You’d think this would be an undesirable trait in a living creature, but that’s exactly what the Godspeakers and the City Council want.” She shook her head, making a disgusted noise in her throat, and then her gaze returned to me with an even greater intensity. “The Godspeakers used the Word of Shaping, Cruithear as she’s called—‘shaper’ in Scots-Gaelic—to create a humanlike form out of simple organic material.”
There, sitting in a pile of trash, I couldn’t grasp the significance of what she’d just said. Like I’d often done with Drey’s lectures, I focused on a smaller detail, noting that the Word of Shaping, or at least her donor parent, must have come from the United Kingdom, Scotland in particular. Even the Words’ names didn’t belong to them. Tavin—even Gustav—didn’t sound so bad now. At least when Drey chose the name, it hadn’t labeled me as the genetic contribution of some country while specifying my future job at the same time.
I wondered in what language “khaya” meant “life.”
Khaya had been watching me for a reaction, then continued when she didn’t get one. “This took years and years,” she said, as if stressing the immensity of something that already sounded beyond believable to me. “It was the continuation of a project begun during the previous generation of Words, and it took cracking the human genome for Cruithear to have the building blocks to make a human body. But she finally succeeded, and while these things are only dolls, made out of flesh and blood, I can bring them to a sort of half-life.” She took a deep breath. “At first the plan was to create an army.”
“An army?” The word was a sickening reality check, like the ground hitting me after falling on my face.
Khaya’s intensity dropped her voice even lower. “What better soldiers could you have—unthinking, obeying automatons with no real life to lose? But they weren’t practical; they’re not as expendable as originally hoped, since it takes Cruithear so long to make them, and worse, they’re not as intelligent. They’re more versatile than robots, tapping into the body’s natural instincts, but they still need orders. They don’t have the ability to think on their feet or make decisions, which ended up getting most of them slaughtered in the mock battles the City Council staged outside of Eden City a couple of years ago. It was … ”
She paused, staring into a pile of broken eggshells as if seeing something else. Then she shuddered. “It was a bloodbath. It was hard to watch, even when I kept telling myself they weren’t really human, not really alive, not really dying … just sacks of meat.” After a pause, she blinked, seeming to come back to herself. “So they failed as soldiers. They only work as replacements for people who don’t need will, whose ability to reason is a hindrance to their function. Then they’re perfect.”
“As Words.” I said it before I’d even realized it, as if my mind had made the leap without taking me along.
“You are smart,” she said, a smile cutting across her face. “Without a will, we’re utterly controllable. If you told the Word of Earth to make a mountain, and if it was within his power—within his programming, written on his back—then the Godspeakers or even his own mind wouldn’t need to muddle through the process. He would just do it.”
I pictured an army of automatons that could destroy an enemy or even themselves at a single command … and then an army of a different sort, much smaller in numbers, but with much, much greater power.
“Or at least that’s what they think would happen if the Words became automatons,” Khaya added. “They haven’t gotten that far.”
“Because you left before they could,” I said, making another leap.
Khaya nodded, looking out at the shimmering water.
“Where should we go?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “I thought you might want to find the address on that postcard.”
There, sitting in a pile of trash, I couldn’t grasp the significance of what she’d just said. Like I’d often done with Drey’s lectures, I focused on a smaller detail, noting that the Word of Shaping, or at least her donor parent, must have come from the United Kingdom, Scotland in particular. Even the Words’ names didn’t belong to them. Tavin—even Gustav—didn’t sound so bad now. At least when Drey chose the name, it hadn’t labeled me as the genetic contribution of some country while specifying my future job at the same time.
I wondered in what language “khaya” meant “life.”
Khaya had been watching me for a reaction, then continued when she didn’t get one. “This took years and years,” she said, as if stressing the immensity of something that already sounded beyond believable to me. “It was the continuation of a project begun during the previous generation of Words, and it took cracking the human genome for Cruithear to have the building blocks to make a human body. But she finally succeeded, and while these things are only dolls, made out of flesh and blood, I can bring them to a sort of half-life.” She took a deep breath. “At first the plan was to create an army.”
“An army?” The word was a sickening reality check, like the ground hitting me after falling on my face.
Khaya’s intensity dropped her voice even lower. “What better soldiers could you have—unthinking, obeying automatons with no real life to lose? But they weren’t practical; they’re not as expendable as originally hoped, since it takes Cruithear so long to make them, and worse, they’re not as intelligent. They’re more versatile than robots, tapping into the body’s natural instincts, but they still need orders. They don’t have the ability to think on their feet or make decisions, which ended up getting most of them slaughtered in the mock battles the City Council staged outside of Eden City a couple of years ago. It was … ”
She paused, staring into a pile of broken eggshells as if seeing something else. Then she shuddered. “It was a bloodbath. It was hard to watch, even when I kept telling myself they weren’t really human, not really alive, not really dying … just sacks of meat.” After a pause, she blinked, seeming to come back to herself. “So they failed as soldiers. They only work as replacements for people who don’t need will, whose ability to reason is a hindrance to their function. Then they’re perfect.”
“As Words.” I said it before I’d even realized it, as if my mind had made the leap without taking me along.
“You are smart,” she said, a smile cutting across her face. “Without a will, we’re utterly controllable. If you told the Word of Earth to make a mountain, and if it was within his power—within his programming, written on his back—then the Godspeakers or even his own mind wouldn’t need to muddle through the process. He would just do it.”
I pictured an army of automatons that could destroy an enemy or even themselves at a single command … and then an army of a different sort, much smaller in numbers, but with much, much greater power.
“Or at least that’s what they think would happen if the Words became automatons,” Khaya added. “They haven’t gotten that far.”
“Because you left before they could,” I said, making another leap.
Khaya nodded, looking out at the shimmering water.
“Where should we go?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “I thought you might want to find the address on that postcard.”
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