Beggars and Choosers

by Nancy Kress

  “For the sex trade,” Carmela Clemente-Rice said quietly behind me. “Underground genetic embryonic engineering. There’s no way we can undo it, no way we can raise their IQs, which are about 60. All we can do is keep them comfortable, and out of the market they were designed for.”

  I powered my chair out of the room. “You’re not showing me anything I don’t already know about, lady,” I said, more harshly than I intended. The sex slaves made bruised, painful shapes in my mind. “This stuff has been around for years, long before Huevos Verdes existed. Huevos Verdes doesn’t quarrel with the GSEA outlawing it and shutting it down. Nobody sane argues in favor of this kind of genetic engineering.”

  She didn’t answer, just led me down the corridor to another door.

  Four of them this time, in a much larger room, with the same dreamy expressions. These weren’t naked, although their clothes were odd: jacks clumsily hand-sewn to fit around the extra limbs and the deformities. One had eight arms, one four legs, another three pairs of breasts. Judging from its body shape, the extra organs on the fourth must have been internal. Pancreases, or livers, or hearts? Could the genes be programmed to grow extra hearts?

  “For the transplant market,” Carmela said. “But then, you probably already knew about that, too?”

  I had, but didn’t say so.

  “These are luckier,” she continued. “We can remove the extra limbs and return them to normal bodies. In fact, Jessie is scheduled for surgery on Tuesday.”

  I didn’t ask her which one was Jessie. The scotch made nauseous burbles in my stomach.

  In the next room the two people looked normal. Dressed in pajamas, they lay asleep on a bed covered with a pretty chintz spread. Carmela didn’t lower her voice.

  “They’re not sleeping, Mr. Arlen. They’re drugged, heavily, and will be for most of the rest of their lives. When they’re not, they’re in intense and constant pain. It’s caused by a tiny genemod virus designed to stimulate nerve tissue to an unbearable degree. The virus is injected and then replicates in the body—sort of like the Huevos Verdes Cell Cleaner. The pain is excruciating, but there’s no actual tissue damage, so theoretically it could continue for years. Decades. It was designed for the international torture market, and there was supposed to be an antidote to be administered. Or withheld. Unfortunately, the gene engineers working here had gotten only as far as the nanotorturer, not the antidote.”

  One of the drugged pair—I saw now that it was a girl, barely past puberty—stirred uneasily and moaned.

  “Dreaming,” Carmela said briefly. “We don’t know what. We don’t know who she is. Mexican maybe, kidnapped, or sold on the black market.”

  “If you think that the research at Huevos Verdes is anything like—”

  “No, it’s not. We know that. But the—”

  “Everything researched and created from nanotechnology at Huevos Verdes is done with only the pubic benefit in mind. Everything. Like the Cell Cleaner.”

  “I believe that,” Dr. Clemente-Rice said. She kept her voice low and controlled; I could feel the effort that cost her. “The Huevos Verdes applications are completely different. But the basic science, the breakthroughs, are similar. Only Huevos Verdes has gone much further, much faster. But others could close that gap if they had, for instance, the Cell Cleaner to dismantle and study.”

  I stared at the sleeping girl. Her eyelids were puckered. My mother’s eyelids had done that, at the end of her life, when the bone cancer finally got her.

  I said, “I’ve seen enough.”

  “One more, Mr. Arlen. Please. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t so urgent.”

  I turned my chair to study her. She was a series of sharp pale ovals in my mind, with the same clean truthfulness as Maleck and the GSEA agents. Probably they had all been picked for just that quality. Then I suddenly realized who Carmela reminded me of: Leisha Camden. A weird pain shot through me, like a very thin lance.

  I followed her through the last door in the corridor.

  There were no genemod people in this room. Three heavy-duty shields shimmered from floor to ceiling, the kind that can keep out anything not nuclear. Behind them grew tall grass.

  Carmela said softly, “You said that Huevos Verdes works only on genemods and nanotechs that are designed for the public benefit. So was this. It was commissioned by a Third World nation with terrible recurrent famines. The grass blades are edible. Unlike most plants, their cell walls are constructed not of cellulose but of an engineered substance that the human system can convert to monosaccharides. The grass is also amazingly hardy, fast-growing, self-seeding, and efficient in using nutrients from poor soils and water from arid ones. The engineers who developed it estimated that it could furnish six times the food of the most concentrated current farming.”

  “Furnish food,” I repeated, idiotically. “Food…”

  “We planted it in a controlled and shielded ecosphere of fifty ecologically diverse acres,” Carmela continued, her hands jammed into the pockets of her lab coat, “and within three months it had wiped out every other plant in the ecosphere. It’s so well fitted to thrive that it outcompeted everything else. Humans and some mammals can digest it; other animals cannot. The other plant eaters all starved, including so many larval insects that the insect population disappeared. The amphibian, reptile, and bird populations went with them, then the carnivorous mammals. Our computers figure that, given the right wind conditions, this grass would take about eighteen months to be the only thing left on Earth, give or take a few huge trees with extensive root systems that weren’t quite done dying.”

  The grass rustled softly behind its triple shield. I felt something on my shoulders. Carmela’s hands. She turned my chair to face her, then immediately lifted her hands.

  “You see, Mr. Arlen, we don’t think Huevos Verdes is evil. Not at all. We know Ms. Sharifi and her fellow SuperSleepless believe not only in the good of their research but in the good of the rest of us. We know she believes in the United States, as defined in the Constitution, as the best possible political arrangement in an imperfect world. Just as Leisha Camden did before her. I’ve always been a great admirer of Ms. Camden. But the Constitution works because it has so many checks and balances to restrain power.”

  She licked her lips. The gesture wasn’t sexual; she was in such deadly earnest that I could feel her whole body dry and tense with strain.

  “Checks and balances to restrain power. Yes. But there are no checks on Huevos Verdes. No restraints. No balances, because the rest of us simply can’t do what SuperSleepless can do. Unless they do it first. Then some of us could copy some of the tech, maybe, and adapt it. Some of us like the people who worked here.”

  I said nothing. The deadly, food-rich grass rustled.

  “I can’t tell what you’re thinking, Mr. Arlen. And I can’t tell you what to think. But I—we—just wanted you to see all sides of the situation, with the hope you’ll think about what you’ve seen, and talk about it with Huevos Verdes. That’s all. The agents will take you back to Seattle now.”

  I said, “What will happen to this grass?”

  “We’ll destroy it with radiation. Tomorrow. Not so much as a strand of DNA will be left, and none of the records, either. It only existed this long so we could show it to Ms. Sharifi, or, failing that, to you.”

  She led me back to the elevator, and I watched her body, taut with unhappiness and hope, walk gracefully between the narrow white walls.

  Just before the elevator door opened I said to her, or maybe to all three of them, “You can’t stop technological progress. You can slow it down, but it always comes anyway.”

  Carmela Clemente-Rice said, “Only two nuclear bombs have ever been dropped on Earth as an act of wartime aggression. The science was there, but the applications were left unused. By cooperation or restraint or fear or force—the applications were stopped.” She held out her hand. It was damp and clammy, but something electric ran from her touch to mine. The navy-blue eyes beseeche
d me.

  Just as if I held actual power over what Huevos Verdes did.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Arlen.”

  “Good-bye, Dr. Clemente-Rice.”

  The agents, good as their word, returned me to my hotel room in Seattle. I sat down to wait to see who would arrive from Huevos Verdes, and how long it would take.

  It was Jonathan Markowitz, at five in the morning. I’d had three hours’ sleep. Jonathan was perfect. His tone was civil and interested. He asked about everything I’d seen, and I described everything to him. He asked a lot of other questions: Did I experience any temperature changes, no matter how slight, at any point in the corridor? Did I ever smell anything like cinnamon? Did the light have a greenish tinge? Did anyone ever touch me? He didn’t argue against anything Carmela Rice-Clemente had told me. He treated me like a member of the team whose loyalty was unquestioned, but who might have been tampered with in ways I couldn’t understand. He was perfect.

  And all the while I could feel the shapes he made in my mind, and the picture: a man lifting heavy rocks, the rocks mindless and sullen gray.

  As Jonathan left, I said brutally, “They should have sent Nick. Not you. Nick doesn’t bother to hide it.”

  Jonathan looked at me steadily. For a minute he said nothing, and I wondered what impossibly complex and subtle strings formed in that Super brain. Then he smiled wearily. “I know. But Nick was busy.”

  “When can I see Miranda? Has she left Washington yet for East Oleanta?”

  “I don’t know, Drew,” he said, and the shapes in my mind exploded, spattering the lattice with red.

  “You don’t know if she’s left, or you don’t know when I can see her? Why not, Jon? Because I’m tainted now? Because you don’t know what Carmela Rice-Clemente might have done to me when she put her palms on my shoulders, or when I shook her hand? Or because you can’t control what I’m really thinking about the project?”

  Jonathan said quietly, “It was my impression you’d accepted not seeing Miri. Without too much regret.”

  That stopped me.

  Jonathan went on, “You have an important role, Drew. We need you. We don’t…The computer projects a steeply rising curve in the general social breakdown, due to the unexpected duragem situation. We have to accelerate the project. Kevorkel’s equations. Mitochondrial regression. DiLazial urban engineering.”

  And that was how my anger ended. In a bunch of words from SuperSleepless shorthand. I didn’t understand the words, and didn’t understand how they went together, and didn’t understand why I was being told them. I couldn’t answer, and so I stood there, mute and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, while Jonathan quietly left.

  Did he say words from his string because he thought they were so basic that even the Liver Sleeper Drew, him, would understand? Or did they just slip out because Jonathan was upset, too? Or did he say them because he knew I wouldn’t understand, and what better way to put me in my place?

  I’m going to own Sanctuary, me, someday.

  You! A stupid bayou rat! Whap.

  I had to sleep. My concert was in less than five hours. I rolled into bed, still in my clothes, and tried to sleep.

  On the way to the Seattle KingDome, the aircar broke down.

  We had left the enclave and were above the Liver city, which from the air looked like a lot of small Liver towns, organized in blocks around cafés and warehouses and lodge buildings. The Senator Gilbert Tory Bridewell KingDome was twenty years old; somebody had told me it was named for some historical site. It sat well outside the enclave, of course, a huge foamcast hemisphere with a shielded landing pad that now we might not reach.

  The car bucked, back to front, and listed to the left. An ocean liner rolling, a toxic dump swelling in sickly pink bubbles. My stomach rose.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” the driver said, and began punching in override codes. I didn’t know how much he could actually do; aircars are robomachinery. But maybe he did know about it. He was a donkey.

  The car rolled, and I fell against the left door. My powerchair, folded into traveling size, slammed against me. The car gave a little buck and I thought I’m going to die.

  Warm blood-red shapes filled my mind. And the lattice disappeared.

  “Christ Christ Christ,” the driver said, punching frantically. The car bucked again, then righted. I closed my eyes. The lattice in my mind disappeared. It wasn’t there.

  “Okay okay okay,” the driver said in a different voice, and the car limped down onto the landing pad.

  We sat there, safe, while figures rushed toward us from the KingDome. And the lattice reappeared in my mind. It had disappeared when I thought I was going to die, and now it was back, still closed tightly around whatever was hidden inside.

  “It’s the lousy gravunits,” the driver said, in the same pleading voice he’d said okay okay okay. He twisted in his seat to look directly into my eyes. “They cut costs on materials. They cut costs on robotesting. They cut costs on maintenance because those lousy robounits break. The whole franchise’s going under. Two crashes in California last week, and the newsgrids paid to keep them quiet. I’m never riding in one of these things again. You hear me? Never again.” All said in the same low, pleading voice.

  In my mind he was a crouching, black, squashed shape in front of the purple lattice.

  “Mr. Arlen!” a woman cried, throwing open the aircar door. “Are y’all okay in there?” Her Southern accent was thick. Sallie Edith Gardiner, freshman congresswoman from Washington State, who was paying for this concert for her Liver constituents. Why did a congresswoman from Washington State sound like Mississippi?

  “Fine,” I said. “No damage.”

  “Well, it’s just shockin’, is what it is. Has it really come to that? That we can’t even make a decent aircar any more? Do you want to postpone the concert a bit?”

  “No, no, I’m fine,” I said. The accent wasn’t Mississippi after all; it was fake Mississippi. She was all flaking gilded hoops in my mind. I thought suddenly of Carmela Clemente-Rice, clean pale ovals.

  Why had the lattice in my mind disappeared when I thought I was going to die?

  “Well, the truth is, Mr. Arlen,” Congresswoman Gardiner said, chewing on her perfect bottom lip, “a tiny delay for you might be a good idea anyway. There’s a little problem with the gravrail comin’ in from South Seattle. And just a tiny problem with the security ’bot system. We have techs workin’ on it now, naturally. So if you come this way we’ll go to a place you can wait…”

  “My system was installed onstage yesterday,” I said, “if you can’t guarantee security for it—”

  “Oh, of course we can!” she cried, and I saw she was lying. The aircar driver climbed out and leaned against the car, muttering under his breath. His prayerful pleading had finally turned to anger. I caught falling apart and fucking societal breakdown and can’t support so many fucking people before Congresswoman Gardiner threw him a look that would rot plastisynth. She hadn’t asked if he was hurt. He was a tech.

  “Your wonderful equipment will be just fine,” Congresswoman Gardiner said. Fahn. “And we’re all lookin’ forward so much to your performance. You come this way, please.”

  I powered my chair after her. She wouldn’t watch the performance. She’d leave after she introduced me and the grid cameras had their fill of her. Donkeys always left then.

  But it didn’t happen that way.

  I sat in my chair in an anteroom of the KingDome for two hours. I might have slept. People came and went, all telling me everything was fine. The lattice in my mind snaked in long slow undulations. Finally the congresswoman came in.

  “Mr. Arlen, I’m afraid we have an unpleasant complication. There’s been a just terrible accident.”

  “An accident?”

  “A gravrail crashed comin’ from Portland. There are…a number of Livers dead. The crowd heard about it, and they’re upset. Naturally.” Natchally. Her voice sounded upset, but her eyes were resentful. The first big event
she’d sponsored since her election, and a lot of inconsiderate Livers had to go die and ruin it. An unpleasant complication. I would have bet a quarter million credits against her reelection.

  “We’re goin’ to go ahead with the concert anyway, unless you object. I’m goin’ to introduce you in about five minutes.”

  “Try drawing out your vowels slightly less,” I said. “It would be at least a little more authentic.”

  I had underestimated her. Her smile didn’t waver. “Then five minutes is all right with you?”

  “Whatever you say.” The lattice in my head was shaking now, as if in a high wind.

  They had built a floating gravplatform at one end of the arena, with a wide catwalk to the upper room where I waited. The gravtrain had crashed; the aircar had faltered. I knew that gravdevices didn’t really manipulate gravity, but magnetism; I didn’t understand how. What were the odds of three magnetic devices failing me in an evening? Jonathan Markowitz would know, to the twentieth decimal.

  “—one of the premier artists of our times—” Congresswoman Gardiner broadcast from the stage. Tahms.

  Of course, it might not have been the gravunit itself that failed in the train. A gravrail might have hundreds of different moving parts, thousands, for all I knew. What were they all made of?

  “—with deep gratitude for the opportunity to bring y’all the Lucid Dreamer, I—”

  I. I. I. The donkeys’ favorite word. In Huevos Verdes, at least they said we. And meant more than just the SuperSleepless.

  Pale green grass rippled in front of the purple lattice. Grew over it, through it, around it. Took it over. Took over the world.

  I clasped my hands hard in front of me. I had to perform in two minutes. I had to control the images in my mind. I was the Lucid Dreamer.

  “—understandably grieved about the tragedy, but grief is one of the emotions the Lucid Dreamer—”

  “What the fuck do you know about grief, you?” someone unseen screamed, so loud I jumped. Somebody in the audience had a voice magnifier as powerful as my own sound system. From where I sat I couldn’t see the audience, only Congresswoman Gardiner. But I heard a low rumble, almost like the Delta in flood.