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on payments. But I am due for a promotion to tallyman for my quadrant, and that will enable me to recover a month this year, perhaps two months if there is no sickness in the family—” He paused, disliking the sound of his own voice pleading. “The honored colonel must have some more specific reason—”
    The girl looked at him sadly. “There is another message, but I don't think I should read it.”
    My father smiled grimly. “Read it, girl; you know I cannot.” Actually, he was partly literate, having taught himself a little by looking at Faith's homework assignments, but he preferred not to have this generally known. Ninety percent of the peasant population was illiterate and most of the rest were not clever readers, and it seemed the big landowners and politicians preferred it that way. Literacy could lead to peasant unrest. In this, I was sure, the authorities of Callisto were quite correct. Illiteracy meant ignorance, and ignorance was more readily malleable.
    How was it, then, that Faith and Spirit and I had been permitted to enroll in one of the few good schools, expensive as it was? There had to have been a bribe, making it more expensive yet. I had never inquired about that and never would; if we children had our secrets to preserve, so also did our parents have theirs. I knew that if my father had done it, there had been no other way.
    The girl frowned. “If you insist, señor.” She was being overly polite, for peasants were normally not dignified by the title “señor,” or, as it is in English, “mister.” Peasants were supposed merely to be things rather than people. “It seems to be a notification of a charge of truancy and abuse against your children,”
    she said, looking at the document.
    “My children!” he exclaimed, baffled. “Surely, señora, there is some mistake!”
    “B. Sierra, scion of a leading family, has lodged a charge of unwarranted aggression against the children of Hubris,” she said apologetically.
    Suddenly it made awful sense. I looked at Spirit, who nodded. We were to blame! We should have told our father, instead of concealing the episode. I had never thought the boorish scion would report us. It should embarrass him too much to have it known that a fifteen-year-old peasant boy and twelve-year-old peasant girl had balked his attempted rape of their older sister.
    “I cannot believe this,” my father said. “My children are well behaved. I have sent them to school beyond the mandatory age—”
    “The charge is that they made an unprovoked attack on him as he passed on his grav-disk. He took a fall, smashing his nose, but managed to recover his disk and get away. Because they are only children, he is not demanding criminal action, but they must vacate the city.” I wondered, as I heard that, whether that could be all there was to it. If the scion had been angry enough to make a formal complaint, he must seek more revenge than our departure.
    My father turned to look at me. He saw the guilt on my face. “Thank you, señora,” he said to the screen.
    “I did not properly understand my situation.”
    “The colonel says he is sure it is a misunderstanding,” the girl said quickly. “But it is better for you to leave. It is awkward to offend such a family as this. The colonel will make a domicile available for your family at the plantation—”
    “The colonel is most kind. We shall consider.” The call closed and the screen faded.
    Spirit and I both started to speak as we returned to our house from the pay-phone station, while Faith blushed. My father silenced us all with a raised palm. “Let me see if I have this correctly,” he said, with a calm that surprised me. Now that he had a better notion of the problem, it seemed, he had more confidence about dealing with it. “The young stud floated up and accosted Faith, and you two fought him off.”
    Silently, I nodded.
    “The scion burned Hope with his laser,” Spirit said. “We had to do something.”
    My