第17节

Steve shrugged. 'So what. You still have your Inter-Med.

If you don't want to tap chests and prescribe pills in a base clinic,

you can always join a front-line surgical team on one of the wagon

trains."

'And end up like Poppa-Jack?" Roz wrinkled her nose.

'Maybe,' said Steve. 'But in the process, you might save your big

brother, or some other guys like him."

Roz smiled. 'You'll survive. From what I've heard, those Trail-Blazer

expeditions are a cake-walk. Okay, maybe the air burns you up, the way

it did Poppa-Jack, but don't start telling me how dangerous it is to be

out there fighting Mutes. You know what? When I see those pictures of

'em on the history programmes and hear about the way they live, I feel

sorry for 'em. They're as ugly as bugs and we crush 'em out of

existence as if they were bugs -' 'They're no better than,' interjected

Steve.

'Okay, I accept that,' said Roz. 'And I step on bugs the way you do.

But as my heel goes down, I sometimes ask myself if bugs ain't got the

right to live the same as we do. If not - why are they running around

in the first place? Maybe whoever it was who created the First Family

made the bugs too. And maybe they made the Mutes along with 'em."

Steve studied his kin-sister. 'You know something?

Since we've been raised together you've come out with some pretty weird

ideas but that has to be the weirdest yet."

'But it could be so, couldn't it?" insisted Roz.

'It could be,' replied Steve. 'But I'm not going to let it worry me.

I've been training for the last three years to go out there and kill

Mutes and that's what I intend to do."

'Go ahead,' said Roz. 'I know it takes courage to face the

overground.

The Federation needs people to push out its frontiers and put down

way-stations. There's danger in that - in just being out there - and

I respect you for putting your life on the line. But just as I

wouldn't feel sorry if you were to break your toe stomping on a bug, I

am not going to treat you like a hero for killing a bunch of

defenceless Mutes ' 'What d'you mean "defenceless"?" said Steve

hotly.

'Those lump-heads kill people. Everybody knows what they do to dead

Trail-Blazers. They cut their hands and feet off.

Plus all the other odds and ends too. And if you're captured, they

skin you alive, smoke you over a fire to keep you nice and sweet then

eat you slice by slice through the winter.

"Defenceless" ... huh! They got weapons, Roz. And they know how to

use them."

Roz gave a quick laugh. 'Come on, Steve. You know that's just

Trail-Blazer pep-talk. Those lump-heads - as you call 'em - don't even

know what day it is."

'Okay, I admit they're not too smart. But they aren't as dumb as you

make out either. I don't get it. What are you trying to prove? And

what the heck! I mean - whose side are you on, anyway?"

Roz sat down on the bunk-bed and fisted Steve's shoulder. 'Yours

dummy. It's just that -' Roz grimaced sadly. 'I don't know. It's

just that when you get into this business of genetics and you get right

down to whatever it is that creates life, you start to think about

things. Ask questions. And when you realise just how little we know

about how life is created, and the incredible complexity of even the

simplest type of cell - just one of billions that go to make up the

human body - you can't help feeling that maybe we ought to ask

ourselves if we're doing the right thing to send guys like you out to

kill off more Mutes."

'But Mutes aren't people, Roz. That's not something I dreamed up.

Jack spent years out there. Have you forgotten the stories he used to

tell us?"

Roz shook her head and smiled. 'Some of them still keep me awake at

nights." She got up, closed the door, switched on the tv with the aid

of the handset