Kangaroo Kendi made a whuffing snort. “I know what she’ll do with it.”
In her living room, Salman Reza set down the teacup with shaking hands. Kendi watched her from his position on the hovering sofa. Ben sat next to him. Keith and Martina were also present. Wanda Petrie perched on the edge of her chair.
“It’s just the children,” Salman said. “No new adults?”
Kendi shook his head. “Afraid not.”
“Dammit.” Salman looked hard at nothing for a long time and Kendi realized she had been hoping this was a sign her own Silence was returning. Kendi’s news had been torment for her. He thought about apologizing, then decided he would only make the situation worse.
“Why are only the children coming in?” said Keith.
“It’ll take some study, I’m sure,” Martina said. “Maybe children are more resilient and their brains were able to heal the damage caused by the Despair. Or maybe Silent children who were too young to be affected by the Despair are getting old enough to touch the Dream now. Silence is a genetic gift, so there’s an entire generation of Silent babies being born who will be able to touch the Dream soon. Hell, in species that mature quickly, we’ll have Silent back in the Dream within five or six years.”
“You’re absolutely sure about this,” Salman said. “It’s children in the Dream.”
“One hundred percent sure,” Kendi replied firmly. “Ben and I stayed in the Dream for several hours last night to make sure, and I noticed the sounds got a little louder. We persuaded Keith and Martina to check this morning, and they heard it as well.”
“It’s true,” Martina said with a nod. “I would never have found it on my own, but once Kendi showed me what to look for, it almost slapped me in the face.” Keith added a wordless nod of his own.
“The children are coming back, Grandma,” Kendi finished. “No doubt about it.”
“Who else knows?” Petrie asked intently.
“The people sitting in this room,” Ben said. “And Harenn and Bedj-ka. Harenn’s at the medical center with Lucia, but we asked her not to mention it. She’s keeping Bedj-ka home from school for now so he doesn’t accidentally tell someone there.”
“That’s a relief,” Wanda said. “We need to decide how best to break this. God, Senator—this is just what we need to raise your polls.”
“Raise her polls?” Ben said. “What do you mean?”
Petrie smiled at him with neat white teeth. “If your grandmother is the one to break the news that the Dream is returning to normal, Ben, what do you think it’ll do for her popularity? This is a godsend!”
“But it has nothing to do with the issues surrounding the election,” Ben protested.
“Of course not. But issues aside, elections are nothing more than popularity contests.” Petrie’s eyes sparkled. “We can promote her as the Senator who restored the Dream. The voters will eat it up!”
“Even though it was Kendi who figured it out,” Keith said.
Petrie brushed this aside. “Kendi works for her campaign, so it’s the same thing.”
“Why did you sense it and no one else, Kendi?” Salman asked, changing the subject.
Kendi shrugged. “I’ve always been good at sensing Silent and tracking people in the Dream. The Despair didn’t change that. Other Silent will probably start to notice the kids, though. Within a couple of weeks, I should think.”
“Give me two days, Senator,” Petrie said, all but glowing with fervor. “That’ll let us double-check the information and set up a proper news conference. In a few months, you’ll be sitting in the governor’s seat.”
“Do it,” Salman said. “Let’s show Foxglove and Ched-Pirasku how to run a real campaign.”
Salman swore everyone to secrecy one more time before she let them leave. Her expression was so serious, Kendi half expected her to ask for pricked fingers and dripping blood, though he kept the comment to himself. Wanda Petrie’s training in evidence.
Keith and Martina headed toward the monastery—”Some of us have to work for a living,” Keith said—while Ben and Kendi took Salman’s flitcar to the medical center to check on Lucia. Gretchen, who had remained on outdoor guard duty during the meeting, piloted while Tan rode shotgun. Kendi sat in the back seat with Ben, trying to assimilate everything that was going on. So much so fast! Kendi had just signed a lucrative sim-game contract based on his life during the Despair, he and Ben were going to be fathers of two children—assuming Lucia didn’t lose this one—and now the Silent were re-entering the Dream. Kendi felt restless, like a lion in a cage. He didn’t want to be riding in this flitcar high above the trees. He wanted to be running through the streets, his feet pounding the boards and making the balconies tremble like the mickey spikes. Ben touched his hand and squeezed it, reading his mood and knowing the cause. Kendi gave him a wan smile but felt a little better.
When they arrived at the medical center, they found a small crowd of people in Lucia’s room. She lay propped up in bed amid a veritable forest of flowers, balloons, and stuffed animals. Several dozen photographs and holograms covered every inch of wall space, and someone had set up a small altar in the corner. From it, a figurine of Irfan Qasad gazed serenely about the room.
“What the hell?” Kendi said.
A tall, dark man with silvering hair the same color as Lucia’s stepped forward with outstretched hand. “Father Kendi Weaver! I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time! But does my daughter arrange an introduction? Does she let me meet the great man whose baby she will bear? Or does she let her poor old father languish in—”
“Dad!” Lucia protested from the bed. “Don’t let him bully you, Kendi. He’ll talk until your ears fall off if you let him.”
“Someone who can out-talk Kendi,” Ben said. “Pretty impressive.”
“You must be Ben Rymar,” said a nearby woman who resembled a heavier, slightly tired version of Lucia. She leaned in to kiss his cheek. “I suppose this makes you my son-in-law, in a way. I should be happy—it’s better than no son-in-law at all.”
“Hey!” called a young man from one corner. “What do I look like? Pastrami on rye?”
“You married my oldest,” Lucia’s mother replied primly. “It’s different when it’s your youngest.”
“Mom!” Lucia warned.
“Do you know all these people, Ms. dePaolo?” Tan demanded from the doorway.
“They’re all family,” Lucia said. “They’re fine.” Gretchen and Tan withdrew to the hallway, looking grateful for the chance to escape.
Introductions went around. The only names Kendi remembered were Alberto and Julia, Lucia’s parents. The rest were a tangle of brothers, sisters, and cousins, all with the same glossy black hair, olive skin, and brown eyes. They sat on the floor, leaned against the walls, and perched on the edge of Lucia’s bed.
“The nurse tried to throw us all out, if you can believe that,” Alberto said. “Imagine! We’re her
family
and they try to throw us out on the streets like yesterday’s trash.”
“You are a little loud, Dad,” Lucia pointed out.
“Loud with love,” he said, and kissed her loudly on the top of the head. “The best healing there is!”
“Dr. McCall says the baby is just fine, by the way,” Lucia said. “I’m allowed of bed now, but the doctor wants to keep me here for another day just to be sure.”
Kendi exhaled heavily, and he felt a load of tension drain from him. Ben looked even more relieved.
“So tell me more about my new grandchild,” Julia said.
“Grandchild?” Kendi said.
“Of course!” Julia said. “My daughter is going to give birth to it. That makes it my grandchild, and don’t you dare forget it.”
“You have six grandchildren, Mom,” Lucia said.
“Which doesn’t make this one any less precious,” Julia said firmly. “But I want to know where this baby came from.”
“I hope I don’t need to explain
that
to you,” Alberto said, squeezing Julia’s arm.
She made a playful slap at him. “You know what I mean. Lucia says it isn’t her place to tell, so that means someone else has to.”
A moment of silence fell over the room and every eye turned toward Kendi and Ben. Kendi glanced went irresistibly to the altar. Irfan looked serenely back at him. In one hand she bore a scroll, symbol of communication. Her other hand was raised in a beckoning gesture. A DN” matrix wound around the arm. Kendi realized the silence was stretching out a bit too long.
Finally Ben spoke. “My mo—” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “My mother found these embryos on an abandoned ship several hundred light years from Bellerophon. She took one for her own—me—and gave the others to Grandfather Melthine at the monastery. He and my mother died during the Despair, so I sort of kept the others. Genetically they’re my brothers and sisters, but Kendi and I want to raise them as our children. Silent babies don’t survive in artificial wombs, so Lucia agreed to help us.”
“The bright lady has blessed our family,” said a cousin. What was her name? Franca? Francesca. It was Francesca. “Will you be raising the child in the precepts of the Church of Irfan, Father Kendi?”
Kendi blinked. “We...we haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“But you must,” she insisted. “Irfan looks after all children, but the Silent ones are her special province, and they must come to bosom of the Church, especially now that Vik has destroyed the Dream.”
“Vik?” Ben said. “But Padric Sufur was the one who—”
“The evil Vik worked his will through Sufur,” Francesca said. “There is no doubt. Vik taints us all, Mr. Rymar. His evil is everywhere and we must work hard to stamp it out. That is why we fight poverty and homeless in the name of the Church—the poor and homeless are more susceptible to Vik’s wicked—”
“Thank you, Francesca,” Lucia said. “We all serve the Church in our own way. I’ve chosen this one.” She rubbed her stomach. “I think I need to rest now.”
“Everyone out,” Alberto ordered. “She needs her rest. Out!”
Everyone duly filed out of the room, though each person paused to give Lucia a kiss or a hug. Ben and Kendi were the last.
“Thank you for coming,” Lucia said when they were alone. “I know my family can be a bit...overwhelming, but they mean well.”
“I suppose they should be part of the child’s life,” Kendi said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Harenn has only Bedj-ka, but in your case...”
“I have an entire clan,” Lucia finished with a small smile.
“What about the religious side?” Ben said. “Everything happened so fast that we didn’t have time to talk about it.”
“Do you object to the child being raised by the precepts of Irfan?” Lucia asked. Her hand went to the Irfan figurine around her neck.
“I hadn’t thought about it either way,” Ben admitted. “It’s just...” He lowered his voice. “They worship my
mother
. And Irfan is also this child’s mother. Isn’t that just a little...strange?”
A ‘The universe is stranger than the Dream,’ “ Lucia said. “Irfan’s precepts and teachings are fine rules to live by, Ben. She teaches us to love and tolerate one another while we seek inner strength and serenity.”
“They’re good teachings,” Ben said. “And I don’t object to them. I just don’t know how to go about it.”
“I will handle that,” Lucia said. “Besides, we are not one of the more extreme sects of the Church, no matter what Francesca might sound like.”
“Let’s go, Ben,” Kendi said. “She does need to rest.”
They found Lucia’s family just down the hallway in a small waiting area that smelled of stale donuts. They were arguing heatedly about something. Kendi gave Ben a look. Gretchen and Tan pointedly kept their distance.
“I don’t see how she can go through with it,” Francesca was saying. “Not without a guarantee from the fathers that the child will be raised properly in the Church. It scares me that they might grow up ignorant of Irfan’s precepts.”
“It’s their decision,” said someone Kendi couldn’t see. “Lucia is the just vessel, not the mother.”
The sound of a slap. “Ow! What was that for?”
“You say such terrible things!” came Julia’s aghast voice. “Of
course
Lucia’s the mother, just as Mother Ara was Ben’s mother. And we can’t force anyone to embrace the Church. Irfan would frown on such a thing. But we can still—”
“Father Kendi!” Alberto said, suddenly noticing him standing in the doorway. Julia cut herself off. “Come in, come in.”
“We were just heading home,” Kendi said, “now that we know Lucia and the baby are all right.”
“Good, good,” Alberto said. “We will be seeing much more of each other, eh? Now that you two are the fathers of Lucia’s child.”
“This is getting more complicated by the second,” Ben said when they were out of earshot. “How are we going to handle this? I hadn’t even occurred to me that Lucia’s family might want to get involved with our child. Children.”
Kendi shrugged. “Legally they have no claim, so it’ll be completely up to us how involved they are. We can work it out as we go, but I’m thinking the more babysitters we have on tap, the better.”
Ben laughed, but it sounded a bit forced.