the children are old enough to matter. So it's four strong and brutal men against one man who is not strong and not brutal.>
"Only if Nafai fails to hold everyone together."
"You persuade him."
"That's because he knows that your plan would be a disaster. It would cause the very thing that you claim to be trying to prevent."
"Resentment! Oh, just a little, We reach Earth and all the adults are wakened from suspended animation, only to discover-oops!-Nafai and Luet somehow neglected to go into suspended animation themselves, and-oops again!-they somehow got a dozen of the older children to stay awake with them for the whole ten years of the voyage! So you see, my dear sister Shuya, when you went to bed your daughter Dza was only eight years old, but now she's eighteen, and married to Padarok, who, by the way, is seventeen now- sorry about that, Shedemei and Zdorab, we knew you wouldn't mind if we raised your only son for you. And while we had these children up, we happened to spend the whole time teaching them, so that now they are experts on everything they'll need to know to build our colony. They're also large and strong enough to do adult work. But-oops again!-none of your children, Eiadh and Kokor and Sevet and Dol, none of yours has had any of this training. Yours are still little children who won't be much help at all."
"They'll be furious," said Luet. "They'll all hate us- Volemak and Rasa and Issib and Shuya and Shedemei and Zdorab because we stole their oldest children from them, and all the others because we didn't give the same advantage to their children."
"They'll always be sure that the only reason the community broke apart was because Nafai and I did such a terrible thing. They'll hate us and blame us and they will certainly never trust us again."
"And they'll say that you're just a computer and of course you didn't understand how humans would feel, but we understood, and we should have refused to do it."
"No!" cried Luet.
"Mother?" It was Chveya's voice, through the door of Luet's room.
"What is it, Veya?"
"Who are you talking to?"
"Myself, in a dream. All foolishness. Go back to sleep."
"Is Father home yet?"
"Still in the ship with Issib."
"Mother?"
"Go to sleep now, Chveya. I mean it,"
She heard the scuffing sound of Chveya's sandals on the floor. What had Chveya heard? How long had she been listening at the door?
Why didn't you warn me?
Because when I speak out loud my thoughts are clearer, that's why. What's your plan, to get Chveya to carry out your plot?
Why couldn't you just talk to him yourself?
That's because he's a very wise man. That's why I love him.
You leave my children alone.
"And to think I once thought of you as ... as a god."
"If I didn't know you were a computer program, I'd say you were a meddlesome, loathsome old bitch."