“Thanks.”
Alex had already braced himself to speak. Almost, but not quite.
“Is everything all right?” asked C-the-Third, looking closely at him.
“Yes, of course. We take off in fifty-six minutes. Agreed?”
The clone looked at his watch.
“Agreed, Captain. I will inform my wards.”
Alex left, without saying a single word about Janet or her problems with the Others.
Strangely, as he entered the recreation lounge, the discussion that had been raging there suddenly ceased. It didn’t look like they were just patiently waiting for him. More likely, they had been saying something unpleasant behind his back. Kim sat tense and annoyed, and Morrison looked uncomfortable, as if he had been forced to defend a position he didn’t exactly hold or argue for something he didn’t really believe.
“Attention, please,” said Alex. Reflected for a second and sat down. He still had some time left, after all.
“We are all ears, Captain,” said Generalov with emphatic courtesy. It was obvious who had initiated the heated discussion.
“Our passengers have arrived,” Alex continued. “As you already gathered, they are two visitors from the allied race of Zzygou and their guide, a specialist in communications with the Others, Danila C-the-Third Shustov. Apparently, we can all call him simply C-the-Third.”
“A clone?” asked Paul for some reason.
“Yes, Engineer. A clone. I hope no one here is a chauvinist? The Zzygou are an intelligent and peaceful race…”
“The hell they are! Who cares about the damn Zzygou, anyway!” Generalov’s politeness suddenly failed him. “Captain, you never warned us that there’d be a clone in the crew!”
“He is not in the crew,” Alex pointed out. “C-the-Third is a Sky Company employee, just like us. His task is to accompany the Zzygou and provide all the necessary services…”
“Sexual services,” sneered Generalov.
“I didn’t delve into the details.” Alex continued to speak with the same even tone of voice, but that seemed only to augment everyone’s annoyance. “Clones have the same rights as all the other citizens of the Empire.”
“You don’t get it, do you?!” Puck clasped his hands in anger. “Cloning is the way to human degeneration! These nasty clones are everywhere! Entertainment clones, government clones, and now, space clones!”
“Why should it bother you so much?” asked Alex. Generalov exhaled heavily. But he answered a bit more calmly:
“It doesn’t. I don’t intend to clone myself. But it’s totally unnatural! Human strength is in human diversity. Nature intended everyone’s genetic makeup to be unique, so cloning is immoral! Don’t you agree, Captain?”
“On the whole, I do, yes.”
“And what would cloning lead to? Do we want to end up like the Zzygou or the Bronins? At least the Zzygou clone naturally, and the Bronins have a very high death rate. Without cloning, they’d go extinct. But if we all start cloning ourselves, we’ll turn into a crowd of scum, living robots with serial numbers. One genotype for pilots, another for garbage collectors, the third one for rulers. Hell, we’ll get mass-produced on a conveyor belt!”
“Puck, you’re exaggerating! Clones in human society make up no more than five percent of the total population. And most of them are residents of far-flung, newly colonized planets. Cloning is essential there.”
“Hah!” Generalov laughed without mirth. “Those are the official numbers! Clones are actually much more numerous. And all the sympathizers, who no doubt would clone themselves at the first opportunity, only pour oil on the flames! Lots of people we consider normal humans are really clones who have changed their appearance and gotten their claws on good jobs! And where there’s a clone, no normal person has a chance! The clone will only have more of his own clones!”
Paul cleared his throat and shyly added:
“Captain, Puck has a point. I also think that giving clones full citizenship rights was a mistake. We had this one guy at the academy, Aristark Yosilidi, a good spesh… very talented. He was offered the chance to clone himself, and he agreed. In fourteen years, seven of his clones will be coming to the academy, can you imagine that? His abilities are very strong, so they’ll all be accepted, no doubt about it. And that means that seven ordinary speshes won’t be able to get in. See? And what if every one of the seven clones also cloned himself? In twenty-eight years, the entire department would be full of Aristarks-C. Yosilidi!”
“Exactly!” Generalov elbowed Paul’s side. “He knows what I’m talking about! He had a chance to see for himself!”
“That’s stupid!” Kim jumped up. “I have two clone friends! One of them wants to be an electronics engineer, like her matrix. But not the other one. She wants to be an assembly-spesh in an orbital shipyard. She wants to build spaceships!”
“If the girls’ specialization is not too narrowly defined, they’ll do just fine, too…” said Morrison without much certainty in his tone, then darted an anxious glance at Alex. It was high time to break up the argument.
“All right, thank you all for an interesting discussion.” Alex got up. “We’ll continue this later, okay? And now, some useful information. We all signed the contract. We all work for a company that pays us a lot of money.”
“That promises to pay us,” interjected Generalov. He probably didn’t really think that the company would risk a fight with the union by deceiving the crew. More likely, he just wanted to have the last word. Now it was plain to Alex why this uniquely qualified navigator never stayed at any one job for very long.
“We take off in thirty-six minutes.” Alex was looking only at Generalov, and the navigator reluctantly hushed. “I ask everyone to be at their posts in twenty minutes.”
“What’s the route?” hissed the navigator.
“It won’t be a problem for you. We’re flying first to Zodiac, and then to Edem. The honorable Zzygou wish to see the most beautiful planets of the human sector.”
Generalov furrowed his brow.
And Kim turned noticeably pale.
“Any special instructions for this flight?” inquired Morrison. “Gravity levels, inertia parameters, jump rhythms?”
“No, nothing. The Zzygou tolerate the human environment well. Any other questions?” No one had any questions. “You all are free to go.”
Generalov, murmuring something under his breath, was the first to leave the lounge. Then Paul followed him, obviously distressed by the conflict and his own participation in it. Morrison looked sidelong at Kim, but she remained sitting as before.
“I’ll go test the ship,” said the co-pilot, and left.
“What’s wrong, Kim?” Alex came closer to the girl.
“You…”
“Forgive me, Kim. I can explain…”
“I don’t want to fly to Edem!” cried Kim.
She seemed to have forgotten about the conversation between Alex and Xang.
“Kim, it’s unavoidable. You’re a spesh. You’re a member of the crew now, so you have to go by the contract.”
“Alex, don’t you get it!? I cannot show up on Edem! I simply can’t!” The girl’s eyes were bright with tears.
Alex gently took her by the shoulder. “Kim, for now, we’re flying to Zodiac. It’s a marvelous planet. The most beautiful one in the human sector, even though your home world might dispute the claim. Do you have anything against Zodiac?”
“No…” Kim leaned forward, pressed herself to Alex’s chest. A frightened little girl… it didn’t matter now that she was capable of killing off the entire crew. “Alex, friend-spesh, I don’t want to fly to Edem!”