Jenna Starborn (47 page)

At any rate, the mystery was not to be solved this night. Eventually, Tasha Joester glanced at her watch and cried, “How late it is! Leopold, we must be going home! Oh, thank all of you so much for a perfectly delightful evening.”

The general good-byes took another fifteen minutes, and I noticed with interest that Harmon Joester managed a few moments of private conversation with Deborah while the other members of his family made more public farewells. I wondered if Rianna and Sinclair were the only two members of these families to have formed tendres for each other—but of course, it was not the sort of thing I would ever bring myself to ask. But it did make me eager to see more of the Joesters so that I could continue to judge for myself just what sort of impact they might have on the family that I had adopted for my own.

 

 

A
s the weeks passed, and I grew even more settled in the Rainey household, our lives began to intertwine in still more ways. Now we attended PanEquist services on a regular basis; the sisters and I worked together constantly in the kitchen and consulted over menus and household chores; and Sinclair and I developed a mutually respectful relationship that centered around business and power. He had contacted the tenants of various nearby buildings to offer them access to our energy, and, once they had been assured that the system was now reliable, many of them accepted his deal. This required me to regularly reconfigure currents to direct it to the new customers, and to keep Sinclair apprised of any new equipment I might require to meet new demands. He also liked to be informed of any problems I had encountered during the course of the day, and gradually we fell into the habit of having a short meeting every evening after dinner to review sales he had made or troubles I could foresee.

“You have a very clear way of explaining things, Jenna,” he observed one evening as he and his sisters and I sat sipping tea in the comfortable family room shortly before bedtime. There were no boarders this week, and the house seemed extremely peaceful and homelike. “I always understand exactly what you mean to convey.”

This pleased me, for—though I was beginning to become more at ease around Sinclair—I still found him a rather austere and awe-inspiring presence, and his approval meant a great deal to me. “Well, I was a teacher for four years, so I have some experience in trying to explain ideas,” I said.

“You taught nuclear physics?”

“Yes, on the theoretical level, and generator maintenance on the more practical level.”

“Do you suppose you could teach me the same curriculum?”

My eyes widened a bit; this was not the direction in which I had expected the conversation to tend. “I don't know. I don't see why not. I do not have any of my books or teaching materials with me—”

“Those might be obtained, do you not think? They could be ordered over the StellarNet.”

“Yes—in fact, the majority of texts can be transmitted electronically.”

“Well, order them as quickly as possible. Tomorrow, if you can. I am eager to learn this new science. I think it will be valuable to me. We shall study together every night once your materials arrive.”

I nodded gravely, though inside I was marveling somewhat. I could not imagine that Sinclair Rainey would not be able to master the intricacies of the complex science, for I could not picture anything that determined young man could not accomplish once he put his mind to it. But I had never heard of anyone asking to be taught nuclear theory over the tea table during his free evenings, and the whole thing seemed just faintly preposterous.

I glanced over at his sisters to see if either of them shared my opinion. Maria was absorbed in a book and did not look up, but Deborah caught my eye. The look on her face was a bit rueful, though she smiled at me, and then she shrugged. So she thought it was strange too.

The next day, when she and I were alone in the kitchen, Deborah explained it to me.

“Sinclair is not happy here on Appalachia, you know,” she said, and again her expression was a little pensive and a little sad. “I think he expected much wilder country when he persuaded us all to immigrate here. I told you, he had wanted us to start a small farm, and live off the land and what we could sell of its crops. And when he arrived here and found Cody so much like a settled city, and his old skills so much in demand, he was quite disappointed. He pictures himself as a sort of pioneer, you know, going off to tame unconquered land, creating some kind of personal empire purely through his own will and physical strength.”

“He certainly seems to have too much passion for the position he currently holds,” I said rather cautiously. “I can see how a broader canvas would be more suitable to his personality.”

Deborah smiled again, still sadly. “Yes. And Maria and I are sure he will agitate to relocate again in a year or so. He feels a duty to the Public Aid Office here, and I don't believe he will leave until it is completely organized and self-supporting—but you have made that last condition, at least, very nearly a reality! Lately I have heard him speaking of a planet called Cozakee which has just recently been surveyed by scientific teams for habitability. If it indeed is found to be livable, anyone who agrees to homestead there is guaranteed a substantial tract of land and two full citizenship upgrades. I am sure he will go. If not to Cozakee, somewhere. It is just a matter of time.”

“You do not sound as though you would be willing to follow him this time,” I said.

“No—I don't know—no, I don't think I would.” She smiled again, a tight, painful smile, and there was a world of unspoken loss in that expression. “You see, when we came to Appalachia, all of our lives improved so much! We had all lived on Newyer, sharing the smallest quarters imaginable and laboring every day just to get a little money ahead. We were all half-cits, of course, and Newyer is such a crowded planet that featureless, ordinary people like ourselves had almost no value. Neither Maria nor I had any special skills, so I worked in a kitchen and Maria worked in a child care facility, and the hours were long and the pay was terrible.

“Sinclair had done much better than we had, for he had been discovered to have a gift for administration and he had been given the task of running a social services office. In fact, he was doing so well at it that he had been offered a pay and status upgrade to level-five citizenship. We were ecstatic, as you might imagine, but Sinclair said he would only accept on the condition that Maria and I also be given such citizenship status. His employers refused, and Sinclair resigned.

“Well, we were in dreadful straits then! We could not afford to live without Sinclair's income. But he had already been investigating emigration at this point, and he had done a great deal of reading about Appalachia. We knew that the planetary government was looking for colonists, and we knew that if we could come here, work for five years, and make any kind of reasonable contribution, all of us could eventually earn citizenship. Maria and I still had grave doubts—for we are not, as you can tell, adventurers!—but Sinclair was very persuasive and we really had no other options. So we applied for admittance, sold our few major possessions, and came here.”

She was silent a few moments while I waited to hear the rest of the story. “In fact, Appalachia was not Sinclair's first choice,” she said slowly. “He wanted, even then, to go somewhere wilder, riskier, somewhere that we could earn citizenship in a year or less and where our very presence would be almost the only mark of civilization on the planet. He fancies himself—oh, almost a missionary in this regard. He wants to be in the vanguard of humanity as it spreads across the universe.

“But Maria and I would not agree to go someplace so—so barren. We had to have some amenities, some social structures in place, and so we compromised on Appalachia. We have now been here three years, and, as I say, Maria and I are as happy as we have ever been. We have food, space, employment, friends, a purpose in life—everything we ever had wanted, everything that for so long we had been denied. For us it is enough—it is more than enough—it is a rich bounty. But for Sinclair . . . he will not be content to stay here long.”

She had fixed her eyes on her folded hands during much of this last part of her tale, but now she looked up at me again. “All that by way of explaining to you,” she said lightly, “why Sinclair wants to learn nuclear generator maintenance from you. If he really emigrates to a desolate and unsettled planet, he will need every mechanical skill he can master. And he knows it. You will do him a great service if you can teach him what he needs to know.”

“I will be happy to do so. I would like to in some small way repay the many favors he and his family have done for me. But what of you and Maria? If he leaves, will you be able to survive without him?”

“Yes, I think so. Maria and I can run this institution ourselves, especially if we are able to generate some income by selling energy, and the city officials have been by recently to discuss expanding our services. We may soon be in the position of needing to hire more help! Plus it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that one or both of us might marry—” She stopped abruptly and looked away, blushing. I hid my own smile.

“So you have no fears for your own welfare, should Sinclair decide to move on,” I said gravely. “But you are not happy about the possibility of him leaving.”

Still not looking at me, she shook her head rather violently. “No! For as long as I can remember, Sinclair has looked after us. He is only three years older than Maria, but he is ten years my senior, and I do not remember a day of my life that I didn't feel was made more secure because of Sinclair's presence at my side. When I was growing up in Newyer—in such poverty! I cannot describe it—he was my physical protector. He made sure I was safe when I had to travel from one destination to another, and he made sure I always had food to eat, even if there was not enough of it. I knew that no real harm could ever come to me as long as Sinclair was in my life. And even though I know that now, situated as I am, no real harm will come to me if he is gone—still I cannot imagine such a circumstance. It has never existed for me before.”

The next question had to be delicately put, but I was really curious about the answer. “You say that Sinclair cared for you,” I said. “Then I take it your parents were not much of a factor?”

“We had no parents—no real ones,” she said bitterly. “I suppose you might not be familiar with the gen tanks on Baldus, but that is where Sinclair and Maria and I were all conceived.”

I hid my amazement, as there was obviously so much more she had to tell me, but I could not wait to reveal to her some of my own mysterious origin.

“We had been commissioned, one by one, by a wealthy couple who were unable to have children of their own,” she said, seeming to keep her voice steady only with great effort. “You may have remarked how different Sinclair's appearance is from mine and Maria's. That is because he was sculpted from entirely different genetic clay. Maria and I came from very similar gene pools, for they liked her looks when she was a baby and they wanted her sister to match. But they did not spare much thought for us once we were all in the household. They were not cruel to us, they were just neglectful. They did not bother to send Maria or me to school, so Sinclair—who had had basic educational classes—taught us language and math in the evenings. No one was assigned to watch us, so we ran in and out of the house and ate when we wanted and slept when we wanted and outgrew our clothes and lived like wild creatures half of our lives. And then they died, and we learned that not only had we not been formally adopted, we had been left only the paltriest sums in their wills. And that their home was no longer our home, and no one had a claim on us, and no one had a care for us, and we were truly on our own.”

“How old were you?” I asked sympathetically. I was appalled but not surprised; this was a common story among those who had been harvested from the gen tanks. I was very familiar with it myself.

“Sinclair was eighteen, Maria was fifteen, and I was eight. We went into the city and used our small legacy to pay a month's rent in the smallest apartment we could find. Sinclair and Maria got jobs within three days. I started working as soon as I was old enough. And that was our life until we came to Appalachia.” She took a deep breath and released it. “So you see,” she said, on a small laugh, “why we all became PanEquists! It has been called the religion of the forgotten man, and no one could have been as forgotten as we were!”

I could contain my excitement no longer. I was almost bouncing in my chair as I leaned over to take her hand. “Deborah,” I said, and such was the tone of my voice that she was instantly alerted to something unusual, for she looked up at me with wide eyes. “You know how glad and surprised you were to discover I too am a PanEquist?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And you know how well you and Maria and I understand one another—how well we work together, how we at times seem more like sisters than companions?”

“I have often thought it,” she said.

“Well, listen! When I first came here and you asked my name, you thought I said Jenna Starrin, but I did not. I have called myself Jenna Starborn for years because—”

“Starborn!” she cried, for she too knew the common name taken by children of the gen tanks. “But then—does that mean—”

“Yes! And not only was I conceived, gestated, and harvested as you were, but all this happened on the same planet! On Baldus! And I would not, at this point, be surprised to learn we were grown and harvested in the same facility, for there cannot be that many facilities in the civilized universe, and certainly not on Baldus—”