worth an oat

[alicornucopia]

In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".

Comments

[alicornucopia]

So they depart the soup kitchen building and go to a much nicer part of the city and Carlotta gets a hotel and an extremely dubious I.F. proctor puts Oat through obstacle courses and similar.

[pythbox]

Oat is tiny and malnourished, but ruthlessly determined to succeed at all costs. He passes the obstacle courses, some creatively, and the various physical fitness assessments, some barely. And there are rules about accommodating disabilities; they can't disqualify him just because he's really short. Maybe he'll grow out of it.

[alicornucopia]

That is what usually happens with really short people, at least to some extent.

And then there's the genetic test! "They're going to see if you have the X-gene," Sister Carlotta says. "Do you know what that is?"

[pythbox]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

"Even if you do it probably won't manifest for a long time," she says. "For most people it doesn't until they're twelve or thirteen, sometimes even later. Do you know how old you are?"

[pythbox]

"I am at least four and probably not more than six."

[alicornucopia]

Nod. "The paperwork needs a birthday; do you want to pick one yourself?"

[pythbox]

"I don't care."

[alicornucopia]

"Well," she says, "you've passed all the tests and whether you have the X-gene or not it won't make a difference; you can go to Battle School. How about your birthday can be tomorrow and you can celebrate it properly the once before you go into space? November eighteenth."

[pythbox]

"Okay."

[alicornucopia]

And so on his "birthday" Oat "turns five" and receives cake and is encouraged to speak up if there is anything else he wanted to do on Earth and discovers that he is going to have a mutant power one day -

- then shortly after he is flown to another part of the world more amenable than Rotterdam for spaceship takeoff and put in a spaceship.

[pythbox]

There is not anything else he wanted to do on Earth. Cake, however, is delicious (he says solemnly).

The safety restraints on the shuttle seats do not fit him, because he is too small.

[alicornucopia]

Then he may be restrained in the company of some cushions.

There is a girl on this launch. Only one. She's next to him.

"Hi," she says, "I'm Bella."

[pythbox]

"I am Oat," he says.

[alicornucopia]

"It's nice to meet you," she says.

[pythbox]

"Is it? Why?"

[alicornucopia]

"...Well, I suppose what I mean is it might be nice, and if it turns out it isn't at least I won't have made that any likelier by insulting you, if I say it is nice."

[pythbox]

"Oh." He considers this perspective. "That's reasonable."

[alicornucopia]

"It turns out a lot of things like that people say are sort of reasonable if you think about them."

[pythbox]

"But do people normally think about the things they say in that way?"

[alicornucopia]

"No, but they still happened in the first place. People now are just saying 'nice to meet you' because that's what you say but it would have had to make sense before that was what you say."

[pythbox]

"It wouldn't have had to be reasonable. People do unreasonable things."

[alicornucopia]

"Like what?"

[pythbox]

"Murder is usually unreasonable."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, yes. But it's also pretty unusual."