Shelter (27 page)

    "Sure," Constance said. "When he was home. But he didn't come home any more often so he could hold you, you know?" She and Jack exchanged looks, and Meredith saw him squeeze her hand. She tried to imagine having a baby with Raji, only to have Raji never be home to hold it, and her pity for Preston was replaced with pity for her mother.

    "That's awful! How could he—"

    "It was a long time ago. I don't think he knew any better, at the time. He thought he was taking care of us by making a lot of money. In some ways, your father's very old-fashioned. Meredith, thank you for being there when I was in labor."

    "You're welcome. I'm sorry I left when—when—"

    "Don't worry about it, honey. You were exhausted. It's good you left when you did. I just wish you hadn't had such a hard vigil. It's not always that hard, you know, especially for younger women."

    Merry's heart sank. Now she knew why Constance hadn't wanted her there, initially: she hadn't wanted to scare Meredith away from technological intervention. "I know, Mom. But even if I decide to have a kid someday, I'm not doing a womb transplant or anything else like that, okay?"

    Constance's face tightened. "That's what I was afraid you'd say."

    "I said it before," Merry said patiently. "I've said it every time you've brought up the subject. It's nothing new."

    Jack cleared his throat. "This doesn't have to be decided now."

    "Merry, giving birth is such a beautiful experience. I know it looks horrible, but really, I wouldn't give it up for anything, not your birth or Theo's; there's nothing like feeling as if you've given life."

    "There are other ways to give life, Mom. There are. Really." The baby, who had fallen asleep after his meal, stirred against Constance's breast; looking at his fiber-optic halo, Meredith wondered if this argument would be part of his memories of his first day. Would the rig record noises he didn't understand? "You never made a big deal about my having kids before you found out I couldn't; why make a big deal about it now?"

    "We're all still very tired," Jack said, "and I really think there are better times and places for this."

    "Jack, hush. I don't see why we can't talk about it now. Merry, it was never an issue before because it never occurred to me that you wouldn't have children. I—when I die I know I'll still be in the world, and so will your father, through you, and so will Jack through Theo."

    "Genes," Merry said wearily. Talk about old-fashioned! Well, Honoli had gone on about her "own genetic material" too. "You want me to pass my genes on, is that it? Look, Mom, if I adopt a kid it can have plastic surgery to look more like me, if that's what you're worried about. We'll make sure it has the right eyes, if that's really important to you, although frankly, I think the whole thing's a little racist."

    "No," Constance said. "That's not what I mean. You don't understand. Your father and I, we both live on in you."

    "Yeah, well, he's living online now, and you will be too, right? So why does the other matter?"

    "They both matter!" Meredith could tell that her mother was near tears. "It all matters. I wouldn't be happy on the Net if I didn't know that part of me was alive in the world too. I didn't want to say that in front of your father because I didn't want him to think that I think he's not—not—"

    "Not alive?" Merry asked sardonically.

    "Not enough," Constance said, shaking her head. "I don't want him to think he's not enough if he's just on the Net and not in the world."

    Merry looked down at the floor. "Is it my job to make sure you're enough? You or Daddy? I think I need to worry about whether I'm enough, don't you?"

    "But that's exactly what I'm talking about! If you aren't in the world too—"

    "Mom, it's up to me to define 'enough' for myself I'm not getting a rig. I won't be uploaded. And when I die I'll become part of everything, part of all the world, whether my genes are walking around in a body or not. And that's enough for me." It was standard Temple doctrine; she was mildly shocked to discover that she really did believe it, clear through, in every molecule of her being.

    Constance clutched Theo visibly tighter, relaxing her hold only when he whimpered. "But what about the other people you love? What about Raji?"

    "What about Raji?" Merry, taken aback, glared at Constance. "Who told you about—"

    "Oh, honey, Matt did, of course. It's all right. I don't mind. I might have before, but—well, things are different now. I'm happy for you, and for him. He cares about you very much. He's a sweet boy."

    Boy? Merry felt her face flushing. "Why would you have minded be- fore? Because I might have had a baby with him? Because—"

    "Because it would have been riskier, yes."

    "I'd have used birth control, Mom!"

    "Which doesn't always work. Look, you are only fifteen, even if you've lived through far too much this past year, and hormones can sweep away better judgment. Don't think I don't know that. Now, back to the original question. If you could have a baby with Raji, wouldn't you want it to have his genes, because you love him? And wouldn't you want him to want it to have your genes, because he loves you?"

    "I've had a baby with you," Jack cut in affably, "and I want you to get some sleep and stop pestering your daughter, so you'll have more strength for your son." He winked at Merry and added, "And if you don't stop arguing and get some rest, I'm going to call a nurse and have her give you a sedative, all right? Constance, give me the baby. Now lie down and close your eyes. There: that's better, isn't it?" Cradling Theo, he turned and added sotto voce to Meredith, "Stick by your guns and do whatever you want. That's my opinion. At this point it's only a rhetorical question, anyway."

    * * *

    She pondered the question as she left the hospital, emerging from the bright lobby, into brighter sunlight, to find that the media were back, microphones and buzzing helibots surrounding her the moment she stepped through the doors. "Meredith, how are your mother and the baby?" "Merry, how do you feel about your little brother?" "Merry, your father says—"

    "Everyone's doing splendidly," she said. "The baby's gorgeous and my mother and Jack are really happy, and so am I. But we're also all really tired, so if you'll excuse me, I need to go home now." She bent her head and began plowing through the thicket of bodies and electronics, ignoring the standard sniping-at-MacroCorp questions. "Do you believe your father's latest denials about MacroCorp ties to missile manufacturers?" "Do you favor android research?" "Do you agree with the latest antitrust ruling?"

    Meredith rolled her eyes. MacroCorp had sued a small company for patent infringement when it started selling its own rigs, and had promptly been hit with—and lost—an antitrust suit. It didn't matter; the competing rigs were inferior and wouldn't last on the market anyway. Android research was a dead end, since even the fanciest robots could never be mistaken for human beings; bots were far more functional when freed from the restraint of looking human. And yes, Meredith did believe her father's denials about the weapons business. Various neo-Luddite groups kept trying to prove that MacroCorp funded missile smugglers, bioweapons research, and ecologically unsavory mining and development activities. None of the claims had ever stood up to serious scrutiny. Why did people even keep asking? Didn't they have anything better to do? Anyway, there'd always been defense technology, and there always would be, and defense technology often helped drive advances that helped humanitarian work. The activists had such simple minds.

    Annoyed, she kept walking, only to be stopped by a thin voice from the back of the crowd. "Is there any truth to the rumor that you're involved with Raji Abdul-Allam?"

    Merry felt her stomach lurch. Sweet Gaia, where had that come from? Her father certainly wouldn't have leaked it—would he? Who would have told the vultures about her personal life? Anger flared in all her joints and tendons, but she turned and said, with the sweetest smile she could muster, "Raji and I live together." A hushed pause from the vultures. "In the Temple dorm." Knowing chuckles. "With eight other people. We're all involved with each other, but not the way you're thinking"—heartier laughter, good, she hadn't lost her touch with the press-"and we're all involved with everyone on the planet." Even those of us who've learned to mind our own business. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to go home and get some sleep."

    She escaped to the safety of her car, finally, and barely waited until the door was closed before dialing Matt's office. It was a secure connection. She told Matt what had happened, and said, "Matt, who in the name of—"

    "Merry, I don't know. I certainly didn't tell them. I can't imagine that anyone else here would have done it, either."

    "Well then, who?"

    "I don't know. Who else knows about you two? Your parents—"

    "They wouldn't tell the press! Raji's parents wouldn't either!"

    "Maybe they talked to somebody, friends who leaked it?" Merry thought of Brenda, of Sonia and Ahmed's gardener—true to Raji's criticism, his parents didn't even mow their own lawn—of anyone who might have seen her and Raji strolling on the Temple grounds: kids, visitors, delivery people. It could, she realized, have been just about anyone.

    "I don't know. I guess—I guess it doesn't really matter. Matt, I'm sorry I bothered you."

    "It's okay. You were upset. How are your mom and the baby?"

    "Fine. You'd think I'd be used to living in a fishbowl by now, wouldn't you?"

    Matt sighed. "The Temple's been a pretty safe place for you, at least that way. That's what you wanted, and you got it. But nothing's perfect, Merry. Do you want me to call a dorm meeting? To talk about this, see if anyone leaked it?"

    "No," she said. They were her friends; she didn't want to start making accusations. "I don't think any of them would have done it, anyway. And I guess it doesn't matter who it was. It could have been anybody."

    * * *

    "Merry, let go of it." She and Raji were in the kitchen doing the dinner dishes, Merry washing and Raji drying. Ordinarily the dishes would have been put in the dishwasher, but Merry had asked to wash them—although not to scrub pots—because the soap and hot water, the concrete, constructive action, soothed her. Raji had volunteered to help. "Look, you're right. It could have been anybody, and there will always be that danger and you'll never know, so let go of it. Either stop stewing or go ahead and call a dorm meeting and hash it out with everybody."

    "It's creepy, that's all. And it bothers me because it's about you too, and you shouldn't have to lose your privacy that way."

    "Well, I'm sorry it bothers you, but it doesn't bother me. I'm not ashamed of you."

    "That's not what I meant! I'm not ashamed of you , either."

    "Okay, well then, so everything's fine. Our parents are cool with it. The only problem would be if they weren't. So what's the big deal? People always gossip. When you're famous they just gossip on a bigger scale, that's all. "

    "Yeah, well, it's my whole life. For you it's a new thing, and maybe it's kind of fun, but I got very tired of it a long time ago."

    "Sure," he said, and shrugged. "I can see that. But what are you going to do about it? Refuse to spend time with your friends so they don't get dragged into the limelight?" He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Usually she would have found the gesture endearing, but now it grated on her, and she pulled away from him. "Aw, Merry. Come on. Everything's all right, really."

    "I can't go anywhere to get away from it," she said. "Not even here."

    "That's right. You can't go anywhere to get away from life, except death, and maybe not even there. So what else is new?"

    "It's not fair, that's all! It's not like I was given any choice. It's not like Theo was given any choice. He was just born, he's just a little baby, and already he's a—a public figure, somebody ScoopNet's using to boost their ratings. It sucks."

    "Sure it does. So do poverty and hunger and CV and the fact that Hortense's mind is slowly dribbling out of her ears while we stand here and watch."

    "Huh! So you agree with me now?" The new diapers worked better than the old ones had, but lately Hortense had started wandering away from the dorm more frequently, calling people by the wrong names, hiding in closets and under beds and benches like a small child, emerging only when Harold coaxed her with nursery rhymes and pieces of fruit. Sometimes, now, she didn't even recognize him.

    "I always did agree with you, kind of." Raji was quiet for a moment, twisting the dish towel idly around his hands, and then added, "It's just—it's going to be very hard on Harold to lose her, you know. He sleeps around whenever he can, or he pretends he wants to, but he really does love her. And it will be harder on both of them if she's in some kind of home than if she's here, with all of us. That's the main reason to let her stay. Not just for her; for him too."

    "Matt would say it's for all of us."

    "Yeah, I know. Have you ever been at a death?" Merry shook her head, suppressing a shudder, and Raji said, "My grandmother died a few years ago. My dad's mom. I'd never known her very well, because she lived in Kenya and we only saw her during the summers. She didn't speak English very well, and my Swahili sucks. When she got cancer she came over here so she could get better medical care, but it was already too late. She spent the last three months in hospice, you know, on pain meds and everything, and she and my father spent hours talking in Swahili about stuff that had happened before I was born, about when he was a little boy. And my parents told her stories about when I was a little boy so she'd feel like she knew me better. She used to like to hold my hand. I'd just sit there, and she'd hold my hand and sing me songs."

    "Like Harold's nursery rhymes."

    "I guess. She sang songs and told me a lot of stories about animals, antelope and lions and baboons, things she'd seen when she was a kid, and my parents tried to translate for her, and they said she was so proud that they were helping animals and she hoped I would too, which was when the whole Temple pressure thing really started. She was homesick for Africa the whole time she was here, I think. My dad said—when the pandemic started over there, you know, the CV, he said, 'Praise Goddess she went before that, after losing so many to HIV. Praise Goddess that she died of cancer instead.' "