Enders In Exile

didn't mind endlessly repeating circular
arguments, but Alessandra got bored with it. "What lies did you have to
tell, to get accepted?"
    "I told no lies," said
Mother, pretending to be shocked at the accusation. "I only proved my
identity. They do all the research, so if they have false information
it's their own fault. Do you know why they want us?"
    "Do
you
?"
asked Alessandra. "Did they actually tell you?"
    "It doesn't take a
genius to figure it out, or even a fairy," said Mother "They want us
because we are both of childbearing age."
    Alessandra groaned in
disgust, but Mother was preening in front of an imaginary full-length
mirror.
    "I am still young,"
said Mother, "and you are just flowering into womanhood. They have men
from the fleet there, young men who have never married. They will be
waiting eagerly for us to arrive. So I will mate with a very eager old
man of sixty and bear him babies and then he will die. I'm used to
that. But you—you will be a prize for a young man to marry.
You will be a treasure."
    "My
uterus
will, you mean," said Alessandra. "You're right, that's exactly what
they're thinking. I bet they took practically any healthy female who
applied."
    "We fairies are always
healthy."
    It was true
enough—Alessandra had no memory of ever being sick, except
for food poisoning that time when Mother insisted they would eat supper
from a street vendor's cart at the end of a very hot day.
    "So they're sending a
herd of women, like cows."
    "You're only a cow if
you choose to be," said Mother. "The only question I have to decide now
is whether we want to sleep through the voyage and wake up just before
landing, or stay awake for the two years, receiving training and
acquiring skills so we're ready to be productive in the first wave of
colonists."
    Alessandra was
impressed. "You actually read the documentation?"
    "This is the most
important decision of our lives, my darling Alessa. I am being
extraordinarily careful."
    "If only you had read
the bills from the power company."
    "They were not
interesting. They only spoke of our poverty. Now I see that God was
preparing us for a world without air-conditioning and vids and nets. A
world of nature. We were born for nature, we elvish folk. You will come
to the dance and with your fairy grace you will charm the son of the
king, and the king's son will dance with you until he is so in love his
heart will break for you. Then it will be for
you
to decide if he's the one for you."
    "I doubt there'll be a
king."
    "But there'll be a
governor. And other high officials. And young men with prospects. I
will help you choose."
    "You will certainly
not
help me choose."
    "It's as easy to fall
in love with a rich man as a poor one."
    "As if you'd know."
    "I know better than
you, having done it badly once. The rush of hot blood into the heart is
the darkest magic, and it must be tamed. You must not let it happen
until you have chosen a man worthy of your love. I will help you
choose."
    No point in arguing.
Alessandra had long since learned that fighting with Mother
accomplished nothing, whereas ignoring her worked very well.
    Except for this. A
colony. It was definitely time to look up Grandmother. She lived in
Polignano a Mare, the next city of any size up the Adriatic coast,
that's all that she knew of her. And Mother's mother would not be named
Toscano. Alessandra would have to do some serious research.

    A week later, Mother
was still going back and forth about whether they should sleep through
the voyage or not, while Alessandra was discovering that there's a lot
of information that they won't let children get at. Snooping in the
house, she found her own birth certificate, but that wasn't helpful, it
only listed her own parents. She needed Mother's certificate, and that
was not findable in the apartment.
    The government people
barely acknowledged she existed and when they heard
her errand sent her away. It was only when she finally thought of the
Catholic Church that she made any headway. They hadn't actually
attended Mass since Alessandra was little, but at the parish, the
priest on duty helped her search back to find her own baptism. They had
a record of baby Alessandra Toscano's godparents as well as her
parents, and Alessandra figured that either the godparents
were
her grandparents, or they would know who her grandparents were.
    At school she searched
the net and found that Leopoldo and Isabella Santangelo lived in
Polignano a Mare, which was a good sign, since