Beggars In Spain

by Nancy Kress

  “It asks beggars why they’re beggars and provides funding for those who want to be something else.”

  The boy looked bewildered.

  “If, for instance,” Leisha said, “you wanted to become a donkey, the Susan Melling Foundation might help send you to school, finance augments for you, whatever was necessary.”

  “Why would I ever want to do that?”

  “Why indeed?” Leisha said. “But some people do.”

  “Nobody I know,” the boy said decidedly. “Sounds a little wormy to me. One more question: Why do you do it? Run this foundation thing?”

  “Because,” Leisha said with precision, “what the strong owe beggars is to ask each one why he is a beggar and act accordingly. Because community is the assumption, not the result, and only by giving nonproductiveness the same individuality as excellence, and acting accordingly, does one fulfill the obligation to the beggars in Spain.”

  She saw that the boy had understood not one word of this. Nor did he ask. He stood, picked up his recording equipment with obvious relief—the day’s work over—and held out his hand. “Well, I guess that’s it. The teacher said four questions are enough. Thanks, Ms. Camden.”

  She took his hand. Such a polite boy, so devoid of envy or hatred, so satisfied. So stupid. “Thank you, Mr. Cavanaugh. For answering my questions. Will you answer one more?”

  “Sure.”

  “If your teacher does put this interview on the student newsgrid, will anybody watch it?” He looked away; she saw he didn’t want to embarrass her with the answer. Such a polite boy. “Do you watch the newsgrids at all, Mr. Cavanaugh?”

  Now he did meet her eyes, his young face shocked. “Of course! My whole family does! How else would my mom and dad know which donkeys would give us the most for our vote?”

  “Ah,” Leisha said. “The American Constitution at work.”

  “And next year’s the tricentennial year,” the boy said proudly; Livers were all patriots. “Well, thanks again.”

  “Thank you,” Leisha said. Stella, stern at the doorway, ushered the boy out.

  “Your comlink call is in two minutes, Leisha, and right now there’s a—”

  “Stella—how many applications has the Foundation processed this quarter?”

  “One hundred sixteen,” Stella said precisely. She kept all Foundation records, including financials.

  “Down what percentage from last quarter?”

  “Six percent.”

  “And from last year-to-date?”

  “Eight percent. You know that.” Leisha did; Stella would have more to occupy her if the Foundation were still running at the heady pace of its first years. She wouldn’t be trying to make secretarial and maternal duties fill up a first-rate brain, leaning on everybody else in the process. Stella must have guessed what Leisha was thinking. She said suddenly, “You could go back to law. Or write another book. Or start another corporation, if you’d even consider competing with the donkeys at what you do even better.”

  “Sanctuary competes,” Leisha said mildly. “And the new economic order isn’t based on competition anyway, it’s based on quality living. A young man just told me so. Don’t badger me, Stella, it’s my birthday. What’s all that noise out there?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There’s a child out beyond the gate, screaming his head off to see you and nobody but you.”

  “A Sleepless child?” Leisha asked, her blood quickening. It still happened, sometimes: an illegal genemod, a confused child learning slowly over years that he was different, that the scooter races and holovids and brainie parties somehow weren’t enough for him as they were for his friends. Then there would be the chance learning of the Susan Melling Foundation, usually from a kind donkey, and the scary, determined journey in search of his own kind even before he knew what it meant to belong to his own kind. Taking these Sleepless children or teenagers or sometimes even adults inside the compound, helping them to become what they were, had been Leisha’s sweetest pleasure during her two and a half decades in the isolated desert.

  But Stella said, “No. Not a Sleepless. He’s about ten years old, a dirty kid yelling his head off that he has to see you and nobody else. I sent Eric out to tell him you had open reception tomorrow, but he socked Eric in the eye and said he couldn’t wait.”

  “Did Eric flatten him?” Leisha said. Stella’s twelve-year-old son had strength mods. And karate lessons. And a disposition no Sleepless should have.

  “No,” Stella said, with pride, “Eric’s growing up. He’s learned not to hit unless there’s a clear physical need for defense.”

  Leisha doubted this. Eric Bevington-Watrous troubled her. But all she said was, “Let the boy in. I’ll see him now.”

  “Leisha! Tokyo is on the comlink this very minute!”

  “Tell them I’ll call back. Humor me, Stella—it’s my birthday. I’m old.”

  “Alice is old,” Stella said, altering the mood instantly. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Let the kid in. At least it will stop that yelling. What did you say his name was?”

  “Drew Arlen,” Stella said.

  IN ORBIT OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN, the Sanctuary Council broke into spontaneous applause.

  Fourteen men and women sat around the polished metal table shaped like a stylized double helix in the Council dome. A plastiglass window three feet above the floor ran around the entire dome, occasionally crossed with thin metal support struts. The dome itself sat as close as possible to one end of the cylindrical orbital, so the view from the conference room, which neatly occupied half the Council dome, was appealingly varied. To the “north” stretched agricultural fields, dotted with domes, curving gently upward until lost in the hazy sky. To the “south” was space, uncompromising in the relatively thin layer of air that lay between the Council dome and the plastiglass end of the orbital cylinder. To the north, a warm and sunny “day” as sunlight streamed into the orbital through the long unopaqued window sections; to the south, endless night, filled variously with stars or an oppressively huge Earth. The uneven curvature of the conference table and the chairs bolted to the floor meant that six Council members faced stars, eight faced sun.

  Jennifer Sharifi, permanent Council leader, always faced north, toward the sun.

  She said, pleasure sparkling in her dark eyes, “All the brain scans, fluid analyses, spinal cartography results, and of course DNA analyses indicate nothing but success. Doctors Toliveri and Clement are to be warmly congratulated. And so, of course, are Ricky and Hermione.” She smiled warmly at her son and daughter-in-law. Ricky smiled back; Hermione ducked her head and a spasm crossed her extravagantly beautiful face. About half of Sanctuary’s families no longer altered genes, content with the intellectual and psychological benefits of Sleeplessness and wanting to preserve family resemblances. Hermione, violet-eyed and sleek-limbed, belonged to the other half.

  Councilor Victor Lin said eagerly, “Can’t we see the baby? Certainly the environment has to be sterile enough.” Several people laughed.

  “Yes, please,” Councilor Lucy Ames said, and blushed. She was only twenty-one, born on the orbital, and still a little overwhelmed that her name had come up for a Council term in the citizen lottery. Jennifer smiled at her.

  “Yes, of course. We can all see the baby. But I want to repeat what you have been told before: This round of genetic alteration has gone far beyond anything that any of us are privileged to enjoy. If we wish to keep our advantage over the Sleepers on Earth, we must explore every avenue of superiority open to us. But there are sometimes minor, unavoidable prices to pay as we move forward.”

  This speech sobered everyone. The eight councilors with lottery terms, those not of the Sharifi family that controlled 51 percent of Sanctuary financially and hence 51 percent of Council votes, glanced at each other. The six permanent councilors—Jennifer, Ricky, Hermione, Najla, Najla’s husband Lars Johnson and Jennifer’s husband Will Sandaleros—went on smilin
g determinedly. Except for Hermione.

  “Bring in the baby,” Jennifer said to her. Hermione left. Ricky reached out a tentative hand as his wife passed, but didn’t touch her. He drew his hand back and stared out the dome window. Nobody spoke until Hermione returned with a wrapped bundle.

  “This,” Jennifer said, “is Miranda Serena Sharifi. Our future.”

  Hermione put the baby on the conference table and unwrapped its yellow blanket. Miranda was ten weeks old. Her skin was pale, without rosiness, and her hair was a thick mat of black. She gazed around the conference table from bright, very dark eyes. The eyes bulged in their sockets and darted constantly, unable to remain still. The strong, tiny body twitched ceaselessly. The minute fists opened and closed so fast it was hard to count her fingers. The baby radiated a manic vitality, an overwrought tension so intense it seemed her gaze would bore a zigzag hole in the dome wall.

  Young Councilor Ames put her fist to her mouth.

  “At first glance,” Jennifer said in her composed voice, “you might think that our Miranda’s symptoms look like certain nervous-system disorders the unaltered beggars are prey to. Or perhaps symptoms of para-amphetamines. But this is something very different. Miri’s brain is operating at three or four times the speed of ours, with superbly enhanced mnemonic capacities and equally enhanced concentration. There is no loss of nerve-tissue control, although there is some minor loss of motor control as a side effect. Miri’s genemods include high intelligence, but what the changes to her nervous system will do is give her ways to use that intelligence that we cannot now predict. This genemod is the best way around the well-known phenomenon of intellectual regression to the mean, in which superior parents have children of only normal intelligence, providing a lesser platform from which new genemods can launch.”

  A few people around the table nodded at this lecture; a few more, familiar with the lesser accomplishments of Najla and Ricky compared to Jennifer herself, looked down at the table. Councilor Ames continued to stare at the twitching infant, her eyes wide and her hand to her mouth.

  “Miranda is the first,” Jennifer said. “But not the last. We in Sanctuary represent the best minds of the United States. It is our obligation to keep that advantage. For all our sakes.”

  Councilor Lin said quietly, “Our usual Sleepless, genemod babies are already doing that.”

  “Yes,” Jennifer said, smiling brilliantly, “but at any time the beggars on Earth could decide to reverse their shortsighted policy and begin to do that again themselves. We need more. We need everything we can create for ourselves from the genetic technology we dare to use to its fullest and they do not—mind, technology, defense—”

  Will Sandaleros put his hand lightly on her arm.

  For a second fury blazed in Jennifer’s eyes. Then it was gone, and she smiled at Will, who gazed at her tenderly. Jennifer laughed. “Was I orating again? I’m sorry. I know you all understand the Sanctuary philosophy as well as I do.”

  A few people smiled; a few shifted uneasily around the polished table. Councilor Ames went on staring, wide-eyed, at the convulsing baby. Hermione caught the young woman’s horrified gaze; immediately she wrapped Miranda in her blanket. The thin yellow material jerked and twitched. Along the hem were embroidered white butterflies and dark blue stars.

  DREW ARLEN STOOD BEFORE LEISHA CAMDEN with his legs braced firmly apart. Leisha thought that she had never seen such a contrast as this child with the teen-age reporter who had just left, and whose name she had already forgotten.

  Drew was the filthiest ten-year-old she had ever seen. Mud caked his brown hair and smeared the remains of his plastic shirt, pants, and torn Dole-issue shoes. So much dirt clung to a deep scratch on his exposed left arm that Leisha thought it must surely be infected; the skin had a red, angry look around elbow bones like chisels. One tooth had been knocked out of a face that was remarkable only for eyes as green as Leisha’s own and a sort of stubborn eagerness, as if Drew were prepared to fight for something with every fiber of his dirty, skinny, clearly non-donkey self.

  “I’m Drew Arlen, me,” he said. It might have been a fanfare.

  “Leisha Camden,” Leisha said gravely. “You insisted on seeing me.”

  “I want to be in your Fountain.”

  “Foundation. Where did you hear about my Foundation?”

  Drew waved this away as of no consequence. “From somebody. After he told me, I done come a long way to get here, me. From Louisiana.”

  “On foot? By yourself?”

  “I stole rides when I could,” the boy said, again as if this were not worth mentioning. “It took a long time. But now I’m here, me, and I’m ready for you to start.”

  Leisha said to the household robot, “Bring sandwiches from the refrigerator. And milk.” The robot glided soundlessly away. Drew watched it with total absorption until it left the room. He turned to Leisha. “Is that the kind that can wrestle with you? For muscle training. I see them on the newsgrids, me.”

  “No. It’s just a basic retrieve-and-record ’bot. Now what is it you’re ready for, Drew?”

  He said impatiently, “To get started. Your Fountain. Making me into somebody.”

  “And just what does that mean to you?”

  “You know—You’re the Fountain lady! Get cleaned up, me, and educated, and be somebody!”

  “You want to become a donkey?”

  The boy frowned. “No, but thass where I got to start, me, don’t I? Then go on from there.”

  The robot returned. Drew looked longingly at the food; Leisha gestured and he fell on it like a filthy little dog, tearing at the sandwiches with teeth on the left side of his face and wincing with pain whenever the sore, empty hole on the right came in contact with bread or meat. Leisha watched.

  “When did you eat last?”

  “Yesterday morning. Thass good.”

  “Do your parents know where you are?”

  Drew picked up a crumb from the floor and ate it. “My mom don’t care. She’s at brainie parties, her, all the time now. My daddy’s dead.” He said this last harshly, looking straight at Leisha from his green eyes, as if she should know already about his father’s death. Leisha pulled the terminal from the wall.

  “Won’t do no good to call them,” Drew said. “We got no terminal, us.”

  “I’m not going to call them, Drew. I’m going to find out something about you. Where in Louisiana did you live?”

  “Montronce Point.”

  “Personal bio search, all primary databanks,” Leisha said. “Drew, what’s your Dole security number?”

  “842-06-3421-889.”

  Montronce was a tiny Delta town, no donkey economy to speak of. One thousand nine hundred twenty-two people, school with 16 percent attendance for students, 62 percent for volunteer teachers, who kept the building open fifty-eight days a year. Drew was one of the 16 percent, off and on. His medical history was nonexistent, but those of his parents and two younger sisters were recorded. Leisha listened to it all, and grew very still.

  When the terminal was done, she said, “Your grades, even in what passes for a school in Montronce, weren’t terrific.”

  “No,” the boy agreed. His eyes never left her face.

  “You don’t seem to have unusual abilities in athletics, music, or anything else.”

  “No, I don’t, me.”

  “And you don’t really want to be educated for a donkey job.”

  “Thass all right,” he said aggressively. “I can do that.”

  “But you don’t really want to. The Susan Melling Foundation exists to help people become what they want to become. What is it you want your future to hold?” It seemed an absurd question to ask a ten-year-old, especially this ten-year-old. Poorer than even most Livers. Not particularly talented. Scrawny. Smelly. A Sleeper.

  And yet not ordinary, either—the bright green eyes looked at Leisha with a directness most adult Sleepers never managed, not even in the relaxed, hedonistic tolerance of the tricenten
nial social climate. In fact, Leisha thought, there was more than directness in Drew’s eyes: There was a confidence in her help that Foundation applicants almost never had. Most of them looked at her with uncertainty (“Why should you help me?”) or suspicion (“Why should you help me?”) or a nervous obsequiousness that inevitably reminded her of groveling dogs. Drew looked as if he and Leisha were business partners in a sure thing.

  “You heard the terminal say how my Grampy died, him.”

  Leisha said, “He was a workman building Sanctuary. A metal strut tore loose in space and ripped his suit.”

  Drew nodded. His voice held the same buoyant confidence, without grief. “My Daddy was a little boy then. The Dole didn’t hardly provide nothin’ then.”

  “I remember,” Leisha said wryly; what the Dole had provided, courtesy of basic cheap Y-energy and social conscience, was nothing compared to what donkeys and government now provided, courtesy of the need for votes. Bread and circuses, saved from Roman barbarism only by that same cheap affluence. Comfortable and courted, Livers lacked the pent-up rage for the arena.

  She had expected Drew to pass over her reference to remembering his father’s era; most children regarded the past as irrelevant. But he surprised her. “You remember, you? How it was? How old you be, Leisha?”

  He doesn’t know any better than to use my first name, Leisha thought indulgently—and immediately saw, for the first time, Drew’s gift. His interest in her was so intense, so fresh and real shining from the green eyes, that she was willing to indulge him. He carried blamelessness on him like a scent. She began to see how he could have made the trip from Louisiana to New Mexico still healthy: people would help him. In fact, the blood on his arm was fresh and so was the knocked-out tooth; it was possible he had met with nothing but help until he encountered Eric Bevington-Watrous outside Leisha’s walls.

  And he was only ten years old.

  She said, “I’m sixty-seven.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh! You don’t look like an old lady, you!”

  You should see my feet. She laughed, and the child smiled. “Thank you, Drew. But you still haven’t answered my question. What is it you want from the Foundation?”