to bother me after his smoke trick from the night before. He looked me over at length, like he had something on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t say anything.
Feryal’s sweet voice took away the tension. “Once upon a time, I wrote an article on a similar issue and had the opportunity to study this in depth. If we look around us at the experiences of domesticated creatures, we can understand this issue better.” She again spoke to us as if we were her students. “In fact, everything that survives pays a tribute or a bribe. Cows survive and continue their bloodline by continuously producing milk. In order to ensure their breed’s survival and not become one of the animal species that we have destroyed, they, ironically, offer their milk and meat. Cows and chickens and other such animals escape extinction and the cruelty of nature by behaving this way.”
Feryal leaned in as she continued. “We don’t let a wolf wander around the city, and we don’t make an effort to breed it on a farm so that it can continue to have offspring. This is because it doesn’t pay us a bribe and thus, like many others, it is either destroyed or pushed away from our living areas. If horses didn’t offer their strength and their ability to carry us, and if they weren’t submissive enough to be tamed, do you think man would let them live on and take care of them? Would they even be able to continue their bloodline?”
I looked over at Ender, who was nodding as he listened to Feryal’s argument.
“That’s interesting,” Ender said. “I had never looked at it that way until you said that. You are saying everything has to pay a price to exist, even human communities. That’s what you mean, right?”
“Naturally. Driving incompatible stereotypes out of the community is also an indicator of this phenomenon,” Feryal explained. “Throughout human history we have tried to limit the possibility of breeding for people who are of no use or who can hurt us. We put them in jail or give them the death penalty. And who doesn’t want to get married to a smart, beautiful, and hardworking person and make children? But this means that we are somehow trying to prevent the continuation of others’ bloodlines by not marrying the opposite kind of people.”
Fatin became agitated at this. “So, you’re admitting that you people are part of an order based on a relationship of interest and benefit, only masked with morality. You crush one another or even cause one another’s extinction with the rules you set. Because you invented the rifle, you think you have the privilege of killing and exploiting the communities that still use arrows and spears. Afterward, you offer them a few tokens or claim a holy mission. America did this. They carried out genocide on the native people of an entire continent, only leaving a handful to live on reservations. You are calling this ‘natural selection.’ Maybe this is why the concept and format of this competition seems natural and nice to you. You find it natural and exciting to cause another’s extinction, and you think I am the evil one.”
“You don’t need to persuade us by dragging us into a fight,” Hıdır said calmly. “It is only a matter of perspective and interpretation. Sometimes we shouldn’t question what we don’t understand.”
“Sometimes, I think of this world as my personal hell and you as the demons punishing me,” Fatin retorted. Then he stood up and walked toward his room. The sound of a slamming door punctuated his departure.
“He has begun to act like a teenage boy,” I said, trying to ease the silence.
Dr. Feryal Özel, still engaged with her ideas, turned to Ender. “If I share with you some of my ideas, could you give me an answer after thinking them over?”
Ender smiled at her and nodded silently.
Feryal continued. “Here is the first piece of data: Human DNA is repeated in each cell in almost the same manner. In other words, every cell, from those in the