anything. But what I'm telling you is true.
Period."
"There's
usually two sides to the 'truth,' though," Aran said.
"Sure,"
Bernie replied. "But our side is true. No, wait, you know, there's two
sides to the story, but not two sides the truth. The refugees aren't helpless
victims... well, some of them are, but we're not the ones victimizing them, and
we'd kill the gangsters if the UEN didn't threaten to shut us off from contact
with Earth."
"And
I suppose," Aran said," that your... success... in '61 set up the war
with the UEN in 2070?"
"Damn
straight it did," the redhead said. "The UEN started to reinforce its
forces. So did we, though we had to do a lot of smuggling. Actually," she
added, looking at Aran, "your Pacific Alliance helped us out a lot doing
it. And then the UEN moved the gate generator to this side, and started pouring
in troops and refugees. At that point we realized that if they controlled the
gate, we were going to be swamped.
"So
we took it," Bernie finished, her voice clearly full of pride.
The
interview with the biotech executive was only somewhat less dramatic than the
conversation with Bernie had been. At first, Ulla asked technical questions
that Aran wasn't qualified to evaluate. The facility, though, was interesting
to him. It was... minimalist, he thought, but well organized and clean. There
was no security presence, no visible cameras, no slogans at the work-stations.
It made the place look alien, and a perhaps a bit illegitimate, though the lack
of grunge and decay mitigated against that feeling.
The
biotech executive, though, was an interesting example of Arcadian society
himself, which gave Aran a reason to pay attention.
"Actually,"
the man said, smiling at Ulla, "our initial competitive advantage over
Earth-based companies, back in the late '50s, was purely regulatory. We could
do experiments that our rivals on Earth couldn't, and even more, when we had
positive results, we could move forward with them right away, without worrying
about funding-process oversight or waiting for regulatory approval."
The
biotech executive looked to be a fit man of late middle age, tanned,
well-toned, but silver-haired. Like most Arcadians, he wore colorful, informal
clothes well suited to warm weather. Only his prefect haircut and his
expensive, cutting-edge Japanese wrist-phone hinted at his status.
"Now,
of course," he went on, "we have a whole generation of young people
with a tradition of cutting edge research and top-notch academic preparation; a
lot of our first biotech people are the ones teaching the current generation.
So biotech has become our point of pride, here on Arcadia.
"Don't
get me wrong; we have some good people working in other fields; in info-tech,
for instance, but it's nothing like what you see on Earth, in Bangalore, say,
or in Zhongguancun, 'Silicon City,' in China. But biotech, well, that's
different. I'd say we pretty much lead the human race, there."
"But
what about the bioethics?" Ulla asked. "Don't you have problems with
unethical activity, without regulatory oversight?"
"What
sort of ethics?" the executive asked in turn. "If you mean fraud,
falsified results, then no, we don't have a problem; at least not for long.
Some outfits tried that sort of thing at first, but we pretty quickly worked
out a system. Any new result, product, what have you, is tested by almost all
the other biotech outfits. Anyone who cheats, either by falsifying a result or
by sabotaging a test of a rival's results... well, that'll get reported by the
Office of Standards and we'll just never deal with that outfit again. And
pretty much no one else will, either. After a couple of outfits went down the
tubes that way, everybody else plays nice."
"What
about experimental ethics?" Ulla asked. "Or medical ethics, for that
matter? You don't even license medical practitioners!"
"Well,
we do have laws, you know. Any deliberate or negligent harm caused to anyone
will bring in the Office of Justice. As
Period."
"There's
usually two sides to the 'truth,' though," Aran said.
"Sure,"
Bernie replied. "But our side is true. No, wait, you know, there's two
sides to the story, but not two sides the truth. The refugees aren't helpless
victims... well, some of them are, but we're not the ones victimizing them, and
we'd kill the gangsters if the UEN didn't threaten to shut us off from contact
with Earth."
"And
I suppose," Aran said," that your... success... in '61 set up the war
with the UEN in 2070?"
"Damn
straight it did," the redhead said. "The UEN started to reinforce its
forces. So did we, though we had to do a lot of smuggling. Actually," she
added, looking at Aran, "your Pacific Alliance helped us out a lot doing
it. And then the UEN moved the gate generator to this side, and started pouring
in troops and refugees. At that point we realized that if they controlled the
gate, we were going to be swamped.
"So
we took it," Bernie finished, her voice clearly full of pride.
The
interview with the biotech executive was only somewhat less dramatic than the
conversation with Bernie had been. At first, Ulla asked technical questions
that Aran wasn't qualified to evaluate. The facility, though, was interesting
to him. It was... minimalist, he thought, but well organized and clean. There
was no security presence, no visible cameras, no slogans at the work-stations.
It made the place look alien, and a perhaps a bit illegitimate, though the lack
of grunge and decay mitigated against that feeling.
The
biotech executive, though, was an interesting example of Arcadian society
himself, which gave Aran a reason to pay attention.
"Actually,"
the man said, smiling at Ulla, "our initial competitive advantage over
Earth-based companies, back in the late '50s, was purely regulatory. We could
do experiments that our rivals on Earth couldn't, and even more, when we had
positive results, we could move forward with them right away, without worrying
about funding-process oversight or waiting for regulatory approval."
The
biotech executive looked to be a fit man of late middle age, tanned,
well-toned, but silver-haired. Like most Arcadians, he wore colorful, informal
clothes well suited to warm weather. Only his prefect haircut and his
expensive, cutting-edge Japanese wrist-phone hinted at his status.
"Now,
of course," he went on, "we have a whole generation of young people
with a tradition of cutting edge research and top-notch academic preparation; a
lot of our first biotech people are the ones teaching the current generation.
So biotech has become our point of pride, here on Arcadia.
"Don't
get me wrong; we have some good people working in other fields; in info-tech,
for instance, but it's nothing like what you see on Earth, in Bangalore, say,
or in Zhongguancun, 'Silicon City,' in China. But biotech, well, that's
different. I'd say we pretty much lead the human race, there."
"But
what about the bioethics?" Ulla asked. "Don't you have problems with
unethical activity, without regulatory oversight?"
"What
sort of ethics?" the executive asked in turn. "If you mean fraud,
falsified results, then no, we don't have a problem; at least not for long.
Some outfits tried that sort of thing at first, but we pretty quickly worked
out a system. Any new result, product, what have you, is tested by almost all
the other biotech outfits. Anyone who cheats, either by falsifying a result or
by sabotaging a test of a rival's results... well, that'll get reported by the
Office of Standards and we'll just never deal with that outfit again. And
pretty much no one else will, either. After a couple of outfits went down the
tubes that way, everybody else plays nice."
"What
about experimental ethics?" Ulla asked. "Or medical ethics, for that
matter? You don't even license medical practitioners!"
"Well,
we do have laws, you know. Any deliberate or negligent harm caused to anyone
will bring in the Office of Justice. As
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