The new-natives appeared uncertain what to do about the Skins; they were waiting for them to set the agenda. As they walked into the center of the village more new-natives appeared and followed at a respectful distance. Unless half of the homes were deserted, the numbers didn't match up. Lawrence wondered how many villagers had been in the group beating the birds out of the tigergrass. And how many had survived.
Ntoko stopped beside a big overhanging tree that had a coating of the ubiquitous ash. "Anybody want to tell me what's going on here?"
"You fired our lands," a voice said. It was heavily accented, but had the easy lilt of Spanish roots.
Lawrence identified its owner, a woman who wouldn't reach his shoulder. Her luxuriant hair was snow-white, though whether that indicated old age he wasn't sure. She had a flat face, with several creases in her cheeks, giving her jaw a considerable degree of flexibility. The robe she wore was decorated with silver piping: a DNA helix had been embroidered down the front in scarlet and turquoise.
"You the big chieftain around here?" Ntoko asked.
"No. I am Calandrinia." She combed a hand through her hair, shaking out the latest dusting of ash.
"You going to talk to me?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
"Not unless you give me a reason."
She bared her teeth, which were long enough to qualify as tusks. "I have many reasons, but I won't be acting on them today."
"Well, thank you. Now you want to tell me what the fuck is going on around here?"
"You violated our lives. This is how we respond. What did you expect?"
"Less violence would be a good start. You people have got to be crazy. Do you know how much firepower we've got backing us up?"
Calandrinia showed her tusks again. "Less than you started with."
Lawrence used his secure command link. "Sarge, can I talk to her?"
"Sure, go right ahead if you think it will get us anywhere. I hate a smartmouth."
"Thanks." Lawrence was never quite certain, but Calandrinia seemed to turn to him just before he started talking. "I'd like to know, why did you abandon your factories?"
"Why does anybody abandon anything, Earthman? They are obsolete and irrelevant. Now we grow whatever we need directly."
"But your products weren't obsolete on Earth; they were damn useful. Why stop exporting?"
"If Earth wants medicines it should make them for itself."
"Well, for a start, without the cash from those exports you won't be able to import the products you don't make here."
She laughed at him outright. "If we don't make it, we don't want it. If we don't want it, we don't make it."
"So that's it? You've kissed good-bye to technological civilization? You're all happy regressing?" Somewhere at the back of his mind was the question of how many times he would have this conversation, and on how many planets. Regressor types seemed to get everywhere.
"Technological, no," Calandrinia said. "Mechanical, yes. What do you need machines for? Biological systems are much more efficient at providing for us."
"You can't make biological equivalents of everything."
"Not everything your society requires in order to function, no. But then we don't have your kind of society anymore. We've adapted ourselves, not bent the world to our vision. Worlds are too big for that. Why live in isolated settlements built on dead, irradiated earth when you can modify yourself to enjoy the freedom of the whole world?"
"That must be quite an ideology you've got here, to convince people they have to leave their past behind."
"It's not ideology, it's evolution. You know our ancestors came here with the intent of modifying themselves; why are you so surprised by what you found?"
"Nobody knew how far you'd taken the modifications. We didn't expect any of this. If we knew what was here, we wouldn't have come."
"Yet here you are. Now what will you do?"
"Me personally? Go home."
"Why not join us? Your children would have a beautiful future. They would never want or need for anything."
"Excuse me, but that's not even remotely tempting. If I take this helmet off, I die. You know it, and I know it."
"I could grow you an oxygen filter in my housewomb. It would be a part of you in a way your Skin never is. You would live with it in perfect symbiosis."
Lawrence held a finger up. "Yeah, stop right there. I'm not coming to live with you, okay?"
"Why? What do we lack? I do not mock, I am genuinely curious. You seem so primitive compared to us. I don't understand your reluctance. Do you not wish to better yourself, to be a part of a richer, more mature culture?"
"We're the primitives? Which of us is living in mud huts, lady? I wouldn't wish this existence on my worst enemy, let alone my own children. You're going backward faster than progress ever pulled us out of medieval squalor. Sure, this kind of life looks appealing now; you're still close enough to the industrial market economy to make you think this is all stress-free and rich in karma. Another two generations, and you won't be able to cure a cold, let alone cancer. And you call that living life to the full. I call it betraying your children."
"Ah." Calandrinia shook her hair again. "Now I begin to understand. How old am I, Earthman?"
"I haven't got a clue."
"I'm fourteen."
The information left Lawrence nonplussed. He simply couldn't see the relevance. "Really?"
"Yes. It wasn't just their biotechnology skills that our ancestors brought to this world, they brought a saying with them as well. Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Thanks to them I can do that."
"How long do you live for?" Lawrence didn't want to ask it, because he suddenly knew he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Probably thirty years. Can you imagine such a time? How it must stretch at the end."
"The oxygen. It's the oxygen, isn't it?"
"Of course. Everything here is faster, more dynamic."
"But... thirty?'
"Thirty whole years, during which time I will live and love and think. Why do you think that is wrong? Why do you want to live for such a long time?"
"To live is to experience. You can't do that in thirty years. There's so much of the universe to know."
"I do experience, far more than you ever will. I grow faster. I learn faster. I live faster. We all do. This world's life is so much more vital than your bland biology. As for the universe, it is contained in your mind. Observation is purely relative. I can watch the stars from here, all of them, while you crawl between them in your tin cans and see only one at a time. I appreciate my life, Earthman; there is less memory in my brain, and much more thought."