Sarah Zettel - Playing God

"What's that?" Praeis Shin t'Theria straightened up and twitched one sail-like ear.

Lynn Nussbaumer looked up at the tall Dedelphi, craning her neck as far as the helmet on her

clean-suit permitted. Lynn, Praeis, and Praeis's two daughters, Resaime and Theiareth, were clustered

around a worktable in Praeis's airy office at the Crater Town Planning Hall. Now, all three Dedelphi

turned their ears toward the bank of opaqued windows set into the curving, white-plaster wall.

Lynn strained her own ears. A moment later, she heard a low, rumbling throb penetrating the

windows, despite the sound filters.

"I've got no idea what that is." Lynn got to her feet. The rumble increased. "Room voice, open

the windows."

"Opening," replied the building's genderless voice. The silvered windows cleared to reveal a

street paved with every shade of red that Martian stone and sand offered. The sudden flood of daylight

glinted off Lynn's helmet and the layer of transparent organic that covered her from neck to boots under

her functional blouse and trousers.

Normally, the street outside the Planning Hall held three or four knots of Dedelphi pedestrians

and a transport or two. Now, it was crammed with Dedelphi of every age and shade. The rumble

pressing through the window glass was the sound of their collective voices, shouting, cheering, arguing,

and weeping.

"Ancestors Mine," murmured Praeis. "What's happened?"

"I've got no idea." Lynn felt her brow wrinkle. "Room voice--"

"I've got it up already, Lynn," said Resaime behind her.

Lynn and Praeis turned in tandem. Resaime had the wall screen lit up. She and Theia stood hand

in hand in front of it, attention riveted on its scene. Lynn stepped around Theia to get a better view.

Praeis just stared between the tips of her daughter's ears.

The screen showed what looked like a theater. The gallery was crammed with Dedelphi: sail-like

ears, leathery skin, round, multi-lidded eyes, all watching a gathering on a proscenium stage. More

Dedelphi filled the stage, crowding around an oval table. Lynn recognized the Io Elath, the t'Therian's

Queens-of-All, in their stark, black robes. Directly across from them stood the Tvkesh-I-Rchilthen, the

Getesaph's Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead, resplendent in their silver-and-gold jackets.

Dominating the entire scene was a view screen hanging on the stage's back wall. Three soberly

dressed Humans--two men and one woman, all magnified to at least three times life size--looked down

on the crowd of Dedelphi. Behind the Humans shone the green triangle emblem of the Bioverse

Incorporated enclave.

"By the Walking Buddha," breathed Lynn. "Do you suppose they did it?" There had been rumors

on the info-web for months that Bioverse Inc. was negotiating a bioremediation deal with the entire

Dedelphi homeworld, something completely unheard of in all the Dedelphi's long, war-torn history.

As if to answer her question, the tallest of the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead lifted her pen from off the

stiff, white treaty board. "It is done," she said in staccato Getesaph. A host of white-lettered subtitles

flowed across the bottom of the screen.

On the screen above the stage, the trio of Humans beamed like proud parents.

Each of the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead picked up a treaty board. Their jackets shimmered in the

stark light as they walked around the signing table. The boards were symbols, Lynn knew. The real

treaties would be tightly bound stacks of paper sealed into courier cases at the sides of aides and

secretaries standing in the wings. These were just placards that said everyone had agreed to what was in

those books.

The Sisters held the placards out to the Queens-of-All. With stiff, jerky motions, each of the

three Queens took a copy of the treaty and bowed low over it, kissing the freshly dried ink.

Lynn sneaked a look at Praeis. She had gravitated silently toward her daughters, and now the

three of them stood with their arms around one another. Lynn wondered what she could possibly be

feeling. Praeis had been a general for those Queens, a Task-Mother, in t'Therian, and now she watched

them receive treaties from their fiercest enemies.

The Sisters handed two more copies over to the Presidents of the Chosa ty Porath, and three to

the Speakers for the Fil. Each of them took the placard and did nothing but stare at it, almost like they

couldn't believe what was in their hands.

Behind the delegates of the major powers stood those who spoke for smaller nation-families, or

Great Families, as the t'Therians called them. They were a broken rainbow of colors. Their skin was

everything from the t'Therians bluish grey to the Getesaph's greyish pink. Their clothing ranged from

jeweled purple to unbroken, midnight black. They received no treaties. Probably, they had been ordered

by their stronger neighbors to obey, and these grouped here had said they would. Each had presumably

decided they had lost enough people to the plagues already.

The copies of the treaty boards distributed, the two Getesaph Sisters turned to the shifting

audience.

"The Confederation is in place and will be enforced by all members. The delegates who have

included their names and pledges on the treaty of agreement are all empowered to deal with the Humans.

We here together will save these lands and islands that hold us all. Save them from this plague, save them

from the poisons and pollutions that threaten to overwhelm them."

A few more ragged cheers rang around the gallery, overlaid by calls of "Do it!" "Save the

daughters!" "Find immunity!" in different languages.

"So," breathed Praeis, visibly tightening her arms around her daughters. "The plague has

accomplished for us what nothing else could"

At that moment, the door burst open. Four Dedelphi, all the t'Therian blue-grey, two with

daughters clinging to their backs and squealing with delight, charged in and surrounded Praeis, Resaime,

and Theiareth. The Dedelphi pounded one another's backs and clasped hands and babbled on top of one

another until Lynn couldn't follow what was going on, but evidently they were happy about the treaties.

"You must speak, Mother Praeis." One of the t'Thenans grabbed Praeis's hand and hauled her

toward the door.

"All right, my Sisters! All right!" laughed Praeis. The hesitations Lynn had seen in the set of her

ears and shoulders seemed to have vanished. They probably had, thought Lynn. They were whirled away

by the enthusiasm of these members of her Great Family.

Praeis looked back at Lynn, her ears weaving in mock distress and real apology.

"Go. Go," Lynn said, laughing and waving her on. "Who else should be making speeches right

now?"

A storm of approval issued from the t'Therians. They half pushed, half pulled Praeis out of the

office with the willing and noisy help of both her daughters.

Chuckling to herself, Lynn crossed back to the windows and looked out at the crowded street.

The Dedelphi were a powerfully built species. Praeis Shin stood a half meter taller than a tall

man, even when her flexible, sail-like ears pressed flat against her scalp. Her adolescent daughters were

Lynn's height. Their leathery skin hung in folds that rippled gently or forcibly, depending on their mood.

Perfectly circular, multi-lidded eyes were set high above the long vertical slits of their nostrils. Thick lines

of muscle ran under the milky skin of their lips. Their bellies swelled gently where the pouch protected

their mammary glands. The effect was heightened by the stiff belly guards a number of the cultures wore

under their clothes.

And right now they were making riot in the street below. Sisters whirled each other around.

Mothers tossed their daughters into the air. Cousins stood talking, gesticulating wildly with hands and

ears. In a couple of places, sisters had squared off for what might become honor brawls. Several of the

clean-suited Human security guards apparently thought so, too, and edged along their balcony and

rooftop stations for closer looks at the potential trouble.

"Room voice," said Lynn. "Shut off the sound filters."

"Shutting off."

With the filters gone, the crowds roar pushed at her like an ocean wave. There had to be

upwards of two hundred voices out there, all letting loose at full volume, and the noise doubled when

Praeis's escort pulled her out of the Planning Hall.

"Mother Praeis!" voices shouted. "Mother Praeis! Tell us the news! Mother Praeis! Let's hear

your words! Mother Praeis!"

Praeis's escort shoved her up onto the edge of the public fountain and bundled her daughters up

beside her. Lynn folded her arms and nodded approvingly. They made a pretty picture down there;

Praeis in her sienna skirt and cream tunic flowing over her belly guard, flanked by her daughters in

blue-and-gold saris. The sun was still above the crater wall, and it touched everything with gold.

Praeis dipped her ears in respect and agreement to the crowd, and for the first time, the noise

level dropped to a murmur.

"My Sisters," began Praeis. "Sisters of my blood, my near family, my Great Family, and those

who are sisters of strangers to me!"

Diplomatic, thought Lynn. The t'Therians had a lot of expressions for those who weren't in the

Great Family. The most complimentary was Other.

"Today we learned of a great thing; our sisters at home have made a bargain that will end the

plague that has killed so many of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters!" Reverent silence at that.

"Today is the new beginning! Today we may hope for life, for the future, and for, greatest of all, a

homecoming!"

Cheers, waving ears, raised hands. Lynn shook her head. Trust Praeis to know what not to say.

Don't bring up the fact that many of the sisters out there fled from the continuous warfare as much as

from the plagues that the warfare let loose. Let everyone who wanted to hope that the deal around that

table meant an end to both.

Lynn watched Praeis step off the fountain's edge into the arms of her Dedelphi sisters, and the

Others. Mother Praeis Shin the Townbuilder, said those who liked her. Praeis the Cold-Blooded, said

those who couldn't understand why she didn't get furious at the drop of the hat in the normal Dedelphi

fashion. Praeis, who, unlike the other inhabitants of Crater Town, was not a refugee. She was an exile.

The ones who knew that had worse names for her, and some of them might have gone for blood.

But--Lynn glanced again at the Human security guards on the roofs and highest balconies--Praeis's

planning had made sure that Crater Town had law enforcement that was beyond the influence of the

Dedelphi's fractious anger, as much for her family's sake as for the good of the colony.

Lynn went back to the worktable. Obviously, no more work was getting done today. The crowd

in the streets would be cheering and debating for hours, and Praeis would be in the thick of it. Lynn

touched the keys on the table's edge to save the city map they'd been working with. She subvocalized the

record command to her camera implant and stored an additional working copy, in case she had any

brilliant ideas on the way home.

Three waves of the plague had hit Crater Town. The sickness had been brought in by refugee

ships, and despite steadily tightened quarantine controls, transmitted through families. Now, between

thirty and forty percent of the colony's housing stood empty. The Building Committee had decided to

raze the empty buildings as potential health hazards. Lynn and Praeis had met that morning to try to come

up with plans for how to use the empty spaces the demolition would create.

Thirty percent. Lynn closed her eyes against the memories of the mass funerals, the dead and

dying in their isolation beds, the wailing of the sisters left behind. Hundreds of Human doctors, armed

with the best defenses years of research and biotech could devise, had volunteered themselves to help

the fight, but they'd only made a small dent in the death tolls. Praeis had lost two sisters and four

daughters, and Lynn had been there to watch.

Lynn's fingers hurt. She opened her eyes and looked down. Her gloved hands clenched the edge

of the worktable like they were trying to break it off. Feeling moderately foolish, she let go and finished

storing the maps.

Praeis liked to try to give Lynn credit for the success of the Crater Town colony, but Lynn would

just shake her head. "I just helped out with the gardening," she said. "You're the one who got people to

actually live here."

When the original Dedelphi refugees had shown up, they weren't fleeing plague, they were fleeing

war. They arrived in the ships of Human mercenary pilots. They stood torn between fear and pride at the

customs stations of enclaves, space stations, colonies, and city-ships--anybody who'd let them land and

would agree to give them a berth of some variety in return for work or good publicity.

Then came Praeis and her sisters, Jos and Shorie. They saw the scattered, meek Dedelphi

population in the Solar system, and they got to work. They found a crater that the Martian enclaves

hadn't bothered to foliate. They convinced twelve separate boards and committees that it would be an

incredible act of public charity to give it to the Dedelphi so the Dedelphi could have a home where they

could be safe from the Human poison that was a constant danger to themselves, their sisters, their

daughters.

Praeis and her sisters tramped all over the system gathering donations, equipment, and skilled

help. The refugee Dedelphi responded tentatively at first, but then with growing enthusiasm, especially

since many of them had daughters who had never been out of their clean-suits.

Lynn's family, famous for their re-creation of Earth's Florida peninsula, were recruited to foliate

the crater in a style that would be comfortable for the Dedelphi. It was the work of a number of years.

Lynn, her portable screen still warm from receiving her doctorate, had fallen in love with the job, and

fallen into friendship with Praeis Shin. When the rest of her family left, Lynn stayed behind. The foliation

wasn't complete, she said at the time. There wasn't nearly enough variety in the fields and gardens. They

didn't have a trained maintenance force yet.

Her family had nodded sagely at each other, hugged her, and let her stay. Everybody knew what

was going on, and approved. Back in Florida, Lynn would be tweaking work that had been completed

fifty or seventy-five years ago. Here, she had her own projects, and they were worthwhile ones. Not one

relative said one word to protest her basing herself on an entirely different planet.

Her decision had won her the gratitude of the Dedelphi, a number of awards from assorted

enclaves, and a handful of really bad nightmares from the plagues. But it was real, and important, and she

loved it.

And now ... And now what comes next? Lynn wondered toward the windows. What if they

all do go home? What am I going to do?

She shook her head and laughed quietly. Nussbaumer, you selfish little so-and-so.

As it turned out, it was three hours before the crowds in the street shifted enough for Lynn to get

through to the monorail that would take her out of the crater and across the rust-and-green landscape to

the Ares 12 Human colony. On the way, in her private cabin with its opaqued window, she shucked out

of her clean-suit and helmet and stuffed them into her duffel bag. The suits were awkward, but absolutely

necessary. Direct contact with Humans caused massive anaphalactic reactions among the Dedelphi. The

touch of a Human hand could raise welts on Dedelphi skin. Human dander sent the Dedelphi respiratory

system into massive shock. The first encounter between Dedelphi and Humans had lasted three days

before five of the Dedelphi died of heart and respiratory failure. There had been confusion and bloodshed

on all sides before it was understood what had happened.

Lynn brushed down her shoulder-length auburn hair. Since she didn't actually live with the

Dedelphi, she'd been spared the necessity of depilating herself to keep her dander to a minimum.

Ares 12 was a residential community. Its homes and stores were built out of native brick and

stood glittering a thousand shades of red in the late-afternoon sun. The city founders had worked hard to

get thornless climbing roses to grow in the soil that remained sandy after three generations, but they'd

been successful. Roses--pink, orange, red, white, and yellow--grew in riotous bundles everywhere and

climbed up walls the way ivy climbed up walls in towns on Earth. Lynn breathed their perfume in as she

walked from the monorail station to the house she shared with her partner, David Zelotes.

Unlike the streets in Crater Town, the streets of Ares 12 were empty. If any of the Humans had

gotten the news about the Dedelphi, they were discussing it over the info-web, if at all.

The cream-and-burgundy front room of her home was also empty when Lynn walked in, but she

heard David's voice coming out of his study. A strange voice followed it.

Caller on the line, she thought, and went into her own comfortably untidy study. The antique

furniture was covered with disks, films, slivers, actual books, maps, dirty dishes, and half-empty coffee

cups. The cleaning jobber sat in a corner, turned off, as usual, with a china mug and half a stale sandwich

balanced on it.

"Claude," she called for the room voice as she dropped the duffel into the corner and herself into

her desk chair. "Any messages?"

"One urgent message from Emile Brador, Vice President in charge of Resource and Schedule

Coordination for Bioverse Incorporated Enclave."

"What?" Lynn shot up in her chair. Bioverse were the ones who just signed the deal with the

Dedelphi.

"One urgent message--"

"Claude, stop. Claude, deliver message."

"Vice President Brador asks Lynn Nussbaumer to connect with him as soon as possible. He has

an open thread waiting for her and has left his address with her home system."

What does Bioverse want with me? "Claude, thread me through to Mr. Brador."

"Threading." Pause. "Connection complete."

Lynn swiveled her chair to face her wall screen.

Emile Brador, Vice President in charge of Resource and Schedule Coordination for Bioverse

Incorporated Enclave, appeared on the screen. He was a tidy man, slender, but not small. His round,

pale eyes were set in a pinched brown face, making him look like a startled owl. His office, or at least its

simulation, was a model of antique gentility with a lot of leather chairs and wooden paneling.

"Good evening, Dr. Nussbaumer," said Brador. "I want to thank you for taking the time to speak

to me."

"You're welcome, Mr. Brador," replied Lynn in her best formal voice. "I confess, I'm a bit

uncertain what you wanted to speak to me about though. I'm assuming it's got something to do with the

foliation program for Crater Town?" Bioverse was a biotech corp. They were always looking for new

techniques, or new genomes.

"Actually, we'd like to extend you an offer of citizenship."

Lynn blinked, startled. "That's very interesting, but I'd have to think about it."

Brador nodded. "I fully understand, Dr. Nussbaumer. You are a citizen of excellent standing and

family in the Miami Environs and Greater Florida Enclave. When you're not on Mars, you're living on

land your family re-created from bottom sand and ancient records. There, you have your pick of lifetime

employment situations." He spread his blunt-fingered hands. "And what am I offering? A chance for you

to cut your ties to your family, surrender your allegiances, and leave home for fifty years or more." He

leaned forward. "But I'm also offering a chance for you to help save an entire world."

Nice opening, Vice President Brador. She looked back at tidy Veep Brador in his tidy office.

She felt her back stiffen.

"Mr. Brador, exactly what do you want me for?"

She meant to shock him, but Brador's mouth just quirked up. A good sign, probably.

"As of yesterday," he said, "Bioverse Inc. has a contract with the Dedelphi--"

"Yes, I untied the web knot," Lynn cut him off. "Impressive. I thought getting all the Dedelphi

Great Families to agree on something was impossible."

"That's what I thought." Brador nodded, and, for the moment, the vice presidential mannerisms

dropped. "The Getesaph and the Fil actually contacted us over a year ago, but what they want... It was

decided we couldn't make a contract without a worldwide agreement."

"What exactly are they asking you to do?" Genuine curiosity prompted Lynn's question. There'd

been so many rumors, and she'd barely skimmed the first thread of the knot in the office with Praeis.

"For a start, we're going to contract a biomedical team and put a stop to the plague they've

unleashed on themselves." For a second, Brador's smile seeped into his eyes. "That is what my colleague

is speaking with your partner, Dr. Zelotes, about."

"That's 'for a start.'" She made quotation marks with her fingers. "What's after that?"

"We are also being asked to perform full-scale bioremediation efforts to clean the planet up after

two centuries of extremely dirty warfare."

Lynn sat back and rested her elbows on the chair's arms. She knew a fair amount about the

world that Humans called Dedelph. There were places on that world that glowed in the dark. There were

places you couldn't see from space because of the industrial haze. The Dedelphi never developed

anything like the bio- and eco-tech that had allowed Humans to repair Earth and build themselves some

brand-new homes on other worlds. To clean and repair a whole world after all those centuries of

eco-disaster... Something warm surged through her.

With a little difficulty, Lynn set that feeling aside and looked back at Brador again.

"What are we going to do about the anaphylactic reactions?" she asked. "You can't drop

thousands of Humans, and it is going to be thousands, right?" Brador nodded. "Thousands of Humans in

the middle of a population they can kill by breathing on them."

The vice president overshadowed Brador again. "That is an exaggeration."

Lynn shook her head. "Not by much, it isn't."

Brador reached over to his main desk and touched its surface. The upper right-hand corner of

the office scene cleared, replaced by a simulation of a ragged archipelago of space stations on a field of

night and stars. "The center of our operations will be space-based until we can evacuate the

population--"

"Until we what?" Lynn gripped her chair's arms. A couple of implants beeped in protest.

Brador folded his hands in front of him. "We're going to move the population onto city-ships and

go to ground with nanotech and biosculpt."

For a second, Lynn remembered she was in the middle of a very high-powered job interview

with a representative of a huge corporate enclave.

In the next second, she decided she didn't care. "Are you out of your corporate mind?" she

demanded. "We're talking about a billion people!"

"One point three billion, by the most recent estimate," replied Brador. He touched his desk again.

The space simulation was replaced by a population-distribution chart.

Lynn stared at it without reading it. "One point three billion people who, despite what we saw

today, have a long history of hating each other's genomes and going for blood when they can." She threw

up both hands. "You're going to move them onto city-ships--" She stopped and did a quick calculation.

"There aren't that many city-ships in existence!" Lynn turned away for a moment, staring at her window.

The evening sun turned the stone veranda a brilliant scarlet. She faced her interviewer again, somewhat

more in control of herself. "Vice President Brador, you can't be thinking of jamming these people into a

bunch of retooled freighters! This ... project ... is going to take at least fifty years!"

"Probably more like seventy-five." His pinched face and round eyes were absolutely sober and

serious. "And no, we're not putting them in retooled freighters. We are going to place them in fully

functional, city-ships, many of which will be custom-built." The graphic changed to a construction

blueprint. "Our engineering teams are already at work in the Dedelph system asteroid belts. We expect

an eighty percent need fulfillment within the year."

"How are you planning on scheduling an evacuation for a billion people? Do you have any idea of

how many a billion is?"

"Generally: It's a thousand, million." His expression did not waver.

"And what," said Lynn, looking him directly in the eye, "are you going to do with the plague

victims during this evacuation?"

Brador remained unfazed. "Each city-ship will be equipped with a hospital quarter capable of

holding ten thousand patients. Again, we hope your partner, Dr. Zelotes, will be helping with their

relocation and care."

Lynn rubbed her forehead. "You're going to have to keep a billion Dedelphi, sick or well, housed

and fed and comfortable during the evacuation. You're going to have to have a responsive grievance

team, a clear, concise schedule, a comprehensive crisis scenario ..." She broke off, running her hand

through her hair. "If you're not careful, this cure is going to be a whole lot worse than the disease."

"Yes. That's why we need you." Brador leaned forward. What Lynn had thought was poor

lighting on his face turned into a full day's worth of five o'clock shadow. Whatever he'd been doing lately,

it hadn't even left him time to depilate. "Are you aware of the reputation you possess, Dr. Nussbaumer?

Not only for your ability to work with the Dedelphi, but for your massive success in coordinating and

directing their colony's foliation and agricultural efforts."

"I had a lot of help," said Lynn, refusing to let herself be flattered. "And you still haven't said

exactly what it is you want me for."

Brador's eyes glittered. "I want you to organize and coordinate the relocation. For a start."

Lynn opened her mouth and shut it again. "And for my next trick?"

"Coordinate and manage the southern-hemisphere microrecon-struction teams."

Lynn just sat there for a moment. To give a whole race their lives back, give them their world

back, alive and clean and new ...

"You're going to be allowing time for a complete life-web survey, right? Micro- and

macroscopic?"

Brador nodded. "We have some teams down there already, and we're shipping out more this

week. The bases will be up and running by the time you're there to help coordinate activities and

information."

Twenty years' work right there, mapping the ecosystem of an entire planet so they could take it

apart and put it back together again. "And we'll be customizing the bioremediation tools based on the

local ecostructures, correct?"

"We'll be designing them from the ground up, if we have to," said Brador. "If you and your

colleagues decide we have to," he added. "We will go over the entire planet one inch at a time with every

nano we can breed."

"Why not just drop a couple of asteroids on the place and start from the ground up?" she asked

half-facetiously. "It'd be faster, and cheaper."

Brador's face remained impassive. "The Dedelphi are hoping we can do this without completely

destroying their civilizations' infrastructures. We've agreed to try. Several of our teams are going through

what archives and libraries there are, trying to find out what exactly conditions were like two hundred

years ago."

There probably wouldn't be much. None of the Great Families had much time or many resources

for pure research. That was just one of the reasons why, despite the fact that they were at least as old as

Humanity, their technology was at late-twentieth-century levels, at best.

Brador wasn't admitting it, but a lot of the bioremediation was going to be guesswork. They

could interview the oldest Dedelphi they could find and hear what their mother's mother's mother had

said the world was like. Maybe they'd find a record or two about some extinct creatures, but, as far as

determining exact ratios of, say, rain forest to grassland, or the proportions of bacteria in the soil of a

specific area, or the original extent of a coral reef, the teams would have to work from simulations and

educated speculation. They really would be building a whole new world....

A thought struck her. "What are the Dedelphi giving Bioverse in exchange for these miracles?"

Brador's smile slipped back into place. "Anything useful we find."

Lynn sucked in a breath. Except for a handful of isolationist enclaves, all the worlds in the Human

Chain ran on nanotech. Nanotech ran on proteins and DNA. For all the talk there'd been once about

microscopic fans and gears, the really useful technology turned out to be tightly controlled biochemistry.

Bioverse had been offered a planetful of untapped biochemistry.

"Think about it." A light shone in Brador's round eyes. "They've fusion-bombed whole islands,

and yet there're still living organisms on them. Bacteria that are radiation-hardened. We can turn those

into assemblers that can't be interrupted by a fluctuating electromagnetic field. They've got huge pits filled

with untreated inorganic debris, and there're living organisms in there. We could make those into

disassemblers of incredible efficiency. They've got algae blooms big enough to turn a whole bay colors

and tough enough that all that industrial pollution can't wipe them out. That's a whole new way to eat

gaseous toxins next time we want to convert a gas giant." He waved his hand. "We had all this on Earth

once, but we bulldozed it to clean the place up." He must have caught something sour in her expression,

because he stopped himself. "I know, I know, to be fair, we didn't know what we had, or how to handle

it. We had to bulldoze it." The light returned to his eyes. "But now we have a second chance.

"We've got four conglomerates and six enclaves planning their economies for the next century

around this project, Dr. Nussbaumer. We're going to save a world. Want in?"

A billion people. A billion people to transport and shelter and accommodate in all the billion ways

each of them would need. Negotiations and treaties to begin and maintain. They'd have to cap wars that

had smoldered for centuries. They'd have to clean out and rebuild an entire world.

"I'll need to consider it," she said with what she hoped was an appropriate blend of aloofness and

cautious interest.

Brador's smile was merely polite, but Lynn had the distinct feeling she hadn't fooled him for a

second. "Of course. Your room has my direct address. You may contact me at any time."

They said polite farewells, and Lynn cut the connection. She sat dazed at the enormity of the

project Brador had just offered her. Finally, she shook herself and returned to the living room.

David was there, his long frame stretched out on the couch. Three of the windows were clear to

let the end of the Martian day shine into the room. The fourth showed the treaty signing. The

Queens-of-All were just receiving the treaty boards from the Sisters-Chosen-to-Lead.

She crossed the thick, burgundy carpet to stand behind the sofa and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Sarah Zettel - Playing God

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