Xenocide ew-4

by Orson Scott Card

  But Ela clearly was thinking nothing about Wang-mu at all. She was speaking, instead, of Wang-mu's questions. “Why doesn't the descolada virus permit variety? That should be a trait with negative survival value, and yet the descolada survives. Wang-mu must think I'm such an idiot, not to have thought of this before. But I'm not a gaialogist, and I grew up on Lusitania, so I never questioned it, I just figured that whatever the Lusitanian gaialogy was, it worked– and then I kept studying the descolada. What does Wang-mu think?”

  Wang-mu was appalled to hear these words from this stranger. What had Jane told Ela about her? How could Ela even imagine that Wang-mu would think Ela was an idiot, when she was a scientist and Wang-mu was only a servant girl?

  “How can it matter what I think?” said Wang-mu.

  “What do you think?” said Jane. “Even if you can't think why it might matter, Ela wants to know.”

  So Wang-mu told her speculations. “This is very stupid to think of, because it's only a microscopic virus, but the descolada must be doing it all. After all, it contains the genes of every species within it, doesn't it? So it must take care of evolution by itself. Instead of all that genetic drift, the descolada must do the drifting. It could, couldn't it? It could change the genes of a whole species, even while the species is still alive. It wouldn't have to wait for evolution.”

  There was a pause again, with Jane holding up her hand. She must be showing Wang-mu's face to Ela, letting her hear Wang-mu's words from her own lips.

  “Nossa Senhora,” whispered Ela. “On this world, the descolada is Gaia. Of course. That would explain everything, wouldn't it? So few species, because the descolada only permits the species that it has tamed. It turned a whole planetary gaialogy into something almost as simple as Daisyworld itself.”

  Wang-mu thought it was almost funny, to hear a highly-educated scientist like Ela refer back to Daisyworld, as if she were still a new student, a half-educated child like Wang-mu.

  Another face appeared next to Ela's, this time an older Caucasian man, perhaps sixty years old, with whitening hair and a very quieting, peaceful look to his face. “But part of Wang-mu's question is still unanswered,” said the man. “How could the descolada ever evolve? How could there have ever been proto-descolada viruses? Why would such a limited gaialogy have survival preference over the slow evolutionary model that every other world with life on it has had?”

  “I never asked that question,” said Wang-mu. “Qing-jao asked the first part of it, but the rest of it is his question.”

  “Hush,” said Jane. “Qing-jao never asked the question. She used it as a reason not to study the Lusitanian documents. Only you really asked the question, and just because Andrew Wiggin understands your own question better than you do doesn't mean it isn't still yours.”

  So this was Andrew Wiggin, the Speaker for the Dead. He didn't look ancient and wise at all, not the way Master Han did. Instead this Wiggin looked foolishly surprised, the way all round-eyes did, and his face changed with every momentary mood, as if it were out of control. Yet there was that look of peace about him. Perhaps he had some of the Buddha in him. Buddha, after all, had found his own way onto the Path. Maybe this Andrew Wiggin had found a way onto the Path, even though he wasn't Chinese at all.

  Wiggin was still asking the questions that he thought were Wang-mu's. “The odds against the natural occurrence of such a virus are– unbelievable. Long before a virus evolved that could link species together and control a whole gaialogy, the proto-descoladas would have destroyed all life. There wasn't any time for evolution– the virus is just too destructive. It would have killed everything in its earliest form, and then died out itself when it ran out of organisms to pillage.”

  “Maybe the pillaging came later,” said Ela. “Maybe it evolved in symbiosis with some other species that benefited from its ability to genetically transform all the individuals within it, all within a matter of days or weeks. It might only have extended to other species later.”

  “Maybe,” said Andrew.

  A thought occurred to Wang-mu. “The descolada is like one of the gods,” she said. “It comes and changes everybody whether they like it or not.”

  “Except the gods have the decency to go away,” said Wiggin.

  He responded so quickly that Wang-mu realized that Jane must now be transmitting everything that was done or said instantaneously across the billions of kilometers of space between them. From what Wang-mu had learned about ansible costs, this sort of thing would be possible only for the military; a business that tried a realtime ansible linkup would pay enough money to provide housing for every poor person on an entire planet. And I'm getting this for free, because of Jane. I'm seeing their faces and they're seeing mine, even at the moment they speak.

  “Do they?” asked Ela. “I thought the whole problem that Path was having is that the gods won't go away and leave them alone.”

  Wang-mu answered with bitterness. “The gods are like the descolada in every way. They destroy anything they don't like, and the people they do like they transform into something that they never were. Qing-jao was once a good and bright and funny girl, and now she's spiteful and angry and cruel, all because of the gods.”

  “All because of genetic alteration by Congress,” said Wiggin. “A deliberate change introduced by people who were forcing you to fit their own plan.”

  “Yes,” said Ela. “Just like the descolada.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Wiggin.

  “A deliberate change introduced here by people who were trying to force Lusitania to fit their own plan.”

  “What people?” asked Wang-mu. “Who would do such a terrible thing?”

  “It's been at the back of my mind for years,” said Ela. “It bothered me that there were so few life forms on Lusitania– you remember, Andrew, that was part of the reason we discovered that the descolada was involved in the pairing of species. We knew that there was a catastrophic change here that wiped out all those species and restructured the few survivors. The descolada was more devastating to most life on Lusitania than a collision with an asteroid. But we always assumed because we found the descolada here that it evolved here. I knew it made no sense– just what Qing-jao said– but since it had obviously happened, then it didn't matter whether it made sense or not. But what if it didn't happen? What if the descolada came from the gods? Not god gods, of course, but some sentient species that developed this virus artificially?”

  “That would be monstrous,” said Wiggin. “To create a poison like that and send it out to other worlds, not knowing or caring what you kill.”

  “Not a poison,” said Ela. “If it really does handle planetary systems regulation, couldn't the descolada be a device for terraforming other worlds? We've never tried terraforming anything– we humans and the buggers before us only settled on worlds whose native life forms had brought them to a stasis that was similar to the stasis of Earth. An oxygen-rich atmosphere that sucked out carbon dioxide fast enough to keep the planet temperate as the star burns hotter. What if there's a species somewhere that decided that in order to develop planets suitable for colonization, they should send out the descolada virus in advance– thousands of years in advance, maybe– to intelligently transform planets into exactly the conditions they need? And then when they arrive, ready to set up housekeeping, maybe they have the countervirus that switches off the descolada so that they can establish a real gaialogy.”

  “Or maybe they developed the virus so that it doesn't interfere with them or the animals they need,” said Wiggin. “Maybe they destroyed all the nonessential life on every world.”

  “Either way, it explains everything. The problems I've been facing, that I can't make sense of the impossibly unnatural arrangements of molecules within the descolada– they continue to exist only because the virus works constantly to maintain all those internal contradictions. But I could never conceive of how such a self-contradictory molecule evolved in the first place. All this is answered if I
know that somehow it was designed and made. What Wang-mu said Qing-jao complained about, that the descolada couldn't evolve and Lusitania's gaialogy couldn't exist in nature. Well, it doesn't exist in nature. It's an artificial virus and an artificial gaialogy.”

  “You mean this actually helps?” asked Wang-mu.

  Their faces showed that they had virtually forgotten she was still part of the conversation, in their excitement.

  “I don't know yet,” said Ela. “But it's a new way of looking at it. For one thing, if I can start with the assumption that everything in the virus has a purpose, instead of the normal jumble of switched-on and switched-off genes that occur in nature– well, that'll help. And just knowing it was designed gives me hope that I can undesign it. Or redesign it.”

  “Don't get ahead of yourself,” said Wiggin. “This is still just a hypothesis.”

  “It rings true,” said Ela. “It has the feel of truth. It explains so much.”

  “I feel that way, too,” said Wiggin. “But we have to try it out with the people who are most affected by it.”

  “Where's Planter?” asked Ela. “We can talk to Planter.”

  “And Human and Rooter,” said Wiggin. “We have to try this idea with the fathertrees.”

  “This is going to hit them like a hurricane,” said Ela. Then she seemed to realize the implications of her own words. “It is, really, not just a figure of speech, it's going to hurt. To find out that their whole world is a terraforming project.”

  “More important than their world,” said Wiggin. “Themselves. The third life. The descolada gave them everything they are and the most fundamental facts of their life. Remember, our best guess is that they evolved as mammal-like creatures who mated directly, male to female, the little mothers sucking life from the male sexual organs, a half-dozen at a time. That's who they were. Then the descolada transformed them, and sterilized the males until after they died and turned into trees.”

  “Their very nature–”

  “It was a hard thing for human beings to deal with, when we first realized how much of our behavior arose from evolutionary necessity,” said Wiggin. “There are still numberless humans who refuse to believe it. Even if it turns out to be absolutely true, do you think that the pequeninos will embrace this idea as easily as they swallowed wonders like space travel? It's one thing to see creatures from another world. It's another thing to find out that neither God nor evolution created you– that some scientist of another species did.”

  “But if it's true–”

  “Who knows if it's true? All we'll ever know is if the idea is useful. And to the pequeninos, it may be so devastating that they refuse to believe it forever.”

  “Some will hate you for telling them,” said Wang-mu. “But some will be glad for it.”

  They looked at her again– or at least Jane's computer simulation showed them looking at her. “You would know, wouldn't you,” said Wiggin. “You and Han Fei-tzu just found out that your people had been artificially enhanced.”

  “And shackled, all at once,” said Wang-mu. “For me and Master Han, it was freedom. For Qing-jao …”

  “There'll be many like Qing-jao among the pequeninos,” said Ela. “But Planter and Human and Rooter won't be among them, will they? They're very wise.”

  “So is Qing-jao!” said Wang-mu. She spoke more hotly than she meant to. But the loyalty of a secret maid dies slowly.

  “We didn't mean to say she isn't,” said Wiggin. “But she certainly isn't being wise about this, is she?”

  “Not about this,” said Wang-mu.

  “That's all we meant. No one likes to find out that the story he always believed about his own identity is false. The pequeninos, many of them, believe that God made them something special, just as your godspoken believe.”

  “And we're not special, none of us!” cried Wang-mu. “We're all as ordinary as mud! There are no godspoken. There are no gods. They care nothing about us.”

  “If there aren't any gods,” said Ela, mildly correcting her, “then they can hardly do any caring one way or another.”

  “Nothing made us except for their own selfish purposes!” cried Wang-mu. “Whoever made the descolada– the pequeninos are just part of their plan. And the godspoken, part of Congress's plan.”

  “As one whose birth was requested by the government,” said Wiggin, “I sympathize with your point of view. But your reaction is too hasty. After all, my parents also wanted me. And from the moment of my birth, just like every other living creature, I had my own purpose in life. Just because the people of your world were wrong about their OCD behavior being messages from the gods doesn't mean that there are no gods. Just because your former understanding of the purpose of your life is contradicted doesn't mean that you have to decide there is no purpose.”

  “Oh, I know there's a purpose,” said Wang-mu. “The Congress wanted slaves! That's why they created Qing-jao– to be a slave for them. And she wants to continue in her slavery!”

  “That was Congress's purpose,” said Wiggin. “But Qing-jao also had a mother and father who loved her. So did I. There are many different purposes in this world, many different causes of everything. Just because one cause you believed in turned out to be false doesn't mean that there aren't other causes that can still be trusted.”

  “Oh I suppose so,” said Wang-mu. She was now ashamed of her outbursts.

  “Don't bow your head before me,” said Wiggin. “Or are you doing that, Jane?”

  Jane must have answered him, an answer that Wang-mu didn't hear.

  “I don't care what her customs are,” said Wiggin. “The only reason for such bowing is to humiliate one person before another, and I won't have her bow that way to me. She's done nothing to be ashamed of. She's opened up a way of looking at the descolada that might just lead to the salvation of a couple of species.”

  Wang-mu heard the tone of his voice. He believed this. He was honoring her, right from his own mouth.

  “Not me,” she protested. “Qing-jao. They were her questions.”

  “Qing-jao,” said Ela. “She's got you totally boba about her, the way Congress has Qing-jao thinking about them.”

  “You can't be scornful because you don't know her,” said Wang-mu. “But she is brilliant and good and I can never be like her.”

  “Gods again,” said Wiggin.

  “Always gods,” said Ela.

  “What do you mean?” said Wang-mu. “Qing-jao doesn't say that she's a god, and neither do I.”

  “Yes you do,” said Ela. “'Qing-jao is wise and good,' you said.”

  “Brilliant and good,” Wiggin corrected her.

  “'And I can never be like her,'” Ela went on.

  “Let me tell you about gods,” said Wiggin. “No matter how smart or strong you are, there's always somebody smarter or stronger, and when you run into somebody who's stronger and smarter than anybody, you think, This is a god. This is perfection. But I can promise you that there's somebody else somewhere else who'll make your god look like a maggot by comparison. And somebody smarter or stronger or better in some way. So let me tell you what I think about gods. I think a real god is not going to be so scared or angry that he tries to keep other people down. For Congress to genetically alter people to make them smarter and more creative, that could have been a godlike, generous gift. But they were scared, so they hobbled the people of Path. They wanted to stay in control. A real god doesn't care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them.”

  “Qing-jao wanted to teach me,” said Wang-mu.

  “But only as long as you obeyed and did what she wanted,” said Jane.

  “I'm not worthy,” said Wang-mu. “I'm too stupid to ever learn to be as wise as her.”

  “And yet you knew I spoke the truth,” said Jane, “when all Qing-jao could see were lies.”

  “Are you a god?” asked Wang-mu.

  “What the go
dspoken and the pequeninos are only just about to learn about themselves, I've known all along. I was made.”

  “Nonsense,” said Wiggin. “Jane, you've always believed you sprang whole from the head of Zeus.”

  “I am not Minerva, thanks,” said Jane.

  “As far as we know you just happened,” said Wiggin. “Nobody planned you.”

  “How comforting,” said Jane. “So while you can all name your creators– or at least your parents or some paternalistic government agency– I'm the one genuine accident in the universe.”

  “You can't have it both ways,” said Wiggin. “Either somebody had a purpose for you or you were an accident. That's what an accident is– something that happened without anyone purposing it. So are you going to be resentful either way? The people of Path are going to resent Congress like crazy, once they all find out what's been done to them. Are you going to be resentful because nobody did anything to you?”

  “I can if I want,” said Jane, but it was a mockery of childish spite.

  “I'll tell you what I think,” said Wiggin. “I think you don't grow up until you stop worrying about other people's purposes or lack of them and find the purposes you believe in for yourself.”

  * * *

  Ender and Ela explained everything to Valentine first, probably just because she happened to come to the laboratory right then, looking for Ender about something entirely unrelated. It all rang true to her as it had to Ela and Ender. And, like them, Valentine knew they couldn't evaluate the hypothesis of the descolada as regulator of Lusitania's gaialogy until they had told the idea to the pequeninos and heard their response.

  Ender proposed that they should try it out on Planter first, before they tried to explain anything to Human or Rooter. Ela and Valentine agreed with him. Neither Ela and Ender, who had talked with fathertrees for years, felt comfortable enough with their language to say anything easily. More important, though, was the unspoken fact that they simply felt more kinship with the mammal-like brothers than they ever could with a tree. How could they guess from looking at a tree what it was thinking or how it was responding to them? No, if they had to say something difficult to a pequenino, it would be first to a brother, not to a fathertree.