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

is all. An’ the lucky winner’ll have a lot more fun seein’ it gets done right.”
    Cuthbert seemed to brighten noticeably. “Would you consider six, Bernie? Otherwise, the number of generations necessary, including fissionings and sporifications, to distribute data evenly among...”
    I let him ramble for a while about genotypes, phenotypes, alleles, and “replicative verification densities.” You know, dirty talk. Who knows, this all might turn out to my advantage, wangled right.
    “Since when you been such an expert on Freenie genetics, Cuthbert? I would a bet you took your advanced degree in polishing pants-seats.”
    He grinned sheepishly, opened a desk drawer, and tossed over a small bottle. Crimped metal band around the top, plastic stopper with a puncture-mark in the center. I brushed a thumb across the cue-dot on the label:
    “Genetics and Information TheorylYamaguchi 523: A Case-Study, by Robert H. Anson, Ph.D., Copyright 2285, Random-LaRoche Pharmcopublishers, Lagrange II, Earth. Protected in all provinces and territories under the Solar Dominion; reproduction in any organism or device, without express permission, strictly—”
    RNA extracts—our own artificial race-memory.
    Hardly ever touch th’ stuff myself.
    In the end, I didn’t take those three promotions. Once you outrank something like Cuthbert, what’ve y’got? Instead, I let myself get dickered up to three Freenies in exchange for a very special RNA extraction from a certain Don Juan de Tenorio of Seventeenth-century Seville, collected surreptitiously by one of our more conscientious female bus drivers.
    Peeling a fresh cigar, I started to discard the plastic wrapper in the Colonel’s desk-disposal, then hesitated.
    “Cuthbert, you know I’ve avoided gettin’ too acquainted with the Freenies ever since the rescue effort, but an un-settlin’ thought’s just occurred t’me..
    I tied the wrapper in a single overhand knot, held it above my head, and let it drop. It floated toward the floor with a graceful, rotating motion.
    “What if the Freenies, once they really get t’know me, decide I ain’t the kinda god they wanna be associated with? I mean, historically, deities get demoted pretty doggone violentlike!”
    Spotting the wrapper, the housemouse dashed out from the baseboard—I snatched it from the air a foot before it hit the carpet—the little dickens ran around in confused circles, making noises like a teleprinter outa synch, bit the leg of my chair outa sheer frustration, and disappeared into the wall again. Probably never be the same.
    All of a sudden, Cuthbert looked entirely too pleased, an’ I didn’t think it was because he’d come out ahead on our dealings. He steepled his fat fingers on his desk. “Well, Grandfather, just between you and me, I think people are greatly inclined to overlook any data which challenge their beliefs. Of course, yours may be the definitive case. I—”
    “Yeah,” I interrupted before he could get to the insulting part, “an’ the Freenies’re people, right enough. I’m the one who made ’em that way!”
    Seemed like no time at all an’ I was in the lovin’ arms of my redheaded girlfriend over in Mare Fecunditatus. Literally no time, ’cause for some reason I couldn’t seem to recall finally leaving Cuthbert’s office or anything else in between.
    But did it really matter? Somehow we were in our private sunlit grove of trees at the edge of endless meadows, the breezes fresh as they stirred the knee-high grasses around us. We stood beneath a spreading, ancient oak, my beloved and 1, a songbird warbling in the leafy branches overhead. She leaned against the age-roughened bark, her warm, smooth hands in mine. I gazed deeply into her bottomless azure eyes.
    The gentle wind caressed her pale blond hair. She smiled, shyly, glancing downward, dimples appearing magically in her satiny cheeks, lashes long and dark upon her milky skin. My heart began to pound, and I imagined I could see