Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon

other side of the settlement, near the river. She could check the pump intakes at the same time. She picked up a hat someone had discarded, and slung the shirt over her shoulders.
    The cattle had been pastured between the settlement and the river, where terraforming grasses grew rank in the damp soil. She had had nothing to do with them for years, and had not realized that a stout calf-pen had been built to confine the calves. No one had thought to release them, but two cows had jumped the gate. A third grazed nearby. Inside the pen were two healthy calves, and one that looked thin and ribby. As she watched, it tried to sneak a feed from one of the cows, who butted it away. Ofelia looked at the cow outside the pen. She was not a herder but she thought its udder already looked tighter than those of the cows inside. Farther off, by the river, she saw the brown backs of the other cattle grazing. Perhaps it would be all right. Ofelia didn’t want to worry about it. She opened the gate, standing behind it as the hungry cows surged forward, leading their calves out to grass. The other cow went to her calf, licked it all over. The calf grabbed a teat and started sucking, but Ofelia saw none of the milky foam on its muzzle that would mean it was getting milk.
    Her conscience scolded her. It’s your fault, Ofelia. If only you had bothered to look, even yesterday. It’s
    because you’re selfish. Willful. Vain
. She walked over to check the water trough in the pen, even though she didn’t intend to close any animals in it again. She noticed that the voice of her conscience sounded less like her own and more like… whose? Barto’s? Humbertos? No, because it was older and not completely male. It had shadings of feminine ire, too. She was too tired to worry about it; she only noticed that it had been gone for several days, and now it was back. That evening, in the cool twilight, she sat at the kitchen door sniffing the healthy smells from her garden. The new voice murmured, happily, much in the tone of the water that had run in the house-ditch. The old voice lay silent as a sleeping cat.
    The new voice talked to itself: free, free, free… quiet… lovely, free, free.
    She dreamed. She had a yellow dress, with ruffles on the shoulders, and yellow socks that matched. She had two yellow bows in her hair. She had a plaid bookbag… it was her first day of school. Her mother had stayed up late finishing the dress and the bows. She felt excited, eager. Last year Paulo had started school, and now it was her turn.
    The room smelled of children and steam; it was in the basement of the crowded school, and by noon the ruffles on her yellow dress hung limply. She didn’t care. They had computers here, real ones, and the children were allowed to touch them. Paulo had told her that, but she hadn’t believed him. Now she stood in front of the computer, her fingers splayed on the touchpad, laughing at the colors on the screen. The teacher wanted them to touch the color squares in order, but Ofelia had discovered that you could make the colors drift and merge, and the screen before her was a riot of color. Of course, it had been naughty. The teacher had said what to do, and she had done something else. That was wrong. She understood that now. But in her dream, the swirling colors escaped the screen and colored the room, making her memories more vivid than the reality had been. On the other screens, a square of color followed a square of color, pure and predictable, red, green, yellow, blue. On hers… a mess, the teacher had said, but she had already heard the other children exclaim over what she could see for herself. Magnificence, glory, all the things they weren’t supposed to have.
    She woke up with tears still wet on her cheeks, and blinked them out of her eyes. Something vividly red swung in and out of view at the window. Dayvine trumpets, in the breeze — the vine on that side of the house must have grown a foot overnight. Barto had