by Terry Carr
Lora had only a rudimentary understanding of how the duplicator worked, but she had learned a smattering of history and knew that commonplace objects had once been rare. The duplicator, given enough material and the endless stream of fusion energy, could change that material into anything the user wanted, as long as a pattern for that object was on a disk. Sometimes, in her more reflective moments, Lora’s heart would go out to those who in past times had had to endure scanty supplies or even do without the bare necessities. There were no shortages now. She drew her brows together. That wasn’t quite true. She had occasionally run out of detritus and had been forced to send the robots out foraging for dead leaves and twigs. Once, during a particularly festive party, she had even resorted to having the robots feed dirt from her flower garden into the duplicator in order to feed all the guests. There was, of course, always human waste, but Lora would never dream of using that in the kitchen duplicator. Such material was collected in another chute, to be sterilized and then transmuted by the duplicator in her sitting room into other things. One had to have some standards. Recycling was a wonderful and necessary thing, but there were limits.
Occasionally, Antoine had allowed Lora to enter the kitchen while he was cooking, a rare privilege and one that she was careful not to abuse. The last time she had been there, her chef had been trying out a recipe for poulet persillade. He had assembled his ingredients and had finished cooking the chicken dish for the fourth time; the first three attempts had not met with his approval and had been relegated to the chute.
Lora’s mouth watered as she recalled the taste of the chicken in its light crust of bread crumbs, parsley, and shallots. But Antoine had not been satisfied until his fifth attempt. The disk that could duplicate the poulet persillade was now stored safely on a shelf. The dish could be reproduced; the poulet persillade would be perfect every time.
She frowned as she stared at her screen, searching the kitchen as if this might yield a clue. The robots that assisted Antoine were standing in one corner; they were always shut off when not working and could not have seen a thing. She might have to keep the shelves locked, and rebelled at that thought. What was the world coming to when she could not trust those nearest to her?
“Show me who left the house this week, and when, and what time each person returned,” she said. The kitchen vanished as lists of names and times appeared. Lora emitted a small sigh. Everyone had left the house at various times; each had clearly had the opportunity to take a disk to town, dupe it, and return it to the shelf with no one the wiser. The kitchen, except when Antoine was cooking or duplicating meals, was usually empty.
“Oh, dear,” she said sadly.
“It would be quite simple to discover the malefactor,” the house murmured as the image of the bearded man reappeared. “I do have eyes and ears inside all of the rooms, you know.”
“Oh, no,” Lora responded, shocked at the notion of trespassing on her family’s privacy. “That wouldn’t do at all.”
“I need to watch only the kitchen.”
“Absolutely not,” Lora said firmly. “You know Antoine would never stand for that. He might leave if he found out you were watching.”
“Question everyone, then. I’ll quickly ferret out anyone who’s lying. I can read their physiological reactions and note any vocal stresses.”
Lora sat up. “No. I won’t turn my home into a police state.” She shuddered. She had never spied on anyone in her life and was not about to start doing so now. Her family would never forgive her. She would never forgive herself.
“Then I really don’t know how you plan to solve this problem,” the house said haughtily.
“I’ll find a way. The thief will make a mistake eventually.” She wanted to believe that.
Unable to sleep, Lora finally got out of bed and tiptoed to the door connecting her room with Geraldo’s. As she opened it, she heard his gentle snoring; she could not disturb him with her worries. Closing the door again, she crossed her room and went out into the corridor, then crept down the winding staircase to the hall below.
Silver moonlight shone through the wide windows. Occasionally, she found herself envying the ones who lived on the moon. Those people had to live in tunnels below ground, enduring out-of-date duplicated clothing and the same food millions of others ate, but their astronomical and scientific pursuits assured their social status. Only original work could win honor, although people who collected original, unduplicated objects also had some respect. The thought of the moondwellers reminded her of her own lowly position. Being a hostess was humble work. A house could have done it, but many still shied away from being entertained by only a voice. Lora’s gatherings drew the brightest lights of society, and she was normally content to bask in their reflected glory. At least she had escaped being only a woman of leisure, wasting her time in idleness while surrounded by wealth. She needed to feel useful.
She moved toward the door and stepped out on the porch. Junia was sitting near one marble column, holding a glass; her chestnut hair seemed black in the shadows.
The young woman turned. “Lora.” She lifted her glass. “Can’t you sleep?”
“No. I’m afraid that this business with the disks is too disturbing.” Lora sat down in a chair next to Junia, glancing at the young woman suspiciously. The thefts had begun after Junia had started visiting Roald. She had to be the culprit. Junia knew perfectly well that Lora had not been terribly pleased when Roald had announced his plans to take the young woman as his partner.
“Would you like a brandy?” Junia waved her glass. “I’ll be glad to fetch one for you.”
“No, thank you.” Lora leaned back. “I don’t know what to do. Even the house doesn’t have a clue. It’s just shameful. I’m afraid to have people over to dine. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to serve them an exclusive dish only to have it turn up in other houses later on. I’d lose what little position I have.” She paused. “Poor Antoine. He has to spend so much time creating new dishes as it is.”
“Oh, he doesn’t seem to mind. He loves to cook. After all, it’s what he was bred for.”
“Indeed. But even Antoine deserves a rest.” Lora gripped the arms of her chair, reflecting on how callous Junia often seemed to be. But then almost everyone lacked her own finer feelings. Lora’s parents had wanted a sensitive child and that was what the geneticists had given them. “High-strung,” Lora’s mother had called her, taking pride in her daughters fine tuning. She had in fact become so sensitive that visiting her parents as an adult had become an ordeal as she struggled not to disappoint them with any inadvertent crudity. Lora had been relieved when both her parents had decided to have a mind-wipe and assume new identities; now they didn’t know who she was and she no longer had to visit.
“I’ve been thinking,” Junia said as she brushed back a dark strand of hair. “You don’t suppose Rina or Celia could have taken the disks, do you? They love to play little jokes. They put a frog in my bed the other night.”
“Oh, dear.”
“It doesn’t matter. It really didn’t frighten me.”
Lora thought of the two girls. She had decided against having terribly sensitive offspring, but she had not believed the two children were capable of handling anything as slimy as a frog. Rina and Celia were supposed to be cute for the benefit of guests who enjoyed the presence of a family; they would hardly seem adorable if they played such pranks.
“Stealing disks,” Lora murmured, “is hardly a joke.”
“Oh, I know. But they might not think of it that way. They might not understand how serious it is.”
Lora grimaced. If one of the girls was the thief, the other would surely know about it; they did almost everything together. She could go to one of her daughters and say that the other had owned up to the deed, and force an admission of guilt.
Thinking of such a confrontation repelled her. She had always left discipline, what little there was of it, to Geraldo and the robotic nanny. Anyway, she was beginning to wonder
if Rina and Celia had the intelligence to plan such a thievery and carry it off without giving themselves away. She had not wanted intelligent children, either. Intelligent children asked too many hard questions and showed off their knowledge and ended with making their parents feel like fools; she had seen it happen in other households. What good did it do to have an accomplished child to brag about if the child considered one’s own mind beneath contempt?
“Well, I’m sure Roald wouldn’t steal anything,” Junia went on. “Of course, I can’t speak for his brothers.”
Lora gazed out at the lawn. Beyond the cleared land around her house, the forest’s pine trees sang as the wind stirred their branches. Junia would give herself away if she continued to chatter; only a guilty person would be trying to cast suspicion on others. She was now almost certain that the young woman was the thief, and wondered if she would have the strength to order her from the house. Roald might decide to leave with her.
Lora nearly wept as she thought of that. She might lose her son. Surely he was more important than having exclusive recipes. Could he be stealing them to get back at her for her original disapproval of Junia? What other motive might he have for such uncharacteristic behavior? Could he be trading the disks for unduplicated objects?
She shook her head. If Roald or anyone else in the house had been trading the disks for exclusive objets d’art, jewelry, unique historical artifacts, or anything else, some evidence would have turned up by now, and the person accepting the disks would have no motive for duplicating them for the world. Clearly, someone wanted only to make her own life as miserable as possible. Her own limited status was now in jeopardy. Her dinner parties drew people of great prestige with the promise of Antoine’s cooking. How many would accept her invitations if they thought they could acquire the dishes elsewhere?
Junia cleared her throat. “I suppose you suspect me, Lora.”
“Dear me,” Lora said. “I suspect no one.” She was again suspecting everyone. Perhaps it was a conspiracy, and they were all in on it; maybe they were tired of trying to be of some use to others and longed to lapse into leisure and laziness altogether. A tear trickled down her cheek as she wallowed in misery, feeling that the world had turned against her. She would become only a peasant, reduced to consuming an endless stream of goods and services.
“Oh, I can understand why you think I might have done it. I wish I could convince you that I didn’t. I can’t think of anything I’d like more than your approval. I know you didn’t want me as a partner for Roald at first.”
“Oh, dear.” Junia, she thought darkly, had no delicacy at all.
“But we’ll still be here, in the house. It’s what we both want. You’ll still have Roald nearby, and I know he couldn’t bear to leave Rex and Richard—they’re all so close.”
“Junia, I do respect you. Really.” Lora tried to give the words some conviction. The young woman might be a bit on the blunt side, but she was also kind and even-tempered; Roald could have done far worse. “It’s only that I had hoped all three of my sons would find three partners together. They are a set, after all. If there were two more like you, I really wouldn’t have any objection at all.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you would consider being a partner to all three.”
“Oh, no,” Junia said cheerfully. “It’s Roald I love.”
“Oh, well.” Lora thought of her three sons. She had been so taken with Richard after removing him from his artificial womb that she had insisted on having two brothers cloned right away. Roald had been brought home ten years later, after a period in cryonic storage, and Rex ten years after that. She had received many compliments on her handsome sons, the same genotype at different ages; their physical similarity as individuals made them seem unique as a group.
Richard was now thirty-eight, Roald twenty-eight, and Rex eighteen; except for their blue eyes, they were all slimmer versions of Geraldo, which was fitting since he had contributed most of the genes. She had once dreamed of finding them three identical young women, or, failing that, one who would fall in love with all three, but it was not to be. Her sons, unhappily, had shown more individuality than she had expected; Rex parceled out his affections to various girls while Richard was not likely to partner at all. At least Junia had not insisted on her own house.
Her doubts, held at bay, suddenly bit at her mind again, nibbling at her small share of happiness. Rex might be giving the disks to his many loves. Richard was close to the Karells; could Gretchen, Lora’s social rival, have encouraged his thievery? If only she could put her doubts aside. They all knew how easily she could be wounded; how could those she loved be so cruel? Her sons would never stoop to theft; had one of them truly wanted to hurt her, all he had to do was leave.
It had to be Junia. Even as Lora clung to that hypothesis, she questioned it. Junia, in addition to being a trifle rough around the edges, was intelligent. The young woman was only too aware that she would be the prime suspect; she had said so. She could not want Lora’s ill will, not when she would have to live under the same roof.
Junia rose. “I’m going to bed.” She yawned, not even troubling to cover her pretty mouth. “You should, too. No sense worrying about it. Whoever’s stealing your disks will get tired of doing it eventually.”
Lora and Geraldo breakfasted alone at the small table near the rose garden. She nibbled at a sectioned orange and a brioche as Geraldo feasted on an omelet, then helped himself to buckwheat cakes. Glancing at her partner’s rounded belly, Lora made a mental note to tell Antoine that he should serve non-caloric foods for the next day or two. Antoine would not be happy about that; she could never convince him that such foods really did taste the same as others.
“Don’t worry,” Geraldo muttered as he reached for the syrup. “Junia’ll make Roald a good partner.” He looked past the garden toward the lawn, where Rex, Roald, and Richard were passing a football to one another; their brown, bare chests gleamed with sweat. Near them, a few robots were clipping the grass, collecting the blades in sacks to be used in the duplicator.
“I wasn’t thinking of Junia.” The morning light had revealed a gray hair on Geraldo’s head; he would need another rejuvenation treatment before the rigors of the social season began.
“Are you still worried about the disks? Forget it, honey. We all know how you feel. I’m sorry you feel so rotten. I guess I didn’t realize how upset you’d get about it.”
She peered at him. “Exactly what do you mean, dear?” She waited to see if he was about to confess. Geraldo was generous by nature; he might not have been able to resist a friend’s plea for a disk.
“Oh, you know. I mean, if the food’s good, I’ll eat it. I never really cared how many people had the recipe. I guess I forgot that it means more to you,” he added hastily.
“It should mean something to you, too. Don’t you care what people think? Aren’t you concerned with our obligations?”
“Oh, of course. Well, I know I didn’t do it. Antoine doesn’t like me anywhere near the kitchen even when he’s not there. I don’t praise his efforts enough.”
“I can’t say I blame him,” Lora said gently. “He wants people to savor his food, not gulp it.”
“Rina and Celia couldn’t have planned it, either. Mind you, I love our little girls, but if a thought ever entered their heads, they’d probably say, ‘What’s that?’ ” Geraldo narrowed his eyes. “Aha! You did it!” He put down his fork. “That’s it. You did it so we’d all feel sorry for you and be nicer. You always did like a lot of sympathy—playing the victim and all.” Shocked, Lora began to weep.
“Hey!” Geraldo took her hand. “I was only kidding.”
“That’s cruel, Geraldo. I never thought you, of all people, could be so heartless.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t enjoy being so touchy. It’s not something I would have chosen. I know it’s sometimes hard for all of you to keep from upsetting me.” She dabbed at her tears with her napkin, knowing how ugly red, watery
eyes and a puffy face were. “You don’t know how many times I’ve considered reconditioning, but that would be like losing part of myself. I’ve even thought of mind-wiping.”
Geraldo started.
“But then I wouldn’t remember you. I’d lose everything.”
Geraldo stroked her hand. “Lora, I like you just the way you are. You might be sensitive, but so what? It gives the rest of us something to aspire to, in a way. It just shows how civilized and delicate you are.” He waved one arm expansively. “Why, if everyone were like you, it would be a much nicer world. We’d all be a lot more thoughtful of others’ feelings.”
She smiled, forgiving him. Geraldo had his faults, but he always knew how to heal her wounds, and he was invaluable at parties. His unpretentious manner could put the most nervous guest at ease; he was, in part, responsible for her own small success.
“Well,” she whispered, and then her doubts returned; she still had no solution to her problem. “I don’t know what to do,” she continued. “I simply can’t resort to spying on my own family, even if that’s what the house wanted me to do. Antoine might leave, you know.”
“Has he said so?” Geraldo mumbled, his mouth full of food.
“No. I’m afraid to speak to him about it. But you can imagine how he feels. If someone keeps stealing his disks, he may want to go to a house where there aren’t any thieves.” She was well aware that the chef’s position on the social ladder was higher than her own; all she could really offer him was an appreciative and discerning audience for his efforts. “All of this larceny just means more work for him. Other chefs take time off, laze about most of the time, create new recipes only when inspiration strikes, while he has to labor constantly. Why, if he didn’t, we’d scarcely have any exclusive recipes left. We’d have to duplicate disks from the public library!”
