Heris Serrano (113 page)

"A fee." At least she knew that much. In rural districts, on more backward planets, you could still find vending machines that took fees, little disks of metal with designs stamped into them.

"And what can you buy with a fee?"

"It depends," Sirkin said. Not much anywhere, she knew that, but something that cost ten fees in one town might cost fifteen somewhere else. She said that; she did not add that already she was beginning to believe in the worth of Brun's education, however unusual.

"Exactly. So a fee is worth what someone will give you for it. The same with all our monetary units."

"But that's not the same as saying they're no good if someone says so. . . ."

"Brig, think a moment. Suppose we're on a station somewhere: I run a restaurant, and you want a meal. You hand me your credit cube . . . why would I take that in exchange? I have to believe that with the credits I take off your cube, I can buy things I want or need—like the food I'm going to cook to make your meal."

"But of course you can—"

"As long as we all agree on the same lies, yes. But if we don't—if I suspect you'll eat the food, but the grocer won't accept credit for the raw foods—"

"What else could they want?" It made no sense; everyone used credit cubes, and only a stupid person would refuse them.

"Something of hard value . . . you know, barter. Surely you had friends you traded around with? You know, you liked her scarf and she liked an earring you had, and you just traded."

"Well, of course, but that's not like buying it—"

"It is, really. Look—you might have seen her scarf, and said 'What'll you take for that?' and it wasn't a close friend, so she wouldn't give it to you, and you'd pay a few fees. And then a week later, she spotted your earring, and bought it from you. Only difference is, if you have the things there, you can just trade. . . ."

"Seems more honest, that way," Sirkin said.

"As long as you know how to judge the value of everything—but it wouldn't work overall. I mean, an employer can't keep a warehouse full of everything every employee might like, and let you rummage for a day's worth of goods."

"I see that," Sirkin said. "But I still think money has to be real somehow. Solid. Stored someplace. They talk in the news about depositories as if they had something in them."

"They do, but it's mostly to keep counterfeiters from running down the value—" Brun stopped, aware that she was only confusing things. "Sorry. Look—this is sort of my field. For all of the Chairholders, I mean. I've explained it badly; I should have started slower."

"I'm not stupid." Sirkin turned away.

"No, and that's not what I meant." Brun waited, but Sirkin said nothing. She sighed, and went on. "Look, if you're determined to be angry, I can't stop you. Lots of people hate the rich. That's understandable. We go bouncing around having fun, and even when we are working it doesn't look like what you do."

"That's not it," Sirkin said, still looking away.

"Are you sure? If not, what is it?"

"It's—not that you have more money. That you can buy things." Sirkin was looking down at her hands now, her fingers moving as if on a control board. "It's that you seem to live in a different universe. Larger. You're so smart, in everything. You've had all this education, in everything. Maybe I know more about navigation, and ten days ago I knew more about this electronic system . . . but you learn so
fast
. I always thought I was smart—I
was
smart; I had perfect scores. And you come waltzing in and learn it without trying, it seems like." Her head dropped lower. "I feel like . . . like you're going to read me, learn me, as fast as you have everything else, and then I'll be just a bit of experience that enriches your life." Sirkin tried to copy Brun's accent. " 'Oh, yes, I had a woman lover once; she was a nice girl but rather limited.' That's what's bothering me. I don't want to be your adventure with gender orientation."

"Oh."

"Which is what Meharry says you're doing," Sirkin said, getting it all out in a rush. "She says you're an R.E., and R.E.s are all made hetero, because your families want you to marry—"

"Meharry was supposed to be playing a role," Brun said savagely, slamming her fist into one of the pillows. She didn't want to be talking about this now, and especially not after Meharry had taken the high ground. "And besides she's wrong."

"About what, Registered Embryos in general, or you in particular?"

Brun waited a long moment, gathering her thoughts. "When I was in that cave, I realized that I didn't want to be anyone's designated blonde. So I understand that you don't want to be my fling with sexual experimentation, a sort of bauble on the necklace of my life story. But that's not how I've seen it, Sirkin. I admired you, and the way Captain Serrano talked about you . . . if it hadn't been for you, they wouldn't have come after us in time. Then we met, and . . . and I liked it."

"But do you love men or women?"

Brun stirred uneasily. "I don't know. I like both—to have as friends, I mean. I never really thought about it, because it didn't matter a lot. Until now."

"How can you not think about it!" More accusation than question. "You have to think about it."

"I didn't." She had assumed, growing up in her family, knowing she was a Registered Embryo, that she would eventually marry and have children, most if not all of them also Registered Embryos. Being an R.E. determined your destiny; only the freelofs could choose. But on Sirkin's face was an angry look that didn't want to hear about complications. She had to try, anyway. "You know about genetic engineering—"

"Of course. What does that have to do with—oh."

"I am a Registered Embryo, Brig. You knew that before Meharry said it; I told you early on. She's right—at least, I thought it meant I wouldn't love women, just because . . . because it's so expensive."

"Expensive?" Sirkin's brow wrinkled. "Loving women?"

"No, being an R.E. They're tough enough to produce with well-mapped sets—and we're fourth-generation R.E., so all our stuff's on file except any new mutations. Because of that, we're all set to be heteros—so the work that goes into each of us will be available for the next generation."

"There's always A.I." Sirkin said. Brun realized she didn't know how Registered Embryos were made. Most people didn't.

"A.I. is already part of it," she said. "Harvesting of ova and sperm, in vitro fertilization and then splicing . . ."

"Then what does it matter what orientation the Registered Embryos have?" Sirkin asked. "If the whole reproductive bit is handled outside?"

"Prudence," Brun said. "In the . . ." she hesitated, trying to think of a polite way to say "important families." There wasn't, so she plunged on to the second level of reasoning she'd been told about years before. "If things go wrong—if something happened to the Registered Embryo program, the families would still need children. We'd have to provide them the . . . er . . . old way. And they'd want us to want to. At least, not to want
not
to."

"Oh." Sirkin reflected on that a moment. "So it's to protect the family against the loss of childbearing capacity if the medical infrastructure fails?"

"Right." Brun frowned. "My mother said that even then the orientation of women wasn't critical—in some cultures, women can be forced to bear children no matter what their wishes—but our culture thought that was unethical. Although it seems odd, that they would consider it ethical to determine our orientation so that it wouldn't be overruled later. But formal bioethics always seemed full of loopholes to me, anyway."

"I still think you have to know what you love, though."

Brun threw up her hands. "I love
lots
of things, Brig. I'm that sort . . . I'm sorry, but that's the truth. That's what got me into that fast crowd at school, really. I want to try everything, do everything, be everything. Logically, that's not possible, but . . . it would be such
fun
."

"And fun is what matters?"

Brun winced. "Not all that matters, no. But—I'm trying to be honest with you, Brig, so please try to understand. I don't think it's being rich that did this. I think some people are like me, rich or not, R.E. or not. When we were trying to think how to get Lady Cecelia out of that horrible place,
I'm
the one who thought of the hot air balloon. And one reason it worked was that it was so utterly ridiculous. Impossible. Crazy. I loved that about it—the very outrageousness of it. New things—different things—they draw me. I asked Dad—I thought maybe the R.E. process had fouled up with me—and he said they'd asked for an extra dollop of some set of multi-named neurochemicals that produce my sort of person. They'd opted for conservative intelligence with the older ones; he said they wanted a little sparkle in me."

"I think we are too different," Sirkin said. "Maybe it's your genes, and maybe it's your background, but we aren't enough alike—"

"Not for a permanent sexual relationship, no. But I don't see why we can't enjoy each other now and be lifetime friends. I like you; I admire you. Doesn't that help?"

"Yes. I just wish—"

"You need a long-term lover. I understand that. And if you want Meharry instead of me—"

"No!"

"I thought you liked her. She's angry enough at me that I thought you two had some kind of—"

"We don't have any kind of anything," Sirkin said. "I mean, I like her, as a sort of big sister, but like any big sister she tries to run my life too much. And she's hard."

"That's being ex-military, probably."

"I still don't like it. She makes me feel like a fluffy helpless kitten, and I don't like feeling helpless."

"But fluffy?" Brun cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Well . . . I have to admit I've enjoyed shopping with you. I was brought up to be practical, of course. But it's—it's kind of fun to dress up."

"So . . . even if you think fun isn't enough—even if you think I'm just a spoiled rich brat with more money than sense—you could have fun sometimes."

"With you, you mean," Sirkin said. It wasn't fair, the way Brun could coil an argument into a trap. "You think I should just relax and enjoy you, and forget the future?"

"Forget it? Never. But right now you can't go hunting a better partner; I understand that you'll want to, when you leave this ship. If you choose, we can be friends—I'd really like that, because I like you, and the friendship can last beyond this voyage. Lovers? Again, that's up to you. I don't want to hurt you, though I may have already—" Brun frowned, thinking about it. "I'd like to help you, if I knew how."

Sirkin looked at her, at the body she now realized had been carefully engineered for health and beauty and even sexuality, at the mind behind the eyes which had also been engineered for intelligence and whatever the genetic specialists meant by "sparkle." She couldn't help admiring Brun; she suspected that that, too, had been built in, as ineradicable as the choice of height and coloring. In one way it seemed weak to admire, to love, someone engineered to be admirable and lovable—it gave her the queasy feeling that she was being manipulated by the genetic engineers. Yet Brun had been the material of their manipulations; she was even less free than Sirkin. She couldn't help being who she was, any more than Sirkin could help being attracted.

"I would like to be friends," she said, after a long pause. "I don't know if it will work, in the long run, but—I do like you, and it's fun having another young woman to talk to. But not more than friends. I could fall for you, Brun, and if there's no chance for permanence, I don't want to risk it."

"Fair enough," Brun said. A faint flush reddened her face, then faded. "Now—if we can go back a bit—I'd like some help with the navigation sets our beloved captain sent down for me."

"You're going to end up better at navigation than I am," Sirkin grumbled.

"Not so. I'll pass the test, that's all. Didn't you ever know anyone who could pass tests but flunked real life?" The tension of the past conversation shattered, and Sirkin found herself laughing, not quite in control, but content to be so.

Heris could not define the concern she felt. Cecelia looked healthy, strong, and sane; she spent several hours a day on her riding simulator, but that was normal for Cecelia. Now she didn't need the massage lounger after each ride; she showed no stiffness or soreness. Her appetite was good, her spirits high—so Heris told herself. What was wrong? Was it her own imagination, perhaps her own envy of someone with so much privilege getting even more?

At dinner that very night, Cecelia brought that up herself. "It's indecent, in a way . . . to be so lucky. I try to tell myself it's fair payment for the hell Lorenza put me through, but that's a lie. I've had such good luck nearly all my life, and for the year I lost have been given back forty—not a bad bargain."

Heris wondered how much she believed that. "Would you go through it again for another forty years?"

"No." It came out reflexively; her face stiffened. "It's not the same; it couldn't be. I didn't know how long—or that it would end this way—" Her breath came short.