When Water Is Rationed, Whose Body Needs Less?

It surfaced in a subcommittee, almost by accident, and then no one could unhear it. If the session sets a guaranteed daily volume of water per person, does "per person" mean the same liters for every body — when a growing share of those bodies no longer runs on baseline biology? Some somatic augmentations, the kind that regulate temperature and metabolic load, measurably reduce a body's water demand under heat; others, the high-output neural and muscular lines, raise it. "The rationing framework assumes a standard human, and the standard human is quietly disappearing," said Dr. Priya Venkataraman, a physiologist advising the drafting group. She is adamant about the danger: a per-body ration tuned to the augmented average would shortchange the unenhanced majority, while one tuned to baseline would hand the enhanced a surplus to trade. The Concordat has no appetite to legislate biology into a water table, and said so. But the arithmetic will not leave. As one delegate muttered, filing out: "We came here to divide water. We did not come here to decide what a person is." The subcommittee tabled the question. It will be back.