Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (37 page)

Q: Why—so little time?

A: Because population increases exponentially and fills an ecosystem, be it planet or station, in a relatively short time. If that population contains insufficient genetic information, that population, especially a population at greater density than the peripheries of the system—we are of course speaking of Cyteen—and sitting at the cultural center of Union, which is another dimension not available to lower lifeforms, but very significant in terms of a creature able to engineer its own systems in all senses—if that population, I say, in such power, contains inadequate genetic information, it will run into trouble and confront itself with emergency choices which may be culturally or genetically radical. In spreading into space at much lesser density and with such preselection at work, humankind faces potential evolutionary catastrophe in a relatively small number of generations—either divergence too extreme to survive severe challenge or divergence into a genetic crisis of a different and unpredictable outcome—certainly the creation of new species of
genus homo
and very probably the creation of genetic dead ends and political tragedy. Never forget that we are more than a social animal, we are a political animal; and we are capable of becoming our own competitor.

Q: You mean war.

A: Or predation. Or predation. Never forget that. Dispersion is absolutely essential, but so are adequately diverse genepools in the scattered pockets that result. That is the reason azi were created and continue to be created. They are the vectors of that diversity, and that some economic interests have found them—profitable—is understandable but overall repugnant to me personally and to everything Reseune stands for. History may accuse me of many things, ser, but I care profoundly what becomes of the azi, and I have exerted every influence to assure their legal protection. We do not create Thetas because we want cheap labor. We create Thetas because they are an essential and important part of human alternatives. The ThR-23 hand-eye coordination, for instance, is exceptional. Their psychset lets them operate very well in environments in which CIT geniuses would assuredly fail. They are tough, ser, in ways I find thoroughly admirable, and I recommend you, if you ever find yourself in a difficult situation in Cyteen's wilderness, hope your companion is a ThR azi, who will survive, ser, to perpetuate his type, even if you do not. That is genetic alternative at work.

Someday there will be no more azi. They will have fulfilled their purpose, which is to increase, and multiply, and fill the gaps in the human record as the original genepool disperses to a mathematically determined population density—as it must disperse, for its own future well-being, its own genetic health.

I say again: azi are genetic alternative. They are the vector for change and adaptation in the greatest challenge the human species has yet faced. They are as they are precisely because the time within which this can be accomplished is so very brief. Reseune has not opposed the creation of additional labs, simply because its interests are primarily scientific and because the task of maintaining the impetus to expansion requires vast production and education facilities. But Reseune has never relinquished its role in the creation and selection of new genesets: no other laboratory has the right to originate genetic material.

While you're being patient, let me make two most essential points: one— Reseune insists on the full integration of
all
azi genesets into the citizen population in any area of Union that has achieved class one status: in practical terms—azi are ideally a one-generation proposition: their primary purpose is not labor, but to open a colonial area, bring it up to productivity, and produce offspring who will enter the citizen genepool in sufficient numbers to guarantee genetic variety. The only azi who should be produced for any other purpose are those generated as a stopgap measure for defense and other emergencies in the national interest; those engaged in certain critical job classifications; and those generated for appropriate research in licensed facilities.

Two—Reseune will oppose any interest which seeks to institutionalize azi as an economic necessity. In no wise should the birthlabs be perpetuated as a purely profit-making operation. That was never their purpose.

Q: Are you saying you have interests in common with the Abolitionists?

A: Absolutely. We always have had.

Florian ran along the sidewalk that crossed the face of Barracks 3, remembered politeness when he met a handful of adults coming the other way, stopped, stood aside, panting, and gave a little bow that the adults returned with the slightest nods of their heads. Because they were older. Because Florian was six and because it was natural for a boy to want to run but it was also natural for adults to have serious business on their minds.

So, this time, did Florian have business. He was fresh from tapestudy. He had an Assignment, a real, every-morning Assignment. It was the most important thing that had ever happened to him, he loved everything about it, and he had been so excited he had begged the Super twice to let him go there and not to the Rec Hall where he was supposed to go after tape.

"What," the Super had said, with a smile and a little twinkle in her eye that he was sure meant she was going to let him, "no Rec? Work and Rec are both important, Florian."

"I've had Rec before," he had said.
"Please."

She had given him the chit then,
and
the Rec chit, for later, she had said, as long as he showed it to the Work Super first. And held out her arms. Hug the Super, the very
nice
Super, and
don't
run in the hall, walk, walk, and walk, as far as the door, walk down the sidewalk until he hit the downhill road, and then
run,
fast as he could.

Which was fast, because he was not only Alpha-smart, he was good at running.

Down the shortcut between Barracks 4 and 5, zip across the road, and shortcut again to the path that led to the AG building. He slowed down finally because his side was hurting, and he hoped in the way of things that moved everybody around all the time, Olders with younger boys, they were going to check him into a bunk a little closer to AG next month: it was
far
from Barracks 104.

Olders with jobs had priority on the bunks nearest. That was what he had heard from an Older, who was Kappa, who said he was always in the same barracks-group.

He caught his breath as he walked up to AG-100. He had been near here before. He had seen the pens. He liked the smell. It was—it was the way AG smelled, that was all, and there was nothing like it.

It was a kind of an Ad place in front. All white, with a seal-door, of course. You were supposed to go to Ad. He knew that the way tape showed you things. He pulled down the door-latch and it let him into a busy office, where there was a counter he was supposed to go to.

He could lean on counters lately. Just barely. He was not as tall as other sixes. Taller than some, though. He waited till a Worker turned around and came to see what he wanted.

"I'm Florian AF-9979," he said, and held up the red chit. "I'm Assigned here."

She gave him a polite nod and took the chit. He waited, licking dry lips, not fidgeting while she put it in the machine.

"You certainly are," she said. "Do you know how to follow the colors?'

"Yes," he said with no doubt at all.

And didn't ask questions because she was a Worker doing her Job and she would probably say. If you didn't get everything you needed when she was finished then you asked. That way you didn't make people make mistakes. Which was a Fault on your side. He knew.

She sat down at a keyboard, she typed, and the machine put out a card she took and added a clip to. He watched, excited because he knew it was a keycard, and it was probably his because she was working on his Business.

She brought it to him and leaned over the counter to show him things about it; he stood on tiptoe and twisted around so they could both see.

"There's your name, there are your colors. This is a keycard. You clip it to your pocket. Whenever you change clothes you clip it to your pocket. That's very serious. If you lose it come to this office immediately."

"Yes," he said. It all clicked with things tape said.

"Have you any questions?"

"No. Thank you."

"Thank you, Florian."

Little bow.
Walk,
then, back out the door and onto the walk and look up at the corner of the building where the color-codes started, but he could read all the words on the card anyway: and on the building.

Walk.
No running now. This was Business and he was important. Blue was his color and white inside that and green inside the white, so he went the blue direction until he was inside blue and then inside blue's white zone. The squares told him. More and more exciting. It was the pens. He saw green finally on a sign at the intersection of the gravel walks and followed that way until he saw the green building, which also said AG 899. That was right.

It was a barn of sorts on one side. He asked an azi for the Super, the azi pointed to a big bald man talking to someone over in the big doorway, and he went there and stood until the Super was clear.

"Florian," the Super said when he had seen the card. "Well." Looking him up and down. And called an azi named Andy to take him and show him his work.

But he knew that, from tape. He was supposed to feed the chickens, make sure all the water was clean, and check the temperature on the brooders and the pig nursery. He knew how important that was. "You're awfully young," Andy said of him, "but you sound like you understand."

"Yes," he said. He was sure he did. So Andy let him show him how much he was to feed, and how he was to mark the chart every time he did, and every time he checked the water; and how you had to be careful not to frighten the chicks because they would hurt each other. He loved how they all bunched up like a fluffy tide, and all went this way or that way; and the piglets squealed and would knock you down if you let them get to swarming round you, which was why you carried a little stick.

He did everything the best he could, and Andy was happy with him, which made him the happiest he had ever been in his life.

He carried buckets and he emptied water pans and Andy said he could try to hold a piglet as long as he was there to watch. It wiggled and squealed and tramped him with its sharp little feet and it got away while he was laughing and trying to protect himself; Andy laughed and said there was a way to do it, but he would show him later.

It was a nice feeling, though. It had been warm and alive in his arms, except he knew pigs were for eating, and for making other pigs, and you had to keep that in mind and not think of them like people.

He dusted himself off and he went out to catch his breath a minute, leaning on the fence rail by the side of the barn.

He saw an animal in that pen that he had never seen, so beautiful that he just stood there with his mouth open and never wanted to blink, it was like that. Red like the cattle, but shiny-pelted, and strong, with long legs and a way of moving that was different than any animal he had ever seen. This one—didn't walk; it—went. It moved like it was playing a game all by itself.

"What's that?" he asked, hearing Andy come up by him. "What kind is that?"

"AGCULT-894X," Andy said. "That's a horse. He's the first ever lived, the first ever in the world."

Ari
liked
the playschool. They got to go out in the open air and play in the sandbox every afternoon. She liked to sit barefoot and make roads with the graders and Tommy or Amy or Sam or Rene would run the trucks and dump them. Sometimes they pretended there were storms and all the toy workers would run and get in the trucks. Sometimes there was a platythere and it tore up the roads and they had to rebuild them. That was what Sam said. Sam's mother was in engineering and Sam told them about platytheres. She asked maman was that so and maman said yes. Maman had seen them big as the living room couch. There were really big ones way out west. Big as a truck. The one they had was only a middle-sized one, and it was ugly. Ari liked being it. You got to tear up the roads and the walls, just push it right through under the sand and there it all went.

She took it and shoved it along with the sand going over her hand. "Look out," she said to Sam and Amy. "Here it comes." She was tired of Amy building her House. Amy had a big one going, sand all piled up, and Amy made doors and windows in the House, and fussed and fussed with it. Which was no fun, because Sam put a tower on Amy's house and Amy knocked it off and told him go make a road up to her door,
she
was making a house and
her
house didn't have towers. Amy got a spoon and hollowed out behind the windows and put plastic in so you couldn't see inside anyway. She made a wall in front and hollowed out an arch for the road. And they both had had to sit and wait while Amy built. So Ari looked at that arch where the road was supposed to come and thought it would be just the place, and the sand would all come down. "Look out!"

"No!" Amy yelled.

Ari plowed right through it. Bang. Down came the wall. The sand came down on her arm and she just kept going, because platytheres did, no matter what. Even if Amy grabbed her arm and tried to stop her.

Sam helped her knock it down.

Amy yelled and shoved her. She shoved Amy. Phaedra got there and told them they mustn't fight and they were all going inside.

Early.

So that was nasty Amy Carnath's fault.

Amy was not back the next day. That was the way with people she fought with. She was sorry about that. You fought with them and they took them away and you only saw them at parties after. There had been Tommy and Angel and Gerry and Kate, and they were gone and couldn't play with her anymore. So when Amy was gone the next day she moped and sulked and told Phaedra she wanted Amy back.

"If you don't fight with her," Phaedra said. "We'll ask sera."