She nodded, eyes wide.
“I always keep my promises,” I said.
Do you? Ronald asked. He was staring at me over Echea’s shoulder.
I shivered, wondering what promise I had forgotten.
Always, I told him.
The edge of his lips turned up in a smile, but there was no mirth in it.
“Echea,” he said. “It’s my normal practice to work alone with my patient, but I’ll bet you want your mother to stay.”
She nodded. I could almost feel the desperation in the move.
“All right,” he said. “You’ll have to move to the couch.”
He scooted his chair toward it.
“It’s called a fainting couch,” he said. “Do you know why?”
She let go of my hand and stood. When he asked the question, she looked at me as if I would supply her with the answer. I shrugged.
“No,” she whispered. She followed him hesitantly, not the little girl I knew around the house.
“Because almost two hundred years ago when these were fashionable, women fainted a lot.”
“They did not,” Echea said.
“Oh, but they did,” Ronald said. “And do you know why?”
She shook her small head. With this idle chatter he had managed to ease her passage toward the couch.
“Because they wore undergarments so tight that they often couldn’t breathe right. And if a person can’t breathe right, she’ll faint.”
“That’s silly.”
“That’s right,” he said, as he patted the couch. “Ease yourself up there and see what it was like on one of those things.”
I knew his fainting couch wasn’t an antique. His had all sorts of diagnostic equipment built in. I wondered how many other people he had lured on it with his quaint stories.
Certainly not my daughters. They had known the answers to his questions before coming to the office.
“People do a lot of silly things,” he said. “Even now. Did you know most people on Earth are linked?”
As he explained the net and its uses, I ignored them. I did some leftover business, made my daily chess move, and tuned into their conversation on occasion.
“—and what’s really silly is that so many people refuse a link. It prevents them from functioning well in our society. From getting jobs, from communicating—”
Echea listened intently while she lay on the couch. And while he talked to her, I knew, he was examining her, seeing what parts of her brain responded to his questions.
“But doesn’t it hurt?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Science makes such things easy. It’s like touching a strand of hair.”
And then I smiled. I understood why he had made the tender move earlier. So that he wouldn’t alarm her when he put in the first chip, the beginning of her own link.
“What if it goes wrong?” she asked. “Will everybody—die?”
He pulled back from her. Probably not enough so that she would notice. But I did. There was a slight frown between his eyes. At first I had thought he would shrug off the question, but it took him too long to answer.
“No,” he said as firmly as he could. “No one will die.”
Then I realized what he was doing. He was dealing with a child’s fear realistically. Sometimes I was too used to my husband’s rather casual attitude toward the girls. And I was used to the girls themselves. They were much more placid than my Echea.
With the flick of a finger, he turned on the overhead light.
“Do you have dreams, honey?” he asked as casually as he could.
She looked down at her hands. They were slightly scarred from experiences I knew nothing about. I had planned to ask her about each scar as I gained her trust. So far, I had asked about none.
“Not anymore,” she said.
This time, I moved back slightly. Everyone dreamed, didn’t they? Or were dreams only the product of a linked mind? That couldn’t be right. I’d seen the babies dream before we brought them here.
“When was the last time you dreamed?” he asked.
She shoved herself back on the lounge. Its base squealed from the force of her contact. She looked around, seemingly terrified. Then she looked at me. It seemed like her eyes were appealing for help.
This was why I wanted a link for her. I wanted her to be able to tell me, without speaking, without Ronald knowing, what she needed. I didn’t want to guess.
“It’s all right,” I said to her. “Dr. Caro won’t hurt you.”
She jutted out her chin, squeezed her eyes closed, as if she couldn’t face him when she spoke, and took a deep breath. Ronald waited, breathless.
I thought, not for the first time, that it was a shame he did not have children of his own.
“They shut me off,” she said.
“Who?” His voice held infinite patience.
Do you know what’s going on? I sent him.
He did not respond. His full attention was on her.
“The Red Crescent,” she said softly.
“The Red Cross,” I said. “On the Moon. They were the ones in charge of the orphans—”
“Let Echea tell it,” he said, and I stopped, flushing. He had never rebuked me before. At least, not verbally.
“Was it on the Moon?” he asked her.
“They wouldn’t let me come otherwise.”
“Has anyone touched it since?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly. Somewhere in their discussion, her eyes had opened. She was watching Ronald with that mixture of fear and longing that she had first used with me.
“May I see?” he asked.
She clapped a hand to the side of her head. “If it comes on, they’ll make me leave.”
“Did they tell you that?” he asked.
She shook her head again.
“Then there’s nothing to worry about.” He put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back on the lounge. I watched, back stiff. It seemed like I had missed a part of the conversation, but I knew I hadn’t. They were discussing something I had never heard of, something the government had neglected to tell us. My stomach turned. This was exactly the kind of excuse my husband would use to get rid of her.
She was laying rigidly on the lounge. Ronald was smiling at her, talking softly, his hand on the lounge’s controls. He got the read-outs directly through his link. Most everything in the office worked that way, with a back-up download on the office’s equivalent of House. He would send us a file copy later. It was something my husband insisted on, since he did not like coming to these appointments. I doubted he read the files, but he might this time. With Echea.
Ronald’s frown grew. “No more dreams?” he asked.
“No,” Echea said again. She sounded terrified.
I could keep silent no longer. Our family’s had night terrors since she arrived, I sent him.
He glanced at me, whether with irritation or speculation, I could not tell.
They’re similar, I sent. The dreams are all about a death on the Moon. My husband thinks—
I don’t care what he thinks. Ronald’s message was intended as harsh. I had never seen him like this before. At least, I didn’t think so. A dim memory rose and fell, a sense memory. I had heard him use a harsh tone with me, but I could not remember when.
“Have you tried to link with her?” he asked me directly.
“How could I?” I asked. “She’s not linked.”
“Have your daughters?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Do you know if anyone’s tried?” he asked her.
Echea shook her head.
“Has she been doing any computer work at all?” he asked.
“Listening to House,” I said. “I insisted. I wanted to see if—”
“House,” he said. “Your home system.”
“Yes.” Something was very wrong. I could feel it. It was in his tone, in his face, in his casual movements, designed to disguise his worry from his patients.
“Did House bother you?” he asked Echea.
“At first,” she said. Then she glanced at me. Again, the need for reassurance. “But now I like it.”
“Even though it’s painful,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” she said, but she averted her eyes from mine.
My mouth went dry. “It hurts you to use House?” I asked. “And you didn’t say anything?”
She didn’t want to risk losing the first home she ever had, Ronald sent. Don’t be so harsh.
I wasn’t the one being harsh. He was. And I didn’t like it.
“It doesn’t really hurt,” she said.
Tell me what’s happening, I sent him. What’s wrong with her?
“Echea,” he said, putting his hand alongside her head one more time. “I’d like to talk with your mother alone. Would it be all right if we sent you back to the play area?”
She shook her head.
“How about if we leave the door open? You’ll always be able to see her.”
She bit her lower lip.
Can’t you tell me this way? I sent.
I need all the verbal tools, he sent back. Trust me.
I did trust him. And because I did, a fear had settled in the pit of my stomach.
“That’s okay,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Can I come back in when I want?”
“If it looks like we’re done,” I said.
“You won’t leave me here,” she said again. When would I gain her complete trust?
“Never,” I said.
She stood then and walked out the door without looking back. She seemed so much like the little girl I’d first met that my heart went out to her. All that bravado the first day had been just that, a cover for sheer terror.
She went to the play area and sat on a cushioned block. She folded her hands in her lap, and stared at me. Ronald’s assistant tried to interest her in a doll, but she shook him off.
“What is it?” I asked.
Ronald sighed, and scooted his stool closer to me. He stopped near the edge of the lounge, not close enough to touch, but close enough that I could smell the scent of him mingled with his specially blended soap.
“The children being sent down from the Moon were rescued,” he said softly.
“I know.” I had read all the literature they sent when we first applied for Echea.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “They weren’t just rescued from a miserable life like you and the other adoptive parents believe. They were rescued from a program that was started in Colony Europe about fifteen years ago. Most of the children involved died.”
“Are you saying she has some horrible disease?”
“No,” he said. “Hear me out. She has an implant—”
“A link?”
“No,” he said. “Sarah, please.”
Sarah. The name startled me. No one called me that anymore. Ronald had not used it in all the years of our reacquaintance.
The name no longer felt like mine.
“Remember how devastating the Moon Wars were? They were using projectile weapons and shattering the colonies themselves, opening them to space. A single bomb would destroy generations of work. Then some of the colonists went underground—”
“And started attacking from there, yes, I know. But that was decades ago. What has that to do with Echea?”
“Colony London, Colony Europe, Colony Russia, and Colony New Delhi signed the peace treaty—”
“—vowing not to use any more destructive weapons. I remember this, Ronald—”
“Because if they did, no more supply ships would be sent.”
I nodded. “Colony New York and Colony Armstrong refused to participate.”
“And were eventually obliterated.” Ronald leaned toward me, like he had done with Echea. I glanced at her. She was watching, as still as could be. “But the fighting didn’t stop. Colonies used knives and secret assassins to kill government officials—”
“And they found a way to divert supply ships,” I said.
He smiled sadly. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s Echea.”
He had come around to the topic of my child so quickly it made me dizzy.
“How could she divert supply ships?”
He rubbed his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Then he sighed again. “A scientist on Colony Europe developed a technology that broadcast thoughts through the subconscious. It was subtle, and it worked very well. A broadcast about hunger at Colony Europe would get a supply captain to divert his ship from Colony Russia and drop the supplies in Colony Europe. It’s more sophisticated than I make it sound. The technology actually made the captain believe that the rerouting was his idea.”
Dreams. Dreams came from the subconscious. I shivered.
“The problem was that the technology was inserted into the brain of the user, like a link, but if the user had an existing link, it superseded the new technology. So they installed it in children born on the Moon, born in Colony Europe. Apparently Echea was.”
“And they rerouted supply ships?”
“By imagining themselves hungry—or actually being starved. They would broadcast messages to the supply ships. Sometimes they were about food. Sometimes they were about clothing. Sometimes they were about weapons.” He shook his head. “Are. I should say are. They’re still doing this.”
“Can’t it be stopped?”
He shook his head. “We’re gathering data on it now. Echea is the third child I’ve seen with this condition. It’s not enough to go to the World Congress yet. Everyone knows though. The Red Crescent and the Red Cross are alerted to this, and they remove children from the colonies, sometimes on penalty of death, to send them here where they will no longer be harmed. The technology is deactivated, and people like you adopt them and give them full lives.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Perhaps your House reactivated her device.”
I shook my head. “The first dream happened before she listened to House.”
“Then some other technology did. Perhaps the government didn’t shut her off properly. It happens. The recommended procedure is to say nothing, and to simply remove the device.”
I frowned at him. “Then why are you telling me this? Why didn’t you just remove it?”
“Because you want her to be linked.”
“Of course I do,” I said. “You know that. You told her yourself the benefits of linking. You know what would happen to her if she isn’t. You know.”
“I know that she would be fine if you and your husband provided for her in your wills. If you gave her one of the houses and enough money to have servants for the rest of her life. She would be fine.”
“But not productive.”
“Maybe she doesn’t need to be,” he said.
It sounded so unlike the Ronald who had been treating my children that I frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Her technology and the link are incompatible.”
“I understand that,” I said. “But you can remove her technology.”
“Her brain formed around it. If I installed the link, it would wipe her mind clean.”
“So?”
He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I’m not being clear,” he said more to himself than to me. “It would make her a blank slate. Like a baby. She’d have to learn everything all over again. How to walk. How to eat. It would go quicker this time, but she wouldn’t be a normal seven-year-old girl for half a year.”
“I think that’s worth the price of the link,” I said.
“But that’s not all,” he said. “She’d lose all her memories. Every last one of them. Life on the Moon, arrival here, what she ate for breakfast the morning she received the link.” He started to scoot forward and then stopped. “We are our memories, Sarah. She wouldn’t be Echea anymore.”
“Are you so sure?” I asked. “After all, the basic template would be the same. Her genetic makeup wouldn’t alter.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “Trust me. I’ve seen it.”
“Can’t you do a memory store? Back things up so that when she gets her link she’ll have access to her life before?”
“Of course,” he said. “But it’s not the same. It’s like being told about a boat ride as opposed to taking one yourself. You have the same basic knowledge, but the experience is no longer part of you.”
His eyes were bright. Too bright.
“Surely it’s not that bad,” I said.
“This is my specialty,” he said, and his voice was shaking. He was obviously very passionate about this work. “I study how wiped minds and memory stores interact. I got into this profession hoping I could reverse the effects.”
I hadn’t known that. Or maybe I had and forgotten it.
“How different would she be?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Considering the extent of her experience on the Moon, and the traumatic nature of much of it, I’d bet she’ll be very different.” He glanced into the play area. “She’d probably play with that doll beside her and not give a second thought to where you are.”
“But that’s good.”
“That is, yes, but think how good it feels to earn her trust. She doesn’t give it easily, and when she does, it’s heartfelt.”
I ran a hand through my hair. My stomach churned.
I don’t like these choices, Ronald.
“I know,” he said. I started. I hadn’t realized I had actually sent him that last message.
“You’re telling me that either I keep the same child and she can’t function in our society, or I give her the same chances as everyone else and take away who she is.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I can’t make that choice,” I said. “My husband will see this as a breach of contract. He’ll think that they sent us a defective child.”
“Read the fine print in your agreement,” Ronald said. “This one is covered. So are a few others. It’s boilerplate. I’ll bet your lawyer didn’t even flinch when she read them.”
“I can’t make this choice,” I said again.
He scooted forward and put his hands on mine. They were warm and strong and comfortable.
And familiar. Strangely familiar.
“You have to make the choice,” he said. “At some point. That’s part of your contract too. You’re to provide for her, to prepare her for a life in the world. Either she gets a link or she gets an inheritance that someone else manages.”
Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2: May 2013 Page 14