Then she took them home and showed them where they would live, and their own rooms; and explained to them about Nelly.
"You have to do what Nelly says," she said. "So do I, most of the time. Nelly's all right."
They were not quite nervous; it was something else. Especially Catlin, who had this way of looking at everything real fast. Both of them were very tense and very stiff and formal.
That was all right, they were respectful and they were being nice.
So she got out her Starchase game, set it up on the dining table and explained what the rules were.
None of the other kids ever listened the way they listened. They didn't tease or joke. She passed out the money and dealt out the cards and gave them their pieces. And when they started playing it got real tense.
She wasn't sure whether it was a fight or a game, but it was different than Amy Carnath, a lot different, because nobody was mad, they just went at it; and pretty soon she was leaning over the board and thinking so hard she was chewing her lip without knowing it for a while.
They likedit when she did something sneaky. They were sneaky right back, and the minute you got your pieces where you could get Florian in trouble, Catlin was moving up on the other side.
Starchase was usually real fast to play. And they were at it a long time, till she could get enough money to get enough ships built to keep Catlin off till she could get Florian cornered.
But then he asked if the rules let him join Catlin.
No one had ever thought of that. She thought it was smart. She got the rulebook out and looked.
"They don't say you can't," she said. And her shoulders were tired and she was stiff from sitting still so long. "Let's go put the board in my room so Seely won't mess it up and we'll have lunch, all right?"
"Yes, sera," they said.
They had a way of doing that to remind her they weren't just kids, every time she tried to make them relax.
But Florian carried the board in and he didn't spill it. And she thought she had rather go have lunch in North wing: uncle Denys let her go to the restaurant there, the little one, where the azi and the manager all knew her.
So that was where she took them, to Changes,down next to the shops, at the corner, where mostly Staff had lunch. She introduced them, she sat down and told them to sit down, and she had to order for them: "Sera," Florian whispered, looking awfully embarrassed after a moment of looking at the menu, "what are we supposed to do with this?"
"Pick out what you want to eat."
"I don't know these words. I don't think Catlin does."
Catlin shook her head, very sober and very worried-looking.
So she asked them what they liked, and they said they usually had sandwiches at lunch. She ordered that for them and for herself.
And thought that they were awfully nervous, and kept looking at everything and everyone that moved. Somebody banged a tray and their eyes went that way like something had exploded.
"You don't have to be worried," she said. They made hernervous. Like something was going to happen. "Calm down. It's just the waiters."
They looked at her, very sober. But they didn't stop watching things.
Just as serious and just as sober as they were in the game.
The waiter brought their drinks and they looked at him, all over, real fast, so fast it was hard to see them do it, but she knew they were doing it because she was watching.
Nothing like Nelly.
Uncle Denys talked about being safe in the halls. And got her two azi who thought the waiter was going to jump them. "Listen," she said, and two serious faces turned toward her and listened,azi-like. "Sometimes we can just have fun, all right? Nobody's going to get us here. I know all these people."
They calmed right down. Like it was magic. Like she had psyched them exactly right. She let go a little breath and felt proud of herself.They sipped their soft drinks and when the sandwiches came with all the extra stuff that came with them they were real impressed.
They liked it. She could tell. But: "I can't eat this much," Florian said, worried-like. "I'm sorry."
"That's all right. Quit worrying about things. Hear?"
"Yes, sera."
She looked at Florian, and looked at Catlin, and all that seriousness; and thought of ways to un-serious them; and then remembered that they were azi, and it was their psychset to be like that, which meant you couldn't doa lot of things with them.
But they weren't stupid. Not at all. Alphas were like Ollie. And that meant they could take a lot that Nelly never could. Like in the game: she pushed them with everything she had, and they didn't get mad and they didn't get upset.
They were a big job. But not toobig for her.
Then she thought, not for the first time that morning, that they were a Responsibility. And you didn't take on azi and then just dump them, ever. Uncle Denys was right. You didn't get people for presents. You got somebody who wanted to love you, and you couldn't ever just move away and leave them.
(Maman did, she thought, and it hurt, the way it always hurt when that thought popped up. Maman did. But maman didn't want to. Maman had been worried and upset for a long time before she went away.)
She would have to write and tell maman about them, fast, so maman would know she had to tell uncle Denys to send them with her. Because she couldn't just leave them. She knew what that felt like.
She wished she had gotten to pick them out, because her household was getting complicated; she would much rather have an Ollie for hers, and one and not two. She could have said no. Maybe she should have said no, and not let uncle Denys give them to her. She had thought she could sort of go along with it. Like everything else.
Till they looked at her that way over at the hospital, and they just sort of psyched her, not meaning to, except they wanted to go with her so much; and she had wanted somebody to be with her, just as bad.
So now they were stuck with each other. And she couldn't leave them by themselves. Not ever.
Verbal Text from:
A QUESTION OF UNION
Union Civics Series: #3
Reseune Educational Publications: 9799-8734-3 approved for 80+
Union, as conceived in the Constitution of 2301 and developed through the addition and amalgamation of station and world governments thereafter, was structured from the beginning as a federal system affording maximum independence to the local level. To understand Union, therefore, one must start with the establishment of a typical local government, which may be any system approved by a majority of qualified naturally born inhabitants. Note: inhabitants, not citizens. The only segments of the population disenfranchised for such elections are minors and azi, who are not counted as residents for purposes of an Initial Ballot of Choice, although azi may later be enfranchised by the local government.
An Initial Ballot of Choice is the normal civil procedure by which any polity becomes a candidate for representation in Union. The Ballot establishes the representative local Constitutional Congress, which will either validate an existing governmental structure as representing the will of the electorate, or create an entirely new structure which may then be ratified by the general Initial Electorate. Second of the duties of the Constitutional Congress after the election is to assign citizen numbers and register legal voters, i.e., all voters qualified by age and citizen numbers to cast their ballots for the Council of Nine and for the General Council of Union. Third and final duty of the Congress is the reporting of the census and the voter rolls to the Union Bureau of Citizens.