The Draco Tavern - Larry Niven [40]
She said, “Whee-Nisht have completed a cycle, a pattern. They are extinct. Does that always mean something has gone wrong?”
“It would to me,” I said.
Her head nodded above me. Thumbs brushed the sparker. Then, “I saw no reason to interfere when they altered other life-forms. They made and shaped and reshaped foodstuffs, beasts of burden, guard beasts. Yeast analogues became flavoring for food, medicines, perception-altering substances. Plants were bred taller and stronger, to improve structure for their housing, then water-going vessels to explore beyond their domain. When they began using similar techniques to shape themselves, I saw startling implications.
“I acted at once,” she said. “I set a terraforming project in motion on a large island just beyond their horizon. My intent was to build an environment the match for their own, without affecting theirs. Guiding weather patterns required exquisite care. When I finished, there was an island that might house the Whee-Nisht, and a sandy peninsula pointing straight at it.
“Now I—”
I asked, “Why?”
She focused on me. “They had shaped the contraceptive yeast Now they began to breed their offspring and siblings and dependents to make patterns, to conserve wealth and power relations and to shape offspring more to their liking. Crimes were defined and criminals were subject to mental reshaping. I asked myself, how would they otherwise tamper with their selves? One mistake would drive them extinct. It has happened to other species, over and over. Dispenser, what is it your kind uses for reproductive code?”
“Deoxyribonucleic acid,” I said.
“The Whee-Nisht used a different code, being silicon oxide based, but no matter. I was in a race for their lives. By the time they learned how to manipulate their own genetics, I was done. The ocean currents were bringing them bubble plants, telling them of a second habitat beyond the water. They built exploring vehicles, and they found it.”
“Ships?”
“Great translucent tubes, grown as plants, that rolled along sand or waves. They reached my second land and named it Antihome. I watched them build a base and explore from there. I waited for them to enlarge it. My intent was that they would build a city. Nearby they could do their biological experiments, where any mistake could be confined.”
She touched the sparkers again, held too long. I waited.
She asked, “Do you understand why this self-tampering kills so many species? It is so easy, so cheap. Knowledge of genetic code is not needed. What you like, breeds. What you don’t like, you uproot. Planned breeding may take generations, but not wealth. It is exploration that eats wealth. Your kind could tamper with yourselves for a million years for the cost of putting a city on your Moon, using your own primitive techniques.
“But you, you have the option! Most species could not travel between worlds. It would kill them. The Whee-Nisht could barely cross a channel, half dead of motion sickness and running like thieves along their rolling ship, and reach an island prepared for them.
“And they threw it away.
“They explored, and came home, and stopped. They abandoned their bases, their tools, everything.
“Their laboratories shaped a cure for a genetic disorder out of a yeast variant. They did not guess that it would prevent the next generation from breeding. They did not guess that it would spread through their spiracleanalogues and infect all. I watched them grow old and die, and this time I did not interfere.”
I asked, “Did you ask advice from other ... xenoanthropologists ? Others of your profession?” Amateur godlings? But a million years of practice does not leave an amateur.
“No.”
Was she a jealous god? Or—“Ssoroghod, were you exiled?”
“No and yes. There was a professional quarrel, my view against the galaxy’s. I could not return until I knew answers I could show. So, here I am returned, and the answer is that I was wrong. What else must you know, intrusive creature?”
As an invitation to go away, that was hardly subtle. I asked instead,