Cheris had tutored math as a cadet in Kel Academy, but that had been, as Mikodez would have said, a completely different kettle of foxes. Not only had the topics been more advanced—applied and abstract algebra, plus the formation notation specific to the Kel—she’d been tutoring peers, fellow cadets. Cadets did not chew on styluses, stick wads of homemade candy under the tables, pull each other’s hair, or (admittedly one of the nicer surprises) bring in a pet snake to show her.
Her students were, varyingly, bright, sleepy, curious, fidgety, and more difficult to predict than Kel. It wasn’t true that Kel were all alike, as though they were woodblock prints. But the Kel did select for a certain spirit of conformity. Mwennin parents, on the other hand, didn’t “select” at all. The children they had were the children they had.
Cheris taught in one of the rooms of the community building, which the settlers considered a luxury. People in the hexarchate proper had neighborhood halls where they could gather and gossip and, inevitably, listen to the Doctrine briefings by the local Vidona-approved delegate. Here, the Mwennin had to adhere to the revised calendar—her calendar, although she tried not to think of it that way, not least because she couldn’t afford for the Mwennin to deduce her identity—but they didn’t hide many of the old traditions. Frequently the children themselves told Cheris about folklore and foods that she only stumblingly remembered from her own youth.
A girl and an alt started squabbling over who had the prettier stylus. When they ignored the first and second warnings, Cheris escalated: “Heads down, please.” The children grumbled but obeyed, mumbling the meditation-chant that she had taught them to help them quiet down. She had to coax the girl to a seat farther away so she wouldn’t continue the quarrel.
At least she didn’t want for classroom supplies. The settlement had basic manufacturing capabilities and some aging matter printers, for which Mikodez had privately apologized to Cheris. “You wouldn’t believe my budget problems,” he had said. “My people did what they could.” For once, Cheris believed him. She didn’t have to worry that her students would lack slates or desks or learning games. If anything, thanks to the involvement of the Shuos, they had more games, in all formats, than she was entirely comfortable with.
And yet, for all the challenges that working as a teacher had brought her, from the time her students climbed up on the roof on a lark to the incident with the thankfully edible modeling clay, Cheris had discovered, to her horror, that she was getting bored.
“Gwan,” Cheris said, wondering how it was that wrangling an energetic nine-year-old girl who constantly chewed on things was, in its way, more harrowing than being shot at. “Take that out of your mouth, please.” Weren’t kids supposed to grow out of that? By age four at least?
(She thought about having kids of her own someday, if she met the right women or alts. The settlement had the necessary medical labs, even some crèches for those Mwennin who wanted to use them. Then she looked at her students, as much as she adored them, and had second thoughts.)
Gwan took the mutilated stylus out of her mouth. “Sorry, Teacher!” she said. She was always sorry. As far as Cheris could tell, Gwan was sincere, she just had a wandering attention span and a need to fidget. Cheris had tried giving her candies instead, but Gwan kept passing them to the other kids, which defeated the purpose.
The minutes ticked by. Cheris was diligent about making the kids stay for every last second of class—an important lesson to learn in a world where the calendar was so vital—but she let them out the moment the augment told her it was time. Most of the younger ones skipped or ran, almost colliding with each other in their enthusiasm.
As Cheris tidied up the tables and chairs, she was aware of the weight of her handgun against her right hip, inside her pants; she was right-handed. Fortunately, Mwennin children were too respectful of adults to touch her or she would have worried about one of them discovering it by accident. The same went for the spare magazine she kept in her pocket. To keep from revealing it inadvertently, she kept most of her belongings—slate and stylus, snacks, keycard, that sort of thing—in a handbag.
After she finished, Cheris headed out. Not for the first time, she felt ridiculous for carrying a gun. Crime wasn’t unknown in the settlement, but she couldn’t recall any instances of violent crime since her arrival. Granted, as former infantry, she wasn’t concerned about petty fights. It was illegal for her to own the gun, let alone carry it to school. As a Kel, she’d been armed as a matter of course. As a civilian, she was supposed to rely on the authorities.
Tomorrow I’ll leave it at home, Cheris thought as she strolled down the road leading to her favorite bakery. (This wasn’t saying much; the settlement only had two.) Even so, she knew she was lying to herself. The part of her that was Kel might have been persuaded to leave security to the authorities. The part of her that was Jedao—that was another matter entirely.
Jedao might be a whisper of unruly memories crammed into her head, but he was real and present in ways that she hadn’t entirely untangled even after the eleven years since his death. And Jedao didn’t believe in safety, or trusting other people. During the centuries planning a one-man revolution against the hexarchate entire, with his only ally the man who had designed the high calendar in the first place, with its social strictures and ritual torture, he couldn’t afford to.
She reached the bakery and picked up her usual order of two meat pasties, which was ready for her. Several people sat at the tables outside. One of them was pretending to work out pattern-stone puzzles on their tablet. She’d identified the curly-haired alt as a Shuos agent not long after her arrival. She always saw them here, even on the days that she changed her schedule. They weren’t trying to hide from her, anyway, just from the other settlers, and she didn’t have a reason to expose them.
Cheris resisted the urge to wave at the agent as she walked by them on the way home. The winding road that led to her neighborhood was lined with an exuberance of flowers. Most of the forsythias, with their four-petaled yellow blooms, had died off in favor of splendid green leaves, but there were still azaleas in pink, white, magenta. The violets were harder to spot, both the white ones with purple streaks at their hearts and the more ordinary ones that looked like their name.
The flowers’ mingling fragrances relaxed her, and the smell of the pasties was making her hungry. She was looking forward to a quiet evening doing some grading, despite the tickling sense that she wouldn’t mind a more active existence. There was that one boy who had creative ideas about how the distributive property worked. And afterwards she could sit down in the common room and watch dueling matches.
“Anyone home?” Cheris called out as she approached the front door of the residence she shared with two women and an alt. No one responded; no surprise. Two of her housemates had jobs that kept them out until later in the day, and the third was a social butterfly and was frequently visiting friends.
Cheris entered and checked, reflexively, for signs of intruders. The hard part wasn’t the paranoia. She’d gotten used to that. The hard part was trying to fit in; pretending that she was just another Mwennin refugee.
She had a lovely home where she could catch up on dramas and dueling matches at her leisure. She taught adorable children, even if the adorable children liked to stick things in their mouths. Nobody shot at her anymore. Why wasn’t she happy?