Her teachers, and the creche, would still have her in the daytime, from 0800 to 1600. She would have dinner and sleep and breakfast with me, so long as her academic and social development didn’t suffer. We were both on probation, theoretically, but the creche is so crowded now I don’t think they would take her back full time for anything short of an ax murder. “And who was this person you hacked to pieces, Dr. O’Hara? Did he or did he not actually deserve it?”

My neighbor in Uchūden, Ondrej Costache, kindly moved three doors around to a vacant office so I could make up an adjoining room for Sandra. She’s going through a dinosaur phase now, so I put some appropriately ferocious prints up on the wall. They contrast agreeably with the coverlet the laundry gave me for her bed, little piggies and sheep.

I keyed her monitor for some standard restrictions, as the creche advised. That’s not to keep her from learning “adult” things, but to protect her from hopeless confusion, swamped by detail. It essentially restricts her database to one about twice as large as the one that she has access to at school. That will theoretically encourage her to do homework, showing off special knowledge.

She is a little bit privileged, since only about two thirds of her classmates have parents who opted to bring them home. A few years ago I would never have dreamed of it, myself. I don’t know whether I would do it now, if we both had to live in my office, since I’m liable to be working until midnight or later.

As we were walking back to Uchūden, I explained to her that some nights I would be sleeping with Uncle John or Uncle Dan, but that her monitor would beep me automatically if she needed something. She got a very serious look on her face and asked why Uncle John and Uncle Dan didn’t come up to Uchūden to fuck. I reminded her that Uncle John is hurt by normal gravity, and besides, my bunk was too narrow for two grown-ups.

I asked her whether she had ever done that with the boys at Creche, and she said no, they weren’t allowed to until menarche, not “serious.” I let it go at that.

She admired the dinosaurs on the wall, identifying them by name, and was fascinated by the luxury of having a toilet and monitor to herself. She was nervous about sleeping alone, though; at Creche she was in a room with eleven others. I told her she could spend the first night with me.

I didn’t get much sleep, only partly because eight-year-olds have more elbows than normal people. I was intoxicated by her closeness, the sweet smell of her hair and breath, the small noises she made in her sleep. The thought that she was mine.

THE BURDENS OF FAITH

PRIME