Xopi stopped talking, but Trixia didn't respond. Her gaze was steady; she wasn't scrambling to keep up with the intermediate-layer data reps. And suddenly, Ezr felt the strangest change in perspective, like a change in imagined-down, but enormously more intense. It wasn't caused by the translators' words or even the emotion in their words. It was the...silence. For the first time, Ezr knew a Spider as a person, a person who could be hurt.
The silence stretched on for several more seconds. "Ha," said Silipan. "That's pretty good confirmation on a lot of guesses. The Spiders breed in large clutches, and then Mother Nature kills off the weak ones during the Dark. Slick."
Liao grimaced. "Yeah, I guess." Her hand reached to her husband's shoulder.
Zinmin Broute abruptly broke the silence. "Master Underhill, are you going to reply to the Honored Pedure's question?"
"Yes." The quaver in Trixia's voice was more pronounced than before. "Brent is no cretin. He's not verbal and he learns differently than other children." Her voice picked up enthusiasm, and there was a shadow of a smile. "Intelligence is such a remarkable thing. In Brent I see—"
Xopi cut her off. "—In BrentI see the classical birth wreck of the oophase child. My friends, I know the strength of the Church suffers now in this generation. There is so much change, and the old ways are so much thought tyrannical. In previous times, a child such as Brent could only happen in backwoods townships, where barbarism and perversion have always been. In previous times, such was easy to explain: ‘The parents evaded the Dark, like not even animals would do. They brought poor Brent into the world to live some years of crippled life, and rightly should they be loathed for their cruelty.' But in our times, it is an intellectual such as Underhill"—a nod in the direction of Trixia—"who makes this sin. He makes you laugh upon tradition, and I must fight him with his own reasons. Look upon this child, Master Underhill. How many more have you borne like him?"
Trixia: "All my cobblies—"
"Ah, yes. No doubt there have been other failures. You have six that we know of. How many more are there? Do you kill the clear failures? If the world follows your perversion, civilization will die before even the next Dark comes, smothered in hordes of ill-conceived and crippled cobblies." Pedure went on in this vein at some length. In fact, her complaints were very concrete: birth deformities, overpopulation, forced killings, riots in deepnesses at the beginning of the Dark—all would follow if there were a popular move toward out-of-phase births. Xopi rattled on until she was visibly out of breath.
Broute turned to Trixia as Underhill: "And your reply?"
Trixia: "Ah, it is nice to be able to reply." Trixia was smiling again, her tone almost as light as at the beginning of the program. If Underhill had been unhinged by the attack on his son, maybe Pedure's long speech had given him time to recover. "First, all my children are living. There are only six. That should not be surprising. It's hard to conceive children out-of-phase. I'm sure everyone knows this. It is also very hard to nurture the out-of-phase baby welts long enough for them to grow eyes. Nature does indeed prefer that cobblies be created right before the Dark."
Xopi leaned forward, speaking loudly. "Take careful note, friends! Underhill just now admits that he commits crime against nature!"
"Not at all. Evolution has caused us to survive and thrive within Nature. But times change—"
Xopi sounded sarcastic: "So times change? Science made you a Darkstrider, and now you are greater than Nature?"
Trixia laughed. "Oh, I'm still very much a part of Nature. But even before technology—did you know that ten million years ago, the length of the sun's cycle was less than one year?"
"Fantasy. How could creatures live—"
"How indeed?" Trixia was smiling more broadly, and her tone was one of triumph. "But the record of fossil edgings is very clear. Ten million years ago, the cycle was much shorter and the variation in brightness much less intense. There was no need for deepnesses and hibernation. As the cycle of light and dark became longer and more extreme, all surviving creatures adapted. I imagine it was a harsh process. Many great changes were necessary. And now—"
Xopi made a cutting gesture. Did she make those up or were they somehow implied by the Spider broadcast? "If not fantasy, it's still not proved. Sir, I will not argue evolution with you. There are decent people who believe it, but it is speculation—no basis for death-and-life decisions."
"Ha!Point for Daddy!" From their perches atop Brent and Jirlib, the two girls exchanged quiet editorial comments. Where Didire couldn't see, they were also making maw-gestures at the Honored Pedure. After that first Ten, there had been no obvious reaction, but it felt good to show the cobber how they felt about her.
"Don't worry, Brent. Daddy's going to get this Pedure."
