When Amanda arrived, Carlo explained what had happened. “Are there people you can bring here?” he asked her. “People you’d trust to stand guard?”
Amanda regarded him with horror. “What do you want to do? Start some kind of siege here? Some kind of battle?”
“What choice do we have?” Carlo wasn’t relishing the confrontation any more than she was, but he couldn’t stand aside and let Tosco destroy their work.
“Let me think.” Amanda swayed back and forth on the rope. “What if we released the arborines back into the forest?”
“They’ll know we’ve done it.”
“They’ll guess that it’s one possibility,” she conceded. “But you know how hard it is to catch an arborine in the forest. And even Tosco’s only seen the ones here briefly; do you think he can describe any of them reliably to an accomplice?”
Carlo wasn’t happy, but her argument made sense. Taking a stand in this chamber would just offer their opponents a clear focus for their belligerence, and trying to hide an arborine anywhere else would be futile. The arborines weren’t the ultimate repository of the technology anyway, so half a day in the forest would probably be enough to rob most people of their resolve to hunt them down.
“All right,” he said. “But we’ll need to tranquilize them as lightly as possible, or they could still be vulnerable if someone goes looking for them.”
“That’s true.” Amanda hesitated. “You really couldn’t finesse your way out of this with Tosco?” She made it sound as if it should have been easy.
“He already knew most of it!” Carlo protested. “Someone tipped him off.”
Amanda said, “Don’t look at me, I haven’t told anyone.”
“Not even someone you trusted to keep it to themselves?”
“I’m not an idiot, Carlo.”
Amanda fetched the dart gun, and Carlo prepared darts with a quarter of the usual dose. The arborines were all still asleep, so most of them were easy targets, but Pia was hidden behind too many twigs and flowers for Carlo to get a clear shot. He entered the cage, dragged himself along a nearby branch, then plunged the dart into her chest. Her daughter, Rina, stirred and started humming; Carlo reached over and took her in his hands to soothe her. He’d held her at her birth, and she’d tolerated him ever since. Her mother’s co was still in the forest, but if Benigno’s behavior was any guide Pio would show her neither affection nor hostility.
“I’ll take these two first,” he called to Amanda.
It was only a short trip to the forest’s entrance, and the corridor was empty. Rina clung to Carlo’s shoulder as he dragged himself along the rope, lugging her limp mother beside him. Amanda followed with Benigna and her daughter Renata, the bewildered child squirming and humming in a net.
In the forest Carlo took Pia a short way up toward the canopy, maneuvering her laboriously past the snares of sharp twigs, impressed anew by Zosima’s feat when she’d fled from him with Benigna in tow. Pia was already beginning to stir, so he released her and waited until she gripped the branch beside her; she was still weak, but she wasn’t in danger of drifting away. Rina clambered onto her mother’s chest, and Carlo headed back to the forest floor. Amanda had climbed a different trunk with her passengers, but she wasn’t far behind him and she soon caught up.
“We need to know for sure that the children can breed normally,” Carlo fretted. “That’s more important than whether or not we can induce a second birth.”
“We have two years until they’re reproductively mature,” Amanda replied. “Don’t you think it’s more important to keep them alive than to keep them under observation?”
“Of course.” Carlo hesitated. “Do you think Macaria went to Tosco?”
Amanda said, “I doubt it. If she’d wanted to bury the work she could have poisoned the arborines herself, and damaged the tapes before we’d made any extra copies.”
“That’s true.” Who, then? Since Benigna had given birth, one of the three of them had always been on duty in the facility, but Carlo often spent half his shifts in the adjacent storeroom. Tosco might have asked someone to look in on them, unannounced—and then he and his informant could have put most of the story together for themselves.
They shifted the remaining arborines to the forest, then began disconnecting the light players from the hatches below the cages. There was nothing here that couldn’t be rebuilt, but Carlo wasn’t going to surrender any of it while he still had a choice. The three researchers had each hidden three copies of the tapes without disclosing the locations to each other, so unless Tosco had had a small army of spies working around the clock it was unlikely that he’d be able to find them all.
When they’d packed the equipment, Amanda took hold of one box and surveyed the empty chamber. “What now?”
“I’ll have to go to the Council,” Carlo decided. “We’re going to need their protection.”
“And what if they back Tosco instead?”
Carlo scowled. “On what principle can they shut us down? Their job is to manage resources, keep us safe and honor the goals of the mission. Finding out if there’s another way to give birth that would help stabilize the population—while improving women’s productivity and longevity—is just good resource management.”
Amanda said, “A few stints ago you weren’t even interested in learning whether males could raise the chances of biparity by eating less. And now you expect people to stand on principle when there’s a prospect of men being driven to extinction?”
“So which would you prefer?” Carlo retorted. “The satisfaction of seeing your co starving like a woman, or the chance to eat your fill and live as long as any man?”
“It’s not about wanting to see anyone starving,” Amanda replied. “The arborines aren’t starving, but the effect must be stronger when both parents’ bodies signal a lack of abundance.”
Carlo was exasperated. “So now you want to quibble about what constitutes the best of all possible famines—when we’re talking about surviving childbirth? Seriously, if we can prove that this is safe, which would you choose?”
“That’s none of your business,” Amanda said flatly.
Carlo caught himself. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He’d spent the time since the first induced birth fighting against his own instinctive revulsion, telling himself that he owed it to the women of the Peerless to keep his resolve. But it would not be an easy decision for any woman, and he had no right to make the issue personal.
“But you do support the research?” he asked.
“Did I quit the project?” Amanda replied. “Why would I try to stop anyone having a child this way, if it’s what they want? But a lot of people won’t see this as a choice at all, they’ll see it as a threat.” She gestured at the other box. “Can you take that? I don’t want to be here if Tosco does show up with a wrecking crew.”
Carlo fetched the box and followed her out of the chamber.
“When I’ve stashed this somewhere safe I’d better go and see Macaria,” she said. “Let her know what’s happening.”
“Thanks.”
“I suppose we should all just lie low until you’ve been to the Council and we know their position.”
“That sounds like the best idea.” Carlo was beginning to feel more anxious now than when he’d pictured a mob coming for the arborines, waving flaming lamps like farmers burning out a wheat blight. Somehow he’d imagined the clash being over in a bell or two, leaving the whole thing resolved.
But however cathartic the idea of a battle seemed, it would not have settled anything. The victors would not have changed the minds of the vanquished, and whoever might have prevailed in that display of force, the ideas of their opponents would have lived on unchanged.