“Recorder, search and read,” Deepford said.
The computer read, “Mr. Hossack: ‘So a very sophisticated—even unusual—intelligence would be needed to engineer this tampering.’ Dr. Kassabian: ‘Yes.’ Mr. Hossack: ‘An extremely unusual person, or group of persons.’ Dr. Kassabian: ‘Yes.’ Mr. Hossack: ‘How much prior—’ ”
“Sufficient,” Sandaleros said. “So what we have here is someone who is capable of tampering with Y-energy and so must be, in your own words, Dr. Kassabian, also capable of substituting a preloaded scanner for the one already on Dr. Herlinger’s scooter.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Is that scenario possible?”
“It would have to—”
“Just answer the question. Is it possible?”
Ellen Kassabian drew a deep breath. Her brows rushed together; clearly, she would have liked to tear Sandaleros apart. A long moment passed. Finally she said, “It is possible.”
“No further questions.”
The forensic chief stared at Sandaleros in silent fury.
Leisha walked to the window of her library and looked out over the midnight lights of Chicago. The trial had recessed for the weekend and she had gone home, unable to bear the motel in Conewango longer than necessary. The apartment was very quiet. Sometime during the past week, Kevin had moved out his furniture and pictures.
She walked back to her terminal. The message hadn’t changed: SANCTUARY NET. ACCESS DENIED.
“Password override, voice and retina identification, previous command.”
ACCESS DENIED.
The Sanctuary net, which had always been open to every Sleepless in the world, would not even acknowledge her in stringent I.D. mode. But that was illusory. Leisha knew it; there was more Jennifer wanted her to discover than just the bald fact of her exclusion.
“Personal call, urgent, for Jennifer Sharifi, password override, voice and retina identification.”
ACCESS DENIED.
“Personal call, urgent, for Richard Keller, password override, voice and retina identification.”
ACCESS DENIED.
She tried to think. There was a heaviness around her skull, like being deep underwater. The newest vase of Alice’s perpetual flowers filled the air with oppressive sweetness.
“Personal call, urgent, for Tony Indivino, password override, voice and retina identification.”
Cassie Blumenthal, a member of the Sanctuary Council, appeared on screen.
“Leisha. I’m speaking for Jennifer, whenever you access this recorded message. The Sanctuary Council has voted in the oath of solidarity. Those who have not taken the oath are denied access to the Sanctuary net, to Sanctuary itself, and to all commerce with anyone who has taken the oath. You are hereby denied all such access permanently and irrevocably. Jennifer further asked me to tell you to reread Abraham Lincoln’s speech to the Illinois Republican Convention of June, 1858, and to add that the historic precepts of the past have not been recalled simply because Kenzo Yagai inflated personal achievement above the value of community. As of the first of next month, all Sanctuary oath holders will begin divestiture of commercial relationships with you, with Camden Enterprises, with subsidiary holdings thereof, and with all direct and indirect holdings of Kevin Baker, including Groupnet, if he continues to refuse community solidarity. That is all.”
The screen went blank.
Leisha sat still a long moment.
She directed the library bank to bring up Lincoln’s speech. Words scrolled across the screen and the sonorous voice of an actor began to recite, but she needed neither; at the first words she remembered which speech it was. Lincoln, his law practice rebuilt after debts and disillusionment, accepted the Republican nomination to run for Congress against Stephen Douglas, brilliant proponent of territories’ right to choose slavery for themselves. Lincoln addressed the contentious and fiery convention: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Leisha turned off the terminal. She walked to the room she and Kevin had used for their infrequent sex. He had taken the bed with him. After a while she lay down on the floor, palms flat at her side, breathing carefully.
Richard. Kevin. Stella. Sanctuary.
She wondered how much more she had left to lose.
Jennifer faced Will Sandaleros through a prison security screen that shimmered slightly, just enough to soften the hard young line of his genemod jaw. She said, “The evidence connecting me to the scooter tampering is mostly circumstantial. Is the jury bright enough to see that?”
He didn’t lie to her. “Sleeper juries…” There was a long silence.
“Jennifer, are you eating? You don’t look well.”
She was genuinely surprised. He still thought all of that mattered—how she looked, whether she ate. On the heels of surprise came displeasure. She had thought Sandaleros was beyond that sort of sentimentality. She needed him to be beyond it, to understand that such things were perfectly irrelevant in the face of what she had to do, and what she needed him to do for her. For what else was she disciplining herself, if not for the subordination of such things as how she looked or felt? To what was really important—to Sanctuary? She was in a place now where nothing else mattered, could be allowed to matter, and she had fought very hard to get to this place. She had turned the confinement and the isolation and the separation from her children and the personal shame into roads to reach this place, and so into triumphs of will and achievement. She had thought Will Sandaleros could see that. He must travel that same road, would have to travel it, because she needed him at its end.
But she musn’t try to bring him to that place too fast. That had been her mistake with Richard. She had thought Richard was traveling beside her, as cleanly and as swiftly, and instead he had faltered and she had not seen it, and Richard had broken. The responsibility for that was hers, because she had not seen the faltering. Richard had been tied to the Outside in ways she had overlooked: to the outside, to outworn ideals, and perhaps still to Leisha Camden. The realization brought no jealousy. Richard had not been strong enough, that was all. Will Sandaleros, raised in Sanctuary, owing his life to Sanctuary, would be. Jennifer would make him strong enough. But not too fast.
So she said, “I’m fine. What else do you have for me?”
“Leisha accessed the net last night.”
She nodded. “Good. And the others on our list?”
“All but Kevin Baker. Although he did move out of their apartment.”
Pleasure flooded her. “Can he be persuaded to the oath?”
“I don’t know. If he can be, do you want him Inside?”
“No. Outside.”
“He’ll be difficult to hold under electronic surveillance. God, Jennifer, he invented most of that stuff.”
“I don’t want him under surveillance. At all. That’s not the way to hold a man like Kevin. Nor is solidarity. We’ll do it with economic interests and contractual rules. The tools of Yagaiism, in our own interests. And everything unguarded.”
Sandaleros looked dubious, but he didn’t argue. That was another thing she would have to shape in him. He must learn to argue with her. The forged metal was always stronger than the unforged.
She said, “Who else Outside has taken the oath?”
He gave her the names, with plans to move each to Sanctuary. She listened carefully; the other name she wanted to hear was not there. “Stella Bevington?”
“No.”