The Heart of the Overchild
      a short story by Daniel Pearlman 

      Foreword
      In this story, two sacred culture-cows unhappily collide with each other.

      The Heart of the Overchild
      The sound from her videowatch buzzed into her head through stereoceptors 
      implanted behind her ears, but she could not raise the noise-level high 
      enough to drown out the yatter of those parents of hers who were trying so 
      desperately to prevent her heart operation even now, on the day for which 
      it was scheduled. The audio peak was factory-set for safety's sake--so 
      that you couldn't block out the sounds of the outer world whether you 
      wanted to hear them or not. So here she sat awash in sonic waves from two 
      worlds, a kind of stereo all the kids called interfereo. The sad-eyed man 
      in her videowatch described the criminal destruction of some Southeast 
      Asian rain-forest acreage while her parents proceeded to argue with the 
      Board-members for the rights of their overchild to exemption from the 
      pending operation. 
      Cheri was pretty sure that her parents would win the appeal. They'd never 
      stopped assuring her of that during these past two weeks of appearances 
      before some lesser committees. So she no longer let herself get terribly 
      upset at all the embarrassment they were putting her through. Her mother 
      could melt titanium off a nosecone with her tears, and her father could 
      use logic to make day look like night. They had coached her to shut up, to 
      answer nothing even if questioned (legally, a seven-year-old did not have 
      to say a thing), so she furtively rubbed her shoulder where it still hurt 
      after last night's beating and tried to focus on the disaster in Southeast 
      Asia.
      "Probably a work of sheer spite committed by the anticonservationists," 
      said the video voice as an aerial view panned acres of defoliated 
      greenery. "Biologists estimate that at least a hundred species of living 
      creatures, some of which have never even been catalogued, have been 
      forever destroyed by this outrageous act." Cheri could imagine herself as 
      one of those tiny creatures whose kind had existed nowhere else in the 
      world. She could see herself hopping from leaf to trembling leaf, her 
      scalded wings beating in pain as poisonous fumes darkened the air all 
      about her. There were Cheris all over the world, she thought, billions of 
      kids like her--but of those little beings whose weakening wings she felt 
      flapping on her own (sore) back there'd been hardly a handful, and now not 
      even one was still alive. "Our irreplaceable biological heritage." She 
      shuddered as, voicelessly, her lips mouthed a phrase which had inspired 
      her with awe long before she'd grown old enough to understand it.
      "... our only overchild!" her father was saying to the two thin-lipped men 
      and three unfriendly-looking women who sat around the sides and end of the 
      long table opposite the three of them. The room was the usual pukey 
      government green, but it had a computer station in one corner and a wall 
      full of black-covered books, and it was even pukily carpeted, unlike the 
      stone-cold meeting-rooms she'd been shlepped to up to now. Otherwise you'd 
      never know you were in the presence of the highest appeals committee in 
      the land, the Biomedical Ethics Board Overchild Panel--BEBOP, for short. 
      Behind the head of the head of the Board were the vertical slats of window 
      blinds, and through these you could see the pale white dome of the 
      Capitol. She supposed she shouldn't feel scared. Her parents had assured 
      her that they weren't. When you were right, there was no need for fear, 
      they had said. Cheri wasn't sure she was all that "right."
      Her father, seated at the end of the table to her left, poked with his 
      finger when making a point: "There are families in this country with two 
      and even three overchildren who should be given priority, or at least the 
      right to volunteer, for so ... so life-saving a procedure as the one for 
      which you've scheduled our daughter."
      "It's your daughter's legal turn and legal right to undergo surgery--and, 
      above all, today, because now is when it's needed, Mr. Grecker, not 
      tomorrow, not next week," said the Board chairman. "In setting its 
      priorities, the law does not take account of the number of overchildren a 
      family has spaw--has produced."
      "But it should! The law is heartless if it doesn't!" cried her mother, 
      brushing Cheri's left shoulder as she leaned out over the table-top, her 
      gold-painted lips all atremble.
      "Strange parents you are," tsk-tsked the big-bellied, woolly-bearded head 
      of the Board, "who would wish to deny ... the gift of life! ... to their 
      one and only overchild." His grandfatherly gaze traveled quizzically in 
      her direction, but Cheri knew enough by now to lower her eyes and refuse 
      to betray her feelings through some unguarded facial expression. Her 
      videowatch was her perfect refuge at moments of challenge like this. She 
      sensed that the head of the Board was trying to insult her parents. And 
      that she would not stand for! She loved her parents and would never want 
      to see them hurt, however confused and misguided they might be ... 
      misguided even to the point that they would--what was it Woolly Beard had 
      said?--that they would deny "the gift of life" to their overchild. She 
      frowned at her wrist, deflecting her anger with the fat man onto the 
      program she was watching, which in any case gave her reason enough to look 
      grim.
      "Eco Echoes," the environmental channel, was her favorite TV fix, as it 
      probably was for all overchildren, and for a great many quota-kids as 
      well, if she could judge by her older brother and sister. Her parents kept 
      bugging her about "needing to vary your video diet," fearing 
      "brainwashing," whatever the heck that could be, but at the same time 
      they'd never tried to actually supervise her TV watching because 
      overchildren had a bigger stake than quota-kids in understanding all about 
      Nature.
      The scene shifted to clips about the trial of a Canadian camper charged 
      with the "wanton slaughter" of a cougar (of which only a few thousand were 
      left in the world) that he claimed had been about to attack his son. The 
      judge and jury felt that the man had "negligently" failed to keep watch 
      over the three-year-old and that he could at least have waited for the 
      cougar to attack before firing. He had failed to give it the benefit of 
      the doubt. (They could tell by a hormone test that the animal had not had 
      aggressive intentions.) The man was sentenced to ten years Arctic duty in 
      the Canadian Conservation Corps; Cheri felt they'd let him off too easy. 
      If she could give that beautiful cougar its life back ... but what was the 
      use of dreaming?
      "Other options have not been thoroughly examined," said her father.
      "We've had calls from parents saying they'd be glad to have their kid take 
      Cheri's turn," added her mother.
      "But in spite of all the publicity this case has spawned," replied the 
      chairman, licking his Brillo-covered lips over the word spawned, "no 
      Priority One volunteers have officially come forth, have they? Of course 
      not! Why would they? No one out there even imagines the true cause of all 
      these appeals-board meetings you've requested."
      "We decided to keep the real issue behind these meetings ... hidden from 
      public view," said her mother, "out of consideration for Cheri's 
feelings."
      "Understandably!" The chairman's eyes flickered out at Cheri like 
      fishnets. "But even if a qualified substitute were to come forward at this 
      very moment, we wouldn't have the time to medically process him--or her. 
      Listen, Mr. and Mrs. Grecker, we don't know what your peculiar motives 
      might be in trying to deny your overchild her legal right and privilege 
      to--"
      "Peculiar motives!" Her mother threw her arm around Cheri's shoulder. She 
      leaned on it where it was still very tender, making her wince with pain. 
      "Is it so peculiar that we love our daughter, that we want her to live 
      with us forever?"
      "I'm sure your daughter must think your 'love' rather misdirected, Mrs. 
      Grecker. It's truly rare to meet people with as stubborn a set of 
      reactionary values as yours. Unlike you, it seems, your overchild knows 
      full well that the operation she is scheduled for is a matter of life and 
      death."
      "Don't put words in her mouth!" snapped Cheri's father. "And don't try to 
      intimidate her with those insinuating glances you've been casting in her 
      direction!"
      "How dare you call us 'reactionary'!" pounced her mother.
      "'Old-fashioned,' then?" sighed the chairman.
      Cheri's ears were on fire; she felt they must be lit up like glowworms. 
      She lowered her head to within inches of the screen of her watch. If only 
      they hadn't raised her at home! she thought. If only they had let her grow 
      up, like most overchildren, in one of the special Academies! Then they 
      wouldn't have to love her, and she wouldn't have come to love them, and 
      she wouldn't have to feel guilty now about wanting the operation, about 
      wanting to do the right thing, even about being an overchild in the first 
      place.
      "Look at her! The girl's in perfect health!" shouted her mother. "You're 
      supposed to be scouring the country for some terminally ill overchild--or 
      even a quota-child, if the right sort can be found--before laying your 
      hands on a child like my Cheri."
      Cheri peeked out from a corner of an eye and saw her mother gaze in mute 
      appeal at the women on the panel, but the women remained as tight-lipped 
      as the men. (Cheri was secretly glad to see that their looks had not 
      softened.)
      "The search process had to stop at some point, Mrs. Grecker. In spite of 
      the critical nature of the case, we delayed completing arrangements for 
      the operation until the last possible minute. What more do you want us to 
      do? A very precious life is at stake, Mrs. Grecker!" sighed the chairman. 
      "Aren't you being somewhat insensitive to--"
      "We have followed all the procedures," one of the panelwomen broke in. Up 
      till now Cheri had thought they were there as decoration. "No one could be 
      found who could take priority over your daughter... Besides, what does her 
      state of health have to do with anything?"
      The narrator's voice was backdrop to the picture of a stiff-legged elk 
      sprawled on its side with dried blood caking its shoulder. There were 
      hardly five hundred elk left in the whole world, intoned the narrator. 
      There had been witnesses to the crime, and the poacher, summarily tried 
      according to local Idaho law, was shown being tied to a post and then shot 
      by firing squad. Tears came to Cheri's eyes at the sight of the poor 
      victim, stretched in the dust and all covered with gore, his enormous 
      antlers like arms reaching up toward the sky as if begging heaven's deaf 
      ears for protection. The agony the poor animal must have gone through 
      stirred sympathetic pains in her, especially in her arms and side, where 
      her father had repeatedly slapped her the previous night. They feared she 
      couldn't be trusted to keep her mouth shut, but she was willing to 
      sacrifice anything to prove that she loved them--even the one chance she 
      had as an overchild to serve a fellow creature who was far more valuable 
      than herself. Cheri clutched her side, stopping as soon as she saw Mr. 
      Woolly Beard looking.
      "The maximum permissible age for this kind of operation is eight," said 
      her father. "My daughter will be eight in one month. There are thousands 
      of overchildren already over eight who have never had to undergo even 
      lesser operations such as kidney or lung transplants. Given that she has 
      one month, just one month to cross the line, it is cruel and inhuman of 
      you to ignore our total situation and to insist on going by the book!"
      "The astonished faces of my colleagues," said the chairman, waving his 
      hand around the conference table, "bear witness, quite frankly, to the 
      incredibly shameless nature of this appeal, Mr. Grecker. You should all 
      have been spending these past few weeks in joy at the opportunity your 
      overchild has been granted, one that most overchildren would give their 
      eye-teeth for--although teeth, of course," he added ruminatively, "have 
      never been required in transplants."
      "We don't want to keep her from ever enjoying her privileges as an 
      overchild, sir. Just let her cross the line, let her reach eight, and 
      after that she'll be glad to--"
      "Mr. Grecker," the chairman snapped, "you fail to take into account the 
      great privilege the Federal government has already granted you in allowing 
      you to bring up your overchild at home as opposed to being raised at one 
      of the Academies."
      "Privilege my foot! You know damn well it's at the cost of double the 
      overchild tax that I'd be paying if she'd been raised at one of your 
      spare-parts training farms."
      Around the table stunned silence and a sharp intake of breath. Cheri 
      glanced at her father in tearful disbelief.
      "Mr. Grecker, may I remind you," said the BEBOP head, looking down and 
      shaking his beard at the bulge of his stomach, "that it is absurd for you 
      to sit here and sound so self-righteous. It is the two of you who 
      conceived this overchild and insisted on her being brought to term. How 
      people like yourselves, who are apparently civilized, decide to breed 
      beyond your simple replacement quota, never ceases to amaze me. Every 
      civilized nation in the world has overchild laws similar to ours, and the 
      world's enlightened citizenries have been overwhelmingly cooperative in 
      trying to halt the cancerous spread of our species over the planet."
      "To compare our child to a cancer, Mr. Chair--"
      "But unlike the harsher laws of some countries, ours permit the survival 
      of overchildren. Further, we raise them at considerable expense and allow 
      them to serve in the front lines in the war against the extinction of our 
      fellow life-forms, wherever in the world they may be needed."
      "She's an extremely intelligent child," offered her mother. "She'll make a 
      brilliant ecologist and will be happy to serve wherever in the world ..."
      Cheri bit her lip. She did not want to be an ecologist. Nor a biologist. 
      Nor a zoologist. Nor some mosquito-bitten, muddy-booted Earthcorps 
      sentinel (like most of the dumber overkids sooner or later had to become)! 
      "Stubborn," her parents called her. They beat her black and blue simply to 
      teach her that she was too young to have an opinion of her own in the 
      matter--and further, that for her to voice an opinion (especially where 
      government officials were present) would be far more dangerous than just 
      privately, in her "propaganda-polluted" little mind, to have an opinion.
      Last night her father had treated her so strangely! After smacking her 
      silly because, in spite of their coaching, she had again blurted out her 
      own "opinion," he had grabbed her up in his arms and begged and wept, and 
      she had begun crying too and promised, as they all three hugged each other 
      tight, that she would not say a thing at the Panel to hurt them.
      The scene shifted to the Rwandan Primate Preserve in East Africa. Cheri 
      already knew the number before the narrator mentioned it. "Before this 
      tragic event there were only 236 mountain gorillas known to exist in the 
      wild. The figure has hardly changed since the murder of Dian Fossey some 
      seventy years ago. In spite of our best efforts to protect our precious 
      cousins, there continue to be incidents like this. This was Will Rogers. 
      Will, you may remember, was a regular ham. Trouble is, he got to trust 
      people too much." Cheri's hand clapped over her mouth at sight of the 
      headless torso and the arms--folded over the chest--from which the hands 
      had been hacked off. "A commission job," said the narrator. "Someone hired 
      a mercenary to bring back the traditional trophy parts. This time, 
      however, the hired killer--a Frenchman, as it turns out--was caught before 
      he could leave Africa." A procession of mourners, both black and white, 
      filed past the bier on which Will Rogers lay in state. An elderly white 
      man carried aloft, at the head of the procession, a three-pronged stick to 
      which a head and two hands were skewered.
      Those of the Frenchman.
      "He found out that the law was on to him and managed to destroy the 
      severed parts of Will Rogers shortly before he was apprehended. The 
      twisted individual who hired him has been brought up on charges of 
      genocide, in Marseilles." Cheri knew, from her class in French, that it 
      was strains of the Marseillaise they were playing now in the background. 
      "Allons enfants ... le jour de gloire," etcetera. Mournfully. She felt a 
      little better to see that justice was being done, but what could make up 
      for the loss of a fellow creature who was "more precious than plutonium, 
      more priceless than petroleum"?
      "Nothing can be done about Will," said the narrator, "but thank heaven not 
      all this morning's news needs to be tragic. Today is the day that all you 
      folks out there've been waiting for. This is a file shot taken several 
      days ago at the L.A. Center for Genetic Variation." Cheri's heart leaped 
      as if it would jump right out of her mouth. It was Emily, her own dear 
      Emily, during the one hour a day to which her tree-swinging had been 
      restricted since her condition had become notably worse. "I don't have to 
      tell you," the narrator continued, "how the heart of the world has gone 
      out to Emily Bronte, the famous teenaged chimp, who at this very moment is 
      being prepared for life-saving surgery." They will have to take somebody 
      else! thought Cheri. Mom and Dad are absolutely certain that legally, when 
      push comes to shove, they will not be able to lay their bureaucratic paws 
      on the least little hair of my body. After all, this was a civilized 
      world, said her father. The law protected you from having to serve against 
      your will. (And from having to speak if you were still under eight.)
      "If Emily does not get her precious heart today, folks, it's doubtful she 
      will live out the week. The unofficial word, though, is not to be 
      concerned about all the appeals-board meetings of these past two weeks. It 
      seems that what is being dealt with at BEBOP this morning is the claims 
      for priority over Cheri Grecker that are being put forward by a number of 
      zealous, and jealous, overchildren--or their legal representatives, more 
      likely, who want to steal Cheri's thunder for their own little extries who 
      will soon be eight and therefore legally too old to ever achieve the 
      coveted fame of Heart Donor."
      Cheri's ears tingled to hear herself mentioned on TV, but even more 
      thrilling was to see her own face on the screen--not smiling brightly 
      enough, though, she thought, and her overhead-braided blond hair a bit 
      messy, and the freckles on her nose showing darker than she knew they 
      really were. But when the camera turned back to Emily again, frolicking 
      her permitted hour in the trees (in this same spot that used to be a 
      "zoo," she thought, gagging), her heart sunk as deep down inside her as it 
      had earlier leaped high into her throat. That was a lie about some other 
      kids wanting to steal her "thunder," but if the TV told the truth about 
      why all the appeals--well, she'd never be able to lift up her head, her 
      friends would never speak to her again, and shemight as well be dead. But 
      she loved her parents and her quota sibs, and her father had promised that 
      once all this was over they'd move somewhere else if they had to, and 
      they'd cut her hair differently so that their new neighbors wouldn't know 
      her, and soon she'd make new friends anyway, and ...
      "The legal wrinkle that both the state and regional boards refused to 
      consider," her father was saying, still doing all he could to avoid 
      pulling out his "trump-card," as he called it, "is that Emily Bronte was 
      not born in this country! She is not a product of any strain-mixing 
      program here. She was sent here--for eventual breeding purposes--as a gift 
      from the town of Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. No one knew at 
      the time that she'd eventually develop a heart defect, of course. But my 
      point is that the town of Gombe claims her as a native and even now offers 
      a qualified, medically approved, fully documented donor who should 
      rightfully take precedence over Cheri. I have the child's papers with me, 
      and in three hours he could be flown--"
      "Mr. Grecker, please!" said the panel chair. "It is we, in this country, 
      who are legally accountable for Emily's welfare."
      "But they now offer a medically certified replacement for our daughter, 
      whereas the problem up till a few days ago was--"
      "Our rights regarding Emily were never in question! Are we now going to 
      put ourselves to shame by bowing to some spurious claim from as far away 
      as Africa? And how do you think Cheri would feel if she were now to be 
      denied a privilege that falls to the lot of so few overchildren during any 
      one decade--the privilege of serving as Heart Donor," said the chair, 
      casting her a quick smile, "of performing the highest level of service 
      possible toward the preservation of primate life on this planet?"
      Cheri hated that fat man with the beard! She hated him because he was 
      making her mother and father so miserable. Something from his nose had got 
      tangled in his scrubby mustache, and that made it even easier to hate him. 
      The hate her eyes shot out at him seemed to boomerang back into her arms 
      and shoulders and sides. It was as if he made her rub her arm and 
      shoulder, as if the pain would have stayed quiet if not for those sneaky 
      little smiles he liked to toss at her at the same time that he went on 
      torturing her parents. But she knew that her father would win when it came 
      to the showdown. All she had to do was "shut her trap" and they'd all be 
      safe. If only she didn't have to be there for when "push came to shove," 
      if only ...
      "Very well," said her father. He stood up and reached into a pocket of his 
      open compucase. By the expression on his face Cheri knew that the moment 
      had come. She prepared to shrivel up into a ball like one of those little 
      purple beetles she loved to watch on her lawn. "Very well, Mr. 
      Chairperson, you are forcing me to resort to an argument which I had hoped 
      I would not have to use, since I had hoped to spare people's feelings to 
      the furthest degree possible..."
      Cheri wondered what was the greater sin: lying out of love for the family 
      who loved her, or speaking the truth and breaking everyone's heart?
      "We still live in a civilized society, am I right?" Her father gave the 
      chairman a nasty look. Her mother's hand crept nervously up toward her 
      father's shoulder, but her father shrugged it off.
      The chairman twiddled his thumbs over the lump of his lap. He looked 
      pregnant to Cheri--as if his own belly was about to give birth to some 
      unwanted kid.
      "Am I correct in saying," her father went on, drawing a document from his 
      case, "that if an overchild does not wish to serve, then the child cannot 
      legally be required to serve?"
      The chairman burst out into a snort of laughter. "I haven't seen a bona 
      fide case of privilege-surrender in all my twenty-three years in this 
      profession. Has any of you?" he asked, looking around at his colleagues, 
      all of whom raised their brows at the absurdity of the idea. "It's 
      conceivable that the call to serve might fall to some weak-minded or 
      degenerate child some day, but--"
      "I asked you, sir, can you force a child to serve against her will?"
      Cheri stared at her watch without seeing. "Degenerate," she repeated to 
      herself, shuddering. When push came to shove, she'd been coached, she must 
      look up at no one.
      "What are you waving there, like some ace you've just pulled out of your 
      sleeve?" said the chair.
      "A notarized affidavit, bearing my daughter's signature." She looked up 
      just enough to see her father passing copies around the table. She heard 
      the hitch in people's breath, the startled sounds of disbelief. If she 
      could sink under the table, and if there were a yawning pit in the floor 
      beneath the table ...
      She knew, without seeing, that all eyes were now focussed upon her--like a 
      lens that concentrated the rays of the sun on a bug, as she'd once seen a 
      "degenerate" quota-kid do when she was little.
      "This is ridiculous!" said the chair, thumping the table with his fist. 
      "There isn't even a hint of an explanation! All she says--all it says 
      here--is, 'I, Cheri Grecker, of sound mind and body, of my own free will 
      hereby surrender my right to serve as Heart Donor to my primate cousin 
      Emily Bronte.' Why, Cheri--?"
      "You have no right to force her to speak!" her father thumped back. "She 
      is not on trial. She is simply exercising a perfectly legal option."
      "Why?" the pain-filled voice asked again, reaching out like gentle fingers 
      that lifted her eyelids till she could no longer avoid the probe of his 
      tear-glistening eyes.
      "Don't answer him, Cheri!" snapped her father, his tone sparking the pain 
      that for whole minutes had lain dormant in her bruised and swollen 
      shoulders, arm, and side.
      "Why is the child doing that?" shouted the chairman. "Why does she keep 
      clutching her arm and her side?"
      How she hated that man! she thought, squinching her eyes closed, hoping 
      that everything around her would magically disappear. And then she felt 
      her elbow-length sleeve pushed upward and at the same time a tug at her 
      collar and the pop! pop! pop! of parting blouse-buttons exposing great big 
      slabs of discolored flesh shining ugly in the glare of the office lights.
      "Of her own free will?" said the panel chair, gripping her arm at the 
      elbow. Her father leaned toward her over the end of the table as if 
      expecting her to do something, but she didn't know what to do.
      "Overchild abuse!" shrilled one of the women on the panel.
      "Your parents could be punished severely for this," said the chairman, his 
      sour breath washing over her.
      "Fifteen years in prison," the same panelwoman said, leaning toward her 
      with her hands propped on the table.
      "But if you tell us the truth," said the chairman, "well, given the 
      urgency of the situation, and thinking of the welfare of poor Emily--which 
      is all that really should concern us right now anyway--we can forget we 
      ever saw this. Is that all right with all of you?" he asked, turning to 
      the rest of the panel, all of whom nodded and murmured in assent.
      "Cheri!" shrieked her mother, throwing her arms around her and crushing 
      her to her breast.
      "We could tell you were no moral degenerate," said the chairman. "It's 
      hardly you who's degenerate, child. Hardly you."
      "They weren't trying to hurt me," Cheri protested, trying to pull her arm 
      away from the chairman's hairy fist. "They love me!"
      "They made you sign?" said the chair.
      She could not avoid his eyes. Now she would have to tell the truth. "I 
      love my mom and dad," she said.
      "We know you do." The chair kept looking at her, waiting. She knew what 
      telling the truth would mean--that the gift of life, the gift that she 
      alone had the right to give ... Her heart leaped with joy at the prospect, 
      but when she felt her mother shiver as she held her, she wanted to cry at 
      feeling so selfish. But she couldn't cry, no matter how hard she tried.
      "They made you sign?" repeated the chair.
      Now she too started to tremble. "You won't hurt them?" she pleaded.
      "Promise."
      Then it wouldn't be out of selfishness, she thought, that she'd be giving 
      her heart to Emily, that she'd be doing what she'd always dreamed of 
      doing! She was not thinking of herself. She was thinking only of them.
      "I did it because I love them," she said.
      And she knew that she'd do anything to keep these hateful people from 
      laying their bureaucratic paws on the least little hair of their bodies.

      © Daniel Pearlman 1993, 2000 
      "The Heart of the Overchild" was first published in REAL XIX/2 (Winter 
      93-94) and reprinted in The Year's Best Fantastic Fiction, Vol. 1, No. 2 
      (1996).