“It’s gorgeous, Dr. Guibedo! But I’d hardly call it a town—it covers half of Death Valley!”
“We paid for it fair and square. And now we call it Life Valley.” This Patty looks so much like my poor Hilde, before she died.
“But I still don’t see how you were so easy to find.”
“Simple. You didn’t come here looking to hurt nobody, and you didn’t bring your whole television studio along. We try not to get too much publicity.” With his new set of glands, Guibedo was feeling urges that he hadn’t felt in thirty years.
“Publicity! Dr. Guibedo, since your trees killed all those people, you’ve been one of the most sought-after men in the world!”
“Ach. That was an accident! I was only making it so the tree could fix its own absorption toilet. And when a plant thinks you don’t like it, it doesn’t grow so good, and some of the toilets grew in the beds and absorbed a few people.”
“A few people! You sent those seeds to some of the most influential people in the world. Thousands of them were killed!”
She even gets mad like my Hilde did. “That many people can starve to death in Africa, and nobody cares enough to give them a sandwich. No! The problem was that they were all big shots. And the worst crime that a big shot can think of is killing a big shot. Anyway, I got all that fixed now. The worst thing that can happen is if you hate your tree, the food gets not so good.
“Food! Hey, Liebchen! Would you get me some sauerbraten and some Boch beer, please? And maybe some strudel for Patty?”
“Yes, my lord!” Happy to be noticed at last, the faun pranced into the kitchen.
“Ach, Liebchen is so pretty.”
“Dr. Guibedo, what is she?”
“Liebchen is a faun. You see, my nephew, Heiny, he makes with the animals like I make with the plants. Fauns are sort of part of the tree. The brains of it. Liebchen is in empathic contact with Oakwood, my tree house here. She makes him grow the way I want, and she controls the food synthesizer. You just explain to Liebchen what you want, give her a couple of tries, and you got it. Liebchen and Oakwood will do anything to make you happy.”
“But I’ve been in Death, er—Life Valley half my vacation and I haven’t seen anything like her.”
“Well, you ain’t seen anything like my beautiful Oakwood who we’re sitting in now, either. You got to understand that the smarter animals have to grow up slow so they can learn. This Oakwood is eight months since I made the seed. Liebchen is four years old and is only now grown up. So we can’t make so many of them quickly. All of them so far had to be grown in bottles and educated by Heiny’s pretty wife.
“Oh, one thing you got to remember around Liebchen is to be all the time nice. Fauns get sick when you get mad at them. And they die if they think that nobody loves them. Heh! That’s about the only thing that can kill one. Well, that and radiation.”
Liebchen, her tail out proudly, pranced back in with a tray of food, put the tray on the coffee table, and curled up at Guibedo’s feet, her head against his lederhosen.
“You mean that all fauns are susceptible to radiation, Dr. Guibedo?” Partially because the food was in front of Guibedo and partially from Liebchen’s example, but mostly because, what with her scanty garments, she was cold, Patricia came around and sat very close to Guibedo.
“I mean that most of our engineered life forms are very susceptible to radiation, Patty. You see, with natural life forms, you got DNA in a double helix. Now, when a chunk of radiation hits it, it usually breaks only one strand, which usually grows back like it was but sometimes a little bit different which makes for mutation and, occasionally, improvement.”
Guibedo felt awkward being so close to Patricia, and he gulped his beer nervously. He would have moved away except that Liebchen was pressed tightly against his other side.
“But with an engineered life form, you don’t want it different. Mein Gott! What if some big shot would start breeding my pretty Liebchen to be soldiers in an army! Or worse yet, to sit behind some damn typewriter! No! What we use is single-strand DNA, a little bit like what they call RNA, so if some radiation hits it, the loop breaks and the cell maybe dies, but cannot be modified. This way my pretty Liebchen’s children will be absolutely identical to her, because she reproduces asexually.”
“Asexually! Do you mean that there aren’t any male fauns?” As Patricia talked, her pointed breast touched Guibedo’s arm. She wasn’t really conscious of it, but Guibedo was. Very.
Liebchen refilled the glasses.
Guibedo gulped nervously at his beer. This little girl could be my granddaughter. Might have been if them damn Nazi big shots hadn’t killed my Hilde. “That’s right. No need for boys. In nature, the boys is to mix up the genes so sometimes the kid gets the good parts of both his parents. And because, in higher animals, the kid and the mother can’t take care of themselves, the boys is to protect them.” Guibedo put his arm around Patricia. Sipping daintily at her glass, Patricia snuggled into the warmth of his pudgy side.
Liebchen filled their glasses again.
“But with engineered life forms, you designed it right the first time. And you got real humans around to protect the kids and pregnant girls, so you get a symbiotic relationship. And the other reason is that single-strand DNA can duplicate eighty times faster than double-strand, so they grow like blue lightning!”
“But, Dr. Guibedo, how can you have reproduction without sex?” Patricia said, trying to ask intelligent questions. This interview will make my career in broadcasting.
Hooh! This little one’s got sex on the brain, Guibedo thought.
“Nothing to it. The problem is making them not reproduce. You see, you got to make sure that you got as many houses or fauns as you need. But you also got to make sure that you don’t get too many. We can’t have tree houses crowding each other for sunlight, or Liebchens running around like unloved alley cats.”
Liebchen shuddered at the word “unloved,” but topped off the glasses.
“There is got to be harmony, or the world me and Heiny are building would be just as cruel as the one nature made. With the trees, it’s easy. Each tree grows seeds in a cupboard, which stay there until you pick them. If you want a house, you find one just like what you want and ask the owner for a seed. Then you got to plant it and water it every day for three months. So it can’t just happen by accident. And the grown tree is got to have people living in it, for the fertilizer. So you got balance. Mutual need. Symbiosis.”
Liebchen was keeping the glasses filled. Guibedo was drinking far more than usual. Patricia was drinking on the theory that she needed the antifreeze.
“With intelligent animals, they can make their own decisions. We make them so they got to be real happy before they can have kids. And you have to ask them please, real often, before they get pregnant.”
“Show Liebchen can get knocked up whenever she wants to?” The champagne was starting to tell on Patty.
“Liebchen is knocked up now! Fauns is way different from humans. Like their body temperature is eight degrees cooler than ours, which is why fauns don’t wear clothes around here, but humans do.” Well, Guibedo thought, looking through Patricia’s transparent blouse to her bikini bottoms, most humans do.
“And which is also why we keep the temperature in here at sixty-five degrees.”
Now that the subject had been brought up, Patricia was too comfortable to want to do anything about it.
“Like they can only eat a special fluid what the tree makes, which contains everything they need and nothing else. Liebchen’s small intestine just keeps getting smaller until it ends. The only holes she’s got are in her pretty head. She has breasts because they’re pretty and because fauns is to take care of human children.”
Guibedo gently put his fingertips on Patricia’s right nipple. She didn’t seem to mind. Actually, she didn’t even notice.
“Ach, I talk and talk and so late it gets. Come on, Patty. Is time for bed.”
Leaning drunkenly
together, their arms about each other for support, Guibedo led Patricia through a branch to his bedroom.
“Ach, it will be so nice,” Guibedo said gently. “You sleep with me tonight.”
Patricia was shocked sober in an instant. It had simply never occurred to her to think of kindly, wise old Guibedo as a sexual being.
“Uh… I…” For a second she stood tongue-tied, then Patricia ran down to the living room.
Guibedo was equally confused. He stood motionless for a while, then turned to his bedroom, flopped on the bed, and cried himself asleep.
A knowledgeable and sober observer would have understood the problem. Guibedo and Patricia had vastly different cultural backgrounds and, as a result, used totally different body languages. To Guibedo, when a nearly nude woman aggressively snuggles into your arms, she is obviously eager for sex. By Patricia’s standards, she was properly dressed and was merely being friendly to a nice old man.
Meanwhile, Liebchen was snuggled up on her favorite couch—the broad comfortable back of an LDU. Something about Dirk’s inherent deadliness always excited her, and he reciprocated by doing for her whatever small favors he could. Just now his skin was a good imitation of a Campbell Tartan because Liebchen liked Scottish Tartans. Crouched down, doing his usual guard duty he looked like a big oval pillow. Patricia had just spent hours in the same room with him without being aware of his existence.
Liebchen was startled awake as Patricia blundered, crying, toward the door. The ways of humans would ever be a mystery to Liebchen, but her programming put courtesy and hospitality first. “My lady! Are you in pain?”
Patricia stopped. “Uh… No. I… I’m okay. But I’ve got to go now.”
“But my lady! It is so late. Where would you go? How could you find your way in the dark?”
There was a certain logic in what the faun said.
“There is a guest room behind the kitchen, my lady. It has a lock on the door, and a private exit. Oh, please, my lady. Accept our hospitality.”
After a bit of confused argument, Patricia agreed. She fell asleep on the guest bed, trying to sort out what had happened.
The next morning, Patricia and Liebchen sat alone at the breakfast table.
“My lady, I do not understand what happened last night.”
“I’m not sure I understand it myself, Liebchen.”
“Does it have to do with your bisexual reproduction custom?”
“Reproduction? Well, not exactly, except in a roundabout way,” said Patricia. How do you explain romantic love to an asexual being?
“And my Lord Guibedo found you to be a suitable mate, but you rejected him?”
“I didn’t exactly reject him, I just didn’t want—Liebchen, I can’t explain it to you.”
“My lady, you have mated before, haven’t you?” Liebchen persisted.
“Uh… Yes. Of course. I’m twenty-nine, Liebchen.”
“Were the others as intelligent as my Lord Guibedo?”
“Goodness, no! I’ve never met anyone with a brain like his. Why, he broke the genetic code singlehanded.”
“Were the others as warm and generous as my Lord Guibedo?”
“They were nice, but so is Dr. Guibedo.”
“My lady, if Lord Guibedo is superior to your earlier mates, why did you accept them and reject him?”
“Liebchen, I know I won’t explain it right, but there are other things a girl looks for in a man. I mean, Dr. Guibedo’s nice, but he’s so old and, uh, portly.”
“And your programming requires that your mates have certain physical characteristics?”
“Programming! Liebchen, I wasn’t programmed! I was raised naturally.”
“All beings are programmed, my lady. We engineered life forms are programmed rationally. Natural life forms are programmed in a somewhat random manner. But they are programmed nonetheless.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Liebchen.” Patricia decided to change the subject. “This breakfast is delicious.”
“Thank you, my lady. I thought that it would be what was desired by one of your… background. You must try this.” Liebchen handed Patricia a glass. “I made it specially for you.”
The liquid looked like a mixture of milk and pink grapefruit juice, but it was hard to say no to someone as eager as Liebchen. Patricia took a polite sip.
“Thank you. It is good.” She took a larger drink. “In fact, it’s great!” Patricia finished the glass. “What do you call it?”
“It doesn’t have a name yet, my lady.”
“Then what is it?” Patricia felt suddenly sleepy, and slumped onto the table, unconscious.
When Patricia was completely unconscious, Liebchen said, “It is a light dose of a behavioral modification compound that will change your perceptions and programming somewhat, my lady. It will increase the happiness of all concerned.” Liebchen was programmed to always give a human a complete answer.
When Guibedo came in, unshaven and looking at the floor, Patricia was up and smiling.
“Good morning. I’m glad you’re still here, Patty. I’ve got to apologize for last night. Maybe I drank too much, but I was way out of line.”
Patricia got up and put her arms around Guibedo, her fingertips not quite touching each other behind him. She kissed him full on the mouth. “There’s nothing to apologize for, handsome.”
These girls, thought Guibedo. As soon as you’ve got them figured out, you’re wrong!
Liebchen smiled and wiggled her hoofs happily on the carpet.
Chapter Seven
MARCH 20, 2003
UNCLE MARTIN’S tree houses will totally alter the world’s economic structure. In fact, economics in the ordinary sense of the word will cease to exist. Our present political and social structure, with all their inequities, are completely dependent on economics. Without it they will fall.
It would be criminal to destroy those structures without having something better to take their place. Most of my animals are designed to replace existing governmental services.
The LDUs can perform a variety of functions, such as being a police force, a medical corps, dog catchers, and what have you. The fauns should be able to handle at least primary education. The TRACs will do most construction and transportation. And the Central Coordination Unit can take care of communications.
But setting up a rational, decent social structure is going to require more than bioengineering.
Eventually every human being will have an equal and high standard of living. Historically, certain groups have enjoyed this position: the Czarist aristocracy; the Roman nobility; the present-day idle rich. But I don’t like any of these cultures. Maybe we can try for something better. The only thing that I know for certain is that a peaceful culture needs a peaceful environment to grow in. If I must lie to maintain the illusion of tranquility, so be it.
—Heinrich Copemick
From his log tape
“I’m glad that you volunteered for this mission, Jack. If you hadn’t, I’d have to order you to go,” General Hastings said.
“I had that feeling, General.”
“It’s just that you’re the best field agent I have.”
“The best that you have left, you mean.”
“Breckenridge and Thompson were good men. But you will have some advantages that they didn’t. For one thing, you will have completely discretionary powers. Do you understand?” Hastings asked.
“Sure. I’m not allowed to kill anybody unless I want to.”
“Crudely put, but accurate. Also, your mission is not simply to spy. You are to seek out Heinrich Coper-nick and/or Martin Guibedo. We believe that they are in Death Valley. You are to find out as much as possible about their bioengineering techniques, then eliminate them. Arrest them if possible. Kill them if necessary. And in no event will you allow yourself to be captured.”
“You mean ‘captured alive.’ Okay. What about my modus operandi?”
“That is completely at your own discretion. Yo
u may sign for any materials and money that you feel appropriate,” Hastings said.
“Lovely. I’ve always hoped for orders like this.”
“This is the most important mission of your life. It is also the most dangerous.”
“What about the reporting procedure?”
“There isn’t one. It is quite possible that we have been infiltrated. Once you walk out of that door, you’re on your own.”
“Suits. See you in a few weeks, General.”
Patricia Cambridge stretched luxuriously between satin sheets on the huge bed. Her whole body tingled with a new awareness of itself. She never would have believed that the world could be so enchanting, that sex could be so totally satisfying.
“If you’re finally awake, Patty, come on in. The water’s fine!” Martin Guibedo called from the pool at the far end of the bedroom. Liebchen was sudsing down his pudgy body.
“Oh, Dr. Guibedo! Will Liebchen wash me, too? She’s got to be the prettiest thing your nephew ever made!”
“She is and she will, and please call me Martin.”
“After last night, I should call you lover!” Patricia splashed into the pool and swam over to them.
“Hooh! Nobody ever call me that before. I like it!”
They collided with exuberance and laughter near the center of the pool.
After having washed and dried and dressed her masters, Liebchen pranced through the branch to the kitchen. The water running off the blond fur on her legs left hoofprints on the carpet. “Two masters to serve, Dirk!” She giggled to the Labor and Defense Unit in the living room. “Isn’t it wonderful!”
Dirk raised his eye tentacles from the book of Oriental philosophy he was reading. “It is pleasant to see our Lord Guibedo happy. We owe him so much.”
After the usual excellent breakfast, Guibedo said, “Patty, it’s good to have you here for a bunch of reasons. For one thing, we got a fourth for pinochle.”
The CCU I/O unit on the kitchen wall said, “My Lord Guibedo, Lord Copernick requests your presence at his tree house.”
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