She didn’t understand all, but she understood enough. She didn’t matter, she didn’t count, she was nothing. Exactly right, the old voice said to her. This is how it is; this is how it has always been. Accept it, and they will accept you as what you are. Old woman. Nothing.
“And we’ll have to figure out something . . .” he said vaguely, not looking at her. “About the machines . . .”
Fear chilled her. She needed the machines. “What about the machines?” she asked, though she was afraid she knew.
He made an impatient gesture. “Advanced technology. They shouldn’t have it. They shouldn’t even have seen it. Part of our mission was to shut it all down. I suppose we can find you a place somewhere—it’s Sims’ fault; they’ll have to pay some kind of fine, and that should be enough for a place in some residence . . .”
“You mean . . . leave?” Her vision darkened; she forced herself to breathe. She would not faint in front of this person.
“Well, you can’t stay here,” he said, as if that were obvious. “Even if we have a permanent mission . . . there’s no post for someone like—someone your age, you see. And the need to secure the technology, prevent cultural contamination . . . it will be difficult, even for trained personnel. You can move aboard the shuttle with us; then we can shut down the powerplant—”
“Not now,” Ofelia said, hating the quaver in her voice that left her desire as vulnerable to his will as her naked skin had been to his eyes.
“Oh, not today,” the man said, as if it didn’t matter. “I suppose they’ve been here for some time; it’s not as if we could prevent what they’ve already seen. But they can’t have understood much of it, and the longer we let them have access, the more chance they’ll learn too much. When the preliminary work’s done . . . then you should prepare to leave.” He smiled, the wide smile of someone whose decisions cannot be changed. “Don’t worry . . . uh . . . Sera Falfurry . . . we’ll take care of you. You won’t be alone anymore.”
He went into the center, his body swinging, satisfied with the power he’d shown. Ofelia could not have moved if someone had poked her; she wished she could be blown away in a gust of wind. She was not so lucky; no wind stirred the leaves. Bluecloak chirped, and she looked at it. It nodded at the departed human.
“Kuss-cough-click,” it said.
“Stuck-up bossy lout,” Ofelia said; she had no doubt they meant the same thing.
In her own house, alone because Bluecloak called the others out and set them as guards at her door, she raged silently, yanking clean sheets onto the bed, slamming pillows down. She would not leave. She had not left before, and she would not leave now. They could not make her.
They can, said the old voice. They will. They know you evaded once; you can’t do that again.
It isn’t fair, she wailed silently. I worked so hard; I did so much; it’s their fault.
It doesn’t matter, said the old voice. You are nothing to them; they have the power, and they will take you away. The old voice reminded her how much her protests sounded like those Rosara and others had made, protests she had been contemptuous of, back when she thought she could escape. She raged at that, too.
Finally, exhausted, she lay down and napped, waking to quiet afternoon. She heard voices outside, human voices; when she peeked out the front windows, the two women were walking along side by side, so much like her former neighbors that she almost called out to them.
They were not neighbors. They were enemies who would take her away. They were enemies who would destroy everything she had worked for, the life she had made for herself, the new friends she had found.
The next morning, the shorter man, Ori, appeared at her garden fence to interview her. He was willing to ask his questions and listen while she worked; he even asked intelligent questions about the varieties of beans and tomatoes and corn she chose to grow. Despite herself, she found it easy to tell him which strains had been supplied by the Company, and which the colonists had developed on their own.
“Then you had geneticists among you?” he asked. If he had had ears, they would have been pricked up, alert.
“Not . . . like in colleges,” Ofelia said. How to explain? “They taught us all what they thought we could use,” she said finally. “Practical things. How to choose the best progeny for seeds. How to repair the pumps and powerplant and waste recycler. But they wouldn’t tell us why, on most things.”
“Did that bother you?” he asked, this time without much interest. Ofelia was surprised at her own ability to tell that; she didn’t know how she knew.
“Not really,” she said. “We had much to learn, and little time.” It had not seemed like little time, all those nights in class or studying, when the children were small and she could have been mending or cleaning or simply resting. But in terms of absolute hours, they had had too much practical material to fit in to allow of much theoretical digression.
