best response, promptly followed with, “What’s yours?”
“Caroline.”
“Caroline.” She rolled the name around in her mouth as if trying it out. She released the child’s hand and said briskly, “How old are you, Caroline?”
“I’m six,” and she proudly held up all five fingers on one hand and one on the other. Then she lowered the hands and scrutinized Seven’s face. “Were you crying?”
“I was just remembering some things.” She wiped the remainder of the tears from her face.
“Sad things?”
“No. But they were things that made me sad because they were from very long ago and I miss them. Actually, they were things I didn’t even know I missed until just now.”
“Okay,” said Caroline, looking a bit uncertain.
Seven let out a sigh. “Six years old. When I was six years old, I was living most of the time on a ship.”
“A spaceship?” When Seven nodded, the girl’s face lit up. “I’ve always wanted to go on one. I want to travel far away. I don’t like it here. It’s boring. But my parents,” and the expression turned dour, “they said I should stay here. They said space is dangerous. But I,” her eyes glittered with excitement, “I bet it’s amazing. Is it amazing?”
Very slowly, Seven knelt so that she was on eye level with the child. “Yes. It is amazing. But your parents are also very right. You should listen to them. There are areas of the galaxy that are filled with wonders you cannot imagine, and terrors to freeze your soul. It’s not safe out there. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it’s not for the timid.”
“I didn’t know a lot of those words, but I know ‘timid.’ I’m not timid.”
“No, you’re not. But you’re not ready, either. You’re not ready because you’re incredibly young, and your life is an endless vista of possibilities.” Her voice dropped, becoming grave. “You haven’t considered that your parents can be snatched from you. You haven’t worried about the notion that you could die, or that something even worse than death could happen to you. Before you set foot off your home, you should weigh all that and more, and fully realize what it is you’re risking. Because it could well be your very soul, and you might not be lucky enough to hold on to it or ever get it back.”
Caroline stepped away from her, her lower lip trembling, and instantly Seven was contrite, realizing that she had scared the child needlessly. “Listen to me,” she began.
“No. I don’t like you. You’re scary.”
“I didn’t mean to be. I—”
“Caroline!”
Seven stood immediately upon the arrival of a woman she took to be the child’s mother. The resemblance was remarkable. The old saying was that if you wanted to see what a girl would look like in twenty years, just study her mother. That certainly seemed to be the case here, although the mother had the slightly world-weary look of one who kept too long hours for too little reward. Caroline’s mother was running at a steady trot up the road, and appeared both relieved to have found her daughter and concerned since she had no idea who it was that Caroline was talking to.
Before Seven could say a word, Caroline turned and ran to her mother, practically leaping into her arms even as she pointed accusingly at Seven. “She was telling me scary things!”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, apparently sizing up Seven to be a potential threat. Her voice frosty, she said, “What did you tell my daughter?”
“I said that space was a dangerous place, and that she should listen to your advice about staying safely at home.”
“Is that what she said, Caroline?”
The child’s head bobbed up and down, at which point her mother’s expression softened a bit. “Oh. Okay, well… that’s all you said?”
“That is all,” Seven assured her.
“All right, well, I’m sure you didn’t mean to upset her.”
Yes, I did, by all means. I wanted to drive into her the notion that she should appreciate what she’s got, because you never know when it’s all going to be snatched away. There’s no security in the void, and everything you know and love can be taken from you in a heartbeat, leaving you bereft and with a hole in your very being that’s as vast as space itself.
“Of course I didn’t,” said Seven, considering with amusement the fact that once upon a time, lying would have been unthinkable for her. It took her becoming more human to be able to