Grail - Elizabeth Bear [45]
When Tristen turned to his sister, Cynric cocked her head like a curious snake. She entertained the ghost of a smile for him, but it was Nova who spoke. “What greater moral purpose is there than survival? And more important, what greater motivator?”
It was the old Evolutionist argument, and he was as tired of it as he was tired of God. Nova did not always sound like an Angel—or what Tristen thought of as an Angel, with the weariness of long experience, because however she spoke was how an Angel sounded—and so it was easy to find it shocking when the old orthodoxies tripped from her tongue.
“Moral?” Cynric said, while Tristen folded his arms and watched. “I am not sure DNA admits of morality. Like sadism, morality is a human perversion. The compulsion of the individual and the species to sustain itself may be the opposite of morality.”
“We have no greater moral claim on survival than the competition does,” Tristen said, and was unsure if he was agreeing or arguing.
Perceval cleared her throat, leaving Cynric looking at her doubtfully. But Perceval was the Captain, and even Cynric the Sorceress—heretic, turncoat, revenant—might find her sacrifice intimidating. Or worthy of respect, though Cynric, too, had sacrificed most profoundly.
Perceval was gentle with Nova when Cynric would and Tristen could not be, although he knew that gentleness cost Perceval dear. She was training the Angel as much as the Angel was training her, and he knew that she was doing it consciously, with an eye to Nova as her legacy—a Nova who would be less the machine of the Builders, and more something … humane, although Tristen wondered if that wasn’t the wrong word, when humanity so consistently proved itself quite perfectly monstrous.
Perceval laid a hand on the back of her chair. She stroked it as if she were stroking the cheek of a sorrowful friend. When Nova’s avatar looked at her, simulated eyebrows rising, Perceval said, as if to a bright child, “What Aunt Cynric is saying is that morality complicates survival, it doesn’t justify it.”
Nova’s expressions grew more human with each passing week. Now her brow furrowed, dark under the cropped silver hair, and her lower lip pushed into her upper one at the center. Perceval looked down, marshaling her thoughts or seeking after a better explanation.
Cynric must have taken pity on her, and Tristen, and Nova too. She folded her arms in their trailing robes and said, “And life-forms—especially sapient ones—have a demonstrated propensity to act counter to their own interests and the interests of others when their belief systems get involved. We select the evidence that supports our preconceptions, we defend the indefensible, we bring a host of shibboleths and projections to the argument simply because we believe. We hold grudges, we compete in manners injurious to both parties—we are, in short, not rational actors. And all because our brains are awkwardly designed, and in some ways not particularly well suited to the task for which they have adapted. Our ideas of fair play are not divinely inspired. They are game theory, and while they work well when confronted with other primates adapted to living in social groups, they have drawbacks when we run up against things that do not subscribe to monkey definitions of morality.”
There was silence in the Bridge for one heartbeat, two. Tristen wondered if he should find it distressing when Cynric spoke so, with the phrases of a bygone worldview. But it never seemed to discomfort him; instead, there was something soothing and poignant in the reminder of their shared youth.
Nova spoke, breaking the meditative quiet. “I do not understand what bearing this has on the conversation at hand, Lady Cynric.”
Cynric ducked her head and stroked her own hair back. “Your brain, dear Nova, is different from ours. Yours is designed, and you have