Chapter 3

Enid expounded, "No, you misunderstand. Mother Narech is a mechanoid, built by the Personalia to look and act as a Malan mother, to give the babies instruction in a nurturing environment as close to the Malan norm as possible. If you imagine a robot made to look like a person, that is Mother Narech. She is semi-autonomous; connected all the time to The Personalia, but able to act independently. She is a lovely person, I am told, so don't think "robot", think "person".

"The children regard her with all the love a child views their mother. To them, Mother Narech IS Malan, even though by now they have been told she is a mechanoid. To meet her, you would never know she was anything other than a Malan lady, speaking perfect English."

Tom had gone off to his office, so Enid suggested, "Why don't we get to the school just before they finish for the day? The youngest get out first, so you may see the Malan children exiting from the school. Mother Narech will probably be there to escort them home, if they have not been invited to another child's house."

The two ladies, with Beatrice tagging along beside them, walked slowly to the school several blocks away. By the time they got there, Beatrice wanted lifted, so Jeannette offered to put her op on her shoulders for a ride. The little girl looked at her mother. "Mummy? Is it all right?" she asked. Enid said, "Fine, dear." And lifted her up behind Jeannette and sat her on Jeannette's shoulders. Jeannette griped the child's shoes, for stability, and Beatrice looked around in wonder at the world from so high up.

In the school, the first year class found that their normal class finished early, and their teacher asked for quiet. "Children I am going to play a piece of music, called "Dinah's Lullaby". I want you to listen carefully."

She gave a signal, and out of the class loudspeakers came a lilting song, being sung by four voices. The young children listened, fascinated, until it concluded.

Into the silence that followed, the teacher told them, "That song, children, was written and composed by a girl from THIS school."

There was a gasp from the youngsters, and she went on, "Yes, a girl who left this school within the last year. She and the singing group are now famous, and I can tell you, they all live in this colony, so you might meet up with them sometime.

"The reason I wanted you to hear this song, is to show you that living in a colony does not restrict what you can do with your lives. If you study hard at school, and learn as much as you can, there is NOTHING that you might not achieve in the future.

"I want to you to go home and think about that, boys and girls. Goodbye."

She gestured to them to exit the classroom.

The school entrance was framed by the school boundary chain link fencing. The Colony could not afford solid steel fencing, so this was the next best thing. Outside it stood the waiting mothers of young children. Jeannette and Enid arrived to join the crowd. Most of the ladies were pretty normal, but one lady stood out, as she was clearly not human. She was chatting with two other mothers.

No-one paid any special notice of her presence, so she was obviously a regular. Enid said softly, "Mother Narech."

There was some noise from the school doors, and a rush of children poured out, chattering ten to the dozen. As soon as a child spotted his or her mother, the child would run over to its mother, and she would check that they had everything they should have – schoolbag, coat, and sometimes hat – before leaving for home.

The mob of kids cleared slightly, and the ladies could now see the four Malans, who remained as a group. Jeannette noted that they were all in the same year, so were all of similar ages. Which one, if any, was hers? She watched as the Malans walked sedately to the gateway and greeted Mother Narech with a hug.

Jeannette wanted to run in and demand to know which was her baby, so she could get a hug, but common sense prevented her. There was nothing as yet to link her to them. Enid and she watched as Mother Narech gathered her brood, and shepherded them off towards wherever home was.

Enid surprised Jeannette by running over to Mother Narech and laying a restraining hand on her arm. "Mother Narech, could you and the children come to visit me some day soon? I have a visitor who would like to meet them."

Mother Narech looked at Enid, and said, "Mrs Enid Pfeiffer, I believe? I am sure that could be arranged, Enid. Shall I phone you about a date?"

Enid was startled at this recognition, then her brain reminded her that this was a Personalia mechanoid, complete with access to all the Colony personnel data. Of course Mother Narech would recognise her immediately. The four children turned to look at Enid, as if fixing her in their memories.

She agreed to Mother Narech's suggestion, and Enid returned to Jeannette, who had been standing with her burden sitting happily on her shoulders. At least, happy until Mummy started running away. Now she wanted her mother's arms. "Mummy!" She reached down, arms outstretched. Jeannette, with a pang that she did not expect, lifted the child down for her mother to lift.

Enid took the little girl and cuddled her to give reassurance. "There, there. Mummy is not going anywhere, Beatrice."

With the meeting over, and Jeannette having seen with her own eyes the four Malan children, they headed back to the Pfeiffer home. Jeannette was pleasantly surprised at the looks of the Malans. While not human, their general configuration was very human-like. Their coloration and minor variations in looks, especially in facial design and shape of ears, were all that stood out for her.

Whether their thinking was alien was another matter entirely; but surely if they could get along with human children, their brain activity could not be terribly different from the human norm.

This set of suppositions gave her some degree of relief. If her alien child could act and think like a human being, then to all intents and purposes it WAS a human being in her thinking. That made it more probable that she and it could be compatible, as a mother and child; but only IF the child was comfortable with having a human mother. She would have to find that out in the next few days. It was important to have some preparation for the meeting. How could she know which was her child? Would DNA identification work across the species barrier? She had no idea, not having the technical knowledge to apply to the question.

Enid noticed that the woman was deep in thought, and quietly asked, "Are you troubled, Jeannette? Can I help?"

Jeannette shook herself, and directed her attention to the other woman. "Sorry about that, Enid. I was not troubled; more planning ahead. I want to be able to say which child is mine, if mine actually survived to be here. I don't know if DNA profiling would work, with an alien child of a human mother."

"I see. Well, dear, we should ask the experts in such matters. The people that know most about Malans are The Personalia, so they are the ones who should know if a DNA match is possible. We can but ask, Jeannette."

"Can we wait until we see what Tom comes up with?" Jeannette asked.

"Sure. Do you like Tom, Jeannette?"

"He is a very nice guy, Enid. You are lucky to have him. I only had my Tom for a couple of years at the most. I still miss him. It was a shame we never had a baby. I don't know if it was him or me, or his sperm and my eggs just didn't click."

"is that why you are so keen to discover your first baby, even if it was an alien child?" Enid was being supportive in her query.

"I expect so. I haven't met a man since then that I like enough to marry, so my Malan child may be my only child."

"You mustn't think that way, Jeannette. You have to be optimistic about life. You may still find a man to marry, or least one that you want to have a child with."

"Perhaps. In the meantime, I still want to find my alien child."

They got back home, and as Beatrice was starting to droop, Enid decided it was time for the little girl's nap. Together, they prepared Beatrice for sleeping, and tucked her into her bed. It was a real bed, not a cot. Beatrice was proud of that transition from infant to little girl, as represented by her sleeping arrangements.

Jeannette looked down at the now sleeping Beatrice, tears starting to gather in her eyes. Enid observed this, and grasped her by the forearm, gesturing back to the lounge. Getting back there, Enid whispered to her, "If you want to cry, Jeannette, it is all right with me. Men wouldn't understand."

Jeannette hugged her tightly, and let the floodgates open as she sobbed. She slowed to a stop after a couple of minutes, and whispered to Enid, "I don't know why I am crying, Enid."

"You were looking down at Beatrice, and realising that you don't have beautiful little girl of your own, to love. It got to you, that's all, Jeannette."

"True. I think I was also realising again that I don't have a lovely man like Tom to love, either. You do, Enid. Love him well."

Jeannette discovered the extensive library that Tom and Enid had amassed. It was mostly books on the history of countries on Earth, and imported. Enid told Jeannette that Tom was trying to write a descriptive work on the planet Rehome, but he kept having to update what he had already written. Enid giggled, "He gets frustrated at the continual need to revise. I tell him that doing that, it would never get finished!"

Jeannette agreed. "I know. It is often best to set a deadline, and finish it on the deadline. I worked for a while for a publisher, and their major moan was authors who kept over-running their deadline, because they kept having to make another revision. You should just insist that Tom chooses a reasonable date to get the book finished." She had a thought: "Who is going to publish it? Someone on Earth, or on Rehome?"

"He is not sure. Rehome doesn't have a book publisher yet, so if he wanted it published here, he would have to get a smaller company here to take it on. The alternative is a company on Earth, and he is worried that they will make demands he cannot keep, or doesn't want to adhere to. He knows they won't understand a lot of what he says, and may want to cut important things that they know nothing about."

Jeannette remarked, thoughtfully, "If it is about Rehome, it ought to be published on Rehome. He is an editor, so knows the publishing business. Why doesn't he set up his own publishing company in Metropolis? He could publish a book on The Personalia: that could be titled, "Our friends from Space"; and then a book on each of the alien races mankind has encountered. There could even be a work on relations between the Colony and Earth. That could be interesting. The market would start with all the universities on Earth with political departments., then the politicians of Earth. There are sales to be made. He just needs to get authors lined up; people who have personal knowledge about each."