Free Lovelock by Kathryn H. Kidd Orson Scott Card

counselor, I guess. I’ll work for personnel. No doubt in an office.”
    “Well, how interesting,” said Penelope, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that she had just insulted his profession. But I was sure that she had known all along that he was one of the “sterile and frightening” ones.
    Dismissing Red, she turned her attention to Mamie and Stef. “And you—what are your names, and what do you do?”
    She looked at Mamie expectantly. I was actually looking forward to what Penelope would say to put Mamie in her place.
    “We’re Red’s parents,” said Mamie. “I’m Mamie Foxe Todd, and this is my husband, Stephan Brantley Todd. Everyone calls him Stef.”
    “ I’ll call him Stephan,” Penelope said, speaking to Mamie as if Stef were incapable of speaking for himself. “ Stef sounds like a bacterial infection. And what do you do for a living?”
    “We don’t do anything,” said Mamie. “Stef is a man of means, so it’s not as though he ever had to have a job . Of course he’d be retired anyway. He’s much older than I am…he’s sixty-three.”
    I waited for Penelope to raise her eyebrows at that. Stef didn’t look like he was anywhere near sixty-three. He could have passed for seventy-five, and an old seventy-five, at that. Years of living with Mamie had beaten him down until he was shriveled inside himself, as though he had retreated into his very skin to escape her venom. But Penelope saw none of that. She smiled coquettishly at Stef and patted his forearm. She was flirting with that decrepit old fossil, and Stef responded. He smiled back, and years fell off his face. Once, centuries ago, he had been a handsome man.
    Mamie cleared her throat. Mentioning Stef, she had relinquished her place as the center of attention, and she wanted it back. “Of course, I’ve never worked at a paying job, though I’ve done a great deal of volunteer work. I expect to continue with that sort of thing here, and Stef will no doubt putter around the way he did at home.”
    Penelope dropped her hand from Stef’s forearm and knitted her brows. She checked her clipboard computer as if for reassurance. Then, obviously not learning anything from the computer screen, she snapped the clipboard shut.
    “That’s not good news, I’m afraid,” she said. “That’s definitely not good news. Everyone here has to work, both Inside and Outside. It’s in the Compact. Don’t you remember?”
    “What Compact?” Mamie asked blankly.
    “The contract you signed before you came here, of course.”
    “ That thing? All I did was sign it. It was very long.”
    “You didn’t read it?” Carol Jeanne asked.
    “You didn’t read it?” echoed Penelope. The skin tightened on her neck, and her mammoth breasts jutted forward like warheads. “The Compact is everything. When you signed it, you agreed to work Inside and Outside. This is a working community. We can’t afford to have drones. Fair share, that’s how we live. Everybody does their fair share, and gets their fair share in return.”
    “What else did we agree?” Stef’s voice sounded drier and thirstier.
    “My goodness! There was so much of it, I can’t possibly remember. You’ll have to go back and read the Compact. I can promise you one thing—you signed it, and you’re responsible for keeping your end of the bargain, whether you knew what you were signing or not.”
    There was an uncomfortable silence. Emmy started whimpering, and Stef held out his arms to her. She climbed on his lap and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Almost immediately, she fell asleep.
    Carol Jeanne looked out the window at the blank tube walls gliding lazily by, and Red stroked the top of Lydia’s head. Only Mamie was unintimidated by Penelope. She stared at Penelope’s chest for a long moment, watching it rise and fall the way some people sit and watch the ocean waves. Then, as if she had made a conscious decision to be pleasant, Mamie’s expression softened.
    “Tell me about