Beggars in Spain

Leisha went to the Homecoming Ball with Stewart, who was also majoring in pre-law but was two years ahead of Leisha. She took a weekend trip to Paris with Kate Addams and two other girlfriends, taking the Concorde III. She had a fight with Stewart over whether the metaphor of superconductivity could apply to Yagaiism, a stupid fight they both knew was stupid but had anyway, and afterward they became lovers. After the fumbling sexual explorations with Richard, Stewart was deft, experienced, smiling faintly as he taught her how to have an orgasm both by herself and with him. Leisha was dazzled. “It’s so joyful,” she said, and Stewart looked at her with a tenderness she knew was part disturbance but didn’t know why.

At mid-semester she had the highest grades in the freshman class. She got every answer right on every single question on her midterms. She and Stewart went out for a beer to celebrate, and when they came back Leisha’s room had been destroyed. The computer was smashed, the data banks wiped, hard copies and books smoldered in a metal wastebasket. Her clothes were ripped to pieces, her desk and bureau hacked apart. The only thing untouched, pristine, was the bed.

Stewart said, “There’s no way this could have been done in silence. Everyone on the floor — hell, on the floor below — had to know. Someone will talk to the police.” No one did. Leisha sat on the edge of the bed, dazed, and looked at the remnants of her Homecoming gown. The next day Dave Ha

Camden flew east, taut with rage. He rented her an apartment in Cambridge with E-lock security and a bodyguard named Toshio. After he left, Leisha fired the bodyguard but kept the apartment. It gave her and Stewart more privacy, which they used to endlessly discuss the situation. It was Leisha who argued that it was an aberration, an immaturity.

“There have always been haters, Stewart. Hate Jews, hate Blacks, hate immigrants, hate Yagaiists who have more initiative and dignity than you do. I’m just the latest object of hatred. It’s not new, it’s not remarkable. It doesn’t mean any basic kind of schism between the Sleepless and Sleepers.”

Stewart sat up in bed and reached for the sandwiches on the night stand. “Doesn’t it? Leisha, you’re a different kind of person entirely. More evolutionarily fit, not only to survive but to prevail. Those other objects of hatred you cite — they were all powerless in their societies. They occupied inferior positions. You, on the other hand — all three Sleepless in Harvard Law are on the Law Review. All of them. Kevin Baker, your oldest, has already founded a successful bio-interface software firm and is making money, a lot of it. Every Sleepless is making superb grades, none has psychological problems, all are healthy, and most of you aren’t even adults yet. How much hatred do you think you’re going to encounter once you hit the high-stakes world of finance and business and scarce endowed chairs and national politics?”

“Give me a sandwich,” Leisha said. “Here’s my evidence you’re wrong: you yourself. Kenzo Yagai. Kate Addams. Professor Lane. My father. Every Sleeper who inhabits the world of fair trade and mutually beneficial contracts. And that’s most of you, or at least most of you who are worth considering. You believe that competition among the most capable leads to the most beneficial trades for everyone, strong and weak. Sleepless are making real and concrete contributions to society, in a lot of fields. That has to outweigh the discomfort we cause. We’re valuable to you. You know that.”

Stewart brushed crumbs off the sheets. “Yes. I do. Yagaiists do.”

“Yagaiists run the business and financial and academic worlds. Or they will. In a meritocracy, they should. You underestimate the majority of people, Stew. Ethics aren’t confined to the ones out front.”

“I hope you’re right,” Stewart said. “Because, you know, I’m in love with you.”

Leisha put down her sandwich.

“Joy,” Stewart mumbled into her breasts, “you are joy.”

When Leisha went home for Thanksgiving, she told Richard about Stewart. He listened tight-lipped.

“A Sleeper.”

“A person,” Leisha said. “A good, intelligent, achieving person!”

“Do you know what your good intelligent achieving Sleepers have done, Leisha? Jeanine has been barred from Olympic skating. ‘Genetic alteration, analogous to steroid abuse to create an unsportsmanlike advantage.’ Chris Devereaux has left Stanford. They trashed his laboratory, destroyed two years’ work in memory-formation proteins. Kevin Baker’s software company is fighting a nasty advertising campaign, all underground of course, about kids using software designed by nonhuman minds. Corruption, mental slavery, satanic influences: the whole bag of witch-hunt tricks. Wake up, Leisha!”

They both heard his words. Minutes dragged by. Richard stood like a boxer; forward on the balls of his feet, teeth clenched. Finally he said, very quietly, “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” Leisha said. “I’m sorry.”

“Your choice,” Richard said coldly. “What do you do while he’s asleep? Watch?”

“You make it sound like a perversion!”

Richard said nothing. Leisha drew a deep breath. She spoke rapidly but calmly, a controlled rush: “While Stewart is asleep I work. The same as you do. Richard — don’t do this. I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I don’t want to lose the group. I believe the Sleepers are the same species as we are. Are you going to punish me for that? Are you going to add to the hatred? Are you going to tell me that I can’t belong to a wider world that includes all honest, worthwhile people whether they sleep or not? Are you going to tell me that the most important division is by genetics and not by economic spirituality? Are you going to force me into an artificial choice, us or them?”

Richard picked up a bracelet. Leisha recognized it; she had given it to him in the summer. His voice was quiet. “No. It’s not a choice.” He played with the gold links a minute, then looked at her. “Not yet.”

By spring break, Camden walked more slowly. He took medicine for his blood pressure, his heart. He and Susan, he told Leisha, were getting a divorce. “She changed, Leisha, after I married her. You saw that. She was independent and productive and happy, and then after a few years she stopped all that and became a shrew. A whining shrew.” He shook his head in genuine bewilderment. “You saw the change.”

Leisha had. A memory came to her: Susan leading her and Alice in “games” that were actually controlled cerebral-performance tests Susan’s braids dancing around her sparkling eyes. Alice had loved Susan then, as much as Leisha had.

“Dad, I want Alice’s address.”

“I told you up at Harvard, I don’t have it,” Camden said. He shifted in his chair, the impatient gesture of a body that never expected to wear out. In January Kenzo Yagai had died of pancreatic cancer; Camden had taken the news hard. “I make her allowance through an attorney. By her choice.”

“Then I want the address of the attorney.”

The attorney, a quenched-looking man named John Jaworski, refused to tell Leisha where Alice was. “She doesn’t want to be found, Ms. Camden. She wanted a complete break.”

“Not from me,” Leisha said.

“Yes,” Jaworski said, and something flickered in his eyes, something she had last seen in Dave Ha

She flew to Austin before returning to Boston, making her a day late for classes. Kevin Baker saw her instantly, canceling a meeting with IBM. She told him what she needed, and he set his best datanet people on it, without telling them why. Within two hours she had Alice’s address from Jaworski’s electronic files. It was the first time, she realized, that she had ever turned to one of the Sleepless for help, and it had been given instantly. Without trade.