The Best of Gene Wolfe

“We did,” Indra told him. “No abnormalities were detected, and the phenomena persisted.” His voice grew deeper and more solemn than ever. “We reported this to the president. He was extremely concerned, feeling that under the present unsettled economic conditions, the appearance of such an individual might trigger domestic disorder. It was decided to terminate the experiment.”

“Just forget about it?” Little Tib asked.

“The experimental material would be sacrificed to prevent the continuance and possible further development of the phenomena.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The brains and spinal cords of the boys and girls involved would be turned over to the biologists for examination.”

“Oh, I know this story,” Little Tib said. “The three Wise Men come and warn Joseph and Mary, and they take Baby Jesus to the Land of Egypt on a donkey.”

“No,” Indra told him, “that isn’t this story at all. The experiment was ended, and the phenomena ceased. But a few weeks later the alert built into the central data system triggered. A paranormal individual had been identified, almost five hundred kilometers from the scene of the experiment. Several agents were dispatched to detain him, but he could not be found. It was at this point that we realized we had made a serious mistake. We had utilized the method of detention and identification already used in criminal cases—destruction of the retina. That meant the subject could not be so identified again.”

“I see,” Little Tib said.

“This method had proved to be quite practical with felons—the subject could be identified by other means, and the resulting blindness prevented escape and effective resistance. Of course, the real reason for adopting it was that it could be employed without any substantial increase in the mechanical capabilities of the remote terminals—a brief overvoltage to the sodium vapor light normally used for retinal photography was all that was required.

“This time, however, the system seemed to have worked against us. By the time the agents arrived, the subject was gone. There had been no complaints, no shouting and stumbling. The people in charge of the terminal facility didn’t even know what had occurred. It was possible, however, to examine the records of those who had preceded and followed the person who was wanted, however. Do you know what we found?”

Little Tib, who knew that they had found that it was he, said, “No.”

“We found that it was one of the children who had been part of the experiment.” Indra smiled. Little Tib could not see his smile, but he could feel it. “Isn’t that odd? One of the boys who had been part of the experiment.”

“I thought they were all dead.”

“So did we, until we understood what had happened. But you see, the ones who were sacrificed were those who had undergone genetic improvement before birth. The controls were not dead, and this was one of them.”

“The other children,” Little Tib said.

“Yes. The poor children, whose mothers had brought them in for the money. That was why dividing the group had not worked—the controls were brought in with both halves. It could not be true, of course.”

Little Tib said, “What?”

“It could not be true—we all agreed on that. It could not be one of the controls. It was too much of a coincidence. It had to be that one of the mothers—possibly one of the fathers, but more likely one of the mothers —saw it coming a long way off and exchanged infants to save her own. It must have happened years before.”

“Like Krishna’s mother,” Little Tib said, remembering Dr. Prithivi’s story.

“Yes. Gods aren’t born in cowsheds.”

“Are you going to kill this last boy too—when you find him?”

“I know that you are the last of the children.”

There was no hope of escaping a seeing person in the enclosed interior of the bus, but Little Tib bolted anyway. He had not taken three steps before Indra had him by the shoulders and forced him back into his seat.

“Are you going to kill me now?”

“No.”

Thunder banged outside. Little Tib jumped, thinking for an instant that Indra had fired a gun. “Not now,” Indra told him, “but soon.”

The door opened again, and Nitty said, “Come on out. It’s goin’ to rain, and Dr. Prithivi wants to get the big show on before it does.” With Indra close behind him, Little Tib let Nitty help him down the steps and out the door of the bus. There were hundreds of people outside—he could hear the shuffling of their feet, and the sound of their voices. Some were talking to each other and some were singing, but they became quiet as he, with Nitty and Indra, passed through them. The air was heavy with the coming storm, and there were gusts of wind.

“Here,” Nitty said, “high step up. Watch out.”

They were rough wooden stairs, seven steps. Little Tib climbed the last one, and . . .

He could see.

For a moment (though it was only a moment) he thought that he was no longer blind. He was in a village of mud houses, and there were people all around him, brown-skinned people with large soft brown eyes—men with red and yellow and blue cloths wrapped about their heads, women with beautiful black hair and colored dresses. There was a cow-smell and a dust-smell and a cooking-smell all at once, and just beyond the village a single mountain perfect and pure as an ice-cream cone, and beyond the mountain a marvelous sky full of palaces and chariots and painted elephants, and beyond the sky more faces than he could count.

Then he knew that it was only imagination, only a dream, not his dream this time, but Dr. Prithivi’s dream. Perhaps Dr. Prithivi could dream the way he did, so strongly that the angels came to make the dreams true; perhaps it was only Dr. Prithivi’s dream working through him. He thought of what Indra had said—that his mother