His throat moved as he swallowed. “I think I understand why Raen didn’t want to stay. He might still be ashamed, even if he wouldn’t admit it—he might feel that the survivors didn’t do enough to prevent the war. No wonder they’d rather forget. I would have been like that, too, if my parents had left.” He raised his head. “I think I know what they’d want me to do now.”
“I think I do, too. They wouldn’t want us to give up. She had her wish—you know what she tried to do. She’d hope we could build something here.”
“I wonder if we’re ready for it.”
His mother’s words had changed everything, had shown them some of the good that was in their people. “We can try,” she said. “Gestation takes months. We’d have time to learn how to care for them. We can’t possibly bring them all to life at once, but we can revive a few, and some more when they’re older.”
“It’ll be hard,” he murmured.
“Yes, it will, but we’ve lived through some of the problems they’ll have. We know.”
“We might be sorry later.”
She shook her head. “We’ll have troubles, but I’ll think of what your mother said. I won’t regret it then.”
He took her hand. “I guess we’ve decided.”
Llipel and Llare looked up as Nita and Sven drew near. The evening shadows hid their faces; Nita waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Sven said, “We’ve made up our minds.”
“And what have you decided?” Llare asked.
“We’re going to revive a few children,” Nita said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to take care of more than four infants at first, but when they’re older, we can revive others.”
Sven shifted on his crutches. “I hope you’ll tell us what you learned when you were bringing us up,” he said. “It might help. And maybe you can help us explore more of the outside before they’re ready to leave the cryonic facility. We’ll have to learn more about how to live outside this place, so we can teach them.” He looked away from Nita. “We might even have our own children someday.”
Nita thought she saw a warm glow in her guardian’s dark eyes. Could it be that Llipel was pleased with their decision, that she was happy for her and for Sven and would have been disappointed if they had decided otherwise? She could not be sure. The two aliens might only be gratified that they would have a longer time on Earth.
“We’d like you to come with us,” Nita said, “when we go to the cold room again to choose the people we’ll revive. You were our guardians—you should be there, too.”
“We shall do so,” Llipel said, “if you wish.” Her voice was steady and almost indifferent. Nita knew then that she would never truly see into Llipel’s heart. The time for her and Llare to be guardians to the beings they had discovered on Earth was past; they would now be unknowable companions and, later, only distant memories. Her perceptions, of Llipel had been formed by her own expectations and needs, by thoughts and feelings that might have little meaning to the alien.
Yet there was a bridge, however tenuous, linking her to Llipel. Each of them had been able to reach out to a being unlike herself. She would remember that bond when she became a guardian to the children who would now live.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1988 by Pamela Sargent
Cover design by Andy Ross
978-1-5040-1038-2
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Alien Child Page 19
