“I didn’t know who my father was,” said Harman. “Savi said that at one point in time—even after the Lost Age—fathers were almost as important to children as mothers are now.”
“That’s hard to imagine,” said Ada, still confused. What was he trying to tell her? That he was too old for her? That was nonsense.
“If I’m ever a father,” said Harman, “I want the child to know me. I want to be with the child as he or she grows up . . . just as a mother would.”
Ada was too shocked to speak.
He began walking again and she followed him in under the trees. It was cooler in the shade, but the air was thicker there. The waterfall made a soft noise behind them. Suddenly Ada looked around, alarmed.
“Did you hear something?” asked Harman, stopping next to her.
“No. It’s just . . . something’s wrong.”
“No servitors,” said Harman. “No voynix.”
That was it, realized Ada. They were alone. For the last two days, the absence of omnipresent servitors and voynix had been like a missing background noise, but it was more apparent now that they were alone, just the two of them.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, she shivered. “Can you find the way back to the sonie?”
Harman nodded. “I’ve been making notes on the terrain and watching the sun.” He pointed with the branch he was using as a walking stick. “The glade is just over that hill.”
Ada smiled, but she wasn’t totally convinced. She checked her palm-finder, but it was as blank as it had been since they’d left the Antarctic domi. She’d been in the woods before—usually on her Ardis estate—but never without a servitor floating nearby to show the way home or without a voynix for protection. But this was just background tension to the central anxiety about Harman’s odd question and comment.
“Why are you talking about fathers?” she asked.
He looked at her as they strolled farther down the hill, deeper into the sequoia forest. The shade was almost gloomy here, although shafts of light slanted down here and there through the cathedral hush. “Something Savi said to me this morning,” he said. “Something about me being old enough to be your grandfather. About me going after this quest to find the firmary—and getting involved with you—as a sort of denial of my Final Twenty.”
Ada’s first response was anger, followed immediately by a stab of jealousy. The anger was at Savi’s stupid remark—it was none of the old woman’s business who Ada slept with or how old he was; the jealousy came from the fact that Harman had left their bed that morning at sunrise to go down and talk to Savi. Ada had simply kissed him good-bye when he’d slipped out of bed, soniced and dressed that morning, feeling some disappointment that her new lover did not want to spend another hour with her before they all had to rise for breakfast, but respecting his choice, imagining that he was just an early riser from old habit.
But what was so important that he had to leave her at dawn to go talk to Savi? Wasn’t he planning to spend the next several days with Savi in his stupid quest for a spaceship? In fact, realized Ada, Savi was taking her place in that quest.
She studied Harman’s face—so much younger looking than Odysseus’ shocking crow’s feet and gray hair—and saw that he hadn’t noticed her flash of anger and jealousy. Harman was still preoccupied, obviously mulling over his own thoughts, and Ada wondered if his attention and sensitivity to her the last few days—culminating in their wonderful lovemaking last night—were aberrations, just part of a prelude to sex, and not his usual demeanor. She didn’t think so, but she didn’t know. Was all this closeness she’d been feeling with Harman an illusion, something she’d generated out of her infatuation with him?
“Do you know how you choose to get pregnant?” asked Harman, still poking the ground distractedly with his walking stick.
Ada stopped in shock. That question was . . . astounding.
Harman stopped and looked at her as if he had said nothing unusual. “I mean, do you know how the mechanism works?” he said, still seemingly oblivious to how inappropriate his question was. Men and women simply did not discuss such things.
“If you’re going to lecture me on the birds and the bees,” Ada said stiffly, “it’s a bit late.”
Harman laughed easily. Over the past couple of weeks, that laugh had enchanted Ada. Now it irritated the hell out of her.
“I don’t mean the sex, my dear,” he said. Ada noticed that it was the first time he’d used an endearment with her, but she was in no mood to appreciate it. “I mean when you receive permission to get pregnant, perhaps decades from now—and choose the sperm donor.”
Ada was blushing and the fact that she couldn’t stop blushing made her angry. She blushed more deeply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She did, of course. It was men who weren’t supposed to know or discuss such things. Most women decided to apply for pregnancy around their Third Twenty. Usually the waiting period was one to two years before permission was granted—relayed from the post-humans through servitors. At that point, the woman would cease sexual intercourse, take the prescribed pregnancy uninhibitor, and decide which of her former mates would be the sperm-father of her child. Pregnancy ensued within days and the rest was as ancient as . . . well, humankind.
“I’m talking about the mechanism by which you decide which stored sperm-packet is chosen by your body,” continued Harman. “The real old-style human females didn’t have that choice . . .”
“Nonsense,” snapped Ada. “We are the old-styles. It’s always been this way.”
Harman shook his head slowly, almost sadly. “No,” he said. “Even in Savi’s day, just fourteen hundred years ago, pregnancy was more of a slapdash thing. She says that this sperm-storage and selection mechanism was something the posts built into us—into women—based on some borrowed genetic structure from moths.”
“Moths!” said Ada, no longer simply shocked but truly, deeply angry now. This was as absurd as it was demeaning. “What the hell are you talking about, Harman Uhr?”
His head snapped up and he seemed to notice her reaction for the first time, as if her retreat to the formal honorific had been a slap in the face bringing him back to reality.
“It’s true,” he said. “I’m sorry if I upset you, but Savi says that the posts genetically structured this ability to choose father-sperm years after intercourse from the genes of a moth species named . . .”
“Enough!” shouted Ada. Her hands were balled into fists. She’d never struck anyone in her life, or wanted to, but at this moment she was close to swinging at Harman. “Savi says this, Savi says that. I’ve had enough of that old bitch. I don’t even believe she is that old . . . or wise. She’s just crazy. I’m going back to the sonie.” She walked off into the woods.
“Ada!” called Harman.
She ignored him, walking uphill, slipping on needles and wet humus.
“Ada!”
She strode on, ready to leave him behind.
“Ada, that’s the wrong direction.”
Hannah had caught up with Odysseus a few hundred yards from the glade. He whirled and put his hand on the hilt of his sword when he heard her crashing through the brush, but relaxed when he saw who it was.
“What do you want, girl?”
“I want to see your sword,” said Hannah, brushing her dark hair back from her face.
Odysseus laughed. “Why not?” He unclipped the leather sheath from his belt and handed over the weapon. “Be careful with the edges, girl. I could shave with this blade, if I ever chose to shave.”
Hannah drew the short sword and hefted it tentatively.
“Savi tells me that you work with metals,” said Odysseus. He bent to a stream, cupped his hand, sipped. “She says that you may be the only person, male or female, in all this brave new world, who knows how to forge bronze.”