The Ghost Brigades Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    â€œBuilt from the flesh of the dead,” Cainen said.
    â€œFrom her genes,” Sagan said. “Not her flesh.”
    â€œGenes build the flesh, Lieutenant. Genes dream the flesh, wherein the soul resides,” Cainen said.
    â€œNow you’re a poet,” Sagan said.
    â€œI’m quoting,” Cainen said. “One of our philosophers. Who was also a scientist. You wouldn’t know her. May I ask how old you are?”
    â€œI’m seven, almost eight,” Sagan said. “About four and a half of your hked .”
    â€œSo young,” Cainen said. “Rraey of your age have barely started their educations. I’m more than ten times your age, Lieutenant.”
    â€œAnd yet, here we both are,” Sagan said.
    â€œHere we are,” Cainen agreed. “I wish we had met under other circumstances, Lieutenant. I would very much like to study you.”
    â€œI don’t know how to respond to that,” Sagan said. “‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem appropriate, considering what being studied by you would probably mean.”
    â€œYou could be kept alive,” Cainen said.
    â€œOh, joy,” Sagan said. “But you might get your wish, after a fashion. You must know by now that you are a prisoner—for real this time, and you will be for the rest of your life.”
    â€œI figured that out when you started telling me things I could report back to my government,” Cainen said. “Like the rock trick. Although I assumed you were going to kill me.”
    â€œWe humans are a pragmatic people, Administrator Cainen,” Sagan said. “You have knowledge we can use, and if you were willing to be cooperative, there’s no reason you couldn’t continue your study of human genetics and brains. Just for us instead of for the Rraey.”
    â€œAll I would have to do is betray my people,” Cainen said.
    â€œThere is that,” Sagan allowed.
    â€œI think I would rather die first,” Cainen said.
    â€œWith all due respect, Administrator, if you truly believed that, you probably wouldn’t have shot that Eneshan who was trying to kill you earlier today,” Sagan said. “I think you want to live.”
    â€œYou may be right,” Cainen said. “But whether you are right or not, child, I am done talking to you now. I’ve told you everything I’m going to tell you of my own free will.”
    Sagan smiled at Cainen. “Administrator, do you know what humans and Rraey have in common?”
    â€œWe have a number of things in common,” Cainen said. “Pick one.”
    â€œGenetics,” Sagan said. “I don’t need to tell you that human genetic sequencing and Rraey genetic sequencing are substantially different in the details. But on the macro level we share certain similarities, including the fact that we receive one set of genes from one parent and the other from the other. Two-parent sexual reproduction.”
    â€œStandard sexual reproduction among sexually reproducing species,” Cainen said. “Some species need three or even four parents, but not many. It’s too inefficient.”
    â€œNo doubt,” Sagan said. “Administrator, have you heard of Fronig’s Syndrome?”
    â€œIt’s a rare genetic disease among the Rraey,” Cainen said. “Very rare.”
    â€œFrom what I understand of it, the disease is caused because of deficiencies in two unrelated gene sets,” Sagan said. “One gene set regulates the development of nerve cells, and specifically of an electrically-insulating sheath around them. The second gene set regulates the organ that produces the Rraey analog for what humans call lymph. It does some of the same things, and does other things differently. In humans lymph is somewhat electrically conductive, but in the Rraey this liquid is electrically insulating. From what we know of Rraey physiology this electrically insulating