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“You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all . . .” The rattling sounded again. “That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing.”
“intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn’t matter. A cancer growing in someone’s body will go on growing in spite of denial. And a complex combination of genes that work together to make you intelligent as well as hierarchical will still handicap you whether you acknowledge it or not.”
“If you have to do something, it might as well feel good,”
We need to know them for what they are, even if there are no human parallels—and believe me, there are none for the ooloi.”
Yet she did think of Ahajas as a friend—Ahajas, Dichaan, Nikanj . . . But what was she to them? A tool? A pleasurable perversion? An accepted member of the household? Accepted as what?
