Return to Eden
Copyright© 2014 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 32
"So you see it?" Meiersdottir demanded of her husband. "It's not perfect, nothing like, but it'll work, won't it?"
Igwanda narrowed his eyes in thought. "If they can do it, I see no reason why not," he opined after a time. "The question, of course, is whether in fact they can do it."
"They can make Joes, to meet us," she said enthusiastically. "They can make Akakhas to be guards. Joe told us once every single one is made with a purpose, remember? God only knows how they do it, but think about that egg Joe started in the nest. She told us right then it'd be another Joe, before it was anything more than a newly fertilized egg. So why not this?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea," he said. "But you are asking the wrong person. It is to Gagugakhing that you should be posing the question."
"Right!" she agreed. "So how about let's go do that?"
"When?"
"Well, now. Or no, you're right"—he had said nothing at all—"not now, not yet. It's too half-baked, I'm getting carried away. But it's so damn exciting! I've been wracking my brain about the problem and coming up with zilch and then your miss feminist just pops up and cuts the Gordian knot with one stroke of her edgy little tongue. Oh, I love it! But I ought to run it by Terry, and Ram and Cory, and maybe some of those back on the ship, too, huh?"
The colonel smiled indulgently at her. "It would probably be wise," he said. "You might also want to inquire of Joe about the extent of their eugenic control, to the degree at least that he can speak of it."
"Good point," she said. "I think a lot of that's nest-think for them, but he might know more, I can ask."
For the balance of the day Meiersdottir was extraordinarily busy, moving from one group to another, consulting with all those she'd named and many more besides. She spent nearly half an hour with Joe, asking both Singh and Sviatoslavski to join them briefly, and an hour or more alone with her subordinate O'Brian. Then in the evening she was on her communicator so long that it was finally Hill who issued the call to supper, and even then she spoke a few minutes further.
"What the hell did you say to her that got her so worked up?" Edmundson asked Accorda after they'd finished their talks with their new shipboard counterparts—Zo had assigned pairings—describing their experiences of the day.
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