Trixia was still talking: "But I want to correct one thing that Lady Pedure said. There was no secret plot to keep the age of these children a secret. My two oldest—they're fourteen, now—have been on the show for some time. It's quite natural that they should participate, and from the letters they got, I know that they were very popular with both current-generation children and their parents."
Xopi looked down the table at Trixia: "And of course, that is simply because they kept quiet their true age. On the radio, you can't tell such small a difference. On the radio, some...obscenities...go unnoticed."
Trixia laughed. "Indeed they do. But I want our listeners to think on this. Most of them are fond of Jirlib and Brent and Gokna and Viki. Meeting my children ‘blind' on the radio showed our listeners a truth they might have missed otherwise: the oophase are as decent as anyone else. But again, I hid nothing. Eventually...well, eventually the facts of the matter were so obvious that no one could ignore them."
"So blatant, you mean. Your second clutch of oophases is scarce seven years old.That obscenity even radio can not disguise. And when we met here in the studio, I see you have twonewborns suckling in your fur. Tell me, sir, is there any limit to how much evil you will do?"
"Lady Pedure, what evil, what harm? Our audience has listened to one or another of my children for more than two years. They know Jirlib and Brent and Viki and Gokna as real and likable people. You see Little Hrunk and Rhapsa looking at you from my shoulders—" Trixia paused as if to give the other time for a look. "I know it pains you to see babies so far from the Waning Years. But in a year or two they will be old enough to talk, and I fully intend to have ‘The Children's Hour' include all the ages of my children. From program to program, our audience will see that these little cobblies are just as worthy as ones born at the end of the Waning Years."
"Absurdity! Your scheme only wins if you sneak up on decent people a small step at a time, getting them to accept this waiver of morality and then that, until..."
"Until what?" Trixia asked, smiling benignly.
"Until—until—" Behind her semiclear huds, Ezr could see that Xopi was staring wildly. "Until decent people will kiss upon those ill-timed maggots you carry on your back!" She was out of her chair, waving her arms in Trixia's direction.
Trixia was still smiling. "In a word, my dear Pedure, ‘Yes.' Even you see that there can be acceptance. But out-of-phase children are not maggots. They do not need a First Darkness to give them their souls. They are creatures who can become lovable Spiders in their own right. As the years pass, ‘The Children's Hour' will make this obvious to everyone, perhaps even to you."
Xopi sat down. She looked very much like a debater who has been bested and is casting about for some different line of attack. "I see appeal to decency has no strength with you, Master Underhill. And there may be weak people in the audience who move to perversion by your gradual approach. Everyone has immoral inclinations, in that we agree. But we also have quite moral ones, innate. Tradition guides us between the two...but I can see that tradition has small weight with such as you. You are a scientist, not so?"
"Hm, yes."
"And one of the four Darkstriders?"
"...Yes."
"Our audience may not realize so distinguished a person lurks behind ‘The Children's Hour.' You are one of four who has actually seen the Deepest Dark. Nothing holds mystery for you." Trixia started to respond, but Xopi as Pedure rolled right over her words. "I daresay this explains much of your flaw. You are blind about the striving of previous generations, the slow learning of what is deadly and what is safe in Spiderly affairs. There are reasons for moral law, sir! Without moral law, diligent hoarders will be robbed by the indolent at the end of the Waning Years. Without moral law, innocents in their deepnesses will be massacred by the first-getting-awake. We all want many things, but some of those are bottomly destructive of all desires."
"This last is true, Lady Pedure. What is your point?"
"The point is that there arereasons for rules, in especial for the rules against oophaseness. As a Darkstrider you make trivial of things, but even you must know the Dark is the great cleanser. I've listened to your children. Today before air time, I watched them in the engineer's control room. There is a scandal within your secret, but not surprising. At least one of your children—the one named Brent?—is a cretin, is he not?"
