Echea

The interior of his offices was comfortable. They were done in blue, the color of calm he once told me, with thick easy chairs and pillowed couches. A children’s area was off to the side, filled with blocks and soft toys and a few dolls. The bulk of Ronald’s clients were toddlers, and the play area reflected that.

A young man in a blue worksuit appeared at one of the doors, and called my name. Echea clutched my hand tighter. He noticed her and smiled.

"Room B," he said.

I liked Room B. It was familiar. All three of my girls had done their post-interface work in Room B. I had only been in the other rooms once, and had felt less comfortable.

It was a good omen, to bring Echea to such a safe place.

I made my way down the hall, Echea in tow, without the man’s guidance. The door to Room B was open. Ronald had not changed it. It still had the fainting couch, the work unit recessed into the wall, the reclining rockers. I had slept in one of those rockers as Kally had gone through her most rigorous testing.

I had been pregnant with Susan at the time.

I eased Echea inside and then pulled the door closed behind us. Ronald came through the back door-he must have been waiting for us-and Echea jumped. Her grip on my hand grew so tight that I thought she might break one of my fingers. I smiled at her and did not pull my hand away.

Ronald looked nice. He was too slim, as always, and his blond hair flopped against his brow. It needed a cut. He wore a silver silk shirt and matching pants, and even though they were a few years out of style, they looked sharp against his brown skin.

Ronald was good with children. He smiled at her first, and then took a stool and wheeled it toward us so that he would be at her eye level.

"Echea," he said. "Pretty name."

And a pretty child, he sent, just for me.

She said nothing. The sullen expression she had had when we met her had returned.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

"I don’t want to go with you," she said.

"Where do you think I’m taking you?"

"Away from here. Away from-" she held up my hand, clasped in her small one. At that moment it became clear to me. She had no word for what we were to her. She didn’t want to use the word "family," perhaps because she might lose us.

"Your mother-" he said slowly and as he did he sent Right? to me.

Right, I responded.

"-brought you here for a check-up. Have you seen a doctor since you’ve come to Earth?"

"At the center," she said.

"And was everything all right?"

"If it wasn’t, they’d have sent me back."

He leaned his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands and placing them under his chin. His eyes, a silver that matched the suit, were soft.

"Are you afraid I’m going to find something?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"But you’re afraid I’m going to send you back."

"Not everybody likes me," she said. "Not everybody wants me. They said, when they brought me to Earth, that the whole family had to like me, that I had to behave or I’d be sent back."

Is this true? he asked me.

I don’t know. I was shocked. I had known nothing of this.

Does the family dislike her?

She’s new. A disruption. That’ll change.

He glanced at me over her head, but sent nothing else. His look was enough. He didn’t believe they’d change, any more than Echea would.

"Have you behaved?" he asked softly.

She glanced at me. I nodded almost imperceptibly. She looked back at him. "I’ve tried," she said.

He touched her then, his long delicate fingers tucking a strand of her pale hair behind her ear. She leaned into his fingers as if she’d been longing for touch.

She’s more like you, he told me, than any of your own girls.

I did not respond. Kally looked just like me, and Susan and A

Reassure her, he sent.

I have been.

Do it again.

"Echea," I said, and she started as if she had forgotten I was there. "Dr. Caro is telling you the truth. You’re just here for an examination. No matter how it turns out, you’ll still be coming home with me. Remember my promise?"

She nodded, eyes wide.

"I always keep my promises," I said.

Do you? Ronald asked. He was staring at me over Echea’s shoulder.

I shivered, wondering what promise I had forgotten.

Always, I told him.

The edge of his lips turned up in a smile, but there was no mirth in it.

"Echea," he said. "It’s my normal practice to work alone with my patient, but I’ll bet you want your mother to stay."

She nodded. I could almost feel the desperation in the move.

"All right," he said. "You’ll have to move to the couch."

He scooted his chair toward it.

"It’s called a fainting couch," he said. "Do you know why?"

She let go of my hand and stood. When he asked the question, she looked at me as if I would supply her with the answer. I shrugged.

"No," she whispered. She followed him hesitantly, not the little girl I knew around the house.

"Because almost two hundred years ago when these were fashionable, women fainted a lot."

"They did not," Echea said.

"Oh, but they did," Ronald said. "And do you know why?"

She shook her small head. With this idle chatter he had managed to ease her passage toward the couch.

"Because they wore undergarments so tight that they often couldn’t breathe right. And if a person can’t breathe right, she’ll faint."

"That’s silly."

"That’s right," he said, as he patted the couch. "Ease yourself up there and see what it was like on one of those things."

I knew his fainting couch wasn’t an antique. His had all sorts of diagnostic equipment built in. I wondered how many other peopl

Certainly not my daughters. They had known the answers to his questions before coming to the office.

"People do a lot of silly things," he said. "Even now. Did you know most people on Earth are linked?"

As he explained the net and its uses, I ignored them. I did some leftover business, made my daily chess move, and tuned into their conversation on occasion.

"-and what’s really silly is that so many people refuse a link. It prevents them from functioning well in our society. From getting jobs, from communicating-"

Echea listened intently while she lay on the couch. And while he talked to her, I knew, he was examining her, seeing what parts of her brain responded to his questions.

"But doesn’t it hurt?" she asked.

"No," he said. "Science makes such things easy. It’s like touching a strand of hair."

And then I smiled. I understood why he had made the tender move earlier. So that he wouldn’t alarm her when he put in the first chip, the begi

"What if it goes wrong?" she asked. "Will everybody-die?"

He pulled back from her. Probably not enough so that she would notice. But I did. There was a slight frown between his eyes. At first, I thought he would shrug off the question, but it took him too long to answer.

"No," he said as firmly as he could. "No one will die."

Then I realized what he was doing. He was dealing with a child’s fear realistically. Sometimes I was too used to my husband’s rather casual attitude toward the girls. And I was used to the girls themselves. They were much more placid than my Echea.

With the flick of a finger, he turned on the overhead light.

"Do you have dreams, honey?" he asked as casually as he could.

She looked down at her hands. They were slightly scarred from experiences I knew nothing about. I had pla