Tolly Mune hugged the cat to her chest. “So I lied,” she said. “He’s telepathic, like Dax. Maybe not as powerful. But that’s all. I couldn’t risk him fighting with Dax. Maybe he’d have won, maybe not. I didn’t want him cowed.” She grimaced. “So you got him laid instead. Where’s he been?”
“Having left the manna chamber by a secondary entrance in pursuit of the object of his affections, he subsequently discovered that the doors were programmed to deny him readmittance. Therefore, he has spent the intervening hours roaming through the Ark and making the acquaintance of various other feline members of my ship’s company.”
“How many cats do you have?” she asked.
“Fewer than you,” Tuf said, “yet this is not entirely unanticipated. You are S’uthlamese, after all.”
Blackjack was warm and reassuring in her arms, and all at once Tolly Mune was struck by the fact that Dax was no longer in evidence. She had the edge again. She scratched Jack behind an ear; he turned his limpid silver-gray eyes upon Tuf. “You don’t fool me,” she said.
“I thought it unlikely that I could,” Tuf admitted.
“The manna,” she said. “It’s some kind of a trap, isn’t it? You fed us a batch of lies, admit it.”
“Everything I have told you of the manna is the truth.”
Blackjack uttered a peep. “The truth,” said Tolly Mune, “oh, the puling truth. That means there are things you haven’t told us about the manna.”
“The universe abounds in knowledge. Ultimately, there are more facts to be known than humans to know them, an astonishing realization considering that populous S’uthlam is included in humanity’s tally. I could scarcely hope to tell you everything concerning any subject, however limited.”
She gave a snort. “What are you going to do to us, Tuf?”
“I am going to resolve your food crisis,” he said, his voice as flat and cold as still water, and as full of secret depths.
“Blackjack’s purring,” she said, “so you’re telling the truth. But how, Tuf, how?”
“The manna is my instrument.”
“Bladder bloat,” she said. “I don’t give a puling wart how tasty and addictive the manna fruit is, or how fast the damned things grow, no plant is going to solve our population crisis. You’ve tried all that. We’ve been around those coordinates with omni-grain and the pods and the wind-riders and the mushroom farms. You’re holding something back. Come on, piss it out.”
Haviland Tuf regarded her in silence for well over a minute. His eyes locked with hers, and it seemed briefly as though he were looking deep inside her, as if Tuf too were a mind reader.
Perhaps it was something else he read; finally, he answered. “Once the plant has been sown, it will never be entirely eradicated, regardless of how diligently you may attempt to do so. It will spread with inexorable rapidity, within certain parameters of climate. Manna will not thrive everywhere; frost kills it, and cold is inimical to its growth, but it shall indeed spread to cover the tropical and subtropical regions of S’uthlam, and that will be enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“The manna fruit is extremely nutritious. During the first few years, it will do much to relieve the pressures of your present caloric shortfalls and thereby improve conditions upon S’uthlam. Eventually, having exhausted the soil in its vigorous spread, the plants will expire and decay, and you will of necessity be forced to employ crop rotation for a few years before those particular plots are capable of sustaining manna once again. Yet, meanwhile, the manna shall have completed its real work, First Councillor Mune. The dust that collects upon the underside of each leaf is in actuality a symbiotic microorganism, vital to manna pollination, yet with certain other properties. Borne upon the wind, carried by vermin and human alike, it shall touch every cranny and nook upon the surface of your globe.”
“The dust,” she said. She had gotten it on her fingertips when she touched the manna plant . . .
Blackjack’s growl was so low she felt it more than heard it. .
Haviland Tuf folded his hands. “One might consider manna dust as an organic prophylactic of sorts,” he said. “Your biotechs will discover that it interferes powerfully, and permanently, with libido in the human male and fertility in the human female. The mechanisms need not concern you.”
Tolly Mune stared at him, opened her mouth, closed it, blinked to hold back tears. Tears of despair, tears of rage? She could not say. Not tears of joy. She would not let them be tears of joy. “Deferred genocide,” she said, forcing out the words. Her voice was hoarse and raw.
“Scarcely,” Tuf said. “Some of your S’uthlamese will display a natural immunity to the effects of the dust. My projections indicate that somewhere between point oh-seven and point one-one percent of your base population will be unaffected. They will reproduce, of course, and thus the immunity will be passed on and grow more prevalent in successive generations. Yet a population implosion of considerable magnitude will commence upon S’uthlam this year, as the birth curve ceases its upward thrust and starts a precipitous descent.”
“You have no right,” said Tolly Mune slowly.
“The nature of the S’uthlamese problem is such so as to admit but one lasting and effectual solution,” Tuf said, “as I have told you from the very beginning.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But so what? What about freedom, Tuf? What about individual choice? My people may be selfish and short-sighted fools, but they’re still people, just like you. They have the right to decide if they’re going to have children, and how many children. Who the hell gave you the authority to make that decision for them? Who the hell told you to go ahead and sterilize our world?” She was growing angrier with every word. “You’re no better than we are. You’re only human, Tuf. A puling peculiar human, I’ll give you that, but only human—no more and no less. What gives you the goddamned right to play god with our world and our lives?”
“The Ark,” Haviland Tuf said, simply.
Blackjack squirmed in her arms, suddenly restless, uneasy. Tolly Mune let him jump to the ground, never taking her eyes off Tuf’s blank white face. Suddenly she wanted to strike him, hurt him, wound that mask of indifference and complacency, mark him. “I warned you, Tuf,” she said. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, remember?”
“My memory is unimpaired.”
“Too bad I can’t say the same thing about your goddamned morality,” said Tolly Mune. Her tone was acid. Blackjack growled counterpoint at her feet. “Why the hell did I ever help you keep this goddamned ship? What a damned fool I was! You’ve been alone in a power fantasy too damn long, Tuf. Do you think somebody just appointed you god, is that it?”
“Bureaucrats are appointed,” said Tuf. “Gods, insofar as they exist at all, are chosen by other procedures. I make no claims to godhood in the mythological sense. Yet I submit that I do indeed wield the power of a god, a truth that I believe you recognized long ago, when you first turned to me for loaves and fishes.” When she began to reply, he raised a hand, palm outward. “No, kindly do not interrupt. I will endeavor to be brief. You and I are not so different, Tolly Mune—”
“We’re nothing alike, damn you!” she shrieked at him.
“We are not so different,” Tuf repeated calmly, firmly. “You once confessed that you were not a religious woman; nor am I one to worship myths. I began as a trader, yet having come upon this ship called Ark, I began to find myself dogged at every step by gods, prophets, and demons. Noah and the flood, Moses and his plagues, loaves and fishes, manna, pillars of fire, wives of salt—I must needs have become acquainted with all. You challenge me to declare myself a god. I make no such claim. And yet, it must be said, my first act upon this ship, so many years ago, was to raise the dead.” He pointed ponderously at a work station a few meters away. “There is the very spot at which I performed that first miracle, Tolly Mune. Moreover, I do indeed wield godlike powers and traffic in the life and death of worlds. Enjoying as I do these godlik
e abilities, can I rightfully decline the accompanying responsibility, the equally awesome burden of moral authority? I think not.”
She wanted to reply, but the words would not come. He’s insane, Tolly Mune thought to herself.
“Furthermore,” Tuf said, “the nature of the crisis on S’uthlam was such that it admitted to a solution only by godlike intervention. Let us suppose briefly that I consented to sell you the Ark, as you desired. Do you truly suppose that any staff of ecologists and biotechs, however expert and dedicated, could have devised a lasting answer? It is my belief that you are too intelligent to entertain such a fallacy. I have no doubt that, with all the resources of this seedship at their beck and call, these men and women—geniuses with intellects and training far superior to my own—could and would undoubtedly have devised numerous ingenious stopgaps to allow the S’uthlamese to continue breeding for another century, perhaps two, perhaps even three or four. Yet ultimately, their answers too would have proven insufficient, as did my own small attempts five years ago, and five years before that, and all the breakthroughs your technocrats engineered in centuries past. Tolly Mune, there is no rational, equitable, scientific, technological, or human answer to the dilemma of a population increasing in an insane geometric progression. It admits to answering only with miracles—loaves and fishes, manna from heaven, and the like. Twice I failed as ecological engineer. Now I propose to succeed as the god that S’uthlam requires. Should I approach the problem as human a third time, I would assuredly fail a third time, and then your difficulties would be resolved by gods crueler than myself, by the four mammal-riders of ancient legend who are known as pestilence, famine, war, and death. Therefore, I must set aside my humanity, and act as god.” He paused, looking at her, blinking.
“You set aside your damned humanity a hell of a long time ago,” she raged at him. “But you’re no god, Tuf. A demon, maybe. A puling megalomaniac, certainly. Maybe a monster—yes, a puling abortion. A monster, but no god.”
“A monster,” said Tuf. “Indeed.” He blinked. “I had hoped that one of your undoubted intellectual prowess and competence might display better understanding.” He blinked again. Twice, three times. His long white face was as still as ever, but there was something strange in Tuf’s voice that she had never heard before, something that frightened her, that bewildered her and disturbed her, something that sounded almost like emotion. “You slander me grievously, Tolly,” he protested.
Blackjack made a thin, plaintive meow.
“Your cat displays a keener grasp of the cold equations of the reality confronting us,” Tuf said. “Perhaps I ought to explain again from the beginning.”
“Monster,” she said.
Tuf blinked. “My efforts are eternally unappreciated and met only with undeserved calumny.”
“Monster,” she repeated.
His right hand briefly curled into a fist, uncurled slowly and deliberately. “It appears some cerebral tic has dramatically reduced your vocabulary, First Councillor.”
“No,” she said, “but that’s the only word that applies to you, damn it.”
“Indeed,” said Tuf. “In that case, being a monster, it behooves me to act monstrously. Consider that, if you will, as you grapple with your decision, First Councillor.”
Blackjack jerked his head up suddenly and stared at Tuf as if something unseen were flitting about that long white face. He began to hiss; his thick silver-gray fur rose up slowly as he backed off. Tolly Mune bent and picked him up. The cat trembled in her arms, and hissed again. “What?” she said in a distracted voice. “What decision? You’ve made all the damned decisions. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Permit me to point out that, as of this moment, not a single manna spore has been released into the atmosphere of S’uthlam,” Haviland Tuf said.
She snorted. “So? You’ve made your damned deal. I have no way of stopping you.”
“Indeed. Regrettable. Perhaps one will occur to you, however. Meanwhile, I suggest that we repair to my quarters. Dax is waiting for his evening meal. I have prepared an excellent cream-of-mushroom bisque for our own repast, and there is chilled great-beer from Moghoun, a beverage sufficiently heady to please either gods or monsters. And, of course, my communications equipment is at your disposal, should you find you have something to say to your government.”
Tolly Mune opened her mouth for a cutting reply, then closed it again in astonishment. “Do you mean what I think you mean?” she said.
“This is difficult to say,” Tuf replied. “You are the one holding a psionic cat, madam.”
It was an endless silent walk and an eternal awkward meal.
They took their dinner in a corner of the long, narrow communications room, surrounded by consoles, telescreens, and cats. Tuf sat with Dax across his lap, and spooned up his dinner with methodical care. On the other side of the table, Tolly Mune ate without tasting the food. She had no appetite. She felt old and dizzy. And afraid.
Blackjack reflected her confusion; his serenity gone, he huddled in her lap, infrequently lifting his head above the table to growl a warning at Dax.
And finally the moment arrived, as she had known it would: a buzz and a flashing blue light signaled an incoming communication. Tolly Mune started at the sound, scraping her chair backwards against the deck and swinging around sharply in her seat. Blackjack leapt off in alarm. She started to rise, and froze in indecision.
“I have programmed in strict instructions that I am on no account to be disturbed while dining,” Tuf announced. “Ergo, that call is for you, by the process of elimination.”
The blue pinpoint flashed off, and on, and off, and on.
“You’re no puling god,” Tolly Mune said. “Neither am I, damn it. I don’t want this goddamned burden, Tuf.”
The light was flashing.
“Perhaps it is Commander Wald Ober,” Tuf suggested. “I suggest you take his call before he begins counting backwards.”
“No one has the right, Tuf,” she said. “Not you, not me.”
He gave a ponderous shrug.
The light flashed.
Blackjack yowled.
Tolly Mune took two steps toward the console, stopped, turned back toward Tuf. “Creation is part of godhood,” she said with suddenly certainty. “You can destroy, Tuf, but you cannot create. That’s what makes you a monster instead of a god.”
“The creation of life in the cloning tanks is an everyday and commonplace element of my profession,” Tuf said.
The light flashed on, went out, flashed on again.
“No,” she said, “you replicate life there, but you don’t create it. It has to have existed already, somewhere in time and space, and you have to have a cell sample, a fossil record—something—or you’re helpless. Puling hell, yes! Oh, you have the power of creation all right. The same goddamned power that I have, and that every man and woman down in the undercity has. Procreation, Tuf. There’s your awesome power, there’s the only miracle there is—the one thing humans have that makes us like gods, and the very thing you propose to take away from ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people on S’uthlam. The hell! You’re no creator, you’re no god.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf, expressionlessly.
“So you don’t have the right to make godlike decisions,” she said. “And neither do I, damn it.” She moved to the console in three long, confident strides, touched a control. A telescreen ran with colors, resolving into a mirror-finish battle helmet emblazoned wth a stylized globe insignia. Twin sensors burned crimson behind a dark plasteel faceplate. “Commander Ober,” she said.
“First Councillor Mune,” Wald Ober said. “I was concerned. The allied ambassadors are saying all kinds of wild things to the newsfeeds. A peace treaty, a new flowering. Can you confirm? What’s going on? Is there trouble there?”
“Yes,” she said. “Listen to me, Ober, and—”
“Tolly Mune,” Tuf said.
She whirled on him. “What?”
She scowled. “What are you saying?” She punched off the sound, so Tuf’s words would not transmit.
Wald Ober gestured in sudden silence.
Haviland Tuf pressed the tips of his fingers together. “I am merely pointing out that, as much as I relish the properties of the feline, I nonetheless take steps to control their breeding. I reached this decision after careful consideration, and the weighing of all the alternatives. Ultimately, as you yourself will discover, there are but two fundamental options. You must either reconcile yourself to inhibiting the fertility of your cats, entirely without their consent, I might add, or, failing that, some day most assuredly you will find yourself about to cycle a bag full of newborn kittens out your airlock into the cold vacuum of space. Make no choice, and you have chosen. Failure to decide, because you lack the right, is itself a decision, First Councillor. In abstaining, you vote.”
“Tuf,” she said, her voice agonized, “don’t! I don’t want this damned power.”
Dax jumped up on the table, and turned his golden eyes upon her. “Godhood is a profession even more demanding than ecology,” Tuf said, “though it might be said that I knew the job to be hazardous when I accepted its burdens.”
“It’s not,” she started. “You can’t say,” she fumbled. “Kittens and babies aren’t,” she tried. “They’re people, they, they have the power of, that is, minds, minds and hearts as well as gonads. They’re rational, it’s their choice—theirs, not mine. I can’t possibly make it for them—the millions, the billions.”
“Indeed,” said Tuf. “I had forgotten about the good people of S’uthlam and their long history of rational choice. Undoubtedly they will look in the face of war, of famine, and of plague, and then in billions they will change their ways and deftly avert the shadow that threatens to engulf S’uthlam and its proud towers. How strange that I failed to see this.”
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