Not even waiting to come home, Taasi had asked her guardian for permission to work with PASS as soon as the agent had suggested it. She’d not been surprised that Mani had immediately cited the no unnecessary contact rule, but she had hoped her guardian would give permission anyway. She knew Mani believed that the rule was foolish and had challenged it a few times. So, why not make it easy for Taasi to work with the PASS folks?

  “You can interpret it as ‘necessary’ contact, like the Agent says. And it would be almost like going to the Academy,” she pleaded. “And more useful to Jaraida.”

  “It’s not that simple,” her guardian had replied. “I could give permission for one instance of contact, and get away with it, but you are asking to go to the PASS base regularly as an intern. There would surely be an uproar. Even if I were your parent instead of your guardian, the Council could intervene.”

  “Could we request permission from the Ciardei?” Taasi had asked, knowing that she was pushing it, but not caring. She really wanted that internship with PASS.

  Even though she couldn’t hear it, she could imagine her guardian’s sigh.

  “That would not be a good idea,” Mani had said firmly. But then, as Taasi was beginning to lose hope, she added, “Let me think what I can come up with.”

  There was a chance, Taasi thought, as she told Agent Arteyn that she would ask permission. She saw no reason to admit that she had asked permission and it had been denied. Mani had said she’d try to come up with something. If only she would!

  *****

  “My father would have approved of my taking that internship,” she told her guardian a couple of days later, when they were doing a turn weeding in the conservatory.

  Her guardian burst out laughing.

  “And your mother would have hated it. You know how she didn’t want you to go to the Academy. She took a lot of persuading.”

  “She didn’t want me to go off-world,” Taasi said. “She had nothing against the Alliance.”

  Her guardian shrugged.

  “She wanted to keep you safe.”

  After a pause, she added, “I am looking into how you could have this opportunity, enchkina. I think you would learn a lot, and you could be useful to Jaraida.”

  “Why don’t you just tell the Council that, and give permission? You are my mani.”

  “And I can be removed as guardian if any of your nearer relatives make a good argument that I am not taking proper care of you. Do you want to risk that?”

  “I am almost of age,” she protested.

  “20 sunarounds is only first majority. At 20 you may choose your own guardian, but only with the approval of the Manandi clan leadership. How likely are they to approve me, if there is dissatisfaction about your working with PASS?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “They wouldn’t! My father wanted you to be my guardian. It was a dying wish!” Taasi protested.

  “Not exactly,” her guardian corrected drily. “He wasn’t dying when he wrote his will.”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “He wanted me to be your guardian if anything happened to him, and when he did not come back from the defense of the transfer station, and then you lost your mother, your grandfather honored his wish. That doesn’t mean that he won’t challenge my guardianship if he feels that I am letting you do something which is wrong. Not everyone is as fond as the Alliance as you seem to be.”

  “But you are,” she said.

  Her guardian chuckled.

  “Maybe. I am not sure any more how I feel about the Alliance, though the fact that they finally sent PASS to try to help is a point in their favor. I agree that your father would have wished for you to take the opportunity of an internship with PASS, but if he were here now he might have trouble getting an exception to the “no unnecessary contact” rule for you.”

  “It’s a stupid rule made by silly folks who can’t tell the difference between the Alliance and the Kron.” Taasi said.

  “It is a rule made by the government. Stop talking like a cranky child—and don’t pull that plant up,” she warned. “It’s not a weed, and you will hear from Tengin if you hurt it.”

  Embarrassed, Taasi had quickly stopped pulling and apologized to the plant as she straightened it up. She was not a grower, but she knew enough not to hurt the plants they wanted to grow. In the Adeni stonework, even the weeds had to be treated respectfully--gathered in baskets and placed on good soil outside the stonework where sometimes they took root and grew until the weather or some plant disease destroyed them.

  *****

  Taasi hated weeding, but it was one of the tasks everyone did in Gim Thylla’s household. Even Mani helped when she was in Kyeros because she acknowledged it was necessary, and did not want to argue with her aunt—who was really her aunt, not just a kinswoman like she was to Taasi.

  Mani was better at avoiding the equally boring tasks of preparing parsho and gomast. Highly nutritious, tasty and necessary food staples in South Mehlin, but no matter how tasty and nutritious, they were a bore to make and Taasi envied her guardian who always found something else to do when she was invited to help with the preparation. It was not so easy for Taasi who was still a child (as everyone reminded her) and expected to participate in household activities when more hands were needed.

  Her best escape was when she got to help with the food distribution. Fortunately, her guardian had attached her to one of the food distribution teams. Being on the telepath relays did not excuse her, because everyone knew you could ’path messages and watch the parsho drip. (It was less boring when she was on the relays.) But having to deliver food did give Taasi something useful and more interesting to do than prepare the food.

  Lía hated it, of course. She had no authority over Taasi and the older kids, but she still felt entitled to give her opinion because she had been the nurse for so many others throughout the years.

  She always fussed when Taasi went off on any errand that took her outdoors or involved interacting with people that were not known to the family. Even though Mani had never been one of her charges either, Lía had “known her from birth” and that made her little more than a child in Lía’s mind.

  “I don’t know what she is thinking,” Lía would complain. “It is bad enough that she won’t stay in one place, but having you and the other older ones take risks with food distribution and going around and even outside the stoneworks . . . I can’t condone it, and so I told Thylla-na.”

  Taasi wondered what her aunt Thylla had replied. In her experience, Gim Thylla never disagreed with Lía openly, but she also never interfered with what her adult children, nieces and nephews did. She might scold Taasi and the others if they weren’t helping with what she considered necessary—the plants and the preparation of food—but everything else she left to the parents and guardians.

  Lía on the other hand, scolded about everything. It wasn’t just safety that concerned her. She was fussy about social class and status. Lía approved Taasi working the telepath relays, which she judged appropriate and safe, even though Taasi was young for the work. In contrast, she had objected vehemently to Taasi and Niagmo working at the infirmary, though Niagmo was a healer, and Taasi would not be “running around like a wild child” distributing food if she was working in the infirmary.

  “They have no business in the infirmary,” Lía had said. “Niagmo is hardly more than a baby, and Taasi is not a healer or likely to become one. She shouldn’t be cleaning bloody messes, or doing work that any Estevi could do.”

  “I want her to accompany Niagmo,” Mani had replied calmly. “She can also help with telepathing families and passing messages. If there are bloody messes, they should both learn to deal.”

  “Niagmo is too young, even if he is a healer,” Lía argued.

  “He is very young,” Mani answered a bit sadly. “But he wants to help, and he has the gift. His father thinks he can begin training, and that he will be useful. He shouldn’t be alone, so Taasi can go along and help however she is needed.”

  “If I can go with Niagmo to the infirmary,” Taasi had asked later. “Why can’t I be an intern at the PASS base?”

  “You know why, enchkina,” her guardian had said. “It is one thing to work in the infirmary with our own people, and another to work with outworlders when there is a rule against ‘unnecessary contact.’”

  “It’s a stupid rule, made by old fuddy-duddies,” Taasi protested, for the tenth or twentieth time.

  “Even if it is,” Mani retorted. “Learning to follow rules, however stupid, is part of becoming an adult.”