"And mostly dead," sang Mother. "Including my hideous hag of a mother, who disowned me when I married the man I loved, and who therefore will never get her hands on my darling daughter." The melody to this refrain was always cheery-sounding. Alessandra had never met her grandmother. Now, though, it occurred to her that maybe a grandmother could get her out of joining a colony.
"I'm not going, Mother."
"You are a minor child and you will go where I go, tra-la."
"You are a madwoman and I will sue for emancipation rather than go, tra-lee."
"You will think about it first because I am going whether you go or not and if you think your life with me is hard you should see what it's like without me."
"Yes, I should," said Alessandra. "Let me meet my grandmother."
Mother's glare was immediate, but Alessandra plowed ahead. "Let me live with her. You go with the colony."
"But there's no reason for me to go with the colony, my darling. I'm doing this for you. So without you, I will not go."
"Then we're not going. Tell them."
"We are going, and we are thrilled about it."
Might as well get off the merry-go-round; Mother 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."