“Okay, Julia,” said Yale. “You’ve spelled Devon’s word correctly. Now you have to spell one of your own.” He consulted the dictionary in front of him. “Here it is. Gesellschaft.”
“Gesellschaft,” she repeated. “That’s the idea of a society instead of a community, right?”
“You have to formally ask for a definition,” he reminded her.
Her lips quirked. “May I have a definition, then?”
“Gesellschaft,” he repeated. “Two definitions. One, an association of individuals for common goals, as for entertainment, intellectual or cultural purposes, or for business reasons. Two, a society or group characterized chiefly by formal organization, impersonal relations, the absence of generally held or binding norms, and a detachment from traditional and sentimental concerns, and often tending to be rationalistic and secular in outlook.”
“Definitely not Eden Advance,” whispered Magus to Walman, who laughed until True hissed at them to shut up. Julia ignored them, continuing to spell the word.
“-S-E-L-L,” she said, before pausing to think for a moment. Then she finished with, “S-C-H-A-F-T.”
Yale closed down the dictionary. “Correct. Congratulations, Julia. You’ve won the spelling bee.”
The room erupted in applause, and Alonzo jumped up to give her a hug. “I knew those skewed genes had to be good for something else besides medicine. Who’d have guessed it was for spelling twenty-credit words?”
She ducked her head, blushing. “I guess. This was actually fun.”
“Sure it was,” said True from beside her. “You won.”
“Aw, c’mon,” said Walman as he clapped her shoulder. “You were the one who hushed us a minute ago. Don’t be a spoilsport now. We all had fun with it.”
“Yeah,” chimed in Magus. “And it’s not the kind of stuff we used to do for fun on the Stations, either. Who’d have thought we would ever enjoy a spelling bee?”
“Who’d have thought we would ever read Peter Pan out loud?” Walman asked her.
True seemed honestly confused. “But all those things are fun. Aren’t they?”
Walman and Magus exchanged an uncomfortable glance. He was the one to answer. “Yeah, but when you get older, you tend to do different things for fun.”
“Such as?” the girl asked.
There was another uncomfortable look, and Julia found herself hiding a chuckle behind her wrist. True wasn’t exactly innocent, but clearly she wasn’t as grown-up as she thought either. Here, though, the sheer lack of opportunity meant that there weren’t good options for strictly adult entertainment. As a result, the group had shifted its norms.
That was just like something a community might do. Magus was right. Eden Advance had become anything except Gesellschaft, despite them all coming from an environment like that on the Stations. Of course, “Gemeinschaft” was equally difficult to spell, and both concepts were strictly theoretical anyway.
Or were they? Could their creation of a community be the reason why Eden Advance had succeeded when other settlement attempts—the scientists, the penal colonies—had failed?
Alonzo waved a hand in front of her face. “Hey. Come back from wherever you went. We have a spelling bee win to celebrate, don’t we? Plus plans for a rematch. True isn’t going to accept this for long, you know. I’m giving it two weeks before she challenges you to another one of these.”
She pursed her lips. “That might not be as fun as this one was. The novelty will have worn off.”
“Only one way to find out, isn’t there? Hey, True!” he called. “If you can quit pouting for half a second, I have an idea. Want to hear it?”
Julia let herself go ahead and laugh. Regardless of whatever they were, they were a group, and she was happy to be a part of it, even when they weren’t having fun. When they did, though, it was even better.