Free Leo Frankowski by Copernick's Rebellion

is
typical for American males in their age group. In all cases, their internal organs
now test out as being equal to those of twenty-year-olds.”
    “It almost
makes me want to get into politics,” Hastings said. “What else do these
particular congressmen have in common?”
    “Nothing that’s
indicated, sir. The sample seems to be random.”
    “Pendelton, I want a very discreet
analysis run on these men. Their voting
records. The places they visit. The
people they know.”
    “Yes, sir. I’ll
get a few men on it.”
    “But discreetly.
I don’t have to remind you that the Congress has to approve all promotions of
general officers.”
     
    Martin Guibedo drove
a battered two-ton truck across Death Valley toward five acres of lush
greenery growing out of the surrounding desolation. Death Valley had been one of the public
parks that had been sold to private interests in the early ‘90s to
“distribute the nation’s wealth to the poor” and make a lot of politicians
rich.
    He parked next to the
fountain and waddled, smiling, to the five-story tree house in the center of the garden. “Ach!
Pinecroft!” he said to the tree. “So beautiful you’ve grown! You
have got to be the prettiest tree my microscalpel ever made!”
    The door opened for
him, and he went through the huge living room, noting pleasantly that the waterfalls both worked and the
cleaning apparatus was doing its job. In the kitchen, an incredibly beautiful
woman rose to greet him, smiling.
    “Uncle
Martin!” she gushed. “It’s so good to see you!”
    “Hi, Mona,”
Guibedo said uncomfortably. Is this an animal or a people? “Where’s
Heiny?”
    “Heinrich is in
the communications lab, fourth level down on your right.”
    “Thanks.”
Guibedo stepped into the elevator and thought, Uncle, yet! I guess Heiny
married her legal. None of my business, I suppose. But sometimes Heiny goes too far.
    Heinrich Copernick
sat back, talking to two hemispherical mounds on his workbench. One was a meter across, the other a
third of that.
    “You both realize
that, though parts of a multinodal communications net, you are really a single
multiperson— ality organism. Refusing to talk to each other is extremely adolescent
behavior. Now go on with what happened.”
    “Yes, my
lord,” the larger mound said. “So I said to myself, ‘What is
your conception of spaciotemporal reality?’ And I answered me, ‘What?’ Now, how can
I communicate
with myself when my mental facilities are so different from my own?”
    “Just keep
working on it,” Heinrich said. “Oh, Uncle Martin! So good to
see you. What do you think of my latest?”
    “Well, he is
schmarter than the other one what you made, Heiny.”
    “Which other
one?”
    “You know. That
big dummy what all the time dragged his knuckles in his shit.”
    “You must mean
the simian-variation labor and defense unit,” Heinrich said. “I’ve
pretty much given up on that whole series. Redesigning existing bioforms turned out to
be considerably more difficult than I had originally estimated.”
    “Yah. Told you
so. Putzing around with natural— growed life forms is like trying to build a
wristwatch in a junkyard. You is better off in a machine shop. It takes maybe a little bit
longer, but you know what you got.”
    “It was just
that my initial experiments with existing bioforms were so successful, Uncle
Martin.”
    “Well, if you
want to call making yourself look like a gladiator in an Italian movie a successful
experiment, you go ahead.”
    “I can see
nothing wrong with increasing my own strength and stamina.”
    “Sure. That’s fine.
But the green eyes and the wavy black hair and the baby-smooth complexion,
Heiny? Kid stuff! You’re seventy years old and you oughta be above that kind of
thing.”
    “I’m entitled to
a little fun.”
    “And what do
you need with being seven feet tall for, anyway?”
    “For one thing,
it hides the size of my head,” Coper nick said. “How is your end of it