says. “It was only an idea.”
“You remember that Ladon has gotten worse? He woke up, but he’s regressed. He and Ormarr are both locked up for their own safety and that of others. They’re deep in their bijass. Addison is working day and night to find a cure, but so far nothing. How can you even think about taking our son out where he might be exposed? We talked about this!”
“Of course,” he says, sitting up and turning his back. “I’m sorry I forgot.”
I shut up but I can’t quit staring at him. He forgot? Shidan never forgets anything. He remembers details of things I don’t even notice. The idea of him forgetting an argument is unreal to me. Me, sure, but Shidan? No way, that’s not him.
I walk over and put my hands on his cheeks, pulling his face up to look at me. He smiles.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
I’m subtly checking for fever because I’m concerned. I shouldn’t be, but I am.
“I’m fine, my treasure,” he says.
No fever. Okay, then it’s probably nothing, right? Anyone can forget something. It happens. Shaking my head, I go back to my side of the bed and grab the rest of my clothes. He dresses himself while I finish pulling on my clothes. I open my mouth to say something about it when the door bursts open and Malcolm rushes into the room. Malcolm leaps from the doorway into the air, and Shidan catches him, whirls him around.
“My boy!” Shidan yells.
“Daddy!” Malcolm giggles, his little legs still pumping.
“Did you sleep well?” Shidan asks.
“I did,” Malcolm says. “There were bad dreams, but it all works out okay. That’s what you say.”
“It is,” Shidan agrees. He sets Malcolm onto his hip and turns towards me. “Mommy is awake too.”
“Mommy!” Malcolm exclaims, reaching for me with wiggling fingers.
“Mommy has to fix breakfast, my little love,” I say.
“Breakfast, yes, yes, yes,” Malcolm says.
“Break-fast, break-fast, break-fast,” Shidan chants and Malcolm joins him.
“Okay!” I laugh and head out for the kitchen.
“Do you need help, my love?” Shidan asks.
“I got it,” I say, going past him.
“Okay,” he says, then he zooms Malcolm through the air as if he’s an airplane.
While they play together, I look through our pantry. I haven’t forgotten the lapse in Shidan’s memory. It could be nothing. Maybe. Or it could be something.
He doesn’t have a fever, so that’s good. It means everything is okay. I think. I hope. When I finish digging through the pantry, it’s clear I’ve got bigger things to worry about than making something out of nothing.
Our food supply is low. Really low. I’m sure everyone in the City is feeling the pinch. Our food stocks have never been excessive at the best of times. The supplies we salvaged from the wreckage of the generation ship have been dwindling to the point of non-existence, leaving us dependent on what we can farm and hunt.
That’s why the bivo taming project is so important. We’ve over-hunted around the City itself and there’s hardly anything left. The hunters must travel for days to find prey and then they have to get it back before it spoils. Or they stay out even longer to butcher and smoke the meats. Neither of which are an ideal scenario.
If we can domesticate the bivo herd, we’ll have a steady supply of meat. The Tribe is progressing on growing vegetables and some fruits. By the time Malcolm grows up we should have the food supply handled, except there are a lot of ifs in that.
The quarantine has slowed everything. Basics are hard, if not impossible, to come by, and the Tribe has restricted their trips here to every other week. Our supplies were for only a week here in the house, but I haven’t wanted to go out. I can’t put my boys at risk.
Sighing, I pull together some grains and pieces of smoked guster and throw them all into a pan. I bend over to try to light the flame on the makeshift stove.
It’s not really a stove, or not a normal one as I’d like. I guess it’s normal for Tajss. It’s really a box made of hardened clay. There’s an opening on the front where I put kindling, which is how I prefer to think of it, since it’s actually dried bivo droppings. I prefer to not think about the idea that my food is being cooked over poo. Gross.
Starting a fire isn’t easy though. We don’t have matches and the lighters we did have ran out