by John Ringo
In the new apprentice’s case, the clan had made vague mumblings about administration work and bought out the childling’s contract, apportioning his former duties among other apprentices in his family. The Darhel had never marked him as particularly smart or talented — Indowy being careful about such things, Clan Aelool more than most.
The head of his breeding group was also unusually smart. She had made certain the child displayed some conspicuous mistakes and clumsiness in his work, making the Cnothgar Group happier than not to see the slow-learning, incompetent youngling become someone else’s problem. If he thought about it at all, the Cnothgar Group’s local factor would assume the clan had removed the little fuck-up to someplace where he couldn’t further dishonor Clan Aelool.
“I do not understand why you are such a determined contrarian regarding human civilizability, Clan Father Aelool. I have read the other clans’ reports on the failures of the Sub-Urb dietary experiments, and, most respectfully, they run exactly counter to your positions. My wisdom is lacking. Enlighten me, please?” his new apprentice said.
“Ah. You are fond of kaeba pie, are you not?”
“Well, yes. Who is not?”
“But you more than most. If someone tried to get you to give up kaeba pie by offering you only mashed loogubble in exchange, how happy would you be to cooperate?”
“Please do not ask me to make this sacrifice for Clan Aelool, sir. I will, most certainly, but…”
“It would be a great sacrifice. I know.” His eyes crinkled in the Indowy equivalent of an impish grin. “That is, more or less, what our enlightened colleagues among our own race and the others attempted to do with the humans.” He clucked his tongue in a “tsk” picked up from humans.
“Would it surprise you to know that the humans have established in excess of one hundred specialized colonies, in the areas that were totally destroyed, in pursuit of the different varieties of bean for this continent’s favorite bean soup? These barbarian carnivores — yes, I know they are — consume bean broth in the megaliters. How many specialized colonies do you think they have established in pursuit of favorite meats?”
His younger clanmate shuddered, “Ugh. What a question. Thousands, at least, based on your bean data.”
“Zero,” the Indowy Aelool said. “Exactly none.”
The other Indowy actually stopped walking in consternation, then appeared to have a thought dawn. “That is easily explained, Clan Father. They raise captive populations of most of the meat animals they most prefer. Perhaps it is more difficult to grow their beans in various places, with their primitive technologies.”
“Partially true. Yet there are meat animals they used to eat — do not shudder, we miss things when we look away too soon — that they like, that they have not reclaimed. Then there are twenty-something specialized colonies dedicated to replanting large populations of another bean whose fermented products are particularly favored by their females — and consumed in no small quantity by many males.”
“If they are so fond of these beans, why did the Sub-Urb experiments not feed them these beans rather than other foods?”
“A mere deficiency of metabolism. The lipids and sugars forming the food value of these much-favored vegetative foods can only be metabolized by the humans into energy, not synthesized into the building blocks needed for major body maintenance and repairs. The Sub-Urb plan failed because those carrying it out were too lazy or too careless. The carnivores disgust them, so they equated all beans to all other beans and substituted beans and seeds that do provide the compounds humans can metabolize — as we have in the food facilities for humans on this base, as well. With the problem being that the humans tolerate those foods but are about as fond of them as we are of loogubble.”
The youngster shuddered.
“The first thing one would think is to fortify the favored beans with the necessary compounds. Again, the problem is the humans hate the taste or the texture of the fortified beans.”
“So why are you so preoccupied with catering to their aesthetic whims?”
“If we want them to change their behavior without resistance, we must make them prefer to do so. If you were offered meat on your plate or kaeba pie, which would you eat?”
“Neither! The dead flesh would make me ill!”
“You would eat the kaeba pie, or even loogubble, in preference at least partially because you like it better. Philosophy be damned, it suits your preferences.”
The youngster winced.
“The obvious solution never occurred to the relevant planners. Provide the humans with the ability to metabolize the vegetable foods they already prefer into the nutrients they need. It was too much trouble to take with the disgusting, immoral, primitive carnivores.” The clan head’s own disgust was obviously for the planners, not the humans. It was an almost blasphemous rebuke of their recognized wisdom.
“Clan Father, in another, I would consider the assertion of one’s wisdom over those planners as presumptuous. You, however, are such an eminent xenologist, and my Clan Head, that I must consider the possibility that your wisdom, in this, may exceed theirs. Is it permitted for me to ask if you have evidence?”
“I am so glad you asked. You see, we are going to my human dietary laboratory. You will please excuse the decor. It is designed to make the humans especially comfortable with the foods that proceed from it. First, let me confess that I have taken the small ethical liberty of fortifying the foods with specialized nannites that convert the food compounds available to the ones necessary for human health. The nannites build up in the system of humans who consume the foods and make the preferred stream of vegetable substances much more nutritionally available to those humans. I do not tell them about the enhancements.”
“That is quite an ethical lapse, if you will forgive my horribly impertinent comment.”
“It is. I believe they would consent if they knew. I believe they would then also imagine deficiencies of taste in the foods. This belief is the result of other experimentation in their kitchens. True meat was presented, falsely, as vegetatively enhanced. They not only claimed to notice a taste difference, they preferred the true meat so presented much less than the true meat honestly presented. Oh, do not shudder so. They would have been eating it anyway, and they would not, as one of us, be misled into an ethical breach — they perceive no ethical reasons to prefer the vegetative offering, anyway. That particular deception had no negative ethical value for the humans — I checked with the human planner Nathan O’Reilly. He has also approved this experiment, on the grounds that if the ones eating the nano-enhanced foods like the taste, and have no adverse health consequences, they are getting a pleasant treat and little more. I do confess his approval probably was contingent on the way I presented the information — truthfully, but in a persuasive way. Could I please attempt to produce aesthetic human treats as long as I endeavored to ensure they were healthy and did not impair the functionality of his operatives and staff?”
“Well, if their planner approved, of course it is ethical. Why did you not tell me that at the beginning?”
“The humans would not entirely agree on that ethics evaluation, customarily requiring individual consent.”
“Insane,” Rael Aelool echoed the sentiment he had heard, often though surreptitiously, from his elders.
“Not for them,” his Clan Head contradicted. “Alien minds are alien. If we want their cooperation, we must respect that. Do not wince. To ignore the differences in alien minds in our dealings with them is the height of folly. If we had not once done so with the Darhel, all this plotting and intrigue — this Bane Sidhe — would have been unnecessary to begin with.” The clan head had the expressions of an instructor commencing a class.
“From your enthusiasm, it almost sounded as if you were going to tell me they are not that different from you and me.” The child’s wry tone was an unwitting display of his genius.
“What? Of course they are different. Incalculably different. They ar
e aliens. That is my whole point. We respect the Tchpth; we respect the Himmit; we even, after a fashion, respect the Darhel. We had better, out of sheer survival interest. We wrote the Darhel off as primitive because of their history. Short-term thinking to our long-term sorrow. One would think we had learned nothing from our mistake.”
“So are we to respect the Posleen next?”
“Interesting question, despite your ironic tone, but one for another day. The course of study for your immediate future is humans. First lesson. Forget ‘insane’ unless you are talking about an organism that is a mentally damaged individual of its species. Alien and damaged are not the same thing. The thought patterns and behaviors of a healthy individual in a species are the way they are because they served an evolutionarily positive function for that species. Yes, there are evolutionary dead ends, but too often we Indowy say ‘insane’ when what we really mean is ‘not like us,’ ” the clan head lectured.
“Humans have tried, many times, social structures very similar to our way. The results have been abysmal — for the sole reason, I believe, that they are not us. Your first assigned reading for discussion tomorrow is Bradford’s chronicles of the Plymouth Colony. You may use my translation; get it from my buckley. As you read, keep in mind that these were mentally healthy humans, of a high degree of ethical development for the species, virtually all of whom deeply believed a way like ours would work and wanted it to work. Do not make the mistake of assuming it failed because of a few aberrants who sabotaged it. Instead, look at how application of a system that would have worked for Indowy served the whole. Our whole premise for why our way is moral is how it serves the whole,” he emphasized.
“First lesson — always evaluate human species’ sanity in terms of how their systems of social organization serve the whole of that society. It is human societies that are their analogues of our clans, not their ‘families.’ Families are incorrectly classified in the literature as proto-clans. In this assignment, think of them as breeding groups, instead. That analogy is usually, but not always, more apt than the proto-clan one. We will study why and when later. For a start, the O’Neals are a bit more of the exception than the rule. I find I am usually most correct when I think of the entire O’Neal Bane Sidhe as now folded into Clan O’Neal. Usually, I think of the human Father Nathan O’Reilly more as a senior clan planner serving at the pleasure of the O’Neal Clan Head. It is very close to accurate, and often the best approximation for Clan Aelool purposes.”
“I do not understand. The human planner O’Reilly’s leadership in the human component of the Bane Sidhe considerably predates the split,” his apprentice said. “He is accepted as being of senior rank to the O’Neal.”
“True. Yet if it came to an unresolvable policy dispute, the organization would not further split. Instead, Human Planner O’Reilly would choose to relinquish his position, unhappily but without external pressure, in favor of the candidate preferred by the O’Neal. By our standards, all the O’Neal Bane Sidhe are O’Neals. Hence the name. However, for some reason specifying this to him distresses the O’Neal, although he clearly takes full responsibility for all the others. Witness that there is a second O’Neal Bane Sidhe base on Earth. It is his own home, run directly by him. The ‘Edisto Island’ base. The terminology bothers him, apparently out of something the humans call ‘modesty.’ It is no use calling it that to him — modesty is an attribute he does not believe he possesses. I humor him, the Indowy Beilil humors him, as must you. I learned this, by the way, from the Sunday annexation. Clan O’Neal is the most vital human society to the Galactic future, and we must carefully nurture it in a healthy direction. Clan Aelool and Clan Beilil consider the Plan entirely remapped by this unexpected development of Clan O’Neal as a growing human ‘society.’ More or less. Alien minds are alien — the clan to society analogy is not exact. Second lesson for the day. Inflexibility in the face of large situational changes is a countersurvival trait for the whole. A bit of human wisdom, ‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.’ ”
The young Indowy winced again.
The Clan Head sighed, “No, do not shrug it off because of the barbaric phrasing. We Indowy, and all we Galactic races, do that far too much. It means one cannot plan wisely if one does not adapt to large situational changes. How can the humans be rightly considered such irredeemable barbarians if they have wisdoms they can teach us?”
“I am not wise enough to dispute with the wise, Clan Head, but I respect that as a Clan Head with your expertise, you may best judge if you yourself are. Particularly regarding human xenology.”
“In this, I am quite certain that I am correct. Quite, quite certain indeed. Consider the Himmit and Tchpth… unconvinced, but cautiously interested in our research, so long as we manage it as safely as possible. The Tchpth’s human xenopsychology researches take a more direct, active interest in the Michelle branch of Clan O’Neal. Which has implications for some other developing situations, beyond your level of study.”
“That explains much of Clan Aelool policy on a level I can understand. Thank you, sir.”
“Come. Allow me to show you some of the work we do here.”
The Indowy Aelool entered a room decorated in colors and patterns that offended the young Indowy’s eyes, and would have similarly affected all of his species. The Aelool had equipped the room with odd, unexplained human devices. He donned a human-style garment, cut to his size, that covered much of his photosynthetic surface. Then he picked up a flat ceramic disk with brown rectangular solids of food, covered by a clear human plastic. All of this was quite bizarre. If he had not known better, and if the matter were not unthinkable, the young Indowy would have feared for his Clan Head’s rationality.
“All of this presentation is necessary. Especially the ‘apron.’ ” He gestured to the Earth-cloth garment. “Come,” he said again, carrying the disk in his hands as he left the odd room, walking down to the moving box humans preferred to decent bounce tubes.
“These foods, by the way, are completely ethically clean. They are also metabolically enhanced as I described, obviously,” he said.
The Aelool asked his buckley PDA a question in a human language. Fabulous collaboration between the humans and Tchpth, that. The collaboration aspect was unwitting on the part of the humans, of necessity, but still a fabulous invention. Ridiculously fragile and short-lived, but so incredibly inexpensive! Aelool had assured him that it genuinely did not attempt to spy on you. His Clan Head apparently believed it. Amazing.
He spoke no further as he led his younger clan brother into areas frequented by humans. The young Indowy made every effort to copy his senior’s mannerisms, ruthlessly suppressing all natural fear and, especially, thought of fear.
They approached a human that even the youngster had no difficulty identifying as a female, treated for proper longevity or very young adult, in excellent health. Her head tendrils were a pale, silvery yellow and fell to her shoulders. The colorful parts of her eyes were a clear, bright blue.
“Miss O’Neal, my favorite test subject! I am most happy to see you. May I offer you a brownie?” The Clan Head pulled back the flexible plastic, which stuck to itself awkwardly, and presented the disk of food to the woman.
“Oooh. Thanks, Aelool.” She picked up a brown square and began munching rapidly. Her smile tried to cover the teeth, but with imperfect effect since she was eating the food.
He tried to look away, and kept his gestures under control, but could smell the stink of his own fear pheremones begin to waft into the air. Fortunately, he had been told, humans could not scent or recognize them. This one’s nostrils flared, though, in a way that made him doubt his information. Still, she seemed thoroughly preoccupied with the food.
“Walnuts and chocolate chunks? You’re getting good at this Aelool. I don’t know why you picked this for a hobby, but I approve!” Again, she grinned around a mouthful of the food, bits of which stained her white teeth brown. “Do you mind if I… ?” She picked up f
our more squares eagerly, disappearing down the hall as if afraid he might take them back.
After she was out of sight and out of hearing, Aelool muttered softly to him. “Completely ethically clean food. Completely nutritionally adequate to maintain her. How much meat do you think that human will consume today?”
“Your wisdom vastly exceeds mine, sir. I admit I have no idea. I presume at this stage of your researches you are choosing the more ethically advanced humans?”
The Indowy Aelool’s ears and eyes quirked in suppressed mirth. “Childling, that was Miss Cally O’Neal.”
The dump of fear pheremones overwhelmed him as he shook in sudden reaction, “You brought me near—”
“Please. You were perfectly safe. Miss O’Neal has never killed an Indowy. Such drama. You yourself saw that she was only interested in how much of the clean food she could take without offending me.” He made their race’s equivalent of a shrug. “Do you see why I am convinced of my researches? To answer my own question, Miss O’Neal will almost certainly consume no meat today. She is concerned about keeping excess fat deposits off of her body, so monitors her caloric intake carefully. She will consume a few cups of bean broth, with no caloric enhancement — without enhancement, it has virtually no calories for them. She much prefers these ‘brownies’ to the meat. It really is that simple. I could provide similar clean foods, high in lipids and sugars, and persuade her to replace large amounts of her meat intake — completely on her own initiative. She would feel no deprivation. To the contrary, she would feel guilt for consuming so much ‘junk food.’ ”
