[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

began.
The realization relieved Dan in a basic way. Human beings would survive the android fight for freedom.
Women, particularly, would hold their own.
Officer A. Sutter was also silent, startled. He was visualizing two male Peter androids and a female Anita
android, each programmed for deep love, endlessly making love to each other.
He was vaguely aware of Dan Thaler saying, 'Kind of makes you wonder about life.'
Sutter nodded absently.
'Just imagine,' said Dan, 'a woman having to spend the rest of her life pretending to be a completely
programmed android. I refer to my real sister, as she is now, living with Peter.'
'Uh!' said Sutter, startled. 'That!'
For a few seconds he put his attention on Anita I living with her husband under such conditions  a little
enviously, he realized as he considered what a difficult female his own wife had become recently.
They had arrived  as Sutter had these thoughts  at his combo. From it there came the sound of a
double buzzing.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
'Just a moment,' he said, 'my wife is on the line.' He walked in and pressed the switch for the  he
estimated  tenth time since he had gone on the job that morning. He said resignedly:
'Yes, dear  of course I love you. I've already told you that nine times today.....'
[ -: CONTENTS :-]
Laugh, Clone, Laugh
A. E. VAN VOGT and FORREST J. ACKERMAN
Now men may wither, age and go,
Yet live anew, twinned Blueprint Men,
When doppelgangers in
The Phoenix Gardens grow.
- CHON GRAYSTARK,
First Poet of the Clone Age
A miracle had happened with his birth.
The impossible.
The xillion-to-one deviation.
Incredibly, into the royal family a Good Guy at last had been born.
This was the secret that had burgeoned now within 
Himself.
Juniko, sole son of Erstava, Tator of Phrenophalia.
He had such humane thoughts, such ennobling aspirations, so many plans for the betterment of the
world. He found it almost unbelievable that someone like himself, so close to the throne, should have a
predictable chance of eventually being in a position to bestow and dispense and achieve so many many
perfections.
Unlikelihood of near infinite order  yet there was no doubt: here he stood, self-realized, the only son,
one step from the pinnacle.
The universe of man quivered and waited, a throbbing heartbeat away from its ultimate destiny.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
* *
From very early in his youth Juniko had a plan based on a scientific development whose real implications
had never seemed to occur to his father: the discovery of perfect cloning.
Take a few cells from a man and regrow his whole body. Create a total twin of the original. It could
even be with the same thoughts and attitudes:duplicata exactica. Although it didn't have to be. Already
subtle methods which did not interfere with the basic abilities of the individual in any way had produced
successful modifications.
His father's plan was to project a clone of himself, endlessly into the future. The Tator had a narrow view
of cloning and intended to limit its benefits to himself and as a reward for loyal service to his person.
Cloning was costly, he emphasized. Obviously, the great mass of the people could never afford its price.
Accordingly, since it was automatically limited in application, it followed that other necessary limitations
could be applied, on the principle that law and order must be served.
Juniko shrugged and smiled to himself whenever he heard his father expound on the price and realities of
politics. Who cared about cost? Such problems could be worked out. Juniko felt even more scathing of
the short-sighted biologists who were enthralled by the restricting concept of cloning future Shakespeares
and other geniuses, which the Tator said he was willing to have done in all instances where it would serve
the public interest.
'Naturally,that, also,' Juniko thought to himself, smiling with scorn.
Buthis goodness, his ideal, transcended all such minuscule imaginations.
Let there come an end to sorrow!  to needless suffering, deprivation of body, mutilation of mind,
starvation of soul.
Let sad things cease!  and in their place, a smile upon each human face!
And so, to begin  subtly, cautiously  the change must come in circles around the throne, spiraling
downward through the nobility to the fringe group and finally, systematically, to the great mass of the
People themselves.
The heartbeat  his father's  that stands between the slave. Now world and the brave New world to
come must not be allowed to clone endlessly into the future. One day that heart will falter, and when it
does, the Tator will call for his eldest son, for he trusts no one to perform the cloning act but his smiling,
loyal Juniko.
* *
An assassin's ray! The heat sears the flesh of the Tator from the waist up, scorches the hair from his
head, evaporates one eye. More dead than alive, Juniko's writhing father screams for his son and is [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]