Beggars in Spain (18 page)

“Does the print match that of Leisha Camden, who had been in the same building with Dr. Herlinger just before his death?”

“No.”

All eyes turned towards Leisha.

“But it
was
a Sleepless who bent close to that scanner—the last person to do so—sometime between the time Herlinger left home that morning and the time he died at 9:32
A.M.
A Sleepless who therefore tampered with the scooter.”

“Objection,” Sandaleros called. “An inference on the part of the witness!”

“Withdrawn,” Hossack said. He was silent a moment, again drawing all eyes to him by the profound, taut quality of his stillness. Then he repeated slowly, “A Sleepless print. A
Sleepless.
” And only then, “Nothing further.”

Sandaleros was savage about the retina print. Gone was the bewildered modesty of his opening statement. “Ms. Kassabian, how many retina prints of Sleepless are stored in the law-enforcement net of the United States?”

“One hundred thirty-three.”

“Only 133? Out of a Sleepless population of over 20,000?”

“That’s correct,” Kassabian said, and from the small shift of her weight on the witness chair Leisha saw, for the first time, that Ellen Kassabian disliked Sleepless.

“That seems a very small number,” Sandaleros marveled. “Tell me,
under what circumstances does a person’s retina print enter the law-enforcement file?”

“When he’s booked for arrest.”

“That’s the only way?”

“Or if he’s part of the law-enforcement system itself. Police personnel, judges, prison guards. Like that.”

“Attorneys, too?”

“Yes.”

“So that is how, say, Leisha Camden’s print was available for you to check.”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Kassabian, what percentage of those 133 retina prints from Sleepless belong to law-net personnel?”

Kassabian clearly didn’t like answering this. “Eighty percent.”

“
Eighty?
You mean, only 20 percent of 133 Sleepless—27 people—have been arrested in the nine years that retina-print records have been kept?”

“Yes,” Kassabian said, too neutrally.

“Do you know what those arrests were for?”

“Three disorderly conduct, two petty larceny, twenty-two public disturbance.”

“It would appear,” Sandaleros said dryly, “that Sleepless are a pretty law-abiding lot, Ms. Kassabian.”

“Yes.”

“In fact, it would appear from the retina records that the most usual Sleepless crime is simply existing, thereby constituting a public disturbance.”

“Objection,” called Hossack.

“Sustained. Mr. Sandaleros, do you have any additional questions pertinent to Ms. Kassabian’s actual testimony?”

And yet, thought Leisha, Deepford had allowed the introduction of the retina statistics, clearly not in proof order and only marginally relevant.

“I do,” Sandaleros snapped. His whole demeanor changed; he
seemed suddenly taller, subtly fiercer. As he had with the jury, he moved slightly closer to the forensic expert. “Ms. Kassabian, can a retina scanner be loaded with a retina print by a third party?”

“No. No more than a third party could, for instance, leave your fingerprint on a gun if you were not there.”

“But a third party could substitute a gun with my fingerprints for one with somebody else’s. Could a scanner with prerecorded retina prints be substituted for an existing scanner, without detection, if the person doing the substitution kept his face well away from the scanner as he did so?”

“Well…it would be very difficult. Scanners are protected by security measures that—”

“Would it be possible?”

Kassabian said reluctantly, “Only by someone with immense engineering knowledge and experience, an unusual person—”

“May it please the Court,” Sandaleros said crisply, “I would like to have replayed that portion of the record in which Ms. Kassabian discussed the qualifications of the person we
know
tampered with the scooter-deflection field.”

“Recorder, search and read,” Deepford said.

The computer read, “Mr. Hossack: ‘So a very sophisticated—even unusual—intelligence would be needed to engineer this tampering.’ Dr. Kassabian: ‘Yes.’ Mr. Hossack: ‘An extremely unusual person, or group of persons.’ Dr. Kassabian: ‘Yes.’ Mr. Hossack: ‘How much prior—’”

“Sufficient,” Sandaleros said. “So what we have here is someone who is capable of tampering with Y-energy and so must be, in your own words, Dr. Kassabian, also capable of substituting a preloaded scanner for the one already on Dr. Herlinger’s scooter.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Is that scenario
possible
?”

“It would have to—”

“Just answer the question. Is it
possible
?”

Ellen Kassabian drew a deep breath. Her brows rushed together;
clearly, she would have liked to tear Sandaleros apart. A long moment passed. Finally she said, “It is possible.”

“No further questions.”

The forensic chief stared at Sandaleros in silent fury.

Leisha walked to the window of her library and looked out over the midnight lights of Chicago. The trial had recessed for the weekend and she had gone home, unable to bear the motel in Conewango longer than necessary. The apartment was very quiet. Sometime during the past week, Kevin had moved out his furniture and pictures.

She walked back to her terminal. The message hadn’t changed: SANCTUARY NET. ACCESS DENIED.

“Password override, voice and retina identification, previous command.”

ACCESS DENIED.

The Sanctuary net, which had always been open to every Sleepless in the world, would not even acknowledge her in stringent I.D. mode. But that was illusory. Leisha knew it; there was more Jennifer wanted her to discover than just the bald fact of her exclusion.

“Personal call, urgent, for Jennifer Sharifi, password override, voice and retina identification.”

ACCESS DENIED.

“Personal call, urgent, for Richard Keller, password override, voice and retina identification.”

ACCESS DENIED.

She tried to think. There was a heaviness around her skull, like being deep underwater. The newest vase of Alice’s perpetual flowers filled the air with oppressive sweetness.

“Personal call, urgent, for Tony Indivino, password override, voice and retina identification.”

Cassie Blumenthal, a member of the Sanctuary Council, appeared on screen.

“Leisha. I’m speaking for Jennifer, whenever you access this recorded message. The Sanctuary Council has voted in the oath of
solidarity. Those who have not taken the oath are denied access to the Sanctuary net, to Sanctuary itself, and to all commerce with anyone who has taken the oath.
You
are hereby denied all such access permanently and irrevocably. Jennifer further asked me to tell you to reread Abraham Lincoln’s speech to the Illinois Republican Convention of June, 1858, and to add that the historic precepts of the past have not been recalled simply because Kenzo Yagai inflated personal achievement above the value of community. As of the first of next month, all Sanctuary oath holders will begin divestiture of commercial relationships with you, with Camden Enterprises, with subsidiary holdings thereof, and with all direct and indirect holdings of Kevin Baker, including Groupnet, if he continues to refuse community solidarity. That is all.”

The screen went blank.

Leisha sat still a long moment.

She directed the library bank to bring up Lincoln’s speech. Words scrolled across the screen and the sonorous voice of an actor began to recite, but she needed neither; at the first words she remembered which speech it was. Lincoln, his law practice rebuilt after debts and disillusionment, accepted the Republican nomination to run for Congress against Stephen Douglas, brilliant proponent of territories’ right to choose slavery for themselves. Lincoln addressed the contentious and fiery convention:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Leisha turned off the terminal. She walked to the room she and Kevin had used for their infrequent sex. He had taken the bed with him. After a while she lay down on the floor, palms flat at her side, breathing carefully.

Richard. Kevin. Stella. Sanctuary.

She wondered how much more she had left to lose.

Jennifer faced Will Sandaleros through a prison security screen that shimmered slightly, just enough to soften the hard young line of his genemod jaw. She said, “The evidence connecting me to the scooter tampering is mostly circumstantial. Is the jury bright enough to see that?”

He didn’t lie to her. “Sleeper juries…” There was a long silence.

“Jennifer, are you eating? You don’t look well.”

She was genuinely surprised. He still thought all of that mattered—how she looked, whether she ate. On the heels of surprise came displeasure. She had thought Sandaleros was beyond that sort of sentimentality. She needed him to be beyond it, to understand that such things were perfectly irrelevant in the face of what she had to do, and what she needed him to do for her. For what else was she disciplining herself, if not for the subordination of such things as how she looked or felt? To what was really important—to Sanctuary? She was in a place now where nothing else mattered, could be allowed to matter, and she had fought very hard to get to this place. She had turned the confinement and the isolation and the separation from her children and the personal shame into roads to reach this place, and so into triumphs of will and achievement. She had thought Will Sandaleros could see that. He must travel that same road, would
have
to travel it, because she needed him at its end.

But she musn’t try to bring him to that place too fast. That had been her mistake with Richard. She had thought Richard was traveling beside her, as cleanly and as swiftly, and instead he had faltered and she had not seen it, and Richard had broken. The responsibility for that was hers, because she had not seen the faltering. Richard had been tied to the Outside in ways she had overlooked: to the outside, to outworn ideals, and perhaps still to Leisha Camden. The realization brought no jealousy. Richard had not been strong enough, that was all. Will Sandaleros, raised in Sanctuary, owing his life to Sanctuary, would be. Jennifer would make him strong enough. But not too fast.

So she said, “I’m fine. What else do you have for me?”

“Leisha accessed the net last night.”

She nodded. “Good. And the others on our list?”

“All but Kevin Baker. Although he did move out of their apartment.”

Pleasure flooded her. “Can he be persuaded to the oath?”

“I don’t know. If he can be, do you want him Inside?”

“No. Outside.”

“He’ll be difficult to hold under electronic surveillance. God, Jennifer, he
invented
most of that stuff.”

“I don’t want him under surveillance. At all. That’s not the way to hold a man like Kevin. Nor is solidarity. We’ll do it with economic interests and contractual rules. The tools of Yagaiism, in our own interests. And everything unguarded.”

Sandaleros looked dubious, but he didn’t argue. That was another thing she would have to shape in him. He must learn to argue with her. The forged metal was always stronger than the unforged.

She said, “Who else Outside has taken the oath?”

He gave her the names, with plans to move each to Sanctuary. She listened carefully; the other name she wanted to hear was not there. “Stella Bevington?”

“No.”

“There’s time.” She bent her head, and then asked it, the one question per visit she allowed herself. The last weakness left. “And my children?”

“They’re well. Najla—”

“Give them my love. Now there is something you must begin for me, Will. An important next step. Maybe the most important Sanctuary’s ever taken.”

“What?”

She told him.

Jordan closed his office door. Sound stopped instantly—the rat-a-tat-tat of machinery on the factory floor, the rock music, the calling voices, and—most of all—the newsgrid coverage of the Sharifi trial on the two superscreens Hawke had rented and set up at either end of the cavernous main building. It all stopped. Jordan had had his office soundproofed, paying for it himself.

He leaned against the closed door, grateful for silence. The comlink shrilled.

“Jordan, you there?” Mayleen said from the security kiosk. “Trouble in Building Three, I can’t find Mr. Hawke nowhere, you better
git.
”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Fight, looks like. Screen ain’t positioned well over there, somebody should take a look at it. If they don’t break it first.”

“I’m going,” Jordan said, yanking open the door.

“So I told her—” “Hand me that there number five—” “Latest Testimony Seems to Reveal Doubts on the Part of Dr. Adam Walcott, Alleged Victim of Sanctuary Conspiracy to—” “Daaan-cing All Ni-ight with Yoooouuu—” “—Vicious Attack on Sleepless Firm of Carver & Daughter Last Night by Unspecified—”

When his vacation came, Jordan thought, he would spend all of it somewhere silent, deserted, empty. Alone.

He ran the length of the main plant, outside, and across a narrow lot—the Mississippians called it “the yard”—toward the smaller buildings used to inspect and store parts from suppliers, to stock scooter inventory, and to service equipment. Building Three was Receiving Inspection: half warehouse, half sorting station to separate incoming We-Sleep scooter parts into the defective and the usable. There were a lot of defective. Sprayfoam packing crates littered the floor. In the back, between high storage shelves, people shouted. As Jordan ran toward the sound, an eight-foot-high section of shelf crashed to the floor, scattering parts like shrapnel. A woman screamed.

Plant security was already there, two burly uniformed men restraining a man and a woman, both struggling and yelling. The guards looked bewildered; assault was rare among We-Sleep employees brought to a fever pitch of loyalty by Hawke. On the floor a third man sat moaning, holding his head. Beyond him a huge figure lay still, soaked with blood.

“What the hell happened here?” Jordan demanded. “Who’s that—Joey?”