George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

She wanted to reply, but the words would not come. He’s insane , Tolly Mune thought to herself.

“Furthermore,” Tuf said, “the nature of the crisis on S’uthlam was such that it admitted to a solution only by godlike intervention. Let us suppose briefly that I consented to sell you the Ark , as you desired. Do you truly suppose that any staff of ecologists and biotechs, however expert and dedicated, could have devised a lasting answer? It is my belief that you are too intelligent to entertain such a fallacy. I have no doubt that, with all the resources of this seedship at their beck and call, these men and women—geniuses with intellects and training far superior to my own—could and would undoubtedly have devised numerous ingenious stopgaps to allow the S’uthlamese to continue breeding for another century, perhaps two, perhaps even three or four. Yet ultimately, their answers too would have proven insufficient, as did my own small attempts five years ago, and five years before that, and all the breakthroughs your technocrats engineered in centuries past. Tolly Mune, there is no rational, equitable, scientific, technological, or human answer to the dilemma of a population increasing in an insane geometric progression. It admits to answering only with miracles—loaves and fishes, manna from heaven, and the like. Twice I failed as ecological engineer. Now I propose to succeed as the god that S’uthlam requires. Should I approach the problem as human a third time, I would assuredly fail a third time, and then your difficulties would be resolved by gods crueler than myself, by the four mammal-riders of ancient legend who are known as pestilence, famine, war, and death. Therefore, I must set aside my humanity, and act as god.” He paused, looking at her, blinking.

“You set aside your damned humanity a hell of a long time ago,” she raged at him. “But you’re no god, Tuf. A demon, maybe. A puling megalomaniac, certainly. Maybe a monster—yes, a puling abortion. A monster , but no god.”

“A monster,” said Tuf. “Indeed.” He blinked. “I had hoped that one of your undoubted intellectual prowess and competence might display better understanding.” He blinked again. Twice, three times. His long white face was as still as ever, but there was something strange in Tuf’s voice that she had never heard before, something that frightened her, that bewildered her and disturbed her, something that sounded almost like emotion. “You slander me grievously, Tolly,” he protested.

Blackjack made a thin, plaintive meow.

“Your cat displays a keener grasp of the cold equations of the reality confronting us,” Tuf said. “Perhaps I ought to explain again from the beginning.”

“Monster,” she said.

Tuf blinked. “My efforts are eternally unappreciated and met only with undeserved calumny.”

“Monster,” she repeated.

His right hand briefly curled into a fist, uncurled slowly and deliberately. “It appears some cerebral tic has dramatically reduced your vocabulary, First Councillor.”

“No,” she said, “but that’s the only word that applies to you, damn it.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf. “In that case, being a monster, it behooves me to act monstrously. Consider that, if you will, as you grapple with your decision, First Councillor.”

Blackjack jerked his head up suddenly and stared at Tuf as if something unseen were flitting about that long white face. He began to hiss; his thick silver-gray fur rose up slowly as he backed off. Tolly Mune bent and picked him up. The cat trembled in her arms, and hissed again. “What?” she said in a distracted voice. “What decision? You’ve made all the damned decisions. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Permit me to point out that, as of this moment, not a single manna spore has been released into the atmosphere of S’uthlam,” Haviland Tuf said.

She snorted. “So? You’ve made your damned deal. I have no way of stopping you.”

“Indeed. Regrettable. Perhaps one will occur to you, however. Meanwhile, I suggest that we repair to my quarters. Dax is waiting for his evening meal. I have prepared an excellent cream-of-mushroom bisque for our own repast, and there is chilled great-beer from Moghoun, a beverage sufficiently heady to please either gods or monsters. And, of course, my communications equipment is at your disposal, should you find you have something to say to your government.”

Tolly Mune opened her mouth for a cutting reply, then closed it again in astonishment. “Do you mean what I think you mean?” she said.

“This is difficult to say,” Tuf replied. “You are the one holding a psionic cat, madam.”

It was an endless silent walk and an eternal awkward meal.

They took their dinner in a corner of the long, narrow communications room, surrounded by consoles, telescreens, and cats. Tuf sat with Dax across his lap, and spooned up his dinner with methodical care. On the other side of the table, Tolly Mune ate without tasting the food. She had no appetite. She felt old and dizzy. And afraid.

Blackjack reflected her confusion; his serenity gone, he huddled in her lap, infrequently lifting his head above the table to growl a warning at Dax.

And finally the moment arrived, as she had known it would: a buzz and a flashing blue light signaled an incoming communication. Tolly Mune started at the sound, scraping her chair backwards against the deck and swinging around sharply in her seat. Blackjack leapt off in alarm. She started to rise, and froze in indecision.

“I have programmed in strict instructions that I am on no account to be disturbed while dining,” Tuf announced. “Ergo, that call is for you, by the process of elimination.”

The blue pinpoint flashed off, and on, and off, and on.

“You’re no puling god,” Tolly Mune said. “Neither am I, damn it. I don’t want this goddamned burden, Tuf.”

The light was flashing.

“Perhaps it is Commander Wald Ober,” Tuf suggested. “I suggest you take his call before he begins counting backwards.”

“No one has the right, Tuf,” she said. “Not you, not me.”

He gave a ponderous shrug.

The light flashed.

Blackjack yowled.

Tolly Mune took two steps toward the console, stopped, turned back toward Tuf. “Creation is part of godhood,” she said with suddenly certainty. “You can destroy, Tuf, but you cannot create. That’s what makes you a monster instead of a god.”

“The creation of life in the cloning tanks is an everyday and commonplace element of my profession,” Tuf said.

The light flashed on, went out, flashed on again.

“No,” she said, “you replicate life there, but you don’t create it. It has to have existed already, somewhere in time and space, and you have to have a cell sample, a fossil record—something—or you’re helpless. Puling hell, yes! Oh, you have the power of creation all right. The same goddamned power that I have, and that every man and woman down in the undercity has. Procreation, Tuf. There’s your awesome power, there’s the only miracle there is—the one thing humans have that makes us like gods, and the very thing you propose to take away from ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people on S’uthlam. The hell! You’re no creator, you’re no god.”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf, expressionlessly.

“So you don’t have the right to make godlike decisions,” she said. “And neither do I, damn it.” She moved to the console in three long, confident strides, touched a control. A telescreen ran with colors, resolving into a mirror-finish battle helmet emblazoned wth a stylized globe insignia. Twin sensors burned crimson behind a dark plasteel faceplate. “Commander Ober,” she said.

“First Councillor Mune,” Wald Ober said. “I was concerned. The allied ambassadors are saying all kinds of wild things to the newsfeeds. A peace treaty, a new flowering. Can you confirm? What’s going on? Is there trouble there?”