In the Mississippi scooter factory, where Hawke continued to maintain headquarters in an artificially rustic manner that irritated Jordan, production had doubled before leveling off. Hawke had posted production trend charts on the factory wall, smiled one of his lavish, secret smiles, and announced the Profit Faire on the levee, “where the local politicians of my great-great-grandfather’s day held their catfish fries.”
Jordan, a Californian who had no idea who his great-great-grandfather was, hadn’t realized unmodified catfish was edible. He looked sideways at Hawke, who laughed. “Not my Cherokee great-great-grandfather, Jordan. A different one, in a much different position. Although he wasn’t one of your lords of the earth, either.”
“Not ‘my’ lords of the earth. I don’t come from that class,” Jordan said, nettled. Hawke’s laugh disturbed him.
“Of course not,” Hawke had said, and laughed again.
Now Hawke said—just as if the discussion about GeneFresh Farms hadn’t happened, just as if Jordan hadn’t tried to change the subject—“The basic flaw in your Aunt Leisha is that she doesn’t belong to this century at all. She belongs to the eighteenth. It’s always fatal to be born out of your own time.”
“Let’s not talk about Leisha tonight, Hawke. All right?”
“The eighteenth-century values were social conscience, rational thought, and a basic belief in the goodness of order. With those attitudes, they were going to remake or stabilize the world, all the Lockes and Rousseaus and Franklins and even Jane Austens, who was also in the wrong century. Sound like Leisha Camden?”
“I said—”
“But of course the Romantics swept all that away, and we never worked back to it. Until the Sleepless came along. Don’t you think that’s interesting, Jordan? A biological innovation turning the social-value clock backwards?”
Jordan stopped walking and faced Hawke. Somewhere to his left, over the river, the We-Sleep holo appeared, shimmered, and disappeared in a burst of electronic light. “You really don’t care what I say, do you, Hawke? You just steamroll right over it. Only your words count.”
Hawke was silent, watching him keenly.
“Why did you even hire me? All you want is to snipe at me, delete my objections, have somebody to show up as stupid and—”
“All I want,” Hawke said quietly, his ice cream dripping over his hands, “is for you to get angry.”
“Get—”
“Angry. Do you think you’re of any use to me when you let me show you up as stupid? When you don’t insist on whatever you say to me? I want you to feel your own fury when somebody is stepping on you, or you’ll never be any use to the Movement. What in hell do you suppose the We-Sleep idea is all about in the first place? Waking up to anger!”
There was a flaw in that someplace, something not quite right, or maybe the not-quite-right was the sight of Hawke with strawberry ice cream dripping over his hands, his words to Jordan impassioned but his eyes focused on the levee, scanning the crowd—for what? To see if he was being overheard? Only one young couple, walking toward them from the StarHolo booth, could even possibly overh—
The Mississippi exploded. Water geysered upwards, and beneath Jordan’s feet the levee rocked and split. A second explosion, and the StarHolo booth crumpled. The young couple were flung to the pavement like dolls. People screamed. A fissure opened at Jordan’s feet; the next moment Hawke tackled him, knocking him to safety. Even while Jordan was in the air he saw the remote-guided holo burst out above him, swollen to a monstrous ten feet visible throughout the entire Faire. But somehow it wasn’t the We-Sleep logo but letters, red and gold, silhouetted against the twinkling lights across the river: Samsung-Chrysler.
No one believed it. Samsung-Chrysler, outraged, disclaimed responsibility for the attack. It was an old and honorable firm; not even the workers in the scooter factory believed S-C had set underwater explosives along the levee. The media didn’t believe it; the We-Sleep Council didn’t believe it; Jordan didn’t believe it.
“You did it,” he said to Hawke.
Hawke merely looked at him. Over his desk in the dusty factory office were spread the kiosk tabloids in hard-copy: “Sanctuary Behind Bombing of We-Sleep Faire! Sleepless Resort to Violence—Again!” The cheap paper had already curled around the tiny rips made by the kiosk printer, a flimsy We-Sleep unit built and marketed from Wichita. Two of Hawke’s huge fingers worked at the largest tear. From the factory floor came irregular staccato bursts of manual machinery and shatter-rock.
“You’ll use anything,” Jordan said. “The media hysteria over the Herlinger murder—it’s not a question of truth for you. It’s just a question of taking any advantage that happens to turn up for your cause. You’re no better than Sanctuary!”
Hawke said, “Nobody got hurt at the Faire.”
“They might have!”
“No,” Hawke said. “There was no chance of that.”
It took a moment for Jordan to understand. “The ice cream melting over your hands. That was the detonator, wasn’t it? A temperature-sensitive microchip just under the skin. So you could pick a time when no one would be hurt.”
Hawke said softly, “Are you angry yet, Jordan? Do you want to come with me to see more babies without medical care or running water because under Yagaiism nutrition and Y-energy are basic Dole rights but medicine and plumbing fixtures are free-market contractual enterprises? Do you want to see more adults who sit around all day and rot, knowing they can’t compete with automation for low-level jobs or with genemods for skilled ones? Do you want to see more toddlers with hookworm, more marauding teenagers who can have all the law they want but no real work? Are you angry yet?”
“The ends don’t justify these means!” Jordan shouted.
“The hell they don’t.”
“You’re not helping the Sleeper underclass, you’re just—”
“I’m not? Have you talked to Mayleen lately? Her oldest kid just got accepted to RoboTech training. And she can pay for it. Now.”
“You’re helping, but you’re stirring up more hate to do it!”
“Wake up, Jordan. No social movement has ever progressed without emphasizing division, and doing that means stirring up hate. The American revolution, abolitionism, unionization, civil rights—”
“That wasn’t—”
“At least we didn’t invent this particular division—the Sleepless did. Feminism, gay rights, Dole franchisement—”
“Stop it! Stop throwing sterile intellectualizations at me!”
To Jordan’s astonishment—even through his anger, he felt the astonishment—Hawke grinned. His black eyes were aquiline. “ ‘Sterile intellectualizations’—you’re one of us already. What would Aunt Leisha say, that high priestess of reason?”
Jordan said, “I quit.”
Hawke didn’t seem surprised. He nodded; the sharp dark gaze sliced the air like a lance. “All right. Quit. You’ll be back.”
Jordan started for the door.
“Do you know why you’ll be back, Jordy? Because if you were to get married—say, tomorrow—and have a child, you’d alter that child’s genes to be a Sleepless. Wouldn’t you? And you wouldn’t be able to stand yourself for doing it.”
The door slid open.
Behind him Hawke said softly, “When you do come back, you’ll be welcome, Jordan.”
It was only outside the gates, the Mississippi sliding placidly toward the Delta, that Jordan realized there was no place else he wanted to go.