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electronic files. It was the first time, she realized, that she had ever turned to one of the Sleepless for help, and it had been given instantly. Without trade.
    Alice was in Pennsylvania. The next weekend Leisha rented a hovercar and driver—she had learned to drive, but only groundcars as yet—and went to High Ridge, in the Appalachian Mountains.
    It was an isolated hamlet, twenty-five miles from the nearest hospital. Alice lived with a man named Ed, a silent carpenter twenty years older than she, in a cabin in the woods. The cabin had water and electricity but no news net. In the early spring light the earth was raw and bare, slashed with icy gullies. Alice and Ed apparently worked at nothing. Alice was eight months pregnant.
    “I didn’t want you here,” she said to Leisha. “So why are you?”
    “Because you’re my sister.”
    “God, look at you. Is that what they’re wearing at Harvard? Boots like that? When did you become fashionable, Leisha? You were always too busy being intellectual to care.”
    “What’s this all about, Alice? Why here? What are you doing?”
    “Living,” Alice said. “Away from dear Daddy, away from Chicago, away from drunken, broken Susan—did you know she drinks? Just like Mom. He does that to people. But not to me. I got out. I wonder if you ever will.”
    “Got out? To this ?”
    “I’m happy,” Alice said angrily. “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about? Isn’t that the aim of your great Kenzo Yagai—happiness through individual effort?”
    Leisha thought of saying that Alice was making no efforts that she could see. She didn’t say it. A chicken ran through the yard of the cabin. Behind, the mountains rose in layer upon layer of blue haze. Leisha thought what this place must have been like in winter, cut off from the world where people strived toward goals, learned, changed.
    “I’m glad you’re happy, Alice.”
    “Are you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then I’m glad, too,” Alice said, almost defiantly. The next moment she abruptly hugged Leisha, fiercely, the huge, hard mound of her belly crushed between them. Alice’s hair smelled sweet, like fresh grass in sunlight.
    “I’ll come see you again, Alice.”
    “Don’t,” Alice said.

6
    S leepless Mutie Begs for Reversal of Gene Tampering,” screamed the headline in the Food Mart. “‘Please Let Me Sleep Like Real People!’ Child Pleads.”
    Leisha typed in her credit number and pressed the news kiosk for a printout, although ordinarily she ignored the electronic tabloids. The headline went on circling the kiosk. A Food Mart employee stopped stacking boxes on shelves and watched her. Bruce, Leisha’s bodyguard, watched the employee.
    She was twenty-two, in her final year at Harvard Law, editor of the Law Review , clearly first in her graduating class. The closest three contenders were Jonathan Cocchiara, Len Carter, and Martha Wentz. All Sleepless.
    In her apartment she skimmed the printout. Then she accessed the Groupnet run from Austin. The files had more news stories about the child, with comments from other Sleepless, but before she could call them up Kevin Baker came on-line himself, on voice.
    “Leisha. I’m glad you called. I was going to call you.”
    “What’s the situation with this Stella Bevington, Kev? Has anybody checked it out?”
    “Randy Davies. He’s from Chicago but I don’t think you’ve met him; he’s still in high school. He’s in Park Ridge, Stella’s in Skokie. Her parents wouldn’t talk to him—they were pretty abusive, in fact—but hegot to see Stella face-to-face anyway. It doesn’t look like an abuse case, just the usual stupidity: parents wanted a genius child, scrimped and saved, and now they can’t handle that she is one. They scream at her to sleep, get emotionally abusive when she contradicts them, but so far no violence.”
    “Is the emotional abuse actionable?”
    “I don’t think we want to move on it yet. Two of us will keep in close touch with