“That’s different,” Moira began. But she was interrupted by Dinah.
“Hold on a sec,” Dinah said. “I’m aggressive. I always have been. I was on track to be an Olympic soccer player! That’s the only way I’ve ever been able to amount to anything—by channeling my aggression into doing things.” She nodded across the table at Tekla. “Hell, look at her! How many times has she saved our asses by being aggressive?”
Tekla nodded. “Yes. Dinah saved me by taking aggressive action against rules of space station. Problem is not aggression. It is lack of discipline. A person can be aggressive”—she nodded at Dinah—“and still be constructive in society if she controls her passions.” And she threw a significant glare at A?da, who let out a little snort and looked away.
“So you’re suggesting we breed people for discipline and self-control?” Ivy asked. “I’m not sure if I follow.”
“I believe that Camila was merely saying that certain personality types, taken to an unhealthy extreme, are as bad as diagnosable mental illnesses per se. If not worse,” Julia said.
“I don’t want you to speak for me,” Camila said. “Please do not speak for me anymore, Julia.”
“I am merely trying to be helpful,” Julia said. But where the old J.B.F. would have said it reproachfully, the new one merely seemed exhausted.
Dinah broke in. “Well, what I am trying to say is that I don’t appreciate being labeled as a genetic freak that needs to be eradicated from the human future.”
“No one would say that of you, Dinah,” Ivy said. “Camila’s talking about the knuckle draggers who tried to kill her for wanting an education.”
“And what is your opinion?” Tekla asked Ivy.
“Similar to yours. Aggression is fine. It needs to be controlled. Directed. But the way to do that is through intelligence. Rational thought.”
That elicited a cackle from A?da. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about the Swarm. Eight hundred people all carefully hand-selected for intelligence and rational thought. In the end, all we could think about was how they tasted.”
“None of us ate each other,” Ivy said.
“But you thought about it,” A?da said with a smile.
Dinah slammed her palm hard on the table. She sat still for a moment with her eyes closed tight, then stood up and walked out of the room.
“I guess she is not disciplined or intelligent enough to control her aggression!” A?da cracked.
“It is a form of self-discipline,” Tekla said. “So that she would not kill you. You see, A?da, thinking about doing such things and doing are different. This is why greater discipline is a requirement.”
“Sweetie, what do you mean when you speak of discipline?” Moira asked. “I’m just trying to cash that word out in terms of genetics. I can find a genetic marker for cystic fibrosis. I’m not sure if the same is true of discipline.”
“Some races are disciplined. Is fact,” Tekla said. “Japanese are more disciplined than . . . Italians.”
She gave A?da a stare that would have frozen most people to their chairs, but A?da just threw her head back and laughed exultantly. “You are forgetting the Roman legions, but please go on.”
“Men are more disciplined than women. Is just fact. So there must be genes for it.”
This produced yet another silence, eventually broken by Luisa: “I’m seeing a side of you I didn’t know about, Tekla.”
“Call me bad, call me racist if you want. I know what you will say: That it is all training. It is all culture. I disagree. If you do not feel pain, you do not respond to pain. And hormones.”
“What about hormones, lover?” Moira asked. Her affection for Tekla was obvious, and took some of the tension out of the room.
“We all know that when hormones are a certain way, emotions have big impact. Other times, not so much. This is genetic.”
“Or maybe epigenetic. We really don’t know,” Moira said.
“Whatever,” Tekla said. “My point is that for people to live in tin cans for hundreds of years requires order and discipline. Not from above. From within. If there is a way to make this easier with your genetic lab, then we should do it.”
Luisa said, “We never explored Ivy’s point that intelligence was key.”
“Yes,” Ivy said, with a glance at A?da. “I was interrupted.”
A?da covered her mouth with her hand and sniggered theatrically.
Ivy went on: “If we are really going to open the door to genetic improvement of our offspring, then it seems obvious to me that we should look to the one quality that trumps all others. And that is clearly intelligence.”
“What do you mean it trumps all others?” Luisa asked.