ADMINISTOR MOFFIN had made his speech, almost all the families came back and renewed their commitment, signing new contracts to continue the program, no matter how hard it got. A little while after that, Moffin transferred out and they promoted Jaxin's ma to take his place. Administor Rance seemed a lot quieter and a lot more thoughtful than Moffin, but nobody doubted her commitment. She had lived on Linnea almost since the day the gate first opened. She knew almost everything about Linnea. Shortly after she took over, Jaxin and several of the other scouts went back to Linnea, and some new scouts came in to replace them.

And after that, things got a lot stricter. But also a lot more fun. Both at the same time.

We took our language tests, which were both written and spoken and lasted two days. And even though some of the family stumbled over a lot of unfamiliar words, we still did well enough as a group to graduate to second grade. We were all pretty happy about that. And besides, it qualified us to start building our own house, just like we would do someday on Linnea.

But first we had to build a great-wagon, which was kind of like a covered wagon, only built to the same scale as a great-horse, so it was more like building a two-story house on wheels—
big
wheels, almost as high as the horse's rump. You could walk underneath the bottom of it without having to stoop down.

The wagon had ladders and stairs and compartments all over it. It was a lot more complicated than it looked. And inside, it was like a bus or a truck, both upstairs and downstairs. But it had to be big enough and sturdy enough to carry the belongings of a large family. And it also had to be strong enough to serve as a traveling fortress too. Most families our size built two or even three great-wagons for their cross-country trek, but for the purposes of the dome, we only needed to build the one. Just to show we could do it. On Linnea, though, we knew we'd have to build three.

When we were done, Aunt Morra had all the kids paint pink Linnean daisies on the sides of the wagon, and after that we all called it the daisy-wagon. Later, we found out that we'd actually reinvented a common Linnean tradition, so we all felt pretty good about that. We got twenty-five bonus points for that too.

Finally the day came that we loaded the wagon with all the supplies we'd earned, and we drove it out to our “farm”—the ten acres of prairie assigned to us. That was one of the best days of all. We didn't have a horse of our own—no one in the dome really did; all the horses had to be shared—but when we moved we were given a horse to use for the day, and we had to take care of it as if it were our own.

The day before we moved, the horse we were supposed to use, Leadfoot, threw a shoe; so instead we got Mountain. The Administration didn't usually lend Mountain out to families because she was supposed to be only for the use of the scouts. She was the biggest horse in the dome; but she was also one of the gentlest and best behaved. So because we'd done so well with our wagon and because they didn't want us to fall behind schedule and because they wanted to start winter soon, they made a special exception for us. I was thrilled.

Mountain was big and beautiful and probably the smartest great-horse in the dome as well. She was famous for poking her nose into second-story windows looking for her grooms whenever she got hungry. And there was a story that she'd scared the yell out of Molina's new bride on their wedding night. But that was a long time ago. Molina was head-groom now, and he warned us that we had to treat Mountain like a
lady
or she'd just ignore us. She'd head back to the stable, wagon and all. Molina said she could be pretty headstrong if she wanted to be, but I guessed anything that big would be. Mountain looked more like a force of nature to me than a lady; but she had such a sparkle of wisdom in her eyes that I fell in love with her at first sight.

I wished she could have been our horse all the time; Aunt Morra
said I wished that about every horse I met, and she was right, I wished we could have a thousand great-horses. But Mountain was special. She pulled our wagon out to our site with barely a grunt, like she knew she was doing us a big favor. She shook her huge head proudly and stamped her feet impatiently while Lorrin staked out the boundaries of our house. I guess she thought he was taking too long. Then she plowed up the ground as good as any Earth-tractor could have done. All of us took turns riding the plow. We had to weigh it down; the ground was
hard
. Then we put a bulldozer-yoke on Mountain, and she began pushing the dirt back and forth into huge piles. She knew her job better than we did. Before midday we had a hole in the ground big enough and deep enough to bury a couple of buses, or a good-sized tube house.

After lunch, Rinky, Klin and I drove Mountain back to Callo City, even though that meant we'd have to walk the five kilometers back. But we didn't mind. We got back to the city while the sun was still high, so we decided to feed Mountain, then wash her and groom her, so Molina would feel good about having let us use her. When there are only three, it takes a
long
time to wash a great-horse, especially when you have to pump every liter of water yourself, but Mountain seemed to enjoy it and we had a lot of fun. And Molina was so impressed that he drove us home, saving us a long walk. That was the best day I ever had in the dome.

Now we started the hard part of the job—building a house. Well, actually a burrow. On Linnea, we wouldn't find much lumber on the prairie, so we would have to build our house out of dirt. The easiest way was to dig a hole and put a roof on it—a strong roof, because there might be boffili or emmo stampedes. Some of the herds were so large that even stampeding they could take two or three hours to pass overhead. We had to dig a burrow strong enough to withstand that. If we could do that, then we would prove we could live on Linnea. That was the test.

We already had the hole. Mountain had dug most of it, but there was still a lot of work to do, shaping the walls and hardening them. Lorrin and Big Jes and Klin were still designing, and we would have to make a lot of bricks, no matter what, so we expected to be living under the stars for several weeks. Sort of.

They weren't real stars. They were just the lights in the sky; and it wasn't a real sky, it was just the dome. But it looked real enough. Almost too real. That first night, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep. Even though we'd worked hard all day, it felt like someone had left the lights on. I'd never seen so many stars so bright and beautiful before, but Lorrin
said that was how the stars really looked without a dirty atmosphere in the way. That was hard to believe, and I spent a long time on my back just staring up at the lights in the sky. Wondering.