The Last Underclass: Geneticists Divide Humanity into Two Classes and Try to Eliminate the Lesser

By Dean Warren

Civilized humanity historically has an impoverished, downtrodden underclass: the Egyptian pyramid workers, the Roman Empires slaves, the medieval serfs, and the twentieth centurys urban ghetto-dwellers. Normally this class has a useful role: manual labor in mine and field, or service in home and restaurant. Cannon fodder. But as the computer age develops, complex machinery replaces labor, smart programs obsolete human services, and fire and forget missiles replace infantry. Even the need for skilled labor and middle management shrivels.

In the twenty-first century the productivity of an individual worker skyrockets, so much so that only a few produce all of civilizations basic needs. Thus billions of people become useless, while high technologys surplus prevents starvation, plague, and war.

Humanity changes itself, too. Many rich couples select superior genetic characteristics for their babies. Stem-cell injections rejuvenate aged brains. Then members of the upper class transplant those brains into bodies of the young poor. Finally, chromosome-alteration leads to extended life spans. Two classes, the unemployed that live on welfare and the powerful, separate into different sub-species.

Surplus population damages the environment and discomfits the rich. They anticipate eternal life and want parkland, fresh air, and carefree association with their own kind. They dissolve fertility suppressant in ghetto water supplies. Thus science and greed conspire against the poor.

John "QUIET" Griffin is a "Welfie raised in the crowded ghetto of San Angeles, the combined San Diego and Los Angeles megacity. He must battle the rulers of his society to avoid genocide and achieve justice.

REVIEWS

In the July, 2002 issue, the Midwest Book Review says "The Last Underclass is enthusiastically recommended for hard core science fiction fans."

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The Compulsive Reader reports in July, 2002 that "Dean Warren has written a fascinating science fiction story that moves through time and space at lightning speed...This book is certainly thought provoking as well as entertaining reading."
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Curled Up With A Good Book reports on July 18, 2002 that "The Last Underclass is the kind of book that redeems the whole self-publishing print-on-demand trend. Well-written and thoughtful..."
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MY SHELF, on 11/1/2002, states: "Read THE LAST UNDERCLASS"
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RAMBLES, a cultural arts magazine, states in August of 2002: "Warren manages to tell a story heavy in dialogue and political manuevering without losing a sense of speed. His message will likely speak to the growing number of people concerned with the fast march of science. THE LAST UNDERCLASS is good enough to set people talking about the issues that scare them."
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THE LAST UNDERCLASS tells a story that has the basic traits for a super movie. I give the book top rating. Dave Foster, Pigeon Forge, TN.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 22, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462817214

Dean Warren

Dean Warren spent his career in high technology and retired as Director of Strategic Planning for a major defense contractor. He lives in Florida with his wife and, occasionally, their children.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Over the next one hundred fifty years the world’s population doubles and stabilizes at an overcrowded twelve billion. In the meantime, automation by brilliant computers has created two distinct classes: creative Achievers and unemployed Welfies. The latter barely survive in ghettos on government rations.

And science changes humanity.

Slim, eighteen-year-old John Quiet Griffin backed toward the doorway of his ghetto cubby on that April afternoon of the year 2152. His mother sat propped up in bed, her hair streaked with a new white.

He felt flushed.

She stabbed at him with her blue eyes. Damn it, Johnny, she said. What was that about? Not like you to kiss me.

Quiet knew of a mansion full of valuables, saw a chance to break in. Maybe he could pocket enough to buy his mother a newly grown pancreas.

Without answering, he retraced his steps, bent his average-sized body to kiss her again, then left.

More rations! More rations! the mob bellowed, almost as one.

Welfies milled in the square before the four-meter wall that enclosed Starman’s mansion and grounds. Quiet heard verbal thunder from streets that paralleled the wall, and from other squares a kilometer or more away. He guessed that twenty thousand of the local poor surrounded the compound. San Angeles, the megacity combining old San Diego and Los Angeles, must contain ten million Welfies. Lots more where those in the square came from.

He wrinkled his big nose at the stench of unwashed bodies and at oxygen-poor air exhaled through unbrushed teeth. People wore faded handouts from the back doors of the wealthy or ration-issue jump suits. The pavement underfoot was cracked. Loose pieces disrupted walking. Peeling stripes of old white wash hung from the bottom level of the eight story tenements that lined the rest of the square.

Only the compound’s wall seemed maintained, showing no crack or nick. It shined with gleaming, gray paint. Patches of green hedge bordered the wall, up to the armor plate of the double gate.

A red puff of smoke rose from the center of the square.

We want Starman! the crowd roared.

Quiet nervously brushed-back short, sandy hair, and pulled at his bluish shirt. He felt nauseated—from the stink, heat, and noise. Or, from fear?

Don’t be stupid, he told himself. Of course he was afraid. Fear almost paralyzed him; his muscles seem liquefied.

Good word, liquefied. A pay-off from the hours he’d spent studying with the interactive Web. Well, now he had the action that he’d always wished for instead. He grimaced. Survival was only sure in daydreams.

Trembling, Quiet edged closer to the wall, toward a small, private entrance hidden behind a hedge of tall thorn bushes, a scant one hundred meters from the vehicle gate.

Watch who you’re shoving! shrieked a heavy woman in a loose, blue-striped dress, her garlic and onion breath a blow. She raised a meaty fist near his face.

Sorry, Ma’am, Quiet replied and pushed on toward the wall through the chattering, surging crowd.

More red puffs of smoke.

Open emigration to the planets! hundreds shouted, almost in unison.

People must have cards with cues keyed to the smoke.

Quiet blinked as strobe lights exploded along the top of the wall. Then he jammed palms over his ears to minimize a blow of high frequency sound.

Head down, one hand sheltering eyes now, he eased himself nearer the row of glistening-green thorn bushes, where the broad capstone of the wall partially masked him from the broadcast light and noise, and from the barrier’s sensors.

When bodies no longer screened him from the bushes, he held his arm out, forced his fingers to stop trembling. He must make his first move soon.

The pulses of light stopped. The shrill wailing ceased. Look up, citizens! reverberated across the plaza.

A huge hologram hovered twenty meters above the crowd. Quiet recognized the hawk-nosed Starman, a corporate aristocrat who controlled access to the galaxy. His image circled over the plaza, as if it would memorize people’s faces.

Quiet backed a few meters from the private entrance, to where two thorn bushes met and left a small gap near the ground.

This scene must be repeating all around the compound, he guessed. Multiple mobs, organizers, and Starman holograms.

You are pawns of the food, health, and consumer goods industries, the hologram broadcast, its amplified, bass voice quashing the mob’s noise. By gathering you here, the bosses pressure me for concessions that will make them richer. Why, Lord Peterson of the Consumer Products Group visits this very afternoon. He asks my World Council vote for more welfare.

All you so-called ‘lords’ are bastards! a short black man near Quiet shouted. You won’t give us Welfies a break.

Jobs! Meat! Decent housing!

We can’t afford the new benefits they’ve put you up to demand.

The Starman paused to let a wave of bitter curses die out. When it didn’t, sirens again blared and strobe devices volleyed more daggers of light. A higher intensity now.

Quiet flung an arm across his face, sheltered one ear against his biceps, and covered the other with a hand. He crouched, as did many near him.

After the electronic shrieks and glaring light died, the Starman’s image faced the big gate, in front of which collected the tightest group of demonstrators. There’s no alternative to our present course, the hologram blared. We’ve discovered that terra-forming homes for some of you on the sulfur planets is a slow and expensive process. The Starman then spoke more softly. I’m sorry. I won’t agree to hologram platforms for cubbies, or air conditioning for other than common rooms. Health and food rations stay the same.

A stream of protests sprayed from the mob.

Quiet’s stomach ached. Why did these idiots believe they could sway authority by threats?

Because many were third and fourth generation Welfies, that’s why. For a hundred years, equality of opportunity skimmed the bright young people from those born poor. Every year, machines tested Welfie eighteen-year-olds and sent those judged creative to college. The in-bred dregs could be pretty dumb.

Today he might throw away his chance at being one of the skimmed.

Ma was considered smart, and his father... Quiet shook his head. He knew nothing about his mysterious father. Or his own

IQ.

Despite Web accomplishments, maybe an exam wouldn’t have skimmed him for the Achiever class. But at least he was wiseenough to know an unarmed mob couldn’t overpower a mansion’s modern defenses.

After another burst of noise and light, Starman’s image pointed down at the crowd. Be grateful for what you have.

You shit! yelled a heavy-set Welfie with a gray mustache who stood a meter away from Quiet. The man heaved a broken piece of paving toward the hologram. Quiet saw two others do the same. curses greeted the dangerous projectiles.

Aim at the top of the wall! shouted a big man in a yellow jumpsuit who held in his hand a small smoke generator. He stood about three meters from Quiet, in an eddy of space bordering the tight knot of men before the big gate. Knock-out the optics, the noise-makers, and the gas guns.

Badly aimed shards of pavement hit people near Quiet. They screamed pain and outrage. Others crouched and covered their heads. Quiet collapsed to the ground. Then, as neighbors turned to yell at the throwers, he slowly slipped under the bushes and lay still.

In a moment, sirens again blared and strobe lights flashed. A cloud of bitter gas spewed into the plaza. This time, the wall’s assault didn’t stop.

Lying under a canopy of prickly leaves, his face in the dirt and palms jammed against his ears, Quiet risked the searing strobes by a glance through slitted eyes. Near him, a woman vomited, an adolescent cried. Yelling Welfies pushed away from the gas, lights, and sirens, then began to scream from fear of being crushed or trampled.

At the gate, men abandoned homemade ladders, jumped off friends’ backs, and dropped clubs made from chair legs. Eyes streaming, mouths agape, they fought their way toward alleys on the other side of the square. They heaved women aside, stomped on the fallen.

An animal roar filled the square.

Huddled in the lee of the wall, Quiet knew he received less noise, light, and gas than did the more exposed crowd of Welfies.

Face down, squirming even closer to the wall, and clamping his hands over his ears, he murmured curses. You wimp, he told himself. You coward. You weakling. He groaned through gritted teeth.

The advancing dusk seemed to make the strobe flashes grow brighter and more painful.

Finally, fierce light stopped reflecting along the ground to dart between his eyelids. Sirens’ shrieks ceased penetrating his palms. The gas dissipated enough to let common air quench the fire in his lungs. Sick to his stomach, his head ringing, Quiet again glanced at the littered square, marked now by the sprawl of injured. A stink of clotted blood and spewed urine made him want to retch. He shuddered.

Those of the mob not trampled to death or crippled had fled.

Quiet peered along the mansion’s wall, through the thorn bushes, to the private entrance. He lay in deep shadow and barely made out a paved path. Soon, he thought. Soon he must take the big gamble.

Or should he stay here and forget his mad scheme?

Ma was dying.

A minute later, he heard electronically controlled bolts click, watched as a vaguely outlined door swung open, releasing a promontory of artificial light.

Shove the dead and injured down side streets, a man barked. Municipal services will handle them. The Starman wants the groans and smells pushed at least a hundred meters from the wall all around the compound. He demands a clear field of fire again at the main gate.

A platoon of thirty or so guards marched through the door and past Quiet. They wore curved plates of sandwiched glass that glittered from the lights some of the men carried. Others held heavy weapons or folded tripods. Particle guns hung at the men’s sides. Infrared and millimeter-wave radar sensors nodded from the crowns of blue, translucent helmets.

Quiet hoped bushes screened him from the soldiers’ warning systems. If not, he was obviously unarmed and perhaps unconscious, no target for warriors.

His trembling was constant.

About twenty stocky maintenance workers followed the guards. They pushed wheelbarrows and carried lead-tipped clubs.

A tall official with a paunch stepped behind.

Finally, three gate guards strolled past Quiet. They stopped in the square. What a mess, one said.

Stupid, commented another.

Now! Quiet told himself.

Silently, he crawled through the bushes along the wall, then rose and slipped onto the walk behind the guards. He tiptoed through the gate.

Oh, Ma, for both of our sakes...

The guardroom was empty.

Quiet dashed past display screens focused on the plaza, then stumbled out into a darkening park. Three broad paths arrowed between white-flowering hedges and budding citrus trees. Sweetness filled his nose.

He did it! He was inside!

Suddenly, bright lights flicked on from the eaves of the guard shack. Others lit the stone walkways every ten meters or so.

Quiet doubled over and placed his arms around his head. When no one yelled through the speakers, however, and he heard no alarm, he straightened.

With the coming of night, a sun sensor must have turned on lights.

Citrus blossoms now glowed in gold; hedge flowers showed a tint of pink.

After taking a deep breath, Quiet jogged up a path that led toward the partially lit mansion about a kilometer away. He flitted from one sheltering shadow to another.

Crash!

Quiet darted behind a tree. He glanced back. Steel posts had slammed down across the doorway into the guard shack!

Crack!

The whip-snap of a particle gun! He whirled and stared at the mansion, heard four more shots.

Quiet gripped the tree, fingering the rough bark, and watched for movement on the path. How much more of this stress could he take? His muscles felt as if he’d run a marathon, his stomach as if he’d eaten something rotten.

The defense system hadn’t purposefully locked him in by triggering the portcullis. There’d been no alarm; no one seemed to hunt for an invader. Hell, all the guards were outside.

He kicked at the tree trunk. What went on?

Quiet thought back to the demonstration in the plaza. The organized demonstration.

Starman’s enemies must have launched the feeble assault on the wall not to pressure the Achiever, but to draw outside the guards and clean-up squads. Some enemy had locked out Starman’s internal support. Those shots meant the enemy had seized the mansion.

Unfortunately, Starman’s attacker had caught a second prey in his trap.

Quiet planned to steal a servant’s clothes and identification disk, rest in the bushes after stealing something valuable, and then ease out in the morning through the main gate. Guards might merely wave him through. But now alerted warriors would check everyone.

Remember Ma.

Quiet spider-walked up through spice-scented shrubbery on one side of the mansion and, turning the corner, spotted an open window a half-story up. After jumping for a grip on the sill, he slid into a shadowy bedroom full of frills and stuffed animals that a night-light illuminated.

Pretty fancy, he thought as he stepped on thick carpet past an empty bed. Ballet clothes and large puppets hung from pegs in the wall. A subtle perfume tingled in his nose.

He was interested to discover that his trembling stopped. His only symptoms of fear were tense neck muscles and a stomachache.

When Quiet eased open the door, he immediately heard shouting from down a half-stair to the left. Where’s the other girl?

Someone close-by sucked-in a surprised gasp of air.

Quiet leaped across the dimly lit corridor and grabbed a slender young female clad in a nightgown. she stood next to a display case. He wrenched from her hand a heavy kitchen knife and pressed her against his chest.

After a last, despairing jerk, the girl stopped struggling.

Lady Anne’s gone to Moon Station, Quiet heard another female say from the lower floor.

Bullshit! the arrogant baritone replied. Your butler said she was in the mansion.

The girl Quiet held thrashed again. Who.. ?

Be still! Quiet whispered in her ear. I’ll do you no harm.

The girl’s head came up to his neck. Her body was softly rounded. About sixteen, he guessed. She’d be the missing Lady Anne.

If I let you go, will you behave? he asked softly.

When she nodded, Quiet released her and stepped back. He pushed the sharp blade with which she had threatened him into his belt. No sense either returning the damn thing or throwing it away, he thought. He might need a weapon.

Quiet heard only mumbling now.

Who’s down there? he whispered.

The girl took a deep breath. Lord Peterson and three bodyguards. They shot our butler and his wife, the cook, and tied up my father and sister. Her low voice trembled, now smoothed. Peterson wants the codes to the spatial inflation machines.

Why didn’t you slip through your open window? Find help.

Where? Father couldn’t raise the defense center before the shooting began downstairs. I heard him swear. The rest of Peterson’s party must have gassed the reserve guards.

The girl paused. Who are you? she then demanded. Kitchen help?

Quiet touched her shoulder in a request for silence. He cocked his head.

She’s gone, I say, the woman in the downstairs room said.

That’s this girl’s sister, Quiet guessed. Lady Anne’s sister. Wasn’t her name Julie?

The little bitch probably ran for help.

She’ll only find my secretary and enforcers. They’ll kill her.

I smell veg-pro rations, murmured the girl. She leaned closer and studied him. Why, you’re not much older than I am!

Keep your voice down, Quiet whispered.

You’re not a servant.

In the dim light from the first floor, Quiet studied the display case behind which the girl had hidden. It held a ten centimeter-high Buddha carved out of a giant ruby.

Answer me! she hissed.

Get out of here, he replied. Find a hole and hide.

Quiet slipped the Buddha into his pocket, then strained to once more listen to the conversation below.

The smart-wing will leave to pick up reinforcements as soon as my secretary and his men have checked the grounds. Then we’ll use a truth-teaser on you.

Quiet heard a slap.

How do you like the prospect of losing access to the galaxy, Mr. Starman?

Lady Anne began to silently cry.

My father’s guards at the moon beacon installation will support Lady Anne, Quiet heard the sister state. You’d better negotiate.

Wilson, search the house again, the leader of the coup directed. Turn on all lights.

Quiet bent toward Lady Anne’s ear. We’ve got to ramjet out of here, he whispered.

I must help Dad and Julie!

Quiet grabbed the girl’s hand. I’ve an idea. Come.

In the bedroom, he lifted and set her on the windowsill, facing the ground. Jump, he ordered. It’s less than two meters.

He followed. Faint light from the illuminated paths and a half moon let him see well.

You’re only a thief. You stole the Buddha. Lady Anne wiped her eyes.

Quiet noticed that his fear had shrunk to a tight stomach.

He seized the girl’s hand, pulled her through the shrubbery at a fast walk, and found a path, which he then paralleled. A moment later Quiet came to a major intersection. At least a kilometer down one paved path, the small air transport he looked for sat on an illuminated landing pad.

Lord Peterson and his goons had arrived on that airplane. It would be energized, ready for a trip to pick up reinforcements.

Suddenly he pulled Lady Anne with him to the ground.

A frowning man with gray hair, his jacket embroidered with a gold corporate logo, led four armed men toward the mansion.

Quiet held the girl tightly. Calm, calm, he whispered in her ear. She trembled.

The men trotted by, guns dangling from their hands.

After Quiet freed Lady Anne, she stood, glanced wildly around, and then shook herself. He heard her following him toward the airplane.

They stopped just short of a hemisphere of light that surrounded a small building. To the left, a finger of shrubs pointed to a swale that ran along the landing pad.

Our spatial inflation machine is in the shed, the girl whispered.

He turned. Tear tracks marred her pale face.

The building’s sensors will identify me and let us in, she continued. "My DNA will then make the machine send us anywhere

I want where there’s a receiver. According to Julie, that should be the Moon Station, I guess. "

Nice magic carpet, Quiet thought. He learned from his Web studies that matter couldn’t travel faster than light speed in normal space. But the universe started with a Big Bang that resulted in a tremendous inflation of space itself. First energy, then primordial matter, greatly exceeded what was now known as the speed of light. Old man Rionglu, her great grandfather, figured out how to mimic that phenomenon. He built spatial inflation machines that could almost instantaneously transport matter. Although the space ships that invention produced found no immediately inhabitable planets, control of the devices gave Lady Anne’s family its titles, wealth, and power.

He studied her for the first time. Waves of burnished, black hair framed a long, pale face and gave her glossy eyebrows, too. Neither acne nor freckles marred her ivory-colored skin. Wide lips and a strong nose lent character. He guessed she would be a beauty in a few more years.

Maybe he should have her take that Moon trip. She’d be safe out there for a while, though he couldn’t believe that a company of guards would fight Lord Peterson—an Achiever who would control the machines that launched their supply ships.

Go then, he said, and darted toward the swale at the edge of the landing pad. The girl slid in next to him, feet first, tightly holding her nightgown around her legs. What’s your plan? she asked.

Quiet dismissed Lady Anne by pointing toward the hangar and turned back to study the small jump transport a hundred meters away.

He must take the risk. Otherwise, guards would have him in the morning.

If you help me you won’t need the ruby Buddha, Lady Anne said from his side. My father will reward you.

Take the moon option. It’s safer than tying yourself to a thief.

She didn’t answer.

After a long, still moment, Quiet sprinted for the airplane. Behind, he heard the patter of bare feet. EEH-EEH-EEEEEH!

A warning siren!

In a moment, a heavy-set, scarred man ran into his path and raised an automatic weapon. Shit!

Quiet stopped maybe four meters away, braced, and threw the heavy knife he’d appropriated from Lady Anne. He saw a frozen, startled look, a hand flex on the pistol grip, and a dark object appear on the man’s face. As Quiet dashed by, his opponent dropped, the blade’s hilt protruding from an eye, liquid running down a cheek.

The tip of the weapon must have penetrated to the man’s brain, Quiet thought as he kept running. First person he’d ever killed. His shoulders tightened and he fought off another stomach cramp. He kept running.

Uncanny how his hand obeyed his will.

Quiet ducked under metal tendons that stretched beneath a wing and dived into the aircraft. He didn’t help the girl board, but dashed up between seat rows to the cockpit.

The aircraft was awake! Lights shone, the metal vibrated with power.

Turn off the alarm! he commanded the plane, and pressed an attention button.

The nasty howling stopped.

Take us up and over the wall, he directed. Land on the first square.

Then, collapsing in a seat, he spread his hands over his face and let trembling take over.

In seconds the aircraft rose into the air. A moment later it landed on the familiar square, an illuminated island in the darkened ghetto. Armed men gathered.

Quiet stood. Once out of the aircraft, he backed away from soldiers. He killed a man! But he also survived. And he carried a prize that might buy Ma life.

Lady Anne! shouted the paunchy functionary who shepherded the guards and servants out the private gate. What’s going on inside the wall? We’re locked out and the automatic weapons keep us from climbing. The defense center doesn’t answer our calls.

Quiet sat on the pavement against an outrigger wheel and watched for an opportunity to melt into the ghetto. Sweat formed on his forehead and dripped from armpits into his shirt.

Lord Peterson has taken my father and sister prisoner, the girl said. Use this plane to shuttle-in your soldiers.

The bureaucrat only stood there with his mouth open.

Hurry! she shrieked.

When the man turned to bellow orders, Quiet saw the girl’s shoulders slump. Red patches appeared in her cheeks.

She has loved ones in danger, too, Quiet thought.

He sighed, stood. They’ll get Starman and your sister killed, he said softly. Better let me lead a few men into the residence the back way.

The girl straightened, stepped close, stared up into Quiet’s eyes. What’s your name?

Quiet, he answered and turned away, intending to follow a guard captain into the transport.

The girl pushed herself in front of him and stretched on her toes, her face only centimeters from his. I will not be silent! What’s your name?

People call me Quiet, he replied and gently pried her hand from his arm.

When inside the airplane, he told the captain, I’ll take your two best shooters and sneak into the mansion. I know an unguarded entrance. He leaned closer. We’ll protect your boss while your platoon clears Peterson’s armed party from the grounds.

The captain shoved back his helmet. Data flickered in the visor. He was a short, stocky man, with a pink burn scar on his right temple. You’re hallucinating, son, he said. Go back to your ghetto.

I think not, Lady Anne interjected. Do as he says.

The dour captain stared at her, then shrugged and touched his visor.

The boy knows what he’s up to, she said. And he’s throwing away sure riches.

Quiet grasped the short particle gun the officer gave him, passed his hand around the acceleration chamber, and felt the trigger. What the hell was he doing? He’d never fired a gun, knew nothing of military tactics. And, he would have to give up the Buddha. Maybe he’d be arrested rather than rewarded.

Did he subconsciously decide to trade a prize in hand for the possibility of greater rewards? Surely, pity for Lady Anne wasn’t the whole story. His ability to work through terror and plan efficiently when his stomach flooded his brain with pain was weird, too. Also, he couldn’t get over his amazing coordination in killing the plane guard.

Well, he’d try self-analysis later.

After the aircraft hopped over the wall and the rescuers gathered in the hollow, Lady Anne touched his arm. Thank you, she said. Then she leaned forward. I’m coming along! You can’t stop me.

Quiet didn’t argue. He motioned one of the captain’s men to step to the right, another to the left, then trotted for the residence. Lady Anne ran beside him, her strides long and graceful.

He moved easily, himself, with none of the earlier fright that cramped his muscles, almost blackened his brain. Did the gun, his official acceptance by Lady Anne, and his actual knowledge of what he and the girl faced give him confidence?

Wonderful how he so rapidly adjusted. Maybe he would have been skimmed, after all.

He signaled-in the men, then slid through the fragrant bushes to the back of the residence. Putting his hands to Lady Anne’swaist, he lifted her to the still open window, then climbed in and motioned the two soldiers to follow. Inside her now lit room, he tiptoed to the brightly illuminated corridor and listened, heard mumbling. Then he turned, almost colliding with the girl. Her hands shook.

Your family’s still downstairs, he whispered. I hear the same voices. Maybe your father’s trying to negotiate.

The girl picked up a pair of scissors from her bureau and scurried back, holding them so she could stab.

Three bodyguards, she’d said. Hopefully, Peterson’s secretary and goons still roamed the grounds, now looked for the girl.

Stepping into the hall, he removed the Buddha from his pocket and returned it to the display case.

Lady Anne followed and smiled up at him. Quiet decided she was already beautiful.

Shoot any man who runs into the corridor, then follow me down, he softly told the two soldiers. He turned to Lady Anne. Cry so hard they can hear you down stairs, he whispered. Play the frightened kid.

After a long moment, the girl took a deep breath. Julie, Julie, have they gone? she called. I’m so scared.

Damned if tears didn’t come to her eyes! She was very frightened, he guessed.

Julie...

Run, Anne! screamed the woman down stairs. Run, for God’s sake!

Kill her!

Quiet heard the pounding of boots. A big, dark man with a mangled nose appeared in the corridor, then a slim albino. Neither carried a gun in his hand, although the smaller man held a knife, point forward, as if it were a sword.

Quiet’s two soldiers fired down the stairwell. High velocity particles penetrated the enemies’ armor and flung the invaders back.

Quiet leaped down, jumped over a body and into the family room. He felt his gun buck and saw a third bodyguard spin away.

Quiet then kneeled and aimed up at a man who held a small picture phone in his right hand. His left was frozen under the lapel of his tuxedo jacket.

Pull your hand out slowly, Lord Peterson, Lady Anne ordered from behind Quiet. It better be empty. She moved aside to let their two soldiers pass.

Quiet watched as his shooters spread-eagled and manacled their cursing captive. The captain should be rushing his men forward, he thought.

Scissors held conventionally now, Lady Anne leaned over her sister and gushed emotion as she snipped rope. The tied-up, red-blotched Starman studied Quiet and smiled.

A few days later, Quiet led his party of five across Pico Avenue and into the alley that continued half way through the ghetto. He escorted the doctor while, behind, Lady Anne’s two bodyguards flanked her. Almost immediately he ran into friends.

You all right? a bland-faced, limping man asked.

Yeah.

Bystanders’ hands slipped back into pockets and tensed bodies resumed slouching.

Do me a favor, Speed, Quiet said to the cripple. Clear the alley. Let an ambulance smart-wing down. We’re taking Ma to the best hospital on the planet.

Yeah! Speed exclaimed, then skipped clumsily to a nearby communication booth. Terrifi

A big oriental pounded Quiet on the back. Shouts spread the news. The other gray-clad men around him grinned. A few women cried.

Quiet led his party up a ruined stoop into a tenement of cubbies and climbed three flights past tenants sitting on the steps. He smiled and nodded as he went, to show he wasn’t under arrest.

Then he knocked, entered their hot cubby, and strode past the one comfortable chair to the bed on which his mother lay. Flat on her back now.

She’s become worse, he thought.

What’ve you done? she rasped.

This is Doctor Wilsey, Ma, he said. He will give you lab-grown replacement organs.

He guessed his mother had decided what the bodyguards were when they walked into the cubby behind him. She fixed her eyes on Lady Anne. Who are you? she asked.

Anne Rionglu, Ma’am, the girl replied.

She gave his mother a quick, ancient curtsy!

Your father arranging this?

Lady Anne didn’t drop her gaze. Yes, Ma’am.

What does my son have to do? Give up his body so your father can transplant his brain and become young again?

Nothing like that! Then Lady Anne smiled. Your son saved our lives. Starman’s sending him to the Military Academy. And I want him to be my friend.

After a shocked moment, his mother opened her mouth in a great, snag-toothed grin. She glanced at Quiet, her blue eyes wet. I like her, boy, she whispered. I like her. She waved a hand. Now everyone leave but the doctor.

CHAPTER 2

The first two months of the Academy passed slowly for John Quiet Griffin. Later he would remember a blur of mornings in front of interactive flat screens sensing a caustic professor either on line or hovering behind his back, afternoons of marching, exercising, and running, and evenings of studying next to his cot in the cubicle he shared with two others.

Meals were hearty but quick, relaxation rare.

Loneliness bothered him. His fellow plebes generally ignored their companion from the ghetto. When they didn’t, they spoke with a condescending upper lilt at the end of each sentence. You aren’t going to be late for hand to hand combat, are you, Welfie boy? The instructor will teach you manners if you delay, won’t he?

He was proud, though, that he physically kept up with his generally larger competitors, proud how he filled out, how his flat stomach hardened, how his lean body strengthened. He was relieved that he breezed through the survey courses on the Physical and Biological sciences, tribute to his tenement studies, and felt slightly contemptuous of the math curriculum. Only Military Law and History brought hard study.

But isolation and the disdain of his fellows made him almost sick when he lay on his cot at night before forcing his mind to deaden and fall asleep. Cubby life in the crowded ghetto taught him to be friendly with everyone. None of the young males with whom he studied, exercised, and roomed possessed the same attitude.

These months were the first in his young life that he experienced discrimination, the first time he sensed people classifying him as a lower form of life.

Ma had told him that color no longer cued prejudice. A good fifty-percent of the population was brown, homogenized hybrids of Anglo-Saxon, African, Hispanic, Polynesian, and Asian. Skin pigmentation no longer created dislike. But clothes, neatness, cleanliness, behavior and, most importantly, language pigeonholed a person.

She drilled him in grooming, forced him to take Social Graces on the Web, and stood over him in his childhood years when he practiced interactive English with their flat screen. She fought the street argot he returned with from the park, from the tenement’s halls, and from the alley off which they lived.

Now, however, his hair tailored by an Academy barber, dressed in the common plebe’s uniform, breathing out the odor of the cafeteria’s menu rather than that of crushed grain and algae rations, and speaking, he knew, the Achiever idiom, he still aroused scorn