but honorable hatchet men can be heroes. Play the cassette and judge for yourself.
The Greens were colleagues of mine many years ago. Since their work was very dangerous, I had caused each of them to deposit genetic material, four of her ova, a supply of his sperm. When they were killed, I caused gene analysis to be made with an eye to posthumous childrenÄonly to learn that they were incompatible; simple fertilization would have caused reinforcement of some bad alleles.
Instead, when creation of artificial persons became possible, their genes were used selectively. Yours was the only successful design; other attempts at including them were either not viable or had to be destroyed. A good genetic designer works the way a good photographer does: A perfect result derives from a willingness to discard drastically any attempt less than perfect. There will be no more attempts using the Greens; Gail's ova are gone and Joe's sperm is probably no longer useful.
It is not possible to define your relationship to them but it is equivalent to something between granddaughter and great-granddaughter, the rest of you being from many sources but you can take pride in the fact that all of you was most carefully selected to maximize the best traits of H. sapiens. This is your potential; whether or not you achieve your potential is up to you.
Before your records were destroyed, I once scratched my curiosity by listing the sources that went into creating you. As near as I can recall they are:
Finnish, Polynesian, Amerindian, Innuit, Danish, red Irish, Swazi, Korean, German, Hindu, EnglishÄand bits and pieces from elsewhere since none of the above is pure. You can never afford to be racist; you would bite your own tail!
All that the above really means is that the best materials were picked to design you, regardless of source. It is sheer luck that you wound up beautiful as well.
["Beautiful"! Boss, I do own a mirror. Was it possible he had really thought so? Surely, I'm built okay; that just reflects the fact that I'm a crack athlete-which in turn reflects the fact that I was planned, not born. Well, it's nice that he thought so if he did . .
because it's the only game in town; I'm me, whatever.]
On one point I owe you an explanation if not an apology. It was intended that you should be reared by selected parents as their natural child. But when you still weighed less than five kilos, I was sent toprison. Although I was able, eventually, to escape, I could not return to Earth until after the Second Atlantic Rebellion. The scars of this mix-up are still with you, I know. I hope that you someday will purge yourself of your fear and mistrust of "human" persons; it gains you nothing and handicaps you mightily. Someday, somehow, you must realize emotionally what you know intellectually, that they are as tied to the Wheel as you are.
As for the rest, what can I say in a last message? That unfortunate coincidence, my conviction at just the wrong time, left you too easily bruised, much too sentimental. My dear, you must cure yourself utterly of all fear, guilt, and shame. I think you have rooted out self pity
[The hell I have!]
but, if not, you must work on it. I think that you are immune to the temptations of religion. If you are not, I cannot help you, any more than I could keep you from acquiring a drug habit. A religion is sometimes a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strongÄand you are strong. The great trouble with religionÄany religionÄis that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reasonÄbut one cannot have both.
I have one last thing to tell you-for my own satisfaction, for my own pride. I am one of your "ancestors"-not a major one but some of my genetic pattern lives on in you. You are not only my foster daughter but also in part my natural daughter as well. To my great pride.
So let me close this with a word I could not say while I was aliveÄ Love,
Hartley M. Baldwin
I put the letter back into its envelope and curled up and indulged in that worst of vices, self-pity, doing it thoroughly, with plenty of tears. I don't see anything wrong with crying; it lubricates the psyche.
Having gotten it out of my system I got up and washed my face and decided that I was all through grieving over Boss. I was pleased and flattered that he had adopted me and it warmed me all through to know that a bit of him was used in designing meÄbut he was still Boss. I thought that he would allow me one cathartic session of grief but if I kept it up, he would be annoyed with me.
My chums were still sawing wood, exhausted, so I closed the door that shut them off, was pleased to note that it was a sound-silencer door, and I sat down at the terminal, stuck my card into the slot, and coded Fong, Tomosawa, and so forth, having routed through exchange service to get the code, then coding directly; it's cheaper that way.
I recognized the woman who answered. Low gee certainly is better than a bra; if I lived in Luna City, I would wear only a monikini, too. Oh, stilts, maybe. An emerald in my bellybutton. "Excuse me," I said. "Somehow I've managed to code Ceres and South Africa when I intended to punch for Fong, Tomosawa, Rothschild, Fong, and Finnegan. My subconscious is playing tricks. Sorry to have bothered you and thanks for the help you gave me a few months ago."
"Wups!" she answered. "You didn't punch wrong. I'm Gloria Tomosawa, senior partner in Fong, Tomosawa, et al., now that Grandpa Fong has retired. But that doesn't interfere with my being a vice-president of Ceres and South Africa Acceptances; we are also the legal department of the bank. And I'm the chief trust officer, too, which means that I'm going to have business with you. Everybody here is sorry as can be at the news of Dr. Baldwin's death and I hope that it did not distress you too muchÄMiss Baldwin."
"Hey, back up and start over!"
"Sorry. Usually when people call the Moon they want to make it as brief as possible because of the cost. Do you want me to repeat all that, a sentence at a time?"
"No. I think I've assimilated it. Dr. Baldwin left a note telling me to be at the reading of his will or to be represented. I can't be there. When will it be read and can you advise me as to how I can get someone in Luna City to represent me?"
"It will be read as soon as we get official notification of death from the California Confederacy, which should be any time now as our
San Jose representative has already paid the squeeze. Someone to represent youÄwill I do? Perhaps I should say that Grandpa Fong was your father's Luna City attorney for many years...o I inherited him and now that your father has died, I inherit you. Unless you tell me otherwise."
"Oh, would you?ÄMissÄMrs. TomosawaÄis it Miss or Mrs.?"
"I could and I would and it's Mrs. It had better be; I have a son as old as you are."
"Impossible!" (This beauty-contest winner twice my age?)
"Most possible. Here in Luna City we are all old-fashioned cubes, not like California. We get married and we have babies and always in that order. I wouldn't dare be a Miss with a son your age; nobody would retain me."