The Best of Nancy Kress

by Nancy Kress

  Camden opened the door himself. She could see his effort not to look worried. “You didn’t have to drive out, Susan; I’d have come into the city!”

  “No, I didn’t want you to do that, Roger. Mrs. Camden is here?”

  “In the living room.” Camden led her into a large room with a stone fireplace, English country-house furniture, and prints of dogs or boats, all hung eighteen inches too high; Elizabeth Camden must have done the decorating. She did not rise from her wing chair as Susan entered.

  “Let me be concise and fast,” Susan said, “I don’t want to make this anymore drawn-out for you than I have to. We have all the amniocentesis, ultrasound, and Langston test results. The fetus is fine, developing normally for two weeks, no problems with the implant on the uterine wall. But a complication has developed.”

  “What?” Camden said. He took out a cigarette, looked at his wife, and put it back unlit.

  Susan said quietly, “Mrs. Camden, by sheer chance both your ovaries released eggs last month. We removed one for the gene surgery. By more sheer chance the second was fertilized and implanted. You’re carrying two fetuses.”

  Elizabeth Camden grew still. “Twins?”

  “No,” Susan said. Then she realized what she had said. “I mean, yes. They’re twins, but non-identical. Only one has been genetically altered. The other will be no more similar to her than any two siblings. It’s a so-called normal baby. And I know you didn’t want a so-called normal baby.”

  Camden said, “No. I didn’t.”

  Elizabeth Camden said, “I did.”

  Camden shot her a fierce look that Susan couldn’t read. He took out the cigarette again, and lit it. His face was in profile to Susan, and he was thinking intently; she doubted he knew the cigarette was there, or that he was lighting it. “Is the baby being affected by the other one’s being there?”

  “No,” Susan said. “No, of course not. They’re just…coexisting.”

  “Can you abort it?”

  “Not without aborting both of them. Removing the unaltered fetus would cause changes in the uterine lining that would probably lead to a spontaneous miscarriage of the other.” She drew a deep breath. “There’s that option, of course. We can start the whole process over again. But as I told you at the time, you were very lucky to have the in vitro fertilization take on only the second try. Some couples take eight or ten tries. If we started all over, the process could be a lengthy one.”

  Camden said, “Is the presence of this second fetus harming my daughter? Taking away nutrients or anything? Or will it change anything for her later on in the pregnancy?”

  “No. Except that there is a chance of premature birth. Two fetuses take up a lot more room in the womb, and if it gets too crowded, birth can be premature. But the—”

  “How premature? Enough to threaten survival?”

  “Most probably not.”

  Camden went on smoking. A man appeared at the door. “Sir, London calling. James Kendall for Mr. Yagai.”

  “I’ll take it.” Camden rose. Susan watched him study his wife’s face. When he spoke, it was to her. “All right, Elizabeth. All right.” He left the room.

  For a long moment the two women sat in silence. Susan was aware of disappointment; this was not the Camden she had expected to see. She became aware of Elizabeth Camden watching her with amusement.

  “Oh, yes, Doctor. He’s like that.”

  Susan said nothing.

  “Completely overbearing. But not this time.” She laughed softly, with excitement. “Two. Do you…do you know what sex the other one is?”

  “Both fetuses are female.”

  “I wanted a girl, you know. And now I’ll have one.”

  “Then you’ll go ahead with the pregnancy.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

  She was dismissed. No one saw her out. But as she was getting into her car, Camden rushed out of the house, coatless. “Susan! I wanted to thank you. For coming all the way out here to tell us yourself.”

  “You already thanked me.”

  “Yes. Well. You’re sure the second fetus is no threat to my daughter?”

  Susan said deliberately, “Nor is the genetically altered fetus a threat to the naturally conceived one.”

  He smiled. His voice was low and wistful. “And you think that should matter to me just as much. But it doesn’t. And why should I fake what I feel? Especially to you?”

  Susan opened her car door. She wasn’t ready for this, or she had changed her mind, or something. But then Camden leaned over to close the door, and his manner held no trace of flirtatiousness, no smarmy ingratiation. “I better order a second playpen.”

  “Yes.”

  “And a second car seat.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not a second night-shift nurse.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “And you.” Abruptly he leaned over and kissed her, a kiss so polite and respectful that Susan was shocked. Neither lust nor conquest would have shocked her; this did. Camden didn’t give her a chance to react; he closed the car door and turned back toward the house. Susan drove toward the gate, her hands shaky on the wheel until amusement replaced shock: It had been a deliberate, blatant, respectful kiss, an engineered enigma. And nothing else could have guaranteed so well that there would have to be another.

  She wondered what the Camdens would name their daughters.

  Dr. Ong strode the hospital corridor, which had been dimmed to half-light. From the nurse’s station in Maternity a nurse stepped forward as if to stop him—it was the middle of the night, long past visiting hours—got a good look at his face, and faded back into her station. Around a corner was the viewing glass to the nursery. To Ong’s annoyance, Susan Melling stood pressed against the glass. To his further annoyance, she was crying.

  Ong realized that he had never liked the woman. Maybe not any women. Even those with superior minds could not seem to refrain from being made damn fools by their emotions.

  “Look,” Susan said, laughing a little, swiping at her face. “Doctor—look.”

  Behind the glass Roger Camden, gowned and masked, was holding up a baby in a white undershirt and pink blanket. Camden’s blue eyes—theatrically blue—a man really should not have such garish eyes—glowed. The baby’s head was covered with blond fuzz; it had wide eyes and pink skin. Camden’s eyes above the mask said that no other child had ever had these attributes.

  Ong said, “An uncomplicated birth?”

  “Yes,” Susan Melling sobbed. “Perfectly straightforward. Elizabeth is fine. She’s asleep. Isn’t she beautiful? He has the most adventurous spirit I’ve ever known.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve; Ong realized that she was drunk. “Did I ever tell you that I was engaged once? Fifteen years ago, in med school? I broke it off because he grew to seem so ordinary, so boring. Oh, God, I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Ong moved away from her. Behind the glass Roger Camden laid the baby in a small wheeled crib. The nameplate said baby girl camden #1. 5.9 pounds. A night nurse watched indulgently.

  Ong did not wait to see Camden emerge from the nursery or to hear Susan Melling say to him whatever she was going to say. Ong went to have the OB paged. Melling’s report was not, under the circumstances, to be trusted. A perfect, unprecedented chance to record every detail of gene alteration with a non-altered control, and Melling was more interested in her own sloppy emotions. Ong would obviously have to do the report himself, after talking to the OB. He was hungry for every detail. And not just about the pink-cheeked baby in Camden’s arms. He wanted to know everything about the birth of the child in the other glass-sided crib: BABY GIRL CAMDEN #2. 5.1 POUNDS. The dark-haired baby with the mottled red features, lying scrunched down in her pink blanket, asleep.

  TWO

  Leisha’s earliest memory was flowing lines that were not there. She knew they were not there because when she reached out her fist to touch them, her fist was empty. L
ater she realized that the flowing lines were light: sunshine slanting in bars between curtains in her room, between the wooden blinds in the dining room, between the crisscross lattices in the conservatory. The day she realized the golden flow was light she laughed out loud with the sheer joy of discovery, and Daddy turned from putting flowers in pots and smiled at her.

  The whole house was full of light. Light bounded off the lake, streamed across the high white ceilings, puddled on the shining wooden floors. She and Alice moved continually through light, and sometimes Leisha would stop and tip back her head and let it flow over her face. She could feel it, like water.

  The best light, of course, was in the conservatory. That’s where Daddy liked to be when he was home from making money. Daddy potted plants and watered trees, humming, and Leisha and Alice ran between the wooden tables of flowers with their wonderful earthy smells, running from the dark side of the conservatory where the big purple flowers grew to the sunshine side with sprays of yellow flowers, running back and forth, in and out of the light. “Growth,” Daddy said to her, “flowers all fulfilling their promise. Alice, be careful! You almost knocked over that orchid!” Alice, obedient, would stop running for a while. Daddy never told Leisha to stop running.

  After a while the light would go away. Alice and Leisha would have their baths, and then Alice would get quiet, or cranky. She wouldn’t play nice with Leisha, even when Leisha let her choose the game or even have all the best dolls. Then Nanny would take Alice to bed, and Leisha would talk with Daddy some more until Daddy said he had to work in his study with the papers that made money. Leisha always felt a moment of regret that he had to go do that, but the moment never lasted very long because Mamselle would arrive and start Leisha’s lessons, which she liked. Learning things was so interesting! She could already sing twenty songs and write all the letters in the alphabet and count to fifty. And by the time lessons were done, the light had come back, and it was time for breakfast.

  Breakfast was the only time Leisha didn’t like. Daddy had gone to the office, and Leisha and Alice had breakfast with Mommy in the big dining room. Mommy sat in a red robe, which Leisha liked, and she didn’t smell funny or talk funny the way she would later in the day, but still breakfast wasn’t fun. Mommy always started with The Question.

  “Alice, sweetheart, how did you sleep?”

  “Fine, Mommy.”

  “Did you have any nice dreams?”

  For a long time Alice said no. Then one day she said, “I dreamed about a horse. I was riding him.” Mommy clapped her hands and kissed Alice and gave her an extra sticky bun. After that Alice always had a dream to tell Mommy.

  Once Leisha said, “I had a dream, too. I dreamed light was coming in the window and it wrapped all around me like a blanket and then it kissed me on my eyes.”

  Mommy put down her coffee cup so hard that coffee sloshed out of it. “Don’t lie to me, Leisha. You did not have a dream.”

  “Yes, I did,” Leisha said.

  “Only children who sleep can have dreams. Don’t lie to me. You did not have a dream.”

  “Yes I did! I did!” Leisha shouted. She could see it, almost: the light streaming in the window and wrapping around her like a golden blanket.

  “I will not tolerate a child who is a liar! Do you hear me, Leisha—I won’t tolerate it!”

  “You’re a liar!” Leisha shouted, knowing the words weren’t true, hating herself because they weren’t true but hating Mommy more and that was wrong, too, and there sat Alice stiff and frozen with her eyes wide, Alice was scared and it was Leisha’s fault.

  Mommy called sharply, “Nanny! Nanny! Take Leisha to her room at once. She can’t sit with civilized people if she can’t refrain from telling lies!”

  Leisha started to cry. Nanny carried her out of the room. Leisha hadn’t even had her breakfast. But she didn’t care about that; all she could see while she cried was Alice’s eyes, scared like that, reflecting broken bits of light.

  But Leisha didn’t cry long. Nanny read her a story, and then played Data Jump with her, and then Alice came up and Nanny drove them both into Chicago to the zoo where there were wonderful animals to see, animals Leisha could not have dreamed—nor Alice either. And by the time they came back Mommy had gone to her room and Leisha knew that she would stay there with the glasses of funny-smelling stuff the rest of the day and Leisha would not have to see her.

  But that night, she went to her mother’s room.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she told Mamselle. Mamselle said, “Do you need any help?” maybe because Alice still needed help in the bathroom. But Leisha didn’t, and she thanked Mamselle. Then she sat on the toilet for a minute even though nothing came, so that what she had told Mamselle wouldn’t be a lie.

  Leisha tiptoed down the hall. She went first into Alice’s room. A little light in a wall socket burned near the crib. There was no crib in Leisha’s room. Leisha looked at her sister through the bars. Alice lay on her side with her eyes closed. The lids of the eyes fluttered quickly, like curtains blowing in the wind. Alice’s chin and neck looked loose.

  Leisha closed the door very carefully and went to her parents’ room.

  They didn’t sleep in a crib but in a huge enormous bed, with enough room between them for more people. Mommy’s eyelids weren’t fluttering; she lay on her back making a hrrr-hrrr sound through her nose. The funny smell was strong on her. Leisha backed away and tiptoed over to Daddy. He looked like Alice, except that his neck and chin looked even looser, folds of skin collapsed like the tent that had fallen down in the back yard. It scared Leisha to see him like that. Then Daddy’s eyes flew open so suddenly that Leisha screamed.

  Daddy rolled out of bed and picked her up, looking quickly at Mommy. But she didn’t move. Daddy was wearing only his underpants. He carried Leisha out into the hall, where Mamselle came rushing up saying, “Oh, sir, I’m sorry, she just said she was going to the bathroom—”

  “It’s all right,” Daddy said. “I’ll take her with me.”

  “No!” Leisha screamed, because Daddy was only in his underpants and his neck had looked all funny and the room smelled bad because of Mommy. But Daddy carried her into the conservatory, set her down on a bench, wrapped himself in a piece of green plastic that was supposed to cover up plants, and sat down next to her.

  “Now, what happened, Leisha? What were you doing?”

  Leisha didn’t answer.

  “You were looking at people sleeping, weren’t you?” Daddy said, and because his voice was softer Leisha mumbled, “Yes.” She immediately felt better; it felt good not to lie.

  “You were looking at people sleeping because you don’t sleep and you were curious, weren’t you? Like Curious George in your book?”

  “Yes,” Leisha said. “I thought you said you made money in your study all night!”

  Daddy smiled. “Not all night. Some of it. But then I sleep, although not very much.” He took Leisha on his lap. “I don’t need much sleep, so I get a lot more done at night than most people. Different people need different amounts of sleep. And a few, a very few, are like you. You don’t need any.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re special. Better than other people. Before you were born, I had some doctors help make you that way.”

  “Why?”

  “So you could do anything you want to and make manifest your own individuality.”

  Leisha twisted in his arms to stare at him; the words meant nothing. Daddy reached over and touched a single flower growing on a tall potted tree. The flower had thick white petals like the cream he put in coffee, and the center was a light pink.

  “See, Leisha—this tree made this flower. Because it can. Only this tree can make this kind of wonderful flower. That plant hanging up there can’t, and those can’t either. Only this tree. Therefore the most important thing in the world for this tree to do is grow this flower. The flower is the tree’s individuality—that means just it, and nothing else—made manife
st. Nothing else matters.”

  “I don’t understand, Daddy.”

  “You will. Someday.”

  “But I want to understand now,” Leisha said, and Daddy laughed with pure delight and hugged her. The hug felt good, but Leisha still wanted to understand.

  “When you make money, is that your indiv…that thing?”

  “Yes,” Daddy said happily.

  “Then nobody else can make money? Like only that tree can make that flower?”

  “Nobody else can make it just the way I do.”

  “What do you do with the money?”

  “I buy things for you. This house, your dresses, Mamselle to teach you, the car to ride in.”

  “What does the tree do with the flower?”

  “Glories in it,” Daddy said, which made no sense. “Excellence is what counts, Leisha. Excellence supported by individual effort. And that’s all that counts.”

  “I’m cold, Daddy.”

  “Then I better bring you back to Mamselle.”

  Leisha didn’t move. She touched the flower with one finger. “I want to sleep, Daddy.”

  “No, you don’t, sweetheart. Sleep is just lost time, wasted life. It’s a little death.”

  “Alice sleeps.

  “Alice isn’t like you.”

  “Alice isn’t special?”

  “No. You are.”

  “Why didn’t you make Alice special, too?”

  “Alice made herself. I didn’t have a chance to make her special.”

  The whole thing was too hard. Leisha stopped stroking the flower and slipped off Daddy’s lap. He smiled at her. “My little questioner. When you grow up, you’ll find your own excellence, and it will be a new order, a specialness the world hasn’t ever seen before. You might even be like Kenzo Yagai. He made the Yagai generator that powers the world.”

  “Daddy, you look funny wrapped in the flower plastic.” Leisha laughed. Daddy did, too. But then she said, “When I grow up, I’ll make my specialness find a way to make Alice special, too,” and Daddy stopped laughing.