Echea Read online

  "Dad-"

  "Honey, we gotta use what we got."

  It might have been his motto. We gotta use what we got. I’d heard it all my life. He’d come from Earth, he’d said, in one of the last free ships. Some of the others we knew said there were no free ships except for parolees, and I often wondered if he had come on one of those. His morals were certainly slippery enough.

  I don’t remember my mother. I’m not even sure I had one. I’d seen more than one adult buy an infant, and then proceed to exploit it for gain. It wouldn’t have been beyond him.

  But he loved me. That much was clear.

  And I adored him.

  I’d have done the job just because he’d asked it.

  I’d done it before.

  The last job was how we’d gotten here. I’d been younger then and I hadn’t completely understood.

  But I’d understood when we were done.

  And I’d hated myself.

  "Isn’t there another way?" I found myself asking.

  He put his hand on the back of my head, propelling me forward. "You know better," he said. "There’s nothing here for us."

  "There might not be anything in Colony Latina, either."

  "They’re getting shipments from the U.N. Seems they vowed to negotiate a peace."

  "Then everyone will want to go."

  "But not everyone can," he said. "We can." He touched his pocket. I saw the bulge of his credit slip. "If you do the job."

  It had been easier when I didn’t know. When doing a job meant just that. When I didn’t have other things to consider. After the first job, my father asked where I had gotten the morals. He said I hadn’t inherited them from him, and I hadn’t. I knew that. I suggested maybe Mother, and he had laughed, saying no mother who gave birth to me had morals either.

  "Don’t think about it, honey," he’d said. "Just do."

  Just do. I opened my mouth-to say what, I don’t know-and felt hot liquid splatter me. An exit wound had opened in his chest, spraying his blood all around. People screamed and backed away. I screamed. I didn’t see where the shot had come from, only that it had come.

  The blood moved slowly, more slowly than I would have expected.

  He fell forward and I knew I wouldn’t be able to move him, I wouldn’t be able to grab the credit slip, wouldn’t be able to get to Colony Latina, wouldn’t have to do the job.

  Faces, unbloodied faces, appeared around me.

  They hadn’t killed him for the slip.

  I turned and ran, as he once told me to do, ran as fast as I could, blasting as I went, watching people duck or cover their ears or wrap their arms around their heads.

  I ran until I saw the sign.

  The tiny prefab with the Red Crescent painted on its door, the Red Cross on its windows. I stopped blasting and tumbled inside, bloody, terrified, and completely alone.

  I woke up to find my husband’s arms around me, my head buried in his shoulder. He was rocking me as if I were one of the girls, murmuring in my ear, cradling me and making me feel safe. I was crying and shaking, my throat raw with tears or with the aftereffects of screams.

  Our door was shut and locked, something that we only did when we were amorous. He must have had House do it, so no one would walk in on us.

  He stroked my hair, wiped the tears from my face. "You should leave your link on at night," he said tenderly. "I could have manipulated the dream, made it into something pleasant."

  We used to do that for each other when we were first married. It had been a way to mesh our different sexual needs, a way to discover each other’s thoughts and desires.

  We hadn’t done it in a long, long time.

  "Do you want to tell me about it?" he asked.

  So I did.

  He buried his face in my hair. It had been a long time since he had done that, too, since he had shown that kind of vulnerability with me.

  "It’s Echea," he said.

  "I know," I said. That much was obvious. I had been thinking about her so much that she had worked her way into my dreams.

  "No," he said. "It’s nothing to be calm about." He sat up, kept his hand on me, and peered into my face. "First Susan, then you. It’s like she’s a poison that’s infecting my family."

  The moment of closeness shattered. I didn’t pull away from him, but it took great control not to. "She’s our child."

  "No," he said. "She’s someone else’s child, and she’s disrupting our household."

  "Babies disrupt households. It took a while, but you accepted that."

  "And if Echea had come to us as a baby, I would have accepted her. But she didn’t. She has problems that we did not expect."

  "The documents we signed said that we must treat those problems as our own."

  His grip on my shoulder grew tighter. He probably didn’t realize he was doing it. "They also said that the child had been inspected and was guaranteed illness free."

  "You think some kind of illness is causing these dreams? That they’re being passed from Echea to us like a virus?"

  "Aren’t they?" he asked. "Susan dreamed of a man who died. Someone whom she didn’t want to go. Then ‘they’ pulled her away from him. You dream of your father’s death-"

  "They’re different," I said. "Susan dreamed of a man’s face exploding, and being captured. I dreamed of a man being shot, and of running away."

  "But those are just details."

  "Dream details," I said. "We’ve all been talking to Echea. I’m sure that some of her memories have woven their way into our dreams, just as our daily experiences do, or the vids we’ve seen. It’s not that unusual."

  "There were no night terrors in this household until she came," he said.

  "And no one had gone through any trauma until she arrived, either." I pulled away from him now. "What we’ve gone through is small compared to her. Your parents’ deaths, mine, the birth of the girls, a few bad investments, these things are all minor. We still live in the house you were born in. We swim in the lake of our childhood. We have grown wealthier. We have wonderful daughters. That’s why we took Echea."

  "To learn trauma?"

  "No," I said. "Because we could take her, and so many others can’t."

  He ran a hand through his thinning hair. "But I don’t want trauma in this house. I don’t want to be disturbed any more. She’s not our child. Let’s let her become someone else’s problem."

  I sighed. "If we do that, we’ll still have trauma. The government will sue. We’ll have legal bills up to our eyeballs. We did sign documents covering these things."

  "They said if the child was defective, we could send her back."

  I shook my head. "And we signed even more documents that said she was fine. We waived that right."

  He bowed his head. Small strands of gray circled his crown. I had never noticed them before.

  "I don’t want her here," he said.

  I put a hand on his. He had felt that way about Kally, early on. He had hated the way an infant disrupted our routine. He had hated the midnight feedings, had tried to get me to hire a wet nurse, and then a nanny. He had wanted someone else to raise our children because they inconvenienced him.

  And yet the pregnancies had been his idea, just like Echea had been. He would get enthusiastic, and then when reality settled in, he would forget the initial impulse.

  In the old days we had compromised. No wet nurse, but a nanny. His sleep undisturbed, but mine disrupted. My choice, not his. As the girls got older, he found his own ways to delight in them.

  "You haven’t spent any time with her," I said. "Get to know her. See what she’s really like. She’s a delightful child. You’ll see."

  He shook his head. "I don’t want nightmares," he said, but I heard capitulation in his voice.

  "I’ll leave my interface on at night," I said. "We can even link when we sleep and manipulate each other’s dreams."

  He raised his head, smiling, suddenly looking boyish, like the man who proposed to me, all thos
e years ago. "Like old times," he said.

  I smiled back, irritation gone. "Just like old times," I said.

  The nanny had offered to take Echea to Ronald’s, but I insisted, even though the thought of seeing him so close to a comfortable intimacy with my husband made me uneasy. Ronald’s main offices were over fifteen minutes away by shuttle. He was in a decade-old office park near the Mississippi, not too far from St. Paul ’s new capitol building. Ronald’s building was all glass on the river side. It stood on stilts-the Mississippi had flooded abominably in ’45, and the city still hadn’t recovered from the shock-and to get to the main entrance, visitors needed a lift code. Ronald had given me one when I made the appointment.

  Echea had been silent during the entire trip. The shuttle had terrified her, and it didn’t take long to figure out why. Each time she had traveled by shuttle, she had gone to a new home. I reassured her that would not happen this time, but I could tell she thought I lied.

  When she saw the building, she grabbed my hand.

  "I’ll be good," she whispered.

  "You’ve been fine so far," I said, wishing my husband could see her now. For all his demonizing, he failed to realize she was just a little girl.

  "Don’t leave me here."

  "I don’t plan to," I said.

  The lift was a small glass enclosure with voice controls. When I spoke the code, it rose on air jets to the fifth floor and docked, just like a shuttle. It was designed to work no matter what the weather, no matter what the conditions on the ground.

  Echea was not amused. Her grip on my hand grew so tight that it cut off the circulation to my fingers.

  We docked at the main entrance. The building’s door was open, apparently on the theory that anyone who knew the code was invited. A secretary sat behind an antique wood desk that was dark and polished until it shone. He had a blotter in the center of the desk, a pen and inkwell beside it, and a single sheet of paper on top. I suspected that he did most of his work through his link, but the illusion worked. It made me feel as if I had slipped into a place wealthy enough to use paper, wealthy enough to waste wood on a desk.

  "We’re here to see Dr. Caro," I said as Echea and I entered.

  "The end of the hall to your right," the secretary said, even though the directions were unnecessary. I had been that way dozens of times.

  Echea hadn’t, though. She moved through the building as if it were a wonder, never letting go of my hand. She seemed to remain convinced that I would leave her there, but her fear did not diminish her curiosity. Everything was strange. I suppose it had to be, compared to the Moon where space-with oxygen-was always at a premium. To waste so much area on an entrance wouldn’t merely be a luxury there. It would be criminal.

  We walked across the wood floors past several closed doors until we reached Ronald’s offices. The secretary had warned someone because the doors swung open. Usually I had to use the small bell to the side, another old-fashioned affectation.

  The interior of his offices was comfortable. They were done in blue, the color of calm he once told me, with thick easy chairs and pillowed couches. A children’s area was off to the side, filled with blocks and soft toys and a few dolls. The bulk of Ronald’s clients were toddlers, and the play area reflected that.

  A young man in a blue worksuit appeared at one of the doors, and called my name. Echea clutched my hand tighter. He noticed her and smiled.

  "Room B," he said.

  I liked Room B. It was familiar. All three of my girls had done their post-interface work in Room B. I had only been in the other rooms once, and had felt less comfortable.

  It was a good omen, to bring Echea to such a safe place.

  I made my way down the hall, Echea in tow, without the man’s guidance. The door to Room B was open. Ronald had not changed it. It still had the fainting couch, the work unit recessed into the wall, the reclining rockers. I had slept in one of those rockers as Kally had gone through her most rigorous testing.

  I had been pregnant with Susan at the time.

  I eased Echea inside and then pulled the door closed behind us. Ronald came through the back door-he must have been waiting for us-and Echea jumped. Her grip on my hand grew so tight that I thought she might break one of my fingers. I smiled at her and did not pull my hand away.

  Ronald looked nice. He was too slim, as always, and his blond hair flopped against his brow. It needed a cut. He wore a silver silk shirt and matching pants, and even though they were a few years out of style, they looked sharp against his brown skin.

  Ronald was good with children. He smiled at her first, and then took a stool and wheeled it toward us so that he would be at her eye level.

  "Echea," he said. "Pretty name."

  And a pretty child, he sent, just for me.

  She said nothing. The sullen expression she had had when we met her had returned.

  "Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

  "I don’t want to go with you," she said.

  "Where do you think I’m taking you?"

  "Away from here. Away from-" she held up my hand, clasped in her small one. At that moment it became clear to me. She had no word for what we were to her. She didn’t want to use the word "family," perhaps because she might lose us.

  "Your mother-" he said slowly and as he did he sent Right? to me.

  Right, I responded.

  "-brought you here for a check-up. Have you seen a doctor since you’ve come to Earth?"

  "At the center," she said.

  "And was everything all right?"

  "If it wasn’t, they’d have sent me back."

  He leaned his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands and placing them under his chin. His eyes, a silver that matched the suit, were soft.

  "Are you afraid I’m going to find something?" he asked.

  "No," she said.

  "But you’re afraid I’m going to send you back."

  "Not everybody likes me," she said. "Not everybody wants me. They said, when they brought me to Earth, that the whole family had to like me, that I had to behave or I’d be sent back."

  Is this true? he asked me.

  I don’t know. I was shocked. I had known nothing of this.

  Does the family dislike her?

  She’s new. A disruption. That’ll change.

  He glanced at me over her head, but sent nothing else. His look was enough. He didn’t believe they’d change, any more than Echea would.

  "Have you behaved?" he asked softly.

  She glanced at me. I nodded almost imperceptibly. She looked back at him. "I’ve tried," she said.

  He touched her then, his long delicate fingers tucking a strand of her pale hair behind her ear. She leaned into his fingers as if she’d been longing for touch.

  She’s more like you, he told me, than any of your own girls.

  I did not respond. Kally looked just like me, and Susan and Anne both favored me as well. There was nothing of me in Echea. Only a bond that had formed when I first saw her, all those weeks before.

  Reassure her, he sent.

  I have been.

  Do it again.

  "Echea," I said, and she started as if she had forgotten I was there. "Dr. Caro is telling you the truth. You’re just here for an examination. No matter how it turns out, you’ll still be coming home with me. Remember my promise?"

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  "I always keep my promises," I said.

  Do you? Ronald asked. He was staring at me over Echea’s shoulder.

  I shivered, wondering what promise I had forgotten.

  Always, I told him.

  The edge of his lips turned up in a smile, but there was no mirth in it.

  "Echea," he said. "It’s my normal practice to work alone with my patient, but I’ll bet you want your mother to stay."

  She nodded. I could almost feel the desperation in the move.

  "All right," he said. "You’ll have to move to the couch."

  He scooted his chair toward it.
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  "It’s called a fainting couch," he said. "Do you know why?"

  She let go of my hand and stood. When he asked the question, she looked at me as if I would supply her with the answer. I shrugged.

  "No," she whispered. She followed him hesitantly, not the little girl I knew around the house.

  "Because almost two hundred years ago when these were fashionable, women fainted a lot."

  "They did not," Echea said.

  "Oh, but they did," Ronald said. "And do you know why?"

  She shook her small head. With this idle chatter he had managed to ease her passage toward the couch.

  "Because they wore undergarments so tight that they often couldn’t breathe right. And if a person can’t breathe right, she’ll faint."

  "That’s silly."

  "That’s right," he said, as he patted the couch. "Ease yourself up there and see what it was like on one of those things."

  I knew his fainting couch wasn’t an antique. His had all sorts of diagnostic equipment built in. I wondered how many other peopl

  Certainly not my daughters. They had known the answers to his questions before coming to the office.

  "People do a lot of silly things," he said. "Even now. Did you know most people on Earth are linked?"

  As he explained the net and its uses, I ignored them. I did some leftover business, made my daily chess move, and tuned into their conversation on occasion.

  "-and what’s really silly is that so many people refuse a link. It prevents them from functioning well in our society. From getting jobs, from communicating-"

  Echea listened intently while she lay on the couch. And while he talked to her, I knew, he was examining her, seeing what parts of her brain responded to his questions.

  "But doesn’t it hurt?" she asked.

  "No," he said. "Science makes such things easy. It’s like touching a strand of hair."

  And then I smiled. I understood why he had made the tender move earlier. So that he wouldn’t alarm her when he put in the first chip, the beginning of her own link.

  "What if it goes wrong?" she asked. "Will everybody-die?"

  He pulled back from her. Probably not enough so that she would notice. But I did. There was a slight frown between his eyes. At first, I thought he would shrug off the question, but it took him too long to answer.