Mati dreamed of slave owners telling her she was useless, guards yelling at her to hurry up, and a young goatherd informing her that none of her skills mattered. All of them were her kind, monkey mammals, humans. She squirmed and thrashed until Rini wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. Even though she was already drenched in sweat, somehow the extra body heat made her relax.
The dream changed. A large bird glanced at her with friendly, sparkling eyes. A bear roared and offered her a fish. A giant green insect opened its arms to embrace her. In the dream, Rini stood by, watching and waiting.
Mati awoke, swallowed to wet her parched throat, and felt Rini’s arms around her. “You awake?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think . . . maybe . . . we could have breakfast with Surgeon K’stimla?”
Rini smiled. “I think so.”
Bowls of small fruits, nuts, and wiggling grubs were delivered by a spider almost as tall as Mati. She chuckled when he sampled them before bowing.
“Have to make sure they’re fresh!” he explained, a berry in one claw and a grub in another, leaving six legs to stand on.
K’stimla soon arrived, and clearly enjoyed the grubs most. Rini and Mati stuck to the fruits and nuts.
NEBADOR Book Six: Star Station 78
“Ilika has told us many times that we always have to keep growing,” Mati began, pushing berries and nuts around on her plate. “A dream reminded me that . . . it’s been monkey mammals who have treated me badly all my life.
Even the wild animals on my planet have never been . . . you know . . . evil.”
“Evil requires sapience,” K’stimla replied between grubs. “If a creature isn’t self-aware, it might be dangerous, but can’t be evil.”
Rini nodded thoughtfully, but remained silent.
“I guess . . . monkey mammals are the worst . . .” Mati admitted with a guilty look.
“Not at all!” the surgeon interrupted. “Every sapient race is capable of selfish, terrible evil, using and abusing others, even their own kind. My people have a tendency to make beautiful planets into dark, ugly, polluted places where machines rule with iron claws.”
“Oh . . .”
“Being in the Nebador Services has nothing to do with the people we come from, and everything to do with who we are, as individuals. Very few humans, anywhere in the universe, could sit at table with me, and very few mantidae with you. But I can trust you to be my pilot, and you can, if you choose, trust me to be your surgeon.”
The healer fell silent and dissected a piece of fruit with her mandibles.
Mati took a deep breath. “I . . . would like you . . . to be my surgeon . . . if you can forgive me for being so . . . thick-headed.”
“I
can.”
Rini smiled and popped a grub into his mouth. It wasn’t too bad, after it quit wiggling.
Deep Learning Notes
Mati’s dream showed her journey from the simplistic (but erroneous) belief that species (race, nationality, etc.) matters, to the more mature realization that the inner qualities of each person are what matters.
“Evil requires sapience. If a creature isn’t self-aware, it might be dangerous,
NEBADOR Book Six: Star Station 79
but can’t be evil.” This idea stems from the definition of “evil,” first explored in Book One: a wrong knowingly committed. Even in our human legal system (far from perfect), wrongs committed without awareness are much lesser crimes, or not crimes at all.
K’stimla explains that “Every sapient race is capable of selfish, terrible evil, using and abusing others, even their own kind.” We do not know for sure yet, as we only know very much about one sapient race (ourselves), but the tendency to do great evil probably comes with sapience. We also, of course, do not know if any, some, most, or all sapient races eventually “grow up.” The author hopes so.
The one thing we DO know is that individuals sometimes choose to “grow up”
even when their species, in general, practices evil routinely. In this story, the Nebador Services are composed of a few of these individuals. K’stimla expresses this when she says, “Being in the Nebador Services has NOTHING
to do with the people we come from, and EVERYTHING to do with who we are, as individuals.”