When ill, Talla had been told, one was to go directly to the Offices. Physicians were always available.
Illnesses were a lot simpler in the dorms. There the doctors would come to the patients. Here, Talla supposed, it made more sense to put the doctors in one place and have the patients come to them.
Did her condition really merit the term "illness"?
That normally meant "disease". What was she going to say, "Please help me. My breasts are too big"?
Having finished her day of child minding, she trotted past the sunbathing courtyard full of her naked sisters. She made the best speed she could, having yanked the straps on her top as tight as possible to take the weight off her chest.
She wasn't happy about what she had to do. Whining wasn't looked well upon. "Unnecessary drama" would have been the accusation of her dorm mothers. She could almost hear the condescending tone and had to blink away an image of a woman pointing at the stool in the corner.
Talla grimaced as she entered the dark, cool chamber of the Offices. Just as quiet as the courtyard, but so much the opposite in every other respect.
Did she really need to see a doctor?
With what she knew was an intent to procrastinate, she went first to the shelves full of night time assignments. There, in her slot, was the card.
What would it be tonight? Whose name would be on the card? There was a certain anxiety in reaching for that card, knowing it would contain the name of a boy she'd never met -- a boy she'd be expected to go out in to the night to find. And then Serve. Another penis, plunging in to her.
And his name was -
What?
All that was written on the card was "Desk 15" and some Temple Script which she translated to mean "immediately".
Not a hard direction to follow. Desk 15 was just behind her. She crossed the marble floor -- quietly so as to avoid distracting the hard working women -- and stood in front of the fifteenth desk.
"Yes?"
An Officer, probably of Abundance. She wore a tight fitting but rather fancy blouse. It wasn't quite the sort of thing that women went out Serving in, but the plunging next line and lace in the cleavage was a notch above standard work wear.
"My card said to come here, Mistress," Talla said, showing the Officer the card.
"Ah, Talla," she said. "My name is Pril. Pleased to meet you."
"Mistress," Talla replied with a curtsy. She supposed it was an honour to be recognized. There were very few Officers, after all.
"You're here because you have a choice tonight," Pril explained.
"A choice?"
When had there been talk of choices? Her first night, certainly, but she didn't think she got choices after that. Could she choose whom she Served? That thought lit her eyes up.
"Yes," Pril explained. "You chose to be paced at five Services per week."
Talla nodded.
"Many girls do this to meet their quota more quickly," Pril said. "And your devotion is admirable. There are, however, other duties of equal import -- and credit."
Talla raised her eyebrows expectantly.
"If you wish," Pril said, "we have an opening in Priming tonight. We're offering it to you based on your success in discovering -- ah -- Zo'kar, I believe it was."
"Zo'kar?" Talla wondered. "What about him?"
"He's a Seal Breaker," Pril said. "Having been involved in his discovery, some of the credit is yours. So if you would prefer to achieve your quota with a greater degree of Priming, that can be arranged."
Zo'kar was a Seal Breaker, just like Zhair'lo. How about that?
And what of her choice? Would she rather be out Serving, or Priming? She thought of her beleaguered breasts. Priming, even twice, they would only be unwrapped for a few minutes -- half an hour at most. It wouldn't cure her arousal, but she could always masturbate if it came to that. If she chose to Serve -- well -- the pain in her chest ...
"I'll take Priming," she said confidently.
She took from Pril's smile that it was the right decision. Whatever her part was in getting Zo'kar prepared, it was obviously an important duty. So be it.
"Good," Pril said. "We'll see you at seventh bell, as before."
Talla lingered a bit.
"Is there something else?"
"I -- I think I need to see a doctor," she stammered.
An expression of concern crossed Pril's face.
"Go up to Principia Abundance and tell the guard there," Pril said. "I hope all is well."
"Thank you, Mistress," she said and curtsied again. "I'm sure I'll be fine."
-----------===================-------------
Down in the vaults under Sweetness Hall, Maksa was hard at work.
There were no skylights, so even in the middle of the day work was done under candlelight.
Maksa had examined Talla's dossier, tracing back through all five ancestral generations available to find something that might stand out. There was nothing there. The dossier was perfectly clean.
Stymied, she then decided that there might be something in the sixth generation. She could, theoretically, go through all thirty two of Talla's available ancestors, dig up those dossiers and see what they held. But she had learned a few things in her stint at genealogy. People moved from one city to another. When they moved, a copy of their records moved with them, but their parents' records didn't. So if Mih'lan or Kain or one of their parents were immigrants, Maksa could spend hours looking through the oldest parts of the Stacks before she realized the pointlessness of her task.
She could, however, look up Mih'lan and Kain themselves.
So here she sat, having found Mih'lan's dossier and placed it next to Talla's, comparing the trees.
It was a perfect match. The left half of Talla's family tree matched perfectly with Mih'lan's, right out to the sixth generation. Mih'lan's chart then had one more generation. There was no more sign of predilection towards Endowment than she would have expected.
There was something though.
On the bottom of Mih'lan's chart, where children would be listed alongside the names of the fathers, someone had made an error and scratched it out.
Mih'lan had had two children, both girls.
The first was Zhina, fathered by someone named Kortis.
On the next line was Kain's name, something scratched out, followed by Talla's name.
It wasn't uncommon to see scratch marks on older parchment. The stuff hadn't been cheap to make until more recently. If Talla was eighteen, then this name was written eighteen years ago. But what had been scratched out?
Maksa held the parchment up to the light.
Whoever had made the scratch marks had been sloppy. The ink used to scratch out was not the same colour as that used to write the original word. That didn't make a lot of sense.
The most likely explanation was that someone, most likely Mih'lan's doctor, had changed her mind about the baby's name. Wouldn't the person who made the error be the one crossing it out? And wouldn't the same pen be used?
Maksa tried viewing the parchment from different angles, attempting to decipher what Talla's name might have been.
