Xenocide

by Orson Scott Card

  "We can't!" shouted Quara. Her vehemence surprised Ender. Quara was reluctant to speak out at the best of times; for her to speak so loudly now was out of character. "I tell you that the descolada is alive."

  "And I tell you that a virus is a virus," said Grego.

  It bothered Ender that Grego was calling for the extermination of the descolada--it wasn't like him to so easily call for something that would destroy the pequeninos. Grego had practically grown up among the pequenino males--he knew them better, spoke their language better, than anyone.

  "Children, be quiet and let me explain this to Andrew," said Novinha. "We were discussing what to do if the potatoes failed, Ela and I, and she told me--no, you explain it, Ela."

  "It's an easy enough concept. Instead of trying to grow plants that inhibit the growth of the descolada virus, we need to go after the virus itself."

  "Right," said Grego.

  "Shut up," said Quara.

  "As a kindness to us all, Grego, please do as your sister has so kindly asked," said Novinha.

  Ela sighed and went on. "We can't just kill it because that would kill all the other native life on Lusitania. So what I propose is trying to develop a new strain of descolada that continues to act as the present virus acts in the reproductive cycles of all the Lusitanian life forms, but without the ability to adapt to new species."

  "You can eliminate that part of the virus?" asked Ender. "You can find it?"

  "Not likely. But I think I can find all the parts of the virus that are active in the piggies and in all the other plant-animal pairs, keep those, and discard everything else. Then we'd add a rudimentary reproductive ability and set up some receptors so it'll respond properly to the appropriate changes in the host bodies, put the whole thing in a little organelle, and there we have it--a substitute for the descolada so that the pequeninos and all the other native species are safe, while we can live without worry."

  "Then you'll spray all the original descolada virus to wipe them out?" asked Ender. "What if there's already a resistant strain?"

  "No, we don't spray them, because spraying wouldn't wipe out the viruses that are already incorporated into the bodies of every Lusitanian creature. This is the really tricky part--"

  "As if the rest were easy," said Novinha, "making a new organelle out of nothing--"

  "We can't just inject these organelles into a few piggies or even into all of them, because we'd also have to inject them into every other native animal and tree and blade of grass."

  "Can't be done," said Ender.

  "So we have to develop a mechanism to deliver the organelles universally, and at the same time destroy the old descolada viruses once and for all."

  "Xenocide," said Quara.

  "That's the argument," said Ela. "Quara says the descolada is sentient,"

  Ender looked at his youngest stepdaughter. "A sentient molecule?"

  "They have language, Andrew."

  "When did this happen?" asked Ender. He was trying to imagine how a genetic molecule--even one as long and complex as the descolada virus--could possibly speak.

  "I've suspected it for a long time. I wasn't going to say anything until I was sure, but--"

  "Which means she isn't sure," said Grego triumphantly.

  "But I'm almost sure now, and you can't go destroying a whole species until we know."

  "How do they speak?" asked Ender.

  "Not like us, of course," said Quara. "They pass information back and forth to each other at a molecular level. I first noticed it as I was working on the question of how the new resistant strains of the descolada spread so quickly and replaced all the old viruses in such a short time. I couldn't solve that problem because I was asking the wrong question. They don't replace the old ones. They simply pass messages."

  "They throw darts," said Grego.

  "That was my own word for it," said Quara. "I didn't understand that it was speech."

  "Because it wasn't speech," said Grego.

  "That was five years ago," said Ender. "You said the darts they send out carry the needed genes and then all the viruses that receive the darts revise their own structure to include the new gene. That's hardly language."

  "But that isn't the only time they send darts," said Quara. "Those messenger molecules are moving in and out all the time, and most of the time they aren't incorporated into the body at all. They get read by several parts of the descolada and then they're passed on to another one."

  "This is language?" asked Grego.

  "Not yet," said Quara. "But sometimes after a virus reads one of these darts, it makes a new dart and sends it out. Here's the part that tells me it's a language: The front part of the new dart always begins with a molecular sequence similar to the back tag of the dart that it's answering. It holds the thread of the conversation together."

  "Conversation," said Grego scornfully.

  "Be quiet or die," said Ela. Even after all these years, Ender realized, Ela's voice still had the power to curb Grego's snottiness--sometimes, at least.

  "I've tracked some of these conversations for as many as a hundred statements and answers. Most of them die out much sooner than that. A few of them are incorporated into the main body of the virus. But here's the most interesting thing--it's completely voluntary. Sometimes one virus will pick up that dart and keep it, while most of the others don't. Sometimes most of the viruses will keep a particular dart. But the area where they incorporate these message darts is exactly that area that has been hardest to map. It's hardest to map because it isn't part of their structure, it's their memory, and individuals are all different from each other. They also tend to weed out a few memory fragments when they've taken on too many darts."

  "This is all fascinating," said Grego, "but it isn't science. There are plenty of explanations for these darts and the random bonding and shedding--"

  "Not random!" said Quara.

  "None of this is language," said Grego.

  Ender ignored the argument, because Jane was whispering in his ear through the jewel-like transceiver he wore there. She spoke to him more rarely now than in years past. He listened carefully, taking nothing for granted. "She's on to something," Jane said. "I've looked at her research and there's something going on here that doesn't happen with any other subcellular creature. I've run many different analyses on the data, and the more I simulate and test this particular behavior of the descolada, the less it looks like genetic coding and the more it looks like language. At the moment we can't rule out the possibility that it is voluntary."

  When Ender turned his attention back to the argument, Grego was speaking. "Why do we have to turn everything we haven't figured out yet into some kind of mystical experience?" Grego closed his eyes and intoned, "I have found new life! I have found new life!"

  "Stop it!" shouted Quara.

  "This is getting out of hand," said Novinha. "Grego, try to keep this at the level of rational discussion."

  "It's hard to, when the whole thing is so irrational. Ate agora quem ja imaginou microbiologista que se torna namorada de uma molecula?" Who ever heard of a microbiologist getting a crush on a molecule?

  "Enough!" said Novinha sharply. "Quara is as much a scientist as you are, and--"

  "She was," muttered Grego.

  "And--if you'll kindly shut up long enough to hear me out--she has a right to be heard." Novinha was quite angry now, but, as usual, Grego seemed unimpressed. "You should know by now, Grego, that it's often the ideas that sound most absurd and counterintuitive at first that later cause fundamental shifts in the way we see the world."

  "Do you really think this is one of those basic discoveries?" asked Grego, looking them in the eye, each in turn. "A talking virus? Se Quara sabe tanto, porque ela nao diz o que e que aqueles bichos dizem?" If she knows so much about it, why doesn't she tell us what these little beasts are saying? It was a sign that the discussion was getting out of hand, that he broke into Portuguese instead of speaking in Stark, the language of science--and dipl
omacy.

  "Does it matter?" asked Ender.

  "Matter!" said Quara.

  Ela looked at Ender with consternation. "It's only the difference between curing a dangerous disease and destroying an entire sentient species. I think it matters."

  "I meant," said Ender patiently, "does it matter whether we know what they're saying."

  "No," said Quara. "We'll probably never understand their language, but that doesn't change the fact that they're sentient. What do viruses and human beings have to say to each other, anyway?"

  "How about, 'Please stop trying to kill us'?" said Grego. "If you can figure out how to say that in virus language, then this might be useful."

  "But Grego," said Quara, with mock sweetness, "do we say that to them, or do they say that to us?"

  "We don't have to decide today," said Ender. "We can afford to wait awhile."

  "How do you know?" said Grego. "How do you know that tomorrow afternoon we won't all wake up itching and hurting and puking and burning up with fever and finally dying because overnight the descolada virus figured out how to wipe us out once and for all? It's us or them."

  "I think Grego just showed us why we have to wait," said Ender. "Did you hear how he talked about the descolada? It figures out how to wipe us out. Even he thinks the descolada has a will and makes decisions."

  "That's just a figure of speech," said Grego.

  "We've all been talking that way," said Ender. "And thinking that way, too. Because we all feel it--that we're at war with the descolada. That it's more than just fighting off a disease--it's like we have an intelligent, resourceful enemy who keeps countering all our moves. In all the history of medical research, no one has ever fought a disease that had so many ways to defeat the strategies used against it."

  "Only because nobody's been fighting a germ with such an oversized and complex genetic molecule," said Grego.

  "Exactly," said Ender. "This is a one-of-a-kind virus, and so it may have abilities we've never imagined in any species less structurally complex than a vertebrate."

  For a moment Ender's words hung in the air, answered by silence; for a moment, Ender imagined that he might have served a useful function in this meeting after all, that as a mere talker he might have won some kind of agreement.

  Grego soon disabused him of this idea. "Even if Quara's right, even if she's dead on and the descolada viruses all have doctorates of philosophy and keep publishing dissertations on screwing-up-humans-till-they're-dead, what then? Do we all roll over and play dead because the virus that's trying to kill us all is so damn smart?"

  Novinha answered calmly. "I think Quara needs to continue with her research--and we need to give her more resources to do it--while Ela continues with hers."

  It was Quara who objected this time. "Why should I bother trying to understand them if the rest of you are still working on ways to kill them?"

  "That's a good question, Quara," said Novinha. "On the other hand, why should you bother trying to understand them if they suddenly figure out a way to get past all our chemical barriers and kill us all?"

  "Us or them," muttered Grego.

  Novinha had made a good decision, Ender knew--keep both lines of research open, and decide later when they knew more. In the meantime, Quara and Grego were both missing the point, both assuming that everything hinged on whether or not the descolada was sentient. "Even if they're sentient," said Ender, "that doesn't mean they're sacrosanct. It all depends whether they're raman or varelse. If they're raman--if we can understand them and they can understand us well enough to work out a way of living together--then fine. We'll be safe, they'll be safe."

  "The great peacemaker plans to sign a treaty with a molecule?" asked Grego.

  Ender ignored his mocking tone. "On the other hand, if they're trying to destroy us, and we can't find a way to communicate with them, then they're varelse--sentient aliens, but implacably hostile and dangerous. Varelse are aliens we can't live with. Varelse are aliens with whom we are naturally and permanently engaged in a war to the death, and at that time our only moral choice is to do all that's necessary to win."

  "Right," said Grego.

  Despite her brother's triumphant tone, Quara had listened to Ender's words, weighed them, and now gave a tentative nod. "As long as we don't start from the assumption that they're varelse," said Quara.

  "And even then, maybe there's a middle way," said Ender. "Maybe Ela can find a way to replace all the descolada viruses without destroying this memory-and-language thing."

  "No!" said Quara, once again fervent. "You can't--you don't even have the right to leave them their memories and take away their ability to adapt. That would be like them giving all of us frontal lobotomies. If it's war, then it's war. Kill them, but don't leave them their memories while stealing their will."

  "It doesn't matter," said Ela. "It can't be done. As it is, I think I've set myself an impossible task. Operating on the descolada isn't easy. Not like examining and operating on an animal. How do I anesthetize the molecule so that it doesn't heal itself while I'm halfway through the amputation? Maybe the descolada isn't much on physics, but it's a hell of a lot better than I am at molecular surgery."

  "So far," said Ender.

  "So far we don't know anything," said Grego. "Except that the descolada is trying as hard as it can to kill us all, while we're still trying to figure out whether we ought to fight back. I'll sit tight for a while longer, but not forever."

  "What about the piggies?" asked Quara. "Don't they have a right to vote on whether we transform the molecule that not only allows them to reproduce, but probably created them as a sentient species in the first place?"

  "This thing is trying to kill us," said Ender. "As long as the solution Ela comes up with can wipe out the virus without interfering with the reproductive cycle of the piggies, then I don't think they have any right to object."

  "Maybe they'd feel different about that."

  "Then maybe they'd better not find out what we're doing," said Grego.

  "We don't tell people--human or pequenino--about the research we're doing here," said Novinha sharply. "It could cause terrible misunderstandings that could lead to violence and death."

  "So we humans are the judges of all other creatures," said Quara.

  "No, Quara. We scientists are gathering information," said Novinha. "Until we've gathered enough, nobody can judge anything. So the secrecy rule goes for everybody here. Quara and Grego both. You tell no one until I say so, and I won't say so until we know more."

  "Until you say so," asked Grego impudently, "or until the Speaker for the Dead says so?"

  "I'm the head xenobiologist," said Novinha. "The decision on when we know enough is mine alone. Is that understood?"

  She waited for everyone there to assent. They all did.

  Novinha stood up. The meeting was over. Quara and Grego left almost immediately; Novinha gave Ender a kiss on the cheek and then ushered him and Ela out of her office.

  Ender lingered in the lab to talk to Ela. "Is there a way to spread your replacement virus throughout the entire population of every native species on Lusitania?"

  "I don't know," said Ela. "That's less of a problem than how to get it to every cell of an individual organism fast enough that the descolada can't adapt or escape. I'll have to create some kind of carrier virus, and I'll probably have to model it partly on the descolada itself--the descolada is the only parasite I've seen that invades a host as quickly and thoroughly as I need the carrier virus to do it. Ironic--I'll learn how to replace the descolada by stealing techniques from the virus itself."

  "It's not ironic," said Ender, "it's the way the world works. Someone once told me that the only teacher who's worth anything to you is your enemy."

  "Then Quara and Grego must be giving each other advanced degrees," said Ela.

  "Their argument is healthy," said Ender. "It forces us to weigh every aspect of what we're doing."

  "It'll stop being healthy if one of them decid
es to bring it up outside the family," said Ela.

  "This family doesn't tell its business to strangers," said Ender. "I of all people should know that."

  "On the contrary, Ender. You of all people should know how eager we are to talk to a stranger--when we think our need is great enough to justify it."

  Ender had to admit that she was right. Getting Quara and Grego, Miro and Quim and Olhado to trust him enough to speak to him, that had been hard when Ender first came to Lusitania. But Ela had spoken to him from the start, and so had all of Novinha's other children. So, in the end, had Novinha herself. The family was intensely loyal, but they were also strong-willed and opinionated and there wasn't a one of them who didn't trust his own judgment above anyone else's. Grego or Quara, either one of them, might well decide that telling somebody else was in the best interests of Lusitania or humanity or science, and there would go the rule of secrecy. Just the way the rule of noninterference with the piggies had been broken before Ender ever got here.

  How nice, thought Ender. One more possible source of disaster that is completely out of my power to control.

  Leaving the lab, Ender wished, as he had many times before, that Valentine were here. She was the one who was good at sorting out ethical dilemmas. She'd be here soon--but soon enough? Ender understood and mostly agreed with the viewpoints put forward by Quara and Grego both. What stung most was the need for such secrecy that Ender couldn't even speak to the pequeninos, not even Human himself, about a decision that would affect them as much as it would affect any colonist from Earth. And yet Novinha was right. To bring the matter out into the open now, before they even knew what was possible--that would lead to confusion at best, anarchy and bloodshed at worst. The pequeninos were peaceful now--but the species' history was bloody with war.

  As Ender emerged from the gate, heading back toward the experimental fields, he saw Quara standing beside the fathertree Human, sticks in her hand, engaged in conversation. She hadn't actually beat on his trunk, or Ender would have heard it. So she must want privacy. That was all right. Ender would take a longer way around, so he wouldn't come close enough to overhear.