The Golden Space by Pamela Sargent Read Free Book Online

don’t know what they’ll be. I don’t know what they are or what they’ll become. I don’t even know whether Nenum is my son or daughter. Am I supposed to call my child ‘it’?” Her slender body drooped.
    “Does that really matter? It wouldn’t change how you act toward Nenum. And you didn’t know what your other children would be like, or what kinds of adults they would become.”
    “I knew they were human,” her friend said harshly. “I can’t even look at Nenum without remembering that, I keep seeing … maybe I wasn’t ready for this.”
    Josepha felt at a loss. She tried to look reassuringly at Warner. “Yes, you were,” she said as firmly as possible. She got up and sat near her friend, putting an arm over the red-haired woman’s shoulders. “Look, Merripen wouldn’t have had you come here if he thought otherwise.” She tried to sound convincing, recalling her doubts about how Merripen had selected the parents. “It’s normal to have doubts. Maybe when you feel this way you should just go and hold Nenum and put those thoughts out of your mind. It doesn’t matter. You and Vladislav have to take care of your child, that’s all. Think of things that way.”
    Warner smoothed back her hair with the chubby hands that seemed unmatched to her slim arms. “You’re right. Maybe I’m just disoriented. I’m not used to anything different after all this time.”
    Josepha, hearing a cry, suddenly sat up. The cry was steady, punctuated by short stops, a smooth cry without any variation in pitch. A second cry, slightly lower, joined the first. Teno and Ramli were awake.
     
     
    Teno and Ramli were toddlers, trying to walk.
    Only a short time ago, it seemed, the children had been unable to sit up. Now Josepha and Chane watched as the two struggled across the floor.
    She and Chane had preserved their quiet and reserved relationship. Much of their conversation concerned the children. Their lovemaking was partly a formality, partly a friendly and often humorous way of reassuring each other during moments of loneliness. Most of the time it was easier for each of them to wire up and live out a fantasy encounter.
    Chane sat at one end of the sofa, Josepha at another. Ramli toddled unsteadily toward Chane and stretched out small brown hands to him. Teno moved to Josepha, grabbing for her arms almost before she held them out.
    “Very good!” she said brightly. Teno, solemn-faced, held her hands
for a moment, then sat on the floor. Chane picked up Ramli, seating the baby on his lap. He held up
a hand, holding out one finger, and Ramli began to pull at the other fingers Chane had concealed.
The child studied them intently for a moment, then quietly looked away, as if losing
interest.
    The children were always like that. If she or Chane wanted to play a game, they would respond in a serious, quiet way. If she wanted to show them some affection, they put up with it, with expressions that almost seemed to say: I can do without this, but obviously you need it.
    What did they need? She watched as Chane placed Ramli on the floor. The two children crawled over the rug, peering intently at its gold and blue pattern. Did they require something they were not receiving from the adults around them? An observant person could tell if an ordinary child might be having a serious problem. Even given the wide variations in normal behavior, abnormal responses became obvious in time. But they did not know what normal behavior would be for these children.
    She sighed, thinking of old stories; children raised by wolves who could never learn to speak, could never really be human. She watched as Teno and Ramli poked at the bright spot where a beam of sunlight struck the rug.
    Teno looked like her, with black hair, olive skin, high cheekbones—but the eyes were not her brown ones. One could look at dark eyes and read expressions too easily. Knowing this, Josepha had always had difficulty gazing directly at people, wondering if they