by Greg Bear
“Would I be able to call my parents?”
“They’re not like us/ They’d take you back,” Will replied. “We need to be with our own people/ You’ll grow and learn who you really are.”
Stella felt her stomach knot with confusion and indecision. It was what she had been thinking about in the school. Forming demes was impossible with humans around; they always found ways to interfere. For all she knew, demes were just what children tried on for practice. Soon they would be adults, and what would they do then?
How would they ever find out if humans kept clinging to them?
“It’s time to grow up,” Will said.
“Why, you’re so young,” Mrs. Hayden said dreamily. She was driving straight and steadily, but her voice sounded wrong, and Stella knew they had to do something in concert soon or Mrs. Hayden could go one way or the other.
“I’m only fifteen,” Stella said. Actually, she had not yet had her fifteenth birthday, but she always added in the time her mother had been pregnant with the first-stage embryo.
“There’s supposed to be a man there in his sixties, one of us,” Will said.
“That’s impossible,” Stella said.
“That’s what they say. He’s from the south, from Georgia. Or maybe Russia. They weren’t sure which.”
“Do you know where this place is?”
Will tapped his head. “They showed us a map before the camp was burned.”
“Is it real?”
Will could not answer this. “I think so./ I want it to be real.”
Stella closed her eyes. She could feel the warmth behind her eyelids, the sun passing over her face, the suspended redness, and below that the rising up of all her minds, all the parts of her body that yearned. To be alone with her own kind, making her own way, learning all she needed to learn to survive among people who hated her…
That would be an incredible adventure. That would be worth so much danger.
“It’s all you’ve wanted, I know it,” Will said.
“How do I know you’re not just persuading me?” Her cheeks added unconscious quotes to the emphasis on that word, which sounded so wrong, so lacking in nuance, so human.
“Look inside,” Will said.
“I have,” Stella said, a little wail that brought Mrs. Hayden’s head around.
“I’m fine,” Stella said, arms folded tightly across her chest. The tires squealed as Mrs. Hayden straightened the car out on the road.
Stella gripped the arm of her seat.
“I’m sweating like a bastard,” she told Will with a little giggle.
“So am I,” Will said, and smiled crookedly.
There was one last question. “What about sex?” she asked, so quietly Will did not hear and she had to repeat herself.
“Don’t you know?” Will said. “Humans can rape us, but we don’t rape each other. It just doesn’t work that way.”
“What if it happens anyway, and we don’t know what we’re doing, or how to stay out of trouble?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Will said. “Does anybody? But I know one thing. With us, it doesn’t happen until it’s right. And now it isn’t right.”
That was honest enough. She could feel her independence returning, and all the answers were the same.
She was strong. She was capable. She knew that.
She focused on fever-scenting for Mrs. Hayden.
“Whoo,” Will said, and waved his hand in the air. “You strong, lady.”
“I am woman,/ I am strong,” Stella sang softly, and they giggled together. She leaned forward. “Please, would you take us to California?” she asked Mrs. Hayden.
“We’ll have to stop for gas. I only brought a little money.”
“It’ll be enough,” Will said.
“Do you need the book?” Stella asked him. It was a yellowed, dog-eared, and now thoroughly reduced paperback called Spartacus by Howard Fast.
“Maybe,” Will said. “I really don’t know.”
“Did you learn that in the woods, too?”
Will shook his head. “I made it up myself,” he said. “We have to be smart. They were taking us to Sandia. They wanted to kill us all. We have to think for ourselves.”
37
MARYLAND
The cab dropped off Kaye and Marge Cross at a single-story brick house on a pleasant, slightly weedy street in Randallstown, Maryland. The grass in the front yard stood a foot high and had long since turned straw yellow. A big old Buick Riviera from the last century, covered with rust and half-hearted patches of gray primer, sat up on blocks in the oil-stained driveway.
They walked up the overgrown path to the front porch. Kaye stood on the lower step, unsure where to look or what to expect. Cross punched the doorbell. Somewhere inside the house, electronic chimes played the four opening notes from Beethoven’s Fifth. Kaye stared at a plastic tricycle with big white wheels almost lost in the grass beside the porch.
The woman who opened the door was Laura Bloch, from Senator Gianelli’s office. She smiled at Kaye and Cross. “Delighted you could be here,” she said. “Welcome to the Maryland Advisory Group on National Biological Policy. We’re an ad hoc committee, and this is an exploratory meeting.”
Kaye looked at Cross, lips downturned in dubious surprise.
“You belong here,” Cross told her. “I’m not sure I do.”
“Of course you do, Marge,” Bloch said. “Come on in, both of you.”
They entered and stood in the small foyer opposite the living room, separated by a low wall and a row of turned wooden columns. The inside of the house—brown carpet, cream-colored walls decorated with family pictures, colonial-style maple furniture and a coffee table covered with magazines and a flattop computer—could have been anywhere in the country. Typical middle-class comfort.
In the dining room, seven people sat around a maple table. Kaye was not acquainted with most of them. She did recognize one woman, however, and her face brightened.
Luella Hamilton walked across the living room. They stood apart for a moment, Kaye in her pants suit, Mrs. Hamilton in a long orange and brown caftan. She had put on a lot of weight since she and Kaye had last seen each other, and not much of it from her pregnancy.
“Dear baby Jesus,” Mrs. Hamilton let out with a small, wild-eyed laugh. “We were just on the phone. You were going to stay put. Marge, what is this all about?”
“You know each other?” Cross asked.
“We sure do,” Kaye said. But she did not explain.
“Welcome to the revolution,” Luella said, smiling sweetly. “You know Laura. Come meet the others. Quite a high-toned group we have here.” She introduced Kaye to the three women and four men seated at the table. Most were in their middle years; the youngest, a woman, appeared to be in her thirties. All were dressed in suits or stylish office work clothes. All looked like Washington insiders to Kaye, who had met plenty. She saw gratefully that they were all wearing name tags.
“Most of these folks come from the offices of key senators and representatives, eyes and ears, not necessarily proxies,” Laura Bloch explained. “We won’t connect the dots until later. Ladies and gentlemen, Kaye is both a working scientist and a mommy.”
“You’re the one who discovered SHEVA,” said one of the two gray-haired men. Kaye tried to demur, but Bloch shushed her.
“Take credit where it’s due, Kaye,” Bloch said. “We’re presenting a paper to the president within the week. Marge sent us your conclusions about genomic viruses, along with a lot of other papers. We’re still digesting them. I’m sure there are lots of questions.”
“Wow, I’ll say,” chuckled a middle-aged man named Kendall Burkett. “Worse than homework.”
Kaye remembered Burkett now. They had met at a conference on SHEVA four years ago. He was a fundraiser for legal aid for SHEVA parents.
Luella returned from the kitchen carrying a pitcher of orange juice and a plate of cookies and celery stalks with peanut butter and cream che
ese fillings. “I don’t know why you folks come here,” she told the group. “I’m not much of a cook.”
Bloch put her arms around Luella’s shoulders. They made quite a contrast. Kaye could tell Luella was six months or more along, although it was only slightly apparent on her ample frame.
“Come sit,” said the younger woman. She pointed to an empty chair beside her and smiled. Her name, printed neatly on her tag, was Linda Gale. Kaye knew that name from somewhere.
“It’s our second meeting,” said Burkett. “We’re still getting acquainted.”
“Orange juice okay for you, honey?” Luella asked, and Kaye nodded. Luella filled her glass. Kaye felt overwhelmed. She did not know whether to resent Cross for not warning her in advance, or to just hug her, and then hug Luella. Instead, she walked around the table and settled into the seat beside Gale.
“Linda is assistant to the chief of staff,” Bloch said.
“At the White House? For the president?” Kaye asked, hopeful as a child looking over a Christmas package.
“The president,” Bloch confirmed.
Gale smiled up at Bloch. “Am I famous yet?”
“About time,” Luella said, passing around the plate. Gale demurred, saying she had to keep in fighting trim, but the others snatched the cookies and held out glasses for juice.
“It’s the legacy thing,” Burkett said. “The polls are going fifty-fifty. Net and media are tired of being scaremongers. Marge tells us the scientific community will come out in support of the conclusion that the SHEVA kids won’t produce disease. Do you go along with that?”
In politics, even a fragile certainty could move mountains. “I do,” Kaye said.
“The president is taking advice from all sectors of the community,” Gale said.
“They’ve had years,” Kaye said.
“Linda is on our side, Kaye,” Bloch said softly.
“Won’t be long,” Luella said, and nodded, her eyes both angry and knowing. “Mm hmm. Not long now.”
“Dr. Rafelson, I have a question about your work,” Burkett said. “If I may…”
“First things first,” Bloch interrupted. “Marge knows already, but Kaye, you have to be absolutely clear on this. Everything said in this room is in the strictest confidence. Nobody will divulge anything to anybody outside this room, whether or not the president chooses to act. Understood?”
Kaye nodded, still in a daze.
“Good. We have some papers to sign, and then Kendall can ask his questions.”
Burkett shrugged patiently and chewed on a cookie.
Two phones rang at once—one in the kitchen, which Luella pushed through the swinging door to answer, and Laura Bloch’s cell phone in her purse.
Luella clutched an old-fashioned handset on a long cord. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Where?” Her eyes met Kaye’s. Something crossed between them. Kaye stood and clutched the back of her chair. Her knuckles turned white.
“LaShawna’s with them?” Luella asked. Then, once more, “Oh, my God.” Her face lit up with joy. “We caught a bus in New Mexico!” she cried. “John says they got our children! They have LaShawna, dear Jesus, John has my sweet, sweet girl.”
Laura Bloch finished her call and clacked her phone shut, furious. “The bastards finally did it,” she said.
38
OREGON
“You found them,” a voice said, and Mitch opened his eyes to a haze of faces in the shadows. The migraine was not done with him, but at least he could hear and think.
“The doctor says you’re going to be okay.”
“So glad,” Mitch said groggily. He was lying on an air mattress under a tent. The mattress squeaked beneath his shifting weight.
“One of your migraines?”
That was Eileen.
“Yeah.” He tried to sit up. Eileen gently pushed him down again on the mattress. Someone gave him a sip of water from a plastic cup.
“You should have told us where you were going,” a woman he did not know said disapprovingly.
Eileen interrupted her. “You didn’t know where you were going, did you?” she asked him. “Just what you wanted to find.”
“This whole camp is on the knife edge of anarchy,” the other woman said.
“Shut up, Nancy,” said Eileen’s colleague, what was her name again, Mitch liked her, she seemed smart: something Fitz. Then, it came to him, Connie Fitz, and as if in reward, the pain flowed out of his head like air from a balloon. His skull felt cold. “What did I find?”
“Something,” Fitz said admiringly.
“We’re taking scans now with the handheld,” said Nancy.
“Good,” Mitch said. He took a plastic bottle of water from Eileen and swallowed long and hard. He was as dry as a bone; he must have lain out on the rock and dirt for at least an hour. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“De nada,” Eileen said with a hint of pride.
“It’s a tibia, isn’t it?” Mitch asked.
“It’s more than that,” Eileen said. “We don’t yet know how much more.”
“I found the guys,” he said.
The women would not commit.
“Just be happy you didn’t die out there,” Eileen said.
“It’s not that hot,” Mitch said.
“You were three feet from the bluff,” Eileen said. “You could have fallen.”
“They weathered out,” Mitch mused, and took another swallow of water. “How many are left, I wonder?”
He peered into the blue light of the tent at the three women: Nancy, a tall, striking woman with long black hair and a stern face; Connie Fitz; Eileen.
The tent flap opened and the light assaulted him, bringing back a stab of pain.
“Sorry,” Oliver Merton said. “Just heard about the incident. How’s our boy wonder?”
“Explain it to me,” Merton said.
Mitch sat alone with Oliver under the sun shade. He sipped a beer; Oliver was working away, or pretending to, on his small slate. He had a tracer cap on one finger and typed on empty air. All the archaeologists from the camp, except for two younger women standing guard at the main site, were at the bluff, leaving Mitch grounded, “to recover,” as Eileen put it, but he strongly suspected it was to keep him out of their hair, out of trouble, until it was determined what he had found.
“Explain what?” Mitch asked.
“How you do it. I sense a pattern.”
Mitch covered his eyes with his hands. The sunlight was still dazzling.
“You undergo some sort of psychic revelation, enter a trance state, troop off in search of something you’ve already seen… . Is that it?”
“God, no,” Mitch said, grimacing. “Nothing like that. Was I showboating, Oliver?” he asked, and did not know himself whether he spoke with satisfaction, pride, or real curiosity as to what Merton thought.
Before Merton could answer, Mitch winced at a spike in his thoughts. His neck hair prickled.
Something’s wrong.
“Oh, most definitely,” Merton said with a nod and a sly little grin. “Sherlock Holmes, I presume?”
“Holmes was not psychic. You heard them. They still don’t know what I found.”
“You found a hominid leg bone. All of Eileen’s students, searching for two months around this site, haven’t found so much as a chip.”
“They were making us look bad,” Mitch said. “Men in general.”
“A camp full of angry women digging out a camp full of abandoned women,” Merton said. “Look bad? Right.”
“Have there ever been any men here?”
“Beg your pardon?” Merton asked petulantly.
“Working at the camp. Digging.”
“Besides me, not a one,” Merton admitted, and scowled at the screen on the slate.
“Why is that?” Mitch asked.
“Eileen’s gay, you know,” Merton said. “She and Connie Fitz… very close.”
Mitch thought this over for a few seconds but could not connect it right awa
y with reality, his reality. “You’re kidding.”
Merton tried to cross his heart and hope to die, but got it wrong.
The closest Mitch could come to acknowledging this bit of information was to wonder why Eileen had not introduced her lover to him as such. He said, very slowly, “You could have fooled me.”
That’s not what’s wrong.
“Mr. Daney is amused by it all. He takes quite an anthropological view.”
Mitch pulled back from somewhere, an unpleasant place coming closer. “They’re not all gay, are they?”
“Oh, no. But it is a bit of a crazy coincidence. The others appear to be single, to a woman, and not one has shown any interest in me. Funny, how that slants my view of the world.”
“Yeah,” Mitch said.
“Nancy thinks you’re trying to steal their thunder. They’re sensitive about that.”
“Right.”
“It’s just you and me, until Mr. Daney gets here,” Merton said.
Mitch finished the can of Coors and propped it gently on the wooden arm of the camp chair.
“Shall I crush that for you?” Merton asked with a twinkle. “Just to keep up masculine appearances.”
Mitch did not answer. The camp, the bones, his discovery, suddenly meant nothing. His mind was a blank sheet with vague writing starting to appear, as if scrawled by ghosts. He could not read the writing, but he did not like it.
He jerked, and the can fell off the arm of the chair. It struck the gravel with a hollow rattle. “Jesus,” he said. He had never had a hypnagogic experience before.
“Something wrong?” Merton asked.
“Eileen was right. Maybe I’m still sick.” He pushed up out of the chair. “Can I use your phone?”
“Of course,” Merton said.
“Thanks.” Mitch sidled awkwardly one step to the left, as if about to lose his balance, perhaps his sanity. “How secure is it?”
“Very,” Oliver said, watching him with concern. “Private trunk feed for Mr. Daney.”
