Xenocide

“Well of course,” said Kovano. “Of course that's the reason you want to go.”

“And it's the reason why I will go, and the only standard I'll use to determine whether or not my mission succeeds.”

Kovano looked helplessly at Bishop Peregrino. “You said that Father Estevao was cooperative.”

“I said he was perfectly obedient to God and the church,” said the Bishop.

“I took that to mean that you could persuade him to wait on this mission until we knew more.”

“I could indeed persuade him. Or I could simply forbid him to go,” said Bishop Peregrino.

“Then do it,” said Mother.

“I will not,” said the Bishop.

“I thought you cared about the good of this colony,” said Mayor Kovano.

“I care about the good of all the Christians placed under my charge,” said Bishop Peregrino. “Until thirty years ago, that meant I cared only for the human beings of Lusitania. Now, however, I am equally responsible for the spiritual welfare of the Christian pequeninos of this planet. I send Father Estevao forth on his mission exactly as a missionary named Patrick was once sent to the island of Eire. He was extraordinarily successful, converting kings and nations. Unfortunately, the Irish church didn't always act the way the Pope might have wished. There was a great deal of– let us say it was controversy between them. Superficially it concerned the date of Easter, but at heart it was over the issue of obedience to the Pope. It even came to bloodshed now and then. But never for a moment did anyone imagine it would have been better if St. Patrick had never gone to Eire. Never did anyone suggest that it would be better if the Irish had remained pagan.”

Grego stood up. “We've found the philote, the true indivisible atom. We've conquered the stars. We send messages faster than the speed of light. And yet we still live in the Dark Ages.” He started for the door.

“Walk out that door before I tell you to,” said Mayor Kovano, “and you won't see the sun for a year.”

Grego walked to the door, but instead of going through it, he leaned against it and gri

“I won't keep you long,” said Kovano. “Bishop Peregrino and Father Estevao speak as if they could make their decision independent of the rest of us, but of course they know they can't. If I decided that Father Estevao's mission to the piggies shouldn't happen, it wouldn't. Let us all be clear about that. I'm not afraid to put the Bishop of Lusitania under arrest, if the welfare of Lusitania requires it; and as for this missionary priest, you will only go out among the pequeninos when you have my consent.”

“I have no doubt that you can interfere with God's work on Lusitania,” said Bishop Peregrino icily. “You must have no doubt that I can send you to hell for doing it.”

“I know you can,” said Kovano. “I wouldn't be the first political leader to end up in hell at the end of a contest with the church. Fortunately, this time it won't come to that. I've listened to all of you and reached my decision. Waiting for the new anti-virus is too risky. And even if I knew, absolutely, that the anti-virus would be ready and usable in six weeks, I'd still allow this mission. Our best chance right now of salvaging something from this mess is Father Estevao's mission. Andrew tells me that the pequeninos have great respect and affection for this man– even the unbelievers. If he can persuade the pequenino heretics to drop their plan to a

Quim nodded gravely. Mayor Kovano was a man of great wisdom. It was good that they wouldn't have to struggle against each other, at least for now.

“In the meantime, I expect the xenobiologists to continue to work on the anti-virus with all possible vigor. We'll decide, when the virus exists, whether or not to use it.”

“We'll use it,” said Grego.

“Only if I'm dead,” said Quara.

“I appreciate your willingness to wait until we know more before you commit yourself to any course of action,” said Kovano. “Which brings us to you, Grego Ribeira. Andrew Wiggin assures me that there is reason to believe that faster-than-light travel might be possible.”

Grego looked coldly at the Speaker for the Dead. “And where did you study physics, Senhor Falante?”

“I hope to study it from you,” said Wiggin. “Until you've heard my evidence, I hardly know whether there's any reason to hope for such a breakthrough.”

Quim smiled to see how easily Andrew turned away the quarrel that Grego wanted to pick. Grego was no fool. He knew he was being handled. But Wiggin hadn't left him any reasonable grounds for showing his disgruntlement. It was one of the most infuriating skills of the Speaker for the Dead.

“If there were a way to travel between worlds at ansible speeds,” said Kovano, “we would need only one such ship to transport all the humans of Lusitania to another world. It's a remote chance–”

“A foolish dream,” said Grego.

“But we'll pursue it. We'll study it, won't we?” said Kovano. “Or we'll find ourselves working in the foundry.”

“I'm not afraid to work with my hands,” said Grego. “So don't think you can terrify me into putting my mind at your service.”

“I stand rebuked,” said Kovano. “It's your cooperation that I want, Grego. But if I can't have that, then I'll settle for your obedience.”

Apparently Quara was feeling left out. She arose as Grego had a moment before. “So you can sit here and contemplate destroying a sentient species without even thinking of a way to communicate with them. I hope you all enjoy being mass murderers.” Then, like Grego, she made as if to leave.

“Quara,” said Kovano.

She waited.

“You will study ways to talk to the descolada. To see if you can communicate with these viruses.”

“I know when I'm being tossed a bone,” said Quara. “What if I tell you that they're pleading for us not to kill them? You wouldn't believe me anyway.”

“On the contrary. I know you're an honest woman, even if you are hopelessly indiscreet,” said Kovano. “But I have another reason for wanting you to understand the molecular language of the descolada. You see, Andrew Wiggin has raised a possibility that never occurred to me before. We all know that pequenino sentience dates from the time when the descolada virus first swept across this planet. But what if we've misunderstood cause and effect?”

Mother turned to Andrew, a bitter half-smile on her face. “You think the pequeninos caused the descolada?”

“No,” said Andrew. “But what if the pequeninos are the descolada?”

Quara gasped.

Grego laughed. “You are full of clever ideas, aren't you, Wiggin?”

“I don't understand,” said Quim.

“I just wondered,” said Andrew. “Quara says that the descolada is complex enough that it might contain intelligence. What if descolada viruses are using the bodies of the pequeninos to express their character? What if pequenino intelligence comes entirely from the viruses inside their bodies?”

For the first time, Ouanda, the xenologer, spoke up. “You are as ignorant of xenology as you are of physics, Mr. Wiggin,” she said.

“Oh, much more so,” said Wiggin. “But it occurred to me that we've never been able to think of any other way that memories and intelligence are preserved as a dying pequenino passes into the third life. The trees don't exactly preserve the brain inside them. But if will and memory are carried by the descolada in the first place, the death of the brain would be almost meaningless in the transmission of personality to the fathertree.”

“Even if there were a chance of this being true,” said Ouanda, “there's no possible experiment we could decently perform to find out.”

Andrew Wiggin nodded ruefully. “I know I couldn't think of one. I was hoping you would.”

Kovano interrupted again. “Ouanda, we need you to explore this. If you don't believe it, fine– figure out a way to prove it wrong, and you'll have done your job.” Kovano stood up, addressed them all. “Do you all understand what I'm asking of you? We face some of the most terrible moral choices that humankind has ever faced. We run the risk of committing xenocide, or allowing it to be committed if we do nothing. Every known or suspected sentient species lives in the shadow of grave risk, and it's here, with us and with us alone, that almost all the decisions lie. Last time anything remotely similar happened, our human predecessors chose to commit xenocide in order, as they supposed, to save themselves. I am asking all of you to help us pursue every avenue, however unlikely, that shows us a glimmer of hope, that might provide us with a tiny shred of light to guide our decisions. Will you help?”