by Selina Rosen
"Probably, but RJ . . . We've already interfered on a grand scale. By destroying the native's common enemy it's only a matter of time till they hunt each other down and kill each other if that's what they've got in their mind to do, and apparently it is. The ones currently here with us now have better weapons and machines. They're redeveloping technology and reclaiming their heritage. Maybe Topaz is right, and at this point all we can do is continue to interfere."
"That isn't exactly what I wanted to hear."
"I'm sorry," Poley shrugged.
RJ sighed. "I'm tired of being responsible for everything, you know. What if everything I do, everything I have ever done here, and on Earth, everywhere is just ultimately going to make everything everywhere worse?"
"What if everything you do will make it better?" Poley asked back.
"But you can never know, can you? Every step I take, every breath, has the chance to change everything. Pull here, and something gets pushed there, and everything is different, and how do you know whether it's better or not?"
"Maybe you just have to do what you think is right in the moment."
"Don't you see? That's how all the mistakes happen, by people living in the moment without thinking things out, by not asking themselves, what is this going to do in twenty years, in fifty, in a hundred?" RJ reached down and picked up an uprooted plant and stared at it. "I'm tired of being responsible."
"But someone has to do it," Poley said with a shrug.
She nodded silently, walked over and planted the plant just off the walking trail. Then she turned and started back for the ship. The forty natives Topaz had brought with him were being beaten to death by the Abornie colony they had originally found.
RJ shouted at the crowd in their language. "Enough! Stop this now!" Most of them ceased their fighting immediately, and RJ easily waded into the group and broke the rest of the fights up. "You idiots are the same people. Why are you fighting?" Everyone started screaming at once. "Enough!" There was silence, and RJ walked over and helped Topaz up from where he'd mostly been laying on the ground getting stepped on by the combatants. "You," she pointed at Taral, "and you," she pointed at the female whom she assumed by her demeanor and dress was the leader of the other tribe. "Come with me. The rest of you, if there is any more fighting I will come back and kill you all. Do you understand?" They all held their hands out to her, palms up. "Good."
She sat with them at the table in the Captain's quarters, and wished that she could be somewhere, almost anywhere else.
"What's your name?" she asked the female.
"Uvar," she said. "These people, they are our sworn enemies from the beginning of time . . ."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," RJ droned back. "So, let's cut to the chase. Why are you people fighting?" She was sure they didn't fully understand her, even though she was using their language, because of her use of Reliance euphemisms, but she knew they got the gist of what she was saying.
"They stole our children," Uvar said.
"Your children joined our people willingly, and then you attacked our village and . . ."
"Hold." RJ held up her hand, though she knew it probably didn't have the same meaning here. "When did they steal your children? And when did they attack your village?"
"In the time when we came from the caves to once again embrace the land," Uvar said.
"After much fighting our tribes called a truce. They would stay in their place, and we would stay in ours, and today they broke that truce," Taral growled.
"We had no idea where the strange alien would take us," Uvar spat back. "That he would deliver us into the hands of our enemies. All we could make out clearly from his bad speaking was that he and his kind had killed the Ocupods, and that he was going to take us to a place where there was a 'great comfy chair'."
"Why would our savior bring hope to you, the attackers of our people?"
"Why would anyone help you baby stealers?"
"Shut up!" RJ brought her fist down into the table for emphasis. "Gods! Why must all humanoids be so freaking stupid? Listen to me, you crawling bugs beneath my feet." She took a deep breath and let it out. "Centuries ago, your tribe," she pointed at Taral, "was short one sex. In other words you lacked enough breeding pairs to carry on your line, and so they went to her tribe and stole some children of that sex to complete your breeding pairs. Your ancestors," she pointed at Uvar, "were understandably pissed off and attacked their village." She sighed deeply and said in her own language, more to herself than anyone else, "Why can't people ever just talk?" She turned back to the two natives at the table.
"You have to ask why the two groups of your people didn't just merge into one. Why did they separate into two groups in the first place? And the answer is clear. They came from two different bunkers and no doubt fell into the same patterns of class-ism they had fallen into before the Apocalypse." She mocked them, "You came from that bunker, it's not as good as our bunker, we're smarter and therefore we can't let our breeding pairs be contaminated by your breeding pairs." She wasn't a talker, never had been. She was an ass kicker. It would have been so much easier to just kick their asses and tell them how things were going to be, but now she supposed was the time for diplomacy, or at least as close as she could get. "Here's a big freaking clue for ya. I don't give a shit about any of that. Get over it. All of that crap happened hundreds of years ago.
"Let me tell you what I have learned about your people in the relatively short time I have been here. Your ancestors were completely self-centered and selfish. They destroyed this planet. They played god with all the plants and animals here, and created the creatures that became your ultimate enemies, rather than curb their destructive ways. Your ancestors, your direct bloodline, were the worst of the lot, because you are the direct descendants of the people who went underground to save themselves while the rest of their civilization perished on the surface.
"You are the descendants of the people who came out of the bunkers. You know your history through books, and yet you choose to fight with one another over something that happened hundreds of years ago. Something that never should have been fought over in the first place. You have learned nothing from your ancestral past. You would make the same mistakes they made, maybe more quickly." She shook her head and mumbled in her own language, "Most people aren't worth the skin they walk around in."
She ran both her hands down her face, then glared at them, her face a mask of rage, and said in their language, though what she said must have done nothing but confuse them further, "So Topaz is right, and the only hope for this world is if we take control and steer it in a healthy direction."
"You will not take control of my people," Uvar said.
"Or mine," Taral swore.
RJ laughed and stood up. Screw diplomacy; you couldn't reason with fools. "Who do you think your people will follow if I walk from this ship with," she pointed at Uvar, "your head in one hand, and yours," she pointed at Taral, "in the other? If you want to act like animals, I'll treat you like animals. I'll kill you and everyone who opposes me until I've killed every single Abornie on this planet or I'm in power, whichever comes first. I don't want to be the bitch goddess of your world, but I can do it if I have to. And believe me, you don't want to make me do anything I don't want to do."
For a minute it looked like they wanted to argue with her, and then they both lifted their right hands, palm up, a submissive look on their faces. She could feel the fear radiating from them.
Maybe that's all I'm good for, scaring people, RJ thought. Well . . . whatever works. You can't talk sense to people who won't hear it, if I've learned nothing else in my long life I've learned that action speaks louder than words. At least I've found my hobby.
Chapter Fifteen
Jessica sat in what had once been Topaz's office in the room where the inner circle had once met, and waited for the muttering to cease. When it did, she stared across the table at the team of scientists she had assembled from all corners of New Alliance held territory.
They were the best, the most auspicious group of geneticists ever assembled. All these men and women had once worked for the Reliance. All of them had now defected to their side; still there was something in them that couldn't quite let go of the old trainings. There were some things you just didn't consider doing, and what she was asking them to do was one of these.
"I know what you're all thinking. It's against regulations. Well, guess what, people, we . . . none of us . . . belong to the Reliance anymore, and their regulations don't affect us."
"But," her name was Dorana, and she was by far the most uncomfortable with the proposed project, "these things you're asking us to build. We would program them for loyalty to the New Alliance, but not program their emotions. They would basically have free will."
"Within the boundaries of serving the New Alliance, yes."
"And no expiration date?" Dr. Pagel said. He was not quite as uncomfortable about the project as Dorana, but he was running a close second.
"That's right," Jessica said coolly.
"All right, I understand the importance of the cloning. I even understand the reason for having people in leadership positions that are loyal to us and who can't be killed. It would seem to insure that the New Alliance would hold for eternity, however . . . Even if we program them with loyalty to the causes and beliefs of the New Alliance, if you also give them a full range of emotions, in time they could break that training. They could, in fact, force their will on the whole of the New Alliance. You'd have for all intents and purposes a small army of GSH's running our government . . ."
Jessica interrupted him with a cough, Pagel looked at her and then turned red in the face. "I ah . . . I wasn't talking about . . ."
"I'm sure you weren't. But I'm rather the exception that proves my point. I was raised Elite, I was given no loyalty programming at all and a full range of emotions, and on the day that I realized the Reliance was evil I rose up against them. You build these things and program them with loyalty to us. We'll teach them to fight and to lead in the way we want them to lead. The rest will be up to them."
"What's our time frame?" Dorana asked, and now the emotion radiating from her was resolve. She still wasn't sure it was such a good idea, but she was going to go along because her Reliance programming was still very much in effect, and you went along with whatever the officer wanted you to do, and this GSH was already in charge.
"The necessary cells and data have been collected and a laboratory with all you will need to complete the project has been set up here on the basement level. Accommodations have also been made for you here. I would like to have the finished product ready to ship out in two years or less."
Dorana nodded; it was a tight but not unreasonable time frame.
"Are you sure you want to introduce Argy DNA?" Pagel asked. "Do we want leaders that can read people's emotions?"
Again Jessica fixed him with a stare, and again he turned red in the face. "I, ah, didn't . . ."
"It's all right. I understand your concern, but why wouldn't we want a leader who can feel his constituents' pain? It's hard to ignore people's feelings when you actually feel them. This plan will work. We will be able to take over the Reliance with a minimum of bloodshed, and then, being once more one people, we can push the Argy back into their place and work for a lasting peace between our races."
They all nodded, some of them now actually excited about the project.
She dismissed them and they filed out of the room, leaving her alone with Gerald, Mickey and Dax. It had taken them eight years to collect the necessary samples, and in that time Dax had become a man. He'd topped out at only four feet tall, but since he'd grown up in a much different world than his father had, he didn't have the insecurities about his height that his father did. For one thing, he'd always had Jessica as his protector. No one teased a child who had a huge bronze god to protect him.
Jessica realized the others were all silent. They'd been working towards this for eight years, but now that it was upon them, they still had doubts.
"What?" she asked them.
"Some of their concerns," Mickey started, "they aren't exactly things I've never thought of. That we haven't discussed."
"Maybe we should reconsider the project," Gerald added, and Jessica knew then that he and Mickey and maybe even Dax had already talked about this.
Jessica took a deep breath and let it out. "It's a little late for that. Stashes has been taken by the Argy. The Reliance, thanks mostly to our work, is collapsing in on itself. That's what we want, but if we don't move and move quickly it's going to be too late. We have to take over the Reliance before they have run out of firepower. We have to take over while there are still enough troops and viable ships to crush an Argy advance into our territory. We have to win while we can immediately make the New Alliance a force to be reckoned with. We can't do that unless we take complete control of the Reliance when it still has a fully functioning battle fleet, and since it will still have that fully functioning battle fleet the only way to successfully do this is to take over from the inside out."
Mickey nodded. "All right, I understand all that. But RJ . . . you're talking about making GSH's and then putting them into positions of power."
She gave him the same look she had given Dr. Pagel when he'd said the same thing.
"You can intimidate them, RJ, but not me. You know damn good and well what I'm talking about. You are basically reproducing yourself, and while I love you with all my heart and soul, you, my friend, often don't act in the best interest of yourself, much less the New Alliance."
"True, but to be a good leader a person must experience both success and failure. You have to occasionally lose in order to win. I didn't say this GSH government would be perfect. I just said it's the best we can do to make sure that the New Alliance can survive past your lifetimes. Give the people an eternal government, set up the way we want it, and what could possibly go wrong?"
Gerald covered his ears with his hands and screamed out, "You have cursed us all!"
They all laughed.
"Seriously," Jessica started, "these GSH's will look like the ambassadors, senators, governors and other high government officials they will replace. The assassinations will take place quietly; the genetically superior clones will be set into place. They will immediately start making policy that favors the New Alliance until the Reliance is no more. By the time anyone realizes what we've done—if they ever do—it will be way too late to stop us. If you have a better plan to take over the Reliance, ensure the future of the New Alliance, and crush the Argys before they can start gobbling up Reliance space, let's hear it."
They didn't of course.
Mickey started to lever himself out of his chair with an effort, and Dax went to help him. Mickey was now sixty, and physical injuries experienced in battle, emotional trauma and stress made him feel even older most days. It was raining outside, and that seemed to affect his arthritis. He needed a knee replacement, but he kept putting it off. The way he was moving, it didn't look like he was going to be able to put it off much longer. He laughed at himself. "You might ought to have them make a replacement for me while you're at it, RJ."
"There will be no way to replace you, my friend," Jessica said sadly. It was hard to watch her loved ones age. The fact that Dax was a grown man now ate on her soul, not because he wasn't her baby anymore, although she admitted she missed the days when he would crawl up in her lap and talk to her. His age tormented her because having now reached full maturity he was starting to die, and though most days she tried not to think about losing any of them, least of all Dax, it was hard to put it out of her mind completely.
"Don't get maudlin, RJ, I'm not dead yet. However, I could use some help, Gerald?" Gerald got up and helped Mickey walk from the room and back to his own office.
Dax just hung out; he wanted to say something, but he was afraid to. She could feel it when he started babbling. "My dad said sometime when you go into space, I can go with you. He s
aid he always wanted to go, but he couldn't because of all his responsibilities here. When do you think you'll go again? Is the transmat scary? I hear it's scary. Can you really see the whole planet from the moon, and . . ."
Jessica walked over laughing and hugged him. "What's bothering you?"
"Am I that obvious?" he said with a sigh, resting his head against her stomach.
"Yes, at least to me. In fact, I think even if I wasn't half Argy I'd know when there was something bothering you. So what is it?"
He pushed gently away from her and went to sit in a chair. She sat down, too, because she could tell that he was very serious and upset. He seemed to be mulling it over and then just spit it out, "Gerald is sick."
"What?" Jessica asked in shock.
"He doesn't want you to know. I'm not supposed to know, but I overheard him and Dad talking."
"You were eavesdropping again," Jessica said in a scolding tone. Where his father had used his size to pick pockets, Dax used his to spy on people. He wasn't any sort of pervert, he was mostly just nosey. Most probably he hadn't outgrown his childhood desire to be some sort of undercover detective. "What's he got, the flu?"