Ambassador 4: Coming Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

been on errands into town.
    We sat on two facing benches, Kando Luczon facing me with our companions on either side.
    “About those mistakes in the all-purpose colonising genome,” Kando Luczon continued the conversation that we had broken off when we got to the platform. He was good at drawing conversations out over a long time. His mind was like an elephant’s: he never forgot.
    From the corner of my eye, I noticed that the muscles in Thayu’s arm tense.
    “We want to rectify them.”
    What? I almost burst out laughing, wanting to say: “Do you know that there are more than ten billion of those mistakes running around in the galaxy?” But at the same time, I sensed that I was finally getting somewhere, finally seeing a corner lifted of the blanket of mystery that covered the Aghyrian purpose. I simply asked, “Why?”
    “Why?” Now he frowned at me. He didn’t usually show emotion, so I also regarded his confusion as a step forward.
    “I understand that you call the Coldi people . . . flawed, but they don’t see it that way.” I felt all hot saying that, keenly aware of the presence of Thayu and Nicha on either side of me. Of all the things I thought I’d be talking about . . .
    “There are flaws,” he said, his voice insistent. “They are the result of the incompetence of certain people.”
    “Don’t we all have genetic flaws? Isn’t that part of what makes us human?”
    “They can be the perfect colonising genome after we fix the flaws.”
    “They’re perfect enough. As I recall from the history of Asto, it took a very, very long time after the meteorite strike for the Coldi to rebuild. Most of the rebuilding has come in the last few hundred years. Civilisation and technological development has accelerated during that time. This is not something that was built into them and they were not given clear maps on how to develop technology. Civilisation is something that comes from within.”
    “They took it all from us and the blueprints we gave them. It’s an outright shame that they took so long to act on the information. As for innovation: they may have added a few things, but it all comes from us.”
    At this point Thayu rose. “I’m not listening to this bullshit.”
    She had been sitting next to the window, so she climbed up on the bench and pushed herself behind me and Nicha and jumped into the aisle. She went to the back of the cabin and found another seat. I couldn’t see her from where I was sitting.
    To be perfectly honest I felt like joining her.
    “Excuse me.” Nicha rose and went after her. I could hear snatches of their conversation.
    Thayu said, “No. I’m through with this. If this arsehole wants to insult people, let him reap the consequences. Someone will turn a gun on him and I won’t be sorry.”
    Nicha replied again, trying to shush her up.
    I faced my three Aghyrian travel companions in a moment of intense awkwardness. Kando Luczon raised his eyebrows.
    He really did not get it, didn’t he?
    And I was utterly failing at making him see our side of the discussion. I’d tried to talk, but he didn’t listen. I’d tried the gamra assembly meeting and what a disaster that had been.
    But his presence here was on my invitation. Because I had, foolishly, believed that I could talk to him. Maybe I did need to be more blunt in my approach.
    I took a deep breath, hesitated, sighed, and said, “The reality is that it makes matters very hard for me if you keep insulting people.”
    There. My heart was thudding.
    “Insult?”
    He met my eyes. Damn, he even had the gall to look affronted. “I was offering a great service to them. We have a full medical facility. We can fix genes.”
    “They don’t want fixing.”
    “Don’t want. . . ?”
    “They’re not broken. They’re people.”
    “But what about the throwbacks?”
    “They happen, especially in the Ezmi clan. They know why it happens now. Those people no longer suffer. They’re happy. They even have