Nancy Kress: Beggars and Choosers

She added them, her, right onto the foodbelt cubbies going out into the cafe, to be clicked off on people’s meal chips. Fools probably didn’t even notice, them, how much better her dishes tasted than the usual stuff going round and round on the belt day and night. And of course with the holoterminal going full blast, and the dance music playing all the time, nobody would of heard her and Lizzie back here even if they was blowing up the whole damn kitchen.

Annie liked to cook, she said. Liked to keep busy. I sometimes thought, me, that for somebody trying so hard to bring up Lizzie to be a good Liver, Annie herself was more than a little bit donkey. Of course I didn’t say that, me, to Annie. I wanted to keep my head.

Annie started to hum, her, while she peeled apples. But Lizzie don’t give up on questions. She said again, “ Who will do something about them raccoons?”

Annie frowned. “Maybe somebody’ll come to fix the warden ’bot.”

Lizzie’s big black eyes didn’t blink. It’s spooky, sometimes, how she can stare so hard without never blinking. “Nobody came to fix the peeler ’bot. Nobody came to fix the cleaner ’bot in the cafe. You said yesterday, you, that you didn’t think the donkeys would send nobody even if the mainline soysynth ’bot broke.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it, me,” Annie said. She peeled faster. “ That breaks and nobody in this town eats!”

“They could share, them. Share the food that people took off the foodbelt before it broke.”

Annie and I looked at each other. Once I saw a town, me, where a cafe broke down. Six people ended up killed. And that was when the gravrail worked regular, so people could leave, them, for another town in the district.

“Yes, dear heart,” Annie said. “People could share, them.”

“But you and Billy don’t think they would, them.”

Annie didn’t answer. She don’t like to lie to Lizzie , her. I said, “No, Lizzie. A lot of people wouldn’t share, them.”

Lizzie turned her bright black eyes on me. “Why wouldn’t they share?”

I said, “ ‘Cause people out of the habit of sharing, them. They expect stuff now. They got a right to stuff — that’s why they elect politicians. The donkey politicians pay their taxes, them, and the taxes are the cafes and warehouses and medunits and baths that let Livers get on with serious living.”

Lizzie said, “But people shared more, them, when you was young, Billy? They shared more then?”

“Sometimes. Mostly they worked, them, for what they wanted.”

“That’s enough,” Annie said sharply. “Don’t you go filling her head with what’s past, Billy Washington. She’s a Liver. Don’t go talking, you, like you was a donkey yourself! And you, Lizzie , don’t you talk about it no more.”

But nobody can’t stop Lizzie when she’s started. She’s like a gravrail. Like a gravrail used to be, before this last year. “School says I’m lucky, me, to be a Liver. I get to live like an aristo while the donkeys got to do all the work, them. Donkeys serve Livers, Livers hold the power, us, by votes. But if we hold the power, us, how come we can’t get the cleaner ’bot and the peeler ’bot and the warden ’bot fixed?”

“Since when you been at school?” I joked, trying to derail Lizzie, trying to keep Annie from getting madder. “I thought you just played, you, down by the river with Susie Mastro and Carlena Terrell. You’re an agro Liver, you!”

She looked at me, her, like I was a broken ’bot myself.

Annie said shortly, “You are lucky, you to be a Liver. And you say so if anybody asks you.”

“Like who?”

“ Anybody . You shouldn’t go to school so much anyway. You don’t never see the other children, you, going so much. Do you want to be a freak?” She scowled.

Lizzie turned to me. “Billy, who’s going to do something about them rabid raccoons if nobody fixes the warden ’bot?”

I glanced at Annie. I got to my feet, me, puffing. “I don’t know, Lizzie. Just stay inside, you, all right?”

Lizzie said, “But what if one of them raccoons bites somebody?”

I had the sense, me, to stay quiet. Finally Annie said, “The medunit still works.”

“But what if it breaks?”

“It won’t break.”

“But what if it does ?”

“It won’t!”

“How do you know ?” Lizzie said, and I finally saw, me, that this was some sort of private scooter race between mother and daughter. I didn’t understand it, me, but I could see Lizzie was ahead. She said again, “How do you know, you, that the medunit won’t break too?”

“Because if it did, Congresswoman Land would send somebody, her, to fix it. The medunit is part of her taxes.”

“She didn’t send nobody to fix the cleaning ’bot. Or the peeler ’bot. Or the—”

“The medunit’s different!” Annie snapped. She hacked at an apple so hard that pulp flew off the table I stole for her from the cafe.

Lizzie said, “Why is the medunit so different?”

“Because it just is! If the medunit breaks, people could die, them. No politician is going to let Livers die. They’d never get elected again!”

Lizzie considered this. I thought, me, that the scooter race was over, and I breathed more easy. Lately it seemed like they fought all the time. Lizzie was growing up, her, and I hated it. It made it harder to keep her safe.

She said, “But people could die from rabid raccoons, too. So how come you said District Supervisor Samuelson probably won’t send nobody to fix the warden ’bot, but Congresswoman Land would send somebody to fix the medunit ’bot?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it — she was so smart, her. Annie scowled at me and right away I was sorry I laughed. Annie snapped, “So maybe I was wrong, me! Maybe somebody’ll fix the warden ’bot! Maybe I don’t know nothing, me!”

Lizzie said calmly, “Billy said too, him, that nobody would fix it. Billy, how come you—”

I said, “Because even donkeys don’t got the money, them, that they used to have to pay taxes with. And too much stuff gets broke nowadays. They got to make choices, them, about what to fix.”

Lizzie said, “But why do the donkey politicians got less money for taxes, them? And how come more stuff gets broke?”

Annie flung her peeled apples into a belt dish and dumped dough on them like it was mud.

“Because other countries make cheap Y-energy now. Twenty years ago we was the only ones, us, who could make it, and now we’re not. But the stuff breaking—”

Annie burst out, “You believe them lies politicians say on the grids? Land and Samuelson and Drinkwater? Pisswater! All lies, every time one of them opens their mouth, them, it’s lies — they just want to get out of paying their rightful taxes! The taxes we earned, us, with our votes! And I told you not to fill up the child’s head with them secondhand donkey lies, Billy Washington!”

“Ain’t lies,” I said, but I hated having Annie mad at me worse than I hated having her mad at Lizzie . It hurt my heart. Old fool.

Lizzie saw it. She was like that, her: all pushing and pushing one minute, all sweetness the next. She put her arms around me. “It’s all right, Billy. She ain’t mad, her, at you. Nobody’s mad at you . We love you, us.”

I held her, me. It was like holding a bird — thin bones and fluttery heart in your hand. She smelled of apples.

My dead wife Rosie and me never wanted kids. I don’t know, me, what we was thinking.

But all I said out loud was, “You don’t go outside, you, until them rabid raccoons are killed by somebody.”