Allegany had been unique among Native American reservations in containing an entire non-Indian city, Salamanca, leased from the Senecas by city residents since 1892. Salamanca had been included in Jennifer’s purchase. The lessees all had received eviction notices, and after multiple court fights for which Salamanca residents had little money and Sanctuary had the donated services of the best Sleepless lawyers in the country, the city’s outdated buildings, gutted, had become the shells of Sanctuary’s high-tech city—research hospital, college, securities exchange, power and maintenance centers, and the most sophisticated telecommunications in existence, all surrounded by ecologically maintained woodland.
In the distance, beyond Sanctuary’s gates, Jennifer could see the daily line of trucks toiling up the mountain road, bringing in food, building materials, low-tech supplies—everything Sanctuary would rather import than produce, which included everything nonchallenging, nonprofitable, or nonessential. Not that Sanctuary was dependent on the daily trucks. It had enough of everything to run self-sufficiently for a year, if necessary. It wouldn’t be necessary. Sleepless controlled too many factories, distribution channels, agricultural research projects, commodity exchanges, and law offices on the Outside. Sanctuary had not ever been planned as a survivalist retreat; it was a fortified command center.
The airfield groundcar was already parked in front of the house Jennifer shared with her husband and two children at the edge of Argus City. The house was a geodesic dome, graceful and efficient, but not opulent. Build the security facilities first, Tony Indivino had argued twenty-two years ago. Then build the technical and educational facilities, then the storage warehouses, and the individual dwellings last. Only now was Sanctuary getting around to new individual dwellings.
Jennifer adjusted the folds of her abbaya, took a deep breath, and entered her house.
Leisha stood by the southern glass wall of the living room, staring at the gold-framed holo portrait of Tony, who stared back from smiling, youthful eyes. Sunlight caught in Leisha’s blonde hair and blazed. When she heard Jennifer and turned, Leisha was backlit by the windows and Jennifer couldn’t see her expression.
The two women stared at each other.
“Jennifer.”
“Hello, Leisha.”
“You’re looking well.”
“As are you.”
“And Richard? How are he and the kids?”
“Fine, thank you,” Jennifer said.
There was a silence, prickly as heat.
Leisha said, “I think you know why I’m here.”
“Why, no, I don’t,” Jennifer said, although of course she did. Sanctuary monitored the movements of all Sleepless who remained outside, but none more than Leisha Camden and Kevin Baker.
Leisha made a brief, impatient noise. “Don’t be evasive with me, Jennifer. If we can’t agree on anything else, let’s at least agree to be honest.”
She never changed, Jennifer thought. All that intelligence, all that experience, and yet she did not change. A triumph of naive idealism over both intelligence and experience.
The deliberately blind deserved not to see.
“All right, Leisha. We’ll be honest. You’re here to find out if yesterday’s attack on the We-Sleep textile factory in Atlanta originated in Sanctuary.”
Leisha stared before she exploded. “Good God, Jennifer, of course I’m not! Don’t you think I know you don’t fight that way? Especially not against a low-tech operation grossing less than half a million annual?”
Jennifer muffled a smile; the pairing of objections, moral and economic, was pure Leisha. And of course Sanctuary hadn’t directed the attack. The We-Sleep people were insignificant. She said, “I’m relieved to hear your opinion of us has improved.”
Leisha waved her arm. Inadvertently, her hand brushed Tony’s holo; the image turned its head in her direction. “My opinion is irrelevant, as you’ve made clear enough. I’m here because Kevin gave me this.” She pulled hard-copy from her pocket and thrust it at Jennifer, who realized with a nasty jolt what it was.
She made her face impassive, realizing too late that impassivity would tell Leisha just as much as emotion. How had Leisha and Kevin gotten the hard-copy? Her mind ran over the possibilities, but she wasn’t a datanet expert. She would have to pull Will Rinaldi and Cassie Blumenthal off their other projects immediately to go over the entire net for gates and bubbles and geysers…
“Don’t bother,” Leisha said. “Kevin’s wizards didn’t get it off the Sanctuary net. This was mailed to me—to me directly—by one of your own.”
That was even worse. Someone inside Sanctuary, someone who secretly sided with the Sleeper-lovers, someone who was without the ability to recognize a war of survival… Unless of course Leisha was lying. But Jennifer had never caught Leisha in a lie. It was part of Leisha’s pathetic, dangerous naivete to prefer unadjusted truth.
Leisha crumpled the paper in her hand and threw it across the living room. “How could you divide us further like this, Jennifer? Set up a separate Sleepless Council in secret, with membership limited to those who take this so-called oath of solidarity; ‘I vow to hold the interests of Sanctuary above all other loyalties, personal, political, and economic, and to pledge, to its survival and so to my own, my life, fortune, and sacred honor.’ Good God—what an unholy alliance of religious fanaticism and the Declaration of Independence! But you always did have a tin ear!”
Jennifer gazed at her impassively. “You are being stupid.” It was the worst epithet either of them had. “Only you and Kevin and your handful of soft-minded doves don’t see that this is a war of survival. War demands clearly drawn lines, especially for strategic information. We can’t afford voting privileges for the fifth column.”
Leisha’s eyes narrowed. “This is not a war. A war is attack and response. If we don’t counterattack, if we go on being productive and law-abiding citizens, eventually we’ll win assimilation by sheer economic power—like every other newly-franchised group. But not if we split into factions like this! You used to know that, Jenny!”
She said sharply, “Don’t call me that!” Just barely did she stop herself from glancing at Tony’s picture.
Leisha didn’t apologize.
More calmly, Jennifer added, “Assimilation doesn’t come with economic power alone. It’s won by political power, which we don’t have, and in a democracy never will have. There aren’t enough of us to form a significant voting bloc. You used to know that.”
“You’ve already set up the strongest covert lobby in Washington. You buy the votes you need. Political power flows from money, it always has; the concept of society is about money. Any values we want to change or advocate, we have to change or advocate within the framework of money. And we are. But how can we advocate a single trade ecology for Sleeper and Sleepless if you split us into warring factions?”
“We wouldn’t be split if you and yours could recognize a war when you saw one.”
“I recognize hatred when I see it. It’s in your stupid oath.”
They had reached an impasse, the same old impasse. Jennifer crossed the room to the bar. Her black hair floated behind her. “Would you like a drink, Leisha?”
“Jennifer…” Leisha said, and stopped. After a moment, with a visible effort, she went on. “If your Sanctuary Council becomes a reality…you’ll shut us out. Me and Kevin and Jean-Claude and Stella and the others. We won’t have a voting voice in statements to the media, we won’t be included in governance decisions, we won’t even be able to help with the new Sleepless kids because nobody who takes the oath will be allowed to use Groupnet, only the Sanctuary net… What’s next? A boycott on doing business with any of us?”