 Terra Insegura by Edward Willett
DAW, $7.99, 391pp, pb, 9780756405533. Science fiction.
A little bleaker, a little less "gosh-wow" sensawunda (due to familiarity), a lot closer to home, Terra Insegura is the perfect balance to Marseguro: you've got to read this one if you read the first. It does stand on its own, but why deny yourself the pleasure of the full literary tapestry Edward Willett weaves with these two?
Warning: the fuller review below contains spoilers for both this book and the first in the series, Marseguro.
The sequel to Marseguro (see this review) finds the action back on Earth. After forces of the Body Purified (the dominant religion on Earth that arose in the wake of near-destruction via asteroid) attacked the colony planet Marseguro in an effort to "purify" humanity by eradicating the genetically engineered race known as the Selkies, the Selkies fought back. They engineered a plague fatal to "non-mods" (unmodified humans), but to which anyone carrying a specific genetic sequence was immune. That sequence was placed in the Selkies' genome by their creator, Victor Hansen. The Selkies also built a vaccine, which will protect people from the plague.
One of the non-mods on Marseguro was Chris Keating, a traitor to his planet, secretly loyal to the Body Purified, if only he could reach them. It was partly his efforts that brought the Holy Warriors to Marseguro. He, as a native, was given the vaccine, but when he escaped in one of the Holy Warriors' otherwise empty warships, it automatically returned him to Earth. And before anyone on the home planet realized he was a carrier, he had transmitted the plague to the unvaccinated on Earth, and caused the near-total destruction of humanity on the home planet.
But in this book, we learn that some of what we thought were absolutes in the first actually weren't. Not all of the Holy Warriors on Marseguro were killed. And not all of the people on Earth have died. Indeed, not even all of Victor Hansen's creations were sent to Marseguro.
Richard Hansen, third-generation clone of Victor who bears some of his memories from a partially defused "gene bomb", has allied himself with his forebear's creations. But as a former Holy Warrior himself, he's the only one able to command the AI on the warship still orbiting Marseguro. Through some intricate reprogramming, the ship has come to accept Richard as its captain, and Richard is leading a humanitarian relief effort back to Earth, bringing the vaccine. But his crew isn't completely unified behind the effort to save everyone on the home planet: there are some on the rechristened MSS Victor Hansen who would rather complete the job the plague did on Earth, wiping out every last member of the Body Purified.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on Marseguro, Emily Wood is piloting a little submarine with her mother, Dr. Carla Christianson-Wood (the creator of the plague), who has been living in a fugue since realizing what she hath wrought. The sub is captured by, we discover, a submerged Holy Warrior vessel with a small crew who were able to get the vaccine for themselves. They've decided to return Dr. Christianson-Wood to Earth, to stand trial for her crime (to wit, genocide), and also for being, in their eyes, a non-human abomination. Emily is just sort of a bonus.
Chris Keating, on Earth, was very fortunate to be let out of his cell by a dying jailer before the entire city had died (in which event, he probably would have starved to death in prison). He's been living sort of comfortably in the capitol city, until one day he is ambushed by a scouting party of modified humans… but they're cat-people, not Selkies. Apparently Victor Hansen had been a prolific gene-modifier, and had created another race.
Karl Rasmusson had been the Right Hand, the power behind the throne which was the Avatar Incarnate. He had risen as high as he'd wanted: wielding the power without being the figurehead. But then came the plague, and Karl had been out of town when it struck. With the previous Avatar's death came the death of the entire "college of cardinals" which would have elected his successor. And with no other mechanism in place, the "in case of emergency" order of succession decreed that Karl moved up to be the Avatar of God Itself. He didn't want it, but he took it. And his little enclave, safely protected from the plague on an island in the Pacific Northwest, maintained its role as the head of the Body Purified, the voice of God Itself on Earth. Karl may be a pragmatist, but that doesn't mean he isn't also a true believer in the word of God Itself: he knows it is God's commandment that humanity must be purified to avoid death. And Karl also knows of the Kemonomimi (the cat-like race Victor Hansen had created).
Richard Hansen's altruism seems to always lead him to a bad decision: he tries to do what's right, and people die. Now, he tries to do what's right by getting the vaccine to as many people as possible, and is duped into giving it to Avatar Karl and the remains of the Body Purified, who will not spread it to the non-believers, but will instead take their new-found ability to move about (no more fear of the plague) to make war on the Kemonomimi.
Emily and her mother, as prisoners, arrive on Earth, or rather, crash into the ocean. They are thus freed from their erstwhile captors, and make contact with their unknown cousins, the Selkies who remained (completely hidden) on Earth. The Earth Selkies have 70 years experience staying hidden, and are not the least bit interested in making their existence known to anyone who might attack them. Their elected president is caution to a fault (even if her teenage son is rage, as teenage boys often are when confronted with good-looking, nude, slightly older women, like Emily). President McLean and the Free Selkie Republic are thus completely uninterested in warning the Kemonomimi of the Avatar's moves against them. She's willing to let Emily bring the warning herself, but not to reveal the FSR's existence.
The Kemonomimi are lead not by one of their own, but by their creator, Victor Hansen. They seem to believe his confused story of how he came to still be alive (being, at this point, at least 150 years old), but the reader knows full well this Victor Hansen is another clone of the original, one in whom the gene bomb was fully effective. And Victor and his followers have seen their chance. Rather than living in hiding, as they have been since the Body Purified took over, this plague is their chance to take over the whole planet, and they're just going to remove this last annoying Avatar and get on with things.
Emily makes contact (with the President's son tagging along) and is immediately captured by Victor Hansen, who recognizes his inferior creation, the Selkies, the race he, too wants to wipe out.
And now we have four forces, running more or less headlong at each other: the Earth Selkies, the Kemonomimi, the remains of the Body Purified, and the group from Marseguro (which is at times two separate groups: one completely humanitarian, and one vengeful operation to finish off the Body Purified). Willett keeps his characters moving all over the board, but always toward their stated goals (rational or not), which will just happen to intersect in an Earth-shaking conflagration. While I was disappointed each time a story-line chopped off, it brought me back to another I wanted to follow as well. Willett is well able to keep all his juggling balls in the air at the same time.
Kudos to Willett for making the fish-people Selkies feel much more human than the non-mod humans. Indeed, even the cat-people Kemonomimi are that much more alien to the reader. But I felt a little rushed at the end: after this sprawling epic crossing planets, cultures, and ideologies, the denouement seemed stuck in very quickly. It's a good story, a great mate to the first volume, but a little dark. It isn't a tale of victory so much as a story of survival scratched from the jaws of annihilation.
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