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Show daughter, but the girl's face was hidden in the darknes. By my troth, and so that's where the wind lies! she thought. And normal that b e . . . t h a t be nature indeed. . .ready for pairing as she i s . . . ready to go out on her own with her partner, Pym, to leave the close confines of the home she's been cloistered in for all her young life, to get hence from the demanding kin who was about to lay out her daughter's life for her. . . . Dr'Anya faltered and blinked again. Then she banked and nosed straight up in the air, the gentle hum of the aircar surrounding and isolating together the mother and daughter. For the first time since she welcomed Janni into the world as a tiny babe, she felt uncomfortable in her presence. . .awkward. . .felt as though she must, somehow, perform-as though the girl sitting beside her were a stranger, or at the very most a bare acquaintance. And worse, that the child was hostile, judging. Aye, that's the way the good woman's thoughts went, for such is the human capacity to make oneself miserable. She cast around for something to say, feeling it urgent that she make conversation. "We...we were sore unlucky, thou knowest..." she said. "Anyone of the Doctors could have been caught up in the BESPA Net a s . . . a s . . .fugitive specimens." The young Janni turned her head toward Dr'Anya. "Discovered I did that very thing this day," her mother went on. "I found that all the Doctor class has the Skill." "All? said Janni increduously- Dr'Anya nodded her head. "Marry! B u t . . ." "The much touted Commendium aristocracy, "• Dr'Anya said, "for all their scholarly naivete and preoccupation, are fair good at keeping 132 |
