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Beggars and Choosers

by Nancy Kress

To Miriam Grace Monfredo and Mary Stanton without whose friendship in a bad time this book would not have been finished.

Prologue

2106

The clanging of the priority-one override alarm ripped through the cavernous backstage dressing room. Drew Arlen, the only occupant, jerked his head toward the holo-terminal beside his dressing table. The screen registered his retina scan and Leisha Camden’s face appeared.

“Drew! Have you heard?”

The man in the powerchair, upper body fanatically muscled above his crippled legs, turned back to putting on his eye makeup. He leaned into the dressing table mirror. “Heard what?”

“Did you see the six o’clock Times?”

“Leisha, I go on stage in fifteen minutes. I haven’t listened to anything. ” He heard the thickening in his own voice, and hoped she didn’t. Even after all this time. Even at just the sight of her holo.

“Miranda and the Supers… Miranda… Drew, they’ve built an entire island. Off the coast of Mexico. Using nanotech and the atoms in seawater, and almost overnight!”

“An island,” Drew repeated. He frowned into the mirror, rubbed at his makeup, applied more.

“Not a floating construct. An actual island, that goes all the way down to the continental shelf. Did you know about this?”

“Leisha, I have a concert in fifteen minutes…”

“You did, didn’t you. You knew what Miranda was doing. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Drew turned his powerchair to face Leisha’s golden hair, green eyes, genemod perfect skin. She looked thirty-five. She was ninety-eight years old.

He said, “Why didn’t Miranda tell you?”

Leisha’s expression quieted. “You’re right. It was Miranda’s place to tell me.

A long moment passed before Drew said softly, “It isn’t easy being on the outside for a change, is it, Leisha?”

She said, equally softly, “You’ve waited a long time to be able to say that to me, haven’t you, Drew?”

He looked away. In the corner of the huge silent room something rustled: a mouse, or a defective ’bot.

Leisha said, “Are they moving to this new island? All twenty-seven Supers?”

“Yes. ”

“No one in the scientific community even knew nanotech had reached that capability. ”

“Nobody else’s nanotech has. ”

Leisha said, “They’re not going to let me on that island, are they? At all?”

He listened to the complex undertones in her voice. Leisha’s generation of Sleepless, the first generation, could never hide their feelings. Unlike Miranda’s generation, who could hide anything.

“No,” Drew said. “They’re not. ”

“They’ll shield the island with something that Terry Mwa-kambe invents, and you’ll be the only non-Super ever allowed to know what they’re doing there. ”

He didn’t answer. A technician stuck his head diffidently in the door. “Ten minutes, Mr. Arlen, sir. ”

“Yes. I’m coming. ”

“Huge crowd tonight, sir. All pumped up. ”

“Yes. Thank you. ” The tech’s head disappeared.