"James Tiptree Jr. - Your Haploid Heart" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

not hunt in the afternoon. The Rupo regarded this as a sin. So one night when
we were many days from base he carried all the wine bottles to a deep swamp
and buried them." They both stared at me and Ovancha finally smiled. The
tension broke. Back at the villa I saw Pax's mouth opening and pulled him over
by a fountain. "Keep it low," I told him. "Ian, those people are human!
They're the only human Esthaans I've seen. These owl-eyed marshmallows-Ian,
the Flenni are the people you should be looking at!" "I know," I said gently.
"I felt it, too." "Who are they? Could they be the survivors of some
wreck?" "They were here before First Contact." "They're terrified of the
Esthaans. I saw them run for cover as we came up. They're in trouble, Ian. It
isn't right. You've got to do something!" He was flushed and frowning. Just
like the Chesapeake the night before he imposed Prohibition. "You, Dr. Patton,
are a professional mineralogist, sent here at enormous cost to do a specific
job your Federation wants done. Same here. And our jobs do not include mixing
into native political or social conflicts. I feel, as you do, that the Flenni
are an appealing native group who are being oppressed or exploited in some way
by the civilized Esthaans. We have no idea what the history of the situation
is. But the point is, we are not free to endanger our mission by intruding
into what is clearly a very tense position. This is something you will have to
face on planet after planet in order to do your job. It's a big galaxy, and
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you'll see worse things before you're through." He blew out his lips. This was
not like the videodrams. "I thought your job was to find humans." "It is. And
I'll check the Flenni before we're through. And I'll report their condition,
for what good it'll do ... Now let me tell you something I suspect. Did you
ever hear of polyploidy?" "Something about big cells- what has that got to do
with the Flenni?" "Bear with me. I can't be sure until I get a few more
specimens, but I think we've come on something unique: Recurrent tetraploidy
in the higher animals. I've found it in eighteen species so far, including
rodents, ungulates, and carnivores. In each case you find two closely similar
animals, one of which is bigger, stronger and more vigorous. And
tetraploid-that means, by the way, not big cells but an extra set of
chromosomes. It's a mutation. Tetraploidy and higher polyploid mutations have
been used on many planets to produce bigger and better food plants, but it's
almost unknown among animals. Here you have it all over the place-again often
in the tame domestic form. That big cowlike creature they milk has twice the
number of chromosomes the little wild cow has. Same with their wool-bearing
beast and the wild sheep. Their common rodent has twenty-two chromosomes, but
I trapped a king rat-a gigantic brute-with fortyfive. Harkness was working on
it before me. Now, do you see what the possibility is?" "You mean, these
Esthaan jumbos are tetraploid Flenn?" "That's exactly what I expect to find.
And if so, what?" "Well, what?" "A case where nature has set the stage for
genocide, Pax. The two forms compete, and the bigger, stronger, more vital
form wins. The Flenni are weak, short-lived, defect-prone and they are up
against people who are simply more of everything they are. Shocking as it
sounds, you have here almost a quantitative measure of humanity -if they're
human. Under the circumstances, it's a credit to the big Esthaans that the