“Look, I’m sorry for what happened. It should have been avoided and I wish it had turned out differently. I know how hard you’ve tried to accommodate my individual interests and outlook, and the encounter probably could have been handled differently.” He finished lamely. “It was a human thing.”
Cherpa then proceeded to undo every iota of his careful diplomacy.
“I wish Pahksen hadn’t died but I’m not sorry I hit him.” She nodded toward Ruslan. “It was him be stopped or Bogo be died. So I acted. I’d act again if I had to.” She paused thoughtfully. “Maybe next time I’d use a smaller rock, but I didn’t have time to look around and choose. Growing up on Daribb, I learned to always go with what was readily available even if it wasn’t my first choice.”
As chief of the Seraboth study bloc, Gos’sil was the one who replied. His tone was not sympathetic. “One-third of the galaxy’s surviving human population is now extinguished, and at the hands of one of its own kind. Although I serve more in the capacity of administrator than scientist, I begin to comprehend how a supposedly intelligent species was capable of utterly annihilating itself.”
Lowering his gaze, Ruslan let his thoughts wander to the rush of white water beneath the transparent floor. “Do what you want with me but leave Cherpa out of it. She came to my defense. Instinctively, not with forethought. The unfortunate demise of Pahksen was an accident.”
A confused Cor’rin responded. “Are you implying that some sort of punishment might be forthcoming, Ruslan? What would we gain by that? The resurrection program has suffered a serious blow. The last thing anyone connected with the process would wish to do is damage it further. We have no choice but to continue to deal with you as we have done previously.”
He lifted his head. “Then what are you going to do?”
Gos’sil and his colleagues were focused on Ruslan. “The restoration process will commence as soon as you and Cherpa are returned to Myssar. Natural, viable reproductive components will be utilized. Fertilization will be induced and offspring nurtured.”
It was as Ruslan had feared. He addressed the pronouncement quickly.
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course we can.” Ruslan was surprised but not shocked to hear from Bac’cul. Friend or not, he was as much a Myssari scientist as Gos’sil or any other representative of the Sectionary. “I tell you that from many years of study our specialists in the matter are more familiar with the process than would be the average human. Certainly more so than yourself and a young, inexperienced, uneducated female.”
“It’s not right,” he shot back.
“What obscure moral issues you may attempt to cite are subsumed in the far greater need to resurrect your species.” Cor’rin was empathetic but unyielding. “You may choose to deny yourself a future, but we will not allow you to deny it to your kind.” She leaned back on her two rearmost legs and crossed the third over her left side.
“What if I refuse cooperation?”
“You have already agreed to cooperate in the process,” Bac’cul reminded him. “You agreed to do so when we made the bargain to search for your original homeworld. Nothing was said about the need to find it: only to commence a search. We have upheld and continue to uphold our part of the agreement.” Pausing, he added in a less strident tone, “I am sorry that the seeking has proved fruitless. None would have wished it to be successful more than I.”
Unpersuaded, Ruslan fought back. “The bargain referred to involved my agreeing to provide cells for cloning. Nothing was said about mimicking natural human reproduction. As far as that goes, I choose not to cooperate.” He crossed his arms over his chest in a gesture whose meaning only a few of those present would recognize.
It didn’t matter. Bac’cul politely but coolly explained why. “I repeat: the process will commence upon your return to Myssar. It has been decided that your cooperation in the matter is not required.”
Ruslan’s jaw tightened. “I won’t let you do it to her. You can’t force her to bear Pahksen’s offspring!”
“We have no wish to risk damage to our sole female specimen,” Gos’sil assured him. “Founded on human biology, the construction and maintenance of a number of artificial wombs is a simple matter of organic engineering. As to the other…”
As Cherpa stepped forward she placed an open palm over her lower abdomen. “You don’t have to do anything by force. I’ll volunteer my eggs. Take what you want.”
Startled and hurt, Ruslan turned to her. “Cherpa, you don’t have to agree to this! Even though we’re not Myssari, there are legal-ethical edicts available to us on Myssar that we can invoke. You don’t have to see your eggs fertilized with the sperm of the man you killed, someone you didn’t like and who tormented you through—”
Cor’rin interrupted him. As usual, her highly restrictive expression was unreadable. “Who said we were going to use genetic material from the deceased specimen?”
“I assumed that because—” He broke off as realization hit home. “You’re not referring to me, Cor’rin. Surely not to me.”
“Unless there is another human male of whose existence we are unaware—yes, we are referring to you, Ruslan.”
He swallowed and started to say something, only to find the words bunching up unintelligibly in his throat. Moving close, Cherpa put a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Bogo. It’s not only okay, it’s special okay.”
They were all staring at him, waiting for a response. So many Myssari eyes. So many inhuman eyes. He was being asked to consider a possibility that had barely, if ever, impinged on his consciousness.
“I don’t—I think of Cherpa as a distant daughter, not as a mate.”
“No ‘mating’ will be involved, Ruslan.” Bac’cul was once more the phlegmatic scientist. “Not in the traditional sense. You have only the most tenuous genetic connection to each other. You are not even from the same world. You are both human. Where basal matters of reproduction are concerned, the age difference is immaterial. All that matters is biological viability.”
Looking down past his feet toward the surging river, Ruslan wished he were in it. “What if my ‘genetic material’ isn’t viable any longer?”
“Then we will have no choice but to use the corresponding reproductive components salvaged from the body of the deceased Pahksen.” There was neither apology nor hesitation in Cor’rin’s voice. “If it eventuates that we follow that course of action, we will have to deal with the possibility of inherited psychological abnormalities when and if they manifest themselves in the course of the resultant offsprings’ maturation.”
The Myssari were plainly adamant. Given no choice, a reluctant Ruslan decided it was better to concede than to flail fruitlessly against something that had already been decided.
“Since Cherpa’s willing to contribute, I suppose I might as well also,” he sighed. Thick with satisfaction, a group susurration filled the room. A compliant specimen, the assembled researchers knew, always produced better results than one that was study-averse. “But it will be via a strictly controlled and deliberate laboratory methodology, as you say.”
Among the Myssari only Cor’rin and one or two other of the scientists were noticeably disappointed. To the rest the method of reproduction was a sideshow. A potentially interesting one from a scientific and cultural-historical standpoint, to be sure, but unimportant compared to the far greater desire to see humankind brought back as a viable species.