She is approached by a tiny expressionless child. He's got to be older than he looks, because if he were the age at which most children are that height he wouldn't be able to walk as well as he can.

She glances up at him before most people would have noticed he was approaching.

"Hello," says the tiny expressionless child.

"Hello."

"Why are you here?"

"I was waiting for someone. They haven't shown up, yet, but I don't leave until tomorrow, so I've nothing better to do than keep waiting."

"Who are you waiting for?"

"His name is Achilles."

"I know him," he says. "What do you want to talk to him about?"

She gestures around them.

"I think you might be mistaken about who you want to talk to."

She looks at him for a long moment.

"Do tell."

"I was the one who told the leader of my crew we should get an older child to protect us so we could eat at the soup kitchen. And I planned the fight we had the first time we tried it."

"Impressive. How old are you?"

"At least four and not more than six."

"What's your name?"

"Oat."

"No last name?"

He shakes his head. "Last names are for people who have ever had legal guardians."

Nod. "Do you want one?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Do you have a legal identity?"

"No."

"Okay. I work for the IF, so I can fix that. Do you want my last name, or a different one? Mine's St. Severin, but I was an orphan too, I just got lucky enough to be raised by nuns instead of by no one, and they made it up."

He hesitates slightly.

She will wait. And hope that wasn't pushing too hard.

"If it's sentimentally important to you to give me your name then I think you should do that."

She considers this.

"It isn't," she says. "Like I said, the nuns who raised me made it up. I don't have a mother or father who had it before me, to pass it on from. I like it, but--it's sentimentally important to give you a name you'll like, like I like mine, not one that's exactly the same as mine."

"Oh. Then I think I would like a different one. And a first name that is not Oat."

"Okay. Do you have any idea what kinds of names you like, or should I guess until I come up with something you do?"

"I haven't thought about it. Being called Oat is useful here."

"Do you want time to think about it before I start guessing?"

"No."

"Okay...Matthew Mark Luke John Joshua Charles Simon Solomon Erik Theodore Wesley Arthur Martin Jasper Rupert Ezra Ronald Peter Paul Sebastian William Anthony."

He takes a second to consider, and then says, "I think my favourites out of those are Martin and Solomon."

"Okay. Do you want one of those for a first name and one for a middle name?"

"Yes."

"Martin Solomon or Solomon Martin sound better?"

"Martin Solomon."

He attempts a smile. It... doesn't entirely work.

Awwwwwww poor socially maladjusted smol. She sort of wants to scoop him up and hug him forever but that would be a seriously bad idea he probably would not react well. Well...no, probably even asking is a bad idea, remember what he said about the surname, he would probably not feel secure enough to refuse. "Should I start listing last names I know?"

He nods.

"Hm...Bianchi Rossi Angelo Piazza Smith Black Brown Lenz Bauer Mikhaelov...Chekhov Monroe Fraser Arbuthnott Boswell Calhoun...Murphy Kelly Carroll Buckley...Munoz Garcia Lopez Kittredge Carpenter Cooper...Summers Cassidy Darkholme Xavier Lehnsherr Logan McTaggert McCoy Quested Grey Worthington...I can come up with more if you don't like any of those much."

"Carroll," he decides.

"Okay. Martin Solomon Carroll." She smiles at him. "I'm Carlotta St. Severin. It's lovely to meet you."

He smiles back. He is not very good at smiling. It makes him look rather like a malevolent lawn gnome.

Poor socially maladjusted smol. "I can't finalize the legalities until I--we--get back, but you can still stay with me tonight, if you'd rather."

"That sounds safer than staying with my crew," he says.

Nod. "Do you have any things you want to bring, and if so do you want me to come with you to retrieve them? I'm a mutant telepath, I can probably knock out anyone who tries to make things unsafe."

"I don't have any things. But I should tell my crew where I'm going so they don't think I died."

Poor smol!!!

"Alright. Should I come with you, or no?"

"I don't have to go very far; they're all here."

He crosses the room. He talks to a slightly older child, who reacts with wary surprise. He comes back. It doesn't take more than a minute in all.

"Alright. ...If those are the only clothes you have, we could fix that."

"I told you," he says, "I don't have any things."

"Yes. 'If' is in this case used as a conditional, rather than a marker of uncertainty--it would probably have been more clear to say 'since'."

"Oh. Then yes. That would be good."

"Okay."

She closes her desk, puts it in her bag and slings her bag over her shoulder. She debates internally whether to offer him her hand but decides that he is small enough it would probably not work out that well.

Clothes!

He does not attempt to smile at anyone else, but he is happier as they get farther from familiar territory.

His taste in clothes is overwhelmingly practical, but where colour-related options exist he prefers dark greys to anything else.

Happier farther away from familiar territory sure is a thing, isn't it. Poor kid.

He can have an entirely reasonable selection of practical dark grey clothing.

It has to be very small clothing, because he is a very small child.

Yyyyyep. She is getting a proper meal into this kid as soon as feasible. Which is not right away because overfeeding starving people has horrible consequences. Meanwhile: "Can you read?"

"Yes."

"Do you want any books, while we're out shopping anyway?"

"Yes."

"Alright." Bookstore!

...wow.

...he may need a moment to deal with the existence of this many books.

Okay, moment over. Time to investigate.

There are so many books. Fiction and nonfiction on a reasonably large-bookstore variety of topics!

He would like a whole lot of nonfiction plus Alice in Wonderland.

Carlotta will absolutely buy him a whole lot of nonfiction plus Alice in Wonderland.

He smiles again, unnerving the cashier tremendously.

Well. Hopefully Martin doesn't have the social acuity to notice that enough to be offended by it.

...Books and clothes will have to be carried back to familiar territory, unfortunately, since she's staying with one of the soup kitchen volunteers in an apartment above the facility.

He's still happier than he was before they went on the trip.

Good. They can have lunch before they go back, if he wants, somewhere that serves food dissimilar to the soup kitchen stuff.

Yes that would be good.

They can do that, then! And then, actually they don't really need to go back until it's time to sleep, does he want to do not there this afternoon. Does this city have any museums, she bets he would like museums.

The city has museums.

He likes museums.

Yay!

Museums have closing times, sadly, but they can also get dinner somewhere that isn't the soup kitchen before going back.

It is good to have food.

Yes. Poor kid.

...They can stop at a convenience store and get him some nonperishables he can squirrel away somewhere on his person if he wants to do that, that seems like the kind of thing that might plausibly make him feel more secure.

He does appreciate that, although it doesn't do a lot for his stress level, which has been quietly and very gradually decreasing since she took him away from the soup kitchen the first time but is still pretty high.

Well, it's better than nothing.

They can stay out until it's late, sitting in a park or something and letting him read his books while she does work on her desk, but eventually they do have to go back to sleep.

That is acceptable.

Carlotta is already sleeping on the couch but an air mattress can be found for him.

He is so small that it's hard to tell he's even there once he has curled up under the puffy blanket.

Well, if one isn't a telepath, anyway. She curls up on the couch and goes to sleep.

In the morning, he and his puffy blanket are in the closet.

The door opens from the inside, too, right? Assuming that's the case he can come out either when he decides to or when it's getting close to when they have to leave.

He emerges shortly after she gets up.

"Good morning."

"Good morning."

Carlotta opens her desk and reads her messages and makes an annoyed noise at one of them and deflates the air mattress and the flight doesn't leave for several hours but they can leave sooner than that if he wants.

He expresses no opinions on when they should leave.

Well, the apartment is pretty small. They can leave and get breakfast somewhere that has things other than oatmeal. How does Martin feel about crepes?

He turns out to feel pretty good about crepes.

Good. And they have time for a little more museum but then they have to go.

Okay.

Carlotta has an apartment in London; it's not huge but it does have a guest room that can be converted into a not-guest room. With a door that locks from the inside. Once they arrive Carlotta gets started on the adoption/legal identity process.

"...I don't suppose you know your birthdate."

"No. I gave you my closest estimate of my age."

"Yes, I figured. Do you have a preference for one?"

"No."

"Okay." She puts down the day they met, because why not. She finishes the paperwork. She gets him an ebook reader and digital books, because he is going through the books he has too quickly for continuing to get him paper books to be storage-sustainable.

That works.

Good.

She gets some more annoying messages. The adoption gets finalized.

"What are those messages about?"

"...My coworkers at the IF want me to recruit you for Battle School."

"Oh."

"I didn't want to bring it up at all until you were more confident that I wasn't going to kick you out to starve if you said no."

He considers, then says, "That makes sense."

"...Now that it's come up anyway do you want to hear more?"

"Yes."

"What do you know about it already?"

"It's a military school for smart children in space."

"That's pretty much accurate--the entry requirements are a little more specific than 'smart,' but what you did back there shows most of the hallmarks of the kind of smart they want."

"I should go, then."

"...Okay. There are some tests you have to take--they're kind of inane, but still required. I can proctor them here."

Nod.

She gives him the first test paper.

It's laughably easy, or would be, if he were the sort of person who laughs.

Yeah.

There are enough tests that even as smart as Martin is, they'll want to break for lunch partway through.

This turns out to be the case.

She vaguely wishes she'd been able to discern more of a preference than "food is good," but at least at this point he's had enough to eat long enough that she can feed him an amount not specifically calibrated to not make him throw up.

He continues not to exhibit preferences other than 'food: yes'.

Well, he can have as much food as he wants for lunch. And then more tests.

This is good. This will lead to an increased chance of survival.

Well. Technically yes.

(Poor kid.)

She tots up the results because she's supposed to, not because there's any chance that he didn't pass.

"They're going to want you to take some physical tests, too, that I'm not qualified to administer and that require equipment I don't have here, and they'll want to check you for the X-Gene."

"Okay."

She takes him across town to a testing facility where a very dubious proctor puts Martin through several obstacle courses and other physical tests.

He is fearsomely dedicated to passing these tests. With a little creativity on some of the obstacle courses, and a very narrow margin of error on some of the physical tests, and the occasional box to stand on, he succeeds.

The proctor is surprised and impressed! Carlotta is smug. And then they want to draw a bit of blood for the gene testing.

Yes all right.

And after that they can go out to dinner. Carlotta is attempting to feed him as many different kinds of things as possible in an attempt to elicit preferences without actually demanding them.

His opinions continue to be 'food: yes'.

Poor kid.

She takes him home and starts pre-emptively subtly threatening some of the more egregious Battle School administrators. There have been Unpleasant Incidents in the past and she does not want a repeat with this child she has taken under her protection.

He reads voraciously and avoids social interaction where possible.

She leaves him alone where this is feasible, then.

A few days later: "Martin, the test results came in."

He looks up from his latest ebook. "And what was the result?"

"Positive. Probably you won't manifest until puberty, but given the uncertainty about your actual age it's theoretically possible to have happen any time now."

Thoughtful nod.

"Battle School shuttle leaves in a few days. Is there--anything else you wanted to do on Earth, first?"

"I don't think so." Pause. "Thank you."

"You're very much welcome."

He tries a smile. It works somewhat better than most of his previous smiles.

Awww.

She continues not to impose social interaction on him where unnecessary over the next few days.

His stress level continues to gradually decrease.

Aaaaand then he has to go off to Battle School. Well. Hopefully that works out better than her worst nightmares.

If he notices her worrying about him, he doesn't mention it.

That's not really surprising.

Eventually it is time to take a flight to somewhere more accommodating of spaceship launches than London.

He reads on the plane ride. He reads kind of constantly.

This is not normally a concern she has but wow she hopes Battle School doesn't fail to be sufficiently intellectually stimulating for him.

They reach the spaceship. She says goodbye.

"Goodbye," says Martin. "Thank you for rescuing me from probable death by starvation."

"You are very much welcome for that."

He smiles. It is adequately non-horrifying.

He gets on the shuttle.

The shuttle has safety restraints. They are far too large for him so he can pad himself with these cushions.

This is a very unusual launch. It has two girls on it. One of them appears to be trying very hard not to attract attention; the other is practically bouncing.

He would also like to avoid attracting attention. He takes his cushions and sits somewhere underpopulated.

The quiet girl picked a spot in the best avoiding-notice area; right next to her is probably the best place to avoid being noticed by anyone else.

He hesitates to do that because she is so obviously trying that it seems like she can't possibly succeed; but somehow she does appear to be succeeding, at least moderately.

Things that are obvious to him are not necessarily obvious to anyone else. Also the other girl is sort of attracting a lot of attention.

Yes. It's bizarre. What does she want.

Anytime it looks like someone's paying attention to the other girl in particular she makes a point of talking to them, is that a clue?

...yes. That does explain it.

It still leaves the question of why, but... sometimes people just do helpful things because they can afford to.

The girl does not look even a little bit malnourished, if that's any indicator.

Most people haven't, since he left Rotterdam. And starvation isn't a concern in Battle School. But it does imply she might be in the habit of thinking she can afford to do things not directly concerned with her own survival.

The other girl looks much less malnourished than a starving street urchin but not none. That combined with the wary way she assesses everything around her, not with skill but with a lurking paranoia, suggests that she might have more experience with survival as an immediate priority than most of the kids on the shuttle.

That is interesting.

She would be so glad he thought so, if she knew, and weren't avoiding attention like poison ivy.

There are plenty of other people to pay attention to.

Like the second-shortest kid on the shuttle? The not-malnourished girl is paying attention to him now. "Hi, I'm Lacey, what's your name?"

"Sindri. Nice to meet you," he says cheerfully.

"Nice to meet you! Can you believe we're going to space? Space is so cool."

Sindri giggles. "And here I thought we were going to Canada," he jokes.

"Canada," she says authoritatively, "is less cool than space."

"How do you know? Have you been to space before? For that matter have you been to Canada?"

"I'm from Canada."

"Then I guess after you've been to space you can say which one is cooler."

"I guess. The idea of space is cooler than the idea of Canada, I mean, I can't make an objective comparison, I haven't been to all of Canada."

"I bet most of Canada is more fun than most of space!"

She considers this. "To live in, maybe. I bet if you live somewhere on Earth that isn't Canada it'd be more fun to visit space than Canada."

"No, but most of space is empty and boring, and most of Canada at least has, like, geographic features," he explains. "So maybe going to space is cool, but then you can't really do much there except be in space. Between being in a random part of space and being in a random part of Canada I'd pick Canada."

"Okay but if you're visiting space you wouldn't pick a random part."

"No, we're going to Battle School, but I think Battle School is mostly cool for reasons besides being in space."

"I don't think this counts as visiting, though, we were talking about visiting."

"Anyway I'm just goofing off, space is cool."

"Yeah!"

Giggle.

Bounce. "I wonder what it'll be like."

"Space, or Battle School?"

"Battle School."

"Well, I'm going to have fun."

"Yes, but like, what kind of fun."

"I don't know yet!" he says, cheerfully.

"Then how do you know you'll have it?"

He just laughs.

She giggles.

He beams at her.

She grins back. "I like you!"

"I like you too! Let's be friends!"

"Okay!"

Beam.

Grin.

"So where're you from?"

"Thule!"

"Oh, cool. Thule has glaciers, right?"

He laughs. "Yes!"

"Canada has glaciers! I've never been far enough north to see one, but I've seen stuff they left behind."

"Glaciers are the best."

"The bogs that happen when they leave the right kind of gouges in the earth are pretty cool so it doesn't surprise me that the things that make them are cool."

"They're the prettiest geographic feature!"

"They're pretty and they leave cool stuff behind. Bogs have carnivorous plants!"

"Carnivorous plants are pretty cool," he acknowledges.

"Bogs are acidic instead of having good soil so some of the plants get their nutrients elsewhere."

"By eating bugs!"

"Yeah! And pitcher plants are pretty too."

"I don't think I've ever seen a pitcher plant. I mean, not in real life."

"I have!"

"Did you watch it eat something?"

"No," she admits.

"Aww. I would've fed it a bug."

"It was too far from the walkway to reach and the guide said if we tried anyway we could hurt something."

"Hurt yourself...?"

"Maybe but more likely some important plants or the sphagnum moss. The sphagnum moss is really important."

"What's important about it?"

"It's what makes a bog a bog and not a lake."

"...definitionally, or by ecological effects, or what?"

"By ecological effects."

"Huh."

"It makes a peat layer that turns stuff acid."

"You sure know a lot about bogs!" he says, impressed.

"I like learning about cool stuff."

"Me too."

"I hope the stuff they want to teach us in Battle School is cool."

"Probably it is."

Nod. "Why'd you decide to go?"

"...if I say 'because it's thaneish' you're not going to know what that means, are you."

"No."

He sighs. "Well, it is. I dunno how else to explain it."

"What does thaneish mean?"

"It means 'like a thane'," he says, clearly aware of the fundamental inadequacy of this explanation.

"What's a thane?"

"It's a - thing - in Thule. I'm not being obstructionist, it's just really hard to explain it if you don't already know."

"I didn't think you were but sometimes it's easier to explain things if people ask more questions."

"Well - people can take an oath, the þainneið, and if you take it - if you take it and you're at least sixteen years old and it's properly witnessed and accepted - then you're a thane of Thule and you have to act like one. Like if there's somebody hurt in an accident and you know first aid you have to give it to them, or if somebody's homeless or starving you have to help them, or if somebody's stealing stuff or murdering people you have to stop them, if you can and nobody else is."

"Oh. That sounds like a good thing to be."

"Yeah."

"And fighting the Buggers fits?"

"If there were still any to fight. I mean, if there are I will because that's thaneish too. But it's - I think going to Battle School will make me a better thane, so I am."

She nods.

Shrug. Nod.

"Are you gonna miss your parents?" she asks, sounding very much as though this is a perfectly abstract question that it only just occurred to her that a normal person would ask.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Shrug. "I bet I'll get used to it."

Nod.

"Where'd you learn so much about bogs, anyway?"

"We went to a national park last summer that had a bunch of them."

"Neat!"

"Yeah! There was a lot of other stuff besides bogs, too."

"Ooh. Teach me your ecological secrets."

She tells him about lakes and beaver dams and hunting and conservation way back in the early twentieth century.

He is delighted!!

Oh good! Does he want the life story of a famous and important conservationist who was also a philandering jerk.

Yes absolutely.

His name was Grey Owl but his real name was Archie Belaney and he was Scottish but he got adopted by some First Nations group and he went around telling people he was half First Nations and he used to be a trapper but then he figured out that beavers were being hunted too much and he married several different women generally without bothering to divorce the old ones first.

That sure sounds like a character. Sindri enjoys hearing this story.

He had one kid, with Wife The Penultimate who helped him with a lot of his conservation stuff. And it's really nice that he's interested in hearing this story because telling stories helps you not forget them and it's not like she can go back to that national park any time soon.

Yeah they are kind of short on national parks in space.

"Yeah. There'll probably be zero-g, though, that'll be super fun."

"Yeah, I bet!"

"I heard some people puke their first time in zero-g."

"Gross," he giggles.

"People puke for all kinds of reasons," she says authoritatively.

"Yeah but how many of the other ones are going to happen in the next two minutes?"

"The airplane one, maybe."

Snort.

"Do spaceships count as airplanes on the relevant level?"

"I don't know, what's the relevant level?"

"...I guess I'm not sure," she says thoughtfully. "It might depend on why people puke in zero-g."

"Yeah. And whether people puke in airplanes because it's like being in zero-g or for some other unrelated reason."

"Yeah. Maybe we'll learn that kind of thing at school."

"If not we can look it up probably."

"Mhm. I wonder what it'll be like, there."

"Interesting, I bet."

"Well, yeah, but I mean specifically."

"What is it like to be a battle school?" he says, and giggles.

"Huh?"

"—oh, it's something I heard from my dad, there's this philosopher or something who said that it's impossible for a person to know what it is like to be a bat—"

"Ohh. That makes sense."