She shuddered. "Impossible," she said softly.
"I know."
She got up from the table and took him by the hand. Together they left the flat and walked down corridors and ramps to the tube. At that hour it wasn't crowded. She dragged him along until they got to a women's lavatory. She started to pull him in.
"I can't go in there," Jas whispered.
"You're sure as hell going to," she hissed back, her face ugly with fear.
He went in. It was empty. His mother leaned against the door, facing him.
"Maybe," she said, "this place isn't bugged. But if it is, we won't be known."
"Voiceprints."
"Whisper, then," she whispered. "I said it's impossible. I've had two blood tests. Once before your father's trial, and this time for you. I do not have the Swipe on any of my lousy DNA. My X chromosomes are clean. Do you understand that?"
"I know what I did."
"You couldn't have gotten the trait from your father," she said, holding tightly to the boy's arm, "because it's carried on the X and he only gave you a Y."
"I've taken genetics."
"Then why did you say what you did?"
"Separate mutation," Jas said, and she clenched her grip on his arm. It hurt, but he was afraid to try to pull away. He had never seen her this angry and afraid at the same time.
"Do you think they didn't check that? It's the first thing they check. Your cells don't show any mutation."
"Then it's magic," Jas said, and she relaxed just enough that he felt safe in trying to pull his arm free. She let him.
"Magic," she said, and then she covered her face with her hands, digging her fingers into her eye sockets so fiercely that Jas worried, fleetingly, that she might be trying to blind herself, even though the cost of a transplant would wipe out her earnings and her pension for years. He gingerly reached for her arms, to pull her hands down, but when he touched her she erupted, shouted at him, forgetting the danger that one of Mother's Little Boys might be listening. "Listen to me! It's impossible! You're just hallucinating because of your father. They warned me it might happen, that children of Swipes sometimes react this way, pretending to be Swipes because of guilt feelings about the way their parent died. But whether it's real or not, it can get you killed if you go around claiming to be a —"
"I don't feel guilty about my father's death!" Jas said angrily. "I wasn't even born when he died. I wasn't even conceived. If you didn't want a crazy child, why did you go to the sperm bank —"
"I wanted him to have a son —"
"Well, he's got one! But don't try to transfer your psychoses onto me!"
She fell silent, her jaw slack. And as Jas leaned against the washbasin he again had a flash; but this time not a thought, this time a picture: A man smiling — not a handsome man, but a man used to power, a man sure of himself, a man with huge, powerful, sweet hands that reached out and touched —
"No!" his mother shouted at him, and she pushed his hand away, and he realized that he had touched her just as she was remembering his father's touch, that he had been acting out her memory.
"Don't touch me!" she said. "Not like that."
"I'm sorry. I just — I couldn't help it — mother, why do you remember him laughing, when he —"
His mother shook her head violently. "You didn't see," she hissed, more to herself than to him. "You didn't know, you didn't see." She was not looking at him. Is she even sane, Jas wondered for a moment. And then realized that the answer to his question was no, had always been no.
Suddenly his mother relaxed and smiled. "Of course," she said. "You're just insightful. It's a family trait. Your grandfather was just like that. As if he could see into your soul." She laughed. "Little Jason Worthing, just like your father's father."
"And my father."
"No!" she said fiercely. "He was a Swipe. But your grandfather. He just looked at me the first time Homer brought me home, just looked at my eyes and then he smiled and he said to me, ‘Nita, you're a good woman, you're right for my son.'
And from then on it was like he'd known me all my life. He knew he could trust me. And he could, he could."
Somebody pushed on the door, trying to get in.
"We've got to leave, mother," Jas said.
"Not until you promise me," she said.
"What."
"That you'll never say that again. To anyone. About being a —"
"I promise. Do you think I want to get killed?" Jas lunged for the doorknob. His mother backed away, and the door slid open as Jason twisted the knob.
A woman with a little girl who was dancing up and down shot them a dirty look as they came out. Then she did a double take when she realized that Jas was a boy.
"Perverts!" the woman spat as they hurried through the cars to the exit.
The next day at school they tried to trap him. Tork wasn't in the test room. Jas went in for his regular weekend quiz, and an empty–headed woman with thoroughly observable décolletage greeted him in a whispery voice and told him his test was ready. Jas guessed what they were going to do. To make sure, he looked into her head. Behind her eyes? A love life. No answers to tests.
And sure enough, the test was not on the topology of speed–of–light motion, the study topic for the week. It was, once again, astrodynamics. All new questions, of course. But the same topic.
Jas had to work on this one. Of course, his mind being what it was, he remembered perfectly everything he had taken from Tork's mind the week before. Now he had to apply the principles, think them through. But his logic kept up with the questions on the test.
He did miss one question. But ninety–nine was close enough to a hundred to be statistically insignificant.
When the computer printed out his score, Jas stood up and announced to the woman, "All right, lady. When you see Tork again, tell him for me I'm going to press charges. This test was illegal."
The woman was genuinely surprised. "What could be illegal? I just pressed the button and —"
"I know, I know. Just tell Tork for me. Can you remember that long?"
She sniffed her disdain. "You boy geniuses all seem to think you're the only ones with minds."
When Jas left the school he had every intention of going straight to the CRL for a lawyer to press his case — it was airtight, there'd be no way to hide their tampering with the computer program to put the wrong test on it. And without a writ they had no right to double–check his score.
But then he realized that he didn't want to attract too much attention with this. Because if rumor got around that he was suspected to be a Swipe, the doors would start to close to him. His unmeasurable intelligence would be worth as much as a moron rating.
No, let them sweat, but don't make too many waves.
Somehow the tests had all come out negative. But Jas knew he had the Swipe. And they might have other tests that would discover it.
"Insightful," his mother had said, "just like your father's father."
Father. And me. And grandfather?
But grandfather was dead.
Jas went to a directory and found the listing: "Genealogical program, G55Nxy3. He put his credit card (nearly worthless for purchasing, but good enough for this) into the computer outlet and punched in the program.
"Genealogy: Name research, 4n; inheritance tie–ins, 4i; name similarities..." Finally Jas found what he wanted, punched in his own name and birth date, and waited for the reading.
"Male relatives of common descent by male lines only." and then came a list of names that threatened to go on all day. Jas interrupted the readout and punched in a new instruction. Now the screen flashed, "Five nearest male relatives by common descent by male lines only."
First on the list was Talbot Worthing. He lived on a planet only forty–two light–years away.
Next on the list was Radamand Worthing. GE–44h rating government employee on the district management level.