AS CARIAD GUIDED THE devastated Garwin down the corridors of the Mistral, a bone-deep weariness settled over her. Ahead loomed the task of replenishing the colony’s gene pool. She would have to look up the genetic codes of the surviving Gens and cross reference the information with that held on gametes aboard the Nova Fortuna and the codes of the Woken, revived and in cryo. The genes of every s*x cell in storage and every fertile individual would be required to ensure the long-term survival of the colony.
Then she would have to select out the best matches to boost the heterogeneity of the pool while maintaining the optimum physical hardiness, for who knew what trials lay ahead of them? And that was only the beginning. Next would come the task of gestating the fetuses she would create to f
