more of it than we need,” Copernick said.
“But somebody told him that my mother was Polish, so he designed the cabinet in something he calls Neo- Polski. You got to see this thing, Heiny! It took Jimmy and four apprentices a whole month to make. The display screen is supported by four silver fauns, and the whole panel has got little curlicues all over it. For lateral transverse I got to twist this little cherub, and the laser firing studs are shaped like little harps and beehives. All the labels are in Fraktur German.”
Copernick laughed. “It sounds great, Uncle Martin. Would you ask him to make me one?”
“You’re kidding, Heiny.”
“Not at all. I’m going to need a new one anyway, once we launch the insects. We can seal off the computers, but I hate to be without a microscalpel. Its dubious artistic value makes a good cover story. We can’t have word get out on what we’re doing.”
“Okay. You want it, you’ll get it. I wish I could give you mine, but that would hurt Jimmy’s feelings.”
“Just tell him that I’m a pure-bred Polack, and we’ll see what he comes up with.”
“Okay, okay,” Guibedo said. “So how is the bug project going?”
“It’s pretty much ready to launch right now. LDUs are finishing up implanting the food-tree seeds and the larvae into the vector birds. The CCU figures it will have completed their flight programming by tomorrow night. Actually, we can start launching any time, although I’d just as soon hold off until everything is ready.”
“Me, too, Heiny.”
“What are those disks and drawings, Uncle Martin?”
“Well, you ain’t going to like this, but I still don’t figure we need any more war animals. What I did was I worked out a biochemistry for floating plants on the ocean. I figured that’s three quarters of the world we ought to be doing something with. Anyhow, I got some sailboats and floating islands. And I got a dirigible.”
“A dirigible?”
“Sure. Bucky Fuller in the fifties, he—”
“The airborne cities. I’m familiar with his work. Go on.”
“Anyhow, I need some animals to go with them. Some kind of fish that will protect the boats and islands from other fish. And something to provide motive power for the dirigible.”
“Well, let’s see what you have.” Copernick inserted the disk into his control panel then spent a few minutes studying the display and Guibedo’s drawings.
“I’ve got to say I like your basic concept, Uncle Martin. But I’d like to make a few suggestions.”
“Like what?”
“Your anchored floating islands are fine, but they’re all one-family dwellings. Shouldn’t you make some bigger ones?”
“Ach. We’re going to need maybe fifty designs before we’re through. This is just a start. Anyhow, you want something bigger, you tie two little ones together.”
“Okay. These boats. You’ve designed them like conventional sailboats. Let’s do the standing rigging as part of the boat plant, but make the running rigging and rudder control parts of an animal sentient enough to handle navigation.”
“Heiny, you’ll take all the fun out of sailing.”
“The four you’ve done so far should satisfy the yachtsmen, but I think most people will want something that just goes where it’s told.”
“Okay. We build some your way and some mine, and people can take what they want. What else?”
“Motive power. They really ought to have some form of auxiliary power for getting in and out of harbors and for moving when becalmed.”
“So I’ll make the oars and you make the muscles for when we run out of wind. Anything else? You want maybe the decks should be orange and the sails pink?”
“They’ll have to stay green for photosynthesis.” Copernick ignored the jibe. “But as to size, you’ve made these four fifty-, one hundred-, one hundred twenty-five, and one hundred fifty feet long, which is fine, but we also ought to build some in the thousand-foot range.”
“So who’d want an ocean liner when he could sail his own yacht?” Guibedo said.
“Not ocean liners. Troop ships.”
“Are you on that again, Heiny?”
“I’ve never been off it. We are heading into a period with too many unknowns. The only thing I’m sure of is that revolutions are never easy. When you act with inadequate information, you inevitably make mistakes. Better to err on the side of security. If we end up with more military power than we need, we have wasted time and energy. If we have too little, we have wasted our lives and the lives of everyone we care about.”
“Okay. We call them troop ships now and ocean liners later.” Guibedo was getting worried about his nephew. Paranoia?
“Now about this dirigible. I really like it, but it’s going to require something pretty novel to power it. Wings that size are out of the question, and oars would be far too inefficient.”
“Well, this is just a first cut to see if the thing really will fly. No motive power and it can’t make seeds. On the next one I think maybe I can grow a big propeller. It grows rigid to its bearings until it’s full size, then it breaks loose. I give you a crank between two bearings, and you make muscles to it like the cylinders in a radial engine. Once it’s going, the propeller eats bearing grease that the dirigible makes to stay alive. I figure I can make it good for seventy-five rpm.”
“You really figure you can make an organic wheel?” Copernick looked surprised. “If it’s possible, why doesn’t the wheel occur in nature?”
“It does. You got to read Berg’s thing on bacteria flagella. The little beggars move by spinning a propeller that’s turned by an ion motor,” Guibedo said.
“Berg, huh. I’ll look it up. So why doesn’t it occur in higher animals?”
“Because there are no intermediary steps possible between a foot and a wheel, Heiny. Natural life forms had to evolve by small design increments. Nature can’t do a radical design like a committee can’t do original thinking.”
“Fascinating!” Copernick said, going over the readouts. “The musculature you describe is absurdly simple, of course. I should have thought of this myself, before I did the TRACs.”
“You leave those TRACs alone. For land travel, wheels are more efficient, but feet are more versatile. And feet don’t get stuck in the mud,” Guibedo said. “I came over here on Reo, one of your trucks. He’s got a real smooth ride. You did a nice job on those leg joints, Heiny.”
“Thank you. I’m proud of them myself. But for strictly tunnel traveling, a wheeled animal would be great.”
“Do it once we have enough tunnels. You had lunch yet?”
“No, thinking about it. Let’s go upstairs.”
No part of the CCU was permitted in a biolab, so Copernick stopped at the CCU’s I/O unit in the hallway. “CCU. Copernick here.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I want you to buy at least ten square miles of land with at least two miles of ocean frontage, as close to here as possible. Have the mole dig a tunnel out to it. Set the earliest possible closing dates, and keep me posted.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Guibedo said, “That’s a handy guy you got there.”
“I’d be lost without him.”
The girls had eaten earlier and were working with the TRACs, so Guibedo and Copernick ate alone, served by Ohura, one of the Copernicks’ two fauns. Ohura was a black version of Liebchen, identical except for surface details.
“You know, I think this is the first time we’ve eaten alone together in a year,” Guibedo said as he began his second mug of beer.
“It’s strange to be without the girls, but I’m glad they’re taking an interest in their work.”
“How come you make Mona work so hard? Couldn’t Dirk or one of his buddies do it?”
“They could. LDUs are almost as intelligent as Mona, and they’re a good deal more consistent. But Mona
