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Shadows of Their Mothers
… and,
3. Therefore, no thoughts or actions of a Woman are free from sin.
Click-click. Click-click. He took care for the sound of the chalk to be rhythmically even. Three major points down, one to go. Lawrence took a step back from the blackboard to see whether they lined up neatly.
They did. That felt really calming: here it was, today’s lesson put clearly and cleanly, his duty done properly. Well, a part of his duty: he looked back at the boys to see whether everyone was taking notes.
The rows of boys bent over their exercise books also looked rather neat. Well, some of them were already finishing and looking up at him and the blackboard. And Jamie at the third desk from the door was frowning thoughtfully as if he wanted to ask something.
Lawrence frowned too. Jamie had a propensity for asking unpleasant questions at times: not rude or silly, no, but those Lawrence could not answer. Those he kept worrying about.
Thankfully, this time he was spared. Probably some other, more experienced teacher in his place would long ago have scolded the boy for bothering him with silly questions, but Lawrence couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. Jamie was generally a nice boy, after all, not given to meanness; and his family…
Quite silly, too, to worry about boys’ families. The boys themselves should be the focus of a teacher’s attention; they were told now and again in the teachers’ seminary. The boys and the task of helping them grow up as worthy citizens. Nothing else. Still, he hadn’t managed to shake off his awe at learning that one of his boys’ DA was a Population Counsel member. Not a person to be bothered in vain.
Not that there were reasons to bother him. Not really. Jamie was a nice boy, after all. Also, at this very moment he looked down at his notes again and took up his pen again, underlining something. Very commendable; Lawrence always had praised neat note-taking. Of course, some boys’ writing was so unreadable that no amount of underlining could make their notes look presentable, but he had plans to correct that. After all, it was only his first year with those boys. There was time to work with them, to ensure their best qualities’ development…
“Mr Sanders?”
Oh God the Father, a question. At least not Jamie’s. Taddeus over near the window would never think of such things…
“Mr Sanders, what about female animals? Are they, too, full of sin? Then how…”
Lawrence breathed out slowly and very quietly. That one was easy; every second lesson on this topic someone asked about female animals.
“Taddeus, Taddeus, look into your notes again. What is point one? Now think, can that relate to female animals? You should apply what you are told to make conclusions, so that you can make informed decisions when you finish your schooling, and ultimately to bring God’s wisdom into your everyday life.”
Back into stride. Seven minutes till the end of the lesson.
* * *
Today the two of them had the same amount of lessons, so Jamie didn’t have to wait for him — or to go home alone. Ian much preferred days like today; Jamie alone tended to get into trouble, no matter whether waiting on the school steps or on the way home. And then Ian usually had to go and bail him out of that trouble.
Not that he minded. Jamie never meant any harm; only he was a bit too curious and prone to going after what he wanted. And Ian just preferred to avoid trouble.
Today, however, his foster brother did not seem to be in a mood to make trouble. That had Ian worried: he rarely saw Jamie so thoughtful, and certainly never this quiet. He pondered on this a bit, kicking any small stone that had a misfortune to lay on his path. Jamie usually teased him for this habit; today he was silent. Ian sneaked a look at him and noticed he was chewing at his lower lip. Now that certainly required action.
And when action was needed, directness was usually the best and the most reliable approach. At least while dealing with their family, which was what mattered at the moment.
“What’s wrong, Jamie?”
Even after his question Jamie paused for a while before speaking up.
“I was thinking… about the Thing.”
“The Thing?”
“Yes. Well. The Thing. You know, from last week. I told you about that, you couldn’t have forgotten!”
Now, Jamie looked genuinely upset, a weird mix of pleading and anger in his eyes. Jamie with that look… that was rare. He wasn’t even so upset when he had told Ian about the Thing. Which was, of course, a talk Ian remembered almost word for word.
Indeed, on that day Jamie seemed more curious than anything. “I got it”, he kept repeating happily, even though both of them were sent to their room as a punishment, instead of going on a long promised excursion. “I got it clearly, Ian! This time I know it’s not just a guess or some weirdness!”
That was their secret, Jamie’s and his: Jamie’s weirdness. A secret by Jamie’s choice; Ian sometimes suspected their parents knew about that, too, but Jamie wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t talk to them, wouldn’t ask for advice. He was bent on learning the truth himself (well, with some help from Ian, as always): could he really hear sometimes what other people were thinking or was it just a chance or weird lucky guess?
They tried to check it experimentally for a day or two, but Jamie soon dismissed Ian as a suitable subject. “Anyone would know what you’re thinking, Ian,” he had said grumpily. “It’s all written on your face.”
Knowing that to be more or less true, Ian just asked: “Well, what are we going to do then? Maybe…”
“No!” Jamie exclaimed, then, looking at Ian’s frown, added: “Not yet, please? Let’s just wait and observe for now.”
And that was that, before the Thing happened. On that day when Father came home so unexpectedly early, just to catch them at his computer, deep into quite a different avenue of research… (“You can’t get into the Rep Center network!” Jamie had said. “I so can,” Ian had answered, being reasonably proud of his computer skills.)
Ian winced just at remembering that. He hated making Father angry — but even more than that, he hated making Father disappointed. Thank God the Thing happened and distracted him.
However, he only learned that it happened after they were sent to their room. Before that he just kept sweating and not quite looking at Father and trying to explain plausibly just what they were looking into and how they got there. He only noticed with half an eye the rapt look in Jamie’s eyes; there was no time to wonder what he was so happy about.
Once they were alone in the room with the door locked, however, Ian went to the windowsill to look outside into the garden and to think — that was his favourite place for thinking, — and Jamie flopped down on his bed. And bounced. And bounced. And then bounced some more.
“Jamie!”
“I got it!” Jamie exclaimed, jumping up. “I got it for sure, Ian!”
That certainly distracted Ian from worrying about what Father had thought and how he could have been that silly. “What did you get?”
“A confirmation! It was so clear, and I know I couldn’t have guessed because nobody could have guessed such a thing!”
“What thing?” Ian asked, going to sit on his own bed.
“About women. Well, one woman.” Jamie whispered, his eyes shining. “When you were trying to talk us out of trouble. I know I couldn’t have guessed anyone thinking “Just like his mother” about you, I know I couldn’t! And imagining… Ian, it must have been a woman! And they certainly look weird, then!” he added, getting back to bouncing on his bed. Father swore Jamie would get a course of bed repair lessons as his next birthday present.
To get a coherent story out of Jamie when he was really excited wasn’t easy, but Ian had a long practice in this. Still, that was all too strange to really comprehend at once. There was a woman… A woman his father — his fathers — knew, a woman who was…
Weird. Even more so than those weirdnesses of Jamie’s. They discussed it for a couple of days, usually in the garden — too cold now for baby Marty to go for long walks. Ian noticed Father looking at them with a surprised eye and then with a smile. But they still had not come to any conclusion about how it could have happened and what it could have meant.
And then Jamie had that lesson. One that Ian himself had a while ago and almost forgotten, because there were more interesting things to think about. About sin and women and God the Father’s will for the Founding Fathers… Yeah, Ian could see how that would be upsetting. Especially for Jamie who thought about big questions far more than Ian.
“What are you thinking about?” Ian asked.
“Emotions,” Jamie said slowly. “Our fathers… they kind of did not seem upset, you know? Well, they did, about us getting into the Centre network. But they were thinking about a woman just as… I don’t know, like I’d think about Mr Sanders, or Uncle Steve, or somebody like that. Like it was ordinary. ”
“Well, maybe it is okay, then,” Ian answered reasonably. “I mean, can you imagine Father ever doing something that was not right?”
Jamie grinned at him for a moment, but then grew serious again. “But that doesn’t make any sense! If all the women are like that… I mean, okay, your father went off-Athos, we knew he probably had met them, that was inevitable. But why would he want to remember that? And the idea of a mother… That’s just weird. I want to know why. I want to know how it all adds up to what Founding Fathers had said.”
“Then we have to ask them, I guess,” Ian sighed. “I know you like keeping secrets, but this is just like beating your head against the wall. No use at all.”
* * *
And so they did ask. Jamie objected, but that was just Jamie — he just found it uninteresting to do things directly or something like that.
“Father,” Ian said when they entered the living room and saw his father on the sofa, not pausing even for a greeting because otherwise he’d get too embarrassed for this, “are women really so full of sin?” He was both glad and worried that they had his father, not Jamie’s, to talk to. It was easier to start a talk with him, but often much harder to finish: he wouldn’t just let you go like Jamie’s father would; he’d keep working on what you asked him and taking it so deeply that you just had to keep going with him. Jamie’s father was definitely more easy-going in this (though not in other things).
And then he saw baby Marty playing with his building blocks on the carpet across from. Now, Ian knew, he was certainly in for it — you just didn’t talk about such things in front of little boys.
However, Father just looked at them and asked Marty to go and play in his room for a while. That was strange, but Ian, already wound up by Jamie’s strange mood was a bit too uneasy to wonder.
“Well,” Father said slowly and seemingly without surprise, “you know the Founding Fathers’ teachings as well as I do — probably better, at that. I think Jamie should be just at that topic at school, but I presume you aren’t asking me for help with homework, are you?”
“You had known a woman, didn’t you?” Jamie said insistently. “Like, talking and all that, really known her, not just have seen a couple of them. If women are really so full of sin, why were you comparing Ian to one? Getting into the Centre network is not that sinful, and we were together anyway! And does he really have a mother? How can anyone have a mother?”
Ian just shrugged helplessly, looking at Father.
Father frowned.
“Come sit down,” he said at last with a sigh. “And Jamie, where did you get all this, about me comparing Ian to a woman?”
Ian looked at his father and understood somehow that he, too, had secrets like Jamie and him. Because right now Father looked just like a teacher asking a student something. Like he knew the answer already and was just checking what the student would say.
Still, they settled on the old deep brown sofa, Ian choosing the far end because he suddenly realized he wanted to watch both of them. He may never get these weird talents like Jamie but it just meant that to keep up he’d have to be extra careful in watching people.
“Well, Jamie?” No, Ian decided, his first impression couldn’t have been right, because Father surely looked worried, and how could it be possible if he already knew about the Thing?
“You thought about it,” Jamie said resolutely. “I just… I just get things like this sometimes, and you looked at Ian and thought about some person who must have been a woman because no man looks that weird and you did not mind thinking about her at all, so what does it mean? How could you, if what they say at school is true? And how did you meet her anyway?”
Father combed his hair back with his fingers, making it look much worse than it was before. “As for how I met women, you know I only went off-planet once — and that was quite enough for me. But you know, boys…” He paused. “I’m not sure how to put it clearly. You see, people are… varied. For example, we all are trying to follow the way of God the Father, but not all of us are equally good at that. But that doesn’t mean we’re not all his children. This is the way, I believe, it also works with other things…. I’m not making much sense, am I?”
“No, you aren’t,” an amused voice answered him out of the doorway. “You used to be much better at explaining theology, Ethan.”
“Father!” Jamie exclaimed, startled. “I didn’t know you’d be home early today”.
“It’s not that early, actually” his father answered, sitting down next to him. “It’s just that all of you seem a bit too preoccupied to pay attention to time. Now, what prompted this sudden turn to religious conversation?”
“Well, see, I had a lesson today,” Jamie started, much slower and clearer this time — not even he could keep being all excited and rushed third time over, “on Founding Fathers’ teachings on women. And I don’t get it. I mean… I got this thing last week, when both of you were looking at Ian and thinking how he is like someone… like some woman! But how can that be?”
“A thing? Ah, I see…” Ian suddenly wondered if everyone knew what’s going on except for him. Well, if Jamie did not know yet, he would, soon: it was his thing, after all. His weirdness.
Ian shook his head; that was no use. There were tons of things he could do better than Jamie, and anyway he was eldest and had to look after everyone else, not worry they’re upstaging him.
Their fathers meanwhile exchanged a Look. And Ian stared at Jamie hoping he’d get what they were thinking. If Jamie could do it… That would be very useful.
Jamie, however, looked a bit dazed, almost worse than last week. Oh well, if he can’t control it, no use making plans yet.
“You see, boys,” Jamie’s father finally said, sounding easy and unruffled, as if relating an anecdote from work, “it was all actually quite simple. You know why Ethan had to go off-planet, don’t you?”
“To order new ovarian cultures,” Ian answered readily; Father did not talk about it often, but the story was well enough known, “but…”
“Well, he met a woman who kindly donated a sample for Athos...”
“A culture from which you were born,” Father added. “EQ-1.”
“… and since no group of people is totally similar — no men of one commune, or of one profession, or born of one culture — she wasn’t that bad, and even helped us a lot. Actually, that was quite an interesting story; it started when someone else stole the cultures…”
* * *
“That was really quite an interesting story,” Ian said to Jamie that evening when they were getting ready for bed. “Just think, our fathers having such adventures!”
Jamie wasn’t looking at him.
“Jamie? What’s wrong?”
“I got it again,” Jamie whispered. “The Thing. From my father this time! He was thinking ‘You remind me of your mother too’!”
Shadows of Their Mothers
… and,
3. Therefore, no thoughts or actions of a Woman are free from sin.
Click-click. Click-click. He took care for the sound of the chalk to be rhythmically even. Three major points down, one to go. Lawrence took a step back from the blackboard to see whether they lined up neatly.
They did. That felt really calming: here it was, today’s lesson put clearly and cleanly, his duty done properly. Well, a part of his duty: he looked back at the boys to see whether everyone was taking notes.
The rows of boys bent over their exercise books also looked rather neat. Well, some of them were already finishing and looking up at him and the blackboard. And Jamie at the third desk from the door was frowning thoughtfully as if he wanted to ask something.
Lawrence frowned too. Jamie had a propensity for asking unpleasant questions at times: not rude or silly, no, but those Lawrence could not answer. Those he kept worrying about.
Thankfully, this time he was spared. Probably some other, more experienced teacher in his place would long ago have scolded the boy for bothering him with silly questions, but Lawrence couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. Jamie was generally a nice boy, after all, not given to meanness; and his family…
Quite silly, too, to worry about boys’ families. The boys themselves should be the focus of a teacher’s attention; they were told now and again in the teachers’ seminary. The boys and the task of helping them grow up as worthy citizens. Nothing else. Still, he hadn’t managed to shake off his awe at learning that one of his boys’ DA was a Population Counsel member. Not a person to be bothered in vain.
Not that there were reasons to bother him. Not really. Jamie was a nice boy, after all. Also, at this very moment he looked down at his notes again and took up his pen again, underlining something. Very commendable; Lawrence always had praised neat note-taking. Of course, some boys’ writing was so unreadable that no amount of underlining could make their notes look presentable, but he had plans to correct that. After all, it was only his first year with those boys. There was time to work with them, to ensure their best qualities’ development…
“Mr Sanders?”
Oh God the Father, a question. At least not Jamie’s. Taddeus over near the window would never think of such things…
“Mr Sanders, what about female animals? Are they, too, full of sin? Then how…”
Lawrence breathed out slowly and very quietly. That one was easy; every second lesson on this topic someone asked about female animals.
“Taddeus, Taddeus, look into your notes again. What is point one? Now think, can that relate to female animals? You should apply what you are told to make conclusions, so that you can make informed decisions when you finish your schooling, and ultimately to bring God’s wisdom into your everyday life.”
Back into stride. Seven minutes till the end of the lesson.
* * *
Today the two of them had the same amount of lessons, so Jamie didn’t have to wait for him — or to go home alone. Ian much preferred days like today; Jamie alone tended to get into trouble, no matter whether waiting on the school steps or on the way home. And then Ian usually had to go and bail him out of that trouble.
Not that he minded. Jamie never meant any harm; only he was a bit too curious and prone to going after what he wanted. And Ian just preferred to avoid trouble.
Today, however, his foster brother did not seem to be in a mood to make trouble. That had Ian worried: he rarely saw Jamie so thoughtful, and certainly never this quiet. He pondered on this a bit, kicking any small stone that had a misfortune to lay on his path. Jamie usually teased him for this habit; today he was silent. Ian sneaked a look at him and noticed he was chewing at his lower lip. Now that certainly required action.
And when action was needed, directness was usually the best and the most reliable approach. At least while dealing with their family, which was what mattered at the moment.
“What’s wrong, Jamie?”
Even after his question Jamie paused for a while before speaking up.
“I was thinking… about the Thing.”
“The Thing?”
“Yes. Well. The Thing. You know, from last week. I told you about that, you couldn’t have forgotten!”
Now, Jamie looked genuinely upset, a weird mix of pleading and anger in his eyes. Jamie with that look… that was rare. He wasn’t even so upset when he had told Ian about the Thing. Which was, of course, a talk Ian remembered almost word for word.
Indeed, on that day Jamie seemed more curious than anything. “I got it”, he kept repeating happily, even though both of them were sent to their room as a punishment, instead of going on a long promised excursion. “I got it clearly, Ian! This time I know it’s not just a guess or some weirdness!”
That was their secret, Jamie’s and his: Jamie’s weirdness. A secret by Jamie’s choice; Ian sometimes suspected their parents knew about that, too, but Jamie wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t talk to them, wouldn’t ask for advice. He was bent on learning the truth himself (well, with some help from Ian, as always): could he really hear sometimes what other people were thinking or was it just a chance or weird lucky guess?
They tried to check it experimentally for a day or two, but Jamie soon dismissed Ian as a suitable subject. “Anyone would know what you’re thinking, Ian,” he had said grumpily. “It’s all written on your face.”
Knowing that to be more or less true, Ian just asked: “Well, what are we going to do then? Maybe…”
“No!” Jamie exclaimed, then, looking at Ian’s frown, added: “Not yet, please? Let’s just wait and observe for now.”
And that was that, before the Thing happened. On that day when Father came home so unexpectedly early, just to catch them at his computer, deep into quite a different avenue of research… (“You can’t get into the Rep Center network!” Jamie had said. “I so can,” Ian had answered, being reasonably proud of his computer skills.)
Ian winced just at remembering that. He hated making Father angry — but even more than that, he hated making Father disappointed. Thank God the Thing happened and distracted him.
However, he only learned that it happened after they were sent to their room. Before that he just kept sweating and not quite looking at Father and trying to explain plausibly just what they were looking into and how they got there. He only noticed with half an eye the rapt look in Jamie’s eyes; there was no time to wonder what he was so happy about.
Once they were alone in the room with the door locked, however, Ian went to the windowsill to look outside into the garden and to think — that was his favourite place for thinking, — and Jamie flopped down on his bed. And bounced. And bounced. And then bounced some more.
“Jamie!”
“I got it!” Jamie exclaimed, jumping up. “I got it for sure, Ian!”
That certainly distracted Ian from worrying about what Father had thought and how he could have been that silly. “What did you get?”
“A confirmation! It was so clear, and I know I couldn’t have guessed because nobody could have guessed such a thing!”
“What thing?” Ian asked, going to sit on his own bed.
“About women. Well, one woman.” Jamie whispered, his eyes shining. “When you were trying to talk us out of trouble. I know I couldn’t have guessed anyone thinking “Just like his mother” about you, I know I couldn’t! And imagining… Ian, it must have been a woman! And they certainly look weird, then!” he added, getting back to bouncing on his bed. Father swore Jamie would get a course of bed repair lessons as his next birthday present.
To get a coherent story out of Jamie when he was really excited wasn’t easy, but Ian had a long practice in this. Still, that was all too strange to really comprehend at once. There was a woman… A woman his father — his fathers — knew, a woman who was…
Weird. Even more so than those weirdnesses of Jamie’s. They discussed it for a couple of days, usually in the garden — too cold now for baby Marty to go for long walks. Ian noticed Father looking at them with a surprised eye and then with a smile. But they still had not come to any conclusion about how it could have happened and what it could have meant.
And then Jamie had that lesson. One that Ian himself had a while ago and almost forgotten, because there were more interesting things to think about. About sin and women and God the Father’s will for the Founding Fathers… Yeah, Ian could see how that would be upsetting. Especially for Jamie who thought about big questions far more than Ian.
“What are you thinking about?” Ian asked.
“Emotions,” Jamie said slowly. “Our fathers… they kind of did not seem upset, you know? Well, they did, about us getting into the Centre network. But they were thinking about a woman just as… I don’t know, like I’d think about Mr Sanders, or Uncle Steve, or somebody like that. Like it was ordinary. ”
“Well, maybe it is okay, then,” Ian answered reasonably. “I mean, can you imagine Father ever doing something that was not right?”
Jamie grinned at him for a moment, but then grew serious again. “But that doesn’t make any sense! If all the women are like that… I mean, okay, your father went off-Athos, we knew he probably had met them, that was inevitable. But why would he want to remember that? And the idea of a mother… That’s just weird. I want to know why. I want to know how it all adds up to what Founding Fathers had said.”
“Then we have to ask them, I guess,” Ian sighed. “I know you like keeping secrets, but this is just like beating your head against the wall. No use at all.”
* * *
And so they did ask. Jamie objected, but that was just Jamie — he just found it uninteresting to do things directly or something like that.
“Father,” Ian said when they entered the living room and saw his father on the sofa, not pausing even for a greeting because otherwise he’d get too embarrassed for this, “are women really so full of sin?” He was both glad and worried that they had his father, not Jamie’s, to talk to. It was easier to start a talk with him, but often much harder to finish: he wouldn’t just let you go like Jamie’s father would; he’d keep working on what you asked him and taking it so deeply that you just had to keep going with him. Jamie’s father was definitely more easy-going in this (though not in other things).
And then he saw baby Marty playing with his building blocks on the carpet across from. Now, Ian knew, he was certainly in for it — you just didn’t talk about such things in front of little boys.
However, Father just looked at them and asked Marty to go and play in his room for a while. That was strange, but Ian, already wound up by Jamie’s strange mood was a bit too uneasy to wonder.
“Well,” Father said slowly and seemingly without surprise, “you know the Founding Fathers’ teachings as well as I do — probably better, at that. I think Jamie should be just at that topic at school, but I presume you aren’t asking me for help with homework, are you?”
“You had known a woman, didn’t you?” Jamie said insistently. “Like, talking and all that, really known her, not just have seen a couple of them. If women are really so full of sin, why were you comparing Ian to one? Getting into the Centre network is not that sinful, and we were together anyway! And does he really have a mother? How can anyone have a mother?”
Ian just shrugged helplessly, looking at Father.
Father frowned.
“Come sit down,” he said at last with a sigh. “And Jamie, where did you get all this, about me comparing Ian to a woman?”
Ian looked at his father and understood somehow that he, too, had secrets like Jamie and him. Because right now Father looked just like a teacher asking a student something. Like he knew the answer already and was just checking what the student would say.
Still, they settled on the old deep brown sofa, Ian choosing the far end because he suddenly realized he wanted to watch both of them. He may never get these weird talents like Jamie but it just meant that to keep up he’d have to be extra careful in watching people.
“Well, Jamie?” No, Ian decided, his first impression couldn’t have been right, because Father surely looked worried, and how could it be possible if he already knew about the Thing?
“You thought about it,” Jamie said resolutely. “I just… I just get things like this sometimes, and you looked at Ian and thought about some person who must have been a woman because no man looks that weird and you did not mind thinking about her at all, so what does it mean? How could you, if what they say at school is true? And how did you meet her anyway?”
Father combed his hair back with his fingers, making it look much worse than it was before. “As for how I met women, you know I only went off-planet once — and that was quite enough for me. But you know, boys…” He paused. “I’m not sure how to put it clearly. You see, people are… varied. For example, we all are trying to follow the way of God the Father, but not all of us are equally good at that. But that doesn’t mean we’re not all his children. This is the way, I believe, it also works with other things…. I’m not making much sense, am I?”
“No, you aren’t,” an amused voice answered him out of the doorway. “You used to be much better at explaining theology, Ethan.”
“Father!” Jamie exclaimed, startled. “I didn’t know you’d be home early today”.
“It’s not that early, actually” his father answered, sitting down next to him. “It’s just that all of you seem a bit too preoccupied to pay attention to time. Now, what prompted this sudden turn to religious conversation?”
“Well, see, I had a lesson today,” Jamie started, much slower and clearer this time — not even he could keep being all excited and rushed third time over, “on Founding Fathers’ teachings on women. And I don’t get it. I mean… I got this thing last week, when both of you were looking at Ian and thinking how he is like someone… like some woman! But how can that be?”
“A thing? Ah, I see…” Ian suddenly wondered if everyone knew what’s going on except for him. Well, if Jamie did not know yet, he would, soon: it was his thing, after all. His weirdness.
Ian shook his head; that was no use. There were tons of things he could do better than Jamie, and anyway he was eldest and had to look after everyone else, not worry they’re upstaging him.
Their fathers meanwhile exchanged a Look. And Ian stared at Jamie hoping he’d get what they were thinking. If Jamie could do it… That would be very useful.
Jamie, however, looked a bit dazed, almost worse than last week. Oh well, if he can’t control it, no use making plans yet.
“You see, boys,” Jamie’s father finally said, sounding easy and unruffled, as if relating an anecdote from work, “it was all actually quite simple. You know why Ethan had to go off-planet, don’t you?”
“To order new ovarian cultures,” Ian answered readily; Father did not talk about it often, but the story was well enough known, “but…”
“Well, he met a woman who kindly donated a sample for Athos...”
“A culture from which you were born,” Father added. “EQ-1.”
“… and since no group of people is totally similar — no men of one commune, or of one profession, or born of one culture — she wasn’t that bad, and even helped us a lot. Actually, that was quite an interesting story; it started when someone else stole the cultures…”
* * *
“That was really quite an interesting story,” Ian said to Jamie that evening when they were getting ready for bed. “Just think, our fathers having such adventures!”
Jamie wasn’t looking at him.
“Jamie? What’s wrong?”
“I got it again,” Jamie whispered. “The Thing. From my father this time! He was thinking ‘You remind me of your mother too’!”
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