Woman on the Edge of Time

“Another lover!”

“No, Otter’s a handfriend, not a pillowfriend. We’ve been close since we were sixteen. Politically we are very close … .”

“But if you live alone, who do they live with?”

Luciente looked mildly shocked. “We each have our own space! Only babies share space! I have indeed read that people used to live piled together.” Luciente shuddered. “Co

“Nobody lives with their family? So what about kids? Mothers and kids must live together.”

“We live amongour family. Today you’ll meet everybody in my family and my core except Bee, who’s on defense till next month. All my other mems are around, I think … .” Luciente slid aside a door and took out pants and a shirt. “If these don’t suit, take what you like. I was told you have body taboos? I’ll wait outside while you dress.”

Alone, Co

“Good light, do you wish visual, communication, or transmission? You have forgotten to press your request button,” a woman’s voice said. When Co

She pushed T for transmission, she hoped. The screen began flashing the names of articles or talks, obviously in plant genetics. As the screen flashed the meaningless titles, she read the other buttons. One said PREC, so she tried it. A description like a little book review came on and remained there for two minutes.

ATTEMPTS TO INCREASE NUTRITIONAL CONTENT IN WINTER GRAIN (TRTTICALE SIBERICA) SUITABLE SHORT SEASON NORTHERN CROPS MAINTAINING INSECT & SMUT RESISTANCE. PROMISING DIRECTION. FULL BREEDING INFO. JAMES BAY CREE, BLACK DUCK GROUP, 10 PP. 5 DC. 2 PH.

Feeling watched, she shut the set off guiltily and jumped back. Then she saw that a large, long‑haired cat the color of a peach had got up from a window ledge–a shelf built on the inside for a row of plants and perhaps the cat itself to sun on. The cat strode toward her with a purposeful air, hopped on a chair, and faced her expectantly. “Mao? Mgnao?” The cat blinked, averted its gaze, then glanced back. It repeated the gesture several times, each time more slowly, with a pause in between when it kept its amber stare fixed on her face. She felt a little scared. Did it think she was some kind of big mouse? Did it expect to be fed? Finally with a snort the cat hopped off the chair and pointedly, she could not help feeling, turned its back and flounced off to the su

As she opened the door, she found Luciente squatting outside in the rough grass like a peon, watching a small dark blue butterfly. She looked as if she could squat there all day. Well, what did I expect from the future, Co

“It’s a Spring Azure,” Luciente said. “Ants milk them.”

“Do you have any children?”

“Below the age of twelve, forty‑nine in our village. We’re maintaining a steady population.”

“I mean you: have you had any children?”

“I myself? Yes, twice. Besides, I’m what they call a kidbinder, meaning I mother everybody’s kids.” Taking her arm, Luciente nudged her toward the blue dome she pointed out as a fooder. “Let’s hurry. I put in a guest slip for you, in case we got through. I’m mother to Dawn. I was also mother to Neruda, who is waiting to study shelf farming. Person will start in the fall; I’m very excited. Course, I no longer mother Neruda, not since naming. No youth wants mothering.” All this time Luciente was hustling her along the stone path toward the translucent blue dome.

Co

“Neruda is thirteen. Dawn is seven.”

That put Luciente at least into her thirties. “Is your lover Bee their father? Or the other one?”

“Father?” Luciente raised her wrist, but Co

“Dad. Papa. You know. Male parent.”

“Ah? No, not Bee or Jackrabbit. Comothers are seldom sweet friends if we can manage. So the child will not get caught in love misunderstandings.”

“Comothers?”

“My coms”–she pronounced the olong–“with Dawn are Otter and Morningstar–you’ll meet them right now.”

The room they entered took up half the dome and was filled with big tables seating perhaps fifteen at each, mostly dressed in the ordinary work clothes that Luciente wore, the children in small versions. The pants, the shirts, the occasional overalls or tunics came in almost every color she could name, many faded with washing and age, although the fabrics seemed to hold up. Everybody looked to be talking at once, yet it wasn’t noisy. The scene was livelier than institutional feeding usually made for. A child was climbing on a bench to tell a story, waving both arms. At the far end a man with a mustache was weeping openly into his soup and all about him people were patting his shoulders and making a big fuss. People were arguing heatedly, laughing and telling jokes, and a child was singing loudly at the table nearest the door. Really, this could be a dining room in a madhouse, the way people sat naked with their emotions pouring out, but there was a strong energy level here. The pulse of the room was positive but a little overwhelming. She felt buffeted. Why wasn’t it noisier? Something absorbed the sound, muted the voices shouting and babbling, the scrapes of melody and laughter, the calls, the clatter of dishes and cutlery, the scraping of chairs on the floor–made of plain old‑fashioned wood, as far as she could tell. Unless it was all some clevar imitation? She could not believe how many things they seemed to make out of wood. Some panels in the wall‑ceiling of the dome were transparent and some were translucent, although from the outside she had not seen any difference.

“No reason to look in. The fooder has to be well soundproofed, or on party nights, at festivals, nobody who didn’t want to carry on would be able to sleep. The panes with the blue edge come out. We get the breeze from the river–when it gets too hot, we take the panels out.” Luciente was heading for a table on the far side, where everyone except the littlest child stopped eating to watch them approach. “Some you can see through and some not, because some of us like to feel closed in while we eat and some–like me–want to see everything. The fooder is a home for all of us. A warm spot.”

On the translucent panels designs had been painted or baked in–she could not tell–in a wild variety of styles and levels of competence, ranging from sophisticated abstracts, landscapes, and portraits to what must be children’s drawings. “Where did the art come from?”

Luciente looked surprised. “The walls? Why, from us–or some of us. I don’t fiddle with it. I’m one of the sixty percent who can’t. We find all the arts fall out in a forty/sixty ratio in the population–doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re talking about dancing or composing or sculpting. Same curve. Me myself, I drum magnificently!”