Ilona Andrews by The Questing Beast

Author:The Questing Beast
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-09T09:25:38+00:00

*****

Jennifer crossed her arms on her chest. She was petite and ten pounds on the right side of plump, and Sean couldn’t help but note that the way her arms were crossed pushed her breasts up and out.

Sean took his eyes from her chest and stared at the ground. That had been a problem all along. He knew it. He wasn’t sure if she knew it, and it worried him to think that she might. It may have turned out fine, possibly they could’ve even become a couple, but after Ickman had left, Jennifer was named his Joint Team Leader, which meant that she was the only person he could argue with without fear of entering a leader-subordinate relationship. And they argued a lot.

Sean took a deep breath. “I apologize for what I said earlier. I do concede that not all supporters of Autonomous System Structure are naive, slack-jawed, starry-eyed rich kids, who seek to alleviate personal guilt caused by their life of privilege. I also would like to say that a strong centralized government does have its weak points. And that I take back anything bad I’ve said before that could possibly piss you off.”

Jennifer brushed back her brown hair. “What do you want?”

It took him ten minutes to get through the explanation.

“You’re insane,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

“Jennifer…”

“There’s a reason why it’s illegal, Sean! You can’t introduce a man-made species into an ecosystem. It can wipe the whole biosphere out.”

“We only need one. You could make it sterile.”

“No.”

“Jennifer, I beg you…”

“Ha!”

He desperately raked his mind for a way to convince her and found none. “Look,” he said miserably. “There are fifteen people who gave two years of their lives to study and assess this planet. Their careers will be destroyed. It will reflect badly on both of us – in the entire history of Survey, there has never been an instance when a team hasn’t turned in a Final Evaluation Report. Except for Captain Chef, but that doesn’t count because he and his crew were eaten. But that’s not even the important part. The important part is that without the survey report we can show no basis to support preservation. They’ll chuck this planet for development. The trogomets, the tari trees, the dwarf cows, the ino, all of it will be gone.”

She was looking at him. He took her gently by the elbow and turned her around to the window.

Long-stemmed grasses shivered in the light breeze, dotted by pale red flowers with white stamens that sparkled in the sun. In the distance, in a soft patch of Maiden’s hair weeds, a herd of dwarf cows watched two small calves butt heads with mock ferocity. Beyond the field, the tari forest rose like a jagged mountain ridge, silver, tall, and majestic. Above it all long feather-brush strokes of clouds highlighted the crystalline depth of the emerald sky.

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