My mouth went dry. "It hurts you to use House?" I asked. "And you didn’t say anything?"
She didn’t want to risk losing the first home she ever had, Ronald sent. Don’t be so harsh.
I wasn’t the one being harsh. He was. And I didn’t like it.
"It doesn’t really hurt," she said.
Tell me what’s happening, I sent him. What’s wrong with her?
"Echea," he said, putting his hand alongside her head one more time. "I’d like to talk with your mother alone. Would it be all right if we sent you back to the play area?"
She shook her head.
"How about if we leave the door open? You’ll always be able to see her."
She bit her lower lip.
Can’t you tell me this way? I sent.
I need all the verbal tools, he sent back. Trust me.
I did trust him. And because I did, a fear had settled in the pit of my stomach.
"That’s okay," she said. Then she looked at me. "Can I come back in when I want?"
"If it looks like we’re done," I said.
"You won’t leave me here," she said again. When would I gain her complete trust?
"Never," I said.
She stood then and walked out the door without looking back. She seemed so much like the little girl I’d first met that my heart went out to her. All that bravado the first day had been just that, a cover for sheer terror.
She went to the play area and sat on a cushioned block. She folded her hands in her lap, and stared at me. Ronald’s assistant tried to interest her in a doll, but she shook him off.
"What is it?" I asked.
Ronald sighed, and scooted his stool closer to me. He stopped near the edge of the lounge, not close enough to touch, but close enough that I could smell the scent of him mingled with his specially blended soap.
"The children being sent down from the Moon were rescued," he said softly.
"I know." I had read all the literature they sent when we first applied for Echea.
"No, you don’t," he said. "They weren’t just rescued from a miserable life like you and the other adoptive parents believe. They were rescued from a program that was started in Colony Europe about fifteen years ago. Most of the children involved died."
"Are you saying she has some horrible disease?"
"No," he said. "Hear me out. She has an implant-"
"A link?"
"No," he said. "Sarah, please."
Sarah. The name startled me. No one called me that any more. Ronald had not used it in all the years of our reacquaintance.
The name no longer felt like mine.
"Remember how devastating the Moon Wars were? They were using projectile weapons and shattering the colonies themselves, opening them to space. A single bomb would destroy generations of work. Then some of the colonists went underground-"
"And started attacking from there, yes, I know. But that was decades ago. What has that to do with Echea?"
"Colony London, Colony Europe, Colony Russia, and Colony New Delhi signed the peace treaty-"
"-vowing not to use any more destructive weapons. I remember this, Ronald-"
"Because if they did, no more supply ships would be sent."
I nodded. "Colony New York and Colony Armstrong refused to participate."
"And were eventually obliterated." Ronald leaned toward me, like he had done with Echea. I glanced at her. She was watching, as still as could be. "But the fighting didn’t stop. Colonies used knives and secret assassins to kill government officials-"
"And they found a way to divert supply ships," I said.
He smiled sadly. "That’s right," he said. "That’s Echea."
He had come around to the topic of my child so quickly it made me dizzy.
"How could she divert supply ships?"
He rubbed his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Then he sighed again. "A scientist on Colony Europe developed a technology that broadcast thoughts through the subconscious. It was subtle, and it worked very well. A broadcast about hunger at Colony Europe would get a supply captain to divert his ship from Colony Russia and drop the supplies in Colony Europe. It’s more sophisticated than I make it sound. The technology actually made the captain believe that the rerouting was his idea."
Dreams. Dreams came from the subconscious. I shivered.
"The problem was that the technology was inserted into the brain of the user, like a link, but if the user had an existing link, it superseded the new technology. So they installed it in children born on the Moon, born in Colony Europe. Apparently Echea was."
"And they rerouted supply ships?"
"By imagining themselves hungry-or actually being starved. They would broadcast messages to the supply ships. Sometimes they were about food. Sometimes they were about clothing. Sometimes they were about weapons." He shook his head. "Are. I should say are. They’re still doing this."
"Can’t it be stopped?"
He shook his head. "We’re gathering data on it now. Echea is the third child I’ve seen with this condition. It’s not enough to go to the World Congress yet. Everyone knows though. The Red Crescent and the Red Cross are alerted to this, and they remove children from the colonies, sometimes on penalty of death, to send them here where they will no longer be harmed. The technology is deactivated, and people like you adopt them and give them full lives."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Perhaps your House reactivated her device."