" Shardik sat down on a rock and said, "Every time I think about a new species I want the universe to see, I come out here." Shardik sat down on a rock and said, "Every time I think about a new species I want the universe to see, I come out here. See those twenty-eight over there? Centaurs, almost perfect but for minimal flaws. See that pack over there? A hundred Felinzi, all wrong. It's a good thing I caught the error before I started the larger tanks, or all ten thousand would have ended up here. Over there, a few dozen Tindals with dominant non-psi genes. There, an entire species I gave up on as untenable. Ten individual tests. And see that one over there?" He pointed an open grave just to the right of the twenty-eight Centaur stones. "It's empty," Furry said. "It shouldn't be. Go read the stone." Furry and Nickolai walked over to the open hole. |