“I think we’re done here,” Ungphakorn said. “The Finn isssn’t going to ssside with you, if he even bothersss to find out what the dissscusssion wasss about. The Demon might, but only for the chaosss that would ensssue. Ssso you need ssseven to implement.”

“Nine,” Sheida said. “Revocation of the Change rules will require nine; they were implemented with eight votes. Actually, one of them was implemented with a unanimous vote of Council so you’ll have to get one of the Hacks to agree to override that one.”

“Which was?” Ishtar asked.

“ ‘No revocation of Change under conditions in which the Changed would be placed in mortal peril.’ So you’d have to recover all the mer-people, delphinos, whalers and all the rest before you could change them back. And the logistics of changing back all the mer and delphinos, alone, boggles the mind; it requires human intervention because of the risk factors. And then there would be the genetic flaws that would creep in during the process. Just what we need: more wild gene faults.”

“Not to mention make sssure no one wasss flying when you took away their ability,” Ungphakorn added dryly. “You don’t have enough votesss to implement, Bowman, even with the Demon. Give it up.”

“Never,” Paul said, getting to his feet. “The future of humanity is in our hands, and you are throwing it away. For fantasies of a race of maternal females arising from nowhere and…” he stopped and just gestured wordlessly at the quetzacoatl.

“I do believe that you’re looking for the word ‘abomination,’ ” Ishtar said lightly. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes!” Chansa snapped, his patience apparently gone. “Abominations! Dragons and unicorns and your precious mer-people! These are not humans! They are filth, nothing but degenerate FILTH!”

“Oh, my,” Ishtar said. “I do believe that we’ve annoyed our good Chansa. And let me ask you, boy, do your natural genetics indicate that you should be three meters tall and two hundred kilos?”