She called her boss at Port Abraham, the next morning, to ask if they might still have a slot for her. Al Simmons, the port’s harried director, lit up with relief. “You want to come back? Oh, thank God! Can you start today? Can you be here in an hour?”
Kafari, startled by the urgency in her former boss’ voice, said, “I need to enroll Yalena in daycare before I can start.”
“Do it today. Please,” he added.
What in the world had been happening at the spaceport — or on Ziva Two — that had Al so frantic? She cleaned up Yalena, putting her in a rough-and-tumble jumpsuit, and drove over to the daycare center on Nineveh Base. She felt like Daniel, walking into the lion’s den. The moment she opened the door, Kafari was engulfed by the sounds of happy, shrieking children at play. It was such a normal scene, her rigid defenses wobbled slightly. The group consisted of children between the ages of six months to six years, at a glance. Kafari was greeted by a young woman in what appeared to be the daycare center’s staff uniform, a bright yellow shirt with dark green slacks and a cheery smile.
“Hello! You must be Mrs. Khrustinova. And this is Yalena?” she asked with a radiant smile for Kafari’s daughter. “What a beautiful little girl you are! How old are you, Yalena?”
“Two,” she answered solemnly.
“My, such a big girl! Would you like to play? We have all kinds of fun things for you to do.”
Yalena, eyes wide with interest, nodded.
“That’s my girl! Come on, let’s take you around to meet everybody.”
Kafari spent the next twenty minutes greeting various staff members, some of the exuberant children, and the daycare center’s director, a pleasant, motherly woman whose office was mostly glass, giving her a view of the main playroom.
“Hello, Mrs. Khrustinova, I’m Lana Hayes, the director of Nineveh Base Daycare Center. I’m a military mom,” she added with a warm smile, “with two boys off-world. My husband,” she faltered slightly, “my husband was killed in the war.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hayes.”
“He died in combat, protecting the western side of Madison.” She brushed moisture from her eyes. “My sons were already in the military. When the call came, they volunteered to transfer to a Concordiat unit. They wanted to avenge their father, I think. It’s an unhappy reason to go to war, but they loved their father and losing him was such a blow to them. To all of us. My daughter is still here. That’s her, with the two- and three-year-olds.” She pointed to a young girl of about sixteen, who was playing with a group of toddlers.
“This,” she gestured toward the children beyond the glass, “is our way of staying busy, giving other folks a little peace of mind that their kids are in good hands. We average one staff member per six children, in Yalena’s age group, so there’s always close supervision of the little ones. The older children are a little more autonomous, but we still maintain a ratio of one staffer to ten children, just for safety’s sake.
“The beauty of this system, particuarly for the folks with lower incomes, is that it’s free of charge. Everyone on Jefferson has access to it. That means every child has an equal chance to a good future. We have plenty of educational programs for the children, as well as play spaces and activity centers.”
She handed Kafari a packet of brochures that enumerated the advantageous programs and equipment available at Nineveh Base Daycare Center. It was a nice facility, there was no denying that. Plenty of child-safe equipment for playing in groups or alone, activities ranging from art projects to simple scientific experiments in a classroom-lab setting. Good access to data terminals for the older kids. Up to three meals a day and healthy snacks on demand. Older children could take dance classes, participate in plays, learn music. It was, in short, a first-rate daycare program.
With a lot of overhead to maintain and a large number of staffers to pay, all provided at taxpayer expense. Kafari found herself wondering who was going to keep paying those salaries, in the coming years. The government couldn’t keep up that level of expenditure for every daycare center on Jefferson, not over the long haul. Not without charging for the services or making massive budget cuts elsewhere. And probably not without imposing new taxes, which POPPA had promised not to raise. Kafari couldn’t imagine anything stupider than believing POPPA could fund even half its agenda without raising taxes. Substantially so.
There was a surplus of stupid people on Jefferson.
Mrs. Hayes seemed to be a nice-enough person, but she also appeared to genuinely believe in the moral rightness of the arrangement, without the slightest concern for the cost. Kafari was betting that Mrs. Hayes did not come of Granger stock. People who made their living from the land realized that nothing in life was free, no matter how often someone insisted that it was.
She handed over a set of forms for Kafari to fill out, then took Yalena to meet some of the other children. The forms Kafari was required to fill out left her with a deep sense of foreboding. There were questions she was legally committed to answering, which violated every right-to-privacy statute on the books. Grimly, she filled them in. Most of the questions about Simon, she left blank or answered in terse phrases.
Place of birth: off-world.
Occupation: Bolo commander.
Annual salary: paid by Dinochrome Brigade.
Political affiliation: neutral, as mandated by treaty.
Religious preference: blank. She wasn’t even sure he had one. He certainly had never voiced it, if he did, and the subject had never come up. Grangers believed in freedom of worship and the right to do so unencumbered by another’s curiosity.
Educational leveclass="underline" blank. She had no idea what the educational level was for an officer of the Brigade. Did an officer’s training at the war college count as “education” or as “military service"? She knew that Simon was far more widely read than she was and held expertise in a surprising range of fields, but had no idea whether to put in “high school” or “college” or “advanced training” as an answer.
Description of employment: classified. She genuinely didn’t know most of what Simon did, while on Brigade business. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Virtually all of it was secret. Not even Abraham Lendan had known most of what her husband’s job required. He certainly wasn’t sharing information — or anything else — openly with Gifre Zeloc.
When Mrs. Hayes returned, she frowned over some of Kafari’s answers. “Your husband’s information is highly irregular.”
“So is his job,” Kafari said bluntly.
Mrs. Hayes blinked. “Well, yes, that’s true enough. Not a citizen, after all, and being an officer…” Whatever her train of thought, she didn’t finish it aloud. “That’s all right, my dear, we’ll just turn it in the way it is and if anyone raises questions, we’ll fill in the missing information later.”
Like hell, you will, Kafari thought, giving Mrs. Hayes a slightly wintery smile.
“Very well, I believe we’re all taken care of, here. You mentioned needing to leave for a new job?”
“Yes, at Port Abraham.”
“You were fortunate enough to find a job at the spaceport? What is it, you’ll be doing there?”
“I’m a psychotronic engineer.”