Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn

Author:Sharon Shinn [Shinn, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Hard Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781101549643
Google: Te0UGSTIoQsC
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2002-04-02T06:59:02+00:00

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Chapter 11

The next few days passed quietly, in something like contentment, though it was more like the suspended silence between an infant’s first intimation of injury and its subsequent howl of outrage. I felt as if events were about to break, courses were to be set or altered, and no few hours of peace and calm would convince me otherwise.

During those days, I divided my time between my assigned duties and my assumed ones, when I could not combine them. That is, I spent part of my time watching over my machines and part of my time guarding Ameletta, and sometimes doing both. To the extent that I could, I took over Ameletta’s education during this week. Janet had been following a computerized series of courses which I was able to call up and analyze, and once I determined what Ameletta’s skill level was, I was able to assign her lessons. In the mornings I set her at this task down in the library, where she would not be totally alone, for Rinda and Mary and Mrs. Farraday wandered in and out of the room once or twice an hour.

After lunch, I would quiz her on what she’d learned, and then I would take her with me on a long walk around the grounds. I would use these occasions to cover the topics that I knew best—specifically, math and science—and I would set her to working arithmetic problems in her head or explaining to me some of the concepts by which we lived on Fieldstar. Thus we covered, in their most basic form, the principles of gravity, sunlight, interstellar travel, and nuclear physics. She did not particularly have a head for the hard sciences, but she preferred this method of learning to laboring over a computer monitor all day, and she did her best to listen, understand, and please me.

In the evenings, she and Mrs. Farraday and I had quiet dinners in which we all tried very hard to be cheerful, though the effort was as visible as the lace in the tablecloth. Sometimes Rinda, Genevieve, and Mary ate with us, just for the comfort we drew from expanded companionship, though Rinda was not much of a talker and Mary’s conversation was limited. Still, the goodwill we felt toward one another brightened the dinner hour and lessened some of the loneliness we all felt.

After the meal, Ameletta and Mrs. Farraday and I joined Mr. Ravenbeck in his study. He had begun to teach Ameletta a rather complicated computer game, and every night they sat together while he gave her further instruction. It seemed clear to me from his repeated explanations that she had no real grasp of the game, but that she wanted to learn it from him was obvious; she glowed with the delight of achieving his undivided attention, and she tried very hard to sit still and pay attention. Frequently Mrs. Farraday and I would exchange looks of indulgent satisfaction to see them sitting so close, dark head bent over blonde, as the patient lecture went on.

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