that interesting. We’ve seen some great results with this generation of Alitrans. They lower mutoid anxiety levels considerably.”
Without thinking Jaguar opened her mouth and let some untactful words fall out. “Nice to know the miracle of science can relax the slaves,” she said dryly.
Regina stopped walking and regarded her with pained courtesy. “These are my programs, Jaguar. I’ve developed them very carefully, with our prisoners’ welfare in mind. ”
Jaguar regretted the sharpness of her words, though she continued to believe they were true. It was something she’d argued about with Regina in the past, and she would continue to do so.
“Sorry,” she said, “I’m tired and my mouth got ahead of my brain. And don’t get me wrong. I like work programs for prisoners.”
“I know. We talked about it often enough. But you’ve been making lots of noise against these. Frankly, it’s troubled me.”
“It’s not your vision that’s wrong,” Jaguar said. “It’s the connection between the prisoners and your economy. The Planetoid’s getting dependent on what they do. Last time that happened—well, we both know what came next.”
Before the Planetoids, prisons on the home planet swelled to house millions, most of them poor or mentally ill, racially or geographically disadvantaged. They became an industry, a complex system of economic interdependency. When they were no longer supportable the states started release programs, but they let all the wrong prisoners loose while cutting social welfare programs that might help them adjust. Those prisoners began the ritual killing that became the Killing Times. The Planetoids were built to make sure that never happened again.
“We both also know there’s lots of people who believe empaths started the Killing Times,” Regina noted.
Jaguar paused, looked to her. “You’re not one of them, are you?”
“Of course not,” Regina said. “I’m saying your sight may be limited by your experience, just as the vision of other people is limited by theirs.”
“Or maybe I’m the voice crying in the wilderness, making sure your model doesn’t go to bad places. I don’t want home planet legislators thinking we should all be dependent on our prisoners to support us. They’re way too inclined to take the easy way out in these matters.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Jaguar. You have some funding advantages,” Regina said. “A few Senators to call your own.”
Jaguar cast her a quick glance, saw her mouth pinch in and quickly release. The tiniest expression of resentment, flashed once and swallowed into a smile. Jaguar had the high regard of Senator MacDanials, who was on the budget committee. A Senator in her nonexistent pocket, and Regina resented it.
“If that’s true,” she said, “I think we earned them.”
Regina ducked her head down, brought it up again. “Did I sound petty? I apologize. I just hate grubbing for money. Very tiresome work. But really, Jaguar, don’t you ever worry about what you do on Three? So much opportunity for abuse of the system. And the prisoners there are so toxic.”
“Francis was no slouch.”
“He’s mentally ill. It’s different than someone who—who eats their husband with a stir fry.”
Jaguar grinned at this reference to one of her assignments. “You heard about her? She’s actually doing fine. Got through her program and went on to work in a battered woman’s shelter on the home planet.”
Regina tsked softly. “She worked out, but what about the ones who don’t?” she asked.
Jaguar shrugged. “Next life cycle.”
Her success rate was 98 percent, but Regina knew her failures usually ended up dead. The consequences of failure on Planetoid Three were clear and high. Jaguar had no illusions about that. Neither did her prisoners.
Regina shook her head. “You say that, yet you voted against execution for Francis.”
“My prisoners have a fighting chance,” she said. “Putting a mutoid in shackles and killing him when he’s defenseless—that’s a bureaucratic meat grinder.”
“Hm. I happen to agree. But what you do—I still think it’s cold. And I sometimes worry it’ll make you cold—cynical and bitter. You always had a tendency for—let’s call it primal detachment.”
Jaguar smiled at the term, and the worry. Much had changed, but Regina still took the mother hen position with her. She found it felt good. Reassuring. She never had the chance other children got, to be both rebellious and loved, by parents whose wisdom you eventually incorporated into your own complex worldview.
“No, Regina,” she said. “The exact opposite. If I can flip a pedophile or a murderer, even just one, it makes me less cynical. And I’ve flipped quite a few of each. Plus drug dealers, con men, cult leaders—well, you know.”
Gerry, Rachel, Adrian, Clare, and many other former prisoners now brought their store of good to the world because of her work. Watching a prisoner move from murder to remorse to compassion wasn’t easy. It left her feeling skinless, vulnerable to hope, that most terrifying of energies. But cynicism was the position of rationalists and disappointed romantics, and she was neither.
“What about the ones who don’t make it?” Regina asked, and Jaguar heard real concern in her voice. Something personal there? She cast her a glance, saw something like turbulence behind the calm in her clear blue eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
Regina shook her head. “Nothing. Just—I’m wondering.”
“Some of the prisoners don’t want to go on. They can’t figure out how to be different, and they don’t want to keep being who they are. And they all know the score by the time they get to me. They live with risk, and make choices. So do I.” She thought of her last conversation with Alex. “Not always comfortably, but always with full awareness.”
Regina looked around. “It’s different here. Our prisoners are productive and content without risking their lives.”
“But most of them never leave. These days, at least, your population doesn’t heal. They just—maintain.”
“It’s still a goal I’m more comfortable with.”
“No concerns that the home planet is using you as a dumping ground, a way to get rid of all the mutoids they can’t be bothered with?”
“If that’s the case, they’re better off here, where we can be bothered.”
“Yeah,” Jaguar admitted. “You may be right about that. But it’s just not what I do.”
Regina’s face brightened. “Then, as usual, we’ll have to agree to disagree, with mutual respect, yes?”
Jaguar smiled. The mother and daughter bond, unbreakable except under the most extreme circumstances. We are different, but we are still connected, in the most essential ways. “It’s always worked before,” she said.
“Yes. And since we’re
