Leo Frankowski

she
controls the food synthesizer. You just explain to Liebchen what you want, give
her a couple of tries, and you got it. Liebchen and Oakwood will do anything to make you happy.”
    “But I’ve been
in Death, er—Life Valley half my vacation and I haven’t seen anything like
her.”
    “Well, you
ain’t seen anything like my beautiful Oakwood who we’re sitting in now, either.
You got to understand that the smarter animals have to grow up slow so they can learn. This
Oakwood is eight months since I made the seed. Liebchen is four years old
and is only now grown up. So we can’t make so many of them quickly. All of them
so far had to be grown in bottles and educated by Heiny’s pretty wife.
    “Oh, one thing
you got to remember around Liebchen is to be all the time nice. Fauns get sick
when you get mad at them. And
they die if they think that nobody loves
them. Heh! That’s about the only thing that can kill one. Well, that and radiation.”
    Liebchen, her tail
out proudly, pranced back in with a tray of food, put the tray on the coffee
table, and curled up at Guibedo’s feet, her head against his lederhosen.
    “You mean that
all fauns are susceptible to radiation, Dr. Guibedo?” Partially because the food was
in front of Gui bedo and partially from Liebchen’s example, but mostly because, what with
her scanty garments, she was cold, Patricia came around and sat very
close to Guibedo.
    “I mean that most of our engineered
life forms are very susceptible to
radiation, Patty. You see, with natu ral life forms, you got DNA in a
double helix. Now, when a chunk of
radiation hits it, it usually breaks only one strand, which usually grows back like it was but sometimes a little bit different which makes for
mutation and, occasionally,
improvement.”
    Guibedo felt awkward
being so close to Patricia, and he gulped his beer nervously. He would have
moved away
except that Liebchen was pressed tightly against his other side.
    “But with an
engineered life form, you don’t want it different. Mein Gott! What if
some big shot would start breeding my pretty Liebchen to be soldiers in an army! Or worse
yet, to sit behind some damn typewriter! No! What we use is
single-strand DNA, a little bit like what they call RNA, so if some
radiation hits it, the loop breaks and the cell maybe dies, but cannot be modified.
This way my pretty Liebchen’s children will be absolutely identical to her, because she
reproduces asexually.”
    “Asexually! Do
you mean that there aren’t any male fauns?” As Patricia talked, her pointed
breast touched Guibedo’s arm. She wasn’t really conscious of it, but Guibedo was. Very.
    Liebchen refilled
the glasses.
    Guibedo gulped
nervously at his beer. This little girl could be my
granddaughter. Might have been if them damn Nazi big shots hadn’t killed my
Hilde. “That’s right. No need for boys. In nature, the boys is to mix up the
genes so sometimes the kid gets the good parts of both his parents.
And because, in higher animals, the kid and the mother can’t take care of themselves,
the boys is to protect them.” Guibedo put his arm around Patricia. Sipping daintily at
her glass, Patricia snuggled into the warmth of his pudgy side.
    Liebchen filled
their glasses again.
    “But with
engineered life forms, you designed it right the first time. And you got real
humans around to protect the kids and pregnant girls, so you get a symbiotic relationship. And the
other reason is that single-strand DNA can duplicate eighty times faster than
double-strand, so they grow like blue lightning!”
    “But, Dr.
Guibedo, how can you have reproduction without sex?” Patricia said, trying to
ask intelligent questions. This interview will make my career in
broadcasting.
    Hooh! This little one’s got sex on the
brain, Guibedo thought.
    “Nothing to it.
The problem is making them not reproduce. You see, you got to make sure that
you got as many houses or fauns as you need. But you also got to make sure that you don’t get too many. We
can’t have tree houses crowding each other
for sunlight, or Lieb chens running
around like unloved alley cats.”
    Liebchen shuddered at
the word “unloved,” but topped off the glasses.
    “There is got
to be harmony, or the world me and Heiny are building would be just as cruel as
the one nature made. With
the trees, it’s easy. Each tree grows seeds in a cupboard, which stay there
until you pick them. If you want a house,
you find one just like what you