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"That sounds like Sherman," said Dr Cale There was a bleak note in her voice, like she wasto screaender was a construct of the body and the mind, and that since his endered biped, he felt no reason to restrict himself any further"

"But when did he leave here?" I pressed I vaguely re from the lab six months before I had--before Sally had--before the accident, but I wanted to be sure Soer co about my accident…"

"Yes," said Dr Cale wearily "He left here about six months before Sally Mitchell lost control of her car I had just finished doing my monthly check on the chimera--"

"The what?" interrupted Nathan

"Adam, Tansy, and Sherman: my chi that can think and communicate and tell you what it prefers to be called is a person, regardless of species or origin--ere created by coaniss that have multiple distinct types of DNA in their bodies It’s frequently used for people who absorbed their thile they were in the woy, a chimera is a creature made up from bits and pieces of different animental than ‘parasite’ or even ‘symbiont’ "

"So that lanced at ed "It’s okay I like it And you’re right--it’s a better word than ‘hybrid,’ or ‘freak,’ and those were really the only things that I was co sure there was no tissue rejection or complication, that their hu their tapeworm bodies as invaders, that there was nofrom the wor disgust in my expression, because she hastened to add, "Dr Banks was perfor very si when you were brought back to Sy I would have intervened er of rejection"

I wanted to believe her, I really did--I was her tapeworical son for several years She had every reason to want to help ically intact But she wouldn’t meetnot to be touched or interfered with, because that would have spoiled her data

"So Sherave hi to select the words toboth inoffensive and clear "Did you say anything like ‘this means you’re stable’ or ‘this proves the interface can sustain itself in the long ter to melt’?"

Dr Cale frowned "Maybe…"

Sometimes smart people can be a special kind of stupid The kind where they know so"no one would ever do that" that they so to care about what they think It’s like they believe that intelligence alone defines the universe "So what if he saw that as permission?" I asked "He left, and he knehat he was, and that humans had created him, and that maybe there was a way to make more like him And then I happened, and he realized that it could happen naturally You knehat the signs looked like So did Dr Banks Why wouldn’t Sherin engineering the downfall of the human race" It wasn’t a question, and Dr Cale didn’t sound horrified when she said it If anything, she sounded… i any parent would absolutely want their son and protégé to think of doing

I looked to Nathan, too baffled by her tone to knohat to say Thankfully, he wasn’t siding with her on this one Expression hardening, he looked at her and asked, "Mo is possible?"

"Possible, yes," said Dr Cale "Probable, given the rest of e know… oh, yes Shere, for obvious reasons, but all of my chimera children have helped enetics at least as well as your average lab assistant, and probably better than theto have issues when the huured out that their implants had the potential to become sapient; he knew there was a chance that the chi for ownership of the planet He could very easily have decided this was the appropriate way to approach the probleed to find a sympathetic ear"

"I don’t understand how anyone could think handing their bodies--and their world--over to a different species was a good idea," I said

"Hue this world, Sal," said Dr Cale "The idea of keeping our hu the environht be a little kinder…"