A Deepness in the Sky

"Okay. We can do that—where is your sister?" His voice was suddenly sharp and loud. "Viki! You get down from there! It's not safe for you."

Victory Junior was on the babies' gymnet, scuttling back and forth just below the awning. "Oh, it is safe, Daddy. Now that you're here!"

"No it's not! You come down right now."

Junior's descent was accompanied by much loud grumbling, but within a few minutes she was showing off in another way.

One by one, they showed him all their projects. The two oldest had parts in a national radio program, explaining science for young people. Apparently Sherkaner was producing the show, for reasons that remained murky.

Hrunkner put up with it all, smiling and laughing and pretending. And each one was a wonderful child. With the exception of Brent, each was brighter and more open than almost any U

Victory Junior had a dollhouse, a huge thing that extended back a little way into the ferns. When her turn came, she hooked two hands under one of Hrunkner's forearms and almost dragged him over to the open face of her house.

"See," she said, pointing to a hole in the toy basement. It looked suspiciously like the entrance to a termite nest. "My house even has its own deepness. And a pantry, and a dining hall, and seven bedrooms..." Each room had to be displayed to her guest, and all the furniture explained. She opened a bedroom wall, and there was a flurry of activity within. "And I even have little people to live in my house. See the attercops." In fact, the scale of Viki's house was almost perfect for the little creatures, at least in this phase of the sun. Eventually, their middle legs would become colored wings. They would be woodsfairies, and they wouldn't fit at all. But for the moment, they did look like little people, scurrying to and fro between the i

"They like me a lot. They can go back to the trees whenever they want, but I put little pieces of food in the rooms and they come every day to visit." She pulled at little brass handles and a part of one floor came out like a drawer from a cabinet. Inside was an intricate maze built of flimsy wood partitions. "I even experiment with them, like Daddy plays with us, except a lot simpler." Her baby eyes were both looking down so she couldn't see U

"I...don't know."

She turned to face him, her beautiful eyes looking up at him. "Mommy says my little brother is named after you. Hrunkner?"

"Yes. I guess that's right."

"Mommy says that you are the best engineer in the world. She says you can make even Daddy's crazy ideas come true. Mommy wants you to like us."

There was something about a child's gaze. It was sodirected. There was no way the target could pretend that he wasn't the one regarded. All the embarrassment and pain of the visit seemed to come together in that one moment. "I like you," he said.

Victory Junior look at him for a moment more, and then her gaze slid away. "Okay."

They had lunch with the cobblies up in the atrium. The cloud cover was burning off, and things were getting hot, at least for a Princeton spring day in the nineteenth year. Even under the awning it was warm enough to start sweat from every joint. The children didn't seem to mind. They were still taken by the stranger who had given their baby brother his name. Except for Viki, they were as raucous as ever, and U

As they were finishing, the children's tutors showed up. They looked like students from the institute. The children would never have to go to a real school. Would that make it any easier for them in the end?

The children wanted U

And so—hopefully—the hardest part of the visit was past. Except for the babies, Underhill and U

Underhill stretched out on the perch behind his desk. His aspect was suddenly quizzical. "Hrunk...socializing aside, we accomplished more today than a dozen phone calls could have done. I know the institute is a place you'd love. Not that you'd fit in! We have plenty of technicians, but our theory people think they can boss them around. You're in a different class. You're the type that can boss the thinkers around and use what ideas they have to reach your engineering goals."

Hrunkner smiled weakly. "I thought invention was to be the parent of necessity?"

"Hmf. It mainly is. That's why we need people like you, who can bend the pieces together. You'll see what I mean this afternoon. These are people you'd love to take advantage of, and vice versa....I just wish you had come up a lot earlier."

U

He expected the other to laugh the question off, or perhaps to react with the icy hostility that Smith showed at any hint of such criticism. Instead, Underhill sat silently for a moment, playing with an antique children's puzzle. The little wood pieces clicked back and forth in the quiet of the study. "You agree the children are healthy and happy?"

"Yes, though Brent seems...slow."

"You don't think I regard them as experimental animals?"

U

From Sherkaner's aspect, he could tell his question had a struck home. "Sherk. Your poor children will live their whole lives in a society that sees them as a crime against nature."

"We're working on these things, Hrunkner. Jirlib told you about ‘The Children's Hour of Science,' didn't he?"

"I wondered what that was all about. So he and Brent are really on a radio show? Those two could almost pass for in-phase, but in the long run somebody will guess and—"

"Of course. If not, Victory Junior is eager to be on the show. Eventually, Iwant the audience to understand. The program is going to cover all sorts of science topics, but there will be a continuing thread about biology and evolution and how the Dark has caused us to live our lives in certain ways. With the rise of technology, whatever social reason there is for rigid birthing times is irrelevant."