Hwang stared dubiously at W’th’vaathi. “So you have a womb?”
“No, not presently. As I mentioned, all Slaasriithi are capable of all reproductory roles. The ratiocinator that guides the process will, itself, not receive a quickened egg. However, in conjunction with communally informed instinct, it determines the demographic mix that shall arise from a gathering of Slaasriithi who are to be quickened.”
“And how does the ratiocinator accomplish that?”
W’th’vaathi’s tendrils swayed in time with the rolling gait of the water-strider. “Pheromonic emissions from the entire community determine what proportion of each caste should be quickened, which is achieved in a communal pool. Each individual who is to become gravid both releases and receives genetic material from all the others.”
Caine tried to rise above the bizarre images W’th’vaathi’s description was prompting. “Then how do the taxae remain, er, coherent subspecies? Doesn’t the free exchange of”—the mind reels—“genetic material create hybrids?”
“This is, again, an expectation that would be logical in your genetic template, but not ours. Fragments of each Slaasriithi subspecies are present in every individual’s genome, regardless of their taxon. Therefore, all taxae are repositories of genetic diversity for all taxae.
“Once the genetic exchange is complete, the ratiocinator releases a second pheromone that triggers the chemical process which determines how each pregravid Slaasriithi’s host gamete will select and become receptive to the various genetic material that surrounds it. In this way, the community maximizes genetic diversity while also producing demographic outcomes optimal to its changing needs.”
“But then…you have no families?” Macmillan’s voice had become serious, now. Haunted, even.
“Not such as you mean. Our young are far more self-sufficient upon birth; the genomes of the respective taxae prespecialize its members for their predetermined tasks and predilections. Consequently, the genetic complexity that enables humanity’s variability and versatility is not necessary. Our young aggregate in groups maintained by older and less mobile members of their taxae, who control them through pheromones and redirection.”
“It all sounds very…logical.” Ben’s nod was emphatic, but his voice was carefully controlled.
“Logic is often overrated, Doctor,” Macmillan countered quickly. His face was pale and his freckles stood out more profoundly than before. “And do these, eh, OverWatchlings also oversee your breeding, prodding the ratiocinators here and there, where needed? That would be logical too. Why let anyone make a choice for themselves?”
Riordan turned toward the Scotsman, who matched stares at first, but then looked away, jaw muscles bunching. What’s got into you, Keith?
If W’th’vaathi had detected Macmillan’s sarcasm, he nonetheless elected to treat the question as serious. “I have failed to make clear the role of the OverWatchlings. They are not, strictly speaking, intelligent. To use the closest terrestrial analog, imagine a queen bee who sleeps until the nest is disturbed. Awakened, she instinctively sets about sending pheromone commands to alert and marshal the hive’s defenses.”
“Given its reactions so far,” Macmillan grumbled, “Disparity’s OverWatchling doesn’t seem very versatile. Or bright.”
“If by ‘bright’ you mean perspicacious, this is a non sequitur. The OverWatchling does not yet have enough experience for that assessment to be made. But it is quite ignorant.”
“Because it hasn’t dealt with crises before?” Caine asked.
“In part. But being new, it has also benefited from very few Absorptions.”
Riordan heard the emphasis. “What are Absorptions?”
“The primary way the OverWatchling learns and how we pass on knowledge to subsequent generations.”
Ben Hwang’s deepening frown opened into something approaching alarm. “You mean you absorb each other’s thoughts? But how? Yiithrii’ah’aash explicitly indicated on several occasions that the Slaasriithi are not a hive mind.”
“And so we are not, Doctor Hwang. But this does not prevent us from passing on our life experiences when we expire. As does your own brain, ours chemically encodes and stores our life’s many lessons and discoveries. The most dramatic of these are passed along at the time of our demise.”
“Physically?”
“Yes. Strong emotional or cognitive reactions are not only retained in our active memory, but in crystalline structures produced by that part of our brain which is located in our trunk.”
The concepts were so novel, and came in such a cascade, that Caine could already feel them slipping away. “Wait. So firstly, your major, uh, life events, are recorded in crystal form? And that’s stored in your brain — which is actually not all in one place?”
“Correct. The decentralization of our brain was evolutionarily essential, given our arboreal origins and the smaller sensor and reaction clusters which you have identified as our ‘heads.’”
Hwang nodded. “Of course. Your head, er, sensor cluster was too small to develop a large enough brain for cognition. But once that seat of protointelligence was sited in the trunk of your body, the neurological lag time was too long for it to coordinate your arboreal acrobatics. So your brain evolved along a distributed processing model. Your conscious decisions are sited in your ‘body-brain,’ but your physical coordination is at least partially sited in your sensor-cluster.”
“Yes.”
Caine resisted the impulse to shake his head. “All right, but let’s get back to these, er, memory crystals. When you die, how do they get transferred?”
“They are released from the brain stem and become encysted near the top of our spine. When the cyst ruptures, it releases the crystals in a liquid medium which we call Past Water, for it is how we pass along the collective insights and taxon-specific knowledge of our species.”
Too weird: cerebral kidney stones with a purpose. “So the OverWatchling is somehow, uh, upgraded by exposing it to Past Water?”
“Yes. Crystals with fundamentally similar encoding do not get absorbed by other members of a taxon, and so, are passed on to the OverWatchling. It does not so much understand the data as its behaviors are shaped by it, much as the way you would train a dog to perform certain tasks or tricks.” W’th’vaathi’s neck shimmied slightly. “But since there have been few crises on Disparity, our Senior Ratiocinatorae have had little to add to the defense instincts of the OverWatchling. This partly explains what you perceive to be its tepid response to the current threats.”
“There’s another reason?”
“Yes. The recent war depleted Disparity’s defense systems. When our ships were dispatched to conduct raids along the border between the Arat Kur and the Hkh’Rkh, they expanded their stocks of defense spheres and related systems by appropriating one or two from every planet they passed on their way to engaging the enemy. Those depletions have not yet been restituted.”
“So that’s why you don’t have much defensive gear to help us on the ground here, either?” Macmillan sounded like he was trying to come up with an excuse for the Slaasriithi insufficiencies of the moment.
“No, our engagements with the Arat Kur and Hkh’Rkh were limited to space. Ground systems were not required. We have not released any ground systems because this situation has not yet evolved to that point where the OverWatchling deems it necessary to set aside our primary constraint protocol.”