by Marge Piercy
Her companion was obviously tall, obviously sturdy, but wore a coverall for traveling. The old woman, in a sack-style business suit, wore the retirement-community logo for Cybernaut, where in fact Great-Aunt Dalia had worked for fifty-five years in the accountancy division. Dalia had been plugged into large AIs for most of those fifty-five years, so naturally she had a set of jacks openly displayed on her wrists as well as a temple plug. That any information pirate would be similarly equipped would not occur to anyone looking over Dalia’s vita.
Dalia had arrived with an abnormal amount of luggage. Some of it was self-propelled and followed them like well-trained dogs. Two other cases the companion toted, handing off Dalia to Shira.
Shira felt deeply confused, for she could not recognize her mother. She had no idea how much makeup disguised this creature who was dribbling complaints about the zip, the general level of service, the heat, the humidity, the dust, the smells, her health, her poor feet, her sore back, her miserable stomach. What was this person but an ill-tempered old hypochondriac?
Dalia/Riva—the person—kept up the kvetching in a voice that would have thinned paint, until they finally reached the house and staggered inside, trailed by the companion with the two cases, and the three other doggy cases following after the control device clutched in the old woman’s hand. She collapsed in a chair, still whining loudly, while the companion opened one of the cases, brought out a hand-held detector and circled the premises. “My stomach just can’t take that vat food any longer, and I thought the heat would kill me. I could scarcely breathe. My poor lungs just about convulsed! I had these pains, sharp, unbearable, right here—agony! And coughing!”
The house spoke. “The two persons who have just entered are extremely augmented. Both have considerable internal circuitry for combat and communication. They are presently scanning for surveillance and weaponry.”
“Shut up,” the companion said to the house, “or I’ll turn you off.” She spoke with a slight accent, which Shira identified after a moment as that of someone who has grown up speaking Hebrew. One of her teachers had had such an accent. It was mostly older people who did, from when there had been an Israel, from before the Two Week War, from before the interdiction that quarantined the entire bombed-out, radioactive, biologically unsafe area that had been Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and a good hunk of Saudi Arabia.
“I cannot be turned off by you,” the house said, “unless you blow up this entire area. I will permit you to use your scanning devices, but I will protect Shira. I have one of you in my memory—Riva, daughter of Malkah and mother of Shira. For that reason I have not yet attacked.”
“Hello, house,” Riva said in a far different voice, deep, blunt, commanding. “Don’t worry, we’re here to help, not to harm. We just have to check out the premises. You seem a sophisticated system for a house. How were you able to recognize me?”
“Question Malkah directly about such matters,” the house said stiffly. “I am not programmed to respond in that area.”
Riva thumbed her nose at the ceiling. “I’ll bet you can if you want to.” Riva turned to her companion. “How’re you doing, Nili?”
“Secure enough.” The other woman threw off her black coverall, letting it fall to the floor. Under it she was wearing very light fine body armor, which she also proceeded to strip off. Under that she wore shorts, laden with bulging pockets, and a short-sleeved safari shirt, both the color of sand, on a body that made Shira think of muscleoids she had seen in stimmies. Nili’s hair was a metallic red—not the color of carrots or marmalade but the color of blood. She wore it long, clubbed on her back in an elaborate braid strung with beads and wires. Her eyes were a vivid green, as large as Shira’s own. Her skin was dark, of uncertain and probably mixed race.
Riva stood. She had no trouble standing straight now. She did not remove anything except some padding from inside her cheeks and some body armor she loosened and let drop from inside the sack suit. “My daughter, Shira, this is my friend, Nili. Where’s Malkah?”
“Malkah’s deep in the Base.” She filled them in, staring from one to the other. While Shira and Riva talked, Nili prowled, around the courtyard, in and out of every room. Shira was reminded of Yod at his touchiest.
Riva was squinting at her, her hands held out awkwardly, palms up. “It’s hard to know how to greet you after barging in like the pirate I am, checking out the security. I shouldn’t have to behave so rudely here, and it doesn’t represent any lack of trust in Malkah. It’s just that Tikva’s Base has been penetrated, so we need to take care. Several multis want my head—a lot.”
Feeling awkward, Shira took refuge in courtesy. “Would you like coffee or tea or wine? Something to eat? Can I show you where you’ll be sleeping?”
“I grew up in this house. I know my way to the guest room still,” Riva began in a hectoring voice, then struck herself on the side of the head. “Sorry, here I go. We’re both sensitive. I feel awkward at how little we know each other. You must resent me—that here I am marching in as if it could mean something to you at this late date.”
“I don’t know you. It feels weird.”
“I didn’t even know you were here. I’ve been as rotten a daughter as I am a mother, but at least Malkah and I have some kind of friendship. Maybe you and I can manage to make friends with each other before I have to leave.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Depends,” Nili said flatly. She had finished her circuit and crept up. One of the kittens was riding her shoulder, claws dug in.
“Did you bring your kid—let’s see, it’s a boy?” Riva asked.
“Y-S took my son from me.” Shira turned to Nili to change the subject. She was convinced Riva had asked only to make polite conversation, without the slightest real interest in herself or Ari. “Are you a pirate too?” She would have liked to spank the kitten for choosing this rude stranger over Yod. It was the bold one, Zayit. Shira had begun to tell them apart. Zayit’s eyes were wider spaced, and she carried herself higher on her toes. She was always the first one in trouble.
“No, I’m worse. I’m an assassin.” The woman smiled at her. She had a way of smiling straight on into the eyes, with a little twist of power that reminded Shira of a few men she had met. Dangerous men.
“I hope you’re here on vacation,” Shira said, staring back as hard as she could.
“No,” Nili said. “I’m here to serve.”
“To serve whom?”
“Malkah,” Riva said. “In some ways I am a dutiful daughter. You need help, so I’ve brought it.” She had her hands one on each knee, her legs relaxed and apart, her chin dipped, head cocked while her eyes shrewdly appraised Shira. “Nili is my darling and a very well made bomb.”
TWENTY-THREE
Wine in the Middle of the Night
Shira spent the next day with the visitors, but she did not find it easy to feel close to her biological mother. Work on designing new defenses was completed. Then Malkah slept for ten hours straight. She woke sluggish, unusual for a woman swift in her reactions. “I’ve used up my reserves of energy and I’m empty as a dry glass,” she said, yawning by way of illustration. “Now it’s time for the programmers to work out the details while I vegetate. But then your lightning visits always discombobulate me, Rivaleh. How can I adjust to your looking older than I do?”
In the courtyard Nili was driving herself through her morning exercises, a long program of elaborate stretches, leaps and martial slashes, punches and turns. Sometimes Nili seemed to float in slow motion, turning on one foot with the other elaborately cocked in air; other times she jumped so fast her body blurred. Shira found the activity unsettling. Nili was in an ecstatic trance as she performed her chops and kicks and lunges. The kittens were mesmerized, crouching, ears flattened. Even the birds of the courtyard shrilled in an excited racket. Shira realized that Nili moved faster than she ought to be able to—like Yod; that from a standing start Nili could leap farther than professional athlet
es and higher.
The three other women, representing three generations, sat around a table drinking café au lait and eating local whole-grain bagels. “Real food,” Riva sighed. “Once the poorest ate it. Do you know what a luxury it is? Sometimes I fear I could be bribed with peaches and bread and roast chicken. And this jam. I have a dangerous sweet tooth.”
“Is she human?” Shira asked abruptly, nodding toward an upside-down Nili.
“What kind of question is that?” Riva bristled. Her hands clenched—rough callused oversized hands. “Europa’s probes have been answered from deep space, but no one has decoded the message yet.”
“Probably a warning before being issued a fine for pollution,” Malkah said, yawning again. “But Shira’s question is reasonable, Riva. No one is criticizing Nili. We’re just curious. Her abilities are…impressive.”
“I didn’t think she was an alien,” Shira said. “Is she a machine or human?” She was wondering if Nili could be a cyborg.
“That’s a matter of definition,” Riva said mildly. “Where do you draw the line? Was she born from a woman?”
“That’s a start.”
“Of course. Nili bat Marah Golinken.”
“She’s matrilineal, like us,” Shira said, surprised.
“She has no father,” Riva said.
“Well, I don’t either.” Suddenly she realized she could ask. “Riva, who was my father? I’ve often wondered.”
“She wouldn’t tell me.” Malkah frowned at some painful memory. She sighed audibly. Her eyes were fixed on the past, an earlier Riva.
Riva shrugged, showing open hands. “Actually you and Nili are related. Your father was Yosef Golinken, her mother’s father—her grandfather.”
“So Nili’s my niece? But we’re the same age. And wait a minute, are we talking about the Yosef Golinken? The physicist?”
Riva nodded. Shira could not help thinking that Riva simply did not look nearly as much like her as Malkah did. “Hold on.” Shira plugged into the public Net, going in via the com-con, as their own Base was still down. She had to wait for a connection, then in thirty seconds she had her answer. “Yosef Golinken died in 2013. I was born in ’31.”
“That’s what sperm banks are for,” Riva said. “Never felt sexual toward men, myself. I’ve fought beside lots of men, and some are good friends, but they lack finesse as lovers. Just not my inclination.” She shrugged. “Got any more of that apricot jam?” She had eaten half the jar with a spoon.
It was deflating after a whole life of wondering about her father to learn that Riva had never met him. “So my father was a test tube and that amazon’s my niece?”
“That amazon shares my bed and my trust. I hope finding out you’re a product of artificial insemination doesn’t curdle your juices any.” Riva grinned. For a moment she did look like Malkah, the mischief in that grin.
Shira blinked hard, as if she’d been slapped. How had she angered Riva? “Oh, come on. Half the kids in this town are born from petri dishes or test tubes. At Y-S they used to say every baby has three parents nowadays—the mother, the father and the doctor who does all the chemistry. And there Y-S is the fourth parent.”
“In your case too?”
“No. I conceived the ancient way and bore the baby to term. In fact I lost status with my co-workers because they felt it was a bit gross. One of the standard subjects for gossip among corporate women my age is exactly how you are trying to make a baby—comparing technologies.”
“Was it for some religious reason? Myself, I used every bit of technology. Couldn’t afford to hang around swollen up like a bilious elephant.”
“I conceived without difficulty. I carried the baby nine months because I didn’t want to give my child up to Y-S so early. I’m suspicious about the conditioning they use on preemies. It’s standard practice there to induce labor in the eighth month to avoid stretch marks.” She felt defensive, explaining and explaining, but she was trying to make some connection.
“How loyal do you feel to Y-S?”
“Are you being funny? They took my son away from me. They just tried to kill Malkah.” Shira turned away. Malkah sat beaming at Riva as if she were the sweetest sight in the world. Shira was aware of a pang of jealousy, a queasy wondering if Malkah preferred Riva to her.
“I’m not an affectionate person, Shira, not the cuddly type. I’m loyal to death to those who are loyal to me. But I’m a warrior, not a mother. Frankly, you were sort of my gift to Malkah, to make up for who I am.”
“You’re not so bad, kiddo,” Malkah said. “It was a second chance for me. I had you too young to do a decent job. I had a baby for all the wrong reasons, and I expected a sort of pet, a cute kitten who talked.”
“Oh, between us, Malkah, it was war, the two of us pulling at cross-purposes. You used to tell me I was born shouting No.” Riva gave her mother an affectionate cuff on the arm. “You made me the fighter I am.”
It was strange to hear Riva, sitting there apparently flabby and looking older than Malkah, describe herself as a fighter. But Riva had read her glance. “Appearing an old lady or as a baggy middle-aged woman of no social standing is my disguise. I don’t look dangerous. I’m close to invisible. I can go places other operatives can’t penetrate. You’ll see next Tuesday.”
Shira felt her heart contract. “What do you mean about Tuesday?”
Riva suddenly held a knife that glowed oddly. Then it was spinning through the air straight at Nili, who was not even looking. Shira screamed, but as the sound left her mouth, Nili turned and plucked the knife from the air, tossed it up and flung it back at Riva, who stopped it with her arm. It stuck there quivering, but she did not flinch and did not bleed. She must be wearing armor under her baggy schmateh. “You’ll need backup,” Riva said. How much of the apparent flesh was protective gear?
“I’m not going alone, and how do you know about my meeting?”
“All things relate. The Net is real. We are all in the Net.”
Shira felt stung. Riva was patronizing her. “Don’t palm off cheap philosophy on me when I ask a real question. How do you know I’m meeting with Y-S next Tuesday? What else do you know?”
Riva finished the last of the bagels before saying, “Don’t take Malkah.”
Shira remained frightened. What was this woman preparing to do? “I’m not planning to. I’m taking Avram’s assistant. He’s security trained.”
“What they call security training here—nice kids who’ve had a few karate lessons. I could take any four of them out in seconds.” Riva was watching Nili with a satisfied smile, proprietary.
“Yod is security trained by anyone’s standards.”
Riva turned back to her, still smiling. “I want you to like me. But I’m not doing too well with you, am I? Learn to look through my facade. When others were taking rejuvenation treatments, I was doing the opposite. Never cared about being pretty or youthful-looking. Don’t need it—been offered more love than I’ve had the leisure to enjoy. Malkah says it’s time for you and me to get to know each other. We may not have another shot.”
“Why?” Shira wanted to prevent Riva from accompanying her to the meeting with Y-S, but she sensed she would be best off proceeding indirectly.
“We’re both here. May never happen again. I’m in a dangerous profession. The times are violent. You’re in a vulnerable place. That we’ll both survive is problematic.” Riva grinned, an expression that broke open her face, a flash of something bright and strong escaping from within. “You might say damned unlikely.”
“You steal information.”
“I liberate it. Information shouldn’t be a commodity. That’s obscene. Information plus theology plus political bias is how we sculpt our view of reality.” Riva watched Nili padding toward the table.
“Is that what you tell yourself? But then you sell the commodity to another multi.”
“Depends on what we find. Some we sell. Medical stuff, real science, we give to the stripped countries. The places
where the multis cut down the rain forest, deep and strip mined, drove the peasants off the land and raised cash crops till the soil gave out.” Riva came into a sharper focus, and her voice was serrated, magnetic. “The distant tropical backdrops where they fought little counterinsurgency wars. Left the people robbed of their tribal identities, with a taste for sugar, tobacco and gadgets, with a countryside starving and vast slum cities seething.”
“The ability to access information is power,” Nili said with her slight accent in her husky voice. Her dark skin glistened with sweat. Her exercise garb was soaked. In fact she reeked. “The ability to read and write belonged to the Church except for heretics and Jews. We are people of the book. We have always considered getting knowledge part of being human. With the invention of the printing press, literacy spread. With mass literacy, any person no matter how poor could learn how the society operated, could share visions of how things might be different. Now few read.”
Riva said, “Most folks press the diodes of stimmies against their temples and experience some twit’s tears and orgasms, while the few plug in and access information on a scale never before available. The many know less and less and the few more and more.” Riva fanned her hand in front of her face. “Go shower. You smell like a horse.”
“Should I smell like a rose? You’ve been smelling of medicines lately that you pour on your clothing.”
“I’ll shower too. Sorry.” Riva stood.
Shira said, “You say you want us to get along, yet I don’t find you particularly…friendly. I feel like you’re goading me.”
“I guess I’m having trouble figuring out who you are. Pretty girl, got married, worked for a multi, had a baby. Conventional and timid choices. Don’t see much of myself in you.” Riva bounded over to stride up the steps two at a time behind Nili. Certainly Riva could move fast when she chose to.
“I don’t want them along Tuesday,” Shira said bluntly to Malkah. “Does she hate me? This meeting may have nothing to do with the razors in the Base but rather with my appeal of the ruling on Ari. I have to find out.”