“Well,” Jared said, smiling back. “I try.”
“Okay, I’m going to go,” Zo? said. “Daddy’s taking a nap. He doesn’t know I’m here. I’m going to go wake him up because I’m hungry.”
“You go do that, Zo?,” Jared said. “Thank you for visiting, Zo?. I’m really glad you came by.”
“Okay,” Zo? said, turned around, and waved back to him as she went. “Bye, Mr. Jared! See you later.”
“See you later,” Jared said, knowing he wouldn’t.
“Love you!” Zo? said, in that casual way that kids do.
“Love you too,” Jared whispered, as a parent. He waited until he heard a door close down the adjoining hall before he let himself release the ragged, tearing breath he had been holding in.
Jared looked at the lab, his eyes flitting over the console Boutin had brought in to manage the consciousness transfer, and lingering on the second crèche Boutin had brought in, the one in which he would place himself before sending over his consciousness to Jared’s body, wiping out Jared’s existence as if he were simply a placeholder, something put there to mark time until the body’s true owner could take possession.
But then, Jared thought, wasn’t that actually the case? It was Boutin who was intended to be in this body. That was why it was created. Jared was allowed to exist only because Boutin’s consciousness refused at first to take up residence. It had to be coaxed in to share the mindspace Jared had created as caretaker. And now, irony of ironies, Botuin wanted it all, wanted to push Jared aside entirely. Damn it, Jared thought crazily. I just got this brain set up the way I like it! He laughed, and the laugh sounded shaky and weird to his ears. He tried to calm himself, bringing himself into a more rational state breath by breath.
Jared heard Boutin in his head, describing the wrongs of the Colonial Union, and heard the voice of Cainen, whom he trusted more to be honest about these things, echoing the sentiments. He looked into his own past as a member of the Special Forces, and the things they had done in the name of making the universe “safe for humanity.” The Colonial Union did straddle every line of communication, directed every course of action, kept every aspect of humanity under tight control, and fought nearly every other race they knew of with persistent ferocity.
If the universe was as hostile as the Colonial Union said, perhaps this level of control was justified, for the overarching racial imperative of holding ground and making a place for humans in the universe. But if it wasn’t—if what was fueling the Colonial Union’s constant wars was not competition from the outside but paranoia and xenophobia from the inside—then Jared knew that he and everyone he’d known inside the Special Forces and out of it could have, in one way or another, led to the slow death of humanity that Boutin assured him was out there. He would have chosen to refuse to fight.
But, Jared thought, Boutin isn’t reliable. Boutin labeled the Colonial Union as evil, but Boutin also chose to do evil things. He caused three separate races—two with long-standing issues—to come together to attack the Colonial Union, exposing billions of humans and billions of other intelligent creatures to the threat of war. He had experimented upon and killed Special Forces soldiers. He was planning to kill every single member of Special Forces and every other CDF soldier with his BrainPal virus, something akin to a genocide, considering the numbers and the unique makeup of the Colonial Defense Forces. And in killing the Colonial Defense Forces, Boutin would leave the colonies and Earth defenseless against any race who chose to claim one of the colonies as its own. The Obin couldn’t stop the land rush from these other races—and probably wouldn’t even if they could. The reward for the Obin was not land but consciousness.
The unprotected colonists would be doomed, Jared realized. Their colonies would be destroyed and there would be nowhere for them to go. It wasn’t in the nature of the races in this part of the galaxy to share their worlds. Earth with its billions might survive; it would be hard to displace billions of humans without a fight. The more sparsely populated and less ecologically burdened colony planets would be far more attractive. But if someone decided to attack Earth, and the Earth had indeed been held back by the Colonial Union for its own purposes, it wouldn’t be able to fully defend itself. It would survive, but the damage would be immense.