Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

the resources. And they’re willing to go on holding out their hand and begging for whatever crumbs the yellowlegs are kind enough to give them.” His voice contained a chill certainty. “But that won’t work. We humans are going to have to fight for what’s ours.”
    “Fight who?” Bram said. “We don’t have any enemies.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong, Brammo,” Pite said. “Everybody’s our enemy. The yellowlegs for keeping us down. The Partnerites for collaborating with them. The Resurgists for diverting us from the real struggle that’s ahead. And you. For donating your talents to the yellowlegs instead of your own kind.”
    “Now, just a minute,” Bram said. “What we do at the biocenter benefits everybody eventually, Nar and human alike. Look at mining bacteria, for example. Or fuel crops. All creating more abundance, more wealth to go around. That one-piecer you’re wearing is probably made of polycotton. Or take the project I was working on today. It could lead to new fibers from meristem hairs. Or new building materials that grow in sheets. Or even a new species of food plant—one that only humans could possibly benefit from, I might add.”
    Pile laughed. “Like Kerthin said, you haven’t figured it out yet. But maybe there’s hope for you. You keep your ears open tonight, Brammo, and maybe you’ll wake up someday.”
    They walked on in silence. Bram saw that they were heading toward the older section of the human quarter, where ill-nourished lightpoles cast a feeble glow down the side streets and abandoned, discolored shell structures huddled accusingly among the more viable buildings. A few cheap vending stations were still open, dispensing food, drink, and minor comforts.
    Eena moved into step with Bram. “Don’t let Pite get on your nerves,” she said. “I wasn’t politically conscious either when I met him, and honest, you should have heard the way he rode me. So, you never finished telling me. What is this work you do with the decs?”
    Relieved at the change of subject, Bram started to explain his part in the new project to provide the space poplar with heterochronic genes that might lead to a new, self-replicating organism at the embryonic stage. He talked more loudly than necessary and kept stealing glances at Kerthin. But her face stayed blank, without even the uncomprehending smile that Eena, at least, was favoring him with.
    “And so,” he finished lamely, “I guess they’ll keep working on it. If this combination doesn’t work, there’re others we can try.”
    “How’ll you know?” Pite said.
    “Huh? Know what?”
    “Know if this thing, whatever it is, works?”
    “Why—they’ll tell me. I’m part of the project.”
    “Sure,” Pite said with lazy sarcasm. “Like the thingamajigee you tried to look up, and they tell you the records aren’t available to humans.”
    Bram was almost too flabbergasted to reply. “They weren’t keeping anything from me. From me as a human, I mean. I had some trouble interpreting the touch reader. And when I asked for help, I got it.”
    “You’re being naive, Bram,” Eena said earnestly. “They show humans what they want us to see.”
    “But—but what motive could they possibly have for concealing data?” Bram asked.
    Fraz answered him this time. “To keep human beings down, what else?”
    “You’re wrong, dead wrong,” Bram said. “Look here—”
    Kerthin nudged him with her elbow to shut him up. “Here we are,” she said. “I hope it hasn’t started. Now for pity’s sake, don’t be getting quarrelsome about things you don’t understand.”
     
    CHAPTER 4
     
    The meeting was being held in a back room of a neglected old building that housed a drink shop. A couple of other ground-level shops had long since crusted over. Pite led them through, nodding at a burly man who was hanging around just inside the entrance.
    A few customers still sat in the murky outer room, nursing cornbrew or thickened alcohol at the long tables. The place looked shabby. The biolights were elderly and overdue for replacement, and pitting was well advanced on the wall surfaces.
    They had arrived just in time, Bram saw. As if on signal, the loitering customers drained their drinks and began to file into the back room. The proprietor, a pale heavyset man in an apron, locked the door and pulled over the shades before he joined the rest. The burly man stayed behind, presumably to admit latecomers.
    The inner room looked