She looked around at the faces of the other children. They all understood. They were not children, not even the eleven-year-olds, not even in the sense Miri had been a child at eleven. Each new genemod had opened the potential to more pathways in the brain. Each new genetic modification had expanded use of those cortical structures once only available in times of intense stress or intense insight. Each new modification had created more differences from the adult Norms who fashioned them. These Supers—especially the youngest—were children of the Normals only in the grossest biological sense.
And she, Miri herself, how much was she the child of Hermione Wells Keller, who could not bear to even look at her? The daughter of Richard Anthony Keller, whose intelligence was in defeated thrall to his mother? The granddaughter of Jennifer Fatima Sharifi, who had killed Tony for a community that was defined only as she chose to define it?
Christina said softly, “M-M-M-M-Miri, eat.”
Nikos said, “W-w-w-w-we m-m-m-m-m-m-must n-not l-l-llet them d-d-d-d-do it ag-g-gain.”
Allen said, “W-we c-c-c-c-c-c-” He jerked his shoulders in frustration. Speech had always been harder for Allen than even for the rest of them; sometimes he didn’t talk for days. He pushed Miri from the console, called up his own string program, keyed rapidly, and converted the result to Miri’s program. When he was done she saw, in beautifully ordered and composed strings, that if the Supers made blanket assumptions about Norms, they would be as ethically wrong as the Sanctuary Council. That each person, Super and Normal, would have to be judged as an individual, and that this might have to be carefully balanced with the need for security. They could already ensure complete, covert control of the Sanctuary systems, if necessary for their own defense, but they could not ensure complete control of the Norms they included in their defenses against never letting another Super be killed by the Council. It was a risk, to be balanced by the moral dilemma of becoming that which they were condemning in the Council. The moral factors glinted and dragged throughout Allen’s strings; they were unquestioned assumptions in Nikos’s.
Miri studied the projection, the strings in her own mind knotting and forming faster than they had ever done in her life. She didn’t feel moral; she felt hatred for everyone who had killed Tony. And yet she saw Allen was right. They could never just turn on their own parents, grandparents, other Sleepless—their community. They just couldn’t. Allen was right.
Miri nodded.
“D-d-d-d-defense. Ours,” Allen got out.
“Inc-c-c-cluding N-N-N-Norms who are…r-r-r-r-r-right,” Diane Clarke said, and the others intuited the strings she meant by the word “right.”
Jonathan Markowitz said, “S-S-S-S-Sam S-S-S-S-Smith.”
Sarah Cerelli said, “J-J-J-Joan L-Lucas. H-her unborn b-b-bb-b-baby b-b-b-b-b-brother.” Miri again saw herself and Joan crouched by the power dome on Remembrance Day, heard again her own narrow hardness about Joan’s grief over the abortion of her Sleeper brother. Miri winced. How could she have been so hard on Joan? How could she not have seen?
Because it hadn’t yet happened to her.
“W-w-w-we n-n-n-n-need a n-n-n-name,” Diane said. She took Allen’s place in front of the console and called up her own string program. When she made room for Miri to see the results, Miri saw a complex thought edifice about the power of names for self-identification, of self-identification for community, about the Supers’ position in the Sanctuary community if the need for their own defense never arose again. It might not. It might happen that no one of their number was ever again hurt or endangered by the Norms, and the two communities could exist for decades side by side, with only one of them actually knowing there were two. The power of a name.
Miri’s mouth twisted. She said, “A n-n-n-n-name.”
“Y-yes. A n-name,” Diane said.
She looked at them all. Diane’s strings flowed in holographic projection, detailing both their separateness and the complex limits of their physical and emotional dependency. A name.
“The B-B-B-B-Beggars,” Miri said.
“I had no choice,” Jennifer said. “I had no choice!”
“No, you didn’t,” Will Sandaleros said. “She’s just too young to hold a Council seat, Jenny. Miri hasn’t learned yet to control herself, or to direct her talents toward her own good. She will. In a few years you can restore her seat. It was just a misjudgment, dear heart. That’s all.”
“But she won’t talk to me!” Jennifer cried. In another moment she had regained control of herself. She smoothed the folds of her black abbaya and reached to pour herself and Will more tea. Her long slim fingers were steady on the antique pot; the fragrant stream of singleaf tea, a genemod developed on Sanctuary, fell unwaveringly into the pretty alloy cups Najla had molded for her mother’s sixtieth birthday. But sharp lines ran from Jennifer’s nose to her mouth. Looking at his wife, Will realized that pain could look like age.
“Jenny,” he said gently, “give her more time. She had a bad shock and she’s still a child. Don’t you remember yourself at sixteen?”
Jennifer gave him a penetrating look. “Miri is not like us.”
“No, but—”
“It’s not only Miri. Ricky refuses to talk to me either.”
Will put down his teacup. His words had the careful sound of a courtroom statement. “Ricky has always been a little unstable for a Sleepless. A little weak. Like his father.”
Jennifer said, as if it were an answer, “Ricky and Miri will both have to recognize what Richard never could: The first duty of a community is to protect its laws and its culture. Without the willingness to do that, without that patriotism, you have nothing but a collection of people who happen to live in the same place. Sanctuary must protect itself.” After a moment she added, “Especially now.”
“Especially now,” Will agreed. “Give her time, Jenny. She’s your granddaughter, after all.”
“And Ricky is my son.” Jennifer rose, lifting the tea tray. She didn’t look at her husband. “Will?”
“Yes?”
“Put Ricky’s office and Miranda’s lab under surveillance.”
“We can’t. Not Miri, anyway. The Supers have been experimenting with security. Whatever Tony designed isn’t breakable. Not by us, anyway, without leaving obvious traces.”
At Tony’s name, fresh grief broke into Jennifer’s eyes. Will rose and put his arms around her, despite the tea tray. But her voice was composed.
“Then move Miri to a different lab, in a different building. Where we can effect surveillance.”
“Yes, dear heart. Today. But Jenny—it is just childish grief and shock. She’s a brilliant girl. She’ll come around to right and necessity.”
“I know she will,” Jennifer answered. “Move her today.”
23
A week after Tony’s death, Miri went in search of her father. Orbital Facilities had thrown her out of her lab—hers and Tony’s, where he had once worked and laughed and talked with her—and moved Miri to a new lab in Science Building Two. That same afternoon Terry Mwakambe had come to her lab. Terry was the most brilliant of all the Supers at systems control, better even than Tony, but he and Tony had seldom worked together because Terry’s strings made communication difficult. Radical genemod add-on’s, with neurochemical consequences not yet fully understood, made him strange even to other Supers. Most of his strings consisted of mathematical formulas based on chaos theory and on the newer disharmony phenomena. He was twelve years old.