Darwin's Children

by Greg Bear

“Mixed species band? Does that fit anything in your experience with the higher apes?”

  Mitch had to admit it did not. Baboons and chimps played together when they were young, but adult chimps ate baby baboons and monkeys when they could catch them. “Culture matters more than skin color,” he said.

  “But this gap . . . I just don't see it being bridgeable. It's too huge.”

  “Maybe we're tainted by recent history. Where were you born, Eileen?”

  “Savannah, Georgia. You know that.”

  “Kaye and I lived in Virginia.” Mitch let the thought hang there for a moment, trying to find a delicate way to phrase it.

  “Plantation propaganda from my slave-owner ancestors, my thrice-great grandpappy, has tainted the entire last three hundred years. Is that what you're suggesting?” Eileen asked, lips curling in a duelist's smile, savoring a swift and jabbing return. “What a goddamned Yankee thing to say.”

  “We know so little about what we're capable of,” Mitch continued. “We are creatures of culture. There are other ways to think of this ensemble. If they weren't equals, at least they worked together, respected each other. Maybe they smelled right to each other.”

  “It's becoming personal, isn't it, Mitch? Looking for a way to turn this into a real example. Merton's political bombshell.”

  Mitch agreed to that possibility with a sly wink and a nod.

  Eileen shook her head. “Women have always hung together,” she said. “Men have always been a sometime thing.”

  “Wait till we find the men,” Mitch said, starting to feel defensive.

  “What makes you think they stuck around?”

  Mitch stared grimly at the plastic roof.

  “Even if there were men nearby,” she said, “what makes you think we'll be lucky enough to find them?”

  “Nothing,” he said, and felt hazily that this was a lie.

  Eileen finished her sandwich and drank half her can of Coors to chase it down. She had never liked eating very much and did it only to keep body and soul together. She was hungry and deliberate in bed, however. Orgasms allowed her to think more clearly, she had once confessed. Mitch remembered those times well enough, though they had not slept together since he had been twenty-three years old.

  Eileen had called her seduction of the young anthropology grad student her biggest mistake. But they had stayed friends and colleagues all these years, capable of a loose and honest interaction that had no pretense of sexual expectation or disappointment. A remarkable friendship.

  The wind rattled the roof again. Mitch listened to the hiss of the Coleman lantern.

  “What happened between you and Kaye, after you got out of prison?” Eileen asked.

  “I don't know,” Mitch said, his jaw tightening. Her asking was a weird kind of betrayal, and she could sense his sudden burn.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “I'm prickly about it,” he acknowledged. He felt a waft of air behind him before he saw the woman's shadow. Connie Fitz stepped lightly over the hard-packed dirt and stood beside Eileen, resting a hand on her shoulder.

  “Our little stew pot is about to boil over,” Fitz said. “I think we can hold the lid down for another two or three days, max. The zealots want to issue a press release. The hardliners want to keep it covered up.”

  Eileen looked at Mitch with a crinkled lower lip. All that was outside her control, her expression said. “Enslaved women abandoned in camp by cowardly males,” she resumed, getting back to the main topic, her eyes bright in the Coleman's pearly light.

  “Do you really believe that?” Mitch asked.

  “Oh, come on, Mitch. I don't know what to believe.”

  Mitch's stomach worked over the meal with no conviction. “You should at least tell the students that they need to expand the perimeter,” he said. “There could very well be other bodies around, maybe within a few hundred yards.”

  Fitz made a provisional moue of interest. “We've talked about it. But everybody wants a piece of the main dig, so nobody was enthusiastic about fanning out,” she said.

  “You feel something?” Eileen asked Mitch. She leaned forward, her voice going mock-sepulchral. “Can you read these bones?”

  Fitz laughed.

  “Just a hunch,” Mitch said, wincing. Then, more quietly, “Probably not a very good one.”

  “Will Daney continue to pay if we dawdle and poke around a couple of more days?” Fitz asked.

  “Merton thinks he's patient and he'll pay plenty,” Eileen said. “He knows Daney better than any of us.”

  “This could become every bit as bad as archaeology in Israel,” said Fitz, a natural pessimist. “Every site loaded with political implications. Do you think Emergency Action will come in and shut us down, using NAGPRA as an excuse?”

  Mitch pondered, slow deliberation being about all he was capable of this late, this worn down by the day. “I don't think they're that crazy,” he said. “But the whole world's a tinderbox.”

  “Maybe we should toss in a match,” Eileen said.

  26

  BALTIMORE

  Kaye woke to the sound of the bedside phone dweedling, sat straight up in bed, pulled her hair away from her face, and peered through sleep-fogged eyes at the edge of daylight slicing between the shutters. The clock said 5:07 a.m. She could not think who could be calling her at this hour.

  Today was not going to be a good day, she knew that already, but she picked up the phone and plumped the pillow behind her into a cushion. “Hello.”

  “I need to speak with Kaye Lang.”

  “That's me,” she said sleepily.

  “Kaye, this is Luella Hamilton. You got in touch with us a little while ago.”

  Kaye felt her adrenaline surge. Kaye had met Luella Hamilton fifteen years ago, when she had been a volunteer subject in a SHEVA study at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Kaye had taken a liking to the woman, but had not heard from her since driving west with Mitch to Washington state. “Luella? I don't remember . . .”

  “Well, you did.”

  Suddenly Kaye held the phone close. She had heard something about the Hamiltons being connected to Up River. It was reputed to be a very choosy organization. Some claimed it was subversive. She had forgotten all about her letter; that had been the worst time for her, and she had reached out to anyone, even the extremists who claimed they could track and rescue children.

  “Luella? I didn't—”

  “Well, since I knew you, they told me to make the return call. Is that okay?”

  She tried to clear her head. “It's good to hear your voice. How are you?”

  “I'm expecting, Kaye. You?”

  “No,” Kaye said. Luella had to be in her middle fifties. Talk about rolling the dice.

  “It's SHEVA again, Kaye,” Luella said. “But no time to chat. So listen close. You there, Kaye?”

  “I hear you.”

  “I want you to get to a scrambled line and call us again. A good scrambled line. You still have the number?”

  “Yes,” Kaye said, wondering if it was in her wallet.

  “You'll get a cute mechanical voice. Our little robot. Leave your number and we might call you back. Then, we'll go from there. All right, honey?”

  Kaye smiled despite the tension. “Yes, Luella. Thank you.”

  “Sorry to ring so early. Good-bye, dear.”

  The phone went dead. Kaye immediately swung her legs out of bed and walked into the kitchen to fix coffee. Thought about trying to reach Mitch and tell him.

  But it was too early, and probably not a good idea to spread such news around when any phone call was risky.

  She stood by the window looking out over Baltimore and thought about Stella in Arizona, wondering how she was doing, and how long it would be until she saw her again.

  Something snapped and she heard herself making little growls, like a fox. For a moment, clutching the coffee cup in her trembling hand, Kaye felt a blind, helpless rage. “Give me back my daughter, you FUCKH
EADS,” she rasped. Then she dropped back into the nearest chair, shaking so hard the coffee spilled. She set the cup on a side table and wrapped herself in her arms. With the thick terry sleeve of her robe, she wiped tears of helplessness from her eyes. “Calm down, dear,” she said, trying to copy Mrs. Hamilton's strong contralto.

  It was not going to be an easy day. Kaye strongly suspected she was going to be put at liberty. Fired. Ending her life as a scientist forever, but opening up her options so she could go get her daughter and reunite her family.

  “Dreamer,” she said, with none of the conviction of Luella Hamilton.

  27

  ARIZONA

  They pumped a thick strawberry smell into the dorm at eight in the morning. Stella opened her eyes and pinched her nose, moaning.

  “What now?” Celia asked in the bunk below.

  The humans did that whenever they wanted to do something the children might object to. Shots, mass blood samples, medical exams, dorm checks for contraband.

  Next came a wave of Pine-Sol, blowing in through the vent pipes slung under the frame roof. The smell came in through Stella's mouth when she breathed, making her gag.

  She sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, her stomach twisting and her chest heaving. Three men in isolation suits walked down the center aisle of the dormitory. One of the men, she saw, was not a man; it was Joanie, shorter and stockier than the others, her blank face peering through the plastic faceplate of the floppy helmet.

  Joanie reminded Stella of Fred Trinket's mother; she had that same calm, fated expectancy of everything and anything, with no emotional freight attached.

  The suited trio stopped by a bed four down from Stella's. The girl in the top bunk, Julianne Nicorelli, not a member of Stella's deme, climbed down at a few soft words from Joanie. She looked apprehensive but not scared, not yet. Sometimes the counselors and teachers ran drills in the camp, odd drills, and the kids were never told what they were up to.

  Joanie turned and walked deliberately toward Stella's bunk. Stella slid down quickly, not using the ladder, and flattened her nightgown where it had ridden up above her knees. She hid her chest with her hands; the fabric was a little sheer, and she didn't like the way the men were looking at her.

  “You, too, Stella,” Joanie said, her voice hollow and hissy behind the helmet. “We're going on a trip.”

  “How many?” Celia asked.

  Joanie smiled humorlessly. “Special trip. Reward for good grades and good behavior. The rest get to eat breakfast early.”

  This was a lie. Julianne Nicorelli got terrible grades, not that anyone cared.

  28

  BALTIMORE

  “Heads up. Marge will be here in twenty minutes,” Liz Cantrera said. “Ready?”

  “Ready as I'll ever be,” Kaye said, and took a deep breath. She looked around the lab to see if there was anything that could be put away or cleaned up. Not that it mattered. It was her last day.

  “You look fine,” Liz said sadly, straightening Kaye's lapels.

  Marge Cross understood the messy bedrooms of science. And Kaye doubted that she wanted to check up on their housekeeping.

  Around Kaye, Cross was almost always cheerful. She seemed to like Kaye and to trust her as much as she trusted anybody. Today, however, Cross was saying little, tapping her lip with her finger and nodding. She lifted her head to peer at the pipes hanging from the ceiling. She seemed to study a series of red tags hanging from various pressurized lines.

  Only three people accompanied Cross. Two handsome young men in charcoal gray suits made notes on e-tabs. A slender young woman with long, thin blonde hair and a short, upturned nose took photos with a pen-sized camera.

  Liz kept to the background, conspicuously allowing Kaye the point position. She gave them all a brief tour, well aware they were taking inventory in preparation for a transfer or a shutdown.

  “We've lost,” Cross said. “Everything this company has been charged to do by the government and by the people has turned into a can of worms,” she added quietly, and chewed her lower lip. “I hear you did a good job on the Hill this week.” Cross regarded Kaye with a faint smile.

  “It went okay.” Kaye shifted her eyes to one side and shrugged. “Rachel Browning tried to pull down my shorts.”

  “Did she succeed?” Cross asked.

  “Got them down to my curlies,” Kaye said.

  The young men looked ready to appear shocked, should Cross be. Cross laughed. “Jesus, Kaye. I never know what I'm going to hear from you. You drive my PR folks nuts.”

  “That's why I try to keep my head down and stay quiet.”

  “We're not learning how to stop SHEVA,” Cross said reflectively, still examining the ceiling pipes.

  “That's true,” Kaye said.

  “You're glad.”

  Once again, Kaye felt it was not her place to answer, that she had responsibilities to others besides herself.

  “La Robert is failing, too, but he won't admit it,” Cross said. She waved her hands at the others in the lab. “Time to go, kiddies. Leave us sacred monsters alone for a while.”

  The young men filed through the door. The slender blond tried to remind Cross of appointments later in the morning.

  “Cancel them,” Cross instructed her.

  Liz had stayed behind, solicitous of Kaye. The way she twitched, Kaye thought her assistant might try to physically intervene to protect her.

  Cross smiled warmly at Liz. “Honey, can you add anything to our duet?”

  “Not a thing,” Liz admitted. “Should I go?” she asked Kaye.

  Kaye nodded.

  Liz picked up her coat and purse and followed the blond through the door.

  “Let's take the express to the top floor,” Cross suggested pleasantly, and put her arm around Kaye's shoulder. “It's been far too long since we put our heads together. I want you to explain what happened. What you thought you'd find in radiology.”

  The Americol boardroom on the twentieth floor was huge and extravagant, with a long table cut lengthwise from an oak trunk, handmade William Morris–style chairs that seemed to float on their slender legs, and walls covered with early twentieth-century illustrative art.

  Cross told the room what to do and two of the walls folded up, revealing electronic whiteboards. Sections of the table rose up like toy soldiers, thin personal monitors.

  “If I were starting over again,” Cross said, “I'd turn this into a kindergarten classroom. Little chairs and wagons with little cartons of milk. That's how ignorant we are. But . . . We do cling to our beauty and wealth. We like to feel we are in control and always will be.”

  Kaye listened attentively, but did not respond.

  Cross pushed another button and the whiteboards replayed long strings of scrawled notes. Kaye guessed these were a frozen record of several late-night and early-morning pacing sessions, Cross alone up here in the heights, wielding her little pen wand, moving along the boards like a sorcerous queen scattering spells on the walls of her castle.

  Kaye could decipher very few of the scrawls. Cross's handwriting was notorious.

  “Nobody's seen this,” Cross murmured. “It's hard to read, isn't it?” she asked Kaye. “I used to have perfect penmanship.” She held up her swollen knuckles.

  Kaye wondered where Cross intended to go with this. Was it all some devious way of letting her go gracefully, with a hearty handshake?

  “The secret of life,” Cross said, “lies in understanding how little things talk to each other. Correct?”

  “Yes,” Kaye said.

  “And you've maintained, from before the beginnings of SHEVA, that viruses are part of the arsenal of communications our cells and bodies use to talk.”

  “That's why you brought me to Americol.”

  Cross dismissed that with a slight frown and a lift of one shoulder. “So you turned yourself into a laboratory to prove a point, and gave birth to a SHEVA child. Gutsy, and more than a little stupid.”

  Kaye c
lenched her jaw.

  Cross knew she had touched an exposed nerve. “I think the Jackson clique is right on the money. Experience biases you in favor of believing SHEVA is benign, a natural phenomenon that we'll just have to knuckle under and accept. Don't fight it. It's bigger than all of us.”

  “I'm fond of my daughter,” Kaye said stiffly.

  “I don't doubt it. Hear me out. I'm going somewhere with this, but I don't know where just yet.” Cross paced along the whiteboards, arms folded, tapping one elbow with the remote. “My companies are my children. That's a cliché, but it's true, Kaye. I am as stupid and gutsy as you were. I have turned my companies into an experiment in politics and human history. We're very much alike, except I had neither the opportunity—nor, frankly, the inclination—to put my body on the line. Now, we both stand to lose what we love most.”

  Cross turned and flicked the whiteboards clean with the press of a button. Her face curled in disgust. “It's all shit. This room is a waste of money. You can't help but think that whoever built all this knew what they were doing, had all the answers. It's an architectural lie. I hate this room. Everything I just erased was drivel. Let's go somewhere else.” Cross was visibly angry.

  Kaye folded her hands cautiously. She had no idea what was going to happen, not now. “All right,” she said. “Where?”

  “No limos. Let's lose the luxuries for a few hours. Let's get back to little chairs and cookies and cartons of milk.” Cross smiled wickedly, revealing strong, even, but speckled teeth. “Let's get the hell out of this building.”

  A gray, drizzly light greeted them as they pushed through the glass doors to the street. Cross hailed a cab.

  “Your cheeks are pinking,” she told Kaye as they climbed into the backseat. “Like they want to say something.”

  “That still happens,” Kaye admitted with some embarrassment.

  Cross gave the driver an address Kaye did not recognize. The gray-haired man, a Sikh wearing a white turban, looked over his shoulder.

  “I will need card in advance,” he said.

  Cross reached for her belt pouch.