Yuri passed along to Pan Solar Dr. Birrel's famous remark that new races of men would have to be acceptable to Man, and a number of articles were written around it. The girls, they pointed out, had perfectly normal human brains. But the public buys new ideas very cautiously. Give 'em a couple of years to get used to the girls, thought Yuri. The glamour of their stardom would rub off on future androids. Dr. Birrel had described for reporters his ideas for a race of mermen, which seemed to interest the public. But the girls were still their best selling point.
The girls, whom he saw daily, were in seventh heaven. Having spent all their short lives secluded on the Moon, he'd have thought they'd be too shy to speak, assaulted by a crowd of reporters and agents. He should have known their reaction, remembering how they had greeted him. Pan Solar's precautions had paid off; most of the ocurious were stopped by Cheviot Preserve's ever-vigilant directors. Only those in the upper social levels were passed. It did not seem to occur to the girls to protect themselves. He never heard of them refusing to be interviewed.
The second TV interview went like the first, half of a documentary; once it was recorded, Jackson was finished, as the third would be done by Maxine Bibot.
The girls were in the conservatory, their favorite room, when Yuri came in one morning, their third week on Earth. Pepper saw him first and was flying toward him before Ginger could look around. She saw him grin that little-boy grin they never got enough of and brace himself to receive her, but, of course, she knew better than to jump at anybody, even as tall and strong as Yuri, at top speed. She braked, leaning back and digging her rubber-shod hooves in, then bounded lightly forward, landing right beside him, motionless. Instantly she leaped straight up, tucking her legs under her and throwing her arms around his neck, or, rather, shoulders. He slipped one arm under her and took the weight easily. Ginger was swinging from his other arm before she had time to speak to him. She was carried across to Ginger's lounger, switching her tail demurely, and deposited on the arm. Ginger promptly perched on his lap. He was pleased, she could tell, but a little red-faced.
"Yuri, this is Mr. Frolich of Galactic Records. He wants us to make a record—a ninety-minute fiction piece!" she said breathlessly.
He grinned, looking over at the agent. "Did you figure on signing them to do a record, or to something like an exclusive ten-year contract?"
Mr. Frolich grinned back. He looked a little like a freckled frog, but he was nice; very friendly. "I asked around, the last couple of days, and found that everybody that waved exclusive contracts at them was told 'don't call us.' They never even got to dicker; the first offer was all the girls would listen to." Yuri looked at her, then Ginger. "Mary had a little wolf, she fleeced him white as snow," he grinned.
"Where's Sugar?"
"Taking a shower," said Ginger, turning and leaning against the other arm of the lounger. "She did a demonstration for Mr. Frolich."
"I'm tempted," mused Frolich, "to quit my job and join the girls as manager. They'll need someone, quite a few someones, in fact, since they'll have little time left after recording, studying, and practice to consider investments, read contracts, and the rest. I don't suppose you'll be willing, let alone able, to handle business for them," he said to Him.
He shook his head smilingly, looking at his glass. "It would be a strange sort of retirement—from biochemical research to business. No, they're launched, as far as I'm concerned—I'm just the designer."
"It's sort of odd that they'd know so much about contracts and so on, but hardly have heard of Cal Varril."
"They've been studying for records since they learned to talk," He said. "But six months—almost seven, now—is not a very long time. They've viewed a selection of record classics back to Shakespeare, but study time had to be used for the basics, including law and business. They were born knowing English—structured RNA —and that saved a lot of trouble. Most of the time was spent in dancing, of course."
Pepper winked at him, remembering. Learning to speak—she was still learning, of course—had been breathtaking. You'd hear a new word, and suddenly you knew it, like it was an old one. But you could never think of it until you heard it or read it.
"Here's Sugar now," said Ginger, looking past Yuri. She was toweling herself vigorously, hair and fur damp. Wriggling quickly into her blouse, which she had left on a pink dogwood, she put on her belt and came around Yuri's lounger, peering at him.
"Hi, Yuri, You sleep late or something? You should've been here an hour ago—I was dancing." Pepper felt Sugar's hands on her shoulders, but before she realized her intentions, she had been flipped backward off the lounger's arm. She twisted her feet aside in time to keep from kicking either Ginger or Yuri in the face. Then she caught herself on her hands, pushed, and was on her feet. Sugar had had time, though, to ensconce herself on the lounger, her arm around Yuri's neck and her small nose against his cheek.
"You're going to have to learn to get up earlier," she murmured, looking at Pepper out of the corner of her eye.
Pepper couldn't help lauging. She climbed up on the arm beside Sugar, seized her by one horn, and yanked her away from Yuri. "Arrant wench!" Sugar scooted over, laughing, and they put their arms around each other in a sudden mutual flood of sisterly love.
News of their contract with Gallactic made the front page of newspapers all over the System; Maxine Bibot questioned them about it over her TV interview. However, if redord viewers were delighted, record makers in general were not. This week, as they answered questions and danced for the public on two TV variety shows, and studied and practiced almost constantly, the murmuring in the entertainment industry grew. Galactic sent them no word, being busy, according to the papers, with internal troubles. A number of other companies had made them attractive offers only they realized that exclusive contracts were non grata in Cheviot Preserve. They had not accepted any of them yet, and toward the end of the week, with public opinion against them mounting, some were withdrawn; and few new offers were being made.
It seemed that as nine-day wonders they were acceptable; as flesh-and-blood robots, the stuff of millions of daydreams, and as symbols of the utility of biosynthesis, but not as human girls—not where they competed with ordinary men and women for jobs. They personally threatened only the people in the entertainment industry, but the public realized that they were just the point of the knife. General Oceanics, polling the public on the subject of mermen, found it ranging from negative to hostile. On Friday their troubles came to a head; the Actors' Guild filed suit against Galactic Records, obtaining an injunction. They said that androids were "created beings, hence akin to robots"; robotic puppets were restricted in their contracts with the industry. The legalisms were immaterial; their primary weapon was the public's fear of being replaced. The suit gave all suppressed fears full expression. Galactic would not dare press the battle in the face of public hostility. Since Weldon West's invention of the gravitronic motor and the development of all the other applications of gravitronics, society had liquefied. The sheer impossibility of collecting taxes, when the disaffected can slap together a makeshift astromobile and go off to the asteroids, spelled the doom of bureaucracy. It was up to the judges, then, to maintain some degree of justice and judges who permitted outmoded laws to obstruct justice had frequently been lynched. Since the general abandonment of the cities, the selection of judges had been brought closer to the voters. An unfortunate result was that the judges tended to play to the crowd. The people got what they wasted—not justice.