"-- asked you why you get such a large fraction of my attention, didn't she?"
Armand bit his lip as the blood rose to his face. Stromberg smiled and sat back in his chair.
"I do pay attention to what goes on in my classes, Mr. Morelon."
Armand nodded.
"I try to put my energies where they'll do the most good," Stromberg said. "Not every student in every class has the same aptitudes and potentials. Some see only the obvious, others look broadly and deeply, and still others don't even see what's pointed out to them. Some think fast but skimmingly, others slowly and more deeply, still others don't think at all but rely on memory and rote response. Some engage the ideas presented to them only lightly, others forget them immediately after the final exam, and still others make them the core of their lives. A teacher must discover what he has to work with, not try to imagine that it's something it isn't.
"Sociology isn't a field for the superficial observer or the quick, flashy thinker, Mr. Morelon. It takes breadth of vision and careful consideration. To go fast is to go wrong. Sociology is for a mind that takes its time and proceeds only in confidence. Since my aim is to encourage the study of this field, I look for minds like yours, and I direct my efforts toward them."
The compliment left Armand speechless. Despite instruction that had started in early childhood in how to respond graciously and modestly to praise, the appropriate words eluded him.
"Professor Stromberg, I'm a corn farmer."
Stromberg nodded. "I know, lad. Just under ten percent of Alta's annual production comes from Morelon fields. But a man needn't have a doctorate and an office in the Genet Center to think about social patterns and what they imply."
Armand fell silent.
"Have I unsettled you, Mr. Morelon?" The mysterious smile was still in place.
"Uh, maybe a little, sir. So it's not about my family, then?"
The sociologist's eyes twinkled. "No, in part, it is about your family. Characteristics travel vertically through families, you know. Your grandfather Alain is well known to me. I was pleased to see so much of him reflected in you. Not the least part of that inheritance is his willingness to stand on principle regardless of the cost or the opinions of others."
Armand's face burned.
"What is it, I wonder, that makes the recognition of one's excellence such a hard thing to endure?" Stromberg said. "Perhaps my colleagues in the psychology department know, but I don't. Try to get used to it, Mr. Morelon. If I'm the first to notice, surely I won't be the last." He rose from his chair and stood with his hands in his pockets.
"The Morelon clan has been a bastion of Hope society for twelve hundred years. We've had many tests of our faith in freedom. Your people have stood strong against the temptations of power, and have been quick to curb others who were less strong...or less principled. Alain in particular has always been stalwart against the centralizers, the closet statists, and the we-have-no-choice defeatists for whom freedom is a mere trinket to be sacrificed to some 'practical' end.
"In every generation there are a few who maintain the ideals of their people as an inviolable trust. On Hope, there has always been a Morelon to stand for freedom. For twelve centuries, we've had your grandfather to do that for us. Now, we'll have you as well, armed with as much knowledge and understanding as I and the other instructors here can cram into you. I have no doubt that you'll continue in Alain's fashion. You will do him proud." Though Stromberg's voice did not rise, the sudden access of intensity made his words ring against the walls of the little office. "Now go and enjoy your vacation, and give him my regards."
Armand rose uncertainly. "Thank you, sir. Uh, you enjoy your vacation, too."
The sociologist grinned. "I won't be taking a vacation, lad." He waved at an open journal whose margins were festooned with handwritten notes in several colors. "There's a colleague of mine at Bakunin who needs a thoughtful, carefully referenced evisceration. Go. I'll see you in two weeks."
Chapter 11
Teresza paled. Had she been standing, her knees would have buckled under her. Her father winced at her reaction.
"You're sure?" she said.
He nodded once. "Not one chance in a billion. You have alleles on chromosomes two, three, six and seventeen that are absolutely incompatible with his. You're very unlikely to conceive. If you do, you'll miscarry before week thirteen."
All the warmth rushed out of her. The cozy Chistyakowski kitchen, normally her favorite room in their house, had turned into a bare stone cell with no door.
Teodor's wide brown eyes remained on her, sympathetic, expectant. She didn't need to tell him what he'd just done to her hopes.
Armand would never pledge himself to a woman who couldn't bear his children. How could I expect him to? How could I ask him to?
She wanted to howl and beat her fists against the table. It would be all right to cry, she knew it would be all right, but she refused to permit herself the release.
Her father's huge hand settled over hers. "So he's the one, Terry?"
She nodded.
He hunched forward and let out a sigh. "I should have guessed."
The silence was broken by a thin whistle from the teakettle. Teodor rose, poured them each a mugful, and set hers before her like a condolence offering. He seated himself again and wrapped his hands around his mug.
"I'm sorry, Terry. I wasn't thinking about him when I designed you. I wasn't thinking about you when I designed him."
She loosed a snort of melancholy laughter. "You designed me. You edited him."
"Well, yes. I couldn't be prouder of either of you, you know."
"How much do you know about him?"
"Apart from his genetic patterns? A fair amount. He's Alain Morelon's chosen heir, despite a dozen male relatives to the line who are older and nominally more accomplished. Respect for privacy to the side, everyone who knows anything about him wants to know everything about him. If it weren't for his family's famous avoidance of publicity and display, the whole continent would hang on his every breath."
He pushed his mug aside. "I can't think of a possible match for you that could make me happier." His expression hardened and his jawline became set. "Don't give up on him, Terry. He could surprise you."
A fresh wave of pain washed over her. "Don't get your hopes up, Dad. The Morelons didn't get to be the most important clan in Alta by contracting lots of sterile marriages."
The silence returned.
I can't give up on him anyway. Love doesn't work that way. I'll hang onto him until he breaks my fingers to be rid of me. But if I can't give him children, that's all I have to look forward to.
"When does he expect you there?" Teodor said.
"Tomorrow around lunch."
"Terry." He glanced away. "Have you made love with him yet?"
It jolted her out of her misery. "No, he wanted to wait and see how things went. I was hoping maybe this week. Dad -- ?" She sat forward and willed him to speak his mind.
He met her eyes briefly, then looked down at the table. "It will...seal the bond, Terry. I can't guarantee it, but if I've read your genes correctly, you'll imprint to his body at a preconscious level. At this point, you'd recover from losing him in a few months. After you've had intercourse, it would...” His huge hands clenched tightly. “It would take years of therapy, if it's possible at all."
She slumped forward. As she laid her head on the carefully groomed oak, her sobs broke free at last.
She heard her father rise from his seat and move to stand beside her. He stroked her hair gently with one hand.
"Forgive me, dear. It wasn't a design goal. It was a side effect of your other gift. I never would have wanted this, for you or for anyone. But as long as you still might be able to back away from him, I felt I had to tell you."
***
Armand spotted her as the carriage doors opened at the Jacksonville station. He moved toward her at once. She just had time to set down her valise before his arms went snugly a
round her, as familiar and welcoming as home. She laid her head against his chest, immersed herself in his warmth, let his deep slow heartbeat seep into her and blanket her with his calm.
He's mine for now. It will have to do.
He released her, took her bag and her hand, and they started toward Morelon House. Traces of snow from the last fall of winter girdled the bases of the Earth oaks that lined their path. Small commercial buildings, their eaves hung with modest signs, stippled the landscape a couple of hundred feet beyond the trees.
"How far is it?" she said.
"About a mile and a half." He grinned sideways at her. "I'd have brought the motorcycle, but I thought you might like to stretch your legs."
"It's okay. It's nice out." She noted how carefully he matched his stride to hers, so she needn't scurry to keep up or feel she was being dragged. "Has your mom said anything yet?"
"Nope. She's looking forward to meeting you, that's all." Another grin. "Watch yourself with Charisse, though."
"Why?"
"Because the last girl I brought to meet them was Vicki Peterson, and Chary hasn't let me forget it."
"Oh! How long ago was that, Armand?"
"A little over two years."
"Were the two of you...?"
"No, we never really had anything going."
A quick look around confirmed that no one else was within earshot. "Armand?"
"Hm?"
"There's a lot of stuff we've never talked about."
He squeezed her hand gently. "Plenty of time, Terry. Let's get you unpacked and get some lunch into us."
In the stone-walled, oak-thewed entranceway to Morelon House, Teresza confronted two of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen.
One was tall and willowy, with a rippling mane of black hair and an extraordinary poise. Every element of her bearing, from the way she held her head to the position of her folded hands, expressed a matriarch's gracious welcome to a visitor long and warmly anticipated. By her face alone Teresza knew her for Armand's mother Elyse, the matriarch of the Morelon clan.
The other was short, only an inch or two taller than Teresza herself. Her hair, as black as Elyse's, was cut in a caplike pixie style. Her sweetly rounded body was a tightly coiled spring, her posture that of an excited young girl barely able to keep from rushing forward and bundling her guest in her arms. Her eyes darted back and forth between her mother and Teresza. She had to be Charisse.
"Mom, Chary," Armand said, "I'd like you to meet my friend Teresza Chistyakowski." He released Teresza's hand.
Friend. I guess I'll always have that, whatever else happens.
Teresza stepped toward Elyse Morelon and curtsied. "Madam Morelon, thank you for welcoming me to your home. I'm honored by your hospitality."
For a moment, Elyse did not react. Then a grin of gentle amusement formed on her regal face, and she opened her arms to embrace her guest.
"Welcome to Morelon House, Teresza. Or do you prefer to be called Terry?"
"Either is fine, ma'am."
"Very good. Charisse," Elyse said as she stepped back, "will you welcome our guest?"
The girl squealed, leaped at Teresza, and hugged her with a formidable strength. Teresza did her best to return it.
"You're not like Vicki at all!"
Teresza threw an accusing glance over her shoulder at Armand. Armand blushed.
***
If Teresza's lunch with Elyse and Charisse Morelon was an interrogation, it was a pleasant one.
They wanted to know everything about Teresza, from where she lived and what her family did to her shoe size and her preferences in lingerie. Yet neither asked her even one direct question. They simply talked of themselves and their family in a way that made spaces into which Teresza could speak naturally of herself and her father. Armand sat beside her, his hand loose around hers, hardly saying a word.
Teresza had thought herself well versed in the courtesies, but this was a demonstration of social grace refined to the purest gold. Before an hour had passed, she loved Armand's mother and sister quite as much as he obviously did.
It was well into the afternoon before Teresza and Armand got away by themselves. He took her out to stroll the Morelon property, the great fields where his family had raised sustenance for sixty generations of Man on Hope. Robot rakes cleared chaff from the season past, while autotillers made neat furrows to accommodate the planting to come. Irrigation towers sprayed water and agrochemicals in regularly spaced pulses. Here and there, technicians adjusted machines or performed field titers to check that the soil had been properly readied for the demands of the growing season. Field hands noticed them, smiled and waved. Armand waved back.
"Are they all Morelons?" she asked.
He nodded. "Most of them are my cousins or second cousins. We haven't needed hired help for a few generations. It's a fertile clan."
A pang went through her, and she changed the subject.
They strolled for more than an hour, simply enjoying the day. Teresza hadn't expected any of what she saw. She'd assumed that a massive commercial farm would be a dirty, noisy, smelly place. The relaxed charm and austere beauty of the Morelon cornfields could not have been more distant from the images she'd had of them.
Armand was in his element. He spoke fluidly of all the details of the operation: timing, soil chemistry, seed selection, hybridization, harvest operations, culling and generation scrubbing, capital management, personnel scheduling and more. He was the master here. Though not yet the actual monarch, he was a well prepared crown prince, ready to take the throne when his moment arrived. It was his place.
"How do you like it?" he said.
"Hm? It's great. It's huge. Just how big is it?"
"Sixty-four hundred acres."
"Ten square miles?"
He nodded. "We make the corn for a couple of million tables, Terry."
"What about industrial uses?"
He flipped a hand. "That's never been our market. We make grade-A food for human consumption. Other farms make the syrup and fuel stock and animal feed." There was no denigration in the statement. He said it in a way that combined his pride in his house with a ready allowance that others of lesser attainments still had their place.
There was little light left to the day when they returned to the main house. He took her to the guest suite she'd been assigned, where she freshened herself and brushed her hair. When she emerged from the bathroom, she found him sitting on her bed, hands folded before him.
He was entirely in charge of himself, a man in his proper and appointed place. Granted that he was in the home where he'd grown up, he was nevertheless responsible for a young female visitor, an applicant for his affections, who'd never been there before. His mother and sister, for all the warmth they'd extended her, had to be wondering about the dimensions of their relationship. As Armand was the family's designated heir, Elyse and Charisse would have every reason to be curious and more. Yet she could find no tension in him, no hint that their scrutiny disturbed him. More remarkable yet, he showed no apprehension of the evening to come, when clan patriarch Alain Morelon, the last survivor of the Spoonerite Hegira and the oldest human being on Hope, would make her acquaintance.
In his presence, she could feel no tension of her own. The conscious recognition of the fact made her love for him fountain up through the bedrock of her mind and drench her interior world in glittering rainbow brilliance. She started to reach for him, and just barely restrained herself.
Is that composure part of what I'm drawn to, part of his quality? Did Dad have a clear idea of what he was doing?
Does it even matter any more? I want him so badly that I can't imagine living without him. How could sex make it any stronger?
Her father's revelations, so close to the surface of her thoughts that whole day, dwindled to insignificance and were gone. With them went all her uncertainties and misgivings. She sat beside him on the bed and took his hand.
"Armand, do you believe in destiny?"
>
He frowned. "No, not really. Why? Do you?"
She wrapped both her small hands around his big one and chafed it gently. "I guess I don't either, but there have been some strange moments this past year. I remember our first epistemology class last fall, setting eyes on you for the first time and hearing a voice, like someone whispering so close to my ear that the words appeared directly in my brain, 'This is the man you're going to marry.' Do you remember anything like that?"
His face went blank with surprise, and she was pierced by fear that she'd blown a hole in his regard. But his mouth curved into a smile a moment later, he entwined both his hands with hers, and an invisible force seemed to press the two of them together.
"Maybe my hearing isn't as good as yours," he murmured, "but I've thought about that more times than I can say. Do you like the idea, Terry?"
All she could do was nod.
"That makes two of us then," he said, and bent to touch his lips to hers.
She threw her arms around him and clutched him to her, stilling her tremors against his solidity. They held each other in silence for a long while.
"Are you ready to meet Grandpere Alain?" he said.
"I think so. Armand," she whispered, "can we make love tonight?"
He nodded.
Chapter 12
Alain descended to the kitchen of Morelon House just after dawn. He found Armand and Teresza already there, clad in robes and slippers. The young couple sat with heads together and hands clasped on the oaken table before them, whispering to one another, oblivious to Alain's arrival. A modest litter of used mugs, dishes, and utensils suggested that they'd been there a while. Alain glanced at the tall glass carafe on the utility stove, saw that it was empty, and frowned.
"Good morning." Two heads jerked around; two faces flushed. "Were you planning to make more coffee, Armand, or am I left to my own devices?"
"Uh, I'll make more, Grandpere." Armand squeezed his lady's hand, went to the stove, and made a clatter with coffeepot, filters and water. Alain grinned and seated himself across from Teresza.
"I trust you had a pleasant night, Teresza?"
Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1) Page 8