Алан Дин Фостер: Relic

“I’ve always wondered, Kel’les: if your people had made contact with mine a couple of hundred years earlier than they did, would your scientists have been able to find a cure for the Malignance? You would have been immune. The lightning-fast mutable vectors were designed to attack only human neuralities.”

Raising right hand to mouth, Kel’les fanned the three fingers so that two flanked the lipless gap while the third bisected the opening: a sign of uncertainty.

“It is impossible to know, or even to speculate.” The alien’s voice was soft and breathy, a loud whisper. Even now Ruslan had to be careful to keep his voice down when speaking with the people who had found him. To their decibel-sensitive organs, normal human speech came across as excessively loud. Though he had never attempted to do so, Ruslan suspected that a good, hearty shout could do real physical damage to his hosts’ organs of hearing.

He persisted. “Speculate anyway.” A spangled lorpan soared low over the treetops, looking for food it could steal with a quick thrust of its coiled, sticky proboscis.

Though s’he might have been wanting on the necessary specific knowledge, Kel’les was not lacking in imagination. S’he was also too polite to continue refusing. “I am a supervisorial consort, not a scientist. I understand how to keep things functioning and individuals content, but not always how they function or why they are content. Having been assigned to…” The Myssari hesitated.

With a slight nod Ruslan indicated his understanding. “To my case?”

“To you. To your individuality. In the course of being assigned to you, I have naturally been obligated to learn as much as possible about your kind so that I may provide the best support to you of which I am capable. Among many other things, this required me to learn as much as I could about the great tragedy that overcame your people.” Once more the alien paused. “You do not mind my talking about it?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you to hypothesize about it.” Ruslan looked away. “It’s not like there’s anyone else to offend.”

Kel’les’s head tilted slightly to one side—a Myssari gesture of compassion. “Then since you ask, it is my opinion that nothing would have changed had my people, or the Hahk’na, or any of the other advanced races, contacted your kind once the plague had begun its spread. To this day the method and means of its propagation remain a mystery. From the histories we have scanned, it appears that your biologists first tried to contain it by quarantining the afflicted individuals, then the affected cities, then entire worlds. Nothing worked.” Kel’les’s voice was softer now even than was usual for a Myssari.

“Whoever designed the pathogen was very specific. As you point out, only humans were affected. It did not afflict even your nearest genetic relatives. It burrowed into your cerebroneural system and nothing else. Perhaps that is why your other—I believe the correct term is ‘primates’—were not harmed. As a weapon of biowarfare, it was as precise as it was unstoppable.” Small violet eyes focused on the human. “Whoever schematicized it knew exactly what they were doing.”

“Not quite.” He made no attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I doubt their intention was to kill every last human being in the galaxy—with one exception.” He did not smile. Smiling he reserved for those isolated occasions when it was justified. Not knowing when one might be his last—humanity’s last—smile, he rationed them.

“No one has proposed a cure,” Kel’les continued, “especially since the agent has now died out. With no hosts in which to dwell, it has officially vanished from the canon of galactic illnesses as mysteriously as it first appeared.”

Ruslan found himself growing tired. One of the glistening, metallic, free-form strandstands that had been provided to give promenaders a place to rest cast a hopeful loop in his direction. Though it was too narrow even for his aged and shrunken human backside, he settled himself against the semifluid surface as best he could. It rippled uncertainly beneath him, trying to accommodate buttocks it had never been intended to support. At least it allowed him to take the weight off his feet, if only for a little while.

Settling in far more comfortably beside him, Kel’les eyed the biped who had become his friend. “Despite uncertainty and reluctance, I have answered a question of yours. Now you must answer one of mine. Why do you object so strongly to allowing yourself to be cloned?”

Ruslan’s face twisted. Familiar with them as s’he had become, Kel’les still had difficulty interpreting the human’s many expressions. Myssari facial construction was relatively inflexible.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Your scientists are going to attempt it anyway.”

Once again Kel’les’s head bobbed sideways: this time in the other direction. “You know that we believe that the preservation of any species, especially of an intelligent one, far outweighs the personal preferences of any one individual. I would just, as a matter of personal curiosity, like to know why you continue to object.” The tone of the alien’s voice, to which, with time and instruction, Ruslan had by now become sensitive, had changed to one of deference.

They’re so damn courteous, he thought. It made it hard to refuse the Myssari anything. Had they been other humans, or aliens whose attitude more nearly resembled that of his own confrontational species, he would not have bothered to respond.

Instead of replying directly, he continued to evade. “You may succeed anyway, without my cooperation.”

“That is so,” Kel’les admitted. “We have more than enough genetic material from you. Only a few cells are necessary, and while we were restoring you we acquired many thousands. It is a pity you are not female. It would make things much easier if we had access to eggs.”

“Sorry.” Ruslan’s tone clearly indicated he was not.

Innocent of the sarcasm, Kel’les continued. “Helpfully, your species is bi- instead of trisexual, so there is no need for the inclusion in the reproductive process of an intermet like myself. Still, without eggs, I am told it will be difficult. First we must successfully produce human eggs via genetic manipulation. Then these must be impregnated in the hope of bringing forth viable embryos. Once this has been achieved and adults brought to maturity, the ongoing process will become easier. Additionally, genetic material has been salvaged from bodies on your world that had not yet reached advanced stages of decomposition. This will permit chromosomal variation to be introduced into your… offspring. Whether it agrees with your personal preferences or not, your species will live.”

“After a fashion.” Ruslan squinted into the distance. Pe’leoek had been built on a peninsula, and from the rise on which the promenade had been constructed he could see the glint of alien sun on alien sea. The latter exploded with life in waters that were saltier than those of Seraboth. Under the watchful eyes of minders like Kel’les, he had been allowed to go swimming many times. In his youth he had been quite an athlete. In his youth he had been… in his youth he had been…

His youth was gone, along with everything else he had known. He was not caged. It only felt that way.

“I just don’t like the whole idea.” He turned to face the Myssari’s hairless, largely frozen face. Shepherded by the customary trio of adults, a covey of youngsters ambled by. They made no attempt to conceal their curiosity. He was locally famous, in his way, but he could still never quite get used to being the object of so much attention.

“Is it the idea of you, personally, giving rebirth to your species that offends you?” Kel’les’s questioning was as earnest as ever. Ruslan wondered if s’he was trying to satisfy a matter of personal curiosity, as s’he claimed, or just subtly working for the benefit of the Myssari scientific community. He found that he was too tired to parse.