Hyen nodded. “Sounds good to me. Anything you’d care to add, Verid?”
“‘Nonetheless,’” she added, “‘the Republic of Elysium aspires to peaceful relations with every inhabited world, including Urulan, and will pursue every reasonable avenue toward that end.’”
“Excellent. That wraps it up, I’d say, Flors.”
Flors lifted his head and straightened his arms, as if to rise. “With your permission, Guardian; I have another conference shortly, with Guardian Tenarishon.” Jerya Tenarishon, the most formidable woman in the Guard of Twelve. What was her concern? The other Guardians were poking into foreign policy, nowadays, instead of leaving it to the Prime Guardian as they used to. Hyen’s support was faltering, for several reasons…She would try again to warn him.
As he rose, Flors turned to Verid. “If you’re really thinking of visiting the Azure Throne,” he warned contemptuously, “you might think again. The moment you or that foreign translator sets foot on Urulan, you become the property of the first man who sets a hand upon you.”
“I’ll remember,” Verid dryly assured him. “In Raincloud’s Hills, among the women, the same fate would be yours.”
Hyen laughed hard, his abdomen shaking. After his Subguardian had departed he shook his head. “Quite a list,” he said, as if admiring such a catalog of depravity.
“No one deplores it more than I,” said Verid with feeling. “Nevertheless, none of our many problems with Urulan can be solved, so long as Urulan considers us a foreign enemy and we view them as the fount of all evil.”
“I agree. The question is, can this Lord Zheron be taken seriously? By the way, you win your point: Raincloud’s gender was no obstacle.”
“That only shows how desperate they are to make contact. As for Zheron, he affects flamboyance, but he takes only water after the first drink. He means business.”
“What exactly did he say when you called him in?” Hyen asked.
“He said that the freighter attack was a mistake on the part of someone in the Imperial Command, and that it triggered a major upheaval in the regime.”
“How generous of him.”
“There’s probably some truth to it. A couple of their generals have dropped out of sight.”
“And you replied?”
“I offered, in confidence, to send an emissary any time they’re ready. Without preconditions.” Exactly what Zheron now requested. Her pulse rate increased.
“Let’s hope he keeps it confidential. Or Foreign Affairs will put the heat on us.”
The heat would turn on Verid, of course, not on the Prime Guardian.
“Tell him we’re interested,” Hyen said, “off the record, of course, at the same time that the Foreign Affairs statement goes out. Then, after a decent interval, send that translator back for another chat.”
She had known all along that Hyen would assent, but still, it came as a relief. Relaxing, she let herself breathe in the scent of passionflowers. “So far, so good. One step at a time,” she cautioned. Nothing would change overnight.
“Yes, yes. Prudence,” Hyen muttered, motioning to a servo. The servo brought a tray of delicacies, from which he helped himself to a pair of protein-rich floral cakes. All Elysian food was processed by molecular synthesis from recycled organics. Hyen ate thoughtfully, lifting his gaze to the butterflies. “If there’s one thing I’d like to do in my time, it’s to visit the Imperator.”
Verid hid a smile. “Imperator” was an overblown title, she thought, for the tyrannical ruler of a rather backward planet. Yet the centuries of isolation had cast an attractive spell on Urulan; its bizarre fauna and outlandish customs had caught the imagination of many an outsider. Who could resist the mystery of the Imperator of the Azure Throne, his visage never recorded? She helped herself to a synthetic carrot, delicately carved into a tree of curlicues. As the servo waiter passed, she nodded her head with a whispered thanks.
“Such courtesy,” teased Hyen. Verid was often ridiculed for her politeness to servos, as if she took them for people. Better that, she countered, than mistaking people for servos. Hyen rose to go. “I don’t suppose,” he added in the same jocular tone, “you’ll be joining our little ‘outing’ on your Visiting Day.”
Hyen’s little “outings” were notorious. His taste ran to men as well as women, of varied physique and often questionable character, and the party might last for days on end. To a point, his exploits had only enhanced his stature among the electorate; but of late, the extra medical fees had grown embarrassing. Verid hoped he would moderate his ways before his standing suffered. “No, thanks,” she replied. “Do watch yourself—the logens, you know.”
“Yes, my good generen.”
Hyen’s remark recalled Verid’s decades as a “parent,” the generen of the Anaeashon. It occurred to Verid that her old gray-haired shonling had scheduled a logathlon that afternoon. Kal had taken on a prominent medical researcher, of all things. She would view the match that evening with Iras, providing no new interstellar crisis intervened before then.
THE LOGATHLON TOOK PLACE AT THE OLDEST PUBLIC butterfly garden in Helicon. Trees entwined with passionflowers cut through several street levels; the scent was overpowering, even from the upper street level where Blackbear and the lab students watched. A shimmering cloud of heliconians enveloped the trees. Amidst the trees lay a small theater, where the choice seats were paid for. Most of the voting audience watched from afar by holo stage.
The lab students had set up a holostage which showed Tulle and her opponent at close range. Tulle wore her full train, glittering with pink and silver-winged amaryllis. The logen, Kal Anaeashon, wore stark white as before, with only the single dead leaf at his throat. What a contrast to his shonsib Alin, arrayed in richly embroidered leafwings, sitting now with Blackbear and the lab students. Alin leaned his head on his fist, lost in thought. A heliconian fluttered up to the rail, its golden wings ribbed in black.
“Tulle Meryllishon, Director of Developmental Medicine,” Kal began. “Your awards and achievements in your field are so well-known, it would be superfluous to list them here.”
“To list yours, logen, would take the next hour,” rejoined Tulle, her face above the holostage calm and confident.
At her rejoinder Onyx laughed, and Sunflower laughed, too, just for the fun of it. “Kal gets teaching awards about every other year,” added Onyx. “It’s become an embarrassment.”
“His students are all hypnotized,” muttered Draeg.
Blackbear frowned, trying to hear what was going on. After all, if the vote went badly, the Guard could shut down Tulle’s research program.
“Can you explain to us,” Kal was saying, “what your research is about, and why the Guard supports it?”
“With pleasure,” said Tulle. “The aim of our work is to improve and perfect the process by which Elysian embryos develop into shonlings. Our previous achievements include a fifty percent decrease in defectives, a thirty percent decrease in advanced morbidity, and an estimated twenty-five percent increase in longevity. Science offers endless potential to improve our quality of life.”
“Improved quality of life?”
“Exactly. Better regeneration of bone, so the structures don’t buckle after a thousand years; more resilient tissues of heart and brain, for increased survival following accidental injury; again, I could easily fill the hour. In short—my work directly extends that of the Heliconian Doctors who founded the first shon.”
“Improved quality of life,” Kal repeated. “Might that include…the ability to conceive offspring?”
At this Pirin and Lorl stirred and muttered together.
“‘Offspring,’” repeated Alin at Blackbear’s shoulder, emphasizing the Elysian word. “The word means ‘animal progeny.’”
“An insult,” said Onyx. “Shonlings are for people. But then, natural born children wouldn’t be shonlings, would they?” Elysians had no word for human-born children.
Tulle was describing the Fertility
Project. “A small fraction of our work is aimed at germ-line generation of ageless progeny. This project is of great interest, from the scientific perspective; and it attracts attention from foreigners across the Fold.”
“Foreign attention, that’s good, Tulle,” added Alin as he watched. A logen himself, he had coached her for the encounter. “Elysians love foreign attention and prestige; the voters will be impressed.”
Meanwhile below, Kal continued easily, as if it were just another conversation. “Tell me something. A beautiful inscription stands above the door to Science Park. What does it stand for?”
Alin frowned at this departure, and the others drew quiet.
“You know better than I, I’m sure,” Tulle told Kal. “The inscription reads, ‘Where learning is shared, the waterfall breaks through the cataract.’ It’s from The Web.”
“Is that translation quite accurate, do you know?”
“It is not,” answered Tulle, her voice heightened. “The original Sharer words read, ‘Where learning is shared, the amnion breaks and hope is born.’ You see—because natural birth is alien to us, we reject even the reference to it, even the mention of ‘hope.’ What does this say for us as a people? I say the Heliconian project is incomplete. Let us work to reclaim our birth-right.”
A burst of applause came from the audience below. Above, Pirin and Lorl applauded, too.
“The words were inscribed by the original Heliconian Doctors,” Kal rejoined. “They knew what they were doing. They told us not to hope for children, but instead to lead lives of beauty, beauty unwithered by age and decay, the unfettered beauty of a waterfall.”
Tulle said with impatience, “I see no conflict between beauty and shonlings.”
The audience was quiet now.
“Look at the foreign worlds,” said Kal. “Look at L’li and Valedon, where children enter life not in shons, but in ‘families,’” he said, using a Valan word. “Wherever families exist, there is poverty and violence. Poverty, because the vast majority of families can never support themselves above subsistence level; and violence, because men fight on behalf of their families. Ask any good soldier what he fights for, if not the good of his family.”
Blackbear blinked at this. Whatever could that logen be talking about?
Hawktalon crept behind him and leaned her chin on his shoulder. “Daddy, are they done yet?”
“Sh, I’m trying to hear,” he replied hurriedly.
“I’m done playing.”
“Go play with Doggie.”
“Doggie’s done playing, too…”
Below, Kal was saying, “That is why Elysium was founded such that reproduction belonged to the Republic, through the shons, of course. All of our children belong to us; collectively, we ensure their material welfare and security. It is no accident that our people have achieved unprecedented civilization, envied by all other worlds. And peace—the Free Fold itself was conceived here.”
Onyx commented, “The Sharers had more to do with that. He should know better.”
Above the holostage Tulle leaned forward. “Are you saying that families cause war?”
“The history of our species, and of our brother apes as well, is that families kill other families. But in Elysian society, the community as a whole provides for our young citizens, and rears just enough of them for each calling. It is no accident that we have outgrown murder and warfare.”
Tulle paused, apparently taken aback by this argument. Blackbear was so beside himself, he could hardly listen. “How can anyone say such things?” he demanded of Onyx. “He wouldn’t even know what a family is.”
Tulle responded at last, “What about Sharer families? The Sharers practically invented ‘peace.’”
So did Clicker families, thought Blackbear. Clickers had emigrated from L’li precisely to avoid its wars and famines. Clickers had always lived in peace.
“The Sharers,” said Kal, “regulate their families strictly by their Gatherings. In effect, they are one decentralized shon.”
“We can regulate our families, too,” said Tulle. “Regulation is up to the Guardians. My concern is science, not politics.”
“Very well,” said Kal, “let’s talk science. You’ve just hired a foreign doctor to redesign a human gene to enable ageless females to ovulate…”
The logen must be referring to him. Blackbear gripped the rail to stare at Kal below. Then he returned to the close-up view. The man’s face unnerved him; such calm features, saying such outrageous things.
“Are they done yet, Dad?” whined Hawktalon.
Draeg handed the girl a lightcube. She grasped it eagerly, watching the channels change to various research files. “Where’s the castle game, Uncle Draeg?” Sunflower toddled over on tiptoe to peer over her arm.
“…does the young doctor realize what it would take to implement such a treatment on his home world? First, even once ovulation is possible, all embryos will have to be transferred to a shon for anti-aging treatment, even if they are returned to their families at term. The cost of a shon to treat fifty children per year would exceed the budget of Founders City.”
Tulle replied, “You have only moved from Elysian politics to interworld politics. Worse, you make the patronizing assumption that foreign scientists are naive and cannot think two steps ahead.”
“Exactly,” observed Onyx. “You tell him, Tulle.”
Blackbear nodded vigorously, while Draeg muttered something highly uncomplimentary in L’liite.
In the visi-monitor, Kal was shaking his head. A wisp of his gray hair stirred in a slight breeze; an extra air current must have turned on. “Remember that we Elysians remain foreign scientists on Shora; the Sharer treaty so states. The Sharers originally gave us their science—at a price: No application of that science may threaten the equilibrium of our common biosphere. Has the Sharer World Gathering looked at your work?”
Alin clapped his hands to his head. “Great Helix—the Sharer World Gathering? He won’t take it there?”
“Shora,” whispered Onyx. “The Sharers will tie us in knots for years.”
Chapter 9
AFTER THE LOGATHLON THREE DAYS WOULD ELAPSE before the vote was tallied. If the vote favored Kal, the question of Tulle’s research support would be placed on the agenda of the Guard of Twelve.
“I can’t understand it,” Blackbear told her. Tulle was watching letters appear above a holostage in the lab, the results of the DNA sequence analysis of some of Blackbear’s Eyeless alleles. “How does he get away with such lies in public?”
“Foreigners don’t vote,” she answered succinctly. “Think of it. If you were infertile, wouldn’t you like to come up with a reason why it’s morally superior? Elysians readily swallow that argument.”
“Some do, you mean,” said Pirin indignantly. “What are the shons, if not twelve quarreling families? Are private families any worse?”
“Do the shons quarrel?” Blackbear asked with interest. Clicker families were full of quarrels, about runaway livestock, and husband-prices, and babies desired by childless relatives. For the villagers, it was great entertainment. Of course, Blackbear and Raincloud, returning from the University, had kept above that sort of thing.
“Sure they do,” said Pirin. “There’s all sorts of rivalry between shons. Ask Alin—much as he detests Kal, his shonsib, you couldn’t get him to admit that anyone outshines an Anaeashon. We must spend half our gross income on athletics and cultural contests. It doesn’t lead to war and murder.”
Blackbear agreed. “Clickers don’t have murderers, either. We teach our youngsters spiritual defense.” Though Founders City was a different story. The Clickers were only one of many pioneering settler groups on Bronze Sky.
“I don’t know,” Lorl said thoughtfully. Lorl studied gene expression in advanced age; she herself avoided the fertility project. “It takes much skill to be a generen, to teach shonlings the heights of beauty and civility. I don’t know that just anyone should do it.”
�
�What are you saying, Lorl?” Pirin demanded. “You think I’m not smart enough to raise a shonling?”
“I’m not sure I’d be smart enough—or wise enough.”
“Where Blackbear lives, anyone can raise a shonling upon reaching puberty. It doesn’t lead to barbarism.”
“That’s true,” Blackbear agreed. “But we do try to get some education first. Besides, we get lots of help from our uncles and grandparents, and of course the High Priestess.”
“None of which we have,” said Lorl. “That’s why the generen is such a crucial position.”
Pirin laughed. “The generen’s just a political appointee. Anybody could do the job.”
Tulle looked back from the DNA sequences. “If that’s true,” she said, exasperated, “then Kal is right, that reproduction belongs to the Republic! You’ve argued yourself into a circle, Pirin. Now I see Kal’s true plan: to get all of us so tied up in politics that we leave off from our experiments.”
THE VOTE ON THE LOGATHLON FAVORED TULLE BY A narrow margin. The students were relieved because now Kal could not call on her again for another six months, and they could get back to their work. Only Blackbear was not inclined to let the matter drop, particularly since the reporter servos, having figured out who the “foreign doctor” was, had left off pestering him.
“They say he’s taken it to the Sharers,” Blackbear warned.
“Bad news,” Draeg agreed. “Let’s get as much done as we can, before we hear from them.”
“Can’t we demand a rematch?” he wanted to know. “I’d like to tell that logen a thing or two.”
“What?” exclaimed Draeg. “You, take on the Killer? You’re nuts.” He punched Blackbear in the arm.
“You can’t,” Onyx explained. “Only a logen can call a public logathlon; otherwise there’d be chaos. Don’t think Alin’s not tempted—but even he knows better.”
“Why is everyone so afraid of Kal,” said Blackbear irritably. “I’m not afraid to set the record straight. He’s only a man, after all.”
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