“That’s the nature of mankind,” she agreed.
“True, but Corojum had an answer that is equally true, and I like his better! We are made of the stuff of stars, given our lives by a living world, given our selves by time. We are brother to the trees and sister to the sun. We are of such glorious stuff we need not carry pain around like a label. Our duty, as living things, to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise. As Ellin says, we can choose to dance.
“The minds inside you suffer, Questioner. Let them have joy.”
She frowned, turning her glass in her hands, not replying. Tactfully, Mouche turned his attention elsewhere, feeling movement behind the walls, a scurry, a coming and going. Every word he said was reported. Every motion he made. Still, thus far in his game he was content. He had played a card, and she would think about it. She would construct a dozen reasons why not, but before she left Newholme (if Bofusdiaga let anyone leave Newholme) she would go into the Fauxi-dizalonz. For the sake of those children, if not her own.
Now the next play. He laid his cards face down on the table before him, saying: “See how empty the streets are. The Timmys now have no need to hover over people, and many of them have gone back to doing whatever they did before mankind came. Do you include the fact that mankind killed many of them in your decisions about Newholme? Are their deaths one of the reasons that the mankind population will be sterilized?”
Questioner shook her head slowly, still mulling the matter of the suffering children inside herself. “It wasn’t for that, Mouche. I could argue it, but the question of individuality would arise. The Timmys are, after all, only quasi-independent beings. They were made to look like people by Bofusdiaga, but in the past they were otherwise, and maybe in the future they will be stranger yet. If they are malleable beings, made as Bofusdiaga wills, then what was actually killed? They were distinctive only in the information they carried, but not even information was lost, for the dance has been regained. In any case, it won’t be needed in the future.”
“This is so,” Mouche agreed.
“However,” she went on relentlessly, “the killers didn’t know the Timmys weren’t individuals when they killed them. Their intent was genocidal. That’s a point against mankind on Newholme.”
Mouche nodded sympathetically. “True, Questioner. Though not all the people were involved even then, and none now living were. How about the culture, the dower laws, the supernumes, the men having to wear veils? Does that figure in your decision?”
She shook her head. “Blue-bodying is against the edicts, I should say, but corrective action would have been easy enough without extreme measures. On that ground alone I would have recommended that in order to comply strictly with Haraldson’s edicts, the people here should establish another colony where their dissidents could go. The system is actually no more coercive than many other systems that are supposed to be voluntary. The men give up a little to get most of what they want, the women give up a little to get most of what they want. Neither sex is completely satisfied, but neither is completely dissatisfied.”
“So you accept the system?”
She frowned. “As D’Jevier pointed out to me, the population is generally healthy, the lifespan is long, the average intelligence is rising. I would recommend corrective action, not punishment.”
“Ah,” murmured Mouche. “I’m glad of that.”
Questioner gave him a very direct and imperious look. “All this is purely argumentative, however, for my decision to sterilize this planet is based upon the fact that the Hags are doing away with half the girl babies born on this world. Believe me, that is all I need to decide as I have done.”
She kept her eyes on him, waiting for a reaction. She’d anticipated his being shocked by this, but he showed no evidence of surprise.
“Oh, is that so?” he asked, raising his eyebrows only slightly.
“That’s an odd reaction!”
“Well, Questy … may I call you Questy? Ma’am seems so … formal. As I’ve said a time or two, what Flowing Green knew, I know. And Flowing Green knew everything there was to know that could be found out listening and watching through holes in the wall. When did you learn of this?”