"Asaro, Catherine - Echea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asaro Catherine)

My husband said that she was playing on my
sympathies so that I would never let her
go.

But I wouldnТt have let her go anyway. I
had signed the documents and made the
verbal promise. And I cared for her. I
would never let her go, any more than I
would let a child of my flesh go.

I hoped, at one point, that he would feel
the same.

As the weeks progressed, I was able to
focus on EcheaТs less immediate needs. She
was beginning to use HouseЦher initial
objection to it had been based on
something that happened on the Moon,
something she never fully explainedЦbut
House could not teach her everything. Anne
introduced her to reading, and often Echea
would read to herself. She caught on
quickly, and I was surprised that she had
not learned in her school on the Moon,
until someone told me that most Moon
colonies had no schools. The children were
home-taught, which worked only for
children with stable homes.

Anne also showed her how to program House
to read things Echea did not understand.
Echea made use of that as well. At night,
when I couldnТt sleep, I would check on
the girls. Often I would have to open
EcheaТs door, and turn off House myself.
Echea would fall asleep to the drone of a
deep male voice. She never used the vids.
She simply liked the words, she said, and
she would listen to them endlessly, as if
she couldnТt get enough.

I downloaded information on child
development and learning curves, and it
was as I remembered. A child who did not
link before the age of ten was
significantly behind her peers in all
things. If she did not link before the age
of twenty, she would never be able to
function at an adult level in modern
society.