Beggars Ride

by Nancy Kress

  “Miranda—why did you stop the Change syringes?”

  “We made a mistake. We didn’t intend—our goal was to make the Livers free of donkey domination. Autotropic. We didn’t know they…you…would so quickly regress to infantile dependence. And now none of us know what the next step should be, because we can’t find the equations to predict outcomes with any degree of accuracy. We’re all here trying so hard…” The holo image shuddered. Miranda raised her hands, let them fall helplessly. “An enormous mistake. When I see the newsgrids of babies dying, of unChanged children suffering, when those pleas are rebeamed from Selene…We thought we could control it all for you! Like your ‘gods.’ We thought…we forgot…”

  Theresa finished the sentence. “You forgot to look hard enough inside yourselves.”

  “Yes,” Miranda whispered. “We did. And we caused chaos.”

  “But you only meant to—”

  “And now we’re trying desperately to find a way out of that chaos, a scientific solution you can synthesize yourselves, without us, the right substance…a solution you can control, and won’t pervert. But, Theresa, we don’t think like you, or react like you, or feel like you.”

  It was a plea. Theresa saw that Miranda—Miranda Sharifi!—hurt with a depth of pain Theresa could only imagine. She caught her breath. The two women stared at each other, and something passed between them that, it seemed to Theresa, she had never shared with anyone else in her life, not even Jackson.

  She said softly, “Yes, you do. You feel exactly like me.”

  Miranda didn’t smile. “Perhaps. Go now, Theresa. We’ll take care of the new syringes that destroy even more freedom than we already destroyed.”

  The blue shimmering wall went blank.

  Dazed, Theresa returned to the plane. The pilot waited, watching a newsgrid. She blanked the screen as Theresa climbed in. La Solana was already out of sight when Theresa finally spoke.

  “Do you know how long it takes for a message to get to the moon and back? By the fastest way?”

  The pilot glanced at her quizzically. “You mean, if you decided to transmit to Luna City and they answered immediately?”

  “Yes. Isn’t there a…a lag when people are speaking to each other? Of a few seconds, at least?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” Of course, that was human technology. Jackson said the Supers had all sorts of technology that humans didn’t. We don’t think like you, or react like you…

  “Oh, my God!” Pilot Olivetti said.

  “What? What is it?”

  The plane suddenly leaped forward with an acceleration that crushed Theresa against the back of her seat. Then the sky filled with blinding light. The pilot cried out.

  The light faded; moments later the plane shuddered as if it would come apart. Roaring assaulted Theresa’s ears. The plane righted, and flew on.

  The brilliant light was behind her. But the sun was ahead, to the southeast…how could that bright a light be where the sun wasn’t? Theresa turned to look out the rear window, and saw the top of the mushroom cloud rising above the horizon.

  “We took two hundred forty rads,” Pilot Olivetti gasped, looking at her screens. “Ms. Aranow…prepare to be very sick.”

  “But…but what happened?”

  “Someone took out La Solana. With a nuclear weapon. Minutes earlier, and we would be dead.”

  “But…why?”

  “How should I know? But God, if Selene retaliates…” She turned on the newsgrid.

  Theresa put her head in her hands. Selene couldn’t retaliate. Nobody was at Selene. Miranda Sharifi and all her SuperSleepless had been in La Solana—we’re all here trying so hard to find a solution—and now they were all dead. They would never give more Change syringes to save dying children, or find a solution to humans’ being so dependent on the syringes, or stop whoever was making Jomp and the other triads even more dependent and afraid. Somebody had bombed La Solana to kill Richard Sharifi, or to destroy Miranda’s old home, or to attract attention to some cause of their own. The SuperSleepless were all dead.

  And Theresa was the only person on Earth who knew it.

  I N T E R L U D E

  TRANSMISSION DATE: April 4, 2121

  TO: Selene Base, Moon

  VIA: Lubbock Enclave Ground Station, Satellite S-65 (Israel)

  MESSAGE TYPE: Unencrypted

  MESSAGE CLASS: Class D, Public Service Access, in accordance with Congressional Bill 4892-18, May 2118

  ORIGINATING GROUP: “the Carter tribe,” Texas

  MESSAGE:

  To Miranda Sharifi,

  The Carter family ranched West Texas for 250 years, us. We stick together. Now there’s no more ranching, it, but we still stick together. I’m Molly Carter, me. I got six kids, seventeen grandkids, twenty great-grandkids, more on the way. But we got no more Change needles for the new great-grandkids. I’m asking you, me, to please send us more.

  My son Ray Junior is taking this cartridge, him, to a radio place in Lubbock to send to you in space.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT: None received

  Fifteen

  Nothing, Jackson thought, was ever what you expected.

  When he’d taken Shockey, Lizzie, Dirk, and Vicki to Kelvin-Castner Pharmaceuticals, he expected a difficult ordeal. He expected panic after panic from the Livers over being in an environment that would have been strange and unsettling to them even before they’d breathed in whatever neuropharm had made them so anxious and fearful of anything new. He visualized physical struggles with Shockey to provide tissue samples, and hysterical protest from Lizzie when samples were taken from Dirk. He counted on Vicki to help with these hypothetical struggles. Then, he expected, he and Thurmond Rogers would have a long intense talk about the implications of a drug that was not subject to the Cell Cleaner. The tissue analysis would be a top priority for Rogers, so the report would come swiftly.

  None of that had happened.

  Instead, his aircar had been met on the roof of Kelvin-Castner, inside the Boston Harborside Enclave, by two high-quality security ’bots. The ’bots had efficiently grabbed everyone but Jackson and fitted them with breathers that had instantly knocked them out. Even Vicki. The ’bots had then loaded the four unconscious people onto floaters and, ignoring Jackson’s protests, guided them down an elevator to a lab. Here more ’bots had stripped Shockey, Lizzie, and the baby and had taken samples: saliva, cerebrospinal fluid, blood, urine, feces, and cells from every organ. The samples were extracted with the long nanobuilt needles, their walls only a few atoms thick, of state-of-the-art biopsy. Next had come the scans, everything from skin conductance to brain imaging under various stimuli. No actual person appeared. It was clear to Jackson that this procedure had already been in place.

  How long had Kelvin-Castner been abducting research samples from Livers who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, protest?

  Jackson protested. “Thurmond, I want to talk to you!” But all Jackson had gotten was a bland, prerecorded holo: “Hi, Jack. Sorry I can’t attend to you personally, but I’m in the middle of something I can’t leave. If you want anything to eat or drink while the samples are being taken, just ask the room system. I’ll call you when I have anything to report. My regards to your sister.”

  “Thurmond, damn it…room system on!”

  “Room system on,” the room said. Needles so thin they were barely visible descended simultaneously into the naked bellies of Shockey, Lizzie, and Dirk. Vicki, still clothed, lay on her floater in the corner, breathing whatever her mask supplied her with.

  “Give me a priority link to Thurmond Rogers!”

  “I’m sorry—this system can provide only recording capability and dietary orders.”

  “Then link me to the building system!”

  “I’m sorry—this system can provide only recording capability and dietary orders.”

  “This is a medical emergency. Give me the emergency system.”

  “I’m sorry—this system—”

 
“System off!”

  He could record a blistering message for Rogers. He could remove Vicki’s breathing mask and see if she could dip the system. But it was Lizzie who was the dipper, not Vicki, and Lizzie at the moment had a thin flexible probe down her throat, taking cell samples from her bronchial tree. So Jackson did nothing, fuming and pacing for an hour, refusing even to sit in the room’s one comfortable chair, out of either anger or ludicrous self-flagellation.

  When Kelvin-Castner had taken all the human pieces it wanted, the security ’bots took Shockey, Lizzie, Vicki, and the baby back to the roof, efficiently loaded them into Jackson’s car, stripped off their breathing masks, and floated away. A minute later their lungs cleared and they woke up.

  “Well.” Lizzie said, “what are we waiting for? Aren’t we going inside?” And Dirk had cowered against his mother’s neck, wailing in fear because the world held more than his mother.

  Jackson flew back to the camp, and the three Livers disappeared inside. Vicki said, “I’m not happy about this, Jackson. You should have revived me. I had questions of my own, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t have got any answers.”

  “Nonetheless.” She scowled at him. “Promise me you won’t go back to Kelvin-Castner, or even talk to Rogers, without including me. Lizzie’s system can multilink us.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I do. Promise me.”

  And Jackson—out of weariness or resignation or consideration or something—had promised.

  Since then, nothing had happened. Four days passed, and Thurmond Rogers neither contacted Jackson nor returned his calls. Theresa spent all her time in the upper-floor study that Jackson wasn’t supposed to know about, not appearing even for meals. She left periodic messages for Jackson that she was all right. Jackson paced and fidgeted and forgot to eat, until his body rebelled and he fell asleep naked in the feeding room while his body absorbed the nutrients it needed.

  The fourth day, very early in the morning, Cazie called. Jackson didn’t answer. He rolled over in his darkened bedroom so that his back faced the wall screen, and let the message record.

  “Jackson, come on-link. I know you’re there.”

  All of a sudden Jackson was annoyed. Why did she always assume she knew everything about him?

  “Listen,” Cazie said, “we need to talk. I just received a private message from an old friend of mine, Alexander Castner of Kelvin-Castner Pharmaceuticals. I think I introduced you once, at some party—do you remember him?”

  Slowly Jackson turned over in bed to stare at the screen. In the lower right corner, under Cazie’s face, glittered the encryption signal. She was sending to him on a heavily shielded link.

  “Alex is contacting several major investment players, very privately. Kelvin-Castner is onto something really big. Something they want to develop very quickly…Alex thinks his firm can get an entirely new pharmaceutical system to the patent stage before anybody else. Get this—it bypasses the Cell Cleaner to effect permanent pharmacodynamic processes. The applications in the pleasure market alone are staggering. You could eliminate inhalers!

  “But Alex doesn’t know who else is working on this, or how close they are to applying for a patent, so he has to move as fast as possible. He needs massive commitments of capital, talent, computer time. Jack, TenTech should get in on this, early and hard. It’s the kind of opportunity that could move us into the International Fifty. I’ve pulled together some preliminary figures for you—and for Theresa, too, of course. But we need to commit soon, today if possible—damn it. Jackson, answer the link!”

  Jackson climbed slowly out of bed. In the dark he pulled on yesterday’s clothes.

  “All right,” Cazie said, “maybe you’re not there. But where are you? I already called that ridiculous woman at your pet Liver camp, Vicki What’s-her-name, and she said you weren’t there. If you’re spending the night with somebody, when you call in for your messages, please contact me on a shielded line at my office at TenTech. If you don’t—”

  “You’ll run me to earth anyway,” Jackson finished for her.

  “—I’ll run you to earth anyway, darling. This is too big to let go.”

  Jackson left the apartment. In the east, the sun was just beginning to stain the sky pink. The real, actual sun—at the moment the Manhattan East dome was clear. He strode through the roof garden, with its theatrically unfurling morning glories and trumpet lilies, toward his car. He couldn’t remember ever being this angry in his life.

  Vicki waited for him outside the tribe building, a solitary figure in the pearly April cold.

  “The charming Cazie called here first,” she said as she got into his car. “I figured something was happening, and I knew you’d remember your promise to take me with you to Kelvin-Castner.”

  “How did you know that?” Jackson said grimly.

  “Because I knew that somewhere deep down you were capable of looking like you do now. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Kelvin-Castner is trying to create a patentable drug-delivery system out of what they’ve learned from Shockey’s and Dirk’s brain scans and tissue samples. They’re less interested in finding an antidote for the inhibition anxiety than in the commercial possibilities for the pleasure market of something that bypasses the Cell Cleaner. They’ve asked TenTech for massive investment.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Vicki said, almost admiringly. “Your ex-wife sure picks up the scent fast, doesn’t she? Is she part bloodhound?”

  “Do you think we should take Lizzie with us?” Jackson asked. “If they deny us entrance, I can’t datadip, and neither can you.”

  “And neither can Lizzie in the half second before the security ’bots hit her. Be realistic, Jackson. She’s not a SuperSleepless.”

  Jackson lifted the car. Vicki said, “Don’t you even want to know what I told Cazie when she called here?”

  “No.”

  “I told her that as far as I knew, you were off fucking Jennifer Sharifi now that she’s out of jail and since she just happens to have the same coloring as Cazie herself.”

  Despite himself, Jackson smiled.

  Nothing prevented the car from landing on the roof of Kelvin-Castner. To Jackson’s surprise, nothing even prevented him and Vicki from descending the elevator to Kelvin-Castner’s top-floor lobby. The lobby was endless baroque variations of a double-helix motif, a precise centimeter over the line into vulgar. Jackson remembered Ellie Lester.

  A hostess holo flickered into place a yard in front of him. She was a middle-aged blonde with coffee-colored skin, attractive but serious enough to be reassuring. “Welcome to Kelvin-Castner. How can I help you?”

  Jackson said, “Jackson Aranow to see Thurmond Rogers.”

  “I’m afraid Dr. Rogers is off-site today. Would you like to record a message?”

  “Then let me talk to Alexander Castner.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Castner’s schedule doesn’t permit him time for unscheduled appointments. Would you like to record a message?”

  Jackson said to Vicki, “We should have brought Lizzie after all.”

  “Wouldn’t have helped. The second she accessed anything the security system would gas us all. I mean, it’s a neuropharm company, isn’t it?”

  Of course it was. Jackson wasn’t thinking clearly. Anger did that. He’d have to be more careful.

  Vicki said pleasantly to the hostess holo, “I would like to record a message for Mr. Castner. Or perhaps he’d prefer to have this one real-time. Please tell Mr. Castner that this is Dr. Jackson Aranow of TenTech, Cazie Sanders’s firm. That’s ‘Aranow,’ ‘TenTech.’ ‘Sanders’—I’m sure one of those names is in your priority flagging programs as of yesterday. Tell Mr. Castner that Dr. Aranow has retained legal counsel to sue for the tissue samples, plus all resulting patents, taken from citizens Shockey Toor and Dirk Francy while they were unadvised by attorneys. Counsel has already rec
eived sworn depositions of all events, plus full knowledge of our current visit. A cease-work injunction from a federal judge against K-C is possible, as is considerable industry attention, which Mr. Castner might find premature. Also tell Mr. Castner that Dr. Aranow and his sister control the voting stock of TenTech, and that no investment commitment can possibly be forthcoming without both their cooperation. Have I engaged your priority flagging programs?”

  The holo beamed at Vicki. “Yes, my priority flagging is engaged and transmitting. Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thank you. We’ll just wait here for Mr. Castner’s reply. Or possibly Dr. Rogers’s.”

  “Dr. Rogers is off-site today.” the hostess said. She was still beaming.

  “Of course he is,” Vicki said. She sank onto a sofa covered in a double-helix paisley print and patted the seat beside her. “Sit down, Jackson. We have to allow a little time for them to hold a council of war to determine who fucked up by contacting Cazie when Rogers was ripping you off.”

  Jackson said, “We’re probably being overheard.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  He sat down and said in a low voice, “Where did you learn to do that?”

  Vicki’s face grew suddenly weary. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Another time. Ah, such a prompt response. Five points for efficiency.”

  A wall screen glowed and the image of Thurmond Rogers appeared, smiling stiffly. “Jackson. How are you? I just got in and the building system informed me you were here, and there was some sort of mix-up about not talking to you. Sorry.”

  Vicki murmured, “Oh, those computer glitches.”

  “I was going to call you this morning,” Rogers continued. A lump of flesh at the collar of his lab coat worked up and down. “We have a preliminary report on the changes in your subjects’ brains.”

  Jackson said, “Then come out and give it to me. In person. I’m not going to assault you, Thurmond.”

  The image laughed uncomfortably. “Of course not. But I strained my back getting out of my car, and until the Cell Cleaner takes care of it. I’d just as soon not move.”