Leo Frankowski

Lady Mona wouldn’t want to see her again. Maybe they’d make her work with Mole in
the tunnels, and Mole would hate her and it would be terrible. Maybe she should
just die. Maybe
that would be best.
    Guibedo came in, his
face expressionless, and Liebchen’s heart almost stopped. But when he saw her quivering, he
softened and sat down beside her.
    “It’s okay,
little one.” Guibedo put a thick arm around her and held her to him like a father
consoling his daughter. “Everything is going to be all right.”
    Dirk came in and sat
quietly at their feet, eager to be a part of their being together.
    Guibedo said,
“I guess maybe this is my fault, because I don’t explain what is happening,
because I make easy things look hard and hard things look easy. You two, you see me or
Heiny work with gene sequences and computer simulations for two or three months,
and then spend
ten or twenty hours at a microscalpel and presto! Life!
    “What you don’t
see is the four billion years that had to go by before I could sit at that chair.
Four billion years of tiny random modifications, with only one in ten billion worth preserving.
Ten billion organisms doomed to an early death so that one could be a little bit faster or stronger or smarter or more efficient. And when
that one finally came along, it
spread and multiplied at the expense of its own parents, forcing them out,
taking their food, and, in the
course of many painful years, com pletely
eradicating all of its own species that don’t have that tiny modification.
    “It was four
billion years of killing and being killed, eating and being eaten. Until at last a single species, man, was evolved that was so smart and versatile
and tough that after only a million years it attained a complete domination over its environment. Only when
it became that strong could it have
the time and the ability and the
inclination to be gentle, to hope for a world where there would be room enough for all, a world bro-. ken away from the endless cycle of suffering.
    “This is the
world that we are now trying to build, and you two kids are part of that world.
In a way, you are our children.
    “Yet you are
different. Neither of your species, or any species that we design, is capable of random
genetic modification.
This is my gift to you, because you will never have to undergo the pain that my
ancestors did. But it is also a curse, for along with the suffering there was also a glory, a
vision of eventual uplift and improvement that your species cannot participate
in. You see, we do not want to be eaten up by our own children.
    “But four
billion years of experimentation cannot be treated lightly. The processes that produced
us humans must
continue. We can make life more pleasant and interesting, but we must not reject our
destiny.
    “Do you understand now why it was so
wrong for you, our children, to modify
us?”
    “Yes, my
lord,” Dirk whispered.
    “And you,
Liebchen?”
    “I promise I’ll
never do anything like that again, my lord. And I’ll make sure that none of my
sisters ever do.”
    “That’s good.
But there is one thing you must do. You must undo the damage that you have done. Can
you do that, Liebchen? Can you make Patty exactly as she was before she came
here?”
    “I think so.
Exactly? Don’t you want her to remember what’s happened?”
    “No, no. She
should remember everything. What she did, what she saw, or thought she saw.”
    “Yes, my
lord.”
     
    Mona and Patricia
finished supervising the packing for the next trip out. More liquids, less
solid food—thirst had been
more important than hunger to the people they’d
seen—and some euphorics to lift the refugees’ depression.
    “Coffee?”
Mona asked as they trudged up three flights of stairs to her own kitchen. The
tree house had largely recovered from the fire, but the elevator was an animal that had
never had a chance to reproduce. It had died in the fire, and a new germ cell would
have to be cut, but that was low on Copernick’s list of priorities.
    “Love to,” Patricia said,
annoyed with herself for being annoyed at
having to walk up seventy feet of stairs,
after all the suffering they had seen that day.
    Over the second cup
of coffee, Mona said, “I think I know what the cause of your problem is.”
    “You mean the
strange flashes about Martin?”
    “Yes. And the
guilt you’ve felt about not feeling guilt about your old job, and all the rest.”
    “So what’s your
theory?” Patricia