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"Bombs," he said wonderingly. Pressure bombs, set off by the explosion, originally intended to explode under an invader dropping from the top of the wall. Bombs, meant to kill. "I'm flattered," he whispered to himself, and lied.
"Shut up!" Laney turned to glare, and in the lurid artificial light he saw her eyes change. Then she turned and ran. She was beyond reach before Matt had time to react.
Feet pounded all around them, all ru
And nobody tried to stop Matt. He was invisible enough, but he'd lost Laney. Without him, she had nothing but the gun ... and he didn't know how to reach Polly. He stood there, lost.
Frowning, Harry Kane inspected hands which didn't match. He'd seen transplantees before, but never such a patchwork man as Millard Parlette.
Lydia said, "It isn't artificial, is it?"
"No. But it's not a normal transplant job either."
"He should be coming around."
"I am," said Millard Parlette.
Harry started. "You can talk?",
"Yes." Parlette had a voice like a squeaky door, altered by a would-be musical crew lilt, slurred by the effects of a sonic stu
"Lydia, get him some water."
"Here." The stocky virago supported the old man's head with her arm and fed him the water in small sips.
Harry studied the man. They'd propped him against a wall in the vestibule. He hadn't moved since then and probably couldn't, but the muscles of his face, which had been slack and rubbery, now reflected a personality.
"Thank you," he said, in a stronger voice. "You shouldn't have shot me, you know."
"You have things to tell us, Mr. Parlette."
"You're Harry Kane. Yes, I have things to tell you. And then I'll want to make a deal of sorts with you."
"I'm open to deals. What kind?"
"You'll understand when I finish. May I start with the recent ramrobot package? This will be somewhat technical."
"Lydia, get Jay." Lydia Hancock quietly withdrew.
"I'll want him to hear anything technical. Jay is our genius."
"Jayhawk Hood? Is he here too?"
"You seem to know a good deal about us."
"I do. I've been studying the Sons of Earth for longer than you've been alive. Jayhawk Hood has a fine mind. By all means, let us wait for him."
"You've been studying us, have you? Why?"
"I'll try to make that clear to you, Kane. It will take time. -Has the situation on Mount Lookitthat ever struck you as artificial, fragile?"
"Phut. If you'd been trying to change it as long as I have, you wouldn't think so."
"Seriously, Kane. Our society depends entirely on its technology. Change the technology, and you change the society. Most especially you change the ethics."
"That's ridiculous. Ethics are ethics."
The old man's hand twitched. "Let me speak, Kane."
Harry Kane was silent.
"Consider the cotton gin," said Millard Parlette. "That invention made it economically feasible to grow cotton in quantity in the southern United States, but not in the northern states. It brought slaves in great numbers to one section of that nation while slavery died out in another. The result was a problem in racial tolerance which lasted for centuries.
"Consider feudal armor. The ethics of chivalry were based on the fact that armor was a total defense against anything which wasn't similarly armored. The clothyard arrow, and later gunpowder, ended chivalry and made a new ethic necessary.
"Consider war as a tool of diplomacy." Millard Parlette stopped to gasp for breath. After a moment he went on. "It was, you know. Then came poison gas, and fission bombs, and fission-fusion bombs, and a possible fissionfusion-radiocobalt bomb. Each invention made war less and less useful for imposing one's will, more and more randomly destructive, until nationalism itself became too dangerous to be tolerated, and the United Nations on Earth became more powerful than any possible minority alliance of nations.
"Consider the settling of the Belt. A solely technological development, yet it created the wealthiest population in the system in a region which absolutely required new ethics, where stupidity automatically carries its own death penalty." The old man stopped again, exhausted.
"I'm no historian," said Harry. "But morals are morals. What's unethical here and now is unethical anywhere, anytime."
"Kane, you're wrong. It is ethical to execute a man for theft?"
"Of course."
"Did you know that there was once a vastly detailed science of rehabilitation for criminals? It was a branch of psychology, naturally, but it was by far the largest such branch. By the middle of century twenty-one, nearly two-thirds of all criminals could eventually be released as cured."
"That's silly. Why go to all that trouble when the organ banks must have been crying for--Oh. I see. No organ banks."
The old man was finally smiling, showing perfect new white teeth. Sparkling teeth and keen gray eyes: The real Millard Parlette showed behind the cracked, wrinkled, loose rubber mask of his face.
Except that the teeth couldn't be his, thought Harry. Nuts to that. "Go on." he said.
"One day a long time ago I realized that the ethical situation on Mount Lookitthat was fragile. It was bound to change someday, and suddenly, what with Earth constantly bombarding us with new discoveries. I decided to be ready."
There were footsteps on the stairs, ru
Harry Kane introduced Hood to Millard Parlette as if they were already allies. Hood took his cue and shook hands formally, wincing inside himself because Parlette's hand still felt like something dead.
"Keep that hand," said Millard Parlette. "Examine it."
"We already did."
"Your conclusions?"
"Ask you about it."
"Apparently Earth is using biological engineering for medical purposes. There were four gifts in the ramrobot package, along with complete instructions for their care and use. One was a kind of fungus-virus symbiot. I dipped my little finger in it. Now the muck is replacing my skin."
"Replacing--? Sorry," said Hood. It was difficult not to interrupt Parlette, his speech was so irritatingly slow.
"That's right. First it dissolves the epidermis, leaving. only the living cells beneath. Then it somehow stimulates the DNA memory in the derma. Probably the virus component does that. You may know that a virus does not reproduce; it compels its host to produce more virus, by inserting its own reproductive chains into the host cells."
"You may have a permanent guest," said Hood.
"No. The virus dies after a short time. Any virus does that. Then the fungus starves."
"Wonderful! The muck moves in a ring, leaving new skin behind!" Hood considered. "Earth really came through this time. But what happens when it reaches your eyes?"
"I don't know. But there were no special instructions. I offered myself as a test subject because I could use a new pelt. It's even supposed to get rid of scar tissue. It does."
"That's quite an advance," said Harry.
"But you don't see why it's important. Kane, I showed you this first because I happened to bring it along. The others will jolt you." Parlette let his head-droop to relieve the strain on his neck. "I don't know what animal gave birth to the second gift, but it now resembles a human liver. In the proper environment it will behave like a human liver."
Harry's eyes went wide and blank. Lydia made a startled hissing sound. And Millard Parlette added, "The proper environment is, of course, the environment of a human liver. They have not been tested because they are not fully grown. We can expect disadvantages due to the lack of nervous co