Xenocide

“They'll never destroy it,” said Quara.

“Because you won't let them.”

“Any more than I'd let them destroy you. Sentient life is sentient life.”

“No,” said Planter. “With ramen you can live and let live. But with varelse, there can be no dialogue. Only war.”

“No such thing,” Quara said. Then she launched into the same arguments she had used when Miro talked to her.

When she was finished, there was silence for a while.

“Are they talking still?” Ela whispered to the people who were watching in the visual monitors. Miro didn't hear an answer– somebody probably shook his head no.

“Quara,” whispered Planter.

“I'm still here,” she answered. To her credit, the argumentative tone was gone from her voice again. She had taken no joy from her cruel moral correctness.

“That's not why you're refusing to help,” he said.

“Yes it is.”

“You'd help in a minute if it weren't your own family you had to surrender to.”

“Not true!” she shouted.

So– Planter struck a nerve.

“You're only so sure you're right because they're so sure you're wrong.”

“I am right!”

“When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?”

“I have doubts,” whispered Quara.

“Listen to your doubts,” said Planter. “Save my people. And yours.”

“Who am I to decide between the descolada and our people?”

“Exactly,” said Planter. “Who are you to make such a decision?”

“I'm not,” she said. “I'm withholding a decision.”

“You know what the descolada can do. You know what it will do. Withholding a decision is a decision.”

“It's not a decision. It's not an action.”

“Failing to try to stop a murder that you might easily stop– how is that not murder?”

“Is this why you wanted to see me? One more person telling me what to do?”

“I have the right.”

“Because you took it upon yourself to become a martyr and die?”

“I haven't lost my mind yet,” said Planter.

“Right. You've proved your point. Now let them get the descolada back in here and save you.”

“No.”

“Why not? Are you so sure you're right?”

“For my own life, I can decide. I'm not like you– I don't decide for others to die.”

“If humanity dies, I die with them,” said Quara.

“Do you know why I want to die?” said Planter.

“Why?”

“So I don't have to watch humans and pequeninos kill each other ever again.”

Quara bowed her head.

“You and Grego– you're both the same.”

Tears dropped onto the faceplate of the suit. “That's a lie.”

“You both refuse to listen to anybody else. You know better about everything. And when you're both done, many many i

She stood up as if to go. “Die, then,” she said. “Since I'm such a murderer, why should I cry over you?” But she didn't take a step. She doesn't want to go, thought Miro.

“Tell them,” said Planter.

She shook her head, so vigorously that tears flipped outward from her eyes, spattering the inside of the mask. If she kept that up, soon she wouldn't be able to see a thing.

“If you tell what you know, everybody is wiser. If you keep a secret, then everyone is a fool.”

“If I tell, the descolada will die!”

“Then let it!” cried Planter.

The exertion was an extraordinary drain on him. The instruments in the lab went crazy for a few moments. Ela muttered under her breath as she checked with each of the technicians monitoring them.

“Is that how you'd like me to feel about you?” asked Quara.

“It is how you feel about me,” whispered Planter. “Let him die.”

“No,” she said.

“The descolada came and enslaved my people. So what if it's sentient or not! It's a tyrant. It's a murderer. If a human being behaved the way the descolada acts, even you would agree he had to be stopped, even if killing him were the only way. Why should another species be treated more leniently than a member of your own?”

“Because the descolada doesn't know what it's doing,” said Quara. “It doesn't understand that we're intelligent.”

“It doesn't care,” said Planter. “Whoever made the descolada sent it out not caring whether the species it captures or kills are sentient or not. Is that the creature you want all my people and all your people to die for? Are you so filled with hate for your family that you'll be on the side of a monster like the descolada?”

Quara had no answer. She sank onto the stool beside Planter's bed.

Planter reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. The suit was not so thick and impermeable that she couldn't feel the pressure of it, even though he was very weak.

“For myself, I don't mind dying,” he said. “Maybe because of the third life, we pequeninos don't have the same fear of death that you short-lived humans do. But even though I won't have the third life, Quara, I will have the kind of immortality you humans have. My name will live in the stories. Even if I have no tree at all, my name will live. And what I did. You humans can say that I'm choosing to be a martyr for nothing, but my brothers understand. By staying clear and intelligent to the end, I prove that they are who they are. I help show that our slavemasters didn't make us who we are, and can't stop us from being who we are. The descolada may force us to do many things, but it doesn't own us to the very center. Inside us there is a place that is our true self. So I don't mind dying. I will live forever in every pequenino that is free.”

“Why are you saying this when only I can hear?” said Quara.

“Because only you have the power to kill me completely. Only you have the power to make it so my death means nothing, so that all my people die after me and there's no one left to remember. Why shouldn't I leave my testament with you alone? Only you will decide whether or not it has any worth.”

“I hate you for this,” she said. “I knew you'd do this.”

“Do what?”

“Make me feel so terrible that I have to– give in!”

“If you knew I'd do this, why did you come?”

“I shouldn't have! I wish I hadn't!”

“I'll tell you why you came. You came so that I would make you give in. So that when you did it, you'd be doing it for my sake, and not for your family.”

“So I'm your puppet?”

“Just the opposite. You chose to come here. You are using me to make you do what you really want to do. At heart you are still human, Quara. You want your people to live. You would be a monster if you didn't.”

“Just because you're dying doesn't make you wise,” she said.

“Yes it does,” said Planter.

“What if I tell you that I'll never cooperate in the killing of the descolada?”

“Then I'll believe you,” said Planter.

“And hate me.”

“Yes,” said Planter.

“You can't.”

“Yes I can. I'm not a very good Christian. I am not able to love the one who chooses to kill me and all my people.”

She said nothing.

“Go away now,” he said. “I've said all that I can say. Now I want to chant my stories and keep myself intelligent until death finally comes.”

She walked away from him, into the sterilization chamber.

Miro turned toward Ela. “Get everybody out of the lab,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because there's a chance that she'll come out and tell you what she knows.”

“Then I should be the one to go, and everybody else stay,” said Ela.

“No,” said Miro. “You're the only one that she'll ever tell.”

“If you think that, then you're a complete–”

“Telling anyone else wouldn't hurt her enough to satisfy her,” said Miro. “Everybody out.”

Ela thought for a moment. “All right,” she said to the others. “Get back to the main lab and monitor your computers. I'll bring us up on the net if she tells me anything, and you can see what she enters as we put it in. If you can make sense of what you're seeing, start following it up. Even if she actually knows anything, we still won't have much time to design a truncated descolada so we can get it to Planter before he dies. Go.”