out, it was scanned by an X-ray resonance microscope, which identified the base and compared it against a model stored in the memory of a very large computer. When, by chance, it was the correct base, it was allowed to pass. When it was not, an X-ray laser sliced it off, and the end of the molecule was reinserted in the beaker to try again. The process was automatic, yet it required continuous monitoring, for one error in ten billion decisions could result in a monstrosity instead of a comfortable home.
“You’re just what my nephew Heiny wanted. And your lights are going to go on and off, and your synthesizer ain’t going to go spritzing beer all over the kitchen, so Heiny ain’t got to get into a bathing suit and chop it off with a boy scout axe, like he did last time. Ach. And it was such good beer, too!” Gnarled fingers danced on the controls.
He had been born in Leipzig in 1910, with an Italian-Catholic father and a Polish-Jewish mother. His father’s civil engineering work had caused the family to move often around Europe. Martin’s parentage and experiences had left him with an improbable accent, a profound disrespect for institutions, and an open contempt for governments.
“So beautiful you’re going to be, everybody’s going to love you. But why does Heiny want you so big?”
In a few hours he had sealed down the lid of a seed, planted it in a Dixie cup, and watered it.
“And this time, the absorption toilet is going to work!”
His only friend, relative, and contact with the world was his nephew, Heinrich Copernick. There was no blood tie between them—Guibedo’s wife had been Heinrich’s mother’s sister—but a deep and permanent bond had been forged between a thirty-year-old man and a five-year-old boy in the winter of 1940 in Germany. Guibedo was frostbitten and young Copernick was stunted and crippled by rickets by the time they got out of Europe, but they were the only members of two large families to survive.
Yet differences in temperament and life style resulted in the two seeing each other only four or five times a year. For twenty-five years, Guibedo had been completely immersed in his work, to the extent that he was almost a hermit. And while he was conscious of no loneliness or lack in his life, he found himself talking constantly to the plants and trees around him.
He walked through the hollow branch that connected the workshop to his bedroom, ducking under the coffee-table that had grown—inexplicably—upside down from the ceiling. Guibedo had hung candles from it and declared it a chandelier to anyone who would listen.
“Ach! Laurel, you grow so much today!” he said to a seedling in a pot by the window. He spent some time searching for his suit, gave up and settled for a bush jacket.
“Laurel, we gonna plant you outside pretty soon, girl.” Guibedo was putting on a nearly perfectly clean shirt.
“You gonna be proud of me today! Me! Heiny got me an interview on television! I’m going to talk with a bunch of people about you lovelies! Lots of people is gonna hear how pretty you are.”
He checked a few trees growing in the yard and got to the studio almost early.
To Patricia Cambridge, the world showed no signs of ending. There were famines in Asia, South America, and Africa, but such things rarely registered on her consciousness. The problems of energy, pollution, and the scarcity of raw materials had been partially solved in North America, occasionally at the expense of the rest of the world. But Patricia, a typical American, was unconcerned. There were wars and plagues and dozens of tiny countries that were building nuclear bombs, but that had nothing to do with her, for hers was a golden world of bright promise.
She had just been promoted because she was an absolutely ordinary person. She was pretty without being inordinately beautiful, intelligent without being intellectual, and hard working without being too aggressive.
And the men hi charge at NBC had wanted someone for a daytime talk show, someone who could relate to the “average woman,” the sort who bought soap and deodorants because of their television commercials. Patricia, of course, didn’t know this. For her, this promotion was a just reward for the five years she had spent at NBC—her entire working career.
Primly dressed in last month’s fashions, a gray velvet tights suit printed to imitate used potato sacks, she rode the ancient subway from her dingy apartment to the studio. She didn’t notice the grime and shabbiness around her, for Patricia lived in her own world of blue skies and infinite possibilities.
She was out to get the best ratings in her time slot, and she was going to do it by getting at the issues that really counted. Things like political corruption and homosexuality and tree houses.
“This is Patricia Cambridge with
“What do you mean, inventor of the tree? Trees have been a long time around. I only showed them how to grow all comfortable on the inside, so we ain’t gotta chop them down no more.”
“Uh.” Patricia glanced at her list of question “Dr. Guibedo, I understand that you have never written a paper on your genetic modification technique, nor have you applied for a patent. Is it your intention to keep this new science entirely to yourself?”
“Well, the science was all figured out five years ago. What is left is the engineering. I never wrote a paper on it because genetic engineering has been banned for five years. Nobody would have accepted a paper if I had written one.”
“Banned?” Patricia asked. “You mean it’s against the law?”
“Not exactly. But anybody working on it has a hard time getting a job later. A journal that published an article on it might lose its federal subsidy. And, of course, trying to get grants to work on genetic engineering is like trying to get money to find out the causes of aging. Impossible. The big shots have a lot of ways of pushing people around.”
“So you’re keeping this to yourself out of spite?” Patricia asked.
“Not spite. Nobody hurt me, but nobody helped me. I did this myself, with my own money. The results and the responsibility are mine. Patty, you gotta understand that this genetic engineering thing could get out of hand. If I let just anybody do it, some big shot would start making himself an army! Better I keep this whole thing quiet.”
“Quiet?” Scratchon exploded. “You’ve
“Maggots don’t breed, Burty.” Guibedo’s thirty years of teaching showed. “Maggots are the larval form of the adult housefly, which does the breeding. My tree houses don’t breed, either. Asexual reproduction maintains the purity of each strain so that—”
“Technicalities have nothing to do with the economic impact of free housing, without even government supervision, on a free economy. Already housing starts are down four percent compared to last year. The building trades are facing massive layoffs, and the mortgage market is in a slump. This will have repercussions throughout the entire economy. The stability of the nation, of the entire free world, is being threatened by your hideous weeds!”
“Dr. Guibedo, you brought some photographs of your latest creation?” Patricia was a moderator intent on moderating,
“Sure, Patty. I brought a whole bunch. These first ones are of Ashley, where I live in.”
“But the rooms are so huge!” Patricia said.
“Eight thousand square feet all together, Patty. It didn’t cost anything to make it bigger than a regular house. I had an acre of land, and I figured I might as well furnish it good. This picture is in the living room. The furniture is all grown in—”
“There goes the furniture industry!” Scratchon said.
“—except the fireplace. This one is the bedroom. By the window is Laurel. She’s gonna be a honey, that one. Growing here is the bed and the cupboard. Hey! There’s my suit. I was looking for it!”
“You keep your suit rolled up in a cupboard?” Scratchon asked.
