The Braided World by Kay Kenyon

out a small meal for her mistress, balancing the pink fruit on her knees to serve as a table. She leaned toward her mistress as the woman spoke to her, and then the hoda answered in sign, bringing a laugh from the noblewoman. It looked like the two might be friends on an outing. Except that one could not speak, and was a slave.
    Nick wanted to know what the status of the hoda might be among the society of women known as the uldia. Slavery would be a complicated system; there would be factions and subtle differences in attitudes. The mission needed a captain with a wider perspective. Someone with a vision, who could see patterns and connections. That was what leaders did. It was what Captain Darrow would have done, God rest his soul.
    The shuttle was intact, carefully guarded by a contingent of the king's guard. No doubt Vidori was eager to prevent it from falling into Voi hands.
    It was eerie to be back in the shuttle after so long in the wood and water world of the Olagong. The noblewoman and the hoda stared around themselves at the metal environs, with its tangle of pipes and conduits.
    Since Zhen wasn't yet a decent speaker of the Dassa language, she had Nick explain to the women what the procedure would be. He did his best, having memorized the anatomical terms in their language. Then Zhen took the women by the arm and led them into the exam room.
    Nick sorted through his locker, cramming necessities into a stuff sack—at Anton's orders, leaving behind anything that was or might be construed as a weapon. That meant leaving behind the miniature scout drone. It operatedwithin a limited range, anyway, its main utility being advance scouting in a combat situation. Vidori wouldn't be told about such a device, since they intended to steer clear of escalating the warfare here.
    After an hour, Zhen emerged from the lab with the two Dassa women.
    “Well?” he asked in English.
    To his surprise, Zhen answered him simply, clinically. “The hoda has all her physiology intact.” She glanced at the noblewoman. “The other has only a vestigial uterus. Nonfunctional.”
    So, then. The Dassa didn't reproduce—normally. They'd
said
they didn't. But this settled it. There were variums here, somewhere. Tended by the uldia. He realized that he'd been hoping it was a communication error or a myth.
    Zhen was thinking out loud. “Question is, how do we get two types of Dassa?”
    At Nick's blank look, she went on, “Some of the science team think it happened with a reversion mutation. Now that we know there are two kinds of Dassa reproduction, I think the hoda are definitely revertants. It's one way it could make sense.”
    “Revertants?”
    Zhen
was indulging him. “Yeah, revertants. The way that works is, the Dassa reproductive system is, let's say, controlled by a knockout gene that was inserted into the middle of a key gene that regulates uterus formation. So the varium gene can direct, and is compatible with, the whole Dassa reproductive strategy. But if the inserted DNA is naturally unstable to some extent, then it is occasionally excised back out of the gene by a reversion mutation, thus knocking out the first gene's function. Happens all the time in genetic research, where we can alter mice by inserting a gene and blocking its readout into protein, like if a genetically altered red-eyed fruit fly gives rise to an offspring that has the original black eyes.”
    Nick frowned. “I don't think
revertants
is a very good name, though. Sounds creepy.”
    “How about Homo sapiens, then? The hoda are Homo sapiens.”
    Nick's face must have showed how sweet that news sounded. “That's great,” he said.
    Zhen narrowed her eyes. “Don't applaud yet. We've still got a few problems.” She moved to the hoda woman and took her by the arm, leading her to stand in front of Nick.
    The hoda was staring up at Nick, as though she thought she'd done something wrong.
    Zhen said, “Tell her to open her mouth.”
    “You tell her, Zhen—you're