Ascending - James Alan Gardner [136]
“But if the Shaddill made us to be their children,” I said, “why did they make our brains Tired?”
Silence. I was about to say, You see, I have defeated your arguments, when Nimbus spoke softly. “Perhaps they didn’t want you to grow up.”
I whirled upon him. “What do you mean?”
“Perhaps,” he said, still very quiet, “there comes a time—even for beings designed to remain childlike as long as possible—perhaps there comes a time when childhood has to end. When the brain reaches a point where it must either become adult…or become nothing. And the Shaddill preferred you to be nothing.”
His fog wisped in close to me, brushed my cheek, then swirled toward the others. “A while ago,” he said, “Oar and I had a conversation about the Cashlings—how much they’ve degenerated since they were uplifted. Other races have too; even humans and Divians are getting worse.”
He paused, as if waiting to see if anyone would challenge him. The others said nothing; indeed, Festina and Uclod both nodded in solemn agreement. “Suppose,” Nimbus said, “the Shaddill are behind that degeneration. Suppose it’s not just the result of affluence and indolence, but something else: a poison, a virus, radiation, who knows? The Shaddill are advanced enough to sneak some subtle contamination into our environment without us noticing.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Aarhus said. “With all the monitoring we do for pollution, medical threats, any sort of harmful influence—”
“Sergeant,” Festina interrupted, “how long have we had FTL fields? Yet we never discovered how they could be strengthened by the sun. If the Shaddill could hoodwink us on that, why not something else? YouthBoost treatments, for instance—supposedly a gift from the Shaddill to help us all live longer. Every Technocracy citizen over twenty-five gets regular doses. If there was something in YouthBoost that very very slowly, over the course of centuries, damaged the human genome…caused cumulative mental regression…” She shook her head angrily. “And YouthBoost is just the most obvious possibility. Degenerative agents could be hidden in any of the other so-called ‘gifts’ they gave us. Or disseminated in some other way entirely.”
“But the Shaddill wouldn’t do that!” Lajoolie protested. “They’re good…and benevolent…”
Her voice trailed off. After everything that had happened, not even the warm-hearted Lajoolie could force herself to believe the Shaddill were generous benefactors.
“I think,” Nimbus said, “the Shaddill have been waging a war against other sentient races for thousands of years. Not to conquer territory, but to suppress competition. When a species reaches the point where it’s beginning to venture into space, the Shaddill show up with armloads of gifts; and somewhere amidst those presents is a booby-trap that gradually turns the uplifted race into mental defectives who will never cause the Shaddill trouble.”
“But that is horrible!” I cried. “Surely the League of Peoples would object.”
“No,” said Festina, “not if the poison doesn’t actually kill. And not if the uplifted race accepts the gift freely. The League prevents outright murder…but it doesn’t stop anyone from making choices that are suicidally stupid.”
“But why would the Shaddill do such a thing?” Lajoolie asked in a trembly voice.
“Maybe from fear,” Uclod answered, taking her hand in his. “Think about it from the Shaddill’s viewpoint—there were all these other intelligent races in the same region of the galaxy, and bit by bit, those races were developing their own technologies. Sure, the Shaddill had a headstart…but maybe they were afraid someone else would catch up. If another species was a tiny bit smarter or luckier or harder-working, the Shaddill might eventually get left in the dust. And what could they do to stop it? The League doesn’t tolerate violence, so the Shaddill couldn’t directly destroy potential threats. Instead, they got sneaky.”
“Trojan horses,” Aarhus murmured. “Gifts that slowly but surely neutralized any race who