Grail - Elizabeth Bear [90]
There was something behind that word, facilitate, Danilaw thought. He didn’t have the time to ferret it out now, but patience would be his reward.
“We have a thing,” he said, “that we call The Obligation. It is made up of many smaller Obligations, each carefully defined, but the essence of it is this: leave the world better—healthier, more complete, more diverse—than you found it.”
“Isn’t that,” Cynric said, “condescending? Doesn’t that set humankind in a kind of stewardship over every other species? Doesn’t that make us the colonialists, responsible for the well-being of primitives?”
Danilaw sat back. He would need time to consider this tack, he thought, before he could argue it successfully.
But Cynric wasn’t done. “Doesn’t that deny the agency of the nonsentient? Doesn’t it argue that we are somehow responsible for them?”
“When we became more able to compete,” Danilaw said, uncomfortable, “we became responsible. We become responsible to protect the natural world. When we become stronger, we become stewards.”
“The world does not reward timidity,” Cynric said.
Tristen placed a hand on her forearm, his long fingers so pale they barely showed against her garb of purest white. “Sister,” he said. “This might not be the time to plumb the depths of philosophy.”
But Cynric shook him off. “Does your philosophy not set humankind apart from nature?” she said. “You speak of protecting the natural world, but nature protects nothing. Nature does not believe in a fair fight. For every mouse, there is an owl. For every spider, there is a wasp. The world destroys to feed itself; it is a zero-sum game, and life consumes life. There is only so much carbon in any given carbon cycle.” She smiled now, as if confident she had one. “Who the hell set you up in loco parentis to the natural world?”
“With power,” Danilaw said, “with strength, there comes responsibility. With maturity come the burdens of maturity. Self-discipline. The acceptance that we do not always get to have what we want just because we are strong and we want it. You are stronger than me. Does that give you the right to take what is mine? Does that give you the dispensation to rob or rape me?”
“Not the privilege,” Tristen said, fingers lacing and unlacing, fisting and unfisting. “But the facility.”
“And in your world, are such things permitted without question?”
Perceval’s hidden smile was growing more patent by the moment. “To prevent such things,” she said, “such abuses of power, that is why we have knights-errant, and Captains, and all of Rule.”
“When they are not abusing that power their own selves,” Mallory qualified. “Not that that would ever happen.”
Perceval snorted. Danilaw decided he rather liked the androgynous necromancer after all.
“When you have an extreme advantage,” Danilaw said, “the gentlemanly thing to do is to reserve its use for those who share it. Or to choose to compete only with equal opponents, and leave the bullying to bullies.”
Cynric leaned forward on her elbows. “I’m not sure if that’s egalitarian or condescending.”
“Cynric,” Perceval said warningly, as Amanda stiffened beside Danilaw. Under the table, Danilaw placed the back of a hand against her thigh. She startled almost imperceptibly before releasing her held breath and turning to him. Primate pissing contests.
Having studied Danilaw’s face for a moment, Amanda turned back to the aliens across the table. “I understand your point,” she said. “In assuming the role of protector, we deny agency. But we deny agency to creatures that may or may not desire it—”
“When you assume stewardship for everything, you domesticate everything,” Tristen said.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Danilaw saw Amanda nodding, though he kept his attention firmly on Perceval and her crew. “And if we do not assume stewardship, we exploit everything.”
Tristen let his folded hands fall apart to