Leo Frankowski

sequence for their synthesizers.”
    “That’s
easy,” Mona said. “Heinrich is developing a series of household
servants. The darlings are too young to do any work yet, but they have a sort of
empathic contact
with Pinecroft. They can control its growth to a certain extent, but more important,
they can modify the output of the food synthesizer, with the net result that we have
a limitless menu of excellent food.”
    “Hey! That’s
great! That solves the biggest headache I’ve had, getting the food right. Can these
servants make a tree house add a room where you want it?”
    “Oh, yes, Uncle
Martin,” Heinrich said. “But I can’t take all the credit. Mona’s in charge
of their training, and doing a wonderful job. I don’t think I could have done
it without
her help.”
    “Yah, Heiny.
You sure are a lucky guy.”
    The CCU I/O unit in
the kitchen, “My Lord Copernick?”
    “What do you
need?”
    “I want to
report, sir, that pursuant to your suggestion, I have arranged for you to close on
the Golden Hoard mine property next Tuesday morning. Also, I have taken the liberty
to cause a corporation to be formed to own the mine.”
    “I compliment
your efficiency.”
    “Thank you, sir. I have had the truck
unloaded and the contents assayed.
Arrangements have been made to have
the gold smelted and sold for forty-five million dollars, through unorthodox channels. The platinum,
with an estimated value of seven
point four million, has been stored pending the availability of suitable
smelting facilities.”
    “Hey!”
Guibedo said. “Save me maybe twenty of those apples.”
    “Certainly, my
Lord Guibedo. Arrangements have been made such that you will have a
convincingly functioning mine in one week, with suitable machinery, fencing,
and so forth.
    “Also, the
hiking troop has ceased to be a security problem. One of their members was injured,
and the others
are carrying him out on a stretcher.”
    “Not badly, I
hope,” Heinrich said. “Mona, why don’t you take Uncle Martin’s truck out
there and get that kid to a hospital. I’ll have a bird guide you.”
    “Of
course,” Mona said, leaving.
    “So what do you
think of my Central Coordination Unit now, Uncle Martin?”
    “Well, Heiny, if
them Nazi big shots would have had one of him, we never would have made it out
of Germany!”
    “My
lords,” the CCU said, “I would like to suggest that you use your
surplus capital to purchase additional real estate, starting with the balance of
Death Valley here.”
    “You know,
Heiny, that’s not a bad idea,” Guibedo said. “We could build quite a city
here. Plenty of sunlight and there’s water in them mountains.”
    “I think you’re
right, Uncle Martin,” Heinrich said, turning to the CCU. “Do it!”
    Later, surrounded by
their rough plans for the city, Heinrich suddenly said, “Uncle Martin,
what did you want with those twenty golden apples?”
    “I thought maybe
they would make nice Christmas presents.”
    *
    “Ben, you were
able to get Mike to talk?” General Hastings said.
    “He’s been
talking all along, George. It’s just that we’re starting to make some sense out of
what he’s saying.”
    “So, what does
he have to say?”
    “It’s not that
easy. It’s a matter of word-frequency correlations. You see, George, one of us has
to be with him all of the time. If the jamming ever quits, somebody has to be there to
sedate him before he drives the rest of us insane. But when you put in a six-hour
shift listening to a madman rave, you eventually notice certain words turning up fairly
often.
    “You see two
possibilities as to what the jamming is. One is simply that it is a random
noise, transmitted accidentally or deliberately from some natural or artificial
source.
    “The other
theory is that the noise carries information between some people or beings that we
don’t know about. If this is the case, the information is being transmitted at a rate
several hundred times faster than the human nervous system can function, so most of
us tele paths
just hear white noise. The possibility exists that Mike’s synapses are fast
enough to pick up the data and that the rest of his brain can’t take the
information overload.
    “Look. The human
brain is a series of parallel buffers and gates. Faced with an information
overload, such a system will skip a given number of words for each word transmitted.
    “On the theory that Mike is repeating
every hun dredth—or whatever—word in a
series