Grail - Elizabeth Bear [102]
But Amanda either hadn’t noticed him rattling on, or didn’t seem to mind. She touched his face lightly with the back of her hand and waited until he turned to her. In the diffuse illumination of their temporary quarters, her eyes were particularly luminescent, the delicate veins and green-gold flecks buried in their brown revealed in the way the light lay against the surface of her irises, as if against the nap of smoothed velvet. A surge of affection tightened his throat.
“Do you ever think we’ve lost something?”
“A lot of misery,” he answered, hearing his own voice trail off in a way he hadn’t intended.
She leaned closer, the resilient slope of her breast brushing his chest. She glossed over him, smooth and soft, the resilience of her skin telling his endocrine system that this was a young, healthy female, strong and capable.
Also, she felt nice.
“I suppose,” he said, making sure his tone stayed wistful rather than condescending or dismissive, “it’s easy to imagine the pre-Eschaton world as more passionate, more interesting. Grander.”
“That’s a romanticized view,” she said. “I mean, yes, of course, it was more passionate. Possibly they felt more deeply than we do. They were certainly less mannered about it. But it’s not as if C21 societies were without their strictures and social controls. And values. And in some of them, community service and responsibility to one’s family and clan were the highest ideals. That’s very adaptive.”
“Pathological competition does not exist only on the interpersonal level.” Danilaw propped himself on his elbows. He caught himself smiling—this was interesting—and hoped Amanda would not think he found her silly.
Well, if she did, she would ask. She didn’t seem troubled at all right now. If anything, she was warming to her argument. “No, of course not. There’s interspecies competition, too, and that between cultures and affinity groups. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about why we’re still embracing mainstream art from a thousand years ago instead of creating more of our own.”
“Entertainments—”
“Sure,” she said. “Entertainments. But who’s the most recent artist, Danilaw Bakare, whose music you really enjoy performing?”
Danilaw leaned back on his elbows. He frowned and felt it furrow his brow.
She had him there.
She stretched against him, warm skin caressing his side. Simple animal comfort, so necessary and so atavistic. “There’re a lot of ethical implications in rightminding that get glossed over when it becomes the standard of existence. Who decides what the boundaries of neurotypicality are? Who decides what a normal range of variation is? Sociopathy can be adaptive for the individual, if not the society—”
“You sound like a New Evolutionist.”
“Just playing advocate.” But the way she lifted her head to examine his face, some evidence of caginess around her eyes, left him wondering.
“When you were younger, did you know anybody out on the edges of the spectrum? Somebody who really needed rightminding to assume a full role in society?”
“My best friend,” she said. “He was an autist. Not as high-functioning as Administrator Jesse. His parents wanted him rightminded, for ease of care. And me.” Her foot jerked restlessly. “I had a few issues of my own with empathy. I’m much more aware of the feelings of others these days.”
“Aware enough—and stable enough—to be a Legate. Congratulations,” Danilaw said, hoping his tone conveyed the affectionate irony he intended. Amanda didn’t jerk away from him, so he’d probably managed an approximation, at least. “Before rightminding, my epilepsy was a death sentence.”
“You exaggerate.”
“A little.” He let his hand drift up, smoothing the slick strands of her hair against her nape and skull. “It’s still one of the less tractable conditions. I have to self-monitor, and I’ve had three adjustments since I was twenty-five. Trust me when I tell you, you wouldn’t want to