I answered, “Burt, don’t ever tackle a lawyer with your hands. The way to fight a lawyer is with another lawyer, a smarter one. Look, we’ll be in the Cabana. If you can’t cash that draft, better accept my offer. It won’t inconvenience me.”
“Thanks, Friday. But I’m going to choke her until she gives in.”
The room Goldie had reserved turned out to be a small suite, a room with a big waterbed and a living room with a couch that opened into a double bed. I sat down on the couch to read Boss’s letter while Anna and Goldie used the bathÄthen got up to use it myself when they came out. When I came out, they were on the big bed, sound asleepÄnot surprising; both of them had been up all
night in nervously exhausting work. I kept very quiet and sat back
down, resumed reading the letter: –
Dear Friday, Since this is my last opportunity to communicate with you, I must
tell you things I have not been able to say while alive and still your employer.
Your adoption: You do not remember it because it did not happen that way. You will find that all records are legally correct. You are indeed my foster daughter. Emma Baldwin has the same sort of reality as your Seattle parents, i.e., real for all practical and legal purposes. You need be careful of only one thing: Don’t let your several identities trip each other. But you have walked that tight-wire many times, professionally.
Be sure to be present or represented at the reading of my will. Since I am a Lunar citizen
(Huh?)
this will be at Luna City immediately after my death, Luna Republic not having all the lawyer-serving delays one finds in most Earthside countries. Call Fong, Tomosawa, Rothschild, Fong, and Finnegan, Luna City. Do not anticipate too much; my will does not relieve you of the necessity of earning a living.
Your origin: You have always been curious about this, understandably so. Since your genetic endowment was assembled from many sources and since all records have been destroyed, I can tell you little. Let me mention two sources of your genetic pattern in whom you may take pride, two known to history as Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green. There is a memorial to them in a crater near Luna City, but it is hardly worth the trip as there is nothing much to see. If you will query the Luna City Chamber of Commerce concerning this memorial, you can obtain a cassette with a reasonably accurate account of what they did. When you hear it, you will know why I told you to suspend judgment on assassins. Assassination is usually a dirty business . .
but honorable hatchet men can be heroes. Play the cassette and judge for yourself.
The Greens were colleagues of mine many years ago. Since their work was very dangerous, I had caused each of them to deposit genetic material, four of her ova, a supply of his sperm. When they were killed, I caused gene analysis to be made with an eye to posthumous childrenÄonly to learn that they were incompatible; simple fertilization would have caused reinforcement of some bad alleles.
Instead, when creation of artificial persons became possible, their genes were used selectively. Yours was the only successful design; other attempts at including them were either not viable or had to be destroyed. A good genetic designer works the way a good photographer does: A perfect result derives from a willingness to discard drastically any attempt less than perfect. There will be no more attempts using the Greens; Gail’s ova are gone and Joe’s sperm is probably no longer useful.
It is not possible to define your relationship to them but it is equivalent to something between granddaughter and great-granddaughter, the rest of you being from many sources but you can take pride in the fact that all of you was most carefully selected to maximize the best traits of H. sapiens. This is your potential; whether or not you achieve your potential is up to you.
Before your records were destroyed, I once scratched my curiosity by listing the sources that went into creating you. As near as I can recall they are: