The Companions by Sheri S. Tepper Page B

sleeve as she helped me out of the robe.
    â€œDo you really think they’re looking for you this soon, dear?”
    I thought about it for a moment. “No. Not yet. Since I sometimes spend several days at the sanctuary, they’ll assume I’m there, or with Paul and Tad. When I don’t show up for six or seven days, that’s when they’ll start querying the past-this-point recorders.”
    She shook her head, angrily. “Tad and I had a long talk, on a public link just in case they had his link or mine diverted. He told me about everything. I’m so furious at that dreadful woman! Tad has decided that since you’ve come down to stay with me, he’d like to come, too. He says he’s only stayed this long because of you, and it seems Luth Fannett would love nothing better than to have the liaison contract terminated. Tad says Paul is impossible to please, which doesn’t surprise me. Matty despaired of him when he was only a child. Tad is family, however, just as you are, and I’m listed in Matty and Joram’s original liaison as an appropriate guardian until he’s eighteen. So long as I serve as coparent, there’ll be no problem.”
    â€œI didn’t realize that Luth was eager to…”
    â€œAccording to Tad, she badly wants out. Paul sounds most unpleasant!”
    I shook my head. “It’s probably not Paul as much as it is Paul and his concs. He and I share a father, so he tolerates me so long as I let him manage me. He doesn’t share anything with Taddeus, so he doesn’t spend any of his limited supply of congeniality on Tad.”
    She drew herself up, eyes flashing. “And does he manage you?”
    â€œI let him think so. It makes him feel as though he’s in charge, and when he’s being in charge, he’s reasonablypleasant and sometimes interesting. I admit that Tad and Luth are much happier when Paul’s away, which means I am, too. Tad’s a lot like Mother, and we’re fond of one another.”
    Hattie shook her head at me. “Well then, it’s for the best. Fortuitously, there’s available space adjacent to this apartment, and I’ve already spoken for an allotment for Tad. It will be enough for you to have a little room of your own, Jewel dear, even if no one is to know you’re here. How long do you think you’ll need to hide?”
    She saw from my blank expression that I wasn’t up to making predictions, so she hugged me very gently, and we stopped talking about it. In fact, I stayed in Hattie’s apartment for months. My little room was hardly more than a closet, but I only used it to sleep in, or to hide when Hatty had visitors. When I needed a doctor, as I did soon after arrival, one of Hattie’s medical friends paid a call. When my few bits of clothing wore out, Hattie bought a new supply. So far as Dame Cecelia was concerned, I was dead, though Tad stayed in touch with my arkist friends in the Northwest, who knew differently.
    Tad brought word from Shiela Alred that Dame Cecelia was in a rage at my disappearance. No one except the lowliest down-dweller could vanish, but I had done so. Record checks of past-this-point monitors showed nothing. I had not returned to Witt’s apartment or to Paul’s. I was not at the sanctuary. I hadn’t taken space anywhere else. After Taddeus moved to Baja, BuOr spent some time watching his comings and goings, but he didn’t lead them anywhere but back and forth to school.
    When the better part of a year had gone by, Gainor Brandt met Botrin Prime at a meeting of upper-level bureaucrats, where Boaty confided that Dame Cecelia had stopped looking for me.
    When Gainor asked why she had been so determined, Prime said, “She’s been watching the birth registry, trying to learn if Jewel had a child by her son.”
    Gainor repeated this to Shiela, who told Tad, who told me.
    Shiela had been right all along about the