Echea

"How could she divert supply ships?"

He rubbed his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Then he sighed again. "A scientist on Colony Europe developed a technology that broadcast thoughts through the subconscious. It was subtle, and it worked very well. A broadcast about hunger at Colony Europe would get a supply captain to divert his ship from Colony Russia and drop the supplies in Colony Europe. It’s more sophisticated than I make it sound. The technology actually made the captain believe that the rerouting was his idea."

Dreams. Dreams came from the subconscious. I shivered.

"The problem was that the technology was inserted into the brain of the user, like a link, but if the user had an existing link, it superseded the new technology. So they installed it in children born on the Moon, born in Colony Europe. Apparently Echea was."

"And they rerouted supply ships?"

"By imagining themselves hungry-or actually being starved. They would broadcast messages to the supply ships. Sometimes they were about food. Sometimes they were about clothing. Sometimes they were about weapons." He shook his head. "Are. I should say are. They’re still doing this."

"Can’t it be stopped?"

He shook his head. "We’re gathering data on it now. Echea is the third child I’ve seen with this condition. It’s not enough to go to the World Congress yet. Everyone knows though. The Red Crescent and the Red Cross are alerted to this, and they remove children from the colonies, sometimes on penalty of death, to send them here where they will no longer be harmed. The technology is deactivated, and people like you adopt them and give them full lives."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Perhaps your House reactivated her device."

I shook my head. "The first dream happened before she listened to House."

"Then some other technology did. Perhaps the government didn’t shut her off properly. It happens. The recommended procedure is to say nothing, and to simply remove the device."

I frowned at him. "Then why are you telling me this? Why didn’t you just remove it?"

"Because you want her to be linked."

"Of course I do," I said. "You know that. You told her yourself the benefits of linking. You know what would happen to her if she isn’t. You know."

"I know that she would be fine if you and your husband provided for her in your wills. If you gave her one of the houses and enough money to have servants for the rest of her life. She would be fine."

"But not productive."

"Maybe she doesn’t need to be," he said.

It sounded so unlike the Ronald who had been treating my children that I frowned. "What aren’t you telling me?"

"Her technology and the link are incompatible."

"I understand that," I said. "But you can remove her technology."

"Her brain formed around it. If I installed the link, it would wipe her mind clean."

"So?"

He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. "I’m not being clear," he said more to himself than to me. "It would make her a blank slate. Like a baby. She’d have to learn everything all over again. How to walk. How to eat. It would go quicker this time, but she wouldn’t be a normal seven-year-old girl for half a year."

"I think that’s worth the price of the link," I said.

"But that’s not all," he said. "She’d lose all her memories. Every last one of them. Life on the Moon, arrival here, what she ate for breakfast the morning she received the link." He started to scoot forward and then stopped. "We are our memories, Sarah. She wouldn’t be Echea any more."

"Are you so sure?" I asked. "After all, the basic template would be the same. Her genetic makeup wouldn’t alter."

"I’m sure," he said. "Trust me. I’ve seen it."

"Can’t you do a memory store? Back things up so that when she gets her link she’ll have access to her life before?"

"Of course," he said. "But it’s not the same. It’s like being told about a boat ride as opposed to taking one yourself. You have the same basic knowledge, but the experience is no longer part of you."

His eyes were bright. Too bright.

"Surely it’s not that bad," I said.

"This is my specialty," he said, and his voice was shaking. He was obviously very passionate about this work. "I study how wiped minds and memory stores interact. I got into this profession hoping I could reverse the effects."

I hadn’t known that. Or maybe I had and forgotten it.

"How different would she be?" I asked.

"I don’t know," he said. "Considering the extent of her experience on the Moon, and the traumatic nature of much of it, I’d bet she’ll be very different." He glanced into the play area. "She’d probably play with that doll beside her and not give a second thought to where you are."

"But that’s good."

"That is, yes, but think how good it feels to earn her trust. She doesn’t give it easily, and when she does, it’s heartfelt."

I ran a hand through my hair. My stomach churned.

I don’t like these choices, Ronald.

"I know," he said. I started. I hadn’t realized I had actually sent him that last message.

"You’re telling me that either I keep the same child and she can’t function in our society, or I give her the same chances as everyone else and take away who she is."

"Yes," he said.

"I can’t make that choice," I said. "My husband will see this as a breach of contract. He’ll think that they sent us a defective child."

"Read the fine print in your agreement," Ronald said. "This one is covered. So are a few others. It’s boilerplate. I’ll bet your lawyer didn’t even flinch when she read them."

"I can’t make this choice," I said again.

He scooted forward and put his hands on mine. They were warm and strong and comfortable.

And familiar. Strangely familiar.

"You have to make the choice," he said. "At some point. That’s part of your contract too. You’re to provide for her, to prepare her for a life in the world. Either she gets a link or she gets an inheritance that someone else manages."

"And she won’t even be able to check to see if she’s being cheated."

"That’s right," he said. "You’ll have to provide for that too."

"It’s not fair, Ronald!"

He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and leaned it against my forehead. "It never was," he said softly. "Dearest Sarah. It never was."

"Damn!" my husband said. We were sitting in our bedroom. It was half an hour before supper, and I had just told him about Echea’s condition. "The lawyer was supposed to check for things like this!"

"Dr. Caro said they’re just learning about the problem on Earth."

"Dr. Caro." My husband stood. "Dr. Caro is wrong."

I frowned at him. My husband was rarely this agitated.

"This is not a technology developed on the Moon," my husband said. "It’s an Earth technology, pre-neural net. Subject to international ban in ’24. The devices disappeared when the link became the common currency among all of us. He’s right that they’re incompatible."

I felt the muscles in my shoulders tighten. I wondered how my husband knew of the technology and wondered if I should ask. We never discussed each other’s business.

"You’d think that Dr. Caro would have known this," I said casually.

"His work is in current technology, not the history of technology," my husband said absently. He sat back down. "What a mess."

"It is that," I said softly. "We have a little girl to think of."

"Who’s defective."

"Who has been used." I shuddered. I had cradled her the whole way back and she had let me. I had remembered what Ronald said, how precious it was to hold her when I knew how hard it was for her to reach out. How each touch was a victory, each moment of trust a celebration. "Think about it. Imagine using something that keys into your most basic desires, uses them for purposes other than-"