Blindsight

“I said forget the language. Think about the lifestyle. Residents are fish-eaters, eh? They hang out in big groups, don’t move around much, talk all the time.” I heard a whisper of motion, imagined Szpindel leaning in and laying a hand on Michelle’s arm. I imagined the sensors in his gloves telling him what she felt like. “Transients, now — they eat mammals. Seals, sea lions, smart prey. Smart enough to take cover when they hear a fluke slap or a click train. So transients are sneaky, eh? Hunt in small groups, range all over the place, keep their mouths shut so nobody hears ’em coming.”

“And Jukka’s a transient.”

“Man’s instincts tell him to keep quiet around prey. Every time he opens his mouth, every time he lets us see him, he’s fighting his own brain stem. Maybe we shouldn’t be too harsh on the ol’ guy just because he’s not the world’s best motivational speaker, eh?”

“He’s fighting the urge to eat us every time we have a briefing? That’s reassuring.”

Szpindel chuckled. “It’s probably not that bad. I guess even killer whales let their guard down after making a kill. Why sneak around on a full stomach, eh?”

“So he’s not fighting his brain stem. He just isn’t hungry.”

“Probably a little of both. Brain stem never really goes away, you know. But I’ll tell you one thing.” Some of the playfulness ebbed from Szpindel’s voice. “I’ve got no problem if Sarasti wants to run the occasional briefing from his quarters. But the moment we stop seeing him altogether? That’s when you start watching your back.”

* * *

Looking back, I can finally admit it: I envied Szpindel his way with the ladies. Spliced and diced, a gangly mass of tics and jitters that could barely feel his own skin, somehow he managed to be—

Charming. That’s the word. Charming.

As a social necessity it was all but obsolete, fading into irrelevance along with two-party nonvirtual sex pairing. But even I’d tried one of those; and it would have been nice to have had Szpindel’s self-deprecating skill set to call on.

Especially when everything with Chelsea started falling apart.

I had my own style, of course. I tried to be charming in my own peculiar way. Once, after one too many fights about honesty and emotional manipulation, I’d started to think maybe a touch of whimsy might smooth things over. I had come to suspect that Chelsea just didn’t understand sexual politics. Sure she’d edited brains for a living, but maybe she’d just memorized all that circuitry without giving any thought to how it had arisen in the first place, to the ultimate rules of natural selection that had shaped it. Maybe she honestly didn’t know that we were evolutionary enemies, that all relationships were doomed to failure. If I could slip that insight into her head — if I could charm my way past her defenses — maybe we’d be able to hold things together.

So I thought about it, and I came up with the perfect way to raise her awareness. I wrote her a bedtime story, a disarming blend of humor and affection, and I called it

The Book of Oogenesis

In the beginning were the gametes. And though there was sex, lo, there was no gender, and life was in balance.

And God said, “Let there be Sperm": and some seeds did shrivel in size and grow cheap to make, and they did flood the market.

And God said, “Let there be Eggs": and other seeds were afflicted by a plague of Sperm. And yea, few of them bore fruit, for Sperm brought no food for the zygote, and only the largest Eggs could make up the shortfall. And these grew yet larger in the fullness of time.

And God put the Eggs into a womb, and said, “Wait here: for thy bulk has made thee unwieldy, and Sperm must seek thee out in thy chambers. Henceforth shalt thou be fertilized internally.” And it was so.