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Playing God(12)

By:Sarah Zettel


“Before and after?” Lynn gestured toward the globe and blueprints on the wall screen as she took a seat at the conference table.

“Sort of, yes.” Keale got up from his comm station and reseated himself across the table from Lynn. “I am not going to waste your time, Dr. Nussbaumer. I put forth a security proposal to the project seniors, which was rejected, and which I want to revive with your help.” He gave her a slightly sardonic smile. “Your praises are being sung from HQ to Dedelph, and I think the veeps might listen to you where they won't listen to me.”

“I'd be glad to hear whatever you've got.” Lynn sucked some coffee from her bulb and forced herself into a relaxed posture.

Keale folded his hands on the tabletop. “My commission is the safety of the Bioverse personnel on this project. I am in charge of making sure our people are not exposed to any excessive dangers.”

Lynn smiled sympathetically. “We are going into a war zone, Commander. You've got a job ahead of you.”

He returned the smile. “Yes. For a long time.” He gazed at the city-ship's blueprint. “However, it's not safety on the ground I'm speaking about at the moment. The plague is everyone's common enemy down there, and they're caught up in fighting it. It's our people on the city-ships that I'm worried about.”

Lynn felt her forehead wrinkle. “On the city-ships we'll have the warring Great Families separated and hundreds of miles away from one another.”

“And that, Dr. Nussbaumer”—Keale laid his hand flat on the table—“is what I am worried about.”

Lynn raised her brow. “I'm sorry?”

“The Dedelphi fight. They fight viciously and savagely, with no aim other than wiping each other out. They've always done this.”

“No one disputes that, Commander,” said Lynn patiently. “The Dedelphi will explain at great length why they do it.”

“Yes, I've heard some of that.” A flicker of distaste crossed Keale's face. Lynn nodded. She'd heard some of the rants, too. They were unsettling, to say the least.

“My teams have been studying the patterns of violence. It came as no surprise to anybody to find that a tribe or family will most readily attack those who are the least related to them.

“Aboard the city-ships, that will be us.”

Lynn straightened up slowly. “What?”

Commander Keale didn't even blink. “The Dedelphi attack those who are farthest from their families in genetic terms. They do not do this because of lack of resources, because they are actively enslaved or oppressed, or because they are threatened in any way. They attack them because they are different. Humans are far more different from the Dedelphi than the Dedelphi are from each other.”

Lynn shifted her weight. “So, with no history of warfare, no grudges, no need to spread and grow, you're saying it's inevitable that the Dedelphi will attack us?”

“I am saying”—Keale pitched his voice soft and low— “that they need to eat, breathe, fuck, and fight. They need enemies. Either we give them some, or they are going to find some, and we, being the farthest away from the family structure, are going to become those enemies.”

Lynn waited until she was sure her voice would stay even. “This level of genetic determinism was disproved as a behavioral predictor years ago.”

“In Humans.”

Lynn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She relaxed her grip on the chair arms. “Have you ever worked in the Dedelphi colonies, Commander?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Bioverse didn't have any jobs for me there.”

“Okay. Then let me tell you about the bloodlust of the Dedelphi.” She lifted her gaze and looked straight into his black eyes. “Unlike us, they do not war over ideologies. They war over actions. Where there is no priming action, there is no war.”

Keale opened his mouth, but Lynn didn't give him a chance to speak. “In Crater Town, Dedelphi from all the Great Families live within ten feet of each other, never mind ten thousand miles. They are supported fully by Humans: medical staff, consultants, trading partners, neighbors. They have a Human security force. It has never, not once, been the victim of so much as a web attack. The Dedelphi in Crater Town do not wage war, with each other or with us, because there is no history of war between them.

“The Confederation on All-Cradle is a paper peace. They are making provisions for a conjugal peace. They are using the cultural outlets that allow them not to attack each other, or us. As you so rightly pointed out, their enemy now is the plague.”

“I am familiar with the paper and conjugal peace, Dr. Nussbaumer.” Keale's patience was obviously straining. “But they are not universally practiced, or universally acknowledged. Nothing among the Dedelphi is. They can't even agree on what to call themselves. We had to label them.” He looked at her more closely. “You're friends with the Crater Town founders, aren't you?”