The Golden Space

by Pamela Sargent

  “Yet you agreed.”

  He smiled. “Oh, yes. I wanted to be part of it, I don’t want to run away as I did before.”

  Josepha considered Chane’s arguments. She was not sure that she agreed; it seemed that the combination of heredity and environment was needed. But she did not feel like arguing about it now. “Who is to be your child’s other parent?” she asked.

  “My wife, of course. You’re surprised. She’s still alive and she’s agreed. I’ve been lucky, able to patch things up instead of living with guilt and ghosts.” The statement seemed forced. Josepha looked down as he spoke. “She’s a stranger now,” he went on. “I suppose I am, too.”

  “What did you want to ask me before, Chane?”

  “I … it’s hard to know how to phrase it. I’d like you to consider sharing your life here with me, raising our children together.”

  She looked up, startled. He lowered his eyes and put out his cigarette. She knew that she found Chane attractive, although neither of them had nourished the attraction with the usual romantic games and ploys. She liked him. It seemed a rather weak foundation for a relationship.

  “Why?” she asked gently.

  “I feel at ease with you, that’s the main reason. Let’s try it, at least. If it doesn’t work out I can move again after the children are born.” Something in the tone of his voice reminded her of Merripen Allen. Again she worried about the reasons for the project. She thought: It’s a mistake, it may hurt the children in the end, it will change all of us here forever.

  But that was false. If it failed, it would change nothing and would be forgotten by the parents as everything was when one had enough time. She shook her head.

  “You’re refusing me, then,” Chane said.

  “Oh, no, I was thinking of something else. I’d like you to stay. This house is really too big for one parent and child.” That sounded too cold, too pragmatic. “I think we’ll get along,” she added.

  She wished that she could feel happier about the decision.

  Josepha adjusted easily to Chane’s presence. Their life together was marred only by an occasional gentle argument. But Chane remained impenetrable. Josepha imagined that she must appear the same way to him. Even their lovemaking did not bridge the gap.

  It was probably just as well, she thought. This way, at least, she could preserve some sense of privacy. Both could keep an emotional equilibrium that would conserve the strength they would need when the children were born.

  She knew, however, that they could not remain on that peaceful plateau forever. Their shared lives would force them into confrontations sooner or later. But it was hard to break old habits, difficult to believe that there might not be time enough to let events happen and allow differences to be resolved. Better, she knew, to settle each issue as it came up, instead of trying to sort everything out now.

  When she finally realized that there had been no time, only a few months, and that she and Chane were still far from understanding very much about each other, all the children were ready to leave their wombs and enter her world.

  II

  Teno, her child, Krol’s child, was with her at last. She had been surprised at how ordinary, how normal, the infant appeared. Teno had her dark hair, a face like a small bulldog’s, and olive skin. She could see nothing of Nicholas Krol in the child; perhaps that resemblance would come with maturity.

  Josepha often felt tired. She leaned against the courtyard gate, inhaling the mild spring air, grateful for a few moments to herself. The flow of time had fragmented into a million discrete segments which seemed to jostle against one another. The children had to be fed, washed, taken outside for a few minutes of air, played with, hugged, dressed, undressed, and put to bed. The village had shaken off its lassitude; the children were now the center of everything. It would have been easier to let the psychologists, with the aid of a few robots, assume many of the parental duties, but almost no one took much advantage of that. It was as if they all wanted to be sure nothing went wrong, that the children would not be damaged by neglect.

  “Hey!” a woman’s voice shouted. Warner Chavez was approaching her along the stone path. Josepha put a finger to her lips as she opened the gate.

  “Everyone’s asleep,” she exclaimed as her friend entered the courtyard. “Even Chane, he’s exhausted. He was up at dawn with Teno and Ramli.” Ramli was Chane’s child.

  Warner smiled. “So’s Vlad. He and Nenum are probably both stacking deltas by now.” Josepha found herself thinking: Men don’t have as much stamina.

  Warner sat down on the grass, folding her trousered legs in a half lotus. There were pale blue shadows under her black eyes. Josepha sat down with her back against the stone wall, wrapping her arms around her legs. She, too, was tired, not fatigued enough to sleep, but too weary to concentrate. A part of her always seemed removed, watchful, listening in case the children should need her. Chane was like that, too. Neither of them could sit for more than a few minutes lately without listening for sounds or getting up now and then to check things.

  Warner was gazing at the red tulips blooming in a row next to the house. She looked away quickly, probably wondering why Josepha planted such short-lived flowers. “Tell me, Jo, have you talked to Chane much about the children?”

  Josepha shrugged. “We haven’t had that many conversations lately. It’s hard to keep talking when you’re tired all the time. I can’t even watch the holo without feeling sleepy. I guess I didn’t think looking after them would take so much out of me.”

  “What I meant was, has Chane said anything to you about the kids? He was a parent once, wasn’t he?”

  “What do you expect him to say about them?”

  “What they’re like compared to normal … compared to other kids. Maybe I’m being silly, but there’s something unnerving about them.”

  “Is there?” Josepha rested her chin on her knees. “Teno’s really not much of a problem, all things considered. I was expecting all kinds of little crises.”

  “Think about the way they cry, for instance. Doesn’t it seem strange to you?”

  “Is it strange?” Josepha asked. “I wouldn’t know, I suppose. I was never around children that much. My brother Charlie was older than I was, and I didn’t have a younger brother or sister.”

  “Well,” Warner replied, “it’s not that awful squalling I remember, the kind of crying that sounds like a cat in heat and you know the poor kid is colicky or damp or maybe hungry. With these kids, it’s more of a steady cry. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s … calm, steady and calm. Sometimes I’ll hear a real howl, but it’s as if they’re only exercising their lungs. That’s what my Nenum does anyway, and others, too. Aren’t Teno and Ramli like that?”

  Josepha nodded. “That isn’t normal?”

  “No.” A breeze ruffled Warner’s long red hair. “All right, they’re not quite like us, with their immunities and their modified neurons and reflexes, they weren’t meant to be, but they look so much like ordinary kids that … I picked up Nenum yesterday, after a nap, just to hug my child—you know the feeling. You just want to let them know you’re there and you care. Nenum just sort of put up with it, that’s all. It’s always like that. There’s just no response at all.”

  “Maybe you’re making too much of it, Warner. You said it yourself, they weren’t meant to be like us. Anyway, things don’t look right when you’re tired most of the time. You make more of them or think something’s the matter when it isn’t.”

  “I know that.”

  “They’re still our children.”

  “Of course. They made sure of that—genetic bonds as well as emotional ones.” Warner’s fine-featured face contorted. “I don’t know what they’ll be. I don’t know what they are or what they’ll become. I don’t even know whether Nenum is my son or daughter. Am I supposed to call my child ‘it’?” Her slender body drooped.

  “Does that really matter? It wouldn’t change how you act toward Nenum. And you didn’t kn
ow what your other children would be like, or what kinds of adults they would become.”

  “I knew they were human,” her friend said harshly. “I can’t even look at Nenum without remembering that, I keep seeing … maybe I wasn’t ready for this.”

  Josepha felt at a loss. She tried to look reassuringly at Warner. “Yes, you were,” she said as firmly as possible. She got up and sat near her friend, putting an arm over the red-haired woman’s shoulders. “Look, Merripen wouldn’t have had you come here if he thought otherwise.” She tried to sound convincing, recalling her doubts about how Merripen had selected the parents. “It’s normal to have doubts. Maybe when you feel this way you should just go and hold Nenum and put those thoughts out of your mind. It doesn’t matter. You and Vladislav have to take care of your child, that’s all. Think of things that way.”

  Warner smoothed back her hair with the chubby hands that seemed unmatched to her slim arms. “You’re right. Maybe I’m just disoriented. I’m not used to anything different after all this time.”

  Josepha, hearing a cry, suddenly sat up. The cry was steady, punctuated by short stops, a smooth cry without any variation in pitch. A second cry, slightly lower, joined the first. Teno and Ramli were awake.

  Teno and Ramli were toddlers, trying to walk.

  Only a short time ago, it seemed, the children had been unable to sit up. Now Josepha and Chane watched as the two struggled across the floor.

  She and Chane had preserved their quiet and reserved relationship. Much of their conversation concerned the children. Their lovemaking was partly a formality, partly a friendly and often humorous way of reassuring each other during moments of loneliness. Most of the time it was easier for each of them to wire up and live out a fantasy encounter.

  Chane sat at one end of the sofa, Josepha at another. Ramli toddled unsteadily toward Chane and stretched out small brown hands to him. Teno moved to Josepha, grabbing for her arms almost before she held them out.

  “Very good!” she said brightly. Teno, solemn-faced, held her hands for a moment, then sat on the floor. Chane picked up Ramli, seating the baby on his lap. He held up a hand, holding out one finger, and Ramli began to pull at the other fingers Chane had concealed. The child studied them intently for a moment, then quietly looked away, as if losing interest.

  The children were always like that. If she or Chane wanted to play a game, they would respond in a serious, quiet way. If she wanted to show them some affection, they put up with it, with expressions that almost seemed to say: I can do without this, but obviously you need it.

  What did they need? She watched as Chane placed Ramli on the floor. The two children crawled over the rug, peering intently at its gold and blue pattern. Did they require something they were not receiving from the adults around them? An observant person could tell if an ordinary child might be having a serious problem. Even given the wide variations in normal behavior, abnormal responses became obvious in time. But they did not know what normal behavior would be for these children.

  She sighed, thinking of old stories; children raised by wolves who could never learn to speak, could never really be human. She watched as Teno and Ramli poked at the bright spot where a beam of sunlight struck the rug.

  Teno looked like her, with black hair, olive skin, high cheekbones—but the eyes were not her brown ones. One could look at dark eyes and read expressions too easily. Knowing this, Josepha had always had difficulty gazing directly at people, wondering if they could read her thoughts. Teno’s eyes were Krol’s gray ones, impossible to read, always distant. She saw the quiet, mildly curious expression on her child’s face and was suddenly frightened.

  She realized that Chane was staring at her. Her worries must be showing on her face. She smiled reassuringly. His sad eyes met hers; he did not smile back. Then he turned his head toward the window.

  She felt like reaching out to him, holding him, and the force of her desire surprised her. But she restrained herself, and the moment passed.

  When the children were two and a half years old, it became customary to take them to the recreation hall and let them play together under the supervision of a few parents and psychologists. Kelii Morgan, who had once been a teacher and was now a parent, was often with them.

  The children responded to him in their restrained fashion. They were patient when the affectionate Kelii laughed or hugged them impulsively, but they enjoyed the folk stories and myths he had learned from his Welsh and Hawaiian forebears. They responded most to tales of a quest for some great piece of knowledge. They heard the humorous stories, too, but never laughed.

  Josepha came often to see them at play. The children were already used to one another, having visited each other’s homes frequently. They liked new places and had never clung to a parent in fear. But their play seemed to her a solemn affair. She had expected rivalries, fussing over toys, laughter, teasing, a few tears.

  Instead, she saw red-headed Nenum taking apart a toy space city, peering at the different levels and at the tiny painted lake and trees at its center while Ramli looked on. When Ramli grabbed one level, Josepha expected Nenum to become possessive. But the two began to reassemble it together, whispering all the while.

  She saw Teno play with a set of Russian dolls, removing each wooden doll from a larger one until the smallest doll was discovered. When Dawli, the frail-looking child of Teofilo Schmidt, came to Teno’s side, Teno willingly yielded the dolls and crawled off in search of another toy.

  It was all strange to her. If one played alone, it was because the child wanted to be alone, not because the others left the child out. Josepha searched for tears or the formation of childish cliques, and saw only inquisitiveness and cooperation. Even the muscular, big-boned Kelii, who seemed to be their favorite adult, got no special affection. If he held a picture book on his spacious lap, a child might climb up and sit there, but only to see the illustrations more clearly.

  They never misbehaved, at least not in the normal way. If a child wandered off, pursued shortly by a worried parent or psychologist, the young one was usually found investigating a plant or a toy or how a toilet worked. If they were told not to play with the computers until they were shown how to push the buttons, they listened, asked questions, and tried to understand the machines.

  On one occasion, Ramli had punched Teno in the stomach. Teno had retaliated with a blow to the arm. Each cried out in pain as Josepha, worried and at the same time almost relieved by the show of normality, rose to her feet to stop it. But the battle was over. The two had learned that violence caused pain.

  Although she tried to ignore it, she often felt frustrated. Chane had become more withdrawn, making frequent calls to old friends late at night behind the closed doors of his study. The children could not reward her love with spontaneous displays of affection. She wondered how long it would be before a parent, bewildered by the lack of any real emotional contact with a child, might lash out at one of them.

  Josepha and Chane sat in the park with their children. The spring day was unseasonably warm, the blue sky cloudless. A week ago, a third birthday celebration had been held for all the children. The adults had been sociable and gregarious, the young ones solemn and bemused.

  Teno and Ramli knelt on the grass, playing an elaborate game with marbles and pebbles; only they knew its rules. Ten meters away, under an elm, Edwin Joreme lay on a brown blanket with his head on Gurit Stern’s lap. Edwin’s child, Linsay, poked at the grass with a stick. Gurit had apparently left Aleph, her child, at home.

  Edwin was a thin man with ash blond hair who looked almost adolescent. Gurit, auburn-haired, green-eyed, and stocky, was one of the few people in the village who still intimidated Josepha. Gurit had been a soldier before the Transition. Although she seemed a friendly, hearty sort, there was something hard in her, a toughness, a competence that made Josepha ill at ease. Watching Gurit, she thought of what the woman must have seen and imagined that she was one who probably savored her extended life instead of simply acce
pting it.

  Edwin sat up and moved closer to Linsay. He spoke to the child; Linsay listened, then returned to probing the ground. Josepha thought that Gurit might have passed as the mother of both. Lines creased her face at the eyes and mouth, and in the bright afternoon sunlight one clearly saw the threads of gray hair framing her face. Chane had once asked Gurit why she had not wanted a more youthful appearance. She had laughed, saying she got tired of seeing young faces all the time.

  Edwin was still trying to distract Linsay, murmuring to the child intently. Josepha turned to Chane. He had brought some notes with him, but he was ignoring them, gazing absently in the children’s direction.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “What are the notes for?” They were written in Italian and Swahili, two languages she did not know.

  He was silent for a few moments before replying. “Just some reminiscences, personal things, incidents I might otherwise forget.”

  “Can’t you just consult the computer records?”

  “Those are public records, Josepha. They tell nothing of subjective attitudes or personal reactions. And several incidents aren’t recorded.” His lowered eyelids hid his dark eyes from her.

  Impulsively, she touched his arm. Then she heard a cry, a thin, piercing wail.

  Edwin was shaking Linsay, muttering under his breath at the child. Linsay wailed. Josepha froze, not understanding what was happening. Chane jumped to his feet, his red caftan swirling around his ankles.

  Gurit quickly grabbed Edwin’s arms. “Stop it,” she said firmly. “What’s the matter with you?” He pushed her away violently. Trembling, he stared at his child and then, shockingly, slapped Linsay.