Ascending - James Alan Gardner [45]
She had no answer…perhaps because she was descended from people who had been insufficiently suspicious of gifts that were too good to be true. Mistrust did not come naturally to persons of her ancestry; I wondered if that was pure accident, or if the Shaddill had deliberately created a situation where people would breed for gullibility.
Hmm…
The Shaddill Spread More Bounty
At the end of twenty years, the Shaddill left the Divian homeworld, never to return. Presumably, they went to help other races on the verge of space travel—because according to Lajoolie, Cultural Improvement was the Shaddill’s chief occupation. In the same way they uplifted the Divians, the Shaddill had visited many other species throughout the galaxy…including Homo sapiens, which is how the human Technocracy got its start four hundred years ago.
My friend Festina had told me that story: how aliens visited Old Earth in the twenty-first century. And she claimed the same aliens had approached some portion of the human race one other time before, in a year she called 2000 B.C. Way back then, the aliens scooped up humans and carried them off to the planet Melaquin…where those humans became my ancient ancestors. The gifts the Shaddill gave my forebears were pleasant underground cities that supplied all their needs, and virtual immortality for their children—which is to say, the children were engineered to be beautiful, clever creatures of indestructible glass.
Like me.
Beware Of Aliens Bearing Gifts
Lajoolie told me that “Shaddill” was a name invented by Divians, meaning “Our Mentors.” The Shaddill themselves never used any special title, preferring just to call themselves “citizens of the League of Peoples”—telling everyone they were good and noble envoys, bringing happy enlightenment to lesser species out of pure gracious generosity.
Hah! I thought. These supposedly nice Shaddill shot us with a Sinister Unconsciousness Ray. They chased Starbiter most mercilessly. They had lied to the Divians about what a Zarett could do, and perhaps they had run from the human navy, like thieves fleeing the scene of a crime. Above all, they had placed a most terrible curse on my people…and our Ancestral Towers were full of the comatose results.
Of course, Tired Brains were supposed to be a lamentable accident due to unforeseen genetic complications. The more I heard about the Shaddill, however, the less I believed in their beneficence.
I said as much to Lajoolie. “These Shaddill are not so kindly as you think. They did you a great disservice.”
The big woman did not answer. She pensively chewed her Zarett meat.
“Did they not unbalance your homeworld?” I asked. “Did they not deliberately drive a wedge between those who stayed loyal to their planet and those who were cut off from their roots by leaving home? Why, for example, did the Shaddill only give YouthBoost to those who agreed to leave? Should they not give it to all Divians, so everyone could live a longer life? Is it not wicked to let many die young, if they could be saved?”
Lajoolie finally swallowed her mouthful. “Not according to the League of Peoples. The League doesn’t require you to take extraordinary measures to save a creature who’s reached the end of its span. The League’s version of sentience is all about your own actions—you’re forbidden to do something that would hasten another sentient’s demise, either through direct action or carelessness…but you aren’t obliged to lift a finger if someone’s dying for reasons unrelated to you.” She shrugged. “It can be a tricky call. Suppose right now I start choking on my food. Are you justified in letting me die because it’s my own fault for trying to eat and talk at the same time? Or do you deserve some blame because I wouldn’t be talking if you weren’t here?”
“It does not matter who is to blame. If you start to choke, I shall squeeze you hard about the middle to make you cough up the blockage. Civilized persons help one another.”
Lajoolie smiled. “Thank you…but that’s not required by League law. If you