Beggars in Spain (38 page)

Jennifer’s voice said quietly, “Kagura Orbital is open to any scientific expedition that wishes to verify this phenomenon. Wear full contamination suits if you arrive before seventy-two hours have passed, and exercise utmost caution. We advise you to wait until after that time.

“There are similar packets, in multiples, throughout the cities of New York, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

“Do not attempt to dock any delegation at Sanctuary tomorrow, or to fire upon Sanctuary in any way. If you do so, we will consider ourselves justified in retaliating. The retaliation will take the form you’ve just seen.

“We in Sanctuary leave you with a thought from one of your own great statesmen, Thomas Paine: ‘We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room for honest men to live.’”

Caroline Renleigh terminated the broadcast.

Immediately the Council screens filled with scenes from inside Sanctuary. People streamed into the central park where Remembrance
Day speeches were held. The lattices had not been put up over the growing plants and Jennifer, watching intently, thought it a good sign that no one trampled any plants. Her people were angry, but not destructive. She looked from face to face, cataloging the anger.

No one in Sanctuary had been told about the Kagura demonstration except the Council, which had voted for it, the carefully-chosen graduate students who had planted the packets on Earth, and Will Sandaleros’s equally-carefully chosen security force. The secrecy had been a hard fight for Jennifer. The elected councilors, fiercely committed to their community, had wanted to discuss the weapon with their constituents. Jennifer had invoked her own trial, when someone inside the old Sanctuary in Cattaraugus County, someone never identified, had mailed the Sanctuary Oath to Leisha Camden before the Council was ready to release it. The same thing could happen again. And Richard Keller—Najla looked fiercely out the window, Ricky at his feet—had taken information about their operations to that same Leisha Camden, imperiling them all. The same thing could happen again. The Council had finally, reluctantly, agreed to secrecy.

“Sanctuary is not a military machine!” a face now shouted into the comlink. It was Douglas Wagner, an original settler, in his youth a peace activist. He had formidable organizational skills; he could be very powerful.

Will said, “I’ll sequester him and later I’ll talk to him myself.”

“Take him quietly,” Jennifer said, so softly that no one but Will heard. “Don’t create a rallying point.” She tried to watch all the screens at once.

“We should have been told!” a woman cried. “How is Sanctuary different from the beggars’ society if decisions are made for us, about us, without our knowledge or consent? We aren’t dependents, and we aren’t killers! This was no part of the independence plan we were told about!” A small crowd gathered to listen to the woman.

“I know her,” Councilor Barcheski said. “Will, have her brought here to a meeting room. I’ll talk to her.”

A face on Will’s security comlink said, “All quiet in B section, Will.
People seem to agree that the demonstration was necessary, if distasteful.”

“Good,” Will said.

Councilor Dey said, “Here they come.”

A group of citizens stalked purposefully toward the Council dome, which had been opaqued. The surveillance screen showed the citizens try the door, try again, and realize that the dome was locked. A computer voice said smoothly, “The Council wants to hear all your opinions on the controversial demonstration of Sanctuary power, but right now we must concentrate on the reactions from Earth. Please come back later.” The Sleepless looked at each other: Indignation. Resignation. Anger. Fear. Jennifer studied their faces.

After ten minutes of loud protests, they went away.

The broadcasts from Earth began.

“…unprecedented terrorist threat from a quarter long suspected by many to be not only disloyal but dangerous…”

“Instant crisis in the developing standoff between the Sanctuary Orbital and the United States government from which it is trying to secede…”

“…dangerous panic in the four cities allegedly mined with deadly viruses, although officials are…”

“…a mistake to believe that just because a threat has been made the capability to carry out that threat necessarily exists. American genemod expert Dr. Stanley Kassenbaum is here with us now to…”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States!”

The donkey grids were fast. Jennifer would give them that. She wondered if the other grids would continue their inane jokes about Oregon.

President Meyerhoff spoke in his slow, rich, reassuring voice, reassuring in part because it was heard so seldom and had therefore taken on the value of a scarce luxury, like three-carat natural diamonds.

“My fellow Americans, as most of you know, the United States has received a terrorist threat from Sanctuary Orbital. They claim the
capability to cause serious harm to four major American cities through illegal genetically modified viruses. They threaten to release these viruses if the scheduled federal delegation attempts to dock at Sanctuary tomorrow. This situation is intolerable for several reasons. The longstanding policy of the United States has been to never bargain with terrorists, under any circumstances. At the same time, however, absolutely paramount must be the safety and well-being of our citizens. That is never negotiable.

“To the citizens of New York and Chicago, of Washington and Los Angeles, I say this: Do not panic. Do not leave your homes. The United States will allow no action that will imperil your safety. Even as I speak to you, expert teams of biological warfare specialists are securing the safety of our cities. Even as I speak to you, every attention is being given to this intolerable and cowardly threat. I repeat: The best thing you can do is remain in your homes…”

The newsgrids continued to show people fighting to leave Washington, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Aircars streamed above ground; super-rail cars were jammed; groundcars clogged the highways.

The White House broadcast never directly answered the question: Will the delegation attempt to dock at Sanctuary tomorrow morning?

“Keeping their options open,” Councilor Dey said grimly. “A mistake.”

“They’re Sleepers,” Councilor Aleone said, with contempt. But his breath came quickly.

An hour after the Kagura orbital demonstration, Sanctuary received a focused, high-powered communication from the White House, demanding immediate surrender of all illegal weapons, including the alleged criminal possession of biologicals. Sanctuary sent back a quote from Patrick Henry this one recognizable even to some of the Livers: “Give me liberty or…”

Two hours after the demonstration, Sanctuary sent another multi-channel conventional broadcast, audio only. It announced that the deadly genemod virus packets were cached not in Washington, New
York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, but in Washington, Dallas, New Orleans, and St. Louis.

People started to stream out of St. Louis, and to riot in New Orleans. The evacuation didn’t slow from Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles.

A hysterical woman in Atlanta reported that all the pigeons on her terrace had just died all at once. People began to leave Atlanta, while a team in contamination suits rushed out from the CDC. They found the pigeons had eaten rat poison, but by that time the newsgrids had replaced the story with one about dead cattle near Fort Worth.

Jennifer leaned closer to the screen. “They can’t plan. Can’t coordinate. Can’t
think.
”

The protests within Sanctuary had reached a peak and subsided. All its spontaneous leaders were either locked in rational argument with councilors, were “sequestered” in the building quietly prepared by Sandaleros’s security force, or were busy collecting signatures on the official petitions that were Sanctuary’s usual answer to dissent. Always before, it had been a sufficient answer.

“The beggars can’t plan
at all,
” Jennifer repeated. “Not even when it’s in their own best interests.”

Will Sandaleros smiled at her.

“Leisha,” Stella said timidly, “do you think we should do anything about…about security?”

Leisha didn’t answer. She sat in front of three comlinks, each turned to a different newsgrid. She sat easily, without strain, but with a stillness that not even Stella’s timidity—Stella! timid!—could penetrate.

“I should have thought of that!” Jordan said. “I didn’t…I mean, it’s been so long since anybody hated Sleepless…Stell, who’s here this week? Maybe we can set up a rotating guard, in case we need it, I mean…”

Drew said, “There’s a Class Six Y-field around the compound, patrolled by three armed guards.”

Stella and Jordan stared at him. Drew added, “Since this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I hoped I was wrong and Sanctuary wouldn’t do this.”

“How did you even guess they
would
?” Stella snapped, her tartness back.

“Kevin Baker. He guessed.”

“He would,” Stella sniffed.

Jordan said, “Thank you, Drew,” and Stella had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

And Leisha said nothing, completely still.

“We have no choice,” Miri said to Nikos. They huddled in Raoul’s lab, eight Supers, all that had made for the same place when the announcement of the Kagura Orbital demonstration struck like a meteor. Some of the others had run to Miri’s lab, dodging protesters and uniformed security forces—since when had Sanctuary had
uniforms
? Some had run to Nikos. An official “stay-inside” command had come over all audio channels—since when had Sanctuary had official commands? The children activated the comlinks between the three buildings.

All the normal comlinks in Sanctuary were dead.

Miri looked at Terry Mwakambe a second before the Super exploded in words Miri had never heard put together before. A detached corner of her mind, a part not whirling with chaotic strings, noted that cursing combinations must have some relationship to mathematical progressions for Terry to do it so naturally.

He immediately activated the hidden communications net the Supers had spent two months programming into every function of Sanctuary, a shadowy second orbital command so well hidden it could not be detected by the first.

“Nikos? Are you there? Who’s with you?”

Nikos’s face came on-line. “Diane, Christy, Allen, James, Toshio.”

“Where’s Jonathan?”

“With me,” Mark said, cutting in on the link. “Miri, it’s happened. They did it.”

“What are we going to do?” Christy said. She had her arm tightly around Ludie, one of the eleven-year-olds, who was crying.

“We can’t do anything,” Nikos said. “That’s not our agreement. They’re not harming the Supers, they’re trying to get Sanctuary free for all of us.”

“They’re going to get all of us killed!” Raoul cried. “Or else they’re going to kill hundreds of thousands of other people in our name. Either way, we’re definitely harmed!”

“It’s an external defense issue,” Nikos argued. “Not one for the Beggars.”

“It’s a betrayal,” said Allen coldly. “And not just of us. Uniformed guards, stay-inside orders, cutting communications—Christ, they’re
arresting
people out there! I saw a guard
drag
Douglas Wagner into a building. For the crime of thinking differently! How is that different from killing Tony for becoming different? The Council has betrayed the citizens of Sanctuary, including us. But the others can’t do anything about it and we can!”

“They’re our
parents
…” Diane said, in anguish, and Miri heard all the strings in Diane’s voice.

Miri said, as resolutely as she could, “What we’re going to do first is link with all the Beggars, wherever they are. I don’t see Peter—does anybody know where he is? Terry, find him and link, unless he’s with Norms. Then we’re going to discuss this. Thoroughly. Everybody’s opinions. Then we’re going to make a group decision.”

For
our
good, she added to herself. But not aloud.

Three hours after the Kagura Orbital demonstration, Sanctuary broadcast to the United States that the same remote capabilities that could release and disperse the genemod virus in major American cities could also destroy the viruses completely before release. Sanctuary was eager to do so, if Congress agreed to a presidential order that the corporate entity of Sanctuary Inc. was no longer part of the United States for purposes of governance, taxation, or citizenship, and would henceforth have the same status as other independent nations.

Those other nations took various stances. Those allied most closely with the United States issued official statements condemning the “rebels” for terrorist acts, but refused to enforce trade embargos. The White House did not push for this. Foreign commentators pointed out, with various degrees of candor, that White House pushing might lead to a too-frank disclosure of just how heavily American allies depended on the pervasive international financing and genemod research controlled from Sanctuary.

Those countries currently not allied with the United States issued statements condemning both sides as moral barbarians with no respect for even their own laws or citizens, a line so expected and so familiar it roused little attention. Only Italy, once more socialist with the peculiarly chaotic, fatalistic flamboyance of Italian socialism, managed an original position. Rome announced that the Sleepless were the leaders in a new liberation of the working classes oppressed by American media governance, and that Sanctuary would lead the world in a new era of responsible use of newsgrids in the service of labor. This puzzling statement went largely unanswered, except in Italy.

A shuttle containing an international scientific coalition launched toward Kagura. Immediately demonstrators in the United States screamed that it not be allowed to return to Earth.

A Sleepless living alone in New York, an inoffensive little man who had shunned other Sleepless for fifty years, was dragged from his apartment and beaten to death.

Sanctuary beamed another message to the United States: “‘No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent’—A. Lincoln.”