Remnant Population

“Idiot,” one of them said, in the front room of Ofelia’s house, where they came to interview the team members. Not that they had any authority to do so, Kira muttered to Ofelia, while waiting her turn. Likisi had had the civilian authority, and now it passed to her, as assistant team leader, but it was as well not to upset them. “Idiot,” the man went on. It was the loud one. “Old Bossyboots never did have the sense—” “May I touch one?” Kira asked, her face gentler now as she peered at the sleeping babies. “Yes,” Ofelia said. “They like to be stroked here—” She demonstrated; Kira copied her, and the baby opened bright eyes, swiped Kira’s hand with its tongue, and went back to sleep. “Cute is the wrong word,” Kira said.

“But—”

“There isn’t a word,” Ofelia said, “because they’re not human. They need their own words.”

“Bilong—”

“Bilong,” Ofelia said, more tartly than she meant, “is a fool. She may or may not know anything in her own field, but in person—” Kira grinned down at her. “I thought a woman like you would like someone like her better… she’s more traditional…” “Go read my log notes on Linda,” Ofelia said. The baby had liked Kira; she would not have chosen her, but the baby had. So she might as well learn to like Kira herself. Kira was smarter than Rosara; maybe she could be retrained into a reasonable sort of daughter, “And do not miss your chance when Bilong quits making such a loud noise about Likisi and notices that Ori is still here.”

Kira flushed. “What do you mean? I’m not—”

Ofelia stopped her with a look. “I am an old woman, but I am not stupid, or a fool. You like this Ori—” “Well, yes, but not like that—” “He wants to stay. You will stay. You will like him enough to become a mother. You already do; its why you hate Bilong.” Wicked, wicked glee, to see that strong-minded woman’s jaw drop as if she’d been hit with a brick. Wicked pleasure bubbling in her veins to see that woman discover that she had been seen, that her mind had been as naked to an old woman’s knowledge of human nature as the old woman’s body had been to her external eye.

Ofelia lay back, watching Kira through the hedge of her eyelashes. “You will call me Sera Ofelia,” she said. “You will help me with these babies, and the next, and you will have a click-kaw-keerrr for your own.”

“But — but—” She did not look so formidable when she sputtered like that, but she did look beautiful with the color of outrage on her cheeks.

“Good night,” Ofelia said, and shut her eyes. After awhile, she felt the mattress shift as Kira stood up, heard the whispers on the far side of the room. The babies squirmed contentedly all along her body, and she went to sleep.

The formal duties of nest-guardianship lay lightly on Ofelia; she spent the early mornings in her garden, with the babies scampering around beneath the great frilled leaves of squash vines grabbing slimerods, Later in the morning, she took them over to the center, where they joined the elders in the schoolroom. Unlike the People’s own nest-guardians, she had help from other elders; they understood that she alone could not keep up with three active babies. When she needed a nap, someone was always there… and sometimes that someone was Kira or Ori, who had both elected to stay as her human assistants. If it was not quite as free a life as her solitary existence, it was in other ways more satisfying. What she had least liked about community life had vanished. No one told her what to do; no one told her she didn’t matter. Even the old voice finally died away, frustrated by her lack of response. She still got a wicked thrill from speaking into the special communications link that carried her voice (she was told) instantly to the government buildings back on the world she had not thought of as home for decades. Back there, where she had been born, and lived, in the obscurity of a crowded inner city tenement, back where she had been told what she could not learn, the men who made laws listened to her. They could not even tell her to be quiet, because the link was only one way at a time. First she would give her report, and days later a batch transmission would come back for her. She let Kira and Ori listen to it first. They felt more important, and she felt sheltered a little from the tone of the first transmissions, before they realized they had no possible way to control her. They were past panic then, enjoying each other too much, enjoying the company of the bright, endlessly curious People who came to visit.

Profile, The Journal of Political Science.