"Ry! Ry! Wayfarer's Bridge is starting!" shouted one of the children excitably. Dalry calmed down, put down the carrot that she'd been chopping, and headed into the communal living room. In there were four children perched on the sofa, fervently watching the holographic monitor, as the local television channel for the planet that this moon and several others were orbiting was playing one of the most popular children's shows; Wayfarer's Bridge. It was a whimsical, semi-historical show about several children playing around in a fictionalised 23rd century village on Earth. It showed children before the days of neuro-stickers and total-immersion games, back when children went outside to meet up with each other and then get glued to their primitive entertainment ad communication devices called 'iphones'. It often made Dalry wonder if children still went outside on planets with atmospheres, or was that something that is truly dead now.

Just then, Dalry's buzzer beeped, and she took it out of her pocket and pressed the recall button. In her earpieces, she heard a message from her psychiatric evaluation officer reminding her of her appointment tomorrow, and sighed. She felt like she had been getting much better, less twitchy and more confident in herself since the last meeting a fortnight ago. The self-hypnotherapy was helping, but whaty helped more was being allowed to work like anyone else. She didn't even need the money. She had a generous UWLA pension, but sitting around feeling sorry for herself would be the worst thing she could do.

As she looked round at the four young faces, all glued to the monitor, she felt quite sad that this was the last day of her nanny contract for this group of families. With a yawn, Dalry got up and headed back to the kitchen. "Sorry, children, but I need to finish making the stew, otherwise it won't be ready by mealtime!"

[hr]

Dalry left her psychiatric evaluation officer's office. That meeting was fairly painless. she'd just told him that she felt was improving, did some tests, a little bit of DT (deliberate triggering), discussed her hobby of food-growing in the bio-house. She did love to grow fruit and vegetables. She devoted a lot of time to her allotment. She would love to be a farmer, but they wouldn't let her near that kind of machinery or equipment with her condition. In fact, she was blacklisted from many jobs at this colony, which is why it was a surprise when her buzzer went off telling her of an urgent job. As many spare hands as they could gather; There was a large, very important ship docking tomorrow and they needed hands to unload the cargo. Dalry hopped in the first free transport and headed to the terminal dome.