Soldier at the Door (21 page)

“Yes, we do,” he said, his voice a little unsure. “For now.”

Mahrree turned to look at him. “What do mean,
for now
?”

His shoulder twitched and he sat taller, looking around the gray
landscape.

“What are looking for?”

“Administrators,” he mumbled. “This place feels so bleak that for a moment I wondered if we drove too far south and were in Idumea.”

“Not yet,” she smiled. “Why?”

“Well, when you were talking about Poe with Mrs. Hili, it got me wondering . . . you miss teaching, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “Not so much, but I do miss knowing what’s g
oing on. I feel like a dull knife. I used to be sharper. I’m completely out of touch. Having children like Poe around, I can at least gauge what’s happening in the school. Maybe I
should
take Poe and some other children in for the afternoons. It seems so strange,” she added vaguely.

Perrin waited for her to finish. When she didn’t—too lost in her own thoughts where he couldn’t interrupt her and force her to draw different conclusions—he said, “What’s strange?”

“All the changes, and so quickly. Maybe it’s been happening gradually and we simply didn’t notice because it was all around us, sneaking up slowly. But since we’ve been away for some time in our own little world with the children, it’s as if I can see things differently now. And I don’t like it, Perrin.”

He sighed in agreement. “I know what I’ve seen in Idumea and it just didn’t feel
right
. Just my gut feeling. Not a very logical argument, I know. And now it seems it’s coming here. I guess there’s no stopping ‘progress’.”

“There’s nothing wrong with following a gut feeling, Perrin. Sometimes that’s the best guide,” she decided. “True, feelings aren’t
logical
, but if they’re from the Creator, you best follow them. He tends to know a bit more than we do.”

Perrin was silent as the horses plodded out of the development and along the dirt road between the wide open fields outside of Edge. “Well, I hope my feelings
are
from the Creator. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.”

Mahrree thought about that. “Do you regret following your fee
lings to Edge?”

“No,” Perrin answered instantly. “Never.”

“Then you followed the right feelings, correct? And if everything turned out well, the feelings were inspired by the Creator.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” he whispered mysteriously. “Mahrree,” he continued, his voice unexpectedly heavy, “speaking of children and school . . . have you considered Jaytsy going to full school? That will be the only option when she’s six, I’m sure of it.”

Mahrree pulled away from his arm and stiffened. She purposely didn’t think about it, just as she didn’t contemplate her own death, because there was nothing do about it but observe its approach and weep.

“I think neither of us has a lot of faith in the Administrators’ school,” he said quietly. “But then again, who knows, maybe they might surprise us with—”

“—engraved invitations to move to Terryp’s ruins in the west?”

Perrin sighed. “Yes, something remarkably well done like that. Mahrree, we have some time to see what happens. But if not . . .” He couldn’t find the words.

“What are you trying to say, exactly?” she prompted.

“I’m not entirely sure myself, but . . .” He exhaled and looked around again. “This morning I told you our most precious posse
ssions were safe with Zenos. But they aren’t—”

“Our babies AREN’T safe?!” Mahrree squealed, twisting a
bsurdly to look behind her as if she could see her children sobbing from miles away.

“Mahrree, Mahrree,” he chuckled, “I mean, they aren’t
our possessions
.”

Mahrree breathed deeply and patted her chest to catch her breath.

“Sorry,” he kissed her on the cheek. “Zenos is fine with them, I’m sure of it.” His face grew solemn. “But it’s been pressing deep into my mind, ever since I called them our possessions. It’s just that . . . Mahrree, we’re told in Command School about the duties of soldiers and citizens. One thing we had to recite was that sending children to school was the citizens’ responsibility to the government.”

Mahrree blinked at the odd phrase. “Our
duty
to the
government?
To hand over
our
children to
their
care?”

“That was one of Querul the Second’s statements, and the A
dministrators never abolished it. After all, citizens earn money which is then taxed and given to the government. In a way, the government—and it doesn’t matter whose—sees themselves as
owning
the people. They don’t
serve
us,” he whispered harshly, “but instead,
we
work for
them
. Without our taxes, they’re nothing. They’re especially interested in the children, because if they’re successful, then so will be the government. Or perhaps I should say ‘wealthy,’ instead of ‘successful,’” he grumbled in annoyance. “It all comes down to riches and power. You know that. None of this is publicly stated, of course. But Mahrree, that combination of words—children and duty and government—always sounded wrong.”

His wife nodded so vigorously in agreement that, had she been wearing the ludicrous bird hat, it would have launched into flight.

“No government owns our children,” Perrin growled under his breath. “
We
don’t even own our children! They belong to the Creator. Parents are guides, not possessors. And as their father, I’m responsible to the Creator for leading our family. I answer to no one else.”

She grabbed his arm and kissed his shoulder. “How did I end up with such a man like you?”

Perrin smiled and groaned at the same time. “A man whose talk could be considered dangerous to community’s welfare should the Administrator of Loyalty hear him?”

They both instinctively looked around again the gray landscape for a flash of red. All that looked back at them were black and white cows, none that appeared to be spies in disguise.

“What does that administrator look like, anyway?” Mahrree fretted.

“Ever seen a weasel?”

“Yes.”

“One that’s been in a fight with a dog, in a rainstorm, then rolled in the mud and hasn’t eaten for three days so it’s a bit on the testy side? That’s Gadiman.”

“In other words, someone fun to have over for dinner.”

“Indeed,” he sighed. “I guess what I’m getting at, Mahrree, is maybe in five years if the schools aren’t what we feel is best, we could look at doing
something else
.” He took a deep breath and looked around again.

“Like
what?
” Mahrree asked, her interest piqued.

“I’m not sure.”

“Like what we did before the Great War?” Mahrree was all energy now as her history lessons unfolded. “Of course! No one sent their children to school! All the parents took turns and spent a part of each day teaching their children and their neighbors’ children at their homes, then worked with them in their shops and fields. We merely modified that after the end of the war, but . . .
why
did we do that?”

Her face contorted in trying to remember. She really didn’t e
xpect Perrin to answer, and he couldn’t have supplied one. She squinted in the distance as if reading a far away text for an answer, and the answer came rushing to her.

“That’s right! The first king! Querul wanted to make sure ev
eryone learned the same things, so he instituted teachers in the villages to help work with the parents. Ohhh,” she said, the beginnings of an idea formulating. “Ohhh, yes. Yes, it could be done! Perrin! The schools are a
holdover
from the period of the kings. We could do what was done
before
, since the beginning. We could approach the Administrators and, and, and . . . petition to not follow an old edict of the kings, but teach our children ourselves! Oh Perrin, you’re smart!”

“Mahrree,” he started cautiously, “you make an excellent point, but I’m not sure the Administrators would see school as an ‘ant
iquated holdover’.”

“But couldn’t we ask? What would be the harm in asking?”

Perrin thought for a moment. “I can see the harm in asking about other things, but teaching? We’d be easing the burden on
their
school system, as long as our children are successful and still later pay taxes . . .”

“I’ll even write the petition!” Mahrree said, full of energy. “Let’s keep your name out of it. I’ll sign it alone, as a teacher asking for this option if a child is frequently ill or immature or slow or something. If we could get permission for one child, then we could maybe later get it for our own. Let me do this, please!”

Perrin thought again.

“I really can’t think of a reason why we shouldn’t try,” he r
esponded.

But somewhere in the back of his head a tiny part of his mind flinched as he remembered the words,
Most dangerous woman in the world.
 

---

Late that afternoon Mahrree wrote a carefully worded and logical letter. Several wheels had been turning in her mind for the past few moons, and they came all together in the message she didn’t show to her husband before she sealed it. She didn’t want him to feel any responsibility, nor did she want to feel any of his influence. Once the children were down for a nap, she brought it herself to the messengers’ office north of the markets and walked home feeling rather satisfied.

But before any of that, she interrogated Shem extensively about what her babies did every minute while she was gone. She couldn’t decide if she was happy or disappointed that the three of them seemed to have had a wonderful time. Peto even began to cry when Perrin took him from Shem, and Jaytsy kissed Shem on the cheek as he got up from the floor to leave.

Shem noticed Mahrree’s disillusionment and Perrin’s suspicious glare.

“This is what my uncle taught me to do,” he explained. “Win over the children so that they always have another adult they can turn to when their parents get too difficult to handle,” he winked. “Don’t worry, they still love you more. I’m
merely a new plaything. So,” he said with a teasing look as he took his jacket from the chair. “Did you two have fun? See anything interesting? Plot against the Administrators? Learn anything new?”

Perrin and Mahrree looked at him blankly, neither quite sure how to answer him.

“All right,” Shem said slowly as he put on his jacket. “So how about I come back in two weeks and let you two out again so you can change the world?”

The Shins exchanged a meaningful look.

Shem grinned. “What in the world did the two of you
do
in just three hours?!”

“Thank you, Private,” Captain Shin said. “I’ll see you in the morning. That will be all.”

-
--

Late that night Barker, the ‘puppy’ which was growing so large and heavy that he already out-paced every other full-grown dog in Edge—and gave smaller ponies an inferiority complex—snored inside his dog house that was the size of a small shed. He was consigned to sleep outside whenever the weather wasn’t freezing.

Until he smelled the bacon.

His eyes perked open, his nose sniffed the air, and he lumbered out of the dog house towards the scent that came from the back fence by the alley.

A man in a black jacket lurking in the shadows tossed Barker one slice, then a second. As the dog gulped them down, the man came up to the fence. Gingerly he reached over and started to pet the massive dog’s head.

“Well done,” he whispered. “Well done.”

---

The Administrators in Idumea receive hundreds of letters each week. All are sent to the Division of Letter Readers who skim the contents and prepare one of several different pre-drafted responses. The Junior Letter Skimmers practice their best handwriting as they create stacks of prepared answers, waiting for the Senior Letter Skimmers to fill in the specific blanks and send the form letters back to the hopeful citizens.

Form letter number one contains the phrase, “We will look into your issue and respond as we see fit.” This was the most popular le
tter in the department and had the effect of making the recipient feel listened to, understood, and maybe even important. 

But its real value lay in the fact that the wording allowed the Administrators to never have to send any more correspondence if they didn’t “see fit.”

And they didn’t “see” most of the time.

Another version reported that, “We appreciate your concern and assure you that the Administrators are doing all that they can,” which also vaguely negated the call for additional action while making the recipients feel the need to proudly hang the letter on their cooling cabinets.