Chains of Redemption (27 page)

"A home you couldn't wait to get away from. Need I remind you that we wouldn't be here at all if you hadn't decided that you just had to go to Deakard?"

She wanted to rip his head off and sling it into the brush, so instead she just yelled in his face. "Don't bring any more of them here! Leave things alone!" She stomped off into the jungle.

Topaz smiled smugly and started over to talk to his new friends, not that he actually spoke their language enough to carry on a full-fledged conversation, but he at least spoke it well enough that he'd talked them into coming back here with him.

He found himself intercepted by Poley before he could reach his destination. "You haven't won the argument, Topaz. These people . . ."

"Just stop! Both of you, passing judgment and preaching. Pretending like you know everything. Of course I won the argument, because she is utterly wrong, and I am completely right, and she knows it." Behind Poley Topaz saw the old group of Abornie attack the new group. "What the hell?"

"As I was about to say before you so rudely interrupted me, these people don't like each other. When you left and RJ figured out what you were doing, she talked to the Abornie elders and found out that the Abornie are tribal."

"Well . . . I suppose it would have killed her to just tell me that."

"Actually, I rather think she decided you'd find out for yourself," Poley said.

Topaz waded into the fray, trying to stop the fighting, shouting words he wasn't quite sure of the meaning of, and seemed to do nothing but intensify the fighting. He found himself thrown at the robot's feet for his troubles. He looked up at Poley. "Aren't you going to help me?"

"You aren't the boss of me," Poley said haughtily and stomped off in the direction his sister had gone.

"Are you mocking me, you tight-assed walking tin can?" Topaz trailed off, realizing there were more important things at hand, and ran back into the boiling mass of Abornie, but nothing he said or did seemed to be doing more than getting his own ass kicked.

Poley caught up with her in the jungle. "RJ, they've started fighting," he reported calmly.

She nodded. "I know, I heard them."

"What are you going to do about it?" Poley asked.

RJ shrugged. "The more I try to do nothing, the more I interfere," she mumbled.

"What are you going to do?" Poley asked again.

"What should I do?" RJ asked.

Poley was more than a little taken aback, and it took his circuits awhile to comprehend what she had asked. "You're asking me?" he asked, still not sure.

RJ laughed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Yes, Tin Pants, I'm asking you. Do the math. If we continue to interfere, what do you calculate will happen?"

"I've told you before. There's no way of knowing, too many as yet undefined variables. There's no way to make a calculated determination."

"Exactly," RJ said. "And without knowing what chain reaction our interference might cause, isn't it better if we do as little as possible?"

"Probably, but RJ . . . We've already interfered on a grand scale. By destroying the native's common enemy it's only a matter of time till they hunt each other down and kill each other if that's what they've got in their mind to do, and apparently it is. The ones currently here with us now have better weapons and machines. They're redeveloping technology and reclaiming their heritage. Maybe Topaz is right, and at this point all we can do is continue to interfere."

"That isn't exactly what I wanted to hear."

"I'm sorry," Poley shrugged.

RJ sighed. "I'm tired of being responsible for everything, you know. What if everything I do, everything I have ever done here, and on Earth, everywhere is just ultimately going to make everything everywhere worse?"

"What if everything you do will make it better?" Poley asked back.

"But you can never know, can you? Every step I take, every breath, has the chance to change everything. Pull here, and something gets pushed there, and everything is different, and how do you know whether it's better or not?"

"Maybe you just have to do what you think is right in the moment."

"Don't you see? That's how all the mistakes happen, by people living in the moment without thinking things out, by not asking themselves, what is this going to do in twenty years, in fifty, in a hundred?" RJ reached down and picked up an uprooted plant and stared at it. "I'm tired of being responsible."

"But someone has to do it," Poley said with a shrug.

She nodded silently, walked over and planted the plant just off the walking trail. Then she turned and started back for the ship. The forty natives Topaz had brought with him were being beaten to death by the Abornie colony they had originally found.

RJ shouted at the crowd in their language. "Enough! Stop this now!" Most of them ceased their fighting immediately, and RJ easily waded into the group and broke the rest of the fights up. "You idiots are the same people. Why are you fighting?" Everyone started screaming at once. "Enough!" There was silence, and RJ walked over and helped Topaz up from where he'd mostly been laying on the ground getting stepped on by the combatants. "You," she pointed at Taral, "and you," she pointed at the female whom she assumed by her demeanor and dress was the leader of the other tribe. "Come with me. The rest of you, if there is any more fighting I will come back and kill you all. Do you understand?" They all held their hands out to her, palms up. "Good."

She sat with them at the table in the Captain's quarters, and wished that she could be somewhere, almost
any
where else.

"What's your name?" she asked the female.

"Uvar," she said. "These people, they are our sworn enemies from the beginning of time . . ."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," RJ droned back. "So, let's cut to the chase. Why are you people fighting?" She was sure they didn't fully understand her, even though she was using their language, because of her use of Reliance euphemisms, but she knew they got the gist of what she was saying.

"They stole our children," Uvar said.

"Your children joined our people willingly, and then you attacked our village and . . ."

"Hold." RJ held up her hand, though she knew it probably didn't have the same meaning here. "When did they steal your children? And when did they attack your village?"

"In the time when we came from the caves to once again embrace the land," Uvar said.

"After much fighting our tribes called a truce. They would stay in their place, and we would stay in ours, and today they broke that truce," Taral growled.

"We had no idea where the strange alien would take us," Uvar spat back. "That he would deliver us into the hands of our enemies. All we could make out clearly from his bad speaking was that he and his kind had killed the Ocupods, and that he was going to take us to a place where there was a 'great comfy chair'."

"Why would our savior bring hope to you, the attackers of our people?"

"Why would anyone help you baby stealers?"

"Shut up!" RJ brought her fist down into the table for emphasis. "Gods! Why must all humanoids be so freaking stupid? Listen to me, you crawling bugs beneath my feet." She took a deep breath and let it out. "Centuries ago, your tribe," she pointed at Taral, "was short one sex. In other words you lacked enough breeding pairs to carry on your line, and so they went to her tribe and stole some children of that sex to complete your breeding pairs. Your ancestors," she pointed at Uvar, "were understandably pissed off and attacked their village." She sighed deeply and said in her own language, more to herself than anyone else, "Why can't people ever just talk?" She turned back to the two natives at the table.

"You have to ask why the two groups of your people didn't just merge into one. Why did they separate into two groups in the first place? And the answer is clear. They came from two different bunkers and no doubt fell into the same patterns of class-ism they had fallen into before the Apocalypse." She mocked them, "You came from that bunker, it's not as good as our bunker, we're smarter and therefore we can't let our breeding pairs be contaminated by your breeding pairs." She wasn't a talker, never had been. She was an ass kicker. It would have been so much easier to just kick their asses and tell them how things were going to be, but now she supposed was the time for diplomacy, or at least as close as she could get. "Here's a big freaking clue for ya. I don't give a shit about any of that. Get over it. All of that crap happened hundreds of years ago.

"Let me tell you what I have learned about your people in the relatively short time I have been here. Your ancestors were completely self-centered and selfish. They destroyed this planet. They played god with all the plants and animals here, and created the creatures that became your ultimate enemies, rather than curb their destructive ways. Your ancestors, your direct bloodline, were the worst of the lot, because you are the direct descendants of the people who went underground to save themselves while the rest of their civilization perished on the surface.

"You are the descendants of the people who came out of the bunkers. You know your history through books, and yet you choose to fight with one another over something that happened hundreds of years ago. Something that never should have been fought over in the first place. You have learned nothing from your ancestral past. You would make the same mistakes they made, maybe more quickly." She shook her head and mumbled in her own language, "Most people aren't worth the skin they walk around in."

She ran both her hands down her face, then glared at them, her face a mask of rage, and said in their language, though what she said must have done nothing but confuse them further, "So Topaz is right, and the only hope for this world is if we take control and steer it in a healthy direction."

"You will not take control of my people," Uvar said.

"Or mine," Taral swore.

RJ laughed and stood up. Screw diplomacy; you couldn't reason with fools. "Who do you think your people will follow if I walk from this ship with," she pointed at Uvar, "your head in one hand, and yours," she pointed at Taral, "in the other? If you want to act like animals, I'll treat you like animals. I'll kill you and everyone who opposes me until I've killed every single Abornie on this planet or I'm in power, whichever comes first. I don't want to be the bitch goddess of your world, but I can do it if I have to. And believe me, you don't want to make me do anything I don't want to do."

For a minute it looked like they wanted to argue with her, and then they both lifted their right hands, palm up, a submissive look on their faces. She could feel the fear radiating from them.

Maybe that's all I'm good for, scaring people
, RJ thought.
Well . . . whatever works. You can't talk sense to people who won't hear it, if I've learned nothing else in my long life I've learned that action speaks louder than words. At least I've found my hobby.

Jessica sat in what had once been Topaz's office in the room where the inner circle had once met, and waited for the muttering to cease. When it did, she stared across the table at the team of scientists she had assembled from all corners of New Alliance held territory.

They were the best, the most auspicious group of geneticists ever assembled. All these men and women had once worked for the Reliance. All of them had now defected to their side; still there was something in them that couldn't quite let go of the old trainings. There were some things you just didn't consider doing, and what she was asking them to do was one of these.

"I know what you're all thinking. It's against regulations. Well, guess what, people, we . . . none of us . . . belong to the Reliance anymore, and their regulations don't affect us."

"But," her name was Dorana, and she was by far the most uncomfortable with the proposed project, "these things you're asking us to build. We would program them for loyalty to the New Alliance, but not program their emotions. They would basically have free will."

"Within the boundaries of serving the New Alliance, yes."

"And no expiration date?" Dr. Pagel said. He was not quite as uncomfortable about the project as Dorana, but he was running a close second.

"That's right," Jessica said coolly.

"All right, I understand the importance of the cloning. I even understand the reason for having people in leadership positions that are loyal to us and who can't be killed. It would seem to insure that the New Alliance would hold for eternity, however . . . Even if we program them with loyalty to the causes and beliefs of the New Alliance, if you also give them a full range of emotions, in time they could break that training. They could, in fact, force their will on the whole of the New Alliance. You'd have for all intents and purposes a small army of GSH's running our government . . ."

Jessica interrupted him with a cough, Pagel looked at her and then turned red in the face. "I ah . . . I wasn't talking about . . ."