by John Kessel
Erno frowned. “Have you ever heard of a device called the Integrated Quantum Scanner Array?”
Cleo appeared at the bedroom door. She saw the image on the wall and raised an eyebrow. Mira froze the call.
“We really need to go,” Cleo said.
“I’ll be right there.”
Cleo left. Mira unfroze the call and told Erno, “I can’t talk to you now.”
“Is there a time we can meet—privately?”
“The lab will be shut down on third shift this Thursday. Come at oh-three-hundred. There shouldn’t be anyone there.”
“Please don’t let anyone know—”
Mira turned off the pixwall and left.
• • • • •
IN TODAY’S LUNANET HOTSPOT:V
ALENTIN ROZSSON CUSTODY SHOWDOWN
Throwing a spotlight on the notorious Society of Cousins’s childrearing practices, peculiar family structures, and limitations on the rights of men, is the ongoing battle for custody of a fifteen-year-old boy named Valentin Rozsson. In a world where men have no parental rights, one man, former Olympic athlete Carey Green Evasson, has challenged the law by taking custody of his son. Today If It Bleeds It Leads brings you the hearing that will decide the case.
Background
Custody hearings in the Society of Cousins are rare, and when they do take place, they are between women. A custody battle between a child’s mother and father is unprecedented.
Valentin Rozsson’s mother, Roz Green Baldwin, has not insisted that her son be returned to her pending a decision. Traditionalists among the Cousins are impatient with her and blame the fact that until she was a teenager, Baldwin lived on Earth. At age fourteen, Baldwin emigrated to the Society in the company of her father, Jack Baldwin (2090–2128), a genobotanist and developer of the Baldwin juniper, adopted by the SoC and other colonies establishing a low-moisture environment. Rather than follow the Society’s matronymic system, Baldwin has kept her father’s name, and may harbor an attachment to the practice of custodial fatherhood arising from her upbringing. Polls show that a majority of Cousins believe such sentimentality should not be indulged when the fate of a boy is at stake.
Today’s Coverage
The colony’s open meetings practices mandate that the hearing be broadcast live on all SoC video links, in private and public headspaces. In the case of meetings that have attracted public interest, as this one has to an unprecedented degree, there is typically a lively byplay on chat fora even as it takes place.
LUNANET will bring the hearing to subscribers everywhere on the moon. The fact that this hearing is of interest to outsiders has placed more pressure on the Cousins Board of Matrons. After last week’s arrival of the SCOCOM investigators and the BYD Incident, debate has become intense. Our remote coverage will put you right in the hearing room.
Plus, we’ve got the solar system’s leading newshound on the story! Carrollton’s Sirius Alpha-Ultra vom Adler, representing the Consortium of Lunar Media, will be available to LUNANET PRIME subscribers for real-time commentary. Following the hearing, Sirius will have exclusive interviews with the principals in the dispute.
• • • • •
Mira endured Cleo’s chilly silence as they rode the metro to the Diana Tower. Mira’s apology had not mollified her. Cleo had never impressed Hypatia or drawn Carey’s attention and so was deeply envious of Mira. She might feel differently if she knew how Carey had reacted to Mira’s marriage proposal.
Mira left her in the tower lobby. She showed her ID to security at the elevators and was whisked sixty floors up to the meeting room where Carey, Hypatia, and Carey’s advocate, Charlene Wandasdaughter, waited. Val was not there. His opinions on the situation and how he might wish it resolved had been taken separately.
Carey wore a somber black shirt, sealed to the collar, black pants, black slippers. His hair was pulled back; it shone in the ceiling lights. He enveloped Mira in his hug and whispered into her ear, “It means a lot to me that you’re willing to speak on my behalf.”
Then he turned to rest his hand casually on Hypatia’s hip. It didn’t mean anything to him, any more than hugging Mira did. All those passionate conversations, the pillow talk—he was so good at pillow talk, so sincere, so funny, so sexy—all available to any and everyone. Mira, Roz, Juliette, Hypatia. I don’t think so.
Mira had to stop. Carey was simply acting the way men did, gaining status by hooking up with the most powerful woman available. By rights, Hypatia shouldn’t even have been there. She had no stake in the case, but since she and Juliette had fallen out, she was making sure Carey knew how important it was to have her as an ally.
“They’re going to be focused on every nuance of your behavior,” Hypatia told him. “You say nothing against Roz.”
“I’ve got nothing against her,” Carey said.
“Your big problem will be Juliette. She’ll criticize your parenting. But we’ll have Mira to rebut her.”
Mira hated herself for the way her heart leapt at Hypatia’s slightest praise; sometimes she felt herself no better than Cleo.
A young man with his hair in cornrows entered the room. “It’s time,” he said.
The hearing was held around a big table in a conference room. The lighting was warm and indirect. The only possible disturbance was the presence of camera midges silently floating at the edges of everyone’s vision.
The other principals were already there—Roz, Eva, Roz’s advocate, Carlo Ameliasson, a child welfare agent, and the three-person panel of arbiters. The panel comprised Hans Friedasson, impressively bearded, Giselle Annasdaughter, and Debra Debrasdaughter as chair. Debrasdaughter was over one hundred years old. She was perhaps the most respected woman in the Society, and few Cousins would question her impartiality.
But the fact that two of the three arbiters were women caused grumbling. Plus, Annasdaughter was an Ebony, a rival family almost as old and influential as the Greens. Commentators from the patriarchies enjoyed all this almost beyond their capacity for glee. The outside scrutiny made the Board circumspect, but also raised its defiance, and the Matrons were determined not to change the proceedings to accommodate the opinions of strangers.
Juliette and Eva, Hypatia and Mira, though they were not the principals, were all given seats at the table. The meeting began with a round of embraces, queries about whether everyone was comfortable, and the serving of tea. Debrasdaughter passed around a plate of cookies she had made herself. They were going to have a nice little conversation, with lawyers, and a judgment at the end.
The child welfare agent began by reciting facts that were undisputed: paternity, dates, the general sequence of events. She described the unusual circumstance that Roz and Carey had been reared as siblings but were also lovers and parents. On occasion, a panel member would ask a question.
Carlo Ameliasson made Roz’s case. He was a homely man with jug-handle ears and a weak chin. The most prominent male lawyer in the colony, his soft voice and fetish of never interrupting anyone did not cloak his aggression. The story he told was that Carey’s request was a whim, that Carey had evinced no interest in parenting until recently, that he’d had every opportunity to share in Val’s parenting with Roz, that his desire to have Val reside with him was not supported by his circumstances or character. It was not a principle that was at stake, Ameliasson said, but the welfare of a particular young man.
Eva described the difficulties they’d all gone through twenty years earlier, when Carey had disappeared and Roz’s father had killed himself. When, some years after Val’s birth, Roz moved out of Eva’s home, Carey chose to stay with Eva. This was not unusual—sixty percent of Cousins males still lived with their mothers—but it did not argue for Carey’s abiding interest in his son.
Roz told how, although Carey had spent time with Val from infancy on, he had never been consistent in his attentions.
Wandasdaughter pointed out that Roz had taken no wife nor brought anyone new into the Green family. Unlike most Co
usins women, she lived alone with her one child. Wandasdaughter did not mention Roz’s immigration, but the implication that Roz had never assimilated into the Society did not have to be spoken.
“Eva can tell you how loyal I am to Val,” Roz said. “Val won’t find a more supportive home than I’ve given him. I don’t deny Carey’s interest—we’re all Greens—and I welcome his involvement. Val can have as much of Carey as Carey is willing to give him, without leaving our home. Yet in the months since Val has been with Carey, I’ve hardly seen him.”
At this point Ameliasson brought Juliette into the conversation. For some time it had seemed to Mira that Hypatia must have gotten the psychological jump on Juliette when they first met as colleagues at the university fifteen years earlier. Juliette had played second fiddle to Hypatia throughout their academic careers, and in the wake of the election disaster, she was determined to show the world that she was not Hypatia’s shadow.
“You’ve been seeing Carey for some time?” he asked.
“Not so much now. I was, for some months after he got his new apartment and Val moved in with him.”
“So you’ve had the chance to observe. How would you describe Carey’s parenting?”
“Well, certainly Carey spends time with Val, and I have no doubt Val is enjoying himself. Hypatia got them both heavily involved in Reform Party politics. I have been involved in that as well. It’s no doubt educational for Val”—she glanced coolly at Hypatia—“but it’s distracting, being the focus of so much attention. I don’t think Val is getting enough sleep.”
Hypatia said quietly, “I hope we’re not about to abrogate Carey’s parental rights because Juliette thinks Val isn’t getting enough sleep.”
Juliette smiled at Hypatia. “I’ve no question that Carey wants to be a good parent. But I believe Val’s been staying out past his curfew now and then.”
“What would you say to this?” Ameliasson asked Carey.
“I’ve kept good track of Val. Yes, we were involved in the Reform Party events leading up to the election, but that’s over now. He’s doing fine in school, and meeting his responsibilities.”
“Are there any other people engaged in Val’s care?” Ameliasson asked Juliette.
“Well, Carey has been seeing Hypatia,” Juliette said. “And Mira.”
Carey laughed. “So? Are we judging my sex life?”
“Of course not,” Ameliasson said. “But maturity means making choices. Women make such choices all the time.”
“And I’ve put Val first,” said Carey, “as Juliette knows.”
Wandasdaughter said, “This really is not relevant. There is no conflict between being a good parent and having relationships with others.”
“Is that true?” Ameliasson asked.
Roz spoke up. “I don’t care about these things, if Val is getting the guidance he needs. I don’t mind him being interested in politics. But the men’s rights movement is using Val as a political object. I want to put his best interests first.”
“And I don’t?” Carey said.
“We all want what’s best for Val,” Ameliasson said. “If he’s safer with his mother, then he should be with his mother.”
“Safe from what?” Carey said.
No one spoke.
“Let me make your argument for you,” Carey said. “When I take Val to political rallies, I am putting him too much in the public eye. When we’re home, I’m letting him run wild. You look at my history and you think that I can’t possibly have the judgment to know what’s good for him.”
Carey faced Roz. “Roz, I admit everything you say about my haphazard interest—though ask yourself honestly, how many men are truly welcomed to take an interest in their children? You worry about my women friends, but if I married one of them, the questions would evaporate and we wouldn’t be here today.” His eyes briefly met Mira’s.
Mira felt her face flush. She heard again the incredulity in his voice, so intimate in her ear: You’re kidding.
He turned back to the table. “I’m asking: Why should the intervention of an unrelated woman matter more than my connection to Val? After Roz, who is his next of kin? If he gets sick and a decision has to be made on his treatment, who’s consulted? If he’s hurt, who gets notified? If he does something wrong, who gets held responsible? If he’s raised poorly, who gets blamed? I assert that, as much as Roz, I should be that person.”
“Don’t worry,” Roz said, “if something happens to Val, I’ll blame you.”
“I welcome the chance to be blamed. I’d consider that a privilege. More than the informal acknowledgment of my relationship to him and your kind indulgence of my interest, I want a legal obligation, a right, a duty.”
“You want to possess Val,” Annasdaughter said.
“To the degree that any parent possesses a child, yes—yes, I do.”
Hans Friedasson said, “If you want to be a father, you already are one. If you want to be a patriarch, forget it.”
“I don’t have the beard to be a patriarch.”
The densely bearded Friedasson glowered. A couple of midges floated in toward him. “Personal remarks won’t help your cause.”
Carey sighed. “Cousin Friedasson, I apologize. I was out of line. I hope you’ll forgive my desire to make my point.”
Ameliasson jumped in, “This sounds like it’s all about you, Carey. What about Val?”
Carey resumed, his voice in control. “I hope it’s not necessary to assume that because something makes me happy, it must be bad for Val. This is about my being considered optional. The default statement is: Val has a mother, a grandmother, aunts, sisters—and oh, yes, he has a father, too.
“What is a man? Is a man just a woman who can’t bear children? I think our answers to these questions have been impoverished. Val will learn things by living with me—valuable things—to go with all the things he learns from Roz, our family, the schools, and his friends. Together we might create a new emotional space—not some return to patriarchy, but something the Founders wanted for men, and women, too.
“Maybe I haven’t earned your trust. If so, I hope it’s because of my failings as a person, not simply because I’m male. I respectfully ask you to treat me, and Val, as individuals.”
Annasdaughter said, “Too much individualism has come close to destroying the Earth.”
Carey held his hands up in surrender. “You’ve got me there. I don’t think I can save the Earth.”
Debrasdaughter laughed. Eva smiled.
That line would be main menu fodder in the patriarchies. Carey had never looked more handsome, or sounded more sincere.
It was quite a performance. Mira should have known that Carey, having grown up sharing the dinner table with the most important Matrons, would not be flustered to be put on this stage. With his natural charisma it was a good bet he would win over at least two of the three arbiters. Even Friedasson might, upon consideration, decide the beard joke was a harmless jape rather than a lack of respect.
Mira ought to be gratified. She had pushed Carey to use these abilities when no other woman in his life—not Roz, not Eva, not Hypatia, not any of his girlfriends—had done so. She’d seen it in him. She expected that the only person who could really understand her nudging him not as undermining his autonomy, but as a gift, was Carey himself. His glance, as he had casually stuck the knife into her heart, had told her that.
“Do you have any more to say?” Debrasdaughter asked Carey.
Carey shook his head. “Not just now.”
She turned to Roz and Ameliasson. “Any questions?”
Roz said, “I never denied that Carey has a legitimate claim. But does that mean Val has to live with him?”
“That’s what we are trying to figure out,” Debrasdaughter said.
Hypatia whispered something to Wandasdaughter, who then said, “We have one more thing. In response to Cousin Mariesdaughter’s comments, Mira Hannasdaughter would like to speak to the issue of Carey’s fitness to be a father.
Carey and Val first lived with her after Val left Roz, and she has direct experience of how Carey has been handling his child rearing.”
“Very well,” Debrasdaughter said. “Mira?”
Wandasdaughter asked her, “Do you dispute what Juliette said about Carey not keeping a careful watch on Val?”
“I don’t dispute anything Juliette said. I just don’t think it’s relevant. Half the adolescent boys in the Society spend their waking lives figuring out new ways to test the limits of our tolerance. Carey is no less responsible than my mother was, for instance. That’s not enough reason to deprive him of custody.”
Mira took a breath. Now was her moment. “That said, I think Val, living with Carey, is more at risk than he would be with Roz.”
Hypatia looked at her sharply. Wandasdaughter was flustered into silence.
Annasdaughter broke it. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t want to say it—” said Mira.
But she did, actually. She wanted to say it very badly.
“—but I’m afraid I need to. Let me start by telling you, first off, that I am Looker.”
Consternation crossed the faces of the tribunal. Carey watched her. Mira was acutely aware of the camera midges floating at the edges of her vision.
“If this is true,” said Debrasdaughter, “you open yourself to community sanctions.”
“It’s true.”
Wandasdaughter struggled to get things back on the rails. “What does this have to do with Val’s custody?”
“If you’ll let me show you, you’ll see. May I use the pixwall?”
“Go ahead,” said Debrasdaughter.
Mira opened a link on the tabletop and accessed her private files. She typed in her password and called one of her Looker videos onto the wall, the one intermixing images from the Oxygen Warehouse and the history of Western art. “You may have seen this video. It was posted in a dozen places around the colony last May.”
“You could easily have downloaded this,” Annasdaughter said. “There’s no proof that you made it.”
Mira called up a second file, split the screen and ran it side by side with the graffito. “Here is the raw footage I shot of the deserted nightclub where Thomas Marysson did his last public performance. You can see where I cut and edited portions of this footage into the final video.”