But obviously he was. Images cut, shifted, jumped, blurred, and blended across the screen, linking the Hreshi and the Dedelphi while Arron talked about the immeasurable wealth new bioforms could provide in terms of nanotech advances and how corporate execs would go to any lengths to recoup their outlays.
“Bioverse has already laid out fifty thousand kiloshares to its subcontractors, twenty thousand to its partners, and over a million and a half to investors and citizens. Will they be able to stop, will they want to stop for any reason, even impending cultural disaster, before they get what they came for?”
Lynn hung her head. How did your university let you get away with this little tabloid?
“Claude, is there a summary for this? If there is, fast-forward to it.”
The view on the screen blurred until all that was left was glowing blue text on the black background. It scrolled forward slowly to the rhythm of soft, funereal drumming.
That the Dedelphi have a history of violence against their own kind is indisputable. That the plague which has decimated their people is the result of this violence is also indisputable.
But this plague has brought about a miracle. For the first time in their history, all the governments on this many-named planet are working together on a goal. The ancient enemies stand united. This is a critical moment.
We Humans went through a similar moment in the twenty-first century, C.E. At that time our world had a choice. We could have united, or fragmented.
We chose to fragment. Humanity broke apart into our little enclaves, conglomerates, and corporations. For us, this has worked smoothly. However, when our moment came we had developed enough info and biotechs that smaller enclaves could obtain food, goods, and information to sustain themselves.
The Dedelphi are years away from that kind of technology, if they can ever reach it. They don't have the easy access to the natural resources Earth had. If we split them up now, clean up their world, and leave, we remove any impetus for them to unite. They will return to their warfare, chewing up yet more resources, wasting more years, and digging themselves even farther into their graves, until another bioweapon is released to finish the descent.
This plague wasn't caused by the first bioweapon used, just the most recent. The next one will be even more devastating than this.
If we allow the Dedelphi to work out their own solution to this problem, if they have to work together to save themselves, the groundwork is laid for peaceful coexistence. If they are given the time, they can develop an international information exchange in order to trade research and hard goods. This way, when and if they have to splinter permanently as Humanity has, they have a chance of surviving without returning to a primitive state.
We can either buy them that time, or we can strip it from them.
The screen went blank. Lynn rested her helmeted forehead against her hand.
It was an attention getter, that was for sure. It was also Arron at his best. It wove the facts into new patterns and held them up for everyone to see. It looked good, it felt good, who was to say it wasn't true? More than once she'd found herself reduced to sputtering, “But that's not how it works” when faced with one of Arron's verbal creations.
Lynn shook herself. “Claude, run a call out for Vice President Emile Brador. Make sure he knows it's me.”
“Completing request.”
Lynn busied herself threading together databases until the station back-burnered her tasks and brought up Veep Brador's head and shoulders.
“Record session,” she murmured to her implant. It never hurt to have a personal record of what you'd said to the boss, and what the boss had said to you.
Brador's face had flushed to a deep burgundy and his round owl-eyes narrowed to half-moons. “I presume you untied the knot, Dr. Nussbaumer?”
“Yes, I did. It's extremely inflammatory.” Lynn spread her hands. “What I want to know is why did you call it to my attention? This should be over with the PR dervishes, or sent back to HQ, if you think it's that important.”
Brador's face flushed even darker. “Hagopian is a friend of yours.”
Lynn frowned. “Am I going to be held accountable for him?”
“You petitioned for a citizenship offer for him.”
Oh, so that's what this is about. “That petition was rejected on the grounds that we weren't hiring any planetside Humans.” Which is one of the dumber ideas the veeps and presies back home laid down on us.
“Dr. Nussbaumer”—Brador leaned forward until his nose almost touched the screen—“we have already had three subcontractors pull out of negotiations because of this knot. It does not look good that you sponsored its architect for citizenship.”
“Are you claiming I was trying to sabotage something by bringing Arron on board?” Lynn met his gaze coolly.