The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

He finished raising the glass, tasting a powerful, bitter, yet smooth coffee that he could feel flowing all the way down to his stomach. “What happened?” Even though the news had been expected, even though there had been nothing else he could have done, Geary still felt a great sorrow at the news. Now he understood Dr. Nasr’s sadness.

“The Shilling Institute was keeping them alive, doing a very creditable job,” Nasr said, lowering his own now-empty glass. “But the bear-cows were taken from the Shilling Institute.”

“The government?”

“No. The courts.” Nasr shrugged. “Well-meaning individuals, well-meaning groups, claimed that the bear-cows deserved a chance to speak on their own behalf, to express their own wishes, to not be kept in what they called a living death. I understand. I was not happy with it, either. But I knew it was all we could do. However, the courts did what they felt obligated to do. They appointed lawyers to act as guardians for the bear-cows, to speak for them in court. And the lawyers argued very well that the bear-cows must be given the same rights as humans.”

Geary sat down heavily, shaking his head. “But they’re not humans. That doesn’t mean they are less than us, but it does mean you can’t use our standards with them. They think differently than we do.”

“So the Shilling Institute argued,” Dr. Nasr said, sitting down opposite Geary. “I was called to testify. I spoke of my experiences with treating the bear-cows. I showed them my medical records. Let them awake, and they would die by willed suicide. It was that simple.”

“But they didn’t believe you.”

Nasr frowned at the deck. “It is a difficult argument, Admiral, to claim that the best treatment for a thinking creature is to keep it forever unconscious. The lawyers, the courts, the well-meaning individuals and groups, they did not want to believe me. Custody was given to the court-appointed guardians. The bear-cows were moved to another medical facility. Well-meaning individuals gathered about them, ready to welcome a new species into friendship with humanity, the sedation was reduced until awareness came to the two bear-cows, and, five seconds later, both were dead.”

The doctor shook his head. “One of the well-meaning people came from the room, looked at me, and cried why? And I said, because they are who they are, not who you wanted them to be.”

“Damn,” Geary whispered.

“It was inevitable, Admiral. You and I deluded ourselves. We did what we would do for humans. Keep them alive and try to find a solution. But any solution is far off. You know some blame you for the awful slaughter of the bear-cows when capturing their ship. I have never been comfortable with that battle, yet I also knew we tried everything we could to avoid such a slaughter. Some commentators outside the fleet, though, have assigned us sole blame for the deaths of the bear-cows, for any hostilities with the bear-cows.”

“I know,” Geary said. “I’ve heard that. Half of the critics claim we caused it because those critics distrust the government, and the other half claim we caused it because those critics distrust the military. There don’t seem to be a lot who are willing to consider the possibility that the Kicks might have had their own reasons for acting.”

“There are many,” Nasr said. “Many who note our attempts to communicate and avoid fighting. But those are not nearly as loud as the others.” The doctor’s tone took on an acid edge of bitterness as he continued. “I have never before been accused of malpractice, not until now. In the court, they said I must have caused the deaths of the other bear-cows by somehow radiating an attitude that led the bear-cows who gained consciousness to assume they had to immediately kill themselves.”

“You’re being blamed?” Geary asked, appalled. “Nobody cared more for the fate of those creatures than you did.”

“But there must be a villain, Admiral.” Nasr sighed heavily. “I was not permitted in the room, or near the room, where they awakened the bear-cows. I understand from those who were there that the well-meaning individuals were offering wide smiles of welcome to the bear-cows as the sedation was reduced.”

“Smiles? Did no one read our reports? Didn’t they realize that to a prey animal those smiles looked like predators getting ready to chow down?”

“Data that conflicts with beliefs is often ignored,” the doctor said. “It has been a serious problem in every field, including in medicine, even among those who should know better.”

Geary closed his eyes, trying to calm himself instead of shouting out in anger. The coffee in his stomach felt heavy now. “So those last two Kicks didn’t just die. In a very real sense, they were murdered by willful ignorance.”