“What god do they worship?”
“A few pray to Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the galaxy, but most are some flavor of Eternal Centerers. When it was founded, the Poor might actually have been a legitimate religion. I mean, I see their point that owning too much can get in the way. Except that now almost all of them have houses and furniture and every kind of vehicle. None of them tries to fit the living room couch on their carts. And you should see some of these carts. They cost more than I make in a year.”
“From shocking people,” Adel said. “As a professional eyejack.”
The comm was silent for a moment. “Are you teasing me, young Adel?”
“No, no.” Adel bit back his grin. “Not at all.” Even though he knew she couldn’t see it, she could apparently hear it inflected in his voice. “So you were annoyed at them?”
“I was. Lots of us were. It wasn’t only that they were self-righteous hypocrites. I didn’t like the way they commandeered the parks just when the rest of us wanted to use them. So I asked myself, how can I shock the Poor and what kind of purse can I make from doing it?”
A new trail diverged from the one they had been following, Kamilah considered for a moment and then took it. She fell silent for a few moments.
Adel prompted her. “And you came up with a plan.”
—why are we interested in this?—buzzed plus.
—because we want to get her into bed—
“I did. First I took out a loan; I had to put my house up as collateral. I split two hundred thousand barries across eight hundred cash cards, so each one was worth two hundred and fifty. Next I set up my tent at the annual Poverty Revival at Point Kingsley on the Prithee Sea, which you’ve never heard of but which is one of the most beautiful places in the Continuum. I passed as one of the Poor, mingling with about ten thousand true believers. I parked a wheelbarrow outside the tent that had nothing in it but a suitcase and a shovel. That got a megagram of disapproval, which told me I was onto something. Just before dawn on the tenth day of the encampment, I tossed the suitcase and shoveled in the eight hundred cash cards. I parked my wheelbarrow at the Tabernacle of the Center and waited with a spycam. I’d painted, ‘God Helps Those Who Help Themselves’ on the side; I thought that was a nice touch. I was there when people started to discover my little monetary miracle. I shot vids of several hundred of the Poor dipping their hot hands into the cards. Some of them just grabbed a handful and ran, but quite a few tried to sneak up on the wheelbarrow when nobody was looking. But of course, everyone was. The wheelbarrow was empty in about an hour and a half, but people kept coming to look all morning.”
Adel was puzzled. “But your sign said they were supposed to help themselves,” he said. “Why would they be ashamed?”
“Well, they were supposed to be celebrating their devotion to poverty, not padding their personal assets. But the vids were just documentation, they weren’t the sting. Understand that the cards were mine. Yes, I authorized all expenditures, but I also collected detailed reports on everything they bought. Everything, as in possessions, Adel. Material goods. All kinds of stuff, and lots of it. I posted the complete record. For six days my website was one of the most active on the worldnet. Then the local Law Exchange shut me down. Still, even after legal expenses and paying off the loan, I cleared almost three thousand barries.”
—brilliant—buzzed minus.
—she got caught—plus buzzed.
“But this was against the law on Suncast?” said Adel.
“Actually, no.” Kamilah kicked at a stone and sent it skittering across the regolith. She trudged on in silence for a few moments. “But I used a wheelbarrow,” she said finally, “which LEX ruled was too much like one of their carts—a cultural symbol. According to LEX, I had committed Intolerant Speech. If I had just set the cards out in a basket, the Poor couldn’t have touched me. But I didn’t and they did. In the remedy phase of my trial, the Poor asked LEX to ship me here. I guess they thought I’d get religion.”
“And did you?”
“You don’t get to ask all the questions.” The tail of her hardsuit darted and the footplate tapped the rear of Adel’s suit. “Your turn. Tell me something interesting about yourself. Something that nobody knows.”
He considered. “Well, I was a virgin when I got here.”
“Something interesting, Adel.”
“And I’m not anymore.”
“That nobody knows,” she said.
—just trying to shock you—buzzed plus.
—bitch—minus buzzed.
“All right,” he said, at last. “I’m a delibertarian.”
Kamilah paused, then turned completely around once, as if to get her bearings. “I don’t know what that is.”
“I have an implant that makes me hear voices. Sometimes they argue with each other.”
“Oh?” Kamilah headed off the trail. “About what?”
Adel picked his way after her. “Mostly about what I should do.” He sensed that he didn’t really have her complete attention. “Say I’m coming out of church and I see a wheelbarrow filled with cash cards. One voice might tell me to grab as many as I can, the other says no.”
“I’d get tired of that soon enough.”
“Or say someone insults me, hurts my feelings. One voice wants to understand her and the other wants to kick her teeth in. But the thing is, the voices are all me.”
“All right then,” Kamilah paused, glanced left and then right as if lining up landmarks. “We’re here.”
—too bad we can’t kick her teeth in—buzzed minus. “Where’s here?”
“This is the frontside, exactly opposite from where we just were. We should try shutting down again. This might be your lucky spot.”
“I don’t know if I want to,” said Adel. “What am I doing here, Kamilah?”
“Look, Adel, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I forget you’re just a kid. Come over here, let me give you a hug.”
“Oh.” Adel was at once mollified by Kamilah’s apology and stung that she thought of him as a kid.
—we are a kid—plus buzzed.
And what kind of hug was he going to get in a hardsuit?
—shut up—
“You’re only nine standard older than I am,” he said as he brought his suit within robotic arm’s reach.
“I know.” Her two arms snaked around him. “Turn off your comm, Adel.”
This time the Godspeed made no objection. When the comm was off, Kamilah didn’t bother to speak. She picked up a rock and held it out. Adel waved for her to drop it.
One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand six one thousand, seven one…
Seven? Adel was confused.
—we messed up the count—buzzed minus.
—did not—
He leaned into her and touched her top. “Seven.”
“Yes.” She paused. “Turn. Off. Lights.”
Adel found the control and heard a soft clunk as the firefly docked with his hardsuit. He waved the suit lights off and blacked out the HUD, although he was not in a particularly spiritual mood. The blackness of space closed around them and the sky filled with the shyest of stars. Adel craned in the suit to see them all. Deep space was much more busy than he’d imagined. The stars were all different sizes and many burned in colors: blues, yellows, oranges and reds—a lot more reds than he would have thought. There were dense patches and sparse patches and an elongated wispy cloud the stretched across his field of vision that he assumed was the rest of the Milky Way.