Your One & Only(14)
A Viktor leaned forward. “Samuel, even you have to admit he’s emotionally unstable. After what happened in Copan last year, I seriously think we should revisit termination. We need to move forward with another subject. Better yet, why not terminate the project altogether? I don’t think it’s even necessary.”
The Nyla spoke again. “The project has provided us with valuable DNA. And this thing he does, the music, perhaps that’s something we can use. Our spectral analysis shows there are number properties in the sounds he makes. The Kates, as mathematicians, may benefit if we isolate that particular gene and integrate it into the next Gen.”
“Please.” Carson puffed out his cheeks. “I for one am not comfortable integrating the defective genes of an asthmatic human with violent tendencies. It’s time to end it, as we should have ten years ago.”
“And to be fair,” the Viktor said, “his intelligence hasn’t made anything easier.”
“Intelligence,” Carson-292 scoffed. “I’d hardly call what we’ve seen intelligence. He has no impulse control. He’s violent.”
“That’s not true, Carson,” Samuel said. “Listen, this project represents decades of work. We can still learn from it.”
Carson-292 leaned forward, punctuating his words with a finger thumping the table. “We have other avenues—”
“Avenues that have already failed us,” Samuel said, looking around at the rest of the table. “All of us, we started this project for a reason. We simply cannot continue copying the exact same genetic material over and over again. The samples are degrading. I know you don’t all see it, but we’re losing something. Something Jack might help us get back.”
“Something?” Carson said. “You can’t even articulate what that something might be. Show me a DNA sequence, a genetic marker, anything! I’m done talking about something.”
“He’s talking about that music nonsense Nyla brought up,” Inga said. “It offers us nothing. Even you, Samuel, can’t explain what that’s supposed to be.”
“It’s more than that,” Samuel said. “Carson, you’re so quick to dismiss our human ancestry, but part of who we are is undeniably human. I’m worried we don’t understand how important that part is, and as a result, it will disappear before we’ve even realized it’s gone. I know how some of you feel about Jack, but let’s not let a personal issue color our thinking on the matter.”
“Personal issue?” Carson-292 exploded. “That boy is unstable! Carson-312 has a scar, on his face. Do you realize the damage it’s caused, having a deformity that makes him so distinct from his brothers?”
An image entered Althea’s mind. She pictured the boy on top of Carson, tears streaming down his face and his body bunched into an angry coil, more primitive than anything she’d ever seen.
“Oh, please,” Samuel said. “It’s barely noticeable, a scratch above his eye.” He gestured around the table. “Hassan-295’s nose is different since he fell from a tree when we were nine, and Mei-298’s got the scar on her chin from tripping on the dorm steps. This is nothing.”
“It’s the way he got it,” Carson said. “He was attacked, in his own school, by a human who has no more self-control than a chimp.”
“Did you ever consider it was the isolation itself that caused his violent behavior? That his hostility toward us is a result of the segregation we imposed on him, are still imposing on him? Let him truly be a part of the community. There’s a Pairing Ceremony tonight, if he can’t have an apprenticeship, let him participate in that at least.”
Althea’s hands froze in their note taking. Let him participate in the Pairing? Would the Council actually consider such a thing?
“Samuel,” Inga said firmly, “the Pairings are for the nine models, with ten siblings each. How would that even work?”
Samuel made an obvious effort to soften his tone. “Well, why couldn’t it? We continue the ceremony when a model loses a sibling, don’t we? Inga-296 wanted to give him a human environment, but what he needs is for us to allow him to be one of us. He has no brothers, and the Gen-310s have never really accepted him. We haven’t been fair to him. Even the animals in the jungle have families.”
Carson-292 laughed. “Then let him live in the jungle. The thought of him taking part in the Pairing turns my stomach.”
“Samuel,” Nyla said kindly, “I think you’re too close to the subject to be objective. The next time we discuss this, we’ll have one of your brothers stand in for the Samuels.”
“You think I can’t represent the Samuels?” Samuel said, struck.
“Not in this instance, no.” She looked around the table. The Council members all joined hands, and Althea felt the threads of intricate thought weave through them as they eased the tensions and communed on their decision.
“Good,” the Nyla said as their linked hands dropped. She closed the agenda. “There’s too much resistance to him participating in the Pairing, but he may have an apprenticeship. It must be in the clinic, and only with you, Samuel. The others don’t want to work with him.”
Althea had never witnessed such a conflict among the older generations. She’d always thought by the time a cohort was thirty or forty, they’d gotten over their squabbling and differences. And to see such argument at a Council meeting, where they were supposed to be acting in everyone’s best interest, being mature and rational . . . Why, they’re no better than the rest of us, she thought. Her sisters, with their disagreements about which pattern of new dress to sew, the bickering with the Kates, a Carson trying to push others around, a Hassan getting petulant about the inflexible Ingas. Althea unexpectedly felt the decades of her life stretch before her, taking part in the same arguments and conflicts over and over again. Except with each decade, the stakes would be raised. It wouldn’t be about dresses and ceremonies anymore; it’d be about important scientific experiments, food resources, and the embryo tanks. She’d been so pleased to choose her recorder apprenticeship. It was a privilege to sit in on Council meetings and hear important decisions being made. But this fighting hadn’t been what she expected.