Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue

who knows? So the tribe that found it, the Leefs, they went from smelting ore to seven-dimensional calculus in less than a year.”

“No way.”

“Way. I’m serious, the intellect here is off the freakin’ charts. And they age more slowly than we do, so the amount they retain over an average lifetime is just crazy.”

She opened her mouth to ask a question, but Cole headed her off. “Don’t interrupt, I’m getting to the important part. So, they had incredibly advanced tech within three years. The Leefs gained an advantage—and they guarded it closely. Nearby tribes were nearly hunted to extinction with their new weapons. I imagine the tribes on the other side of Glemot still have legends about what happened over here.

“Of course, they didn’t just build weapons. They also built the first complex devices common to all tech- savvy races. Radios, micro/telescopes, the sensors that augment our senses. That’s when they spot the ‘gods’ in the sky.”

“The Navy.”

“Right, the Navy. So they try and communicate with them using means that were actually beyond our ability, or maybe we weren’t listening. Either way, the legend is that they tried everything to hail our boys in black, but no response. So guess what they did—they built their first ship and flew up to say hello! Needless to say, they were pretty disappointed. They learned about the GU and the GN, and they came back and had a Council meeting, a famous one. They still talk about it all the time.”

“What was it about?”

“What to do next. There were two main lines of thought. The leaders of the original Leef  Tribe, a tribe that now lives in the forests beyond here, they wanted to expand out and exterminate what they saw as a danger to the natural order. Namely, our entire race.”

Molly’s eyes widened at this.

“Yeah, I had the same reaction. Luckily for us, one of the Glemots, another male named Campton, saw the Leef response as the ultimate disruption of the natural order. His thinking was that whatever aliens did with their creations was also part of the natural way of things.”

“What, like beehives and anthills?”

“Exactly. Which was heresy to those that hated the new technology, especially once they learned about its ‘impure source.’ These guys wanted to use some technology to destroy all technology. The Glemots following Campton wanted to use as little technology as possible to restore the balance they had before.”

“So the tribe that just ‘accepted’ me, they’re the good guys?”

“There aren’t any good guys here. Not in my view. Granted, I’m glad the Campton Tribe formed and kicked some Leef butt or the war with the Drenards would look like a cake-walk in comparison. Look at what they did with our ship, what they must have done with the UN ships. The fact the Navy was ousted from the OS and never won it back must be a mere hint of what they can do. Now imagine ground warfare with those things.”

Cole’s voice trailed off as a Glemot thundered by, rushing from the woods and back up the hill. Molly’s gaze followed the lumbering beast. She tried her hardest to imagine a brutal side to these creatures. She couldn’t. But mainly because she was still resisting the idea that they could do harm. “But this place is paradise,” she complained.

“Paradise at a cost. I was talking to one of the younger Glemots last night, a kid named Edison—”

“What’s up with the names?” she interrupted.

“Hah. I picked up on it, too, and one of the adults confirmed it. The Camptons name themselves after famous human engineers. The ones they think did more good than harm. They know all about our history, more than you and I combined. They got all kinds of data files from the Orbital Station, but getting back to the point—I was talking to Edison last night and he’s a cool kid. Well, I say kid, but the guy is smarter than any human I’ve ever met, even though he’s still considered a pup. I have no idea how old he is in Earth years, but he comes across as a complete prodigy when he talks.

“Anyway, Edison was talking about today’s Council and comparing it to one several years ago. The Camptons—the tribe you and I belong to—found out the tribes on the other side of the planet were reproducing too quickly. They were warring less and finding new resources for food. This was deemed so serious that a truce was called between the Leefs and the Camptons. They came together and devised a solution.”

“Which was?”

“A new disease. Genetically targeting a specific strain common to two of the largest tribes on the other side of the planet. Like I said, the Camptons won the civil war and they have the tech they need to keep things in balance. So they released this disease and killed the tribes.”

“All of them?” Molly looked horrified.

“Millions of them.” Cole stopped walking and looked out over the lake.

Molly felt her stomach churn. They stood in silence for awhile. Finally, Molly said, “But it’s so beautiful here.”

“Depends on where you look.”

They had wandered close to the forest again and turned to follow the stream back toward the tents. Molly wasn’t sure what to say, or even what she believed at the moment.

“We have a name for what the Glemots live by, you know.”

“Crazy?” Molly suggested, even though she grudgingly admired the results of their actions.

“No, Molly, these guys aren’t crazy, they’re just driven by an extreme form of something you and I fall for all the time.”

“What?”

“The naturalistic fallacy. It’s when our aesthetic sense of beauty in nature confuses us into thinking that if it exists there, it must be good. Or maybe ‘right’ is a better word than good.”

“I’m not following you. It’s obvious to me that if I think that lake is beautiful then it is beautiful; that’s all our emotions are.” She really didn’t want to get into a philosophical discussion. She barely passed that class and hated every subjective minute of it.

“No, deeper than that. It’s when we think that whatever state we happen to find our world in when we become philosophically aware must be the state we keep it in. Even though the world changed naturally leading up to this understanding, we think we shouldn’t allow it to progress any further.”

“I really don’t want to talk about this, Cole.”

“It’s important if we’re going to get out of here.”

“Why leave?” She threw her one good arm up. “Where could we go that’s better than this? Let’s say I clear things up with the Navy, run a shuttle or courier service for the next forty years. You know what I’d want to do with the money I saved? I’d want to come build a house right over there and live the rest of my days strolling through these forests and swimming in that lake and collecting bugs.”

Cole frowned at her; she’d never seen him look so sad. “That sounds great. Really, it does. But they wouldn’t let you build that house ’cause it’d destroy the look of the shore. They wouldn’t let you walk the same path every day because you’d trample the soil. And if you deviated from whatever they calculated the ‘norm’ was, they’d kill you with a vote. I’m sorry, and trust me, I’ve gone through the same emotions over the last day, and I hate that you have to do it with less time, but we need to finish this conversation.”

Molly shook her head. “This talk is worse and more confusing than being in prison on Palan was.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Yeah, a little,” she admitted, but not smiling. “Okay, forget the philosophy stuff. Even if we assume that our survival depends on getting away from this paradise, how do we fly away from them if my ship is being dismantled and they can control it from orbit anyway?”

“Simple,” said Cole. “We start a war.”

“We do what?!”

“Hear me out: not every Glemot agrees on what balance to fight for. Hell, not every Campton agrees with