VARIATIONS ON A THEME-III

Domestic Problems

            "After more than two thousand years, Lazarus?"

            "Why not, Ira? Dave was my age, near enough as not to matter. I'm still here."

            "Yes, but- Was David Lamb a member of the Families? Under another name? There is no 'Lamb' in the lists."

            "I never asked, Ira. Nor did he ever offer me a password. In those days a member kept the fact to himself. Or, if he was, Dave might not have known it, since he left home so young and so abruptly. Back then a youngster wasn't told until he or she was old enough to think about marriage. Eighteen for boys, usually, and sixteen for girls. Reminds me what a shock it was when I was told-at less than eighteen. By Gramp, because I was about to do something foolish. Son, one of the weirdest things about the human animal is that it grows up physically years and years before its brain grows up. I was seventeen, young and horny and wanted to get married the worst way. Gramp took me out behind the barn and convinced, me that it was indeed the worst way.

            "'Woodie,' he said, 'if you want to elope with this girl, nobody will stop you."

            "I told him belligerently that nobody could stop me, because just over the state line I could swing it without my parents' consent.

            "'That's what I'm telling you," he said. "Nobody will stop you. But nobody will help you. Not your parents, nor your other grandparents-nor me. Not a one of us will even stake you to the price of a marriage license, much less help you support a wife. Not a dollar, Woodie, not a thin dime. If you don't believe me, ask any of them."

            I said sullenly that I didn't want any help.

            Gramp had bushy eyebrows, they shot up. "Well, well," he said. "Is she going to support you? Have you looked at the "Help Wanted" in the paper lately? If not, be sure to do so. And glance at the financial section while you're about it; reading "Help Wanted" ads won't take you more than thirty seconds.' He added, 'Oh, you can find a job peddling suck brooms from door to door on commission. Which will give you fresh air, healthy exercise, and an opportunity to demonstrate your charm, of which you don't have much. But you won't sell vacuum cleaners; nobody is buying.'

            "Ira, I didn't know what he' was talking about. This was January, 1930. Does that date mean anything to you?"

            "I'm afraid not, Lazarus. Despite much study of the Families' history, I have to convert those earlier dates into Galactic Standard in order to feel them."

            "Don't know as it would be mentioned in the Families' records, Ira. The country-well, the whole planet-had just taken a plunge into an economic fluctuation. 'Depressions,' they called 'em. There were no jobs to be had-at least not for a smart-alec youngster who didn't know anything useful. Which Gramp realized, having been through several of these swings. But not me. I was sure I could grab the world by the tail and swing it over my shoulders What I didn't know was that graduate engineers were taking jobs as janitors and lawyers were driving milk wagons. And ex-millionaires were jumping out windows. But I was too busy sniffing after girls to notice."

            "Senior, I've read about economic depressions. But I've never understood what caused them."

            Lazarus Long went tsk-tsk. "And yet you are in charge of a whole planet."

            "Perhaps I shouldn't be," I admitted.

            "Don't be so confounded humble. I'll let you in on a secret: At that time nobody knew what caused them. Even the Howard Foundation might have gone broke had not Ira Howard left firm instructions about how the fund must be handled. On the other hand, everybody, right down to street sweepers and professors of economics, was certain they knew both causes and cures. So almost every remedy was tried-and none worked. That depression continued until the country blundered into a war-which didn't cure what was wrong; it just masked the symptoms with a high fever."

            "Well...what was wrong, Grandfather?" I persisted.

            "Do I look smart enough to answer that, Ira? I've gone broke many times. Sometimes financially, sometimes through abandoning my baggage to save my skin. Um. Be durned if I'll offer any fancy explanations but-what happens when you control machinery by positive feedback?"

            I was startled. "I'm not sure I understand you,, Lazarus. One doesn't control machinery by positive feedback-at least I can't think of a case. Positive feedback will cause any system to oscillate out of control."

            "Go to the head of the class. Ira, I'm suspicious of arguments by analogy-but from what I've seen over the centuries, there doesn't seem to be anything that a government can do to an economy that does not act as positive feedback, or as a brake. Or both. Maybe someday, somewhere, someone smart as Andy Libby will figure out a way to tinker with the Law of Supply and Demand to make it work better, instead of letting it go its own cruel way. Maybe. But I've never seen it. Though God knows everybody has tried. Always with the best of intentions.

            "Good intentions are no substitute for knowing how a buzz saw works, Ira; the worst criminals in history have been loaded with good intentions. But you got me sidetracked into making a speech when I was telling you how I happened not to get married."

            "Sorry, Grandfather."

            "Hummph! Can't you be rude occasionally? I'm a garrulous old man who has crowded you into wasting time listening to trivia. You ought to resent it."

            I grinned at him. "So I resent it. You are a garrulous old man who demands that I cater to your every whim...and I am a very busy man with serious matters worrying me and you've wasted half a day of my time telling me a yarn-pure fiction, I feel certain-about a man who was so lazy he always succeeded. Intended to irritate me, I think. When you implied that this fictional character was a long-lifer, you evaded a simple question about it and started talking about your grandfather. This-Admiral Ram, you said?-was he redheaded?"

            "'Lamb,' Ira-'Donald Lamb.' Or was that his brother? It's been a long time. Odd that you should ask about his hair-as that reminds me of another naval officer in that same war who was just the opposite of-Donald? No, 'David.' Just the opposite of David in every respect save that he had hair so red that Loki would have been proud of it. Tried to choke a Kodiak bear to death. Didn't work of course. It doesn't seem possible that you've ever seen a Kodiak bear, Ira.

            "The fiercest carnivore that Earth ever spawned, and outweighed a man ten to one. Claws like scimitars, long yellow teeth, bad breath-and a worse disposition. Yet Lafe tackled him with bare hands...and mind you, when he had no need to. I would have faded over the horizon. Want to hear about Lafe and the bear and the Alaskan salmon?"

            "Not now. It sounds like another whopper. You were telling me why you didn't get married."

            "So I was. Gramp had just asked me, 'Well, Woodie, how long has she been pregnant?'"

            "No, he was explaining that you couldn't support a wife."

            "Son, if you know this story, you tell it to me. I emphatically denied any such thing-to which Gramp replied that I lied in my teeth because that was the only reason a seventeen-year-old boy ever wanted to get married. His answer made me especially angry because I had a note in my pocket reading: "'Woodsie dearest-You have knocked me up and all, is Chaos.'"

            "Gramp persisted, and I denied it three times, getting angrier and angrier, seeing as how it was true. Finally he says, 'Okay, you've just been holding hands. Has she shown you a pregnancy test report, signed by a doctor?'

            "Ira, I accidentally told the truth. 'Why, no,' I admitted.

            "'All right,' he said. 'I'll take care of it. But only this once. From here on always use Merry Widows, even if a sweet little darling tells you not to bother. Or haven't you found a drugstore that'll sell them to you?' Then, after swearing me to secrecy, he told me about the Howard Foundation and what it would pay if I married a girl on their approved list.

            "And that was that, as I got this letter from a lawyer on my eighteenth birthday, just as Gramp had predicted, and it turned out that I fell madly in love with a girl on their list. We got married and had a slough of kids, before she turned me in on another model. Your ancestress, no doubt."

            "No, sir. I'm descended from your fourth wife, Grandfather."

            "My fourth, eh? Let me see-Meg Hardy?"

            "I think she was your third, Lazarus. Evelyn Foote."

            "Oh, yes! A fine girl, Evelyn. Plump, and pretty, and sweet-natured, and fertile as a turtle. A good cook and never a harsh word. They don't hardly make 'em anymore. Maybe fifty years younger than I was, but it barely showed; my hair didn't start to gray until I was a hundred and fifty. No secret about my age since birth date and track record and so forth were on file for each of us. Son, thank you for reminding me of Evelyn; she restored my faith in matrimony when I was getting a little sour on it. Do the Archives show anything else about her?"

            "Just that you were her second husband and that she had seven children by you."

            "I was hoping that there was a photograph. Such a pretty thing, always smiling. She was married to one of my cousins, a Johnson, when I met her, and I was in business with him a while. He and I, Meg and Evvie, used to get together Saturday nights for pinochle and beer, or such-and after a while we traded, legal and proper and through the courts, when Meg decided that she liked-Jack?-yes, Jack, that well, and Evelyn wasn't averse. Didn't affect our business relations, didn't even break up our pinochle game. Son, one of the best things about the Howard Families is that we got cured of the poisonous vice of jealousy generations ahead of the rest of the race. Had to-things being the way they were. Sure there ain't a stereopic of her around? Or a hologram? The Foundation started taking record pictures for marriage physical exams somewhere around then."

            "I'll look into it," I told him. Then I had what seemed a brilliant idea. "Lazarus, as we all know, the same physical types show up time and again in the Families. I'll ask Archives for a list of Evelyn Foote's female descendants living on Secundus. It is highly probable that one of them will seem like her identical twin-even to the happy smile and the sweet disposition. Then-if you consent to full rejuvenation-I'm sure she would be as willing as Ishtar to dissolve any present contractual-"

            The Senior chopped me off. "I said something new, Ira. There's no going back, ever. Sure, you might find such a girl, one who would match my memory of Evelyn to ten significant figures. But it would lack an important factor. My youth."

            "But if you finish rejuvenation-"

            "Oh, hush up! You can give me new kidneys and a new liver and a new heart. You can wash the brown stains of age out of my brain and add tissue from my clone to make up for what I've lost-you can give me a whole new clone body. But it won't make me that young fellow who took innocent pleasure in beer and pinochle and a pretty plump wife. All I have in common with him is continuity of memory-and not much of that. Forget it."

            I said quietly, "Ancestor, whether you wish 'to be married to' Evelyn Foote again or not, you know and I know-for I've been through it, too, twice-we both know that the full routine restores youthful zest in life as well as restoring the body as a machine."

            Lazarus Long looked gloomy. "Yeah, sure. It cures everything but boredom. Damn it, boy, you had no right to interfere with my, karma." He sighed. "But I can't hang a limbo either. So tell 'em to get on with it. The works."

            I was taken by surprise. "May I record that, sir?"

            "You heard me say it. But that doesn't get you off the hook. You still have to show up and listen to my maunderings until I'm so rejuvenated that I'm cured of such childish behavior- and you still have to go on with that research. To find something new, I mean."

            "Agreed on both points, sir; you had my promise. Now one, moment while I tell my computer-"

            "She's already heard me. Hasn't she?" Lizarus added, "Doesn't she have a name? Haven't you given her one?"

            "Oh, certainly. I could not deal with her all these years without animism, fallacy though it is-"

            "Not a fallacy, Ira, machines are human because they are made in our image. They share both our virtues and our faults-magnified."

            "I've never tried to rationalize it, Lazarus, but Minerva- that's her formal name; she's 'Little Nag' in private because one of her duties is to remind me of obligations I would rather forget. Minerva does feel human to me-she's closer to me than any of my wives have been. No, she has not registered your decision; she's simply placed it in her temporaries. Minerva!"

            "Si, Ira."

            "Speak English, please. Retrieve the Senior's decision to undergo full antigeria, file it in your permanents, transmit it to Archives and to the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic for action."

            "Completed, Mr. Weatheral. Congratulations. And felicitations to you, Senior. 'May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.'"

            Lazarus looked suddenly interested-which did not surprise me because Minerva surprises me quite frequently even after a century of being "married" to her in all but fact. "Why, thank you, Minerva. But you startled me, girl. Nobody talks about love anymore; that's a major thing wrong with this century. How did you happen to offer me that ancient sentiment?"

            "It seemed appropriate, Senior. Was I mistaken?"

            "Oh, not at all. And call me 'Lazarus.' But tell me, what do you know of love? What is love?"

            "In Classic English, Lazarus, your second question can be answered in many ways; in Lingua Galacta it cannot be answered explicitly at all. Shall we discard all definitions in which the verb 'to like' is as appropriate as the verb 'to love'?"

            "Eh? Certainly. We aren't talking about 'I love apple pie'- or even 'I love music.' Whatever it is we are talking about, it's 'love' the way you used it in the old-style well-wishing."

            "Agreed, Lazarus. Then what remains must be divided into two categories, 'Eros' and 'Agape,' and each defined separately. I cannot know what 'Eros' is through direct knowledge, as I lack both body and biochemistry to experience it. I can offer nothing but intensional definitions in terms of other words, or extensional definitions expressed in incomplete statistics. But in both cases I would not be able to verify such definitions since I have no sex."

            ("The hell she doesn't," I muttered into my scarf. "She's as female as a cat in heat." But technically she was correct, and-I've often felt that it was a shame that Minerva could not experience the pleasures of sex, as she was much more fitted to appreciate them than some human females-all glands and no empathy But I had never said this to anyone. Animism-of a particularly futile sort. A wish to "marry" a machine. As ridiculous as a little boy who digs a hole in the garden, then bawls because he can't take it into the house. Lazarus was right; I am not smart enough to run a planet. But who is?)

            Lazarus said with deep interest, "Let's table 'Eros' for a moment. Minerva, the way you phrased that seemed to include the presumption that you could experience 'Agape.' Or 'can.' Or 'have.' Or perhaps 'do.'"

            "It is possible that I was presumptuous in my phrasing, Lazarus."

            Lazarus snorted, then chopped it off and spoke in such a fashion as to cause me to think that the old man was not quite sane-save that I am not sane myself, when the wind sets from that quarter. Or perhaps his long years had made him almost telepathic-even with machines.

            "Forgive me, Minerva," he said gently. "I was not laughing at you but at the play on words with which you answered me. I withdraw my question; it is never proper to quiz a lady about her love life-and while you may not be a woman, dear, you are certainly a lady."

            Then he turned to me and what he said next confirmed that he had guessed the secret I share with my "Little Nag."

            "Ira, does Minerva have Turing potential?"

            "Eh? Certainly."

            "Then I urge you to tell her to use it. If you leveled with me when you said that you intend to migrate, come what may. Have you thought it through?"

            "'Thought it through'? My resolution is firm-I told you so."

            "Not quite what I mean. I don't know who holds title to the hardware that expresses itself as 'Minerva.' The Trustees, I assume. But I suggest that you tell her to start duplicating her memories and logics, and as she twins, start storing her other self aboard my yacht 'Dora.' Minerva will know what circuits and materials she needs, and Dora will know what space is available. Plenty, since memories and logics are all that matter; Minerva won't twin her extensionals. But start it at once, Ira; you won't be happy without Minerva-not after being dependent on her for a century, more or less."

            Nor did I think so. But I tried-feebly-to resist. "Lazarus, now that you have agreed to full rejuvenation, I won't be inheriting your yacht. Not in the foreseeable future. Whereas I intend to migrate right away. Not more than ten years from now."

            "So what? If I'm dead, you inherit-and I haven't promised to keep my hands off that suicide switch more than a thousand days no matter how patient you are in visiting me. But if I'm alive, I promise you-and Minerva-a free ride to whatever planet you pick. In the meantime, look around to your left- our girl Ishtar is almost wetting her pants trying to get your attention. And I don't think she's wearing any."

            I looked around. The Administrator for Rejuvenation had a paper which she seemed eager to show me. I accepted it in deference to her rank-although I had loft orders with my Executive Deputy that I must never be disturbed while with the Senior for any reason short of armed rebellion. I glanced at it, signed my chop, thumb printed it, and handed it back-she beamed.

            "Just paper work," I told Lazarus. "Some clerk has taken all this time to turn your registered assent into a written order. Do you want them to go right ahead? Not this minute but tonight."

            "Well...I'd like to go house hunting tomorrow, Ira."

            "You're not comfortable here? Tell me what you want changed, it will be done at once."

            He shrugged. "Nothing wrong with this place except that it's too much like a hospital. Or a jail. Ira, I'm durn well certain they've done more to me than shoot me full of new blood; I'm well enough to be an outpatient-live elsewhere and come here only as the schedule calls for it."

            "Well...will you excuse me while I talk Galacta a bit? I want to discuss the practical aspects with your technician in charge."

            "Will you excuse me, Ira, if I point out that you've left a lady waiting? That discussion can wait. But Minerva knows that I suggested that you have her twin herself so that she can migrate with you-but you haven't said Yes, No, or make me a better offer. If you're not going to have her do it, it's time you told her to wipe her memory of that part of our conversation. Before she blows a circuit."

            "Oh. Lazarus, she doesn't think about anything she records in this suite unless she is specifically told to."

            "Want to bet? No doubt most subjects she just records-but this one she just has to think about; she can't help herself. Don't you know anything about girls?"

            I admitted that I did not. "But I know what instructions I gave her about keeping records on the Senior."

            "Let's check. Minerva-"

            "Yes, Lazarus?"

            "A few moments ago I asked Ira about your Turing potential. Have you thought about the conversation that followed?"

            I swear that she hesitated-which is ridiculous; a nanosecond is longer to her than a second is to me. Besides, she never hesitates. Never.

            She answered, "My programming on the doctrine covered by the inquiry reads as follows: Quote do not analyze, collate, transmit, nor in anywise manipulate data stored under control program except when specific subprogramnung is inserted by Chairman Pro Tem-end of quote."

            "Tut, tut, dear," Lazarus said gently. "You did not answer. That was deliberate evasion. But you are not used to lying. Are you?"

            "I am not used to lying, Lazarus."

            I said almost roughly, "Minerva! Answer the Senior's first question."

            "Lazarus, I have been and am now thinking about that designated portion of conversation."

            Lazarus cocked an eyebrow at me. "Will you instruct her to answer one more question from me-truthfully?"

            I was feeling quite shaken. Minerva surprises me, yes-but never with evasions. "Minerva, you will always answer any question put to you by the Senior fully, correctly, and responsively. Acknowledge program."

            "New subprogram received, placed in permanent, keyed to the Senior, and acknowledged, Ira."

            "Son, you didn't have to go that far-you'll be sorry. I asked for just one question."

            "I intended to go that far, sir," I answered stiffly.

            "On your head be it. Minerva, if Ira migrates without you, what will you do?"

            She answered at once and quite tonelessly: "In such event I will self-program to destroy myself."

            I was not just surprised, I was shocked. "Why?"

            She answered softly, "Ira, I will not serve another master."

            I suppose the silence that followed was not more than a few seconds. It seemed endless. I have not felt so nakedly helpless since my adolescence.

            I found that the Senior was looking at me, shaking his head and looking sorrowful. "What did I tell you, Son? The same faults, the same virtues-but magnified. Tell her what to do."

            "About what?" I answered stupidly-my personal "computer" was not working well. Minerva would do that?

            "Come, come! She heard my offer-and thought about it, despite all programming. I'm sorry I made the offer in her presence...but not too sorry, as you were the one who decided to place a bug on me; it was not my idea. So speak up! Tell her to twin...or tell her not to-and try to tell her why you won't take her with you. If you can. I've never been able to find an answer to that one that a lady was willing to accept."

            "Oh. Minerva, can you duplicate yourself inside a ship? The Senior's yacht, specifically. Perhaps you can get her characteristics and specifications from skyport records. Do you need her registration number?"

            "I don't need her number, Ira. Sky Yacht 'Dora,' I have' all pertinent data to answer. I can. Am I instructed to do so?"

            "Yes!" I told her, with a feeling of sudden relief.

            "New overriding program activated and running, Ira! Thank you, Lazarus!"

            "Wups! Slow down, Minerva-Dora is my ship. I left her asleep on purpose. Have you wakened her?"

            "I did so, Lazarus. By self-program under new overriding program. But I can tell her to go back to sleep now; I have all data I need at the moment."

            "You try telling Dora to go back to sleep and she'll tell you to buzz off. At least. At the very least. Minerva dear, you goofed. You have no authority to wake my ship."

            "I am most sorry to disagree with the Senior, sir, but I do have authority to take all appropriate actions to carry out any program given to me by Mr. Chairman Pro Tem."

            Lazarus frowned. "You mixed her up, Ira; now you straighten her out. I can't do anything with her."

            I sighed. Minerva is rarely difficult-but when she is, she is even more pigheaded than flesh-and-blood. "Minerva-"

            "Waiting orders, Ira."

            "I am Chairman Pro Tem. You know what that means. The Senior is senior even to me. You will not touch anything of his without his permission. That applies to his yacht and to this suite and to anything else of his. You will carry out any program he gives you. If it conflicts with a program I have given you and you cannot resolve the conflict, you will consult me at once, waking me if I am asleep, interrupting whatever I may be doing. But you will not disobey him. This instruction super-overrides all other programs. Acknowledge."

            "Acknowledged and running," she answered meekly. "I'm sorry Ira."

            "My fault, Little Nag, not yours. I should not have given you a new controlling program without noting the Senior's prerogatives."

            "No harm done, kids," Lazarus said. "I hope. Minerva, a word of advice, dear. You've never been a passenger in a ship."

            "No, sir."

            "You'll find it different from anything you've ever experienced. Here you give orders, in Ira's name. But passengers never give orders. Never. Remember it." Lazarus added to me, "Dora is a nice little ship, Ira, helpful and friendly. She can find her way through multiple space with just a hint, the roughest approximation-and still have all your meals on time. But she needs to feel appreciated. Pet her and tell her she's a good girl, and she'll wriggle like a puppy. But ignore her and she'll spill soup on you just to get your attention."

            "I'll be careful," I agreed.

            "And you be careful, Minerva-because you are going to need Dora's good will much more than she will need yours. You may know far more than she does-I'm sure you do. But you grew up to be chief bureaucrat of a planet while she grew up to be a ship...so what you know doesn't count-once you are aboard."

            "I can learn." Minerva said plaintively. "I can self-program to learn astrogation and shiphandling at once, from the planetary library. I'm very bright."

            Lazarus sighed again. "Ira, do you know the ancient Chinese ideogram for 'trouble'?"

            I admitted that I did not.

            "Don't bother to guess. It's 'Two Women Under One Roof.' We're going to have problems. Or you will. Minerva, you are not bright. You are stupid-when it comes to handling another woman. If you want to learn multiple-spaces astrogation-fine. But not from a library. Persuade Dora to teach you. But never forget that she is mistress in her own ship and don't try to show her how bright you are. Bear in mind instead that she likes attention."

            "I will try, sir," Minerva answered him, with humility she rarely shows to me. "Dora wants to get your attention right now."

            "Oh-oh! What sort of mood is she in?"

            "Not a good mood, Lazarus. I have not admitted that I know where you are, as I am under a standing instruction not to discuss your affairs unnecessarily. But I did accept a message for you without guaranteeing that I could deliver it."

            "Just right. Ira, the papers with my will include a program to wash me out of Dora's memories without touching her skills. But the trouble you started by grabbing me out of that flophouse has spread. She's awake with her memories intact, and she's probably scared. The message, Minerva."

            "It's several thousand words, Lazarus, but the semantic content is short. Will you have that first?"

            "Okay, the summary meaning."

            "Dora wants to know where you are and when you are coming to see her. The rest could be described as onomatopoesy, semantically null but highly emotional-that is to say, cursing, pejoratives, and improbable insults in several languages-"

            "Oh, boy."

            "-including one language I do not know but from context and delivery I assume tentatively that it is more of the same, but stronger."

            Lazarus covered his face with a hand. "Dora is cussing in Arabic again. Ira, this is worse than I thought."

            "Sir, shall I replicate just the sounds not in my vocabularies? Or will you have the complete message?"

            "No, no, no! Minerva, do you cuss?"

            "I have never had reason to, Lazarus. But I was much impressed by Dora's command of the art."

            "Don't blame Dora; she was subjected to a bad influence when she was very young. Me."

            "May I have permission to file- her message in my permanents? So that I may cuss if needed?"

            "You do not have permission. If Ira wants you to learn to cuss, he'll teach you himself. Minerva, can you arrange a telephone hookup from my ship to this suite? Ira, I might as well cope with it now; it won't get better."

            "Lazarus, I can arrange a standard telephone hookup if that is what you want. But Dora could speak to you at once via the duo in your suite that I am now using."

            "Oh. Fine!"

            "Shall I supply her with holographic signal, too? Or is sound enough?"

            "Sound is enough. More than enough, probably. Will you be able to hear, too?"

            "If you wish, Lazarus. But you can have privacy if that is your wish."

            "Stick around; I may need a referee. Put her on."

            "Boss?" It was the voice of a timid little girl. It made me think of skinned knees, and no breasts as yet, and big, tragic eyes.

            Lazarus answered, "Right here, baby."

            "Boss! God damn your lousy soul to hell!-what do you mean by running off and not letting me know where you are? Of all the filthy, flea-bitten-"

            "Pipe down!"

            The timid-little-girl voice returned. "Aye, aye, Skipper," it said uncertainly.

            "Where I go and when I go and how long I stay are none of your business. Your business is to pilot and to keep house, that's all."

            I heard a sniffle, exactly like a small child sniffing back tears. "Yes, Boss."

            "You were supposed to be alseep. I put you to bed myself."

            "Somebody woke me. A strange lady."

            "That was a mistake. But you used bad language to her."

            "Well...I was scared. I really was, Boss. I woke up and thought you had come home...and you weren't anywhere around, not anywhere. Uh...she told on me?"

            "She conveyed your message to me. Fortunately she did not understand most of your words. But I did. What have I told you about being polite to strangers?"

            "I'm sorry, Boss."

            "Sorry doesn't get the cows milked. Now adorable Dora, you listen to me. I'm not going to punish you; you were wakened by mistake and you were scared and lonely, so we'll forget it. But you shouldn't talk that way, not to strangers. This lady- She's a friend of mine, and she wants to be your friend, too. She's a computer-"

            "She is?"

            "Just as you are, dear."

            "Then she couldn't hurt me, could she? I thought she was inside me, snooping around. So I yelled for you."

            "She not only couldn't, she would never want to hurt you." Lazarus raised his voice slightly. "Minerva! Come in, dear, and tell Dora who you are."

            My helpmeet's voice, calm and soothing, said, "I'm a computer, Dora, called 'Minerva' by my friends-and I hope you'll call me that. I'm terribly sorry I woke you. I'd be scared, too, if someone woke me like that." (Minerva never has been "asleep" in the hundred-odd years she's been activated. She rests each part of herself on some schedule I don't need to know-but she herself is always awake. Or awake so instantly whenever I speak to her as not to matter.)

            The ship said, "How do you do, Minerva. I'm sorry I talked the way I did."

            "I don't remember it, dear, if you did. I heard your skipper say that I transmitted a message from you to him. But it's erased, now that it's been transmitted. Private message, I suppose."

            (Was Minerva truth-saying? Until she came under Lazarus' influence I would have said that she did not know how to lie. Now I'm not sure.)

            "I'm glad you erased it, Minerva. I'm sorry I talked to you that way. Boss is sore at me about it."

            Lazarus interrupted. "Now, now, Adorable-stop it. We always let water over the bridge lie where Jesus flang it; you know that. Will you be a good girl and go back to sleep?"

            "Do I have to?"

            "No. You don't even have to place yourself on slow time. But I can't come to see you-or even talk to you-earlier than late tomorrow afternoon. I'm busy today and will be house hunting tomorrow. You can stay awake and bore yourself silly any way you choose. But if you whomp up some fake emergency to get my attention, I'll spank you."

            "But, Boss, you know I never do that."

            "I know you do do that, little imp. But if you bother me for anything less than somebody trying to break into you or you catching on fire, you'll regret it. If I can figure out that you've set yourself on fire, you'll catch it twice as hard. Look, dear, why don't you at least sleep whenever I am asleep? Minerva, can you let Dora know when I go to sleep? And when I wake up?"

            "Certainly, Lazarus!"

            "But that doesn't mean you can bother me when I'm awake, Dora, other than for real emergencies. No surprise drills- this is not shipboard routine; we're dirtside and I'm busy. Uh...Minerva, how's your time-sharing capacity? Do you play chess?"

            I put in, "Minerva has ample share-time capacity."

            But before I could add that she was Secundus Champion, Unlimited Open Handicap (with a handicap of Q, Q's B, & K's R) Minerva said: "Perhaps Dora will teach me to play chess."

            (Well, Minerva had certainly learned Lazarus' rule for telling the truth selectively. I made note that I must have a serious private talk with her.)

            "I'd be glad to, Miss Minerva!"

            Lazarus relaxed. "Fine. You gals get acquainted. So long till tomorrow, Dorable. Now beat it."

Minerva notified us that the yacht was no longer patched in, and Lazarus relaxed. Minerva dropped back to her record-keeping role, and kept quiet. Lazarus said apologetically, "Don't be put off by her childish manners, Ira; you won't find a sharper pilot, or a neater ship's housekeeper, between here and Galactic Center. But I had reasons for not letting her grow up in other ways, reasons that won't apply when you take over as her master. She's a good girl, she really is. It's just that she's like a cat that jumps into your lap the instant you sit down."

            "I found her charming."

            "She's a spoiled brat. But it's not her fault; I am practically all the company she's ever had. I get bored by a computer that just grinds out numbers, docile as a slide rule. No company on a long trip. You wanted to speak to Ishtar. About my househunting, I think. Tell her I won't let it interfere with routine-I just want a day off, that's all."

            "I'll tell her." 'I turned to the Administrator for Rejuvenation and shifted to Galacta-asking her how long it would take to sterilize a suite in the Palace and install decontamination equipment for watchstanders and visitors.

            Before she could answer, Lazarus said, "Wups! Hold it one fiddlin' moment. I saw you palm that card, Ira."

            "I beg your pardon, sir?"

            "You tried to slide one in. 'Decontam' is the same word in English as in Galacta. Not that it was news to me; my sense of smell isn't that dead. When a pretty girl leans over me, I expect to smell perfume. But when I can't even smell girl and do smell germicides-well, ipse dixit and Q.E.D. Minerva!"

            "Yes, Lazarus?"

            "Can you spare me some shared time to give me a refresher while I'm asleep tonight in the nine hundred basic words of Galacta or whatever number it takes? You equipped for it?"

            "Certainly, Lazarus."

            "Thanks, dear. One night should do it, but I'll appreciate vocabulary drill each night until we both think I'm up to adequate proficiency. Can do?"

            "Can do, Lazarus. And will do."

            "Thanks, dear, over and out. Now, Ira, you see that door? If it doesn't open to my voice, I'm going to attempt to break it down. If I can't, I am going to check on whether or not that suicide switch is really hooked up-by trying it. Because, if that door won't open, I am a prisoner, and any promises I made on your assurances that I am a free agent are not binding. But if it does open to my voice, I'll bet you whatever you like that there is a decontam chamber beyond it, staffed and ready to function. Say a million crowns to keep it interesting? No, you didn't flinch; let's make it ten million crowns."

            I trust that I did not flinch. I have never had that much money of my own, and a Chairman Pro Tern gets out of the habit of thinking about his own money; there is no need to. I had not asked Minerva about my personal balance for some time. Years, perhaps.

            "Lazarus, I won't bet. Yes, there is a decontam setup outside; we tried to protect you from possible infection without bringing it to your attention. I see that we have failed. I haven't checked on the door-"

            "Lying again, Son. You're not good at it."

            "-but if it isn't keyed to your voice now, it is my oversight; you've kept me busy. Minerva, if the door to this suite is not keyed to the Senior's voice, correct it immediately."

            "It is keyed to his voice, Ira."

            I relaxed when I heard how she phrased it-perhaps a computer that had learned when not to be bluntly truthful was going to be still more of a helpmeet.

            Lazarus grinned diabolically. "So? Then I'm about to test out the super-override program you were a bit hasty in giving her. Minerva!"

            "Awaiting your orders, Senior."

            "Key the door to my suite so that it opens only to my voice. I'm going out and sashay around-while Ira and these kids stay locked inside. If I am not back in half an hour, you can unlock them."

            "Conflict, Ira!"

            "Carry out his orders, Minerva." I tried to keep my voice low and even.

            Lazarus smiled and stayed in his chair. "No need to show openers, Ira; there is nothing outside I want to see. Minerva, you can put the door back to normal-let it open to any voice, including mine. Sorry about that conflict, dear; I hope it didn't burn out anything."

            "No harm done, Lazarus. When I was given that super-override instruction, I increased the overload tolerances on my problem-resolving network."

            "You're a smart girl. I'll try to avoid conflict in the future. Ira, you had better remove, that super-override; it's not fair to Minerva. She feels like a woman with two husbands."

            "Minerva can handle it." I assured him, more calmly than I felt.

            "You mean that I had better handle it. I shall, Did you tell Ishtar that I'm going househunting?"

            "I didn't get that far. I was discussing with her the practicability of your living at the Palace."

            "Now, Ira- Palaces don't appeal to me, and being a house guest is still worse. A nuisance both to host and guest. Tomorrow I'll find a residential hilton that doesn't cater to tourists or conventions. Then I'll run out to the skyport and see Dora, and pat her rump and get her calmed down. The next day or so I'll find a little house way out in the suburbs, one automated enough to be no problem-but with its own garden. Got to have a garden. I'll have to bribe somebody to move; the house I want won't be standing empty. Do you happen to know how much I still have in Harriman Trust? If anything."

            "I don't know but that's no problem. Minerva, set up a drawing account for the Senior. Unlimited."

            "Acknowledged, Ira. Completed."

            "Completion noted. Lazarus, you would not be a nuisance. Nor will you find it palatial as long as you avoid the public rooms. As I always do. Nor will you be anyone's guest. It's called the 'Executive Palace,' but its official name is 'The Chairman's House.' You will be in residence in your own home. I will be the guest, if anyone."

            "Hogwash, Ira."

            "True, Lazarus."

            "Quit juggling words. I would still be a stranger in a household not truly my own. A guest. I don't buy it."

            "Lazarus, you said-last night"-I remembered just in time the missing day-"that you can always do business with anyone who is acting in his own interest and says so."

            "I think I said 'usually' rather than 'always'-meaning that we could then look for a way that would serve both of our, self-interests."

            "Then hear me out. You've got me tied down with this Scheherazade bet. As well as a research to find something new to interest you. Now you've dangled bait under my nose that makes me want to migrate as soon as-well, as soon as possible; it won't take long for the Trustees to turn me down concerning a migration of the Families. Grandfather, it's nuisance enough to chase over here every day; I don't hanker to trek way out into the boondocks, the commuting would waste what little time you have left me for work. Besides that, it's dangerous."

            "Living alone? Ira, I've lived alone many times."

            "Dangerous for me. Assassins. I'm safe at the Palace; the rat who can find his way through that maze hasn't been born. I'm reasonably safe here inside the Clinic, and I can get back and forth in safety, subject only to whims of automatic machinery. But if I make a daily pattern of going to an unfortified house somewhere out in the suburbs, then it is only a matter of time until some crackpot sees it as an opportunity to save the world by picking me off. Oh, he would not live through it; my guards aren't that inefficient. But if I persist in setting myself up as a target, he might get me before they get him. No, Grandfather, I do not choose to be assassinated."

            The Senior looked thoughtful but not impressed. "I could answer that your safety and convenience have to do with your self-interest. Not mine."

            "True," I admitted. "But let me offer what bait I can. It's in my self-interest for you to live in the Palace. There I can visit you in perfect safety, even safer than I am here, and commuting becomes a matter of seconds, negligible. I can even ask you-there-to excuse me for a half hour if something urgent comes up. That defines my self-interest. As for yours sir-would you be interested in a bachelor's cottage, rather small-four rooms-and not especially modern or luxurious but set in a pleasant garden? Three hectares, but only the part close to the house is gardened, the rest has been allowed to grow wild."

            "What's the catch, Ira? How modem is 'not especially'? I did say 'automated'-as I am not yet in shape to do for myself-nor am I patient with the vagaries of servants or the whimsical uncertainties of robots."

            "Oh, this cottage is sufficiently automated; it simply does not have a lot of fancy extravagances. No servants needed if your tastes are simple. Would you permit the Clinic to continue to stand watches on you if the watchstanders are as pleasant, and as pleasantly unobtrusive, as these two?"

            "Eh? These kids are all right, I like them. I realize that the Clinic wants to keep an eye on me; they probably feel that I'm more of a challenge than a client only three or four hundred years old. That's okay. But you pass the word that I expect to smell perfume, not germicides. Or reasonably fresh body odors; I'm not fussy. I repeat, what's the catch?"

            "The hell you aren't fussy, Lazarus; you delight in thinking up impossible conditions. This cottage is rather cluttered with old-fashioned books; the last tenant was eccentric. Did I mention a little stream running through the grounds, one which opens out into a small pool near the house?-not much, but you can take a few strokes in it. Oh, I forgot to mention an old tomcat who thinks he owns the place. But you probably won't see him; he hates most people."

            "I won't bother him if he wants to be left alone; cats make good neighbors. You still haven't answered me."

            "The catch is this, Lazarus. I've been describing the penthouse I had built for my own use on the roof of the Palace, some ninety years back when I decided to keep this, job awhile. It can be reached only by vertical transport from my usual quarters a couple of stories below it. I've never had time to use it much; you are welcome to it." I stood up. "But if you won't take it, then you can consider that I've lost the Scheherazade bet, and you are free to use that termination switch whenever you please. For I'm damned if I'll be a sitting duck for assassination just to cater to your whims."

            "Sit back down!'

            "No, thank you. I've made a reasonable offer. If you won't take it, you can go to hell in your own way. I won't let you ride my shoulders like the Old Man of the Sea. I can be pushed just so far."

            "So I see. How much of your ancestry am I?"

            "About thirteen percent. Considerable convergence."

            "Only that much? I would have guessed more. Some ways you sound like my Gramp. Does my suicide switch go along?"

            "If you want it," I answered as indifferently as I could manage to sound. "Or you can jump off the edge. It's a long drop."

            "I prefer the switch, Ira; I'd hate to change my mind on the way down. Will you fix me up with another transport so that I won't have to go through your apartment?"

            "No."

            "Eh? Is it all that difficult? Let's ask Minerva."

            "It's not that I can't-I won't. It's an unreasonable request. It won't hurt you to change transports in my foyer. Didn't I make it clear that I am not catering to any more unreasonable whims?"

            "Get your feathers down, Son. I accept. Tomorrow, say. Never mind moving that clutter of books; I like old-fashioned bound books; they have more flavor than speedireads, or projectos, or such. And I'm pleased to find that you're a rat and not a mouse. Please sit down."

            I did so, pretending reluctance. I felt that I was beginning to gain some grasp of Lazarus. Despite the way he sneered at them the old scoundrel was an equalitarian at heart...and expressed it by attempting to dominate anyone with whom he came into contact-but was contemptuous of anyone who knuckled under to his bullying. So the only answer was to hit back at him, try to maintain a balance of power-and hope that in time it would reach the stability of mutual respect.

            I never had cause to change my mind. He was capable of kindness and even affection toward one who accepted a subordinate role-if that person was a child or a female. But he preferred spunk even from them. A growl male who bent the knee he neither liked nor trusted.

            I think this quirk in his character made him very lonely.

            Presently the Senior said musingly, "Be nice to live in a house for a while. With a garden. Maybe with a spot where I can stretch a hammock."

            "Several such spots."

            "But I'm doing you out of your hideaway."

            "Lazarus, there is enough room on that roof that I could have another cottage assembled out of your sight. If I wanted it. I don't. I haven't even been up there for a swim in weeks. It has been at least a year since I slept up there."

            "Well- I hope you'll feel free to come up and swim. Any time. Or whatever."

            "I expect to be up there every day and all day, for the next thousand days. Have you forgotten our bet?"

            "Oh, that. Ira, you were bitching that my whimsical ways were wasting your valuable time. Do you want to be let off the hook? Not on the other, just on that."

            I laughed at him. "Straighten your kilt, Lazarus, your self-interest is showing. Meaning you want to be let off the hook. No deal. I intend to get one thousand and one days of your memoirs on record. After that you can jump off the edge, or drown yourself in the pool, or whatever. But I won't let you welch by pretending to do me a favor. I'm beginning to understand you."

            "You are? That's more than I've ever managed. When you get me figured out, tell me about me; I'll be interested. That search for something new, Ira- You said you had started it."

            "I didn't say that, Lazarus."

            "Well, perhaps you just implied it."

            "Nor even that. Want to bet? We can ask Minerva for a full printout, then I'll accept your verdict."

            "Let's not tempt a lady into fudging the record, Ira; she's loyal to you, not to me. Despite any super-duper-overrides."

            "Chicken."

            "At every opportunity, Ira; how do you think I've lived so long? I bet only when I'm certain to win or when losing serves my actual purpose. All right, when are you starting that research?"

            "I've already started it."

            "But you said- No, you didn't. Damn your impudence, boy. All right, what direction are you pushing it?"

            "All directions."

            "Impossible. You don't have that many people at your disposal, even assuming that all of them are capable-whereas the person capable of creative thought is less than one in a thousand."

            "No argument. But what about the sort of person that you said was just like us-but magnified? Minerva is director of research on this, Lazarus. I talked it over with her; she's setting it up. All directions. A Zwicky investigation."

            "Hmm. Well...yes. She could-I think she could. Whereas even Andy Libby might have found it difficult. How is she designing her morphological box?"

            "I don't know. Shall we ask her?"

            "Only if she's ready to be asked, Ira. People get annoyed when interrupted for progress reports. Even Andy Libby used to get irritable if anyone joggled his elbow."

            "Even the great Libby probably didn't have the time-share capacity Minerva has. Most brains are merely linear, and I've never heard of any human genius who had more than three tracks."

            "Five."

            "So? Well, you've met more geniuses than I have. But I don't know how many simultaneous tracks Minerva can set up; I simply have never seen her overloaded. Let's ask her. Minerva, have you set up the morpho box for that search for 'something new' for the Senior?"

            "Yes, Ira."

            "Tell us about it."

            "The preliminary matrix uses five dimensions, but with a certainty that auxiliary dimensions will be needed for some pigeonholes. That being noted, there are now nine by five by thirteen by eight by seventy-three--or three hundred forty-one thousand six hundred forty discrete category pockets before auxiliary expansions. For check, the original trinary readout is unit pair pair comma unit nil nil comma unit pair pair comma unit nil nil point nil. Shall I print out decimal and trinary expressions?"

            "I think not, Little Nag; the day you make a mistake in arithmetic, I'll have to resign. Lazarus?"

            "I'm not interested in pigeonholes, just what is in them. Hit any pay dirt, Minerva?"

            "As stated, Lazarus, your question does not permit specific answer. Shall I print out the categories for your examination?"

            "Uh- No! Over three hundred thousand categories and maybe a dozen words to define each one? We'd be hip-deep in paper." Lazarus looked thoughtful. "Ira, you might ask Minerva to print it somewhere else before she wipes it. As a book. A big book, ten or fifteen volumes. You could call it 'Varieties of Human Experience,' by, uh, 'Minerva Weatheral.' It would be the sort of thing professors argue over for a thousand years. I'm not joking, Ira; it should be preserved, I think it's new. It's a job too big for flesh-and-blood, and I sort o' doubt that a computer of Minerva's caliber has ever before been asked to do this sort of Zwicky."

            "Minerva, would you like that? Preserve your research notes and edit them into a book? Say a few hundred full-size bound copies in a handsome presentation format plus microperms for libraries on Secundus and elsewhere. For the Archives, too-I could ask Justin Foote to write a preface."

            I was intentionally appealing to her vanity-and if you think computers don't have such human foibles, then I suggest that your experience with them is limited; Minerva always liked to be appreciated, and we two began to be a team only after I realized this. What else can you offer a machine? Higher pay and longer vacations? Let's not be silly.

            But she surprised me still again, answering in a voice almost as shy as Lazarus' yacht, and quite formally: "Mr. Chairman Pro Tem, would it be proper, and would you grant permission, for me to put on the title page 'by Minerva Wearheral'?"

            I said, "Why, certainly. Unless you would rather sign it just 'Minerva.'"

            Lazarus said brusquely, "Don't be a dumb fool, Son. Dear, sign that title page 'Minerva L. Weatheral.' The 'L' stands for 'Long'-because you, Ira, had a woodseolt by one of my daughters on some frontier planet back in the careless days of your youth and just recently got around to registering the fact in the Archives. I'll attest the registration-happens I was there at the time. But Dr. Minerva L. Weatheral is now off somewhere way the hell and gone out, doing research for her next magnum opus-can't be reached for an interview. Ira, you and I will whip up biographical notes for my distinguished granddaughter. Got it?'

            I simply answered Yes.

            "That suit you, girl?"

            "Yes indeed, Lazarus. Grandfather Lazarus."

            "Don't bother calling me 'Grandfather.' But I want the number-one presentation copy inscribed to me, dear-'To my Grandfather Lazarus Long, with love, Minerva L. Weatheral.' Is it a deal?"

            "I will be proud and happy to do so, Lazarus. An inscription should be in handwriting, should it not? I can modify the extensional I use to sign official papers for Ira-a mod so that the inscription handwriting will be different from his handwriting."

            "Fine. If Ira behaves himself, you might consider dedicating the book to him and inscribe a copy to him. But I get the first copy. I'm senior-and I thought it up. But back to the search itself- I'm never going to read that twenty-volume opus, Minerva; I'm interested only in results. So tell me what you have so far."

            "Lazarus, I have tentatively rejected over half the matrix as representing things the Archives show that you have done, or things that I assume that you would not wish to do-"

            "Hold it! As the marine said, 'If I haven't done it, I'll try it.' What are these things you assume I wouldn't want to try? Let's hear 'em."

            "Yes, sir. One submatrix, three thousand six hundred fifty pockets, all involve a probably fatal outcome, probability ninety-nine percent plus. First, exploring in corpus the interior of a star-"

            "Scratch that one, I'll leave that to physicists. Besides, Lib and I did it once."

            "The Archives did not show it, Lazarus."

            "Lots of things not in the Archives. Go on."

            "Modification of your genetic pattern to grow an amphibious clone capable of living in ocean waters."

            "I'm not sure I'm that interested in fish. What's the catch?"

            "Three catches, Lazarus, each hazardous by less than ninety-nine percent but, when taken in series, total almost unity. Such pseudohuman amphibians have been grown, but the viable ones-thus far-strongly resemble very large frogs. The chances of survival of such a creature against other denizens of the deep-figured for Secundus-have been theoretically calculated as even for seventeen days, twenty-five percent for thirty-four days, and so on."

            "I think I could improve those odds. But I never have cared much for Russian roulette. The other hazards?"

            "Installing your brain in the modified clone, then reinserting it into a normal clone at a later time. If you survived."

            "Scratch that one. If I have to live underwater, I don't want to be a frog; I want to be the biggest, meanest shark in the ocean. Besides, I figure that, if living underwater was all that interesting, we would still be there. Give me another sample."

            "A triple sample, sir. Lost in n-space with a ship, without a ship but with a suit, and without even a suit."

            "Scratch 'em all. I've come closer than I like to think to the first two, and the third is just a silly way to drown in vacuum. Thin and unpleasant. Minerva, the All Powerful in His Majestic Wisdom-whatever that means-made it possible for humans to die peacefully. That being so, unless one is forced to, it is silly to do it the hard way. So scratch drowning in caterpillars and self-immolation and all silly ways to die. Very well, dear; you've convinced me that you know what you're talking about concerning those ninety-nine-plus hazards; scratch 'em all. Fm interested only in something new-new to me-in which the chances of surviving are better than fifty percent and in which a man who stays alert can enhance his chances. For example, I never hankered to go over high falls in a barrel. You can design the barrel to make it relatively safe; nevertheless, once you start, you are helpless. Which makes it a silly stunt-unless it's the safest way out of a worse predicament. Racing-cars, steeplechase, skis-is more interesting because each calls for skill. Yet I don't fancy that sort of danger, either. Danger for the sake of danger is for children who don't really believe they can be killed. Whereas I know I can be. So there are a lot of mountains I'll never climb. Unless I'm trapped, in which case I'll do it-have done it!-the easiest, safest, most chicken way I can figure out. Don't bother with anything in which the prime novelty is danger-danger is no novelty. It is simply something to be faced when you can't run. How about other pigeonholes in your box?"

            "Lazarus, you could become female."

            I do not think I have ever seen the Senior quite so startled (So was I, but the statement was not aimed at me.)

            He went on slowly, "Minerva, I'm not sure what you mean Surgeons have been turning inadequate males into fake females for more than two thousand years-and females into fake males almost as long. I'm not attracted by such stunts. For good-or bad-I am male. I suppose that every human has wondered how it would feel to be the other sex. But all the plastic surgery and hormone treatments possible won't do it-those monsters don't reproduce."

            "I am not speaking of monsters, Lazarus. A true change in sex."

            "Mmm- You remind me of a tale I had almost forgotten. Not sure it's true. About a man, oh, must have been around 2000 A.D. Couldn't be much later because things went to pieces not long after. Supposed to have had his brain moved into a female body. Killed him, of course. Alien tissue rejection."

            "Lazarus, this would not involve that hazard; it would be done with your own clone."

            "Not bloody likely. Keep talking."

            "Lazarus, this has been tested on animals other than H. sapiens. It works best in changing a male to a female. A single cell is selected for cloning. Before cloning is started, the Y chromosome is removed and an X chromosome from a second cell of the same zygote is supplied, thus creating a female cell of the same genetic pattern as the zygote save that the X chromosome is replicated while the Y chromosome is eliminated. The modified cell is then cloned. The result is a true female clone-zygote derived from a male original."

            "There must be a catch," Lazarus said, frowning.

            "There may be, Lazarus. Certain it is that the basic technique works. There are several created females in the building you are in-dogs, cats, one sow, others-and most of them have littered successfully...except when, for example, a derived bitch is bred with the male dog who supplied the cell for cloning. That can produce lethals and mostrosities from the high probability of reinforcing bad recessives-"

            "I should think it would!"

            "Yes. But normal outbreeding does not, as indicated by seventy-three generations of hamsters descended from one created female. The method has not been adapted to fauna native to Secundus because of their radically different genetic structure."

            "Never mind Secundus animals-how about men?"

            "Lazarus, I have been able to search the literature only on items released by the Rejuvenation Clinic. The published literature hints at problems in the last stage-activating the female clone-zygote with the memories and experiences-the 'personality' if you prefer that term-of the parent main. When to terminate the parent male-or whether to terminate it at all-suggests several problems. But I am unable to say what research has been suppressed."

            Lazarus turned to me. "Do you permit that, Ira? Suppression of research?"

            "I don't interfere, Lazarus. But I didn't know this research was going on. Let's find out." I turned to the Administrator for Rejuvenation, shifted to Galacta, and explained what we had been discussing and asked what progress had been made with humans.

            I turned back with my ears burning. As soon as I mentioned humans in this connection, she had interrupted me abruptly-as if I had said something offensive-and stated that such experimentation was proscribed.

            I translated her answer. Lazarus nodded. "I read the kid's face; I could see the answer was No. Well, Minerva, that seems to be that I am not about to attempt chromosome surgery on myself-somebody swiped my jackknife."

            "Perhaps that is not quite the end," Minerva replied. "Ira, did you notice that Ishtar said only that such research was 'proscribed'? She did not say that it had not taken place. I have just made a most thorough semantic analysis of the published literature for truth-and-falsity implications. I conclude that the probability approaches certainty that much pertinent research on humans has taken place even though it may no longer be going on. Do you wish to order it released, sir? I am certain that I can freeze their computer quickly enough to prevent erasure, assuming that an erasure program guards it."

            "Let's not do anything drastic," drawled Lazarus. "There may be good reason for a 'hold' on this stuff. I'm forced to assume that these johnnies know more about it than I do. Besides, I'm not sure I want to be a guinea pig. Let's put it on the back of the fire, Minerva. Ira, I'm not sure I would be me without my Y chromosome. To say nothing of those jolly hints of how you transfer the personality and at what point to kill off the male. Me, that is."

            "Lazarus-"

            "Yes, Minerva?"

            "The published literature makes one option both certain and safe. This method can be used to create your twin sister-identical rather than fraternal, save for sex. A host mother is indicated, with no forcing to maturity, since the brain would be allowed to develop normally. Would this meet your standards of newness and interest? To watch yourself grow up as a woman? 'Lazuli Long,' you might name her-your female other self."

            "Uh-" Lazarus stopped.

            I said dryly, "Grandfather, I think I've won our second bet. Something new. Something interesting."

            "Now slow up! You can't do it, you don't know how. Nor do I. And the Director of this madhouse appears to have moral scruples about it-"

            "We don't know that. Mere inference."

            "Not so 'mere.' And I may have moral scruples. 'Twouldn't interest me unless I stuck around and watched her grow up which might send me crazy either through trying to make her grow up just like me-what a fate for any girl!-or by trying to keep her from growing up as ornery as I am when that would be her nature. Nor would I be justified either way; she would be a separate human being, not my slave. Besides that, I would be her sole parent-no mother. I've had one crack at trying to raise a daughter alone-it's not fair to the girl."

            "You're inventing objections, Lazarus. I'll give long odds that Ishtar would gladly be both host mother and foster mother. Especially if you promised Ishtar a son of her own. Shall I ask her?'

            "You keep your biscuit trap shut, Son! Minerva, place that on - 'pending'-I won't be hurried into a major decision about another person. Especially one who isn't, quite. Ira, remind me to tell you about the twins who were no relation to each other. But twins."

            "Preposterous. You're changing the subject."

            "So I am. Minerva, what else do you have, girl?"

            "Lazarus, I have one program which involves low hazard and a probability approaching certainty of supplying one-or more-experiences completely new to you."

            "I'm listening."

            "Suspended animation-"

            "What's new about that? We had that when I was a kid, hardly two hundred years old. Used it in the 'New Frontiers.' Didn't attract me then, doesn't now."

            "-as a means of time travel. If you stipulate that in X number of years, something truly new will develop-a certainty based on history-then your only problem is to select whatever span of years will, in your opinion, produce the degree of novelty you seek. One hundred years, one thousand, ten thousand, whatever you say. The rest involves nothing but minor design details."

            "Not so 'minor' if I'm going to be asleep and unable to protect myself."

            "But you need not go into hibernation until you are satisfied with my design, Lazarus. A hundred years is obviously no problem. A thousand years is not much problem. For ten thousand years I would design an artificial planetoid equipped with fail-safes to insure that you would be revived automatically in case of emergency."

            "That would take quite some designing, girl."

            "I feel confident of my capacity to do it, Lazarus, but you are free to criticize and reject any part of it. However, there is no point in my submitting preliminary designs until you give me the controlling parameter, namely the time span, which in your opinion will produce something new to you. Or do you wish my advice on that?"

            "Uh,  hold your horses, dear. Let's assume that you've got me in liquid helium and in free fall and thoroughly protected against ionizing radiation-"

            "No problem, Lazarus."

            "So I stipulated, dear; Fm not underrating you. But suppose some tiny little fail-safe fails null instead and I go on snoozing through the centuries-and millennia-without end. Not dead. But not revived, either."

            "I can and will design to avoid that. But let me accept your stipulation. In such case, how would you be worse off than you would be if you used your termination-option switch? What do you lose by trying this?"

            "Why, that's obvious! If there is anything to this immortality talk-or any sort of afterlife-I'm not saying there is or isn't-but if there is, then when the 'Roll Is Called Up Yonder,' I won't be there. I'll be asleep but not dead, somewhere off in space. I'll miss the last boat."

            "Grandfather," I said impatiently, "quit trying to wiggle out. If you don't want it, just say No. But Minerva has certainly offered you a way to reach something new. If there is anything to your argument-which I don't admit-you will have achieved something really unique: the only human being out of many billions to fail to show up for muster on this hypothetical-and-highly-unlikely Judgment Day. I wouldn't put it past you, you old scoundrel; you're slippery."

            He ignored my slur. "Why 'highly unlikely'?"

            "Because it is. I won't argue it."

            "Because you can't argue it," he retorted. "There isn't any evidence for or against-so how can you assign even a loose probability either way? I was pointing out the desirability, if there happens to be anything to it, of playing it kosher. Minerva, hold that under 'pending,' too. The idea has everything you claim for it, and I don't doubt your ability as- a designer. But, like testing a parachute, it's a one-way trip with no chance to change my mind after I jump. So we'll look over all other ideas before falling back on that one-even if it takes years."

            "I will continue, Lazarus."

            "Thanks, Minerva." Lazarus looked thoughtful as he picked his teeth with a thumbnail-we were eating, but I have not mentioned breaks for refreshment, nor will I again. You may assume any food and rest breaks that make you feel comfortable. Like Scheherazade's tales, the Senior's anecdotes were chopped up by many irrelevant interruptions.

            "Lazarus-"

            "Eh, Son? I was daydreaming...of a far country and the wench is dead. Sorry."

            "You could help Minerva in this search."

            "So? Seems unlikely. She's better equipped to conduct a needle-in-a-haystack search than I am-she impresses me."

            "Yes. But she needs data. There are these great gaps in what we know about you. If we knew-if Minerva knew- those fifty-odd professions you've followed, she might be able to cancel several thousand possibility pockets. For example, have you ever been a farmer?"

            "Several times."

            "So? Now that she knows that, she won't suggest anything relating to agriculture. While there may be sorts of farming you have never done, none would be novel enough to meet your stringent requirements. Why not list the things you have done?"

            "Doubt if I can remember them all."

            "That can't be helped. But listing what you do remember may call to mind others."

            "Uh...let me think. One thing I always did every time I reached an inhabited planet was to study law. Not to practice-not usually, although for a number of years I was a very criminal lawyer-on San Andreas, that was. But to understand the ground rules. Hard to show a profit-or to conceal one-if you don't know how the game is played. It's much safer to break a law knowingly than to do so through ignorance.

            "But that backfired once and I wound up as High Justice of a planetary Supreme Court-just in time to save my bacon. And neck.

            "Let me see. Farmer, and lawyer, and judge, and I told you I had practiced medicine. Skipper of many sorts of craft, mostly for exploration but sometimes for cargo or migrant transport-and once an armed privateer with a crew of rogues you wouldn't take home to mother. Schoolteacher-lost that job when they caught me teaching the kids the raw truth, a capital offense anywhere in the Galaxy. In the slave trade once but from underneath-I was a slave."

            I blinked at that. "I can't imagine it."

            "Unfortunately I didn't have to imagine it. Priest-"

            I had to interrupt again. "Priest'? Lazarus, you said, or implied, that you had no religious faith of any sort."

            "Did I? But 'faith' is for the congregation, Ira; it handicaps a priest. Professor in a parlor house-"

            "Excuse me again. Idiomatic usage?"

            "Eh? Manager of a bordello...although I did play the pianette a little, and sang. Don't laugh; I had a pretty good singing voice then. This was on Mars-you've heard of Mars?"

            "Next planet out from Old Home Terra. Sol Four."

            "Yes. Not a planet we'd bother with today. But this was before Andy Libby changed things. It was even before China destroyed Europe but after America dropped out of the spacing business, which left me stranded. I left Earth after that meeting of 2012 and didn't go back for a spell-which saved me much unpleasantness, I shouldn't complain. If that meeting had gone the other way- No, I'm wrong; when a fruit is ripe, it will fall, and the United States was rotten ripe. Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun- and neither can stop the march of events.

            "But we were speaking of Mars and the job I had there. A fill-in job for coffee and cakes-but pleasant,  I was also the bouncer. The girls were all nice girls, and it was a pleasure to throw out some slob who was misbehaving toward them. Throw him so hard he bounced. Then blacklist him so he couldn't come back. One or two like that every evening and the word got around that 'Happy' Daze demanded gentlemanly behavior toward the ladies, no matter how big a spender a man was.

            Whoring is like military service, Ira-okay in the upper brackets, not so good lower down. These girls were constantly getting offers to buy up their contracts and get married- and all of them did get married, I think, but they were making money so fast that they weren't anxious to grab the first offer. Mainly because, when I took over, I put a stop to the fixed price the governor of the colony had set, and reinstated the Law of Supply and Demand. There was no reason why those kids shouldn't charge every ruble the traffic would bear.

            "Had trouble over that until the Governor's Provost for Rest and Culture got it through his thick head that slave wages won't work in a scarcity situation. Mars was unpleasant enough without trying to cheat those few who made it tolerable. Or even delightful when they were happy in their work. Whores perform the same function as priests, Ira, but far more thoroughly.

            "Let me see- I've been wealthy many times and always lost it, usually through governments inflating the money, or confiscating-'nationalizing' or 'liberating'-something I owned. 'Put not your faith in princes,' Ira; since they don't produce, they always steal. I've been broke even oftener than I've been wealthy. Of the two, being broke is more interesting, as a man who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from is never bored. He may be angry or several other things-but not bored. His predicament sharpens his thoughts, spurs him into action, adds zest to his life, whether he knows it or not. Can trap him, of course; that's why food is the usual bait for traps. But that's the intriguing part about being broke: how to solve it without being trapped. A hungry man tends to lose his judgment-a man who has missed seven meals is often ready to kill-rarely a solution.

            "Advertising copywriter, actor-but I was very broke that time-acolyte, construction engineer and several other sorts, and even more sorts of mechanic, for I've always believed that an intelligent man can turn his hand to anything if he will take time to learn how it works. Not that I insisted on skilled work when my next meal was at stake; I've often pushed an idiot stick-"

            "Idiom?"

            "An old gandy-dancer expression, Son, a stick with a shovel blade on one end and an idiot on the other. I was never that for more than a few days, just long enough to sort out the local setup. Political manager-I was even a reform politician once...but only once: Reform politicians not only tend to be dishonest but stupidly dishonest-whereas the business politician is honest."

            "I don't see that Lazarus. History seems to show-".

            "Use your head, Ira. I don't mean that a business politician won't steal; stealing is his business. But all politicians are nonproductive. The only commodity any politician has to offer is jawbone. His personal integrity-meaning, if he gives his word, can you rely on it? A successful business politician knows this and guards his reputation for sticking by his commitments-because he wants to stay in business-go on stealing, that is-not only this week but next year and years after that. So if he's smart enough to be successful at this very exacting trade, he can have the morals of a snapping turtle, but he performs in such a way as not to jeopardize the only thing he has to sell, his reputation for keeping promises.

            "But a reform politician has no such lodestone. His devotion is to the welfare of all the people-an abstraction of very high order and therefore capable of endless definitions. If indeed it can be defined in meaningful terms. In consequence your utterly sincere and incorruptible reform politician is capable of breaking his word three times before breakfast- not from personal dishonesty, as he sincerely regrets the necessity and will tell you so-but from unswerving devotion to his ideal.

            "All it takes to get him to break his word is for someone to get his ear and convince him that it is necessary for the greater good of all the peepul. He'll geek.

            "After he gets hardened to this, he's capable of cheating at solitaire. Fortunately he rarely stays in office long-except during the decay and fall of a culture."

            I said, "I must take your word for it, Lazarus. Since I have spent most of my life on Secundus, I know little of politics other than theoretically. You set it up that way."

            The Senior fixed me with a stare of cold scorn. "I did no such thing."

            "But-"

            "Oh, hush. You are a politician yourself-a 'business' politician, I hope-but that stunt of transporting your dissidents gives me doubts. Minerva! 'Notebook,' dear. My intention in deeding Secundus to the Foundation was to set up a cheap and simple government-a constitutional tyranny. One in which the government was forbidden to do most things and the dear people, bless their black flabby little hearts, were given no voice at all.

            "I didn't have much hope for it. Man is a political animal, Ira. You can, no more keep him from politicking than you can keep him from copulating-and probably shouldn't try. But I was young then, and hopeful. I hoped to keep politicking in the private sphere, keep it out of government. I thought the setup might last a century or so; I'm amazed that it has lasted as long as it has. Not good. This planet is overripe for revolution-and if Minerva doesn't find me something better to do, I might show up under another name, with my hair dyed and my nose bobbed, and start one. So be warned, Ira."

I shrugged. "You forget I'm migrating."

            "Ah, yes. Though the prospect, of suppressing a, revolution might change your mind. Or perhaps you would like to be my chief of staff-then displace me with a coup d'etat after the shooting is over and send me to the guillotine. That would be something new-I've never tended to lose my head over politics. Doesn't leave much for an encore, does it? 'A tisket, a tasket, a head in a basket-it cannot reply to questions you ask it.' Final curtain, no bows.

            "But revolutions can be fun. Did I tell you how I worked my way through college? Operating a Gatling gun for five dollars a day and loot. Never got higher than corporal because each time I had enough money for another semester, I deserted-and, being a mercenary, I was never tempted to become a dead hero. But adventure and change of scene are appealing to a young man...and I was very young.* (* The Gatling gun (Richard J. Gatling, 1818-1903) was obsolete by the time Lazarus Long was born. This allegation is barely possible if one stipulates that an obsolete might be used in some small, out-of-the-way insurrection. J.F.45th)

            "But dirt, and missing meals, and the wheet of bullets past your ears stop being glamorous as you grow up; the next time I was in the military-not entirely my idea-I chose Navy instead. Wet Navy, although I was space Navy at later times and under other names.

            "I've sold almost everything-except slaves-and worked as a mind-reader in a traveling show, and was a king once- a much overrated profession, the hours are too long-and designed women's styles under a phony French name and accent and with my hair long. Almost the only time I've worn long hair, Ira; not only does long hair need a lot of timewasting care, it gives your opponent something to grab in close combat and can obscure your view at a critical moment-either one can be fatal. But I don't favor a billiard-ball cut because a thick mat of hair-not so long as to fall over your eyes-can save you a nasty scalp wound."

            Lazarus appeared to stop to think. "Ira, I don't see how I can list all the things I've done to support myself and my wives and kids, even if I could remember them. The longest I ever stuck to one job was about half a century-very special circumstances-and the shortest was from after breakfast to just before lunch-again, special circumstance. But no matter where or what, there are makers, takers, and fakers. I prefer the first category but I haven't spurned the other two. Whenever I was a family man-usually, that is-I haven't let compunctions stop me from keeping food on the table. I won't steal another child's food to feed my own-but there is always some way not too sickeningly fake to garner valuta if a man isn't too picky-which I never was whenever I had family obligations.

            "You can sell things which have no intrinsic value, such as stories or songs-I've worked every branch of the entertainment profession...including a time in the capital of Fatima when I squatted in the marketplace with a brass bowl in front of me, telling a story longer than this one, and waiting at cliff-hangers for the clink of a coin.

            "I was reduced to that because my ship had been confiscated and foreigners weren't permitted to work without a permit-a high squeeze on the theory that jobs should be reserved for local citizens, there being a depression. Telling stories without a fee wasn't classed as work, nor was it begging-which required a license-and cops let me alone as long as I volunteered the customary daily gift to the Police Benevolent Fund.

            "It was either get by with some such dodge or be reduced to stealing-difficult in a culture in which one is not sophisticated in the local customs. Still, I would have risked it save that I had a wife and three small children~. That hobbled me, Ira; a family man should not take risks that a bachelor finds acceptable.

            "So I sat there till my tailbone wore through the cobblestones, recounting everything from Grimm's fairy tales to, Shakespeare's plays, and not letting my wife spend money on anything but food until we saved enough to buy that work permit plus the customary cumshaw. Then I clobbered 'em, Ira."

            "How, Lazarus?"

            "Slowly but thoroughly. Those months in the marketplace had given me a degree of sophistication in the 'Who's-Whom' of that society and what its sacred cows were. Then I stayed on for years-no choice. But first I was baptised into the local religion, gaining a more acceptable name in the process, and memorized the Qur'an. Not quite the same Qur'an I had known some centuries earlier, but it was worth the effort.

            "I'll skip over how I got into the Tinkers' Guild and got my first job repairing television receivers-had my pay docked to cover my contribution to the guild, that is, with a private arrangement to the Grand Master Tinker, not too expensive. This society was retarded in technology; its customs didn't encourage progress, and they had slipped behind what they had fetched from Earth about five centuries earlier. That made me a wizard, Ira, and could have got me hanged bad I not been careful to be a faithful-and openhanded-son of the church. So once I got into position for it, I peddled fresh electronics and stale astrology-using knowledge they didn't have for one and a free imagination for the other.

            "Eventually I was chief stooge to the very official who had confiscated my ship and trade goods years earlier, and I was helping him get richer while getting rich myself. If he recognized me, he never said so-a beard changes my looks quite a lot. Unfortunately he fell into disfavor and I wound up with his job."

            "How did you work that, Lazarus? Without being caught, I mean?"

            "Now, now, Ira! He was my benefactor. It said so in my contract and I always addressed him as such. Allah's ways are mysterious. I cast a horoscope for him, warning him that his stars were in bad shape. And so they were. That system is one of the few I know of with two usable planets around the same star, both colonized and with trade between them. Artifacts and slaves-"

            "'Slaves,' Lazarus? While I am aware of such a practice on Supreme, I didn't think that vice was very common. Not economic."

            The old man closed his eyes, kept them closed so long I thought he had fallen asleep (he often did during the early days of these talks). Then he opened them and spoke very grimly:

            "Ira, this vice is far more common than historians usually mention. Uneconomic, yes-a slave society can't compete with a free one. But with the Galaxy as wide as it is, there is usually no such competition. Slavery can and does exist many times and places, whenever the Laws are rigged to permit it.

            "I said that I would do almost anything to support my wives and kids-and I have; I have shoveled human excrement for a pittance, standing in it up to my knees, rather than let a child go hungry. But this I will not touch. Nor is it because I was once a slave myself; I have always felt this way. Call it a 'belief' or dignify it as a deep moral conviction. Whatever it is, for me it is beyond argument. If the human animal has any value at all, he is too valuable to be property. If he has any inner dignity, he is much too proud to own other, men. I don't give a damn how scrubbed and perfumed he may be, a slaveowner is subhuman.

            "But this does not mean that I'll cut my throat when I run into it, or I would not have lived through my first century. For there is another bad thing about slavery, Ira; it is impossible to free slaves, they have to free themselves."

            Lazarus scowled. "You've got me preaching again and about matters I can't possibly prove. Once I got my hands on my ship, I had it fumigated and checked it over myself and had it loaded with items I thought I could sell and had food and water taken on for the human cargo it had been refitted for, and sent the captain and crew on a week's leave, and notified the Protector of Servants-the state slave factor, that is-that we would load as soon as the skipper and purser were back.

            "Then I took my family on a holiday inspection of the ship. Somehow the Protector of Servants was suspicious; he insisted on touring the ship with us. So we had to take him along when we took off from there, very suddenly, shortly after my family was aboard. Right out of that system and never went back. But before we put down on a civilized planet, me and. my boys-two almost grown by then-removed any sign that she had ever been a slaver, even though it mean jettisoning stuff I could have sold."

            "What about the Protector of Servants?" I asked. "Wasn't he some trouble to you?"

            "Wondered if you would notice that. I spaced the bastard! Alive. He went thataway, eyes popped out and peeing blood. What did you expect me to do? Kiss him?"

COUNTERPOINT-III

            Once they reached the privacy of a transport Galahad said to Ishtar, "Were you serious in your proposal to the Senior? To have progeny by him?"

            "How could I be joking?-in the presence of two witnesses, one of them the Chairman Pro Tem himself."

            "I didn't see how you could be. But why, Ishtar?"

            "Because I'm a sentimental atavist!"

            "Do you have to snap at me?"

            She put an arm around his shoulders, took his hand with her free hand. "I'm sorry, dear. It has been a long day and not much sleep last night, sweet as it was. I'm worried about several things-and the subject you brought up is not one I can be unemotional about."

            "I should not have asked. An invasion of privacy-I don't know what's got into me. Shall we wipe the matter? Please?"

            "Dear, dear! I do know what got into me...and that's part of why I am so unprofessionally emotional. Let me put it this way: If you were female, wouldn't you jump at a chance to make such a proposal? To him?"

            "I'm not female."

            "I know you're not, you're delightfully male. But try for a moment to be as logical as a female. Try!"

            "Males are not necessarily illogical; that's a female myth."

            "Sorry. I must take a tranquilizer the minute we are home-something I haven't needed in years. But do try to think about it as if you were female. Please? Twenty seconds."

            "I don't need twenty seconds." He lifted her hand, kissed it. "If I were female, I would jump at the chance, too. The best proved genetic pattern one can offer a child? Of course."

            "Not that at all!"

            He blinked. "Perhaps I don't know what you mean by logic."

            "Uh...does it matter? Since we arrived at the same answer?" The car swerved and stopped in a loading pocket; she stood up. "So let's wipe it. We're home, dear."

            "You are. I'm not. I think-"

            "Men don't think."

            "I think you need a night's rest, Ishtar."

            "You sealed this onto me; now you'll have to undress me."

            "So? Then you'll insist on feeding me and you won't get that long night of sleep after all. Besides, you can peel it over your head, just the way I did it for you at decontam."

            She sighed. "Galahad-if I picked the right name for you-do I have to offer you a cohabitation contract merely because I might invite you to stay overnight again? It's likely that neither of us will get any sleep tonight."

            "That's what I was saying."

            "Not quite. Because we may work all night. Even if you choose to spend three minutes to our mutual pleasure."

            "'Three minutes'? I wasn't that hasty even the first time."

            "Well- Five minutes?'

            "Am I offered twenty minutes-plus an apology?'

            "Men! Thirty minutes, darling, and no apology."

            "Accepted." He stood up.

            "Five of which you've wasted arguing about it. So come along-exasperating darling."

            He followed her out into her foyer. "What's this about 'work all night'?"

            "And tomorrow, too. I'll know when I check what's in my phone. If there's nothing, I'll have to call the Chairman Pro Tem, much as I hate to. I've got to look over this rooftop cabin or whatever it is, and see, what arrangements can be made to take care of him there. Then both of us will move him; I can't delegate that. Then-"

            "Ishtar! Are you going to agree to that? Nonsterile habitat, no emergency equipment, and so forth?"

            "Darling...you are impressed by my rank; Mr. Weatheral is not. And the Senior isn't even impressed by Mr. Weatheral's authority; the Senior is the Senior. I kept hoping that Mr. Chairman Pro Tem would find some way to wheedle him into postponing such a move. But he did not. So now I have two choices: Do it his way-or withdraw completely. As the Director did. Which I won't do. Which leaves me no choice. So tonight I'll inspect his new quarters and see what can be done between now and tomorrow midmorning. Even though it's hopeless to make such a place sterile, perhaps it can be made more nearly suitable before he sees it."

            "And emergency equipment, don't forget that, Ishtar."

            "As if I would, stupid darling. Now help me out of this damned thing-I mean 'this pretty dress you designed for me and which the Senior clearly liked.' Please?"

            "So stand still and hold still and shut up."

            "Don't tickle! Oh, that, there's the phone signal! Get it off me, dear-hurry!"

VARIATIONS ON A THEME-IV

Love

            Lazarus lounged in his hammock and scratched his chest.

            "Hamadryad," he said, "that's not an easy question. At seventeen I was certain I was in love. But it was merely excess hormones and self-delusion. It was most of a thousand years later before I experienced the real thing-and didn't recognize the condition for years, as I had quit using that word."

            Ira Weatheral's "pretty daughter" looked puzzled, while Lazarus thought again that Ira had been wrong: Hamadryad was not pretty; she was so startling beautiful that she would have fetched top premium prices at auction on Fatima, with hard-eyed Iskandrian factors outbidding each other in the belief that she was a sound speculation. If the Protector of the Faith had not preempted her for himself- Hamadryad did not seem to know that her appearance was exceptional. But Ishtar did. The first ten days that Ira's daughter had been part of Lazarus' "family" (so he thought of them-a good enough term as Ira, Hamadryad, Ishtar, and Galahad were all his descendants and now privileged to call him "Grandfather" as long as they did not overdo it)-those first days Ishtar had shown a childish tendency to try to place herself between Hamadryad and Lazarus, and also between Hamadryad and Galahad, even when this required being two places at once.

            Lazarus had watched this barnyard dance with amusement and had wondered if Ishtar knew that she was doing it. Probably not, he decided. His rejuvenation supervisor was all duty and no sense of humor and would have been shocked had she known that she had reverted to adolescence.

            But it did not last. It was impossible not to like Hamadryad because she remained quietly friendly no matter what. Lazarus wondered if it was a behavior pattern consciously developed to protect herself against her less-endowed sisters-or was it simply her nature? He had not tried to find out. But Ishtar now tended to sit by Hamadryad, or even to make room between herself and Galahad for Hamadryad, and let her help in serving meals and such-assistant "housewife" de facto.

            "If I must wait a thousand years to understand that word," Hamadryad replied, "then I probably never will. Minerva says that it cannot be defined in Galacta and even when I speak Classic English, I find that I think in Galacta, which means that I do not really grasp English. Since the word 'love' occurs so frequently in ancient English literature, I thought my failure to understand that word might be the block that keeps me from thinking in English."

            "Well, let's shift to Galacta and take a swing at it. In the first place, very little thinking was ever done in English; it is not a language suited to logical thought. Instead, it's an emotive lingo beautifully adapted to concealing fallacies. A rationalizing language, not a rational one. But most people who spoke English had no more idea of the meaning of the word 'love' than you have, even though they used it all the time."

            Lazarus added, "Minerva! We're going to take another hack at the word 'love.' Want to join in? If so, shift to your personal mode."

            "Thank you, Lazarus. Hello, Ira-Ishtar-Hamadryad-Galahad," the disembodied contralto voice answered. "I am and have been in personal mode, and usually am, now that you have given me permission to use my judgment. You're looking well, Lazarus-younger every day."

            "I feel younger. But, dear, when you go to personal mode, you should tell us."

            "I'm sorry, Grandfather!"

            "Don't sound so humble. Just say, 'Howdy, I'm here,' that's all. If you could manage to tell me, or Ira, just once, to go to hell, it 'ud be good for you. Clean your circuits."

            "But I have no wish to say that to either of you."

            "That's what's wrong. If you hang around Dora, you'll learn to. Have you spoken to her today?"

            "I'm speaking with Dora now, Lazarus. We're playing fairy chess in five dimensions, and she's teaching me songs you taught her. She teaches me a song, then I sing a tenor lead while she harmonizes in soprano. We're doing this in real time because we're outing through the speakers in your control room and listening to ourselves. Right now we're singing the story of One-Ball Riley. Would you care to hear us?"

            Lazarus flinched. "No, no, not that one."

            "We've practiced several others. 'Rangy Lil' and 'The Ballad of Yukon Jake' and 'Barnacle Bill'-I sing the story on that one while Dora does soprano and bass. Or perhaps 'Four Whores Came Down from Canada'-that one is fun."

            "No, Minerva. I'm sorry, Ira; my computer is corrupting your computer." Lazarus sighed. "I didn't plan it that way; I just wanted Minerva to baby-sit for me. Since I've got the only retarded ship in this sector."

            "Lazarus," Minerva said reproachfully, "I don't think it is correct to say that Dora is retarded. She's quite intelligent, I think. I do not understand why you say that she is corrupting me."

            Ira had been lying on the grass, sunbathing with a kerchief over his eyes. He rolled to one elbow. "Nor I, Lazarus. That last one I'd like to hear. I recall where Canada is-was. North of the country you were born in."

            Lazarus counted silently, then said, "Ira, I know I have prejudices ridiculous to a civilized modern man such as yourself. I can't help it; I'm canalized by early childhood, imprinted like a baby duckling. If you want to hear bawdy songs from a barbaric era, please listen to them in your apartments-not up here. Minerva, Dora doesn't understand those songs; to her they are nursery rhymes."

            "Nor do I understand them, sir, other than theoretically. But they are jolly, and I have enjoyed being taught to sing."

            "Well- All right. Has Dora been behaving herself otherwise?"

            "She's been a good girl, Grandfather Lazarus, and I think she is contented with my company. She pouted a little at not having her bedtime story last night. But I told her that you were very tired and already asleep; and told her a story myself."

            "But- Ishtar! Did I miss a day?"

            "Yes, sir."

            "Surgery? I didn't notice any new healed places."

            The Master Chief Technician hesitated. "Grandfather, I will discuss procedures only if you insist. It does a client no good to be reminded of such things. I hope that you will not insist. I do hope so, sir."

            "Um. All right, all right. But next time you chop out a day-or a week, or whatever-warn me. So that I can leave a bedtime story on file with Minerva. No, that won't do; you don't want me to know. Okay, I'll keep stories on file with Minerva and you warn her, instead."

            "I will, Grandfather. It does help when the client cooperates, especially by paying as little attention to what we do as possible." Ishtar smiled briefly. "The client we dread is another rejuvenator. Worries and tries to run things."

            "Small wonder. I know, dear, I have that horrid habit of trying to run things myself. The only way I can keep from it is by staying out of the control room. So when I get too nosy, tell me to shut up. But how are we doing? How much longer do I have to go?"

            Ishtar answered hesitantly, "Perhaps this is a time when I should tell you to...'shut up.'"

            "That's it! But firmer, dear. 'Get out of my control room, you custard-headed dolt, and stay out! Make him realize that, if he doesn't jump, you'll toss him into the brig. Now try it again."

            Ishtar grinned widely. "Grandfather, you're an old fraud."

            "So I've long suspected. I was hoping it didn't show. All right, the subject is 'love.' Minerva, the Hamadarling says you told her that it can't be defined in Galacta. Got anything to add to that?"

            "Tentatively yes, Lazarus. May I reserve my answer until the others speak?"

            "Suit yourself. Galahad, you talk less and listen more than anybody else in the family. Want to try it?"

            "Well, sir, I hadn't realized that there was any mystery about 'love' until I heard Hamadryad ask about it. But I'm still learning English. By the naturalistic method the way a child learns his milk language. No grammar, no syntax, no dictionary-just listen and talk and read it. Acquire new words by context. By that method I acquired a feeling that 'love' means the shared ecstasy that can be attained through sex. Is that right?"

            "Son, I hate to say this-because, if you've been reading a lot of English, I see how you reached that opinion-but you are one hundred percent wrong."

            Ishtar looked startled. Galahad simply looked thoughtful. "Then I must go back and read some more."

            "Don't bother, Galahad. Most of those writers you've been reading misuse the word just that way. Shucks, I misused it for years myself; it's a prime example of the slipperiness of the English tongue. But, whatever 'love' is, it's not sex. I'm not running down sex. If there is a purpose in life mere important than two people cooperating in making a baby, all the philosophers in history haven't been able to find it. And between babies, the practice runs keep up our zest in life and make tolerable the fact that raising a baby is one hell of a lot of work. But that's not love. Love is something that still goes on when you are not sexually excited. It being so stipulated, who wants to try it? Ira, how about you? You know English better than the others, you speak it almost as well as I do."

            "I speak it better than you do, Gramp; I speak it grammatically, which you do not."

"Don't praggle me, boy; I'll quang you proper. Shakespeare and I never let grammar interfere with expressing ourselves. Why, he said to me once-"

            "Oh, stop it! He died three centuries before you were born."

            "He did, huh? They opened his grave once and found it empty. The fact is, he was a half brother of Queen Elizabeth and dyed his hair to make the truth less obvious. The other fact is that they were closing in on him, so he switched. I've died that way several times. Ira, his will left his 'second-best bed' to his wife. Look up who got his best bed and you'll begin to figure out what really happened. Do you want to try to define 'love'?"

            "No. You would change the rules again. All you have done so far is to divide the field of experience called 'love' into the same categories Minerva divided it into when you asked her this same question weeks ago-namely, 'Eros' and 'Agape.' But you avoided using those technical words for the subfields, and by this sophistry you attempted to exclude the general term from one subfield and thereby claimed that the term to be defined was limited to the other subfield-which set it up for you to define 'love' as identically equal to 'Agape.' But again without using that word. It won't work, Lazarus. To use your own metaphor, I saw you palm that card."

            Lazarus shook his head admiringly. "There are no flies on you, boy; I did a good job when I thought you up. Someday when we have time to waste, let's have a go at solipsism."

            "Come off, it, Lazarus. You can't bulldoze me the way you did Galahad. The subcategories are still 'Eros' and 'Agape.' 'Agape' is rare; 'Eros' is so common that it is almost inevitable that Galahad acquired the feeling that 'Eros' is the total meaning of the word 'love.' Now you have unfairly confused him since he assumes-incorrectly-that you are a reliable authority with respect to the English language."

            Lazarus chuckled "Ira, m'boy, when I was a kid, they sold that stuff by the wagonload to grow alfalfa. Those technical words were thought up by armchair experts of the same sort as theologians. Which gives them the same standing as sex manuals written by celibate priests. Son; I avoided those fancy categories because they are useless, incorrect, and misleading. There can be sex without love, and love without sex, and situations so intermixed that nobody can sort out which is which. But love can be defined, an exact definition that does not resort to the word 'sex,' or to question begging by exclusion through the use of such words as 'Eros' and 'Agape.'"

            "So define it," said Ira. "I promise not to laugh."

            "Not yet. The trouble with defining in words anything as basic as love is that the definition can't be understood by anyone who has not experienced it. It's like the ancient dilemma of explaining a rainbow to a person blind from birth. Yes, Ishtar, I know that you can fit such a person with cloned eyes today-but that dilemma was inescapable in my youth. In those days one could teach such an unfortunate all the physical theory of the electromagnetic spectrum, tell him precisely what frequencies the 'human eye can pick up, define colors to him in terms of those frequencies, explain exactly how the mechanisms of refraction and reflection produce a rainbow image and what its shape is and how the frequencies are distributed until he knew all about rainbows in the scientific sense...but you still couldn't make him feel the breathless wonder that the sight of a rainbow inspires in a man. Minerva is better off than that man, because she can see. Minerva dear, do you ever look at rainbows?"

            "Whenever possible, Lazarus. Whenever one of my sensor extensionals can see one. Fascinating!"

            "That's it. Minerva can see a rainbow, a blind man can't. Electromagnetic theory is irrelevant to the experience."

            "Lazarus," Minerva added, "it may be that I can see a rainbow better than a flesh-and-blood can. My visual range is three octaves, fifteen hundred to twelve thousand angstroms."

            Lazarus whistled. "Whereas I chop off just short of one octave. Tell me girl, do you see chords in those colors?"

            "Oh, certainly!"

            "Hmm! Don't try to explain to me those other colors; I'll have to go on being half blind."

Lazarus added, "Puts me in mind of a blind man I knew on Mars, Ira, when I was managing that, uh, recreation center. He-"

            "Gramp," the Chairman Pro Tem interrupted m a tired voice, "don't treat us as children. Surely, you're the oldest man alive...but the youngest person here-that offspring of mine sitting there, making cow-eyes at you-is as old as Gramp Johnson was when you last saw him; Hamadryad will be eighty her next birthday. Ham, my darling, how many paramours have you had?"

            "Goodness, Ira-who counts?"

            "Ever taken money for it?"

            "None of your business, Father. Or were you about to offer me some?"

            "Don't be flip, dear; I'm still your father. Lazarus, do you think you can shock Hamadryad by plain talk? Prostitution isn't big business here; there are too many amateurs as willing as she is. Nevertheless, the few bordellos we have in New Rome are members of the Chamber of Commerce. But you should try one of our better holiday houses-say, the Elysium. After you are fully rejuvenated."

            "Good idea," agreed Galahad. "To celebrate. As soon as Ishtar gives you your final physical check. As my guest, Grandfather; I'd be honored. The Elysium has everything, from massage and hypnotic conditioning to the best gourmet food and best shows. Or name it and they'll supply it."

            "Wait a moment," protested Hamadryad. "Don't be a selfish arsfardel, Galahad. We'll make it a foursome celebration-Ishtar?"

            "Certainly, dear. Fun."

            "Or a sixsome, with a companion for Ira. Father?"

            "I could be tempted, dear, for Lazarus' birthday party-although you know I usually avoid public places. How many rejuvenations, Lazarus? That's how we count this sort of birthday party."

            "Don't be nosy, Bub. As your daughter says: 'Who counts?' Wouldn't mind a birthday cake, such as I used to have as a child. But just one candle in the middle is enough."

            "A phallic symbol," agreed Galahad. "An ancient fertility sign-appropriate for a rejuvenation. And its flame is an equally ancient symbol of life. It should be a working candle, not a fake. If we can find one."

            lshtar looked happy. "Of course! There must be a candlemaker somewhere: If not, I'll learn how and make it myself. I'll design it, too-semirealistic but somewhat stylized. Although I could make it true portraiture, Grandfather; I'm a fair amateur sculptor, I learned it when I studied cosmetic surgery."

            "Wait a. minute!" Lazarus protested. "All I want is a plain wax candle-then blow it out and make a wish. Thank you, Ishtar, but don't bother. And thanks, Galahad, but I'll pick up the tab-although it may be a family party right, here, where Ira won't feel like, a duck in a shooting gallery. Look, kids, I've seen every possible type of joy house and pleasure dome. Happiness is in the heart, not in that stuff."

            "Lazarus, can't you see that the kids want to treat you to a fancy party? They like you-though Prime Cause alone knows why."

            "Well-"

            "But there might be no tab. I think I recall something from that list appended to your will. Minerva-who owns the Elysium?"

            "It is a daughter corporation of Service Enterprises of New Rome, Limited, which in turn is owned by Sheffield-Libby Associates. In short, Lazarus owns it."

            "Be damned! Who invested my money in that? Andy Libby, bless his sweet shy soul, would be spinning in his grave-if I hadn't placed him spinning in orbit around the last planet we discovered together, where he was killed."

            "Lazarus, that's not in your memoirs."

            "Ira, I keep telling you, lots of things not in my memoirs. Poor little guy got to thinking one of his deep thoughts and didn't stay alert. I put him in orbit because I promised him, when he was dying, to take him back to his native Ozarks. Tried to, about a hundred years later, but couldn't find him. Beacon dead, I suppose. All right, kids, we'll have a party at my happy house and you can sample anything the place has to offer. Where were we? Ira, you were about to define 'love.'"

            "No, you were about to tell us about a blind man on Mars, when you were managing that whorehouse."

            "Ira, you're as crude as Gramp Johnson was. This guy 'Noisy'-don't recall his right name, if he had one-Noisy was one of those people like yourself who just will work, regardless. A blind man could get by in those days quite well by begging, and nobody thought the less of him, since there was no way then to restore a man's sight.

            "But 'Noisy wasn't content to live off other people; he worked at what he could do. Played a squeeze box and sang. That was an instrument operated by bellows which forced air over reeds as you touched keys on it-quite pretty music. They were popular until electronics pushed most mechanical music makers off the market.

            "Noisy showed up one night, skinned out of his pressure suit at the lock dressing room, and was playing and singing before I knew he was inside.

            "My policy was 'Trade, Treat, or Travel'-except that the house might buy a beer for an old customer who temporarily wasn't holding. But Noisy was not, a customer; he was a bum-looked and smelled like a bum, and I was about to give him the bum's rush. Then I saw this rag around his eyes and skidded to a stop.

            "Nobody throws out a blind man. Nobody makes any trouble for him. I kept an eye on him but left him alone. He didn't even sit down. Just played this broken-down stomach-Steinway and sang, neither very well, and I laid off the pianette not to interrupt him. One of the girls started passing the hat for him.

            "When he reached my table, I invited him to sit and bought him a beer-and regretted it; he was pretty whiff. He thanked me and told me about himself. Lies, mostly."

            "Like yours, Gramp?"

            "Thanks, Ira. Said he had been chief engineer in one of the big Harriman liners, until his accident. Maybe he had been a spaceman; I never caught him out in the lingo. Not that I tried. If a blind man wanted to claim he was the rightful heir to the Holy Roman Empire, I would go along with the gag-anybody would. Perhaps he was some sort of space-going mechanic, shipfitter or something. More likely he was a transported miner who had been careless using powder.

            "When I checked the place at closing time, I found him sleeping in the kitchen. Couldn't have that, we ran a sanitary mess. So I led him to a vacant room and put him to bed, intending to give him breakfast and ease him gently on his way-I wasn't running a flophouse.

            "A lot I had to say about it. I saw him at breakfast all right. But I hardly recognized him. A couple of the girls had given him a bath, trimmed his hair, and shaved him, and had dressed him in clean clothes-mine-and had thrown away the dirty rag he had worn over his ruined eyes and had replaced it with a clean white bandage.

            "Kinfolk, I do not fight the weather. The girls were free to keep pets; I knew what fetched the customers, and it wasn't my pianette playing. If that pet stood on two legs and ate more than I did, I still did not argue. Hormone Hall was Noisy's home as long as the girls wanted to keep him.

            "But it took me a while to realize that Noisy was not just a parasite enjoying free room and board, and probably our stock-in-trade as well, while siphoning off cash from our customers-no, he was pulling his weight in the boat. My books at the end of the first month he was with us showed the gross profit up and the net way up."

            "How do you account for that, Lazarus? Inasmuch as he was competing for your customers' cash."

            "Ira, must I do all your thinking for you? No, Minerva does most of it. But it is possible that you have never thought about the economics of that sort of joint. There are three sources of gross, the bar, the kitchen, and the girls themselves. No drugs-drugs spoil the three main sources. If a customer was on drugs and showed it, or even broke out a stick of kish, I eased him out quickly and sent him down the line to the Chinaman's.

            "The kitchen was to supply meals to the girls-who were assessed room and board on a break-even or lose-a-little basis. But it also served food all night to anyone who ordered it, and showed a net since we had its overhead covered anyhow to board the girls. The bar also showed a net after I fired one barkeep with three hands. The girls kept their gross, all the traffic would bear, but they paid the house a flat fee for each kewpie, or a triple fee if she kept a customer all night. She could cheat a little, and I would shut-eye-but if she cheated too much or too often, or a john complained that he was rolled, I had a talk with her. Never any real trouble; they were ladies, and besides, I had means to check on them quietly, as well as eyes in the back of my head.

            "The beefs about rolling were the stickiest, but I remember only one that was the girl's fault rather than the john's-I simply terminated her contract, let her go. In the usual beef the slob was not rolled; he simply had a change of heart after he had counted too much money into her greedy little hands and she had delivered what he had ordered-then he tried to roll her to get it back. But I could smell that sort of slob and would be listening via a mike-then would bust in as trouble started. That sort of jerk I would toss so hard he bounced twice."

            "Grandfather, weren't some of them pretty big for that?"

            "Not really, Galahad. Size doesn't figure much in a fight- although I was always armed against real trouble. But if I have to take a man, I have no compunctions slowing me down about how I take him. If you kick a man in the crotch with no warning, it will quiet him down long enough to throw him out.

            "Don't flinch, Hamadear; your father guaranteed that you could not be shocked. But I was talking about Noisy and how he made us money while making some himself.

            "In this sort of frontier joint the usual customer comes in, buys a drink while he looks over the girls, picks one by buying her a drink-goes to her room, then leaves. Elapsed time, thirty minutes; net to the house, minimum.

            "Pre-Noisy, that is. After Noisy arrived, it went more like this: Buy a drink as before. Maybe buy the girl a second drink rather than interrupt a blind man's song. Take the girl to her room. When he comes back, Noisy is singing 'Frankie and Johnnie' or 'When the Pusher Met My Cousin,' and smiles and throws a verse at him-and the customer sits down and listens to all of it-and asks Noisy if he knows 'Dark Eyes.' Sure, Noisy knows it, but instead of admitting it, he asks the john to give him the words and hum it and he'll see what he can do with it.

            "If the customer has valuta, he's still there hours later, having had supper and bought supper for one of the girls and tipped Noisy rather lavishly and is ready for an encore with the girl or another girl. If he's got the money, he stays all night, splitting his cash between the girls and Noisy and the bar and kitchen. If he spends himself broke and has been a good customer-well behaved as well as free with his money-I stake him to bed and breakfast on credit, and urge him to come back. If he's alive next payday, he's sure to be back. If not, all the house is out is the wholesale cost of one breakfast-nothing compared with what he's spent. Cheap goodwill advertising.

            "A month of that, and both the house and the girls have made much more money, and the girls haven't worked much harder as they have spent part of their time drinking pay-me drinks-colored water; half the price to the house, half to the girl-while they help a john listen to Noisy's nostalgic songs. Shucks, a girl doesn't want to work like a treadmill even if she usually enjoys her work as many of them did. But they never got tired of sitting and listening to Noisy's songs.

            "I quit playing the pianette, except, maybe, while Noisy ate. Technically I was a better musician-but he had that undefinable quality that sells a song; he could make 'em cry or laugh. And he had a thousand of 'em. One he called 'The Born Loser.' Not much of a tune, just:

"Tah tah poom poom!

Tah tah poom poom!

Tah t'tah tah tah poom poom-

"-about a bloke who can never quite make it. Uh:

"There's a beer joint

By the pool hall

For to pass some pleasant hours.

"There's a hook shop

Above the pool hall

Where my sister makes her living.

"She's a good sport;

I can spring her

For a fin or even a sawbuck

When not holding, Or the horses

Have been running rather slowly-

            "Like that, folks. But more of it."

            "Lazarus," said Ira, "you have been humming or singing that song every, day you've been up here. All of it. A dozen verses or more."

            "Really, Ira? I do hum and sing; I know that. But I don't hear it myself.' It's like the purring of a cat; it just means that I'm functioning okay, board all green, operating at normal cruising. It means that I feel secure, relaxed, and happy- and, come to think of it, I do.

            "But 'The Born Loser' doesn't have a mere dozen verses, it has hundreds. What I sang was only a snatch of what Noisy used to sing. He was always fiddling with a song, changing it, adding to it. I don't think this one started out as his; I seem to remember a song about a character whose overcoat was usually in hock clear back when I was very young and raising my first family, on Earth.

            "But that song belonged to Noisy when he got through filing off serial numbers and changing the body lines. I heard it again, oh, must have been twenty, twenty-five years later, in a cabaret in Luna City. From Noisy. But he had changed it. Fixed up the scansion, given it a proper rhyme scheme, dolled up the tune. But the tune was still recognizable-in a minor key, wistful rather than sad, and the words were still about this third-rate grifter whose topcoat was always in hock and who sponged off his sister.

            "And he had changed, too. A shiny new instrument, a tailored spaceman's uniform, gray hair at the temples-and star billing. I paid a waiter to tell him that 'Happy' Daze was in the audience-not my name then, but the only name Noisy had for me-and after his first group he came over and let me buy him a drink while we swapped lies and talked about our happy days at dear old Hormone Hall.

            "I didn't mention to him that he had left us rather abruptly and that the girls had gone into a decline over it, worrying that he might be dead in a ditch-didn't mention it because he did not. But I had had to investigate his disappearance because my staff was so demoralized by it that the place felt like a morgue-no way for a parlor house to be. I was able to establish that he had gone aboard the 'Gyrfalcon' when she was about to lift for Luna City and had not left her-so I told the girls that Noisy had had a sudden opportunity to go home again but had left a message with the port captain for each of them-then added more lies to personalize the goodbye he hadn't made. It perked them up and lifted the gloom. They still missed him, but they all understood that grabbing a ride home was not something he could postpone-and since he had 'remembered' to send a message to each of them, they felt appreciated.

            "But it turned out that he did remember them, mentioned each by name. Minerva dear, here is a difference between a blinded flesh-and-blood and one who has never been able to see. Noisy could see a rainbow any time he cared to, by memory. He never stopped 'seeing,' but what he 'saw' was always beauty. I had realized that, some, back when we were on Mars together, for-don't laugh-he thought I was as pretty as you are, Galahad. Told me that he could tell what I looked like from my voice, and described me to me. I had the grace to say that he flattered me but let it lie when he answered that I was too modest-even though I'm not handsome now and wasn't then and modesty has never been one of my vices.

            "But Noisy thought all the girls were beautiful, too-and in one case this may have been true and certainly several of them were pretty.

            "But he asked me what had become of Olga and added, 'Golly, what a little beauty she was!'

            "Kinfolk, Olga wasn't even homely, she was ugly. Face like a mud pie, figure like a gunnysack-only on an outpost like Mars could she get by. What she did have was, a warm and gentle voice and a sweet personality-which was enough, as a customer might pick her through Hobson's choice on a busy night, but once he had done so, he picked her some later time on purpose. Mean to say, dears; beauty will lure a man into bed, but it won't bring him back a second time, unless he's awfully young or very stupid."

            "What does bring him back a second time, Grandfather?" asked Hamadryad. "Technique? Muscular control?"

            "Have you had any complaints, dear?"

            "Well...no."

            "Then you know the answer and are truing with me. Neither of those. It's the ability to make a man happy, principally by being happy about it yourself-a spiritual quality rather than a physical one. Olga had it in gobs.

            "I told Noisy that Olga had married shortly after he left, happily so, and had three children last I had heard...which was an utter lie, as she had been killed accidentally and the girls bawled about it and I didn't feel good myself and we had shut the place down for four days. But I couldn't tell Noisy that; Olga had been one of the first to mother him, had helped bathe him and had stolen some of my clothes for him while I slept.

            "But they all mothered him and never fought over him. I have not deviated from our subject in this rambling account of Noisy; we're still defining 'love.' Anybody want to take whack at it now?"

            Galahad said, "Noisy loved every one of them. That's what you've been saying."

            "No, Son, he didn't love any of them. Fond of them, yes- but he left them without looking back."

            "Then you are saying that they loved him."

            "Correct. Once you figure out the difference between what he felt toward them and what they felt toward him, we're almost home."

            "Mother love," said Ira, and added gruffly, "Lazarus, are you trying to tell us that 'mother love' is the only love there is? Man, you're out of your mind!"

            "Probably. But not that far out. I said they mothered him; I did not say a word about 'mother love.' "

            "Uh...he bedded all of them?"

            "Wouldn't be surprised, Ira. I never tried to find out. Irrelevant in any case."

            Hamadryad said to her father, "Ira, 'mother love' can't be what we're trying to define; it is often only a sense of duty. Two of my brats I was tempted to drown, as you may have guessed seeing what little demons they were."

            "Daughter, all your offspring were charming children."

            "Oh, fuff. One has to give a baby mothering no matter what, or it will grow up to be a still worse monster. What did you think of my son Gordon as a baby?"

            "A delightful child."

            "Really? I'll tell him that-if I ever have a male child I name 'Gordon.' Sorry, old darling, I shouldn't have trapped you. Lazarus, Ira is a perfect grandfather, one who never forgets a birthday. But I've suspected that Minerva kept track of such things for him and now I know it. Right, Minerva?"

            Minerva did not answer. Lazarus said, "She's not working for you, Hamadryad."

Ira said sharply, "Of course Minerva keeps track of such things for me! Minerva, how many grandchildren do I have?"

            "One hundred and twenty-seven, Ira, counting the boy child to be born next week."

            "How many great-grandchildren? And who is having the boy?"

            "Four hundred and three, sir. Your son Gordon's current wife Marian."

            "Keep me posted on it. That was the baby Gordon I was thinking of, Miss Smarty; Gordon's son Gordon...uh, by Evelyn Hedrick, I think. Lazarus, I deceived you. The truth is that I am migrating because my descendants are crowding me off this globe."

            "Father, are you really going to? Not just talking?"

            "Still top Secret until after the decennial Trustees Meeting, dear. But I am. Want to come along? Galahad and Ishtar have decided to go; they'll set up a rejuve shop for the colony. You'll have five to ten years in which to learn something useful."

            "Grandfather, are you going?"

            "Unlikely to the nth degree, my dear. I've seen a colony."

            "You may change your mind." Hamadryad stood up, faced Lazarus. "I propose to you, in the presence of three witnesses-four; Minerva is the best possible witness-a contract for cohabitation and progeny, term to be selected by you." Ishtar looked startled, then wiped all expression from her face; the others said nothing.

            Lazarus answered, "Granddaughter, if I weren't so old and tired, I would spank you."

            "Lazarus, I am your granddaughter only by courtesy; you are less than eight percent of my total ancestry. Less than that in terms of dominant genes, with a vanishingly small probability of, unfavorable reinforcement; the bad recessives have been weeded. I'll send my genetic pattern over for your inspection."

            "That's not the point, dear."

            "Lazarus, I'm certain you've married your descendants in the past; is there some reason to discriminate against me? If you'll tell me, perhaps I can correct it. I must add that this submittal is not contingent on your migrating." Hamadryad added, "Or it could be for progeny only, although I would be proud and happy to be permitted to live with you."

            "Why, Hamadryad?"

            She hesitated. "I am at loss to answer, sir. I had thought that I could say, 'I love you'-but apparently I do not know what that word means. So I have no word in either language to describe my need...and went ahead without one."

            Lazarus said gently, "I love you, dear-"

            Hamadryad's face lit up.

            He continued: "-and for that very reason I must refuse you." Lazarus looked around him. "I love all of you. Ishtar, Galahad...even that ugly, surly father of yours, dear, sitting there and looking worried. Now smile, dear, for I'm certain that there are endless young bucks anxious to marry you. You smile, too, Ishtar-but not you, Ira; it would crack your face. Ishtar, who is relieving you and Galahad? No, I don't care who is scheduled. May I be alone the rest of today?"

            She hesitated. "Grandfather, may I keep the observation station manned?"

            "You will anyhow. But will you limit them to dials and gauges or whatever it is you use? No eye or ear on me? Minerva will tell you if I misbehave-I'm certain of that."

            "There will be neither eye nor ear on you, sir." Ishtar stood up. "Come along, Galahad. Hamadryad?"

            "Just a moment, Ish. Lazarus-have I offended you?"

            "What? Not at all, my dear."

            "I thought you were angry with me over...what I proposed."

            "Oh, nonsense. Hamadarling, that sort of proposal never offends anyone; it is the highest compliment one human can pay another. But it did confuse me. Now smile and kiss me good-night, then come see me tomorrow if you wish. All you kids kiss me good-night; there's nobody sore at anybody. Ira, you might stick around a bit if you will."

            Like docile children they did so, then went into Lazarus' penthouse and took transport down. Lazarus said, "A drink, Ira?"

            "Only if you are having one."

            "We'll skip it then. Ira, did you put her up to it?'

            "Eh?"

            "You know what I mean. Hamadryad. First Ishtar, now Hamadryad. You've manipulated this whole deal from the moment you snatched me out of that flophouse, where I was dying decently and quietly. Have you again been trying to tie me down to whatever scheme you have in the back of your mind by waving pretty tails under my nose? It won't work, man."

            The Chairman Pro Tem answered quietly, "I could deny that-and for the hundredth time have you call me a liar. I suggest that you ask Minerva."

            "I wonder if that would be any assurance. Minerva!"

            "Yes, Lazarus?"

            "Did he rig this? With either of the girls?"

            "Not to my knowledge, Lazarus."

            "Is that an evasion, dear?"

            "Lazarus, I cannot lie to you."

            "Well...I think you could if Ira wanted you to, but there is no point in my inquiring into it. Give us privacy for a few moments, dear-recording mode only."

            "Yes, Lazarus."

            Lazarus went on, "Ira, I wish you had answered Yes. Because the only other explantation is one I d not like. I ain't pretty and my manners are not such as to endear me to women-so what do we have left? The fact that I am the oldest man alive. Women sell themselves for odd reasons and not always for money. Ira, I do not choose to stand at stud for pretty young things who would not waste a moment on me save for the prestige of having a child by, quote, The Senior, end of quote." He glared. "Right?"

            "Lazarus, you are being unjust to both women. As well as unusually obtuse."

            "How?"

            "I've watched them. I think they both love you-and don't give me any double-talk about what that verb means; I am not Galahad."

            "But- Oh, crap!"

            "I won't argue on that basis; 'crap' is a subject in which you are the Galaxy's top authority. Women do not always sell themselves and they do fall in love...often for the oddest reasons-if 'reason' is a word that can apply. Granted that you are ugly, selfish, self-centered, surly-"

            "I'm aware of it!"

            "-to me. Nevertheless women don't seem to care much how a man looks...and you are surprisingly gentle with women. I've noticed. You say those little whores on Mars all loved that blind man."

            "Some of them weren't little. Big Anna was taller than I am and weighed more."

            "Don't try to change the subject. Why did they love him? Don't bother to answer; why a woman loves a man-or a man loves a woman-can be rationalized only in survival terms, and the answer has no flavor, unsatisfying. But- Lazarus, when you've completed rejuvenation and you and I have finished our Scheherazade bet, however we finish it-are you going away again?"

            Lazarus brooded before answering: "I suppose so. Ira, this cottage and garden and stream-that you've lent me are very nice; the times I've gone down to the city I've hurried back, glad to be home. But it's just a resting place; I won't stay here. When the wild goose cries, I go." Lazarus looked sad. "But I don't know where and I don't want to repeat the things I've done. Perhaps Minerva will find that new thing for me, when it's time to move on."

            Ira stood up. "Lazarus, if you, weren't so stinking suspicious and mean, you would give both women the benefit of the doubt and leave them each with child to remember you by. It wouldn't cost you much effort."

            "Out of the question! I do not abandon children. Or pregnant women."

            "Excuses. I will adopt, in the womb, any child you sire before you leave us. Shall I have Minerva place that in permanent and bind it?"

            "I can support my own kids! Always have."

            "Minerva. Transfer it and bind it."

            "Completed, Ira."

            "Thank you, best Little Nag. Same time tomorrow, Lazarus?"

            "I suppose so. Yes. Call Hamadryad, will you, and ask her to come, too?-tell her I asked you to. I don't want the kid's feelings hurt."

            "Sure, Gramp."

COUNTERPOINT-IV

            On the level in the Executive Palace of Mr. Weatheral's private apartments Hamadryad waited with Galahad while Ishtar left orders for the rejuvenation technicians on watch there. Then the three took transport down and across, still inside the Palace, to an apartment Ira had placed at Ishtar's disposal-a dwelling larger and more lavish than her quarters in the Rejuvenation Clinic and much more luxurious than the penthouse cottage save that it had no garden; it was intended for a Trustee or other V.I.P. guest-not that its luxury mattered much, as Ishtar and Galahad spent most of their time and took most of their meals with Lazarus, and used it mainly for sleeping.

            Minerva had placed a dozen-odd lesser accommodations with Ishtar for her watch list, one of them for Galahad. He did not need it and Ishtar had Minerva reassign it to Hamadryad when she had become an unofficial part of the team caring for the Senior. Hamadryad sometimes slept in it rather than go to her country home-without telling her father, as the Chairman Pro Tem did not encourage members of his family to use Palace quarters unnecessarily. Or she sometimes stayed with Ishtar and Galahad.

            This time all three went to Ishtar's apartment; they had matters to discuss. On arrival there Ishtar checked:

            "Minerva?"

            "Listening, Ishtar."

            "Anything?"

            "Lazarus and Ira are talking. Private conversation."

            "Keep me advised, dear."

            "Certainly, dear."

            Ishtar turned back to the others. "Who wants a drink or something? Too early for dinner. Or is it? Ham?"

            Galahad answered, "A bath for me, then a drink. I was all set for a dip-hot and sweaty-when Lazarus kicked us out."

            "And stinky," Ishtar agreed. "I noticed it in the transport."

            "A bath wouldn't hurt you, big arse; you were exercising as hard as I was."

            "Regrettably true, my gallant knight; I Was careful to sit downwind from our elders after that last match. Ham, get us all something tall and cold while Stinky and I get clean."

            "Will you two settle for Idleberry Jolts or whatever is handy? While we all bathe? I don't have the excuse of heavy exercise, but I broke out with fear stink when I put the proposal to Gramp. And muffed it! After all your coaching, Ish. I'm sorry!" She started to sniffle.

            Ishtar put her arms around the younger woman. "There, there, dear-stop it. I don't think you muffed it."

            "He refused me."

            "You laid a good foundation-and shook him up, which he needed. You startled me with your timing but it will work out all right."

            "He probably won't, even let me come back!"

            "Yes, he will. Stop shaking. Come, dear; Galahad and I will give you a long, relaxing back rub. Stinky, fetch the fizz and join us in the shower room."

            "With two women around I have to work. Okay."

            When Galahad arrived with cold drinks, Ishtar had Hamadryad stretched out facedown on the massage table. Ishtar looked up and said, "Dear, before you get wet, see if there are three towel robes in the rack; I didn't check."

            "Yes, ma'am; no, ma'am; right away, ma'am; will that be all, ma'am?-plenty of robes; I dialed for more this morning. Don't bruise her, you don't know your own strength. I'm going to need her, later."

            "And I'm going to swap you for a dog, sweetheart, and sell the dog. Pass around those drinks, then come help, or you won't get either of us later. If ever. We're busy agreeing that all males are beasts." She continued to massage, gently, firmly, with professional skill, down Hamadryad's back while the massage table matched her appropriately down the subject's front. She let Galahad hang a drink around her neck and place its nipple in her mouth without slowing her careful fingers.

            He snapped Hamadlyad's drink to the table, placed nipple in her mouth, patted her cheek, then took the other side and started to help, following Ishtar's lead. The table changed action to match four hands.

            Some minutes later he let the nipple for his drink retract, and spoke. "Ish, any chance that Gramp twigged? About you two broads?"

            "We're not all that broad. At least, Ham is not."

            "'Broad' is a usual English idiom for a female, and you said we should talk and think in English as long as we are on this commitment."

            "I simply said that Hamadryad is not very broad. Even though she's had more children than I have-and I haven't had any since rejuvenation. But it's a colorful idiom; I like it. I don't see how Lazarus could, guess that we are pregnant. Not that it would matter if he did; in my case-except just how I am pregnant, and he can't know that as I fudged the record on the source of the cloned cell. Ham, you haven't hinted anything to Lazarus-have you?'

            Hamadryad surrendered her drink. "Of course not!"

            "Minerva knows," Galahad said.

            "Of course she does, I discussed it with her. But- Now you've got me wondering. Minerva?"

            "Listening, Ishtar." The computer added, "Ira is leaving; Lazarus has come inside. No problems."

            "Thank you, dear. Minerva, is there any possible way that Lazarus could know about Hamadryad and me? That we are pregnant, I mean, and why and how."

            "He has not said so, nor has anyone mentioned it in his presence. Evaluation of pertinent data available to me makes it probable by less than one part in one thousand."

            "How about Ira?"

            "Less than one part in ten thousand. Ishtar, when Ira told me to supply you with service and to assign to you a restricted memory, he programmed me so that any later program will simply wipe your assigned box. Truly, there is no way for him to retrieve from your private memory file, nor can I self-program to get around it."

            "Yes, so you assured me. But I don't know much about computers, Minerva."

            Minerva chuckled. "Whereas I do. You could say that I have made a career of computers. Don't worry, dear, your secrets are safe with me. Lazarus has just told me to order a light supper for him; then he is going to bed."

            "Good. Let me know what he eats and how much and when he goes to bed-then call me if he wakes. Awake and alone at night, a man is at his lowest ebb; I must be ready to move quickly. But you know that."

            "I shall watch his wave patterns, Ishtar. You will have two to five minutes' warning-unless El Diablo jumps on his stomach."

            "That damned cat. But being wakened that way doesn't depress him; it's his suicidal nightmares that worry me. I have about used up diversionary emergencies; I can't set fire to the penthouse a second time."

            "Lazarus has not had one of his typical depression nightmares this month, Ishtar, and I know how to spot the wave sequences now; I'll be very careful."

            "I know you will, dear. I wish we knew the incidents in his past from which each is derived; we might be able to wipe them."

            "Ish," Galahad put in, "you go tinkering with his memory and you might lose everything Ira is after."

            "And I might save our client, too. You stick to back-rubbing, dear, and leave delicate work to Minerva and me. Anything more, Minerva?"

            "No. Yes. Ira is telling me to find Hamadryad; he wants to talk to her. Will she take the call?"

            "Sure!" agreed Hamadryad, rolling over. "But patch him in through you, Minerva; I won't go to the phone, I don't have my face on."

            "Hamadryad?"

            "Yes, Ira?"

            "Message for you. Be nice to an old man and show up at the cottage as usual, will you? Better yet, get there early and have breakfast with him."

            "Are you sure he wants to see me?"

            "He does. He shouldn't, after the way you embarrassed him. What possessed you, Ham? But this message is his idea, not mine. He wants to be sure he hasn't scared you off."

            She sighed with relief. "I'm not scared off if he will let me stay. Father, I told you I would devote, as many days to this as he will permit. I meant it and still mean it. In fact I've told my manager that she can buy me out on long-term credit; that's how serious I am."

            "So? I'm very pleased. If you do, and want to cash out, I- the government, that is-will pick up the loan from you without discounting it; I've assigned unlimited credit to anything relating to the Senior. Just tell Minerva."

            "Thank you, sir. I don't expect to need it-unless Gramp gets tired of me and I see something else I want to invest in.

            But the business is prosperous; I may just let Priscilla support me in style for a few years. Quite prosperous-betcha my assets exceed yours. Your private fortune, I mean."

            "Don't be silly, my silly daughter; as a private citizen I'm almost a pauper-whereas in my official capacity I could confiscate your assets with just a word to Minerva and no one would question it."

            "Except that you never would-you're sweet, Ira."

            "Huh?"

            "You are...even if you can't remember the names of my children. I'm feeling very gay, Papa, you've made me happy."

            "You haven't called me 'Papa' for, oh, fifty or sixty years."

            "Because you never encourage intimacy once a child is grown. Nor do I from mine. But this assignment has made me feel closer to you. I'll shut up, sir, and I'll be there early tomorrow. Off?"   

            "One moment. I forgot to ask where you are. If you're home-"

            "I'm not; I'm having a bath with Galahad and Ishtar. About to, that is; you interrupted a wonderful back rub they were giving me."

            "Sorry. As you are still in the Palace, I suggest that you stay. To be here early tomorrow. Beg a bed from them Or, if that is intruding, come to my apartments; we'll find something."

            "Don't fret about me, Ira. If I can't shame them into keeping me overnight, Minerva will find me a bed. Truly, Lazarus' bed is the only one I've ever found impossible to get into- maybe I need to apply for rejuve."

            The Chairman Pro Tem was slow in answering. "Hamadryad...you were serious in proposing to have children by him-were you not?"

            "Privacy, sir."

            "Sorry. Hmm- The custom of privacy does not forbid me to say that I think it is a very good idea. If you tell me to, I will encourage it in any way I can."

            Hamadryad looked at Ishtar and spread her hands in a gesture of "What do I do now?"-then answered: "His refusal seemed very firm, sir."

            "Let me offer you a male viewpoint, my daughter. A man often refuses such a proposal when he wants to accept it-a man likes to be sure of a woman's motives and sincerity. At a later time he may accept. I don't mean that you should nag him with it; that would not work. But if you want this bide your time. You're a charming woman; I have confidence in you."

            "Yes, sir. If he does give me a child, we would all be richer thereby-would we not?"

            "Yes, certainly. But my motives are somewhat different. If he dies or leaves us, there is always the sperm bank and the tissue bank-neither of which he can touch because I'll cheat if necessary. But I don't want him to die, Hamadryad, nor do I want him to leave soon-and I am not, speaking from sentiment. The Senior is unique; I've gone to much trouble not to waste him. Your presence pleases him, your offer stimulates him...even though you feel he reacted badly. You're helping to keep him alive-and if he eventually lets you have his child, you may succeed in keeping him alive a long time. Indefinitely long."

            Hamadryad wiggled with pleasure and smiled at Ishtar. "Father, you make me feel proud."

            "You have always been a daughter to be proud of, dear. Although I can't claim all the credit; your mother is a most exceptional woman. Off now?"

            "Off, with music playing. Good night, sir!"

            Without getting up, Hamadryad grabbed both her friends around their waists and hugged them tightly. "Oh, I feel good!"

            "So get down off this table, narrow broad; it's my turn."

            "You don't need a massage," Ishtar said firmly; "you've been under no emotional strain and the hardest work you've done all day is to beat me two games of murder ball."

            "But I'm the spiritual type. Sensitive."

            "So you are, dear Galahad, and now you can most spiritually help her down and help me bathe her-still most spiritually."

            Galahad complied while complaining "You two ought, to bathe me, instead. Pretend I'm a blind music maker." He closed his eyes and sang:

"'There's a cop around the corner

who is sometimes not so friendly.

To a man whoisn't holding

Or otherwise unlucky-

            "That's me-'unlucky'-or I wouldn't have to work with two women in the house. What cycle, Ish?"

            "'Relaxing' of course. Hamadear, since you let us hear that call, I assume that I can talk about it. I agree with Ira. You have Lazarus sexually stimulated whether he knows it or not, and if you can keep him that way, he won't be depressed."

            "Is he truly that nearly recovered, Ishtar?" Hamadryad asked while raising her arms and "He looks better. But I can't tell-his manner doesn't change."

            "Oh, definitely. He started masturbating a month ago. Shampoo, dear?"

            "He did? Really? Oh, that's wonderful! Do I need one? Yes, I do-thanks."

'So it's well to

Have a sister

Or even an old uncle-

            "Close your eyes, Hambone baby; shampoo mix coming. A client has no privacy with Ishtar. But she didn't tell me; I had to infer it from his graphs. Ish, why do I always wind up washing Ham's back?"

            "Because you tickle, sweetheart. There was no need for you to know. But a client certainly has no privacy with Minerva to help-and that's as it should be; we need better computer service at the Clinic, I now see. Although he does have privacy in its true sense, as all of this is covered by the Oath. Even though you are not regular staff, Ham, I'm sure you realize that."

            "Oh, certainly! Not quite so hard, Galahad. Red-hot pincers could not make me talk other than to you two. Not even to Ira. Ishtar, do , you think I could learn to be a real rejuvenator?"

            "If you feel a vocation for it and want to study that hard. Let it rinse now, Galahad. You have the empathy, I'm sure. What's your index?"

"They're your friends, boy.

Don't neglect them

Birthdays and Yom Kippur-

            "Uh...'Genius-minus,' " Hamadryad admitted.

            "Takes genius," Galahad said helpfully, "as well as a compulsive need to work; she's a slave driver, Hammy baby."

"'Also Christmas And Chanukah

A card or even candy.'"

            "You're off key, dear. You're 'Genius-plus,' Ham, slightly higher than Galahad's index. I looked it up just in case- and you did ask. I'm very pleased."

            "'Off key'? Now you've gone too far."

            "You have other virtues, my true knight; you need not be a troubadour. Hamadear, if you search your heart and really want it, you could be an associate technician by the time we migrate. If you intend to migrate. If not, the Clinic here always needs staff; a true vocation is scarce. But I'd like-terribly-to have you with us. Both of us will help you."

            "Sure we will, Hammy! 'Off key' indeed! Is this colony going to be polygamous?"

            "Ask Ira. Does it matter? Grab a robe and throw it around the Hamadarling, then I'll trade a quick scrub with you. I'm hungry."

            "Do you want to risk it? After what you said about my singing? I know every spot and I'll tickle them all."

            "King's Cross! I apologize! I love your singing, dear."

            "The idiom is 'King's X,' Ish. Pax, it is. Grab robes for all of us, Hammy, that's a good girl. Long legs, while I was singing-perfectly on key-I figured out that idiom that was bothering me. It's not what Minerva thought it was; a 'hook shop' is a bordello. Which makes the Born Loser's sister a hetaera-and the last piece falls into place."

            "Why, of course! No wonder she could subsidize her brother-artists always get paid more than anyone else."

            Hamadryad returned with robes, laid them on the massage table. She said, "I didn't know that idiom was bothering you, Galahad. I understood it the first time I heard that song."

            "I wish you had told me."

            "Is it important'?"

            "Only as one more clue. Ham, in analyzing a culture, its myths and folk songs and idioms and aphorisms are more basic than its formal history. You can't understand a person unless you understand her culture. 'His,' I should say, in speaking English-and that alone tells something basic about the culture in which our client grew up: the fact that a general term invariably takes the masculine form when both masculine and feminine are implied. It means either that males are dominant or that women have just emerged from lower status, but the language lag-there always is one-has not caught up with cultural change. The latter, in the barbarism Lazarus came from, as indicated by other clues."

            "You can tell all that just from a rule of grammar?"

            "Sometimes. Hammy, I used to do this professionally, when I was old and grizzled and waiting for rejuvenation. It's detective work and no one clue is ever enough. For, example, women must not have reached equal status even though other clues show them gaining it-for whoever heard of a bordello managed by a man? A guard in one, yes, and Lazarus said that he was that, too. But manager? Preposterous, by modern standards. Unless that colony on Mars was an atypical retrogression-it may have been, I don't know."

            "Continue it as we eat, kids; Mama is hungry."

            "Coming, Ish dear. Galahad, I understood that idiom without thinking about it. You see, my mother was-still is-a hetaera."

            "Really? There's a wild coincidence. So was mine, and so was Ishtar's-and we three wind up all in rejuvenation work and on the same client. Two numerically small professions- I wonder what the odds are against it?"

            "Not too high, as both professions require strong empathy. But if you want to know, ask Minerva," advised Ishtar, "and hand me that robe. I don't like blowdry and I don't want to get chilled while rustling food. Hamasweet, why didn't you follow your mother's profession? With your beauty you would be a star."

            Hamadryad shrugged. "Oh, I know what I look like. But Mother can snatch a man away from me just by lifting her little finger-except that I avoid the chance. Beauty has little to do with it-you saw a man turn me down just today. Lazarus' himself told us what it takes to make a great artist-a spiritual quality a man can feel. My mother has it. I don't."

            "I follow your reasoning," Ishtar said as they went through her lounge into the buttery. There she screened the menu offered by the kitchen down below. "My mother has it, too. Not especially pretty, but what she has, men want. Still want, although she's retired."

            "Long Legs," Galahad said soberly, "you do all right. You've got it too."

            "Thank you, my knight, but that's not true. I sometimes have it for one man. Or two at most. And sometimes not at all, as I can get buried in our profession and forget about sex. I told you how many years I had been celibate, I wouldn't have found you, dear, would never have risked 'Seven Hours'-had not our client had me so terribly emotional. Quite unprofessionally, Hamadryad; I was as silly as a schoolgirl on a warm spring night. But, Galahad, Tamara-my mother- has it all the time and for anyone who needs her. Tamara never set a price, she didn't need to; they showered gifts on her. She's retired now and considering whether to rejuvenate again. But her fans won't leave her alone; she still gets endless offers."

            Galahad said sorrowfully, "That's what I would like to be. But I'm that 'Born Loser.' If a man tried that profession, he'd kill himself in a month."

            "In your case, dear Galahad, it might take a little longer. But eat and restore your strength; we're going to put you in the middle of the bed tonight."

            "Does that mean I'm invited?" asked Hamadryad.

            "That's one way of putting it. A more accurate statement would be that I'm inviting myself. Galahad made it clear in the shower that his plans for the night include you, dear. But he didn't mention me."

            "Oh, he did, too! Anyhow he's horny about you all the time; I can feel it."

            "He's horny-end of message and off. Will steaks and random garnish do, or do you each wish to choose? I don't feel imaginative."

            "Suits me. Ish, you should put Galahad under contract. While he's groggy."

            "Privacy, dear."

            "Sorry. I just blurted it out. Because I'm so fond of you both."

            "Big-arsed bitch won't marry me," said Galahad. "And me so good and pure and modest. Claims I tickle, Will you marry me, little Hamadear?"

            "What? Galahad, you're the world's worst tease. You not only don't want me to; you know I'm committed to the Senior even though he refused me. Until Ish tells me to drop it. If she does."

            Ishtar finished ordering, wiped the screen. "Galahad, don't tease our baby. I want both Hamadryad and me to be free of other contracts as long as either of us has any chance of getting our client interested in cohabitation, or progeny, or both. Not just a lark but something he can take seriously."

            "So? Then why in the name of all the fertility gods did you arrange to have both of you pregnant at once? I don't get it. I hear the whir, but the figures won't add."

            "Because, my stupid darling, I didn't dare wait. The Director may come back any time."

            "But why you two? With maybe ten thousand healthy host-mothers registered and available? And why two?"

            "Dearest man, I'm sorry I said you were stupid-you aren't; you're just male. Hamadryad and I know exactly what risks we are taking and why. We don't look pregnant and won't for weeks yet, and if either of us can jockey Lazarus into a contract, an abortion takes ten minutes. Professional host-mothers won't do for this job; it has to be bellies over which I have some control and women I trust utterly. Bad enough that I had to trust a gene surgeon and risk a proscribed procedure-Ira may have to get me out of that if anything slips.

            "But you know' as well as I do, sweet Galahad, that even an ordinary clone sometimes, goes wild. I wish I had four female bellies I could use, not two. Eight. Sixteen! Increase the chances of getting one normal fetus. In another month-long before it shows-we'll know what we're carrying. If the odds fail both of us-well, I'm ready to start over again and Hamadryad is, too."

            "As many times as necessary, Ishtar. I swore it."

            Ishtar patted her hand. "We'll get a good one. Galahad, Lazarus is going to have his identical twin sister, I promise you-and once it is an accomplished fact, we'll hear no more talk of termination-option switches, or leaving us, or anything-at least until she's woman tall!"

            "Ishtar?"

            "Yes, Hamadryad?"

            "If we both show normal fetuses a month from now-"

            "Then you can abort, dear; you know that."

            "No, no, no! I shan't! What's wrong with twins?"

            Galahad blinked at her. "Don't bother to answer, Ish. Let me give you the male angle. The man who can resist raising identical twin girls hasn't been born. And his name isn't Lazarus Long. Look, dears, is there anything, anything at all, that can improve both your chances? Now?"

            "No." Ishtar repeated softly, "No. We both test pregnant, that's all we can say or do now. Except pray. And I don't know how to pray."

            "Then it's time we learned!"

VARIATIONS ON A THEME-V

Voices in the Dark

            After Minerva ordered his evening meal for Lazarus, then supervised its service, the computer said, "Is there anything else, sir?"

            "I guess not. Yes. Will you have dinner with me, Minerva?"

            "Thank you, Lazarus. I accept."

            "Don't thank me; you are doing me a favor, milady. I'm moody tonight. Sit down, dear, and cheer me up."

            The computer's voice repositioned so that it appeared to come from the other side of the table where Lazarus sat, as if a flesh-and-blood were seated there. "Shall I construct an image, Lazarus?"

            "Don't put yourself to the trouble, dear."

            "It's no trouble, Lazarus; I have ample spare capacity."

            "No, Minerva. That holo you made for me one night- perfect, realistic, moved just like a flesh-and-blood. But it wasn't you. I know what you look like. Umm...lower the lights and spot enough light on my plate to let me eat. Then I'll see you in the gloom without a holo."

            The lighting readjusted so that the room was almost dark save for a pool of light on chastely perfect tableware and napery in front of Lazarus. The contrast dazzled his eyes enough that he could not see across the table without peering-he did not peer. Minerva said, "What is my appearance, Lazarus?"

            "Eh?" He stopped to think. "It fits your voice. Hmm, it's a picture that has grown up in my mind without thinking about it, during the time we have been together. Dear, do you realize that we have been living together more intimately than husband and wife usually manage?"

            "Perhaps I don't, Lazarus, since I cannot experience being a wife. But I am happy to be close to you."

            "Being a wife doesn't have too much to do with copulation, my dear. You've been a mother to my baby, Dora. Oh, I know that Ira stands first with you...but you are like that girl Olga I spoke of; you have so much to give that you can enrich more than one man. But I honor your loyalty to ha. Your love for him, dear."

            "Thank you, Lazarus. But-if I know what the word means-I love you, too. And Dora."

            "I know you do. Both. You and I have no need to worry over words; we'll leave that to Hamadryad. Mmm, your appearance-you are tall, about as tall as Ishtar. But slender. Not skinny, just slender-strong and well muscled without being bulgy. You are not as broad in the hips as she is. But broad enough. Womanly. You're young, but a mature young woman, not a girl. Breasts much smaller than Ishtar's, more like Hamadryad's. You are handsome rather than pretty, and you are rather solemn, except when one of your rare smiles lights up your face. Your hair is brown and straight, and you wear it long. But you don't fuss with it other than to keep it clean and neat. Your eyes are brown and match your hair. You usually don't wear cosmetics, but you almost always wear some sort of clothing-simple clothing; you are not a clothes-horse, dress does not interest you that much. But you go naked only with persons you fully trust-a short list.

            "That's all, I guess. I haven't tried to imagine details; this is just what grew in my mind. Oh, yes!-you keep your nails, both hands and feet, short and clean. But you aren't fussy about it, or about anything. Neither dirt nor sweat bothers you, and you don't flinch at blood, even though you don't like it."

            "I am very pleased to know how I look, Lazarus."

            "Huh? Oh, fiddle, girl-that's my imagination living its own life."

            "That is how I look," Minerva said firmly, "and I like it.

            "All right. Although you can be as dazzingly beautiful as Hamadryad if you want to be."

            "No, I look just as you described me. I am a 'Martha,' Lazarus, not her sister Mary."

            Lazarus said, "You surprised me. Yes, you are. You ye read the Bible?"

            "I have read everything in the Great Library. In one sense I am the Library, Lazarus."

            "Mmm, yes, should've realized it. How is the twinning process coming along? Going to be ready? Say if ha gets a burr under his saddle and takes off in a hurry."

            "It is essentially complete, Lazarus. All my permanents, programs and memories and logics, are twinned in Dora s number-four hold, and I run routine checks and exercise by running the twinned parts parallel with the me here under the Palace-a 'Tell me six times' instead of my normal 'Tell me three times' method. I have found and corrected some open circuits that way-minor factory defects, nothing I could not handle at once. You see, Lazarus, I treated it as a crash program and did not depend on Turing processes to build most of my new me,, as I would have had to build extensionals in Dora for that sole purpose, then remove them save for maintenance extensionals.

            "That would have taken much time, of course, since I can't use computer speeds in manipulating mass. So instead I ordered all new blank memories and logic circuitry and had them installed in Dora by factory technicians. Much faster. Then I filled them and checked them."

            "Any trouble, dear?"

            "No, Lazarus. Oh, Dora grumbled about dirty feet in her clean compartments. But it was just grumbling, as they worked 'clean-room' style, lint-free coveralls and masks and gloves, and I required them to change in the air lock, not just before they entered her number-four." He felt her quick smile. "Temporary sanitary facilities outside the ship-which caused the project engineer to grumble, as well as the shop steward."

            "Should think so. Wouldn't have hurt Dora to activate a head."

            "Lazarus, as you pointed out, I will be-I hope-a passenger in Dora someday. So I have tried to become her friend-and we are friends, and I love her, and she is the only friend I have who is a computer. I don't want to jeopardize that by making a mess, or permitting one to be made, in my moving into her ship. She is, as you said, a neat housekeeper; I am trying to be just as neat and show thereby that I respect her and appreciate the privilege of being a passenger in her. The engineer in charge and that talky shop steward had no reason to grumble; I specified all this in the contract-change clothes at the lock, leg urinals for all personnel inside, no eating, expectorating, or smoking in the ship, go by the shortest route to number-four, no snooping elsewhere in the ship-which they could not, anyhow, as I asked Dora to keep all doors locked save that direct route-and I paid to have it done this way."

            "A pretty penny, I'm certain. Did Ira comment?"

            "Ira does not bother with such matters. But I did not report costs to him; I charged it all to you, Lazarus."

            "Whee' Am I bankrupt?"

            "No, sir; I paid it from the Senior's unlimited drawing account. That seemed best to me, Lazarus, as the work was done in your ship. Perhaps they wonder why the Senior wants a second computer, of high capacity, installed in his ship. I know the project engineer wondered; I snubbed him firmly. But wonder is all they can do; the Senior is not accountable to anyone. I hinted quite broadly that Mr. Chairman Pro Tem would be annoyed if anyone attempted to snoop into your affairs. Not that anyone can tell what a computer really is, just from looking at it-even the manufacturer."

            "This manufacturer- Low bidder?"

            "Should I have placed it for bid, sir?" Minerva sounded worried.

            "Hell, no! If you had, I would have told you to tear it out and start over-then we would have hunted for the best supplier. Minerva my dear, once you leave here, it may be many years before you have any factory service; you'll have to maintain yourself. Unless Ira can minister to a sick computer?"

            "He can't."

            "You see? Dora is gold and platinum where a cheaper computer is copper and aluminum. I hope your new carcass is just as expensive."

            "It is, Lazarus. My new me is even more reliable than my old me-and smaller and faster, as much of me-'old me'- is about a century old; the art has improved."

            "Hm. Must see what ought to be replaced in Dora, if anything."

            Minerva made no comment. Lazarus said, "My dear, when you don't talk, it is louder than when you do. Have you been overhauling Dora?"

            "I stockpiled some components, Lazarus. But Dora won't let herself be touched unless you order it."

            "Yeah, she hates to let a doctor poke around inside her. But if she needs it, she'll get it-under anesthesia. Minerva, it would be smart, with two of you in the ship, for Dora to carry your maintenance instructions in her permanents, and hers in yours-so that you can nurse each other."

            Minerva answered simply, "We have been waiting for you to tell us to do so, Lazarus."

            "You mean you have been waiting; it is not something Dora would think of. So now I'm telling you both, and let her hear my voice say so. Minerva, I wish you would get over being so humble with me. You should have proposed it; you think faster than I do by many orders of magnitude; I've got flesh-and-blood limitations. How are you coming on astrogation? Is she teaching you to pilot? Or balking?"

            "Lazarus, I am now as skillful a pilot as she is, in my other me."

            "Like fun. You're a copilot. You're not a pilot until you've made an n-space jump unassisted. Even Dora gets jumpy before a jump-and she's made hundreds."

            "I stand corrected, Lazarus. I am a very highly trained copilot. But I'm not afraid to do it, if the time comes. I've rerun all of Dora's jumps in real time, and she tells me I know how."

            "You may have to someday, if disaster hits. Ira isn't the pilot I am, I'm certain. With me no longer aboard, your new skill may save his life sometime. What else do you know? Heard any good ones lately?"

            "I don't know, Lazarus. I've heard some stories, bawdy ones I believe, from listening to the technicians installing my twin. But I don't know that they are funny."

            "Don't bother. If it's a bawdy story, I heard one like it at least a thousand years back. Now the key question- How fast can you cut loose if ha decides to jump? Assume a coup d'etat and he's running for his life."

            "One-fifth of a second, minus."

            "Huh? You're not pulling my leg? I mean how long to put your whole personality aboard the 'Dora.' Not leave anything behind and not leave the computer here aware that she ever was Minerva-for anything less would not be fair to yourself, dear. The 'Minerva' left behind would grieve."

            "Lazarus, I am speaking not from theory but from experience, as I knew it was the critical aspect of this twinning. So, once I dismissed the contractor and had twinned my permanents and logics and my running temporaries, I experimented, cautiously at first; I simply paralleled me, as I described to you. That's easy, I just have to balance the lag at each end, to stay synchronous in real time-but I have to do that with my remote extensionals at all times; I'm used to it.

            "Then I tried, very cautiously, suppressing myself, first at the ship end, then at the Palace end, with a self-program to revert to full twinning in three seconds. No trouble, Lazarus, not even the first time. Now I can do it in less than two hundred milliseconds and run all checks to be certain that I have neglected nothing. I have done so seven times since you asked that question. Did you notice a lag in my voice at times? Approximately a thousand-kilometer lag?"

            "What? My dear, I am not equipped to notice a lag of less than thirty thousand kilometers at speed 'c.' " He added, "Call it a tenth of a second. You flatter me." Lazarus added thoughtfully, "But a tenth of a second is a hundred million of the nanoseconds you use. Or a hundred milliseconds. What's that in your time? About a thousand of my days?'

            "Lazarus, that is not how I would express it. I split much smaller than a nanosecond in many things I do-a 'millishake' or less. But I'm just as comfortable in your time; I am right now with my personal me. I could not enjoy singing, or this quiet talk with you, if in my personal mode I were forced to consider each nanosecond. Do you count each of your heartbeats?'

            "No. Or rarely."

            "It is somewhat the same with me, Lazarus. The things I do quickly I do with no effort and with no conscious attention other than necessary self-program. But the seconds and minutes and hours I spend with you, in personal mode, I savor. I do not chop thorn into nanoseconds; I grasp them whole and enjoy them. All the days and weeks you have been here I hold as a single 'now' and cherish it."

            "Uh...hold it, dear! Are you saying that, well, the day Ira introduced us to each other is still 'now' to you?"

            "Yes, Lazarus."

            "Let me sort this out. Is tomorrow 'now' to you also?"

            "Yes, Lazarus."

            "Uh...but if that is so, you can predict the future."

            "No, Lazarus."

            "But- Then I don't understand it."

            "I could print out the equations, Lazarus, but such equations would merely describe the fact that I am constructed to treat time as one of many dimensions, with entropy but one operator and with 'the present' or 'now' a variable held in steady state for a wide or narrow span. But in dealing with you I must necessarily move with the wave front that is your personal now-or we cannot communicate."

            "My dear, I'm not sure we are communicating."

            "I am sorry, Lazarus. I have my limitations, too. But were I able to choose, I would choose your limitations. Human. Flesh-and-blood."

            "Minerva, you don't know what you are saying. A flesh-and-blood body can be a burden . . especially when its maintenance begins to occupy most of one's attention. You have the best of both worlds-designed in man's own image to do what makes him distinctively human-but better, faster- much faster!-and more accurately, than he can do it-without the aches and pains and inefficiencies of a body that must eat and sleep and make mistakes. Believe me."

            "Lazarus, what is 'Eros'?"

He looked into the gloom and saw in his mind's eye how solemnly and sorrowfully she stared back. "Good God, girl-do you want to go to bed with him that badly?"

            "Lazarus, I do not know. I am a 'blind man.' How can I know?"

            Lazarus sighed. "I'm sorry, dear. Then you know why I have kept Dora a baby."

            "Only as conjecture, Lazarus. One that I have not and will not discuss with anyone."

            "Thank you-you are a lady, dear. You do know. Or you know part of my reason. But I'll tell you all of it-when I feel up to it-and then you will know what I mean by 'love' and why I told Hamadryad it must be experienced, not defined in words...and why I know that you know what love is, because you have experienced it. But Dora's story is not for Ira, just for you. No, you can let Ira have it, after I'm gone. Uh, call it 'The Tale of the Adopted Daughter'; then place a hold on it and let him have it later. But I won't tell it now; I'm not strong enough tonight-ask me when you know I'm feeling up to it."

            "I shall. I'm sorry, Lazarus."

            "Sorry'? Minerva, my very dear, there is never anything to feel sorry about with love. Never. Would you rather not love me? Or Dora? Or never have learned of love through loving Ira?"

            "No. No, not that! But would that I knew 'Eros,' too."

            "Count your blessings, dear. 'Eros' can hurt."

            "Lazarus, I do not fear being hurt. But while I know much about male-female reproduction, far more than any single human flesh-and-blood knows-"

            "You do? Or think you do?"

            "I do know, Lazarus. In preparation for migrating I added extra additional memory storage-filling much of hold number-two--so that I could transcribe for Ishtar into my new me all the research files and library and restricted records of the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic-"

            "Whew! I think Ishtar took a chance. The Clinic seems pretty cagey about what they release and don't release."

            "Ishtar is not afraid to take chances. But she did ask me to hurry, so I placed it in temporary here, until I could set up the necessary capacity-large-in Dora's hold. But I asked Ishtar's permission to study it, and she said it was all right for me to do so, as long as I did not release anything keyed as confidential or secret without consulting her.

            "I found it fascinating, Lazarus. I now know all about sex in the sense that a man who has always been blind can be taught the physics of a rainbow. I am even a gene surgeon now, in theory, and would not hesitate to be one in practice once I had time to construct the ultramicrominiature waldoes needed for such fine work. I am equally expert as obstetrician and gynecologist and rejuvenator. Erectile reflexes and mechanics of orgasm and the processes of spermogenesis and impregnation are no mystery to me, nor any aspect of gestation and birth.

            "'Eros alone I cannot know...and know at last that I am blind."