L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 Read Online Free Page A

bank accounts, including the two in Switzerland and Hong Kong I didn’t think the Academy was wise to—in this business you can collect a lotta highly salable antiques if y’know what you’re doing.
    “Why yes. As I’m sure you’re aware, the Yama— Freen-ies possess the capability, far from unique throughout the zoological realm, to transfer individual experiences genetically, and—”
    “How many?" I chomped my cigar, there being no bullet immediately available. His hands flopped on the desk like a midget hiding underneath had punched him in the groin. “Er...”
    “Come off it, Cuthbert. We both know what I’m talking about: race memory. How many of the little... darlings do they wanna send with me, one of each sex?”
    Considering the circumstances, you might say there was a pregnant pause. He looked at me almost apologetically, saying nothing. A highly eloquent nothing.
    “I quit.”
    Punch Number Two. He spluttered, muttered, blustered, an’ got flustered, all at the same time. Thought he was gonna have a hernia. “B-but Grandfa—Cap—Gruen—” “That’s Bernie; you’re forgettin’ yourself, Cuthbert. An’ there ain’t no way I’m gonna take seventeen of those creepy-crawlies along on a mission. Nuts! I’m only eighty-one years old; somewhere there’s a job for me in what’s left of the private sector: composing crossword puzzles; piloting a sanitation scow out in the Asteroids; my brother-in-law’s gotta frog-fur farm out on Betelgeuse IX he’s always wanted me to go halvsies on. I don’t need you, Cuthbert, or your Academy, an’ I sure as shootin’ don’t need the grief.” “B-but Bernie..
    “I’m serious, Colonel.”
    “B-but Bernie..
    “You’re repeatin’ yourself, Cuthbert. Look, put this on your mirror an’ snort it: you can get yourself another boy. An’ the Freenies’re gonna hafta get themselves another Deity—God ain’t dead, he’s just resigned!”
    I rose, zipped the top two inches of my coverall for emphasis, and woulda jammed my hat on my head as a final gesture if they’d been in style this century.
    The door was halfway dilated before my Leader regained his composure. “How many, then, Major Gruenblum?”
    It’s nice to be needed. "Zero, Cuthbert, an easy figure to remember, the ultimate Round Number—it’s how many of you people in Administration have any brains!”
    I started through the door.
    Look at it his way: every kid an’ all the telemedia in the Dominion may’ve thought the Freenies were cute as polka-dot suspenders; their rescue was the bieedin’ heart story of the century. But, way down deep, the Academy—an’ when you mention that institution, you’re talkin’ about all the government that counts in the Solar Dominion—the Academy was terrified by the little critters.
    Think about it: a species which can pass on everything it’s learned to future generations just by breeding; which had risen from leaf-hopping to atomic energy in a short ten centuries; and which now was scarfing up everything it could about our star-traversing, time-traveling civilization?
    Come t’cogitate on it, it scared me, too!
    “Grandfather...” I’ll give this to Cuthbert; his gaze was suddenly cool and steady despite the sweat-beads crawling down his jowls in the fractional gravity, and I don’t think I’d heard him more direct and businesslike before or since. “The Yamaguchians simply want the experience of Being-With-God, the opportunity to transmit it into their hereditary record. That's why they require an individual of each gender—”
    “Yeah. All seventeen of ’em, clutterin’ up my nice neat ship.” I sat down again. “Tell you what, Cuthbert. I’m t'eclin’ generous this momin’: promote me two more grades— so I’ll outrank you —let ’em pick out a single representative, an’ I'll take him-her-it anywhere an’ anywhen y’want. Bein’-With-God’ll work its way into their race memory eventually. It’ll just take longer,