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Nimzhian sat on her porch, barely glancing at us as we deposited boxes of food and supplies.
Kissbegh and Cham began to stow the boxes beneath a shelter behind the house. French spoke to the
old woman, but she merely nodded, saying little in return. He then went off into the interior for a few
hours, accompanied by Shatro.
Nimzhian stood up after they had left and waved for Shirla and me to come up on the porch.
"I've been doing a great deal of thinking," she said, "Could you relay my thoughts to Salap? They are
not very complicated, certainly not complete."
"I'll try," I said.
"You're junior among the researchers, aren't you?" Nimzhian asked.
"Yes."
Shirla gave me a wry, brief smile.
"I was junior aboard the _Hanno,_ as well. Marrying Yeshova was a good social move for me. You
and I haven't spoken much, but I feel it's right to talk with you. You'll take my thoughts to Randall and the
captain. The captain ... may not be very clear about what is actually happening here. As for you, my dear
Shirla, it's been so wonderful speaking with the women..."
Nimzhian's eyes moistened. "I must stay here. I'll miss the company, but my life is here. Yeshova is
still here, his spirit."
Shirla took her hand and stroked it. Nimzhian leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She
seemed to have aged ten years since we arrived. Duty had kept her going this long; I wondered if she
would pass on one final secret, and then be ready to die.
"Do you realize how simple and primitive all life on Lamarckia is? How delicately balanced?
Yeshova and I, the more we explored and learned, became more and more astonished at the delicacy
and crudity of Martha. It is all like a dream. And then we wake up."
"Why like a dream?" Shirla asked.
"There is no competition or synergy between animals and plants to propel change. All change comes
from within, from the observers, whatever and wherever they may be -- queens or factories or palace
wombs. And there's precious little competition between the ecoi. Day in, day out, nearly all of life on this
planet struggles simply to get enough energy to stay alive ... Something is missing, some vital strategy or
trick. Lamarckia may someday blossom. But are the hidden designers creative enough to supply what is
missing?"
"Maybe _we're_ what's missing," Shirla said. She did not know about the half-formed skeletons.
"But now we're here. The queens -- the observers have to learn how to use us."
"Admirably homocentric," Nimzhian said softly, eyes staring between us dreamily. "That is part of
_our_ strength, to always place ourselves at the center. But despite all recent evidence..." She looked at
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me sharply, resenting the secrecy imposed by the captain. "Despite that, I do not think we are the missing
element. I believe it is a technique, a trick, none of the ecoi have stumbled across. Poor Martha -- so
reliant on the stingy trace elements ... Martha did not have the strength to survive when things changed."
She sat forward now, and gripped Shirla's hand tightly. "What is missing on Martha's Island, and
everywhere else we've visited on Lamarckia?"
"What?" I asked.
"Green," she said. "Brilliant, lovely green. Shirla, you were born here, and you spend little time
thinking about Earth. But Earth was a _green_ world."
--------
*12*
For two days after we left Martha's Island, the ocean overside and to the horizon lay glass-smooth
and the still air hung hot and wet and smelled stale. Thunderheads towered in the west. Each evening,
chores done -- choke-oiling the decks, tightening the standing rigging yet again to take in a few
centimeters slack (mostly, I think, a figment of Soterio's imagination), and spreading dragnets to catch
samples (the ocean here was barren and the nets came up empty) -- the crew not on night watch ate cold
freechunk and dried fruit and drank mat fiber beer in the mess, then lay out on the deck as they had the
day before, as they might the next day and for a thousand years after. Each took a piece of the deck for
his or her territory. As they lay, flat and still, they watched the few unfortunates still in the rigging or
hauling on sheets and braces and halyards, and spoke softly among themselves.
I stood on the puppis, waiting for the stifling laboratory below to cool. The researchers met in the
laboratory next to the captain's cabin each day several hours after sunset, working in the coolest portion
of the night, sometimes into the next morning, dissecting and measuring the components of a humanoid
skeleton. This night, however, the air on deck was not much better than the air below. We all hoped for a
cooling breeze, but no relief came.
Randall did not expect the discovery to stay secret for long, and it did not. The ship was dispirited.
Randall sensed it; the captain was too preoccupied to care. Shimchisko carried the burden of his
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