The Best of Nancy Kress
Page 65
She stood a long time in the dark phone kiosk. Then she walked to the truck. Alice was asleep, her head thrown back against the seat. A tiny line of drool ran down her chin. Her face was white and drained in the bad light from the kiosk. Leisha walked back to the phone.
“Stewart? Stewart Sutter?”
“Yes?”
“This is Leisha Camden. Something has happened.” She told the story tersely, in bald sentences. Stewart did not interrupt.
“Leisha—” Stewart said, and stopped.
“I need help, Stewart.” ‘I’ll help you, Alice.’ ‘I don’t need your help.’
A wind whistled over the dark field beside the kiosk and Leisha shivered. She heard in the wind the thin keen of a beggar. In the wind, in her own voice.
“All right,” Stewart said, “this is what we’ll do. I have a cousin in Ripley, New York, just over the state line from Pennsylvania, the route you’ll be driving east. It has to be in New York; I’m licensed in New York. Take the little girl there. I’ll call my cousin and tell her you’re coming. She’s an elderly woman, was quite an activist in her youth. Her name is Janet Patterson. The town is—”
“What makes you so sure she’ll get involved? She could go to jail. And so could you.”
“She’s been in jail so many times you wouldn’t believe it. Political protests going all the way back to Vietnam. But no one’s going to jail. I’m now your attorney of record, I’m privileged. I’m going to get Stella declared a ward of the state. That shouldn’t be too hard with the hospital records you established in Skokie. Then she can be transferred to a foster home in New York. I know just the place, people who are fair and kind. Then Alice—”
“Stella’s resident in Illinois. You can’t—”
“Yes, I can. Since those research findings about the Sleepless lifespan have come out, legislators have been railroaded by stupid constituents scared or jealous or just plain angry. The result is a body of so-called law riddled with contradictions, absurdities, and loopholes. None of it will stand in the long run or at least I hope not—but in the meantime it can all be exploited. I can use it to create the most goddamn convoluted case for Stella that anybody ever saw, and in the meantime she won’t be returned home. But that won’t work for Alice. She’ll need an attorney licensed in Illinois.”
“We have one,” Leisha said. “Candace Holt.”
“No, not a Sleepless. Trust me on this, Leisha. I’ll find somebody good. There’s a guy in—are you crying?”
“No,” Leisha said, crying.
“Ah, God,” Stewart said. “Bastards. I’m sorry all this happened, Leisha.”
“Don’t be,” Leisha said.
When she had directions to Stewart’s cousin, she walked back to the truck. Alice was still asleep, Stella still unconscious. Leisha closed the truck door as quietly as possible. The engine balked and roared, but Alice didn’t wake.
There was a crowd of people with them in the narrow and darkened cab: Stewart Sutter, Tony Indivino, Susan Melling, Kenzo Yagai, Roger Camden.
To Stewart Sutter she said: You called to inform me about the situation at Morehouse, Kennedy. You are risking your career and your cousin for Stella. And you stand to gain nothing. Like Susan telling me in advance about Bernie Kuhn’s brain. Susan, who lost her life to Daddy’s dream and regained it by her own strength. A contract without consideration for each side is not a contract: Every first-year student knows that.
To Kenzo Yagai she said: Trade isn’t always linear. You missed that. If Stewart gives me something, and I give Stella something, and ten years from now Stella is a different person because of that and gives something to someone else as yet unknown—it’s an ecology. An ecology of trade, yes, each niche needed, even if they’re not contractually bound. Does a horse need a fish? Yes.
To Tony she said: Yes, there are beggars in Spain who trade nothing, give nothing, do nothing. But there are more than beggars in Spain. Withdraw from the beggars, you withdraw from the whole damn country. And you withdraw from the possibility of the ecology of help. That’s what Alice wanted, all those years ago in her bedroom. Pregnant, scared, angry, jealous, she wanted to help me, and I wouldn’t let her because I didn’t need it. But I do now. And she did then. Beggars need to help as well as be helped.
And finally, there was only Daddy left. She could see him, bright-eyed, holding thick-leaved exotic flowers in his strong hands. To Camden she said: You were wrong. Alice is special. Oh, Daddy—the specialness of Alice! You were wrong.
As soon as she thought this, lightness filled her. Not the buoyant bubble of joy, not the hard clarity of examination, but something else: sunshine, soft through the conservatory glass, where two children ran in and out. She suddenly felt light herself, not buoyant but translucent, a medium for the sunshine to pass clear through, on its way to somewhere else.
She drove the sleeping woman and the wounded child through the night, east, toward the state line.
Afterword to “Beggars in Spain”
This novella and the novel that grew from it are my most commercially successful pieces. The idea for the Sleepless originated in envy (I need a lot of sleep, and resent that) and took a long time to turn into a story: thirteen years. My first attempt at people who did not need to sleep was rejected by every editor in the field. Robert Silverberg, who had changed editorial hats during the story’s long submission period, rejected it twice (“I didn’t like this the first time, and I still don’t”). I retired the piece.
Eight years later, I tried again. This time even I could see that the story was bad. I never sent it out.
Five years after that I received a very stern lecture from Bruce Sterling about the need to include realistic economics in my fiction. The lecture resulted from a novelette without realistic economics, which I’d unwisely subjected to his scrutiny at a workshop. After licking my wounds, I decided that Bruce was right, and wrote “Beggars in Spain.” It won both the Nebula and the Hugo. Thank you, Bruce.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
“And Wild For to Hold” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1991, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July, 1991
“Out of All Them Bright Stars” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1985, first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, March, 1985
“Pathways” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2013, first appeared in Twelve Tomorrows, ed. Stephen Cass, M.I.T. Tech Review, October, 2013
“Dancing on Air” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1993, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, July, 1993
“Unto the Daughters” Copyright © Nancy Kress, first appeared in Sisters in Fantasy, ed. Susan Shwartz and Martin H. Greenberg, Roc/New American Library, 1995
“Laws of Survival” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2007, first appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, December, 2007
“Someone To Watch Over Me” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2014, first appeared in Ieee Spectrum, June, 2014
“The Flowers of Aulit Prison” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1996, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, October/November, 1996
“The Price of Oranges” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1989, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April, 1989
“By Fools Like Me” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2007, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, September, 2007
“Casey’s Empire” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1981, first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, November, 1981
“Shiva in Shadow” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2004, first appeared in Between Worlds, ed. Robert Silverberg, Science Fiction Book Club, 2004
“Grant Us This Day” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1993, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, September, 1993
“The Kindness of Strangers” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2008, first appeared in Fast Forward 2, ed. Lou Anders, Pyr, 2008
“End Game” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2007 first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April-
May, 2007
“My Mother, Dancing” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 2004, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, June, 2004
“Trinity” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1984, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, October, 1984
“People Like Us” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1989, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, September, 1989
“Evolution” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1995, first appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, October, 1995
“Margin of Error” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1994, first appeared in Omni, October, 1994
“Beggars in Spain” Copyright © Nancy Kress, 1991, first appeared simultaneously in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, April, 1991 and from Axolotl Press, 1991
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
AND WILD FOR TO HOLD
OUT OF All THEM BRIGHT STARS
PATHWAYS
DANCING ON AIR
UNTO THE DAUGHTERS
LAWS OF SURVIVAL
SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME
THE FLOWERS OF AULIT PRISON
THE PRICE OF ORANGES
BY FOOLS LIKE ME
CASEY'S EMPIRE
SHIVA IN SHADOW
GRANT US THIS DAY
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
END GAME
MY MOTHER, DANCING
TRINITY
PEOPLE LIKE US
EVOLUTION
MARGIN OF ERROR
BEGGARS IN SPAIN
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION