Otherness (30 page)

My vitamins
? Io thought. She reached for the glass.

Here are my vitamins, you son of a fabricow
.

"Jism!" he cried, leaping to his feet as she spilled the drink across the tablecloth.

Two confirmations in one action. An innocent man would not have shouted so over only a silly puddle. Nor would a professional use a curse phrase specific to a certain type of freelance artist.

"You bitch, how did you kn—" He stepped forward, and so came within Io's seated reach. With one hand she grabbed the loose folds of his stylish cotton trousers. With the other she stabbed down hard with her dessert fork. There was a loud tearing of fabric. Shouting for strength she had never used before outside the decanting room, Io yanked.

The resulting tableau held for a long moment. Staring patrons. Aghast waiters. Io, panting with upraised fork, ready to strike again, this time at a loathsome sight.

Under the torn trousers, hanging like a broken flag, lay Wiktor's codpiece, the emblem of his calling. His tattooed license told of a costly modification—placental platinum extraction filters of the very latest design.

No wonder Wiktor knew his way around style. Just one of the altered wrigglers he produced in millions could set a pieceworker on course toward her best bonus ever. And for him a healthy commission.

"Why?" she whispered.

Motion resumed. Hurried footsteps approached behind her.

"Officers!" Wiktor pronounced loudly, for all to hear. "I want to press charges against this madwoman, for assault with intent to injure me!"

Hands pressed upon her shoulders. The fork was ungently pried from her fingers. Io shook her hair back and looked him in the eyes defiantly.

"Shall we take the tablecloth along to the police station, then?" She gestured toward the orange stain.

A quick blinking of the eyes, a bobbing of the Adam's apple as he suddenly swallowed. "Wait!" Wiktor said as the guards began pulling her away. His sour expression was her bitter reward. "I—I have changed my mind. I will forget the incident . . . so long as she boards her flight and gets the hell out of here."

Oh, I'm sure
, she thought, watching him squirm. Men who would poison women—such men had personalities based on contempt for others. Probably until this very moment he had never even considered what might happen if he was caught. Now it was just dawning on him, too late.

"Who?" Io asked simply, demanding a price.

He stared at her, then, as if it were costing him his gall bladder, he spat one word. "Perseph."

Io knew from the look in his eyes that she would have no need for revenge on her former friend. Far from the type of man he had tried to appear to be, this was a cowardly, predatory creature, the sort who preyed exclusively on those weaker than himself. Io felt certain he would never come near her again.
Perseph
, though—perhaps watching even now from some shadowy corner of the room—had real cause to worry.

"
What
was it?" she asked.

Sweat beaded on his lip and brow. There was an implicit arrangement here, truth in exchange for escape. But in fulfilling his part first, Wiktor knew he was giving himself over fully into her hands.

"Para—parapyridine four," he whispered rapidly, trying to make the words for her alone.

Io felt suddenly dizzy. The hand that had touched the juice glass trembled as if defiled. The substance named would not have affected her own health in the slightest. But it would have ruined the product she carried, and made her own eggs utterly useless for anything in the future. She'd be lucky to be able to make solvent filters if she had taken any of that stuff.

"
Why
?" She repeated her first question.

His face was now utterly resigned. "You were getting too damned high-almighty. Wanted to climb out and leave your friends, your guild. We . . . they . . . figured it'd do you good to be brought down a peg.

"It was for—for your own good . . .," he finished lamely. His handsome confidence was now so completely gone that Io felt stunned that she had ever been fooled at all.

"Excuse me, madam, is this fellow admitting to having done you some harm?"

Io turned, noticing the Icelandic policeman for the first time. Obviously, he had followed their low, clipped exchange. Eyes flicked from her surropreg garments to Wiktor's tattoo, to the stained tablecloth, narrowing with dawning suspicion. He spoke English as educated Icelanders do, better than the English. "Perhaps you'd like to file charges of your own, madam?"

In the policeman's face she saw compassion and more . . . a confidence completely unrelated to arrogance. A serenity that came of skill and sure knowledge of one's own usefulness. Face-to-face with the real thing, Io wondered how she was ever fooled by Wiktor's sham.
Inexperience and wishful thinking, I suppose
. She would have to talk this over with her teachers.

"No," Io said softly. "But would you please walk me to my boarding gate? I think I could use a hand."

Her last word to Wiktor was to thank him over her shoulder for dinner. The evenness of her tone must have been unnerving. She left him standing there, pale and exposed.

The officer's gentle grip on her arm helped Io walk head high. Somewhere in the restaurant's gloom, she knew she was being watched by one more person—someone lacking the guts to show herself. Io didn't bother searching the shadows for those familiar eyes. She would never see them again.

. . .
Earlier we have seen excerpts extolling the benefits of an industrial order based on efficient biological assembly processes. There is no doubt that these techniques are in large measure responsible for the relative comfort of today's ten billion human beings, not least the fact that they have not starved
.

The mysticism of the Madrid Catholics, their religious revulsion toward even completely voluntary use of human reproductive systems for industry, is not shared by many others these days. Rather, the right of the poor to use their bodies' talents for their own benefit is enshrined in law, so long as volunteers are qualified and restrict themselves to licensed, nonhuman embryonic material
.

Nevertheless, some dissenting voices have spoken critically of this system from more rational grounds—scientific, biological, economic, and cultural. Some fear that our fundamental attitude toward life itself is changing, as each day passes. These are doubts that must, in all fairness, be taken seriously
. . . .

—
from
A Survey of Modern Problems,

New York, 2049
.

. . .
The time may come when these peculiarly severe licensing laws may be relaxed. But for now the intrinsic value of this particular product to society—by far the most valuable item produced by any society—has convinced lawmakers and voters alike that one particular career calls for schooling, qualification, and respect above any and all others
. . . .

—
from
The Certification Act, 2039.

Another penalty of eggwork was the lengthy, all too realistic process of labor. Io took the doctors' word for it that it was still a bit easier than the "real thing." But that was small comfort.

Not that difficulty or exertion held any great fears for her. Io knew what she was doing.

Still, Joey held her hand through the agony of transition. And afterward he wiped the perspiration from her brow. It was all just part of the agency's service, he told her.

Io knew better, of course. Joey actually cared, bless him.

"Did I remember to curse you for getting me into this?" she asked when the worst was over.

Joey smiled. "Missed your chance. Maybe next time."

"I told you, Joey, there isn't going to be a—"

"Hush. We'll speak of it later. Now, you concentrate. Transition may be over, but you still have hard pushing ahead."

"Okay, Joey."

Tremors. Foreshadowings. Io focused on her breathing and was ready when the next contractions came.

"Good, good," the industrial midwife told her. A technician in the service of Technique Zaire, she commanded her team with crisp precision. "Now please to be ready for last effort."

"Ah," Io replied in a sharp exhalation. "Ah!" Then she lost track of time. Moment by moment she did as she was told by those whose job it was to help her. Several times she cried out in ways she had been taught, conserving her strength for the final moment.

When it came, it was almost anticlimactic. Passage, release, evacuation. A parting of that familiar connection.

Emptiness.

The scurrying techs had no attention to spare for her. Even Joey rushed forward, eager to see. When he returned, his eyes beamed. "I—I thought it would be a shipbrain, Io, but I was wrong. It's a
starbrain
!"

"S-starbrain?"

"Yes! It's a fine, big, healthy starbrain. The only biomanufactured product licensed to use true human genes! The only one capable of sentience!"

Io's lower lip trembled. Tears welled in her eyes. She began to sob.

Joey, mistaking her tears for joy, kept on exulting obliviously.

"Jeez, Io, it will
think
. It'll pilot starships. Why, they're even talking about a bill to give starbrains
citizenship
, for heaven's sake! Do you know what they're
paying
for a healthy . . ."

Joey's voice droned on, a low ululation of misplaced enthusiasm. Io shut it out. She flung an arm over her eyes so she could not see when they came forward with a swaddled something to show her.

They did not know. They could not know how she felt.

Her breasts throbbed as they attached machines for her first milking, to release the straining pressure. To begin harvesting secondary product from the right. Tertiary from the left.

Tertiary product. Colostrum and homo milk, at fivepence a gram.

Her left breast sent unwanted signals to her brain.

"Io, I've just been told they're so happy with you they want to renew. . . ."

"Oh, Joey," she cried. "Go away, please!" Io's head rocked. "Just go away."

They left her then, to listen to the rhythms, to the machines, to the beating of her heart. To the poignant singing in her veins.

It has to be worth it
, she thought. She prayed.

It has to be
!

93 Marina Drive

Ellesmere Port, Merseyside

Department of Certification

and Accreditation

Toward that brighter future, you and your professional enthusiasm will surely add new strength and purpose
.

Therefore, from this date forward, you are hereby licensed to engage in the most demanding and important occupation of them all
.

Congratulations. We are certain you will be a very fine mother/
father
.

For the sake of the children
. . .

In all of history, no organized system of thought has changed humanity as much as science. Its offspring technologies have brought unrivaled power and wealth to our lives, as well as unprecedented danger. Answers to countless questions that mystified our ancestors are now freely available to all. This expansion and democratization of knowledge has been a major force for change in a species used to strict patterns of inherited hierarchy.

Yet, in the midst of this renaissance, one hears the question, "Does science provide everything we need?" Often the reply is a resounding "No!"

This rejection doesn't come only from religious conservatives. So-called New Age movements—encompassing everything from astrology, to past-life regression, to crystal therapy—transfix many citizens of our modern culture, those feeling a need for more than science and reason seem to offer. Most patrons of these new mysticisms acknowledge the positive accomplishments of technology. (They would hate to do without microwave ovens and CD players.) Still, they proclaim faith in realms of wisdom and adventure inaccessible to rational thought.

This attitude may have been best distilled by author Tom Robbins in his novel,
Another Roadside Attraction
, in which a minor character explains sagely that "science gives man what he needs, but
magic
gives man what he
wants
."

The conflict is an old one. George Washington and other followers of the Enlightenment Movement wrote of their belief in the imminent maturity of humankind. The ancient and cruel feudal ways were splitting asunder at last; therefore, how could truth and freedom not prevail? In fact, the Enlightenment changed humanity forever. Yet its followers forgot that each generation is invaded by a new wave of barbarians . . . its children. Just as Washington, Franklin, and their peers took joy in toppling the tyranny of Church and King, so the youths of the Romantic Movement thrived on jeering the lofty ideals of
their
predecessors.

"What good is reason," they sneered, "if it drives out beauty, terror, and vivid emotion? Can a thousand facts compare with that epiphanic moment, when a poet stands tall in a lightning storm, hurling challenges at God?"

Heady stuff; Shelley, Byron, and their crowd attracted a lot of attention, capturing the passion of countless followers. The Romantics seemed to hearken to inner needs left unsatisfied by mere cool logic.