"I feel sure that Arabelle does not suspect. Nor have I heard of Nelly Hildegarde bursting any blood vessels. Mmm, I suspected something."

"Really. Where did we slip?"

"Hardly the word, Lazarus. Minerva, when I had occasion to consult you, while Ira was Chairman Pro Tem, how did we talk?"

"Why, you were always most friendly, Justin. You always told me why you wanted something instead of just telling me to dig it out. You would chat, too; you were never too much in a hurry to be pleasant. That's why I remember you so warmly."

"And that, Lazarus, is why I sniffed something dead behind the arras. You and your party had been gone about a week when I wanted something from the executive computer. When you have an old friend with a pleasant voice-your voice is unchanged, Minerva; I should have recognized it-but I was bedazzled by your appearance-when you call this old friend and are answered by a flat, mechanical voice...and any deviation from programming language is answered by: 'NULL PROGRAM-REPEAT-WAITING FOR PROGRAM'-then you know that an old friend is dead." He smiled at the girl between them. "So I can't tell you how delighted I am to learn that my old friend was reborn as a lovely young girl."

Minerva squeezed his hand, blushed slightly, and said nothing.

"Hmm-' Justin, did you compare notes with anyone?"

"Ancestor, do you think I'm a fool? I mind my own business."

"Apology, about grade two. No, you're not a fool, unless you go back and work for the old harridan."

"When will the next wave of migrants head this way? I hate to waste the work I've done on your life, and I would hate to abandon my personal library."

"Well, sir, no tellin' when a streetcar will be by this time o' night. Discuss it later." Lazarus added, "That's our house ahead."

Justin Foote looked, saw a building partly visible through trees, turned back to speak to Minerva. "Something you said earlier, Cousin, I did not understand. You said 'I owe you so much.' If I was pleasant to you-at New Rome, I 'mean-you were at least as pleasant to me. More likely the debt is the other way; you were always most helpful."

Instead of answering, she looked' at Lazarus. He said, "Your business, my dear."

Minerva took a deep breath, then said, "I plan to name twenty-three of my children for my twenty-three parents."

"So? That seems most warmly appropriate."

"You're not my cousin, Justin-you're my father. One of them."

VARIATIONS ON A THEME-XIV

Bacchanalia

After the track through the gormtrees at the northern edge of Boondock swings right, one has a view of the home of Lazarus Long, but I hardly noticed it when I first saw it; I was much bemused by a statement by Minerva Long. Me her father? Me?

The Senior said, "Close your mouth, Son; you're making a draft. Dear, you startled him."

"Oh, dear!"

"Now quit looking like a frightened fawn, or I'll be forced to hold your nose and administer two ounces of eighty-proof ethanol disguised as fruit juice; You've done nothing wrong. Justin, does disguised ethanol interest you?"

"Yes," I agreed fervently. "I recall a time in my youth when that and one other subject were all I was interested in."

"If the other subject wasn't women, we'll find a monastic cubbyhole where you can drink alone. But it was-I know more about you than you think. All right, we'll have a libation or six. Not those two, they're potential alcoholics."

"Slanderous-"

"-though regrettably true-"

"-but we did it only once-"

"-and won't do it again!"

"Don't commit yourself too far, kids; a brannigan might sneak up on you. Better to know your resistance than to be tripped through ignorance. Grow up, put on some mass, and you'll be able to cope with it. Or Ishtar mixed up your genes, which she didn't. Now about this other matter, Justin~ Yes, you're one of Minerva's parents...and that's a very high compliment, because those twenty-three chromosome pairs were picked from tissues of thousands of superior people, using fearsome mathematics to handle the multiplicity of variables, plus Ishtar's knowledge of genetics, and some unnecessary advice from me, before this little darling got the precise mix she wanted to be."

I started to set up the type problem in my head-yes, that would be some problem, extremely more difficult than the ordinary genetics problem of advising one male and one female-then dropped it, as I had its delightful answer by her left hand. Lazarus was still speaking:

"Minerva could have been male, two meters tall, massing a hundred kilos, built like Joe Colossus, and hung like a stallion mule. Instead she elected to be what she is: slender, female, shy- I'm not sure she selected for that last. Did you, dear?"

"No, Lazarus; no one knows which genes control that. I think I get it from Hamadryad."

"I think you got it from a computer I used to know-and took along all of it as Athene certainly is not shy. Never mind. Some of Minerva's donor-parents are dead; some are alive but unaware that a bit of tissue from a clone in stasis or from the live-tissue bank was borrowed-as in your case. Some know that they are donor-parents-me, for example, and you heard Hamadryad mentioned. You'll meet others, some being on Tertius, where it's no secret. But consanguinity is not close for anyone. One twenty-third? The genetic advisers wouldn't run that through a computer; it's an acceptable risk. Plus the fact that none of us donor-parents of Minerva have any known skeletons hanging on our family trees. You could safely have progeny by her; so could I."

"But you refused me!" Minerva startled me with the vehemence with which she accused Lazarus of this. For a moment she was not shy; her eyes flashed.

"Now, now, dear. You were only a year out of vitro and not fully grown even though Ishtar forced you past menarche still in vitro. Ask me on another occasion; I might startle you."

"'Startle' me, or surprise me?"

"Never mind that old joke. Justin, I simply wanted to make clear that your relationship to Minerva, while close enough that it makes Minerva feel sentimental, is in fact so small that you barely qualify as a 'kissing cousin.'"

"I feel very sentimental about it," I told the Senior. "Most pleased and deeply honored-although I can't guess why I was picked."

"If you want to know which chromosome pair was swiped from you, and why, you had best ask Ishtar and get her to consult Athene; I doubt if Minerva still knows."

"But I do know; I saved those memories. Justin, I wanted to retain some ability in mathematics. It was a choice between you and Libby Professor Owens-so I chose you; you are my friend."

(Well! I respect Jake Hardy-Owens; I'm merely an applied mathematician, he is a brilliant theoretician.) "Whatever your reasons, dear kissing cousin, I am delighted that you chose me as one of your donor-fathers."

"Grounded, Commodore!" announced one of the duplicate redheads-Lapis Lazuli-as the little nullboat clumped to a stop. (It appeared to be a Corson Farmsled and I was surprised to see it in a new Colony.) Lazarus answered, "Thank you, Captain."

The twins bounced out; the Senior and I handed Minerva out-unnecessary help that she accepted with gracious dignity, that being another aspect of colonial life that surprised me, New Rome being rather short on such archaic ceremony. (Over and again I found the Boondockers to be both more formally polite, and more casually relaxed about it, than are Secundians. I suppost my notions of frontier life had been fed on too many romances: rough, bearded men fighting off dangerous animals, mules hauling covered wagons toward distant horizons.)