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sucking life from the male sexual organs, a half-dozen at a time. That's who they were. Then the descolada transformed them, and sterilized the males until after they died and turned into trees."
"Their very nature--"
"It was a hard thing for human beings to deal with, when we first realized how much of our behavior arose from evolutionary necessity," said Wiggin. "There are still numberless humans who refuse to believe it. Even if it turns out to be absolutely true, do you think that the pequeninos will embrace this idea as easily as they swallowed wonders like space travel? It's one thing to see creatures from another world. It's another thing to find out that neither God nor evolution created you-- that some scientist of another species did."
"But if it's true--"
"Who knows if it's true? All we'll ever know is if the idea is useful. And to the pequeninos, it may be so devastating that they refuse to believe it forever."
"Some will hate you for telling them," said Wang-mu. "But some will be glad for it."
They looked at her again-- or at least Jane's computer simulation showed them looking at her. "You would know, wouldn't you," said Wiggin. "You and Han Fei-tzu just found out that your people had been artificially enhanced."
"And shackled, all at once," said Wang-mu. "For me and Master Han, it was freedom. For Qing- jao ..."
"There'll be many like Qing-jao among the pequeninos," said Ela. "But Planter and Human and Rooter won't be among them, will they? They're very wise."
"So is Qing-jao!" said Wang-mu. She spoke more hotly than she meant to. But the loyalty of a secret maid dies slowly.
"We didn't mean to say she isn't," said Wiggin. "But she certainly isn't being wise about this, is she?"
"Not about this," said Wang-mu.
"That's all we meant. No one likes to find out that the story he always believed about his own identity is false. The pequeninos, many of them, believe that God made them something special, just as your godspoken believe."
"And we're not special, none of us!" cried Wang-mu. "We're all as ordinary as mud! There are no godspoken. There are no gods. They care nothing about us."
"If there aren't any gods," said Ela, mildly correcting her, "then they can hardly do any caring one way or another."