Greg Bear - Mariposa

The nursery walls were pasted with colorful posters and stickers of balloons and farm animals and giraffes, big silver airplanes, and along the north wall, a hand-painted mural of a fairy tale castle, done by a volunteer with some talent.

The square of sun moved to a worn green couch.

Miss Wickham had approved the adoption last week, despite the news of the Los Angeles bomb attack; Miss Wickham was tough as nails and hard to sway once her mind was settled, and she had settled on Rebecca as being a decent parent for little Mary, whatever the world delivered along the way.

Rebecca had spent six months in interviews and record searches and corralling testimonials to get to this point, and yesterday, her request over the phone from the hospital had been met with several seconds of stony silence; Rebecca could easily imagine the extra width and extension of Wickham's pop eyes, the tap of her pencil on the steel top of the office desk.

"You'll have to tell her in person, Ms. Rose," Miss Wickham had said. "She's got her own set of hopes. She already knows you. You'll have to explain this yourself."

"She's two years old," Rebecca whispered to herself in the silent nursery. "She'll get over it."

But Rebecca never would. This was her last chance.

The door opened on the far side of the nursery and Miss Wickham's young assistant entered. Rebecca tried to remember her name; a faded slip of a girl in her late twenties, with large eyes, gentle hands, and a gently anemic smile. The sort of girl who took care of damaged animals and lost children and dreamed at night of de-balling the cruel bastards who caused all this loss and pain. Not that she would ever reveal that to anyone, certainly not to Miss Wickham.

The girl sidestepped the square of sun and stood before Rebecca, carrying a wireless freepad in one hand. "Mary's just finished her nap. She'll be here in a moment."

Rebecca nodded.

"It's not good to wait this far into the process," the girl said.

Rebecca nodded again, and for no good reason stared intently at her until the girl turned away with lips set in irritation, even anger; who could tell the difference?

Sometimes the saints of the world…

Miss Wickham entered, holding little Mary's hand. Mary saw Rebecca and her round face and beautiful black eyes all came together in the sweetest, shyest smile.

I am not going to blubber. I'll cry in front of Miss Wickham if I have to, but not this bleached-out killer saint.

"We'll leave you two to talk," Miss Wickham said, and let go of Mary's hand just in front of Rebecca.

She and the killer saint left the nursery.

Five minutes. That was all they had left. No lifetime of love and watching this tiny, silky creature grow into young womanhood. Just a few words and a few minutes, all because Rebecca's life had come to a brick wall she had to climb alone.

Mary walked to Rebecca and Rebecca picked her up and hugged her. She was beginning to speak a few words of English. She came from Hong Kong, Miss Wickham said, or perhaps from Shanghai; there was no way of knowing. She had been found on a small island where the female infants of the daughters of wealthy, politically connected Chinese were often left to the care of patient, inured villagers.

Fishermen a hungry civilization had left with nothing to catch but abandoned children.

"I see you," Mary said.

She stood on Rebecca's lap and wrapped her skinny arms around Rebecca's neck. Rebecca let her cling for a few minutes, then gently pulled her back and sat her down.

Smoothed her hair, soft and fine.

What could they say to each other?

"I've been away in a hospital," Rebecca began her rehearsed speech.

Mary looked up and interpreted her expression, then imitated it, eyes narrow, lips sad. "Why?"

"I'm going to have to go away. I love you more than anything, but we can't live together like I planned. I still want to, it's nothing you've done…"

Some people want me dead. I won't put you in danger. No way to explain.

Mary could not understand.

"You're the loveliest, sweetest little girl in the world, but we can't live together. I have to go away."

Mary's face froze, but she was no longer looking directly at Rebecca.

Her gaze wandered to the window.

She played with Rebecca's sleeve. "No more," she said.

"Someone wonderful will love you just as much as I do, I know that."

"So sorry," Mary said.

Rebecca touched Mary's arm and stroked the smooth skin.

Miss Wickham returned.

"Mary, we have to go back. Say goodbye to Ms. Rose."

Mary just let go and slid off her lap. She did not look at Rebecca. Only at the window.

"We'll sign your release in the office," Miss Wickham told Rebecca, and hoisted Mary to her shoulder.

Rebecca watched Mary's little face withdraw down the long, bright hallway.

In the office, Miss Wickham settled back in her desk chair with a sigh. "I think I'm a good enough judge of people to know you have your reasons. Care to share?"

Rebecca shook her head. It would sound crazy.

"But you have a very good reason."

"I do."

"You're ill, something like that. Something I can put down on the forms, other than…"

"That'll work," Rebecca said.

Miss Wickham wrote for a minute, then passed a photo across the desk to Rebecca.

"We usually try to place our children with someone of their own heritage, but I believed this was a good match. I stuck my neck out and overruled procedure. Luckily, I've got another couple lined up. They're older, they're Asian-Chinese, in fact. Los Angeles couple, not wealthy, but solid family. No children. Their name is Choy. Her name will be Mary Choy-pretty, don't you think?"

Rebecca did not believe it was policy to reveal the names of adoptive parents. This was either Miss Wickham's special gift, to allay her fears that Mary would never find a home-or a kind of revenge.

She looked down at the man and woman in the photo. They looked bland and serious.

"Lovely name," she said.

"Sign here and we're done."

Back in her rental car, Rebecca looked through her spex at a list of messages. There was one she needed to return right away. She double-blinked to connect.

"Tom here," came the answer.

"Rebecca. Anything interesting?"

"Probably. It's a proprietary encryption, but I think I know where the PAR numbers are, and I think there's enough so I can reconstruct the rest of the memory."

"Great," Rebecca said. "Get it to me quick. No other copy. And bill my personal account."

"No cost," Tom said, his voice far away. "This one's for Captain Periglas."

6 DAYS

The White House

"We're getting too old for this."

President Eve Carol Larsen arranged pillows in the corners of a large leather chair, then sat with a groan and propped her leg up on a bolster. "News tells me you're going to stop in at Bethesda while you're here."

"I have an appointment with the gimp squad," Rebecca said, arranging her crutches, then settling into the seat across from the Commander in Chief. Still gave her goose bumps. "It's good to see you up and about, Madam President."

"My trauma surgeon said I was like the lunch special at KFC. Breast, wing, and thigh." Larsen leaned to one side and tapped her polished fingernail on the chair arm. "Funny, huh? Laughing makes my chest hurt. You're an ex-smoker, right?"

"Yes," Rebecca said.

"Me too. I need a cigarette just to talk about it. The projectiles came from four miles away. I saw ruby-red spots of light-lasers doing speckle interferometry. The laser goes out through the air, gets refracted by temperature, wind, the way the ground or the building shivers-whatever.

"The sniper has a tiny scope-mounted computer that tracks the laser and also refines my image, then calculates the odds of a shot getting through. The shooter squeezes the trigger to begin the sequence-but the bullets don't fire right away. The imager and the interferometer work with the firing mechanism. The shots are let loose at the best, most opportune intervals-ten of them.