A ChildStar Date: unknown.... The toddler smiled a chubby cherub’s smile as his mother approached. Shrilling a joyful greeting in a typical small child’s manner, he rose on wobbly legs and scampered to meet her. The hand that stopped his progress was swift and abrupt, causing him to sit down hard on the floor. His father’s voice was firm, “No longer are you to allow him to run to you in this manner! It is time for him to learn the ways of his people. He is too dependent, too accustomed to your pampering. It is not fit that he should be so!” The woman looked at her little son, sitting where he had fallen, staring at his parents, startled by their voices and their strange behavior. His dark eyes blinked rapidly, tears trickling down his fat cheeks. “He is only three,” she pleaded, “Just a baby. There will be ample time for his training when he is older. Please, let me go to him.” Neither her words nor the child’s confusion moved his father. “No. Not again. He is old enough to begin his training. My people pride themselves on restraint in all things. And in strength and character. Humans pamper their young. Aldebs do not do so.” As he spoke, a wizened old woman wearing a teacher’s robe entered the room. The man turned on his wife once more. “Leave him. Leave him now!” The woman, impotent to stop her husband in his harsh decree, rushed out of the room in tears. The man followed, in conference with what was to be his son’s teacher. The small boy was left behind them all, alone in the room. He bowed his head and sobbed quietly. He was old enough and bright enough to understand that something had been lost to him. After awhile, he moved about his toys, no longer smiling at them, no longer interested. He picked up a battered, old and seldom touched old-Earth teddy bear, something his mother had said had been hers, and clutched it tightly to him for comfort. He remained standing that way for a long time. |