The Inner City Read Online Free PDF Page B

he said, “We never hit them.”
    “Really? That’s remarkable. How do you get them to learn?”
    “Repetition and rewards. If they don’t do a task right, they don’t get a treat. But they want praise, of course. Rewards just tell them they’ve succeeded.”
    Portafack raised his eyebrows. ”But surely there must be times when they do something wrong? Or when they disobey?”
    “We never hit them,” Sandam repeated, and Portafack shrugged his shoulders lightly.
    They went to the next room, where the larger girls were ironing and washing dishes. One of them was holding a tray with plastic glasses on it. The tray kept sliding forward and the glasses kept dropping.
    Tercepia ran up to the girls one by one and just touched them on the arm, and then ran over to another girl. Portafack felt that he could trace the origins of some of the girls quite easily. One had hair that was coarse and slightly mottled. Another had eyes that seemed, to him, to be too close together. Tercepia on the other hand had even features and good hair.
    They walked to the porch. The youngest girls were buttoning and unbuttoning their shirts, heads were lowered, their faces frowning in concentration. One girl was biting her lip. “Grooming,” Sandam said. “We teach them proper appearance. They don’t all reach the same abilities, but we do have some ground rules. They have to bathe and do buttons and zippers. They have to return when they’re called. They can’t bite.” He shrugged. “General rules.”
    “Biters?” Portafack asked, his eyes traveling slowly over the girls.
    “We haven’t really had any biters yet. We just try to come up with rules that guarantee hybrids with reliable temperaments.”
    Sandam followed Portafack’s gaze to a girl who was having the most trouble, and whose bare skin was visible. “Perhaps you could give me a little information about yourself?” Sandam asked. “What you’re looking for exactly, what kind of household you have. Just in general some background. You mentioned a dog when you were a child. Have you had more pets, children, a wife?”
    Portafack drew his eyes away from the girl. “I was married once but divorced. We didn’t have children. That was a while ago. I’m very busy and, I’m afraid, rather set in my ways. I like the house to be kept clean and I like simple foods well prepared. I had a housekeeper for many years but she left to get married. That was surprising, she was far too old, I would have thought, to interest anybody. I wouldn’t like to lose another one to marriage.” He turned back to the girls in front of him. “They don’t—well, marry, do they?”
    Sandam smiled. “No. Though their sexuality is intact. They might find someone to sleep with occasionally.”
    “But not get pregnant?” Portafack moistened his lips.
    “No. They’re sterile. We own the copyright, after all.”
    “So they don’t mind sex,” Portafack murmured.
    Sandam let the statement rest for a second. “No. We didn’t see any reason to take that away. It can enhance their quality of life. You have to remember that they are dominantly human. You have to have some sensitivity, because they do.”
    “Oh, I’m kind,” Portafack said. “No one has ever said I wasn’t. They do prepare food, I see?” He was watching as the girls made sandwiches.
    “Meals are really pretty simple. They don’t have much of an attention span so we’ve given up on using a stove. They forget about it and walk away. You might as well tell me exactly what your requirements are. Cleaning, simple meals?”
    “Laundry, ironing. Can they do shopping?”
    “Simple things only, I’m afraid. They don’t read.”
    “Oh?” Portafack considered this. “I’m surprised. Is that deliberate?”
    “No, we’ve tried teaching them. Their intellectual capacity varies from one to the other, but the best comprehends about as much as a 6 year old. They can be extremely sensitive, and unable to express it