“Did you feel that way when they were your own?”
“I didn’t know which were mine at the age of that unfortunate youth,” I said. “We lay our eggs in common, you know. We go to our local common ground, to the laying house. I’d lay my eggs into a receiving basket and take the basket to the house supervisor. The supervisor would put them in the room set up for the eggs the house received that day. Thirty or forty women would lay eggs at a house each day. Ten to fifty eggs each. Fifteen of our days to hatch and then another five days before the outside door to the room was opened to let the surviving young out into the park. We didn’t see the eggs again once we left them. Even if we went back the day the outside door was opened, we wouldn’t know which of the survivors were our own.”
“But I’ve met your children.”
“You met them after they grew into consciousness,” I said. “Once you’re an adult, you’re allowed to take a genetic test to learn who your parents are, provided they had consented to be placed in the database. The two you met are the ones who decided to find out. I may have had others who survived but they either didn’t take the test or chose not to contact me. Not everyone asks to know. I didn’t.”
“It’s so—”
“Alien?” Tarsem nodded. I laughed. “Well, Tarsem, I am an alien to you. And you to me. And all of us to each other. And yet, here we are, friends. As we have been for most of our lives now.”
“The conscious parts of it, anyway.”
I motioned back to the rock, where the youth who had run away had returned. “You think the way we cull our young is cruel.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Tarsem said.
“Of course you wouldn’t say it,” I said. “You wouldn’t say it because you’re diplomatic. But it doesn’t mean you don’t think it.”
“All right,” Tarsem admitted. “It does seem cruel.”
“That’s because it is,” I said, turning again to Tarsem. “Terrible and cruel, and the fact that adult Lalans can just watch it happen and not weep in agony over it means that we might be terrible and cruel as well. But we know a story that other people don’t.”
“What’s the story?”
“The story is that not too long ago in Lalan history, a philosopher named Loomt Both convinced most of Lalah that how we culled our young was wrong and immoral. He and his followers convinced us to protect all of our young, to allow them all to grow into sentience, and to reap the benefits of the knowledge and progress so many new thinking individuals would give us. I imagine you think you know where this is going.”
“Overpopulation, famine, and death, I would guess,” Tarsem said.
“And you would be wrong, because those are obvious things, to be planned for and dealt with,” I said. “We did have a massive population boom, but we’d also developed spaceflight. It’s one reason why Both suggested we stop culling our youth. We populated colony worlds quickly and grew an empire of twenty worlds almost overnight. Both’s strategy gave us a foothold into the universe and for a time he was revered as the greatest Lalan.”
Tarsem smiled at me. “If this is meant to be a cautionary tale, you’re doing a bad job of it, Hafte,” he said.
“It’s not done yet,” I said. “What Both missed—what we all missed—was the fact that our preconscious life is not wasted. How we survive our culling leaves its traces in our brains. In point of fact, in a very real sense, it gives us wisdom. Gives us restraint. Gives us mercy and empathy for each other and for other intelligent species. Imagine, if you will, Tarsem, billions of my people, emerging into consciousness without wisdom. Without restraint. Without mercy and empathy. Imagine the worlds they would make. Imagine what they would do to others.”
“They could be monsters,” Tarsem said.
“Yes they could. And yes we were. And in a very short time we tore each other apart and tore apart every other intelligent species we met. Until we had lost our empire and almost lost ourselves. We were terrible and cruel, and in time we wept in agony over it and everyone we had doomed to a conscious death.” I pointed again to the youth on the rock. “What happens to our young on their way to consciousness is pitiless. But it strengthens us as a people. We take our pain and our risk early, and as a result we as a people are saved.”
“Well,” Tarsem said. “This is not what I was expecting when I suggested we meet here. I just thought it was a pretty place to talk.”
“It is a pretty place,” I said. “It’s just not nice.”
“Tell me what you think about the news today.”
“About the Ocampo data?” I asked. Tarsem nodded. “I think it means very bad things for the Conclave. Ristin Lause is right, Tarsem. The Conclave is in a fragile state because you’ve been pushing things too hard, including bringing the humans of Earth into the Conclave. I’ve warned you about that.”
“You have.”