Ambassador 4: Coming Home Read Online Free PDF

an interest in fertility.”
    It was not a question.
    “Well, um . . .” What the hell? Hell, he had gotten into a lot more systems than just security.
    He went on, “We designed the all-purpose colonising genome to be self-sustaining. Unlike ourselves, they do not interbreed.”
    By all-purpose colonising genome he meant Coldi, and he had so far refused to use that name. His every word seemed designed to throw barbs at those very Coldi people.
    “We have noticed the lack of interbreeding.” Why did I even discuss this with him? “But on the other hand, the Coldi sometimes do interbreed, on very rare occasions. The Barresh Aghyrians are descended from those rare occasions.”
    He snorted. “Throwbacks.” Spoken with callous disdain.
    I started wondering what Marin Federza would make of being called a throwback when I remembered how he had come to me, scared from having his apartment ransacked and then was shot at while in my apartment and, damn it, had I even seen him since I’d come back?
    His position as the Trader Guild representative to gamra had been taken by a Kedrasi Trader, and in amongst the plentiful correspondence that had been waiting for me, I’d been informed that a woman called Feylin Herza now spoke for the Barresh Aghyrians at the negotiations for the Aghyrian claim.
    But no one had said anything about Federza.
    Shit.
    I struggled to maintain the conversation. “Those you call throwbacks are people with lives, and job and families. They work for the community. They deserve to be treated with respect.”
    Kando Luczon went on, oblivious to my words. “Throwbacks were possible because some mistakes were made when handling the genome. The main perpetrator of these mistakes lends his name to some of these throwbacks you have here.”
    Waller Herza , his enemy, the scientist who had developed the Coldi. I understood that the Barresh Aghyrians had only started using the Herza name recently.
    “What you call throwbacks, we prefer to call people like everyone else.”
    “The mistakes weaken the genome.”
    “Regardless of these supposed mistakes, the Coldi people have done well enough for themselves.” Coldi society was strong, mature, with enormous depth of talent and determination. What did he mean—weakens the genome?
    He didn’t reply, his standard reaction when the matter discussed was beyond argument. I glanced at his two companions, but their faces were as impassive and haughty as their master’s. Sometimes I wondered if they even listened.
    Thayu shot me a sharp look. I might have pulled a face had Kando Luczon not been with us. Seriously, it was not my idea to discuss the subject of Coldi fertility in the company of a couple of Coldi people and speak over their heads, all right?
    We’d arrived on the platform where a good number of people stood or sat on benches. The train was yet to arrive, but a screen on the wall showed that it was not far off.
    We waited.
    I talked a bit about the location of the dig site, to fill the awkward silence between us. It was talk for the sake of talk. He would have read all of this already. He would probably tell me so soon, to shut me up. Tayron had asked me two days ago why we talked so much, but I couldn’t go out with a bunch of companions who said absolutely nothing to each other. Coldi didn’t do that, keihu didn’t do that. I knew of no people who did that.
    All around us normal train platform life went on. People going to town for errands. Servants doing their daily trips. There was a mother with two young children, a rare sight on the island. People chatted, behaved normally while we stood in uncomfortable silence.
    The train shot out of the tunnel with a whoosh of air. The silver and gold three-car vehicle came to a hissing halt at the platform. The doors opened.
    Because the track ended here, the cabins emptied of people. There were not many, mainly local council people coming to meetings, I guessed, as well as some domestic staff who had