Nasr offered one of the glasses to Geary. “Coffee, Admiral. A special blend. Will you drink a toast with me?”
“Certainly,” Geary said, taking the small glass gingerly. It was warm from the coffee, but not painfully so. “What are we toasting?”
“Our efforts, our failure, the eternal struggle of humans to do what is right, the eternal disagreement on what right is, and the death of the last two bear-cows.”
Geary halted his movement with the glass poised near his lips. “They’re dead?”
“Yes. Please drink, Admiral.”
He finished raising the glass, tasting a powerful, bitter, yet smooth coffee that he could feel flowing all the way down to his stomach. “What happened?” Even though the news had been expected, even though there had been nothing else he could have done, Geary still felt a great sorrow at the news. Now he understood Dr. Nasr’s sadness.
“The Shilling Institute was keeping them alive, doing a very creditable job,” Nasr said, lowering his own now-empty glass. “But the bear-cows were taken from the Shilling Institute.”
“The government?”
“No. The courts.” Nasr shrugged. “Well-meaning individuals, well-meaning groups, claimed that the bear-cows deserved a chance to speak on their own behalf, to express their own wishes, to not be kept in what they called a living death. I understand. I was not happy with it, either. But I knew it was all we could do. However, the courts did what they felt obligated to do. They appointed lawyers to act as guardians for the bear-cows, to speak for them in court. And the lawyers argued very well that the bear-cows must be given the same rights as humans.”
Geary sat down heavily, shaking his head. “But they’re not humans. That doesn’t mean they are less than us, but it does mean you can’t use our standards with them. They think differently than we do.”
“So the Shilling Institute argued,” Dr. Nasr said, sitting down opposite Geary. “I was called to testify. I spoke of my experiences with treating the bear-cows. I showed them my medical records. Let them awake, and they would die by willed suicide. It was that simple.”
“But they didn’t believe you.”
Nasr frowned at the deck. “It is a difficult argument, Admiral, to claim that the best treatment for a thinking creature is to keep it forever unconscious. The lawyers, the courts, the well-meaning individuals and groups, they did not want to believe me. Custody was given to the court-appointed guardians. The bear-cows were moved to another medical facility. Well-meaning individuals gathered about them, ready to welcome a new species into friendship with humanity, the sedation was reduced until awareness came to the two bear-cows, and, five seconds later, both were dead.”
The doctor shook his head. “One of the well-meaning people came from the room, looked at me, and cried why? And I said, because they are who they are, not who you wanted them to be.”
“Damn,” Geary whispered.
“It was inevitable, Admiral. You and I deluded ourselves. We did what we would do for humans. Keep them alive and try to find a solution. But any solution is far off. You know some blame you for the awful slaughter of the bear-cows when capturing their ship. I have never been comfortable with that battle, yet I also knew we tried everything we could to avoid such a slaughter. Some commentators outside the fleet, though, have assigned us sole blame for the deaths of the bear-cows, for any hostilities with the bear-cows.”
“I know,” Geary said. “I’ve heard that. Half of the critics claim we caused it because those critics distrust the government, and the other half claim we caused it because those critics distrust the military. There don’t seem to be a lot who are willing to consider the possibility that the Kicks might have had their own reasons for acting.”
“There are many,” Nasr said. “Many who note our attempts to communicate and avoid fighting. But those are not nearly as loud as the others.” The doctor’s tone took on an acid edge of bitterness as he continued. “I have never before been accused of malpractice, not until now. In the court, they said I must have caused the deaths of the other bear-cows by somehow radiating an attitude that led the bear-cows who gained consciousness to assume they had to immediately kill themselves.”
“You’re being blamed?” Geary asked, appalled. “Nobody cared more for the fate of those creatures than you did.”
“But there must be a villain, Admiral.” Nasr sighed heavily. “I was not permitted in the room, or near the room, where they awakened the bear-cows. I understand from those who were there that the well-meaning individuals were offering wide smiles of welcome to the bear-cows as the sedation was reduced.”
“Smiles? Did no one read our reports? Didn’t they realize that to a prey animal those smiles looked like predators getting ready to chow down?”
“Data that conflicts with beliefs is often ignored,” the doctor said. “It has been a serious problem in every field, including in medicine, even among those who should know better.”
Geary closed his eyes, trying to calm himself instead of shouting out in anger. The coffee in his stomach felt heavy now. “So those last two Kicks didn’t just die. In a very real sense, they were murdered by willful ignorance.”
“That is too harsh, Admiral. They meant well, as did we. The difference is that we formed our intentions based on our ideals and what we saw. They formed their intentions based on their ideals and what they wanted to see. I should mention that we are already being blamed by a few for these last two deaths,” Nasr said, “even though news of the deaths is being kept very quiet. Some former critics have been convinced that we spoke the truth, but not all. The self-generated toxins in the bear-cows that caused their deaths are undeniable proof. Except to those who would accept no proof that conflicts with what they have decided must be true.”
Geary nodded. “I wish… Hell, I wish there had been another answer. I do know that you did everything that you possibly could.”
“As did you, Admiral.” Dr. Nasr stood up. “I have taken enough of your time.”
Geary rose to forestall his departure. “Doctor, the Dancers have asked to be escorted to another destination in human space. I’m sure you’ve heard. Would you be willing to ride Dauntless on that trip?”
“I am honored by the offer, Admiral. Is the destination truly what I have heard?”
“Yes. Old Earth.”
Nasr took a while to speak again. “I see. Yes, a great honor. I will certainly come along, Admiral. Perhaps Old Earth will hold some answers to the questions that we struggle with.”
“That would be nice,” Geary agreed.
But he didn’t believe it.
The three senators who would represent the grand council and the government of the Alliance had been brought aboard Dauntless with all of the pomp and ceremony mandated in protocol regulations. Dr. Nasr had been assigned a stateroom on board as well. Both Rione and Charban had remained in the same staterooms they had previously occupied, though the nameplates had been changed to reflect their new titles as envoys. Every storage compartment on Dauntless was filled with every spare part, every material for making other parts, every solid and liquid and soggy form of food and drink, and every weapon that regulations mandated for a battle cruiser of her class.