Copernick's Rebellion

“I’ll drop by and keep them honest.”

“I doubt that, but drop by anyway. And have the incorporation papers ready to sign.”

“Central Coordination Unit?” Guibedo said. “You mean this big round thing you were talking to when I came in? He sounded pretty mixed up to me. You think he’s ready for any kind of a job?”

“Certainly. Oh, just now there’s a slight problem with integrating the auxiliary ganglion I told him to grow —”

“You told him to grow!” Guibedo yelled. “You’re letting an intelligent bioengineering creation control its own growth?”

“I wouldn’t ordinarily, of course. But in this case it’s quite necessary. You see, once the world’s economy is converted from a technological to a biological base, communications and a certain amount of central coordination are still going to be necessary. It will be quite impossible to maintain the telephones, computers, et cetera, without a factory system to produce spare parts.

“I plan to have the Central Coordination Unit grow a ganglion into each of your tree houses, with an input/ output unit in each room. These ganglia, being part of a single organism, will be in constant communication with each other, so sending a message will be simply a matter of talking to your local ganglion.”

“Schwartz and Company.”

“Duffy? Heiny Copernick here,” the CCU said.

“Heiny! I ain’t seen you in six months!”

“Don’t you feel glad? What’s gold selling at?”

“Seven hundred and eighteen dollars an ounce. How much you wanna buy?”

“Not buy. Sell. I got sixty-six thousand ounces to unload.”

“Whee! How hot is it?”

“Ice cold. Dug it up myself. Let’s see… That’s just under fifty million.”

“Well, there’s my ten percent commission to figure in. But I ain’t got that kind of money, Heiny!”

“Five percent. Don’t get greedy. I’ll deliver it to you first thing Monday morning. You put a million in my account by noon, then a million a day until you’re paid up.”

“You gonna trust me for that kind of money?”

“I can think of four good reasons why I should. Want me to list them?”

“Not over the phone, for God’s sake!”

* * *

“So what you got here is a telephone system. Well, at least it’ll stop the phone wires from being ripped off when the tree house grows,” Guibedo said.

“He’s not quite a telephone, Uncle Martin, in that communication isn’t instantaneous. The maximum speed I’ve been able to get in a nerve pulse is one hundred twenty meters per second. But you will be able to send a message.

“He more than makes up for his lack of speed. My brainchild, if you’ll excuse the pun, has twenty-two times the gray matter of a human brain. He is presently tied in with the wire services, most of the larger computers in the country, and two other phone lines. He’s already loaded a quarter of the Library of Congress into his memory.

“While most of his gray matter is used for input, output, and memory, his IQ is quite unmeasurable. I’d guess perhaps four hundred.”

“Well, if he’s so schmart, what makes you think that you’re going to stay boss, Heiny?”

“That’s hardly a worry, Uncle Martin. In the first place, I’ve instilled a strong psychological dependence into him. He could no more disobey me—or you—than a dog could attack his master.”

“That’s been known to happen.”

“In the second place, he’s a hell of a nice guy.”

“So was Hitler when he wanted to be.”

“And in the third place, he eats a fluid that only your trees can produce. And your trees can survive only if they have a regular supply of human excreta in their absorption toilets. He requires humans for his very existence.”

“Ach! If he’s so schmart, he can figure a way around that one.”

“You and I are the only beings who can operate a microscalpel, Uncle Martin. I’ve instilled an absolute mental block in the CCU covering the fields of chemistry and biology. All of my engineered life forms are in a symbiotic relationship with your trees and, thus, with us humans.”

“All of them, Heiny? What about Mona?”

“My wife is as human as you or I!” Copernick shouted.

“You made her with the microscalpel I gave you!” Guibedo shouted back. “You engineered her DNA just like you did with this—this telephone thing, and don’t you deny it!”

“I cloned Mona after I modified the DNA of one of my own cells, Uncle Martin. That modification doesn’t reduce her humanity. Come on, I’m modified and, to a lesser extent, so are you. Are we so inhuman?”

Guibedo thought, So he trades sodomy for incest, but he didn’t say it.

“Come on, Uncle Martin. Let’s eat. We’ll both be in a better mood after dinner.”

“Knife! CCU here!”

“Sir!”

“Knife, take six brigades and dig a tunnel, suitable for your species, from here to the heavy-metal extraction grove, eighteen miles NNW of here. Complete it by next Tuesday afternoon.”

“Sir! This route has never been surveyed. We have no knowledge of rock and soil conditions.”

“Take more units as you need them. Report any difficulties to me.”

“Sir!”

“Liebchen, this is the CCU. Would you please report?”

A little humanoid with the hindquarters of a goat pranced over to the I/O unit in her nursery.

“I’m Liebchen. May I help you?”

“Liebchen, for the next two weeks, the Labor and Defense Units are going to be extremely active. Except for those things relating to the comfort of the humans, I want all of Pinecroft’s systems turned down to the bare minimum and all of Pinecroft’s energy diverted to food production for the LDUs. Could you do that for me, please?”

“It pleases me to serve you, my lord.”

“Not ‘lord,’ dear. Only Lord Guibedo and Lord Copernick deserve that title. And Liebchen, would you see to it that Lord Guibedo takes a mild euphoric with his lunch? Nothing heavy, just something that will make him listen to reason.”

“Of course, sir. I’d be happy to.”

Heinrich turned to the mounds on his workbench. “You guys keep at it, hear? I want to see the new ganglia integrated sometime in the next week.”

“Yes, my lord.”

As they went up the elevator, Heinrich said, “When you think about it, Uncle Martin, Mona is probably your grandniece. How does it feel to have your family grow?”

“I would have wished that maybe it grew another way.”

“Oh, it’s doing that, too. Twins, according to the tests.”

Guibedo raised a huge white eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, Uncle Martin. Mona and I don’t have a recessive gene between us.”

“CCU! Vintovka here!”

“Yes, Vintovka. Report.”

“Sir! The hiking troop is now one mile from the heavy-metal extraction grove and proceeding directly toward