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and then someone who got bumped hard in a game took time out to cry. Bart
thought he could tell quicker and better than the machines just how serious
the damage was.
Seven
Before the seventh-birthday party got started, Bart went through a period of
rather intense questioning by a few of the kids; Fuad and Ranjan and Ora
wanted to know what he was doing all the time they didn't see him, where and
how he spent the year between birthdays.
"I'm sleeping. The Ship can fix it so a person just sleeps all the time."
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"Huh," said Ranjan, doubtfully.
"Why does it want you to sleep all the time?" asked Ora. Today she had a loose
front tooth she kept wiggling with her tongue.
"I don't know," Bart admitted, feeling foolish.
"Don't you get hungry?" Fuad wanted to know.
"No. I guess it's not like regular sleep." Some vague knowledge of the process
was available in his impersonal memory. "It's something like being frozen,
only you never feel cold."
This year the games were rougher. When two or three of the boys grabbed Bart
by the legs at once, they could tip him over.
Back in his room alone after dinner, he asked:
"Ship, am I really helping much, being a parent, if I just come out once a
year? How long will I be on this schedule?"
"You will not be on this schedule for any substantial portion of your
lifetime. A
definite time limit cannot be set now, but all computation on the matter is
proceeding properly."
He tried again a little later, before going to sleep, but got essentially the
same answer.
Eight
When Bart walked into the schoolroom something like boy-girl war was going on,
the place in disarray, the weaker or more timid children in tears, the more
aggressive screaming insults at one another and hurling toys and writing
materials back and forth as missiles, over bookshelves and teaching machines
turned into parapets. Adult images had been brought out by the Ship and were
calling sternly and uselessly for order, and outnumbered machines were shaking
some of the worst offenders by the arm and lecturing.
"Ship, can I help?" Bart cried.
"Yes. Two boys have got to a lower deck and should be brought back up." Ship's
voice was calm and methodical as always, though somewhat louder than usual to
be heard plainly above the screaming. "My machines are busy, and it would be
helpful if you went after the boys and got them to come up again. Go down the
stairs at the end of the corridor to your right."
It was a passageway he hadn't been in before, evidently one recently opened by
the ongoing enlargement of the living quarters. He found the two truants, Tang
and Mai, without much trouble; there wasn't much of the lower level open to
their exploration, only a loop of corridor sealed off by heavy glass doors at
all other points where other passages intersected. The stair also was sealed
where it went on down to still lower regions of the Ship.
The boys were glad to see Bart and willing to go back with him; they had seen
enough of the sights down here, interesting though they were. Through the
various sets of glass doors you could see other corridors stretching away for
hundreds of
meters at least. Many other doors were visible, some of which stood open to
reveal static glimpses of rooms furnished for human life, but unused and empty
of movement. The lights were dim in that large world outside the glass, and
there was not a footstep on the dustless, polished-looking floors.
"I wonder if anybody lives there," Mal had asked, nose against the glass.
"Nobody does," said Tang. "Let's go back up."
"Maybe we will someday," Mal said in a small thoughtful voice.
Nine
The war between the sexes was not raging today, but it still smoldered, as
Bart could tell readily enough from the grimacing and hair-pulling and
name-calling that flared sporadically during the day. The cake and ice cream
lunch was a success, as usual, and the games were fun, though now he had to
exert himself somewhat to outdo some of the other players.
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A girl and boy had a brief argument about what mathematical formula should be
used to calculate the volume of the basketball they were playing with, and
with a start Bart realized that now some of these kids knew things, maybe
important things, that he had never learned. And he was supposed to be their
parent! Or was it possible he had misunderstood what the Ship was saying?
These things still bothered him when the day was over and he had undressed and
climbed back into his isolated bed. "Ship."
"Yes."
"...nothing." He decided to let well enough alone. Ship rarely gave him a
helpful answer anyway. And he wasn't really all that anxious to be a father,
at least not until he was older.
Ten
Eating his usual breakfast, Bart felt for the first time a little anxious
about meeting the people he was going to find waiting for him in the compound.
If they were all another year older, they wouldn't be so much like kids any
more, but people with whom he would have to interact almost as an equal. He
shook off his misgivings and walked out.
The kids weren't enormously bigger today, but it was certainly time to
celebrate their collective tenth birthday, and they reminded Bart of this
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