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Peter Watts 71 Blindsight<br />

Chelsea just didn't understand sexual politics. Sure she'd edited<br />

brains for a living, but maybe she'd just memorized all that<br />

circuitry without giving any thought to how it had arisen in the first<br />

place, to the ultimate rules of natural selection that had shaped it.<br />

Maybe she honestly didn't know that we were evolutionary<br />

enemies, that all relationships were doomed to failure. If I could<br />

slip that insight into her head— if I could charm my way past her<br />

defenses— maybe we'd be able to hold things together.<br />

So I thought about it, and I came up with the perfect way to raise<br />

her awareness. I wrote her a bedtime story, a disarming blend of<br />

humor and affection, and I called it<br />

The Book of Oogenesis<br />

In the beginning were the gametes. And though<br />

there was sex, lo, there was no gender, and life was<br />

in balance.<br />

And God said, "Let there be Sperm": and some<br />

seeds did shrivel in size and grow cheap to make,<br />

and they did flood the market.<br />

And God said, "Let there be Eggs": and other<br />

seeds were afflicted by a plague of Sperm. And yea,<br />

few of them bore fruit, for Sperm brought no food<br />

for the zygote, and only the largest Eggs could<br />

make up the shortfall. And these grew yet larger in<br />

the fullness of time.<br />

And God put the Eggs into a womb, and said,<br />

"Wait here: for thy bulk has made thee unwieldy,<br />

and Sperm must seek thee out in thy chambers.<br />

Henceforth shalt thou be fertilized internally." And<br />

it was so.<br />

And God said to the gametes, "The fruit of thy<br />

fusion may abide in any place and take any shape.<br />

It may breathe air or water or the sulphurous muck<br />

of hydrothermal vents. But do not forget my one<br />

commandment unto you, which has not changed<br />

from the beginning of time: spread thy genes."

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