Rogue Powers (47 page)

Charlie stared back at her, astonished. Real, honest-to-God Lamarckian biology? It was incredible, but it explained so much. He was tempted to contradict her, to say that it must be a superstition, that she had to be wrong. But these people were
master
biologists. They would
know.
The implications went reeling through his head. It was a revelation of the greatest importance. Lamarckism! It must have shaped their skill in modifying and creating life forms. It must have been easy to create a new and different animal with simple surgery. They would have been past masters at bio-engineering before they even invented the microscope and learned to manipulate genes directly.

All of that shot through his mind in a moment. "That's
fantastic,
C'astille," he almost shouted. "It's so unexpected, so astonishing I don't know what to say. The implications— my God, they're endless!"

Lucy looked from her human companion to the Ourposter and back. There was a strange sense in the air, a feeling of being on the edge of a terrible truth. "Charlie—C'astille. What's the big deal? You both look so shocked. So Outposters and humans evolve in different ways. So what?"

"Lucy," C'astille said, speaking with a cautious precision. "Charlie and I have just stumbled across a fact that explains many of the differences between our peoples. It makes you more different from us than I had ever imagined. We Z'ensam wondered at your lack of skill in shaping life. Now I understand. It must take a dozen generation to shape even the slightest modification of Earth life. Given the restraint you have worked under, I am amazed that you have learned as much as you have."

Charlie wasn't listening. A thousand new ideas were racing through his head. "Medicine!" he cried out, so wrapped up in his own amazement that he didn't consider the results of what he was saying. "Given Lamarckian biology, the tabu against medicine makes sense! A clumsy doctor's mistake could cripple not just one person, but all the generations unborn. An early experiment, say equivalent to boring a hole in the skull to let evil spirits out, could literally leave scars that would last forever. If the genes were recessive, old artificial genetic flaws like that lie dormant and could pop up anywhere, anytime, dozens of generations later!"

They do 'pop up,' " C'astille said grimly, "to the present generation. We pay the price for the mischief the body-carvers made thousands of years ago. There are endless folktales of the too-proud fool who promised to 'solve' an illness and left a hideous wreck of a creature behind, one who would pass her deformities down through the genes of all her descendants." C'astille's powerful tail lashed angrily back and forth through the grass. She suddenly seemed much larger, much fiercer, more alien, more unknowable, more unreadable to Lucy than she ever had before. "Lucy, you must answer a most distasteful question. This Charlie has implied that medicine in
not
tabu among humans. Is this true? Does your kind willingly and shamelessly allow the body-carvers, the animal-healers, to play God with your bodies?"

Lucy was tempted to lie. There was nothing but trouble in an honest answer. But she thought of Peter Gesseti and his bandaged arm. It would be hard to hide that. Worse, C'astille counted Lucy as trustworthy, and being
worthy
of trust required that Lucy speak truly when the truth could but hurt her. She spoke at last, and spoke slowly, choosing each word. "There is no tabu against medicine. We call our body-carvers 'doctors' and hold their profession in the highest esteem. In its own way, the skill of our healers is as great as the skill of your bio-engineers. They have eliminated many diseases and causes of death. Our race has benefited greatly from medicine, and for creatures made as we are, there is no cause to ban the practice of healing."

To C'astille, it was as if Lucy had claimed there was no harm in being a child molester, or a murderer. "Revulsion is within me,' the native said in her own tongue.

Lucy almost switched to O-l as well to placate C'astille. But no, then Charlie would be left in the dark. And Lucy knew C'astille well enough to know that shifting away from English was a way of rejecting things human. She couldn't let her get away with that. Lucy replied in English. "C'astille! Judge not. My ways are not yours. Your culture and mine were shaped by our biology. I have heard time and time again about frequent, even routine, death by suicide and
murder
among your elderly. No words of this have been spoken between us, for one must not judge what one does not understand. / still have no understanding. Yet, among humans, such things would be grave crimes, sins of the darkest kind. Your complaints against the Nihilists are subdued, as if you mildly objected to some of their techniques. To me, they are merciless, amoral killers.

"The early would-be healers among the Z'ensam killed and maimed, and so you banned healing. So be it. Very well. It must be that your clinging to that tabu means your people die of infection and injury and illness, though with your current skill you could save them. But I will not judge.

"Our
healers save our lives, and our children's lives, and do great good. I do not apologize for them, or for us."

C'astille grunted, a deep, guttural, non-committal noise, before she replied. "You say that you do not condone
suicide and mercy killing for those humans near Division, 'elderly' as you say. You call it amoral. What honor, what morality, in letting them go their way to foolishness and idiocy?'

"You make my point for me. Foolishness and idiocy rarely come to an elder human. Some small number, yes. But the risk is small."

"Then humans remain sane after Division, after becoming implanters?" There was shocked surprise in C'astille's voice.

Lucy opened her mouth to reply, shut it, and stared at C'astille. It all fell into place. It was in that moment that Lucy finally understood. The cryptic remarks, the Out-poster's confusion over pronouns, the obsession with "Division" made sense. Terrible, nightmare sense. She wished desperately for time to think, but there was none.
This
was the moment. "Charlie, I've just figured it out! C'astille, there is a horrible, ghastly misunderstanding here, and it's all my fault, because all the human understanding of your culture is based on
my
work, my initial translation of your language. And I made a terrible mistake. From the first time I heard the term 'Division* I assumed it was a euphemism, a prettied-up, polite word for 'death.' But that's wrong. It means something else, doesn't it?"

"Death!" C'astille said in amazement. "No! Division is—Division is the revenge Life takes on us for our intelligence. That is what the Nihilists, and all the other similar Groups of the past, have had as a starting point. To them, death is a welcome means of escape from Division. Our studiers of society say that our population has never been large enough to support a city-based culture
because
so many escape into death."

Lucy nodded emphatically. "This is all suddenly making sense in my mind. Let me ask you another question. The English terms 'male' and 'female,' 'man' and 'woman'—what do they mean to you?"

C'astille clenched and unclenched her fingers, the Outposter equivalent of a shrug. "They refer to the two basic body shapes for humans. You are female, and Charlie is male. That much I understand. But you have always attached great importance to the concepts, and to using the proper pronoun for male and female. I've never quite understood why. Why do your pronouns focus on that minor a difference? Why not a pronoun-set based on height, or eye color? Such would make as much sense."

"Did you ever get the idea that the reason might have something to do with—Jesus, Charlie, me and my bloody Baptist upbringing! I don't think I ever got around to explaining the words 'sex' or 'reproduction. C'astille, did you ever get the idea 'male' and 'female' might refer to the way humans make more humans?"

"No, not really. Perhaps in the vaguest little way, some slight hint, but I did not wish to ask about such a distasteful thing."

"Ah!”
Charlie couldn't contain himself anymore. "Excuse us a minute, C'astille. I think I just need to have Lucy bring me up to date." He pulled the phono jack from his suit and plugged it into the comm panel on Lucy's suit. Both of them cut their external mikes and radio. "Lucy, what's going on here?" he demanded. "How could they
not
have the concepts of male and female? I got a good look at C'astille and that L'awdasi. They were both obviously female. And I saw some little ones around the camp."

"Charlie. Take a look around at all the Z'ensam when we're back at camp.
All
of them look to be obviously female.' Until now I took it to mean that appearances were deceiving, or else they had some sort of divided society. I never figured it out. Until now. Shut up and listen. And for God's sake, if you have to talk, be careful what you say." Lucy pulled the connection, and switched her radio back on.

Lucy felt her heart pounding. She knew, somehow she
knew,
that she was at the crux of everything, at the threshold of the central feat of being an Outposter, a
Z'ensam. And she also
knew
that there was danger, terrible danger, in the knowledge. "Our apologies, C'astille. Charlie wasn't clear on why I was asking such things," she said in a gentle, quiet voice. "Tell me something. Tell me the life cycle of the Z'ensam. Tell me it as if I knew nothing. Tell me the way you'd explain it to a child."

C'astille stared at Lucy for a long moment. "There is a rhyme for young ones," she said at last. "Well, let me try and recite the sense of it in English for Charlie's benefit:

"First there are babies, to play and learn.

Then the adults, to bear young, reason, and teach.

Then the adult is taken by Division in the cocoon s fast

womb. At last, the implanter, more foolish than any child, is

flown from its cocoon, reason having flown long ago. Bewitched by the implanter, the adult makes children,

and so the middle link joins end with beginning."

Lucy said "C'astille, I think I understand. But there must be no mistakes. The time has come when we must risk knowing each other, even if we don't like what we find. Tell me."

"You are right. That poem is so cryptic that I must say more. Especially to aliens. But, please, this is very difficult for me, for any Z'ensam, to speak of. Your medicine is polite conversation by comparison! So—each individual goes through the phases—child, born to adult. Adult, such as myself. There is no clear line between child and adult. One day it is recognized that a child has learned enough. It was a proud day when I was called C'astille and not O'astille,
O'
being the name-prefix of a child. The name prefixes are based on social status, by the way, not biological state. Someday, I will be M'astille, and then perhaps D'astille. I am still young, and there are perhaps thirty of your years before I must face the process of Division, the next biological phase. When Division comes, it takes only a few days. The first sign is a long red welt that forms down the length of the body.

"That is the sign for a Z'ensam to find a safe place. The body—collapses. The skin turns rock-hard to protect against predators. Internally, the body—I do not know a better English word—the body
digests
itself, reforms itself. Only a very small fraction of the body weight emerges from the body-cocoon, as an implanter.

"These implanters, then—when they find an adult who is ready to bear young, they—they
come
to that adult, join with the adult. They place within the adult their seed, which combines with the adult's seed, and grows into children, born some months later. When the implanter comes for you it is a terrible and debasing experience. It has only happened a few times to me, and as yet I have no children. But, when the implanter comes you are
compelled,
by feelings and sensations strong beyond imagining, to submit and cooperate. Nature would have it so, or else the Z'ensam would be no more. But be it unavoidable, be it beyond our control, be it necessary, we find it shameful to be taken so by the mindless implanters, and mortifying to know we will one day be like them. So we do not fault the Nihilists overmuch for offering escape.

"That is our way. I have gradually realized your way is different. Now you must explain it."

A thousand thoughts flashed through Lucy's mind, and she wished desperately for a chance to talk with Charlie privately. But C'astille was already suspicious; another humans-only chat would make it seem as if they were lying, trying to make up a story.

But no wonder the 'Posters didn't understand the male/ female dichotomy. Each 'Poster was first sentient female— adult—and later non-sentient male—implanter—in turn. Whether or not you had a mind was more important in defining yourself than what shape your genitals were. Female/male was submerged under thinking/nonthinking. Lucy knew how careful she would have to be in her answer. "It is quite different. One is born either an immature adult or immature implanter. In either case, one
grows up, lives and dies as one or the other. The two kinds come together, as you two kinds do, and the adults bear the children, usually only one at a time."