Without translators, there was no further conversation, and the Uther swung the door shut. It settled with a very solid thump as the counterweight was detached.
“Welcome to prison.” Kanti pointed to the opposite side of the courtyard, visible through the arched interior door. “I’ve defined that as the latrine,” she said. Their feces, Greg thought, should be sterilized—though the symbiotic bacteria in contact mission personnel had been altered to lyse autonomously when out of their bodies, there was always the possibility of mutation.
Too many risks, too many possibilities and time would overcome any barriers—contact, he realized, meant that the terrestrial and Eponan biospheres would eventually overlap and become something different. The alternative was a strict quarantine that neither civilization wanted, nor would be able to enforce forever. Perhaps off planet reserves could be established…
Kanti took his arm, and they walked back into the chamber.
The inside walls were a breccia—recent sediment fused together into a kind of cement by pressure and crystallization as it dried. Greg slumped down on the gravel with his back to the outer wall. There was a sharp bump on it, and he moved over. The rock was full of shells and other things.
“Look, Kanti. A dracowolf claw.” The semi-intelligent blind predator had been a close cousin of the Uther Two finger-sized talons curled out from the stone and back in, almost like its owner was still attached and trying pull itself out of the wall. The point of a third was exposed.
“They’re extinct, aren’t they?” she said.
“As far as we know. Too specialized—they couldn’t compete with the Uther when the Uther learned how to hunt. There’s still a dwarf species near Fire Island, but it doesn’t get over here.”
“Bach told me stories about dracowolf hunters. The Uther think they exterminated them.” Kanti raised an eyebrow. “And are proud of it.”
Greg nodded. “Our ancestors were proud of exterminating varmints. They didn’t know any better. Neither do the Uther, yet. Which is why letting them out into the Galaxy is so dangerous.”
Kanti frowned. “But they already had rockets when we arrived.”
Greg sighed. “Yes, they had rockets. But their level of technological development in most areas was not much higher than Mycenaean Greece, or Confucian China. Having rockets is a lot different than having a starport with a relativistic mass beam—especially when you only need seven kilometers per second delta-V to get into orbit.”
Kanti looked confused. “If they were so primitive, how did they discover rocket fuel?”
“The fuel is just hydrogen peroxide and oil. Hydrogen peroxide is, roughly, what they use for anaerobic metabolism—its decomposition provides heat and oxygen when Eponan organisms can’t get it from the air. Many Eponan organisms store small quantities of it—their equivalent of barrel cacti are full of it. Concentrate it to 95 percent or so with a still, add one part in four kerosene or a similar hydrocarbon, and you have just enough specific impulse to get out of this gravity well. They need a catalyst to add to the hydrocarbon, but that’s also found in most of the tissue of things around here.
“Their legends say their first rocket engines were snail shells. Juveniles would put a bowl of juice under one, drop a cup of oil and catalyst into it from a hole on top of the shell, and ride the shell up a dozen meters in the resulting explosion. Then they’d glide back and do it again. It was a way of tricking the Universe out of altitude without having to work for it—like finding thermals. There are murals of them, thousands of years old, getting blasted into the sky.”
She shuddered. “Scary.”
Greg stroked the point of the embedded Dracowolf claw. Cowards hadn’t defeated those monsters. “What do you do to prove your courage when you run out of dracowolves, and war is getting a little too expensive? Exploration seems to be a universal substitute for war, and a sink for the impulses that lead to it.” He looked at Kanti. “If we say we agree to its terms, will Bach believe us?”
“Maybe. They haven’t killed us yet, so they must think it’s possible for us to join their flock. I think they’d try to work us in the way they work in purchased or captured juveniles—plenty of incentives and watched all the time.”
“Bach didn’t seem entirely happy,” Greg observed.
Kanti nodded, not looking entirely happy herself. “It’s taking chances. It’s been a risk-taker since I’ve known it—leaving its parent a full two weeks before normal weaning.”
“They aren’t as stubborn about flock loyalties as humans are about family and country, but they still have it. And they consider consequences—note how carefully Bach’s superior rationalized things. The instant loyalty switching is a overlay, I think, a cultural invention that helped metaflocks evolve. Their emotions still go back to parent and flock. And, as thinking beings, they can generalize flock loyalty to the race and perhaps all thinking beings.”
“But your kind of arguments didn’t have much effect on Bach,” Kanti said. “Its administrative flight leader—that’s the title your translator buzzed—offered it more. It was also trying to buy us.” She looked him in the eye. “Have they bought any other humans?”
Kanti was no idiot—Greg wondered how much of his fears to share with her. It was his job to watch humans watching Uthers—and some typically human things were happening. Access, artifacts, being first with some data—these were things that could be bought with a little useful technology, and it was easy enough to rationalize that the Uther would get it soon anyway. Or invent it. So why not?
“I don’t know for sure, but, Kanti—in a population this size, it’s probable that someone’s been disaffected to the point of helping them. There are models for that.”
“So we’re watching for it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re watching for it.”
Greg frowned, then nodded. Another deception revealed, as if it mattered now.
“And you’re watching me big time because you think my mom might have ‘disaffected’ me from the whole human race?” There was a hint of anger in Kanti’s voice.
Cool, now, Greg told himself. “Not really. Your affinity for the Uther seemed more an attraction than a negation—a pretty positive thing, and interesting, as far as I am concerned.”
“I’m interesting. Glad to hear it. Greg, are you my father?” She just blurted it out.
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Kanti, you may as well understand. I decided long ago that my sexual feelings were interfering with what I wanted to do, so I had them modified. You’re a beautiful young lady, but you’ll need to look elsewhere for a lover, or a father. Besides, I’m at least ten times your age. That doesn’t matter physically anymore, but mentally—I’ve been through a lot.”
“Children?”
Greg shook his head. “Almost.” He laughed. “She changed loyalties for a better offer.”
“Would you consider changing back?”
“No…” How could he communicate to this young, vital girl how free he had felt after the retrovirus had removed his reproductive needs, and he’d closed away that part of his life? He’d gained peace and the freedom to concentrate on the things that really mattered to him.
“Kanti, you’ll find someone.” Greg stopped. A century ago, almost exactly, he’d heard the same words. What he’d lost in his change, as he looked back on it, was simply embarrassing. And yet there had been a bonding, and memories, sweet once, turned to ironic farce by subsequent events. Now, in a second, the same empty, betrayed feeling touched him as if those years had suddenly vanished. That feeling had not gone away with the lust.