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Quara was oblivious to Ela's sarcasm-- or chose to appear oblivious, anyway. "How can we decipher a language out of the blue? We don't have any referents. But we do have complete records of the versions of the descolada virus. We know what it looked like before it adapted to the human metabolism. We know how it changed after each of our attempts to kill it. Some of the changes were functional-- it was adapting. But some of them were clerical-- it was keeping a record of what it did."
"We don't know that," said Ela with perhaps too much pleasure in correcting Quara.
"I know it," said Quara. "Anyway, it gives us a known context, doesn't it? We know what that language is about, even if we haven't been able to decode it."
"Well, now that you've said all that," said Ela, "I still have no idea how this new wisdom will help us decode the language. I mean, isn't that precisely what you've been working on for months?"
"Ah," said Quara. "I have. But what I haven't been able to do is speak the 'words' that the descolada virus recorded and see what answers we get back."
"Too dangerous," said Jane at once. "Absurdly dangerous. These people are capable of making viruses that completely destroy biospheres, and they're callous enough to use them. And you're proposing that we give to them precisely the weapon they used to devastate the pequeninos' planet? Which probably contains a complete record, not only of the pequeninos' metabolism, but of ours as well? Why not just slit our own throats and send them the blood?"
Miro noticed that when Jane spoke, the others looked almost stunned. Part of their response might have been to the difference between Val's diffidence and the bold attitude that Jane displayed. Part of it, too, might have been because the Jane they knew was more computerlike, less assertive. Miro, however, recognized this authoritarian style from the way she had often spoken into his ear through the jewel. In a way it was a pleasure for him to hear her again; it was also disturbing to hear it coming from the lips of someone else. Val was gone; Jane was back; it was awful; it was wonderful.
Because Miro was not so taken aback by Jane's attitude, he was the one to speak into the silence. "Quara's right, Jane. We don't have years and years to work this out-- we might have only a few weeks. Or less. We need to provoke a linguistic response. Get an answer from them, analyze the difference in language between their initial statements to us and the later ones."
"We're giving away too much," said Jane.
"No risk, no gain," said Miro.
"Too much risk, all dead," said Jane snidely. But in the snideness there was a familiar lilt, a kind of sauciness that said, I'm only playing. And that came, not from Jane-- Jane had never sounded like that-- but from Val. It hurt to hear it; it was good to hear it. Miro's dual responses to everything coming from Jane kept him constantly on edge. I love you, I miss you, I grieve for you, shut up; whom he was talking to seemed to change with the minutes.