Starcrossed

Chapter 13b: fine (part 2)

Chapter 13 (Part 2)

fine (feen): genetically related subsets of Martian population, each with certain attributes

Mystified, I just motioned for her to go ahead.

"Okay. You know that we've been evolving independently of Earth humans for more than two thousand years, right? Ever since the original colonists were abducted from Ireland or thereabouts by an alien race we know almost nothing about."

I got up and refilled our milk glasses and the cookie plate, since I had a feeling this might take a while. "Rigel and his folks told me that part, yes, and your parents told me more. They said those aliens did genetic experiments?"

"That's what we think, yeah. But after they left for good, fifteen hundred years or so ago, we continued with what I guess you could call eugenics—selective breeding—to enhance our natural abilities. It's why we're mostly stronger, smarter, more empathic, et cetera, than the Duchas. Over time, our society developed a structure based on our genetic differences."

"Wait—selective breeding?" I repeated, recoiling at the idea of arranged marriages, or worse. Nobody had mentioned that! "You mean you're forced to . . . to breed with whoever some scientist or computer program says you have to, for the good of the, uh, race? That sounds awful!"

"No, it's not like that! Not really," she assured me, her gray eyes wide and earnest. "It's more like . . . I guess you could call it tribes, or clans. A long time ago, like a thousand years, our people divided into different fines—" she pronounced it feens— "or bloodlines, according to innate genetic abilities.

"The smartest, most talented people formed the very first one, and became our natural leaders. A few generations later, that first group split into the Royal fine and the Scientific fine, which still form the basis for our two-party government system. Then those fines split into sub-fines. Nowadays, besides the Sovereigns, the Royal fine includes all our administrators, legal scholars, historians, and local government officials. The Scientific sub-fines are physicists, healers, engineers, geneticists, things like that.

"Meanwhile, everyone else separated into fines and sub-fines, too. Agriculture, manufacturing, mining, maintenance, arts, communications, systems management, groups like that. This must sound pretty complicated, huh?"

But I was fascinated, if still somewhat appalled. "So people are expected to marry within their own clan or, uh, fine?" I asked, trying to get back to her original point.

She nodded. "Abilities are stronger when both parents are from at least the same fine if not sub-fine. Everyone wants their children to be successful, so that's a real incentive to stick to tradition."

"Okay, I get it. Rigel's parents aren't Royal, so we aren't supposed to be together. But we're on Earth, not Mars, so what difference does it make? And what does it have to do with the graell? Other than the fact that you think it's fictitious, I mean."

She set down the cookie she'd just picked up. "Not fictitious, exactly. My mom says there have been a few documented cases over the centuries, though it's really, really rare. I mean the, um, fairy tale kind that happens fast, like love at first sight. The other kind, which a lot of people also call graell, is more common, though still pretty rare. That's where people, usually married couples, gradually form a physical and psychic bond over years together. A few have supposedly even developed the shilcloas, um, a telepathic link, though apparently only in the Royal family."

I opened my mouth to tell her that Rigel's parents had that, and that Rigel and I were getting close, but she went on without pausing.

"But the instant kind of graell? Even though there are fairy tales about it happening between way different fines, the few documented times it's ever happened have all been between people of the same fine, even the same sub-fine. And of really pure blood, besides. You and Rigel—"

"I know. He's Scientific and I'm Royal. Whole different fines."

"Not only that, according to Uncle Allister, his parents are from different Science fines—his dad from Informatics and his mom from Healing, which means he's not even from a pure-blooded sub-fine."

Now I was confused again. "But his grandfather, Shim—his dad's father—is a geneticist. Isn't that a kind of doctor, too?"

"That's what he does here, but Mum says he was Informatics back home, analyzing genetic and astrophysics data. But even a pure genetics researcher on Mars would be a separate fine from Healing. Healers—what you'd call medical doctors—have innate healing abilities that go beyond using treatments and medicines."

I blinked. "Wow, like . . . laying on hands? I didn't know that." Could Dr. Stuart really do that? I realized I'd never had an opportunity to find out—and since she was an OB/Gyn, I probably wouldn't. Though I supposed I could ask.

She nodded. "Most people have some kind of special, fine-related ability that no Duchas would have."

Not exactly like choosing a college major, then. Mars was apparently a society of savants, with very deep but very narrow skill sets born into them. I found that both cool and disturbing. "Like what?"

"Well, Engineers have super precise spatial skills, Mechanicals have an affinity with machines, Informatics instinctively understand computer languages and data sets, Agriculturalists make plants grow—though, um, I never have. Things like that."

"Wait, you're not a Royal? I thought—"

"No, my real parents were Ags, farmers in Glenamuir. They died when I was a baby. The O'Garas adopted me and assumed their identities—in the database, anyway—so Faxon's people couldn't track them down as Royals. Though I've more or less been raised as one."

Molly didn't seem upset about it, though I wondered if she really was. "So what about Royals?" I had to ask. "Do they have any special abilities?"

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