Nancy Kress - Beggars and Choosers

“Short-lived? No teeth? GSEA breed specifications—”

“Will be waived for export animals. Meanwhile I’m just beta-testing for a friend. Ah, here’s Hudson.”

The ’bot floated through the French doors with a fresh pitcher of vodka scorpions. Katous scrambled away, his four ears quivering. His scramble brought him sideways against a bank of flowers, all of which tried to wrap themselves around him. One long flaccid petal settled softly over his eyes. Katous yelped and pulled loose, his eyes wild. He shot across the terrace.

“Help!” he cried. “Help Katous!”

On that side of the terrace I had planted moondust in shallow boxes between the palings, to make a low border that wouldn’t obstruct the view of the Bay. Katous’s frightened flight barreled hirr into the moondust’s sensor field. It released a cloud of sweet-smelling blue fibers, fine as milkweed. The dog breathed them in, and yelped again. The moondust cloud was momentarily translucent, a fragrant fog around those enormous terrified eyes. Katous ran in a ragged circle, then leaped blindly. He hurled between the wide-set palings and over the edge of the terrace.

The sound of his body hitting the pavement below made Hudson turn its sensors.

Stephanie and I ran to the railing. At our feet the moondust released another cloud of fibers. Katous lay smashed on the sidewalk six stories down.

“Damn!” Stephanie cried. “That prototype cost a quarter mil- liooinR D!”

Hudson said, “There was an unregistered sound from the lower entranceway. Shall I alert security?”

“What am I going to tell Norman? I promised to baby-sit the T.üng and keep it safe!”

“Repeat. There was an unregistered sound from the lower entranceway. Shall I alert security?”

“No, Hudson,” I said. “No action.” I looked at the mass of bloody pink fur. Sorrow and disgust swept through me: sorrow for Katous’s fear, disgust for Stephanie and myself.

“Ah, well,” Stephanie said. Her perfect lips twitched. “Maybe the IQ did need enhancing. Can’t you just see the Liver tabloid neadines? DUMB DOG DIVES TO DEATH. PANICKED BY PENILE POSY.” She threw back her head and laughed, the red hair swinging in the breeze.

Mercurial , David had once said of Stephanie. She has intrigu-ingly mercurial moods .

Personally, I’ve never found Liver tabloid headlines as funny as everyone else seems to. And I’d bet that neither “penile” nor “posy” was in the Liver vocabulary.

Stephanie shrugged and turned away from the railing. “I guess Norman will just have to make another one. With the R D already done, it probably won’t bankrupt them. Maybe they can even take a tax write-off. Did you hear that Jean-Claude rammed his writeoff through the IRS, for the embryos he and Lisa decided not to implant in a surrogate after all? He discarded them and wrote off the embryo storage for seven years as a business depreciation on the grounds that an heir was part of long-term strategic planning, and the IRS auditor actually allowed it. Nine fertilized embryos, all with expensive genemods. And then he and Lisa decide they don’t want kids after all.”

I gazed at the throwaway pile of pink fur on the sidewalk, and then out at the wide blue Bay, and I made my decision. In that moment. As quickly and irrationally as that.

Like most of the rest of my life.

“Do you know Colin Kowalski?” I asked Stephanie.

She thought briefly. She had eidetic recall. “Yes, I think so.

Sarah Goldman introduced us at some theater a few years ago. Tall, with wavy brown hair? Minimal genemod, right? I don’t remember him as handsome. Why? Is he your replacement for David?”

“No.”

“Wait a minute — isn’t he with the GSEA?”

“Yes.”

“I think I already mentioned,” Stephanie said stiffly, “that Norman’s company had a special beta-test permit for Katous?”

“No. You didn’t.”

Stephanie chewed on her flawless lower lip. Actually, the permit is pending. Diana—”

“Don’t worry, Stephanie. I’m not going to report your dead violation. I just thought you might know Colin. He’s giving an extravagant Fourth of July party. I could get you an invitation.” I was enjoying her discomfort.

“I don’t think I’d be interested in a party hosted by a Purity Squad agent. They’re always so stuffy. Guys who wrap up genetic rigidity in the old red-white-and-blue and never see that the result looks like a national prick. Or a nightstick, beating down innovation in the name of fake patriotism. No thanks.”

“You think the idealism is fake?”

“Most patriotism is. Either that or Liver sentimentality. God, the only thing bearable about this country comes from genemod technology. Most Livers look like shit and behave worse — you yourself said you can’t stand to be around them.”

I had said that, yes. There were a lot of people I couldn’t stand to be around.

Stephanie was on a political roll, the kind that never made it to campaign holovids. “Without the genemod brains in the security enclaves, this would be a country of marching morons, incapable of even basic survival. Personally, I think the best act of’patriotism’ would be a lethal genemod virus that wiped out everybody but donkeys. Livers contribute nothing and drain off everything.”

I said carefully, “Did I ever tell you that my mother was a Liver? Who was killed fighting for the United States in the China Conflict? She was a master sergeant.”

Actually, my mother had died when I was two; I barely remembered her. But Stephanie had the grace to look embarrassed. “No. And you should have, before you let me give that tirade.

But it doesn’t change anything. You’re a donkey. You’re genemod. You do useful work.”

This last was either generous or bitchy. I have done a variety of work, none of it persistently useful. I have a theory about people who end up with strings of short-term careers. It is, incidentally, the same theory I have about people who end up with strings of short-term lovers. With each one you inevitably hit a low point, not only within the purported “love” affair or fresh occupation, but also within yourself. This is because each new lover/job reveals fresh internal inadequacy. With one you discover your capacity to be lazy; with another, to be shrewish; with a third, to engage in frenzied hungry ambition that appalls you with its pathetic nee-diness. The sum of too many careers or too many lovers, then, is the same: a composite of personal low points, a performance scat-tergram sinking inevitably to the bottom right quadrant. All your weaknesses stand revealed. What one lover or occupation missed, the next one will draw forth.

In the last ten years, I have worked in security, in entertainment holovids, in county politics, in furniture manufacture franchises (more than one), in ’bot law, in catering, in education, in applied syncography, in sanitation. Nothing ventured, nothing lost. And yet David, who was after Russell who was after Anthony who was after Paul who was after Rex who was after Eugene who was after Claude, never called me “mercurial.” Which is certainly indicative of something.

I hadn’t reacted to Stephanie’s jibe, so she repeated it, smiling solicitously. “ You’re a donkey, Diana. You do useful work.”

“I’m about to,” I said.

She poured herself another drink. “Will David be at this Colin Kowalski’s party?”

“No. I’m sure not. But he’ll be at Sarah’s campaign fund-raiser on Saturday. We both accepted weeks ago.”

“And are you going?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I understand. But if David and you are really finished with each other—”