Free Fragments by Dan Wells Page A

was, or Kira, and he certainly didn’t want to hand them
     over to the Partials even if he could, on the other hand . . . a Partial invasion
     could mean the end of the human race—not a slow fade, dying off because they couldn’t
     reproduce, but a bloody, brutal genocide. The Partials had proven twelve years ago
     that they weren’t afraid of war, but genocide? Samm had insisted so fiercely that
     they weren’t responsible for RM. That they felt guilty for causing, even inadvertently,
     the horrors of the Break. Had things changed that much? Were they ready to sacrifice
     an entire species just to save themselves?
    They’re asking me to do the same thing, he thought. To sacrifice Kira, or Nandita, to save humanity. If it comes right down to it, would
     I do it? Should I?
    “We could send an ambassador,” said Senator Hobb. “We’ve talked about it, we’ve chosen
     the team—let’s do it.”
    “Send them to who?” asked Kessler. “We’ve had contact with exactly one group of Partials,
     and they tried to kill the kids who contacted them. We tried to kill the Partial who contacted us . If there’s a peaceful resolution in our future, I sure as hell don’t know how to
     reach it.”
    They were the same arguments, Marcus realized, that he and his friends had bandied
     around in Xochi’s living room. The same circular proposals, the same obvious responses,
     the same endless bickering. Are the adults just as lost as the rest of us? Or is there really no solution to this
     problem?
    “From a medical standpoint,” said Dr. Skousen, “I’m afraid I must advocate—against
     my wishes—the . . .” He paused again. “The retrieval of a fresh sample. Of a new Partial,
     or at the very least a quantity of their pheromone. We have some remnants of the dose
     that was used on Arwen Sato, and we have the scans and records of the pheromone’s
     structure and function, but nothing can replace a fresh sample. We solved this problem
     last time by going to the source—to the Partials—and I believe that if we intend to
     solve it again, we will have to solve it the same way. Whether we get it by force
     or diplomacy doesn’t matter as much as the simple need to obtain it.”
    A rush of whispers filled the room, soft mutterings like the rustle of leaves. It wasn’t “we” who solved this problem, Marcus thought, it was Kira, and Dr. Skousen was one of her biggest opponents . Now he was advocating the same action without even crediting her?
    “You want us to risk another Partial War,” said Kessler.
    “That risk has already been taken,” said Tovar. “The bear, as they say, has already
     been poked, and it hasn’t eaten us yet.”
    “Being lucky is not the same thing as being safe,” said Kessler. “If there’s any way
     to synthesize this cure without resorting to military action, we have to explore it.
     If we provoke the Partials any further—”
    “We’ve provoked them too much as it is!” said Woolf. “You’ve read the reports—there
     are boats off the North Shore, Partial boats patrolling our borders—”
    Senator Hobb cut him off, while the audience whispered all the more wildly. “This
     is not the right venue to discuss those reports,” said Hobb.
    Marcus felt like he’d been shot in the gut: The Partials were patrolling the sound.
     The Partials had kept to themselves for eleven years—a quick recon mission here and
     there, like Heron had done, but always undercover, so much so that the humans hadn’t
     even known about it. Now they were openly patrolling the border. He realized his mouth
     was hanging open, and he closed it tightly.
    “The people need to know,” said Woolf. “They’re going to find out anyway—if the boats
     get too much closer, every farmer on the North Shore’s going to see them. For all
     we know small groups of them have landed already; our watch along that shore is anything
     but impenetrable.”
    “So our cold war’s heated up,” said