Beggars In Spain

by Nancy Kress

  “Recorder, search and read,” Deepford said.

  The computer read, “Mr. Hossack: ‘So a very sophisticated—even unusual—intelligence would be needed to engineer this tampering.’ Dr. Kassabian: ‘Yes.’ Mr. Hossack: ‘An extremely unusual person, or group of persons.’ Dr. Kassabian: ‘Yes.’ Mr. Hossack: ‘How much prior—’”

  “Sufficient,” Sandaleros said. “So what we have here is someone who is capable of tampering with Y-energy and so must be, in your own words, Dr. Kassabian, also capable of substituting a preloaded scanner for the one already on Dr. Herlinger’s scooter.”

  “I didn’t say—”

  “Is that scenario possible?”

  “It would have to—”

  “Just answer the question. Is it possible?”

  Ellen Kassabian drew a deep breath. Her brows rushed together; clearly, she would have liked to tear Sandaleros apart. A long moment passed. Finally she said, “It is possible.”

  “No further questions.”

  The forensic chief stared at Sandaleros in silent fury.

  LEISHA WALKED TO THE WINDOW OF HER LIBRARY and looked out over the midnight lights of Chicago. The trial had recessed for the weekend and she had gone home, unable to bear the motel in Conewango longer than necessary. The apartment was very quiet. Sometime during the past week, Kevin had moved out his furniture and pictures.

  She walked back to her terminal. The message hadn’t changed: SANCTUARY NET. ACCESS DENIED.

  “Password override, voice and retina identification, previous command.”

  ACCESS DENIED.

  The Sanctuary net, which had always been open to every Sleepless in the world, would not even acknowledge her in stringent I.D. mode. But that was illusory. Leisha knew it; there was more Jennifer wanted her to discover than just the bald fact of her exclusion.

  “Personal call, urgent, for Jennifer Sharifi, password override, voice and retina identification.”

  ACCESS DENIED.

  “Personal call, urgent, for Richard Keller, password override, voice and retina identification.”

  ACCESS DENIED.

  She tried to think. There was a heaviness around her skull, like being deep underwater. The newest vase of Alice’s perpetual flowers filled the air with oppressive sweetness.

  “Personal call, urgent, for Tony Indivino, password override, voice and retina identification.”

  Cassie Blumenthal, a member of the Sanctuary Council, appeared on screen.

  “Leisha. I’m speaking for Jennifer, whenever you access this recorded message. The Sanctuary Council has voted in the oath of solidarity. Those who have not taken the oath are denied access to the Sanctuary net, to Sanctuary itself, and to all commerce with anyone who has taken the oath. You are hereby denied all such access permanently and irrevocably. Jennifer further asked me to tell you to reread Abraham Lincoln’s speech to the Illinois Republican Convention of June, 1858, and to add that the historic precepts of the past have not been recalled simply because Kenzo Yagai inflated personal achievement above the value of community. As of the first of next month, all Sanctuary oath holders will begin divestiture of commercial relationships with you, with Camden Enterprises, with subsidiary holdings thereof, and with all direct and indirect holdings of Kevin Baker, including Groupnet, if he continues to refuse community solidarity. That is all.”

  The screen went blank.

  Leisha sat still a long moment.

  She directed the library bank to bring up Lincoln’s speech. Words scrolled across the screen and the sonorous voice of an actor began to recite, but she needed neither; at the first words she remembered which speech it was. Lincoln, his law practice rebuilt after debts and disillusionment, accepted the Republican nomination to run for Congress against Stephen Douglas, brilliant proponent of territories’ right to choose slavery for themselves. Lincoln addressed the contentious and fiery convention: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

  Leisha turned off the terminal. She walked to the room she and Kevin had used for their infrequent sex. He had taken the bed with him. After a while she lay down on the floor, palms flat at her side, breathing carefully.

  Richard. Kevin. Stella. Sanctuary.

  She wondered how much more she had left to lose.

  JENNIFER FACED WILL SANDALEROS THROUGH A PRISON SECURITY screen that shimmered slightly, just enough to soften the hard young line of his genemod jaw. She said, “The evidence connecting me to the scooter tampering is mostly circumstantial. Is the jury bright enough to see that?”

  He didn’t lie to her. “Sleeper juries…” There was a long silence.

  “Jennifer, are you eating? You don’t look well.”

  She was genuinely surprised. He still thought all of that mattered—how she looked, whether she ate. On the heels of surprise came displeasure. She had thought Sandaleros was beyond that sort of sentimentality. She needed him to be beyond it, to understand that such things were perfectly irrelevant in the face of what she had to do, and what she needed him to do for her. For what else was she disciplining herself, if not for the subordination of such things as how she looked or felt? To what was really important—to Sanctuary? She was in a place now where nothing else mattered, could be allowed to matter, and she had fought very hard to get to this place. She had turned the confinement and the isolation and the separation from her children and the personal shame into roads to reach this place, and so into triumphs of will and achievement. She had thought Will Sandaleros could see that. He must travel that same road, would have to travel it, because she needed him at its end.

  But she musn’t try to bring him to that place too fast. That had been her mistake with Richard. She had thought Richard was traveling beside her, as cleanly and as swiftly, and instead he had faltered and she had not seen it, and Richard had broken. The responsibility for that was hers, because she had not seen the faltering. Richard had been tied to the Outside in ways she had overlooked: to the outside, to outworn ideals, and perhaps still to Leisha Camden. The realization brought no jealousy. Richard had not been strong enough, that was all. Will Sandaleros, raised in Sanctuary, owing his life to Sanctuary, would be. Jennifer would make him strong enough. But not too fast.

  So she said, “I’m fine. What else do you have for me?”

  “Leisha accessed the net last night.”

  She nodded. “Good. And the others on our list?”

  “All but Kevin Baker. Although he did move out of their apartment.”

  Pleasure flooded her. “Can he be persuaded to the oath?”

  “I don’t know. If he can be, do you want him Inside?”

  “No. Outside.”

  “He’ll be difficult to hold under electronic surveillance. God, Jennifer, he invented most of that stuff.”

  “I don’t want him under surveillance. At all. That’s not the way to hold a man like Kevin. Nor is solidarity. We’ll do it with economic interests and contractual rules. The tools of Yagaiism, in our own interests. And everything unguarded.”

  Sandaleros looked dubious, but he didn’t argue. That was another thing she would have to shape in him. He must learn to argue with her. The forged metal was always stronger than the unforged.

  She said, “Who else Outside has taken the oath?”

  He gave her the names, with plans to move each to Sanctuary. She listened carefully; the other name she wanted to hear was not there. “Stella Bevington?”

  “No.”

  “There’s time.” She bent her head, and then asked it, the one question per visit she allowed herself. The last weakness left. “And my children?”

  “They’re well. Najla—”

  “Give them my love. Now there is something you must begin for me, Will. An important next step. Maybe the most important Sanctuary’s ever taken.”

  “What?”

  She told him.

  JORDAN CLOSED HIS OFFICE DOOR. Sound stopped instantly—the rat-a-tat-tat of machinery on the factory floor, the rock music, the calling
voices, and—most of all—the newsgrid coverage of the Sharifi trial on the two superscreens Hawke had rented and set up at either end of the cavernous main building. It all stopped. Jordan had had his office soundproofed, paying for it himself.

  He leaned against the closed door, grateful for silence. The comlink shrilled.

  “Jordan, you there?” Mayleen said from the security kiosk. “Trouble in Building Three, I can’t find Mr. Hawke nowhere, you better git.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Fight, looks like. Screen ain’t positioned well over there, somebody should take a look at it. If they don’t break it first.”

  “I’m going,” Jordan said, yanking open the door.

  “So I told her—” “Hand me that there number five—” “Latest Testimony Seems to Reveal Doubts on the Part of Dr. Adam Walcott, Alleged Victim of Sanctuary Conspiracy to—” “Daaan-cing All Ni-ight with Yoooouuu—” “—Vicious Attack on Sleepless Firm of Carver & Daughter Last Night by Unspecified—”

  When his vacation came, Jordan thought, he would spend all of it somewhere silent, deserted, empty. Alone.

  He ran the length of the main plant, outside, and across a narrow lot—the Mississippians called it “the yard”—toward the smaller buildings used to inspect and store parts from suppliers, to stock scooter inventory, and to service equipment. Building Three was Receiving Inspection: half warehouse, half sorting station to separate incoming We-Sleep scooter parts into the defective and the usable. There were a lot of defective. Sprayfoam packing crates littered the floor. In the back, between high storage shelves, people shouted. As Jordan ran toward the sound, an eight-foot-high section of shelf crashed to the floor, scattering parts like shrapnel. A woman screamed.

  Plant security was already there, two burly uniformed men restraining a man and a woman, both struggling and yelling. The guards looked bewildered; assault was rare among We-Sleep employees brought to a fever pitch of loyalty by Hawke. On the floor a third man sat moaning, holding his head. Beyond him a huge figure lay still, soaked with blood.

  “What the hell happened here?” Jordan demanded. “Who’s that—Joey?”

  “He’s a Sleepless!” the woman shrieked. She tried to kick the prostrate giant with the toe of her boot. The guard yanked her backwards. The huge bloody figure stirred.

  “Joey a Sleepless?” Jordan said. He stepped over the moaning employee and turned the giant over; it was like turning a beached whale. Joey—he had no other name—weighed 350 pounds and stood six feet five, a mentally retarded man of immense strength whom Hawke let live, work, and eat at the factory. Joey hauled boxes and did other menial work that at any but a We-Sleep factory would have been automated. He worked just as tirelessly as a robot, Hawke said, and he was a bona fide member of that class We-Sleep was lifting out of dependent degradation. It had struck Jordan that Joey was now as dependent on Hawke as he ever could have been on the Dole, as degraded by his coworkers’ cruel jokes as he would have been in any government dorm. Jordan had kept such observations to himself. Joey seemed happy, and he was slavishly grateful to Hawke. Weren’t they all?

  “He’s a Sleepless!” the woman spat. “We got no place here for his kind!”

  Joey a Sleepless? That made no sense. Jordan said coldly to the man still straining against the guard’s grip, “Jenkins, Security’s going to let you go. If you make one move toward Joey before I get to the bottom of this, you’re through here. Got that?” Jenkins nodded sullenly. To the guard Jordan said, “Report in to Mayleen that this is under control. Tell her to call for an ambulance, two patients. Now you, Jenkins, tell me what happened here.”

  Jenkins said, “Bastard’s a Sleepless. We don’t want no—”

  “What makes you think he’s a Sleepless?”

  “We been watching him,” Jenkins said. “Turner and Holly and me. He don’t sleep. Never.”

  “Spying on us!” the woman shrilled. “Prob’ly a spy for Sanctuary and that murdering bitch Sharifi!”

  Jordan turned his back on her. Kneeling, he peered into Joey’s bloody face. The eyelids were closed but twitching, and Jordan knew suddenly that Joey was pretending unconsciousness. The giant wore the cheapest of plastic clothing, now badly torn. With his untrimmed beard and hair, his unwashed smell, and the blood smeared across his huge body, he looked to Jordan like some cornered mangy animal, a battered bull elephant or limping bison. Jordan had never heard of a mentally retarded Sleepless, but if Joey were old enough—he looked older than God—he might have had only his sleep-regulating genes modified, without even a check on the rest. And if his natural IQ was very low…but why would he be here? Sleepless took care of their own.

  Jordan’s body blocked the others’ view of Joey’s face. The stupid woman was still shouting about spies and sabotage. Softly Jordan said, “Joey, are you a Sleepless?”

  The grimy eyelids twitched frantically.

  “Joey, answer me. Now. Are you a Sleepless?”

  Joey opened his eyes; he always obeyed direct orders. Tears trickled through the blood and dirt. “Mr. Watrous—don’t tell Mr. Hawke! Please, please, please don’t tell Mr. Hawke!”

  Pity scalded Jordan. He stood. To his surprise, Joey also staggered to his feet, steadying himself against another shelf, which shivered precariously. Joey shrank against Jordan, overwhelming Jordan with his smell. The giant was terrified. Of Jenkins, looking sullenly at the floor; of Turner, moaning and bleeding; of the filthy-mouthed Holly, who weighed maybe 105 pounds.

  “Shut up,” Jordan said to her. “Campbell, you stay with Turner until the ambulance gets here. Jenkins, you and she start cleaning this mess up, get someone off Station Six to make sure parts flow to the lines isn’t interrupted. Both of you report to Hawke’s office at three this afternoon. Joey, you go with Campbell and Turner in the ambulance.”

  “Nooo,” Joey whimpered. He clutched Jordan’s arm. Outside, ambulance sirens shrieked.

  How did ambulance medics react to Sleepless?

  “All right,” Jordan snapped. “All right, Joey. I’ll tell them to check you here.”

  Joey’s cuts were actually superficial; there was more blood than damage. After the medics had checked him out, Jordan led Joey around the outside of the main building, in the side door, and to his own office, all the while marveling: Joey, a Sleepless? Incompetent, dirty, terrified, stupid, dependent Joey?

  The soundproofed door extinguished all noise. “Now you tell me, Joey. How did you come to this factory?”

  “I walked.”

  “I mean, why? Why did you come to a We-Sleep factory?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Did someone tell you to come here?”

  “Mrs. Cheever. Oh, Mr. Watrous, don’t tell Mr. Hawke! Please, please, please don’t tell Mr. Hawke!”

  “Don’t be afraid, Joey. Just listen to me. Where did you live before Mrs. Cheever brought you here?”

  “I dunno!”

  “But you—”

  “I dunno!”

  Jordan kept at it, gently and persistently, but Joey didn’t know. Not where he was born, not what had happened to his parents, not how old he was. All he seemed to remember, repeated over and over, was that Mrs. Cheever told him never to tell anyone he was a Sleepless or people would hurt him. At night he should go away by himself and lie down. This Joey did faithfully, because Mrs. Cheever had told him to. He couldn’t remember who Mrs. Cheever was, or why she’d been kind to him, or what had happened to her.

  “Joey,” Jordan said, “did you—”

  “Don’t tell Mr. Hawke!”

  Mayleen’s face appeared on the comlink. “Jordan, Mr. Hawke is coming in now. Holly Newman told me what happened.” Her image peered curiously at Joey. “He’s a Sleepless?”

  “Don’t you start, Mayleen!”

  “Shit, all I said was—”

  Hawke rolled into the room on a tide of sound. Immediately the office was his. He filled it with his presence, nearly as large as Joey’s but so much more compe
lling that Jordan, who thought he was used to Hawke, felt himself dwindle once more into insignificance.

  “Campbell told me what happened. Joey’s a Sleepless?”

  “Uuuunnnhhh,” Joey moaned. He put his hands over his face. The fingers were like bloody bananas.

  Jordan expected that Hawke would immediately grasp his mistake and remedy it. Hawke was good with people. But instead Hawke went on gazing silently at Joey, smiling faintly, not amused but oddly pleased, as if something about Joey made him feel good and there was no reason to hide that.

  “Mr. Hawke, d-d-do I—” in his anguish, the giant started to stutter “—h-h-have t-to g-g-g-go…”

  “Why no, of course not, Joey,” Hawke said. “You can stay here if you want.”

  Hope struggled grotesquely on Joey’s face. “Even if I n-n-n-never s-sleep?”

  “Even if you’re a Sleepless,” Hawke agreed smoothly. He still smiled. “We can use you here.”

  Joey staggered to Hawke and fell to his knees. He threw his arms around Hawke’s waist, buried his head against Hawke’s hard belly, and sobbed. Hawke didn’t shrink from the smell, the dirt, the blood. He went on staring down at Joey, smiling faintly.

  Jordan went sick inside.

  “Hawke, he can’t stay here. You know that. He can’t.”

  Hawke stroked Joey’s filthy hair.

  Jordan said harshly, “Joey, leave my office. This is still my office. Leave it now. Go—” He couldn’t send Joey onto the plant floor, word would be all over the factory by now. Hawke’s office was locked, the outbuildings were worse yet, there was no place at We-Sleep that Joey would be safe from his coworkers…

  “Send him to my security shack,” Mayleen’s image said. Jordan had forgotten the comlink was still open. “Ain’t nobody going to bother him here.”

  Startled, Jordan considered rapidly. Mayleen controlled weapons—but, no. She wouldn’t. He heard that, somehow, in her voice.

  “Go to Mayleen’s guard shack, Joey,” Jordan said, with as much authority as he could. “Go now.”