She did remember when Nikos and Christina Demetrios came. And soon after the twins, Allen Sheffield came, and then Sara Cerelli. Six of them, tumbling around the nursery under the watchful eye of Ms. Patterson or Grandma Sheffield, going home to their domes with their parents for visits, playing games with the electrodes on their heads for Dr. Toliveri and Dr. Clement. They all liked Dr. Toliveri, who laughed easily, and they even liked Dr. Clement, who didn’t. They all liked everything, because everything was so interesting.
Their nursery was in the same dome as another one, and for part of every “day”—Miri wasn’t sure what that word meant yet except that it had something to do with counting something, and she liked counting—the plasti-wall between them was opened. The kids in the other nursery rushed into Miri’s, or the other way around, and Miri tumbled over the floor with Joan or tussled over toys with Robbie or piled blocks on top of each other with Kendall.
She remembered the day that stopped.
It started with Joan Lucas, who was bigger than Miri and had curly, bright brown hair shiny as stars. Joan said to her, “Why do you wiggle all over like that?”
“I d-d-d-don’t kn-know,” Miri said. She had noticed of course that she and Tony and the others in her nursery twitched, and Joan and the others in hers did not. And Joan never stuttered, either, the way Miri and Tony and Christina and Allen did. But Miri hadn’t thought about it. Joan had brown hair; she had black; Allen had yellow. Twitching seemed like that.
Joan said, “Your head is too big.”
Miri felt it. It didn’t feel bigger than before.
“I don’t want to play with you,” Joan said abruptly. She walked away. Miri stared after her. Ms. Patterson was there immediately. “Joan, do you have a problem?”
Joan stopped walking and stared at Ms. Patterson. All the children knew that tone. Joan’s face crumpled.
“You are being silly,” Ms. Patterson said. “Miri is a member of your community, of Sanctuary. You will play with her now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Joan said. None of the children was exactly sure what a community was, but when the adults said the word, they obeyed. Joan picked up the doll she and Miri had been trying to dress. But Joan’s face stayed crumpled, and after a while Miri didn’t want to play anymore.
She remembered this.
They had lessons every “day,” three nurseries of kids learning together in a community. Miri remembered vividly the moment she realized that a terminal was not just to watch or listen to; you could make it do things. You could make it tell you things. She asked it what a “day” was, why the ceiling was up, what Tony had for breakfast, how old Daddy was, how many days till her birthday. It always knew; it knew more than Grandma or Mommy or Daddy. It was very wise. It told you to do things, too, and if you did them right it made a smiling face and if you didn’t you got to try again.
She remembered the first day she noticed that sometimes the terminal was wrong.
It was Joan who made Miri see it. They were working on a terminal together, which everyone had to do part of each day—Miri knew the word, now—because they were a community. Miri didn’t like working with Joan; Joan was very slow. Left alone, Joan would still be on the second problem when Miri was on the tenth. She sometimes thought Joan didn’t like working with her either.
The terminal was in visual mode only: they were practicing reading. The problem was “dolclass="underline" plastic baby:?” Miri said, “M-m-my t-t-turn,” and typed in “God.” The terminal flashed a frowning face.
“That’s not right,” Joan said, with some satisfaction.
“Y-y-yes, it is,” Miri said, troubled. “The t-t-t-terminal’s wr-wrong.”
“I suppose you know more than the terminal!”
“G-God is r-r-r-right,” Miri insisted. “It’s f-f-four st-str-strings d-d-down.”
Despite herself, Joan looked interested. “What do you mean, ‘four strings down’? There’s no strings in this problem.”
“N-n-not in the p-p-p-p-p-problem,” Miri said. She tried to think how to explain it; she could see it in her mind, but explaining it was harder. Especially to Joan. Before she could begin, Ms. Patterson was there.
“Is there a problem here, girls?”
Joan said, not nastily, “Miri has a wrong answer, but she says it’s right.”
Ms. Patterson looked at the screen. She knelt down beside the children. “How is it right, Miri?”
Miri tried. “It’s f-f-four l-l-l-little str-strings down, M-M-Ms. P-P-Patterson. S-s-s-see, a ‘d-doll’ is a ‘t-t-t-toy’—the f-f-first string g-goes f-from d-d-doll t-to t-t-toy. A t-toy is f-f-f-for ‘p-pretend,’ and one thing w-w-we p-p-p-pretend is th-that a shooting st-st-st-star is a r-r-real st-st-star, so you c-can p-put ‘sh-sh-sh-shooting star’ n-next in the f-f-f-irst string. T-t-to m-make the p-p-p-pattern w-w-w-w-work.” So many words was hard work; Miri wished she didn’t have to explain so hard. “Th-Then a shooting st-sst-star is r-really a m-m-m-meteor, and you have to m-m-make the str-string g-g-go r-real now b-b-because b-b-before you m-m-made it p-pretend, so the end of the f-f-first str-string, f-four l-l-little str-strings d-down, is ‘m-m-m-m-meteor.’ ”
Ms. Patterson was staring at her. “Go on, Miri.”
“Th-then for ‘p-plastic,’ ” Miri said, a little desperately, “the f-f-first string l-l-leads t-t-to ‘invented.’ It h-h-h-has to, you s-see, bb-because ‘t-toy’ led t-t-t-t-to ‘p-pretend.’ ” She tried to think of a way to explain that the fact that the little strings were one place off from each other was part of the whole design, echoed in the inversion she was going to make of the same words between substrings two and three, but that was too hard to explain. She stuck to the strings themselves, not the overall design, which troubled her because the overall design was just as important. It just took too long to explain in her stammering speech. “ ‘Invented’ g-g-goes t-t-to ‘p-p-people,’ of c-course, b-because p-people invent things. The p-p-people st-string l-leads to ‘c-c-community,’ a l-l-lot of p-people, and that st-string has to g-g-go t-to ‘orbital,’ b-b-because then the t-t-two str-strings l-l-lined up n-next t-t-to each other m-make the p-problem s-s-s-say ‘m-m-meteor: orbital.’ ”
Ms. Patterson said in a funny voice, “And that’s a reasonable analogy. Meteor does bear a definable relationship to orbitaclass="underline" one natural and inhuman, one constructed and human.”
Miri wasn’t sure what all Ms. Patterson’s words meant. This wasn’t going right. Ms. Patterson looked a little scary, and Joan looked lost. She plunged ahead anyway. “Th-then f-f-for ‘b-b-baby,’ the f-f-first str-string l-l-leads to ‘sm-small.’ Th-that leads t-t-to ‘p-protect,’ l-l-like I d-do T-T-Tony, b-b-b-because he’s sm-smaller than m-m-m-m-me and m-might g-get h-h-hurt if he c-climbs t-t-too h-h-h-high. Then the l-l-little str-string g-goes to ‘c-c-community’ b-b-because the c-community pr-protects p-p-p-p-people, and the f-fourth little str-str-string h-has to g-g-go t-to ‘p-people’ b-because a c-c-community is p-people, and b-b-b-because it w-was that w-way upside d-d-down under ‘pl-plastic,’ and a l-l-l-lot of our orbital is m-m-m-made of p-plastic.”
Ms. Patterson still had her funny voice. “So at the end of three sets of four strings—Joan, don’t change the terminal screen just yet—at the end of these strings of yours, the problem reads ‘meteor is to orbital as people is to blank.’ And you typed in ‘God.’ ”
“Y-y-yes,” Miri said, more happily now—Ms. Patterson did understand!—“b-b-because an orbital is an in-invented c-c-community, wh-while a m-m-meteor is j-just b-bare r-rock, and G-G-God is a pl-planned c-c-community of m-m-m-m-minds, while p-p-people alone are j-j-just one by one b-bare.”