Part 26 (1/2)
His voice cooled to a chill. ”If I hadn't intervened, Rhui would have been raped.
Which do you prefer? Quick and ugly, or giving them a chance to meet the change on their own terms?''
”Oh, h.e.l.l,” said Tess, wiping at her eyes. ”I'm sorry.''
”Charles.” Cara stood up. ”I want to talk to Tess a bit, alone, and take a few tests.
If you'll excuse us.”
He muttered a word under his breath, then turned and stalked into his tent.
”That's one thing that always encourages me about humanity,” said Cara, taking Tess's arm and leading her across to her tent, ”that in the midst of all our n.o.bility we can be so incredibly foolish. And petty. And otherwise d.a.m.ned a.s.ses.”
”Thank you.”
Cara snorted, amused. ”The comment wasn't actually meant for you, my dear.”
She guided Tess into the tent and snapped her fingers. A light flicked on, hidden in the ceiling. Cara pushed through into the back compartment of the tent, where a diagnostic table stood next to a counter laid out in neat lines with a field laboratory, a lacework of metal and plastine and gla.s.s. ”Now. We have some serious discussing to do, my girl, and I need to do a full diagnostic on you. Sit.”
Tess sat obediently on the table. ”Cara, is it too late? Can you give Ilya treatments to make him live longer?”
Cara turned from the counter and regarded Tess. Something lit in her face and was, as quickly, smothered. ”Ah,” she said, and turned back without replying, busying herself with the equipment.
”But can you?” Tess demanded.
”I've had to relearn a good deal about the human life span, a great deal we've forgotten these last one hundred years, now that we live out a full one hundred twenty years, all of us. Did you know, Tess, that with their year being longer than ours, Rhuians normally live longer lives than Earth humans did before the advent of decent medicine in the twenty-first century? I once thought they were some kind of amazing parallel evolution.''
”But the cylinder I got at the shrine of Morava-”
”Yes. It proved that they are descendants of Earth, brought thousands of years ago from Earth to Rhui by the Chapalii duke, the Tai-en Mushai, to populate this planet. One wonders if he killed off some developing intelligent indigenes in order to make room for our kind. But in any case, he altered the humans he brought. He made them more-efficient.''
”But they still age more rapidly than we do.”
”Indeed. Bakhtiian can expect to live another thirty or forty years, all else being equal, but you can expect to live another ninety, and you won't age appreciably for a long long time. As in the old folktales of elves and humans, we would seem eternally young to them.”
”Then you're saying there's nothing you can do?” Her voice caught with fear and grief.
”This planet, and whatever the Mushai's engineers did to them, has altered their chemistry from ours. The techniques given us to extend our lives might work for them, but they might not. It would be ... experimental, Tess. Risks go together with experiments.”
”Oh, G.o.d. But I'm so scared of losing him. Or of him getting old while I'm still young.”
”There is another question. Ought I to interfere? It would clearly breach the interdiction.”
”Which Charles has already breached.”
”Yes. But knowledge works slowly, and Bakhtiian, my dear, may well change the face of this continent very quickly indeed. How long do we want it to go on?”
”It doesn't matter, does it?” Tess asked bitterly. ”Either way, we play G.o.d. Either way, we choose for Rhui.”
”That is the burden of greater knowledge. But there are two other factors, Tess.
One only Charles knows of, and now you: there are clues, here on Rhui, that there may be a way to alter the human life span, to extend it past the one hundred twenty years given us by the Chapalii, to double it or more. I intend to break the code. I believe that I'm close to doing so. In fact, with your cooperation, I need some subjects from the jaran, although I've had some luck studying them since I arrived here.”
”The wounded,” said Tess under her breath. ”G.o.d, that's cold, Cara.”
”If I save them as well, why not let them benefit all of us? Lie down, I'm going to take some blood and run the scanner over you.” Tess lay down. ”I want Bakhtiian.
Perhaps I'll make you a trade: let me examine him, take tissue and blood from him, and I'll see what I can do about some kind of basic serum to r.e.t.a.r.d his aging.” Her expression grew distant. ”And if I can manage it,” she said, more to herself than to anyone, ”it will mean I possess Rhui's code.”
It was an odd, unsettling experience, to see Cara wear the look that Ilya wore when he contemplated lands he did not yet control.
”But don't answer me now,” added Cara, cras.h.i.+ng back to earth. ”I can't quantify the risks for you, only say that there will be risks. I can't predict how his chemistry will react. You'll feel a pinch here; that's the needle. Now breathe normally and lie still.”
Tess shut her eyes. A low hum filled her ears. A breath of air puffed on her face and drifted down over her body, followed by the slight tingle of some kind of pressure and field. ”I'll risk it. I have to. Though I don't know how you can study Ilya without betraying all this.”
”Shhh. Don't move. Tess.” Her voice lowered, becoming grave. ”There's a more serious problem. Why did you remove your implant? To get pregnant, I know. But it's too risky. I have four recorded deaths, three many years ago and one recent, of women who died in childbirth from a reaction to the-well, once it was an Earth woman who got pregnant by a Rhuian male and died, in the others it was the opposite.
It's an antigenic reaction to blood types and antibodies that no longer mesh well. I don't want you to get pregnant, Tess. No, one more minute.”
The silence drew out.
”There, we're done.”
Tess pushed herself up. ”But Cara-”
”No, I have no recorded instances of women who survived cross breeding.”
”What about the children?”
”In one instance the child lived, because I arrived immediately after birth.”
”Then there must be-”
”Tess, as soon as a woman gets pregnant, she is inundated with hormonal changes. My research shows that the risk is immediate and acute. I suppose-” She broke off.
”What?”
”You did start p.u.b.erty here, on Rhui. That might-”
”That might what? G.o.d, Cara, you must know how badly Ilya wants children.”
”What about what you want?”
Tess hung her head, and her voice shook. ”I want something of him, after he's dead. But that's only part of it. I never thought about children before. There was never any urgency in it. But I want children with him, Cara. Can't you understand that?”
”Since I have no children of my own?”