hank you for agreeing to see me on such
short notice, Reverend."
"Believe me, Lady Harrington. It is my
pleasure to see you at any time, and both I and my office are fully aware of the
importance of the work upon which you are engaged. When those factors combine"
The bald, hook-nosed Reverend and First Elder of the Church of Humanity
Unchained tucked Allisons small hand neatly and possessively into his elbow, smiled,
and escorted her across the office. They were on the third floor of Harrington Cathedral
which, like every cathedral on the face of Grayson, contained a large, comfortable office
suite permanently reserved for the Reverends use on his visits to the steading. Now
Sullivan seated his visitor in one of the overstuffed armchairs flanking the polished
stone coffee table to one side of the desk and ceremonially poured tea. The silver pot
flashed in the sunlight streaming through the huge windows which made up one entire wall
of the office, and Allisons nose twitched in surprise as she recognized the aroma
rising with the steam. The scent of Sun Plantation Green Tea Number Seven could not be
mistaken by anyone who knew their teas, and she was astonished that Sullivan (or someone)
had gone to the trouble of discovering her favorite Beowulf blend. It wasnt hard to
obtain in the Star Kingdom, but it was decidedly on the expensive side, and shed
already discovered that it was hard to find on Grayson.
"Do you take sugar, Lady Harrington?" Sullivan inquired, and
this time Allison smiled as her host raised his bushy eyebrows in polite question. If he
(or someone on his staff, which seemed more likely, now that she thought about it) had
taken the pains to determine what blend of tea she preferred, then she had no doubt that
he also knew the answer to that question.
"Yes, thank you, Reverend. Two cubes."
"Of course, My Lady." He dropped them into the steaming
liquid, stirred gently, and then handed her cup and saucer. "And like the tea, My
Lady, I assure you that the metals levels in the sugar are as low as anything you might
encounter back home in your Star Kingdom."
"Thank you," she repeated, and waited while he poured tea for
himself, as well, before she sipped. "Ummmm. . . . delicious," she purred, and
the Reverend smiled back at her as he enjoyed her sensual delight in the treat.
Allison recognized that smile, for shed seen it often in her
life. Most men seemed to take a simple pleasure in making her happy (and they darned
well should, too, she thought comfortably), but Sullivans smile still
surprised her a bit. Oh, shed discovered very quickly that Grayson males were much
more gallant than most, but shed known before she ever came to Yeltsins Star
that, however gallant, they could also be smug, patronizing, and paternalistic. Shed
come prepared to cut them off at the ankles if necessary to turn that around, and so far
shed never had to squash one of them more than once. On the other hand, shed
spent almost all of her time on Grayson here in Harrington Steading, where public
attitudes tended to be a bit more "advanced," and this was the first time
shed actually met Reverend Sullivan, aside from the intensely formal, emotionally
shattering day of Honors funeral.
But even though she hadnt had the chance to form a firsthand
opinion of him, shed gathered from Mirandaand from Honors
lettersthat Sullivan was much more conservative at heart than Reverend Hanks had
been. No one had suggested that he was anything but committed to supporting Benjamin
Mayhews reforms with the full power of his office, yet he clearly seemed less
comfortable with them on a personal level than, say, Howard Clinkscales. Somehow
shed expected that to carry over to the same sort of discomfort with women as
authority figures which shed seen from the more reactionary Grayson physicians. And
even if he hadnt been stiff and ill at ease with her, she still would have expected
the spiritual head of the Church of Humanity to be more . . . ascetic? Was that the word?
No, not quite, but something like it.
Except Reverend Sullivan wasnt whatever it was shed
expected. Indeed, there was a warm appreciation for her attractiveness in his dark eyes,
and she sensed a willingness to play the game hiding just beneath his attentive surface.
She knew he was marriedwith all three of the wives Grayson custom enshrinedand
she could tell he would never dream of going further than a cheerful flirtation, yet there
was an earthy vitality to him which she had never anticipated.
Well, maybe that makes sense after all, she thought. Honor may
not have noticed itshe felt a pang as she thought of her daughter, but she kept
the thought moving despite the hurtbecause, Lord love the girl, the universe had
to hit her between the eyes with a brick just to get her to recognize the opposite sex was
even out there! But underneath all that gallantry and all those codes of proper behavior
and how to act and react around another mans wives, these people are just as
"earthy" (she chuckled mentally at the repeated use of the word) as my
high school sex counselor back on Beowulf. Heavens! All you have to do is poke your nose
inside an upper-class lingerie shop to know that! Thats rather healthy,
really.
But that could also explain Sullivans attitude towards her. Women
like Honor probably did make him uncomfortableless because they held and wielded
"a mans" authority than because the background from which they came was so
alien to him. He and other Graysons like him were still in the process of reprogramming
themselves around a whole new set of social cues, and it was likely many of them never
would learn to truly understand those cues even once they learned to recognize them. But
Sullivan had recognized the gleam in her own eye, and it was one he knew how to respond to
comfortably as long as they used Grayson rules.
That was good, she decided, sipping more tea while she discarded one
strategy for delivering her news and organized an alternative. He looked so forbidding and
stern that shed automatically assumed a certain degree of closed-mindedness, and
shed been wrong. That he had the fierce temper reputation assigned him and did not
suffer fools gladly she could readily believe, but there was a much livelier mind behind
those eyes than shed expected, and if he was prepared to be comfortable with her on
a personal level, so much the better for the professional one, as well.
She gave a mental nod, set down her cup and saucer, and lifted her
small briefcase from its place beside her chair into her lap.
"I realize you have a tight schedule, Your Grace, and that you
sandwiched me into it at very short notice, so with your permission, Id like to
waste as little of your time as possible and get straight to the reason I asked to see
you."
"My schedule is almost always tight in Father
Churchs service, My Lady," he said wryly, "but believe me, time with you
could never be wasted."
"My goodness!" Allison murmured with a smile and a dangerous
set of dimples. "I could wish the Star Kingdom would import a little Grayson
manners!"
"Ah, but that would hardly be a fair exchange for your own
presence here, My Lady!" Sullivan replied with a broad grin of his own. "Your
Kingdom would get only an outward expression of our appreciation for beauty and charm,
whereas we would get their reality."
Allison chuckled appreciatively, but she also shook her head and
unsealed the briefcase, and Sullivan sat back in his own chair, nursing his teacup. The
teasing gallantry faded from his expression, and he crossed his legs and watched alertly
as she set out a tiny holo projector and keyed her memo pad to life.
"Your Grace," she said much more seriously, "I have to
tell you that I felt some trepidation about requesting this meeting. As you know,
Ive been working on mapping the Grayson genome for over six T-months now, and
Ive discovered something which Im afraid some of your people may find . . .
disturbing." The bushy brows knitted together in a frownnot of anger, but of
concentration and, possibly, a little concernand she drew a deep breath.
"How much do you know about your planets genetic background,
Your Grace?"
"No more than any other layman, I imagine," he said after a
moment. "Even our doctors were several centuries behind your own in that regard
before the Alliance, of course, but we Graysons have been aware of the need to keep track
of our bloodlines and avoid inbreeding since the Founding. Aside from that and the
genealogical and family health history information my own and my wives physicians
have requested from us over the years, Im afraid I know very little."
He paused, watching her intently, and she felt the unasked
"Why?" floating in the air between them.
"Very well, Your Grace. Ill try to keep this as simple and
nontechnical as I can, but I have something I need to show you."
She switched on the holo unit, and a holographic representation of a
chromosome appeared in the air above the coffee table. It didnt look very much like
an actual magnified chromosome would have, for it was a schematic rather than visually
representative, yet Sullivans eyes flickered with interest as he realized he was
looking at the blueprint for a human life. Or, to be more precise, a portion of the
blueprint for a human life. Then Allison tapped a command into the holo unit, and the
image changed, zooming in on a single, small portion of the schematic and magnifying that
portion hugely.
"This is the long arm of what we call Chromosome Seven, Your
Grace," she told him. "Specifically, this" she tapped a macro on the
holo unit and a cursor flashed, indicating a point on the image "is a gene with
a long and sometimes ugly history in medical science. A single gene mutation at this site
produces a disease known as cystic fibrosis, which drastically alters the secretory
function of the lungs and pancreas."
It was also, she did not mention, a disease which had been eradicated
over a millennium and a half ago on planets with modern medical science . . . and one
which still turned up from time to time on Grayson.
"I see," Sullivan said after a moment, then quirked one
eyebrow at her. "And the reason for telling me this, My Lady?" he inquired
politely.
"The reason for telling you, Your Grace, is that my research and
mapping suggest quite conclusively to me that this portion of the genetic code of your
people" she jabbed an index finger at the cursor in the holo image
"was deliberately altered almost a thousand years ago."
"Altered?" Sullivan sat upright in his chair.
"Altered, Your Grace. Engineered." Allison drew a deep
breath. "In other words, Sir, you and all your people have been genetically
modified."
She sat very still, awaiting the potential eruption, but Sullivan only
gazed at her for several seconds without speaking. Then he leaned back, reclaimed his
teacup, and took a deliberate sip. She wasnt certain if he was buying time for
shattered thoughts to settle or simply deliberately defusing the tension, but then he set
saucer and cup back in his lap and cocked his head.
"Continue, please," he invited, and his voice was so calm she
felt almost flustered by its very lack of agitation. She paused a moment longer, then
glanced down at her memo pad and scrolled through two or three pages of preliminary,
hysteria-soothing notes it had just become obvious she wasnt going to need.
"In addition to my purely laboratory research," she said
after a second or two, "Ive been doing some extensive searches of your data
bases." Which was one hell of a lot more work than it would have been back
home with proper library computer support. "In particular, I was
searching for the earliest medical recordsdating back to your Founding, if at all
possiblewhich might have shed some corroborative light on my lab findings.
Unfortunately, while there is a good bit of information, including case history notes on a
surprising number of individual colonists, I was unable to find any data on the specific
points which concerned me. Which," she said, meeting his eyes with a frankness she
had not intended to bring to this meeting before she got a feel for his personality,
"was one reason for my concern."
"You thought that perhaps those records had been suppressed?"
Sullivan asked her, and chuckled at her expression. "My Lady, for all your frankness,
youve been very cautious in your choice of words. Bearing that in mind, did you
really think it would require awhat is the Manticoran slang phrase? a hyperphysicist,
I believe?to deduce the reason for your concern?" He shook his head at her.
"I suppose its possible, even probable, that Father Churchs servants have
suppressed . . . unpleasant information from time to time in our history, but if so, they
did it without Father Churchs approval. Or the Testers." Her eyebrows
rose against her will, and he chuckled again. "My Lady, we believe God calls us to
the Test of Life, which requires us to test both ourselves and our beliefs and our
assumptions as we grow and mature in His love. How could we do that, and what validity
would our Tests have, if Father Church itself distorted the data which forms the basis
upon which we are to make them?"
"I . . . hadnt thought of it that way, Your Grace,"
Allison said slowly, and this time Sullivan laughed out loud.
"No, My Lady, but youve been rather more polite about it
than some off-worlders have. We are a people of custom, and one which has traditionally
embraced a highly consensual Faith and way of life, yet our Faith is also one of
individual conscience in which no oneneither a mans Steadholder, nor
his Protector, nor even the Reverend or the Sacristymay dictate to him on matters of
the spirit. That is the central dynamic of our beliefs, and maintaining it has never been
easy. Which is fair enough, for God never promised us the Test would be easy. But it means
that, for all our consensuality, we have experienced many periods of intense, even bitter
debate and doctrinal combat. I believe that has ultimately strengthened us, but memories
of those periods make some of us uneasy about embracing changes in our Church and society.
To be perfectly honest, I myself harbor some personal reservations about at least some of
the changesor, perhaps, about the rate of changewhich I see around me.
Yet not even the priests of Father Church, or perhaps especially not the priests of
Father Church, may dictate to the consciences of our flock. Nor may we properly decide
that this or that bit of knowledge, however unpleasant we may fear its consequences will
be, should be restricted or concealed. So continue with your explanation, please. I may
not fully understand it, and it may yet shock or concern me, but as a child of the Tester
and of Father Church, it is my duty to hear and at least try to understand . . . and not
to blame the bearer of the news for its content."
"Yes, Your Grace." Allison shook herself again, then smiled
crookedly. "Yes, indeed," she said, and nodded much more comfortably at the holo
image.
"As nearly as I can reconstruct what must have happened, Your
Grace, at least one person, and possibly several, in your original colonial medical team
must have been real crackerjack geneticists, especially given the limitations of the
technology then available. As you may be aware, they were still using viruses for genetic
insertions rather than the precisely engineered nanotech we use today, and given the
crudity of such hack and slash methodologies, hisor theirachievements are
truly remarkable."
"I am less surprised to hear that than you might think, My
Lady," Sullivan interposed. "The original followers of Saint Austin were opposed
to the way technology had, as they saw it, divorced men from the lives God wished them to
lead. But they recognized the advances in the life sciences as the gift of a loving Father
to His children, and their intention from the beginning was to transplant as much of that
gift to Grayson as they could. And that was certainly as well for all of us when our
ancestors discovered what sort of world they had come to."
"I believe that probably constitutes at least a one or two
thousand percent understatement, Your Grace," Allison said wryly. "One of the
things which has puzzled those of us who have studied the situation has been how your
colony could possibly have survived for more than a generation or two amid such lethal
concentrations of heavy metals. Obviously, some sort of adaptive change had to have
occurred, but none of us could understand how it happened quickly enough to save the
colony. Now, I think, I know."
She took a sip of tea and crossed her own legs, leaning back in her
chair and cradling the tissue-thin porcelain cup between her hands.
"Heavy metals enter the body via the respiratory and digestive
tracts, Your Grace, hence your air filtration systems and the constant battle to
decontaminate your farm soil. Apparently, whoever was responsible for this" she
jutted her chin at the holo image once again "intended to build a filtration
system into your bodies as well, by modifying the mucosal barriers in your lungs
and digestive tract. Your secretory proteins are substantially different from, say, my
own. They bind the metalsor a large proportion of them, at any ratewhich
allows them to be cleared from the body in sputum and other wastes, rather than being
absorbed wholesale into the tissues. They dont do a perfect job, of course, but
theyre the reason your tolerance for heavy metals is so much higher than my own. Up
until two or three months ago, the assumption, particularly in light of your
ancestors limited technological resources and, um, attitude towards the resources
they did have, was that this must represent a natural facet of adaptive evolution, even if
we had no idea how it had happened so quickly."
"But you no longer believe this to be the case," Sullivan
said quietly.
"No, Your Grace. Ive found flanking regions of rhinovirus
genetic material around the cystic fibrosis locus indicated in the holo here, and I think
I can say with some assurance that it didnt get there accidentally."
"Rhinovirus?"
"The vector for the common cold," Allison said dryly,
"which could have offered several useful advantages to the med teams who made use of
it. For one thing, with your people so tightly confined in the limited air-filtered
habitats they could build, an aerosol vector like this would be very easily spread. Given
the fact that Ive found absolutely no mention of it anywhere in the records, I might
also hazard the guess that the project was kept confidential at the timepossibly to
avoid raising hopes if, in fact, it should fail. Or there could have been other reasons.
And if there were, spreading the alteration via a cold would have the
advantage of maximum concealability, as well."
"Indeed it would have, and there could well have been other
reasons to do such a thing quietly," Sullivan agreed, and it was his turn to
smile crookedly. "Despite my own analysis of why Father Church does not believe in
suppression, not everyone in our history would have agreed with me, and no doubt there have
been times when our freer thinkers found that . . . discretion was indicated. As Im
sure youve discovered in the course of your research, My Lady, many of our Founders
were zealots. Heavens, look at those lunatics who launched the Civil War four hundred
years later! However trying our own times may be, they do not compare to the Tests which
faced the Founders, and it would certainly have been possible that the Founding Elders
might have feared that some of the more blindly faithful among their flock would have
reacted badly to the notion of such a thing as permanently modifying their own bodies and
those of all their descendants."
"As you say, Your Grace," Allison murmured, then shrugged.
"At any rate, we might think of this as a sort of weapon of beneficent biological
warfare, an agent designed to modify the genetic material of your people in order to give
them a fighting chance at surviving their environment. Unfortunately, it looks like it was
a fast and dirty method, even by the standards of then-current technology."
Sullivan frowned, and she shook her head quickly.
"That wasnt a criticism, Your Grace! Whoever managed this
was clearly working on a shoestring, with limited resources. He had to do the best with
what he had, and what he managed was brilliantly conceived and clearly executed
effectively. But I suspect that the need for speed, coupled with extremely limited
facilities, prevented his team from carrying out as careful an analysis as they would have
wished, and it looks like the vector carried a second, unintentional modification which
they failed to recognize at the time."
"Unintentional?" Sullivans frown was deeper now, not in
displeasure but in thought, and Allison nodded.
"Im certain it was. And the nature of their problem no doubt
helps explain what happened. You see, whoever designed this modification had to make the
adaptive mutation inheritable. Simply modifying the gene in those actually exposed to the
rhinovirus wouldnt work, because it would have been a purely somatic mutation, which
means it would have died with the first generation of hosts. To keep that from happening,
heor theyhad to cross from the somatic to the germ linemodify the
rhinovirus to cross the mucosal barrier and show a predilection for primordial germ cells
in the hosts ovaries and testesin order to pass it on to the first
generations offspring. What had to be accomplished was analogous to, oh, the mumps
virus. That infects the salivary glands, but also attacks the ovaries and testes and can
account for some cases of male infertility."
Sullivan nodded to indicate understanding, and Allison hid another
mental smile. Interesting that he showed no discomfort at all with the way the
conversation was headed. Of course, with the high percentage of stillborn boys on this
planet, Graysons had been fanatical about prenatal care for centuries, and men were just
as involved in the process (at one remove, of course! she amended) as women.
"They had no real option about that," she went on. "Not
if they wanted the change to be a permanent addition to the planetary genome. But in the
process, they also got an unintended mutation. Their intervention introduced a
stable trinucleotide repeat on the X chromosome, which wouldnt have been a problem .
. . except that it in turn affected one of the AGG codons." Sullivan looked blank.
"AGG codons are adenine-guanine-guanine sequences that act as locks on the expansion
of other trinucleotide repeats," she explained helpfully.
"Of course," Sullivan agreed. He didnt look too
terribly enlightened, but he nodded for her to continue, and she punched a new command
into her holo unit. The imagery changed to a color-coded schematic of nucleotidesan
enormous chain composed of the color-coded letters "A," "C,"
"G," and "T," repeating again and again in jumbled patterns. As
Sullivan watched, the image zoomed in on a single sectiontwo three-letter groups of
"CGG" in yellow, green, and green, separated by an "AGG" in red,
green, and green.
"Essentially, it was a very tiny change," Allison told the
Reverend. "An adenine here" she touched another key, and one of the
"AGG" codes flashed brilliantly "mutated to cytosine"
another key, and the flashing red "A" turned into a yellow "C" and the
three-letter group to its right grew suddenly into an enormous chain of the same codes,
repeating again and again "which deactivated the lock and allowed unstable
expansion of"
"Excuse me, My Lady," Sullivan interrupted, "but I think
were drifting into deep water here. What, precisely, does that m No." He
stopped and raised one hand. "Im certain that if you told me what it meant, I
would be no closer to understanding than I am now. What I truly need to know, I suppose,
is what the consequences of this . . . unstable whatever are."
"Um." Allison sipped some more tea, then shrugged.
"DNA is composed of four nucleotides, Your Grace: adenine,
cytosine, guanine, and thymine. They link together in thousands of repeatscodes, if
you willwhich combine to carry the blueprint for our bodies . . . and transmit it to
the next generation. They link in groups of three, hence the term
trinucleotide, which usually occur in runs of thirty or less, but
there are several diseases, such as the one we call Fragile X, in which the
number of repeats expands enormously, often into the thousands, effectively . . . well,
scrambling a portion of the master code, as it were. Are you with me so far?"
"I believe so," he said cautiously.
"All right. This schematic represents a portion of the
nucleotidesin this case cytosine, adenine, and guaninefrom the Grayson genome.
This trinucleotide here" she touched her controls and the holo reverted to its
original form with the "AGG" flashing once more "is what we call a
lock, sort of a blocker to prevent the CGG repeats on either side of it from
expanding in a way that would scramble the code. What happened, though, was that when the
adenine mutated into cytosine, the lock disappeared . . . and that allowed an
unstable expansion of the CGG chain downstream of it."
"I wont pretend to understand completely, My Lady,"
Sullivan said after a moment, "but I believe I understand the process, in general
terms at least. And just how serious a problem is this unstable
expansion?"
"Well, in Fragile X, the consequence isor was, before we
learned to repair itmoderate mental retardation. But what resulted here was
worsemuch worse. It destroyed a portion of the chromosome necessary for early
embryonic development."
"Which means, My Lady?" Sullivan asked intently.
"It means that it produced an embryonic lethal mutation in males,
Your Grace," Allison said simply.
This time the Reverend came bolt upright in his chair, and she nodded
to the display still glowing above the coffee table.
"Any male embryo with this mutation cannot be carried to
term," she said. "Female embryos each have two X chromosomes, however, which
gives them the chance for an extra copy of the destroyed gene. And the lyonization
process, which inactivates one X chromosome in a female, almost always inactivates the
structurally damaged one in cases like this, which means that, unlike males with the same
problem, they survive."
"But in that case" Sullivan stared into the holo for
several seconds, then looked back at Allison. "If I understand you correctly, My
Lady, youre saying that no male child with this mutation could live?" She
nodded. "In that case, how could our ancestors possibly have survived? If everyone
who received the benign mutation also received this one, then how were any living male
children born at all?"
"The two mutations are linked in that they were both introduced by
the same vector, Your Grace, but thats the only linkage between them.
Everyone got the intended mutationwell, thats probably an overstatement.
Lets say that everyone who survived got the intentional one, but the unintentional
one, fortunately, had incomplete penetrance. That means that thirty percent or so of the
males didnt express the mutation and so survivedbut even those who survived
could be carriers. To use the Fragile X analogy again, the fragile site from that disease
is seen in forty percent of the cells of affected males, but carriers may not show the
fragile site at all."
"I . . . see," Sullivan said very slowly.
"There was nothing anyone could have done about it, Your Grace.
The original modification was essential if your people were to survive at all. It had
to be made, and even assuming that any of the original med team were still alive by the
time the harmful side effect began to manifest, and even assuming that they still had the
technical capability for genetic level examinations, it was too late to do anything about
it," Allison said quietly, and sat back to wait.
"Sweet Tester," Sullivan murmured at last, his voice so soft
Allison hardly heard him. Then he pushed himself all the way back in his chair and inhaled
deeply. He gazed at her for endless seconds, then shook himself.
"I feel certain that you must have felt very confident in your
findings before you brought them to my attention, My Lady. May I also assume that your
documentation of them will be sufficient to convince other experts of them?"
"Yes, Your Grace," she said positively. "For one thing,
it explains the two things about your population which have most puzzled the Star
Kingdoms geneticists from the beginning of the Alliance." Sullivan raised an
eyebrow, and she shrugged. "Ive already mentioned the incredible rapidity with
which your ancestors evolved a natural defense against heavy metals. That was
number one. But a disparity in male-female birth rates on the scale of Graysons,
while not all that unusual under distressed conditions, seldom lasts as long as yours
has."
"I see." He gazed at her meditatively, then drank more tea.
"And is there anything which can be done about this, My Lady?"
"Its really too early for me to say yes or no to that one,
at least with any degree of confidence. Ive isolated two or three possible
approaches, but the site of the problem may well make things difficult, because the
mutated gene on the X is near the zinc-finger X protein gene. Thats a key gene in
sex determination, and its at the Xp22.2" She paused as his expression
began to indicate that he was lost once more.
"Its at a locus where changes can involve literally dozens
of disease states, Your Grace," she simplified. "Many of those diseases are
lethal, and others can cause disorders of sex determination. We know a lot more about sex
differentiation than whoever whipped up your survival modification did, but we still
dislike meddling with it, and particularly in this area. Theres a lot of room for
small errors to have large consequences, and even if we avoid the more dangerous disease
states, the Beowulf Code specifically prohibits genetic manipulation in order to
predetermine the sex of a child." She grimaced. "There were some very
unpleasantand shamefulepisodes relating to that in the first and second
centuries Ante Diaspora, and Im afraid theyve been repeated from time to time
on some of the more backward colony worlds since. Nonetheless, I think I could probably at
least ameliorate the situation. But whatever I do, it will take time to perfect the
methodology . . . and probably result in at least some decreased fertility among your
planets male population."
"I see," he said again, and switched his eyes to the holo
image above the coffee table once more. "Have you spoken to the Swords health
authorities about this yet, My Lady?" he asked.
"Not yet," Allison admitted. "I wanted to be certain of
my data before I did, and then your visit to Harrington gave me the opportunity to speak
to you first. Given the role your Church plays in the day-to-day life of Grayson, I
thought it might be wiser to speak to you first."
"Obviously Father Church will have to address the issue,"
Sullivan agreed, "but we who serve him have learned bitter lessons about meddling in
secular affairs. I believe you should draw this to the Swords attention as soon as
convenient, My Lady. If my offices can be of assistance to you in this, please tell
me."
"I appreciate the offer, Your Grace, but I have the channels to
take care of that myself."
"Good. And if I may offer one bit of adviceor, perhaps, make
a request?"
"Certainly you may, Your Grace," Allison said. Of course,
I dont have to follow the advice if it violates my own professional oaths,
she thought, bracing herself for some last-minute swerve towards suppression of her
findings.
"This information must be made public, and the sooner the
better," he said firmly, "yet it would be wiser, I think, to allow the Sword to
make the announcement." She cocked her head at him, and he twitched his shoulders
with a small, apologetic smile. "You remain a woman, a foreigner, andif you
will forgive the terman infidel. We learned from your daughter that
those were not necessarily bad things, yet some of our people, especially the more
conservative, remain uneasy with the notion of women in positions of authority. Including,
alas, myself from time to time. I wrestle with it in prayer, and with the Comforters
aid, I feel I have made some progress, yet I had hoped that Lady Harrington
would"
He broke off, his expression sad, and Allison felt a brief, terrible
stab of hurt deep down inside. "I had hoped Lady Harrington would live long enough
to change our minds," she completed the thought for him, and felt her eyes sting.
Well, she didnt. But that doesnt mean other people cant
pick up the torch for her, and I can damned well be one of them! Howard
Clinkscales request flickered in the back of her mind as the thought flashed past,
but she only looked at Sullivan and nodded.
"I know, Your Grace." Her voice was just a bit husky. Then
she inhaled deeply. "And I understand. I have no problem with allowing Protector
Benjamins people to make the announcement. Besides, theres no huge rush about
thisyour planet has survived for the next best thing to a thousand years with the
problem, and Im nowhere near devising a corrective procedure that Id feel
comfortable recommending, anyway. Better to go through channels and possibly even give the
Sword a little while to consider the best way to go public . . . and what position the
Protector should take when it hits the faxes."
"That was very much my own thought," Sullivan told her.
"Nonetheless, I also believe Ill personally suggest to the Protector that you
should be presentand clearly credited with the discoverywhen the announcement
is made."
"You will?" Allison blinked in surprise, and he shrugged.
"My Lady, you did discover it, and you and the clinic your
daughter endowed will undoubtedly take the lead in devising any corrective
procedure which may be found. Besides, if were ever to overcome that
foreign and female problem among our more mulish people," he smiled and
flicked one finger briefly at his own chest, "then we dare not miss an opportunity
such as this."
"I see." Allison considered him with fresh thoughtfulness.
Reverend Sullivan was not only less comfortable with the changes in his society, on a
personal level, than his predecessor had been; he was also aware that he was. His
faith and his intellect impelled him to accept and support them, but a part of him longed
for the stability and comfortably defined roles of the planet on which he had been raised,
and that part resisted his own duty to help demolish those definitions. Which made his
last suggestion even more impressive, and she felt a deep, warm rush of affection for him.
"Thank you, Your Grace. I appreciate the suggestionand the
thought."
"You are more than welcome, My Lady," he told her, setting
his teacup aside and rising as she came to her feet, switched off the holo projector, and
tucked it back into her briefcase. "But no thanks are necessary," he continued,
once more capturing her hand to escort her back to the door. "This planet, and all
the people on it, are far too deeply in debt to the Harrington family, and especially to
the really remarkable women of that name, for that."
Allison blushed, and he chuckled delightedly, then paused as they
reached the door. He bent over her hand and kissed it gallantly, and then opened the door
for her.
"Farewell, Lady Harrington. May the Tester, the Intercessor, and
the Comforter be with you and your husband and bring you peace."
He bowed once more, and she gave his hand a squeeze of thanks and
stepped through the door. It closed quietly behind her.