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sportin’ to take money from the Feds.…” He gazed mournfully at the lushly exotic landscape of monkey-puzzle trees, fat pampered yuccas, and orange trees. “Man, everything sure looks
green
out here.”
    “Yes,” Tug said absently, “thank God there’s been a break in the drought. California has plenty of use for a jellyfish that can monitor water-leaks.”
    “It’s not the water that counts,” said Revel, “it’s the carbon dioxide. Two hundred million years’ worth of crude oil, all burned to carbon dioxide and spewed right into the air in just a few decades. Plant life’s goin’ crazy. Why, all the plant life along this highway has built itself out of car exhausts! You ever think o’ that?”
    It was clear from the look of glee on Revel’s shallow features that this thought pleased him mightily. “I mean, if you traced the history of the carbon in that weirdasslookin’ tree over there … hunnert years ago it was miles down in the primeval bowels of the earth! And since we eat plants to live, it’s the same for people! Our flesh, brain, and blood is built outa burnt crude-oil! We’re creatures of the Urschleim, Tug. All life comes from the primeval goo.”
    “No way,” said Tug heatedly. He took a highway exit to Los Perros, his own local enclave in the massive sprawl that was Silicon Valley. “One carbon atom’s just like the next one. And once you’re talking artificial life, it doesn’t even have to be an ‘atom’ at all. It can be a byte of information, or a microbead of piezoplastic. It doesn’t matter where the material came from—life is just a pattern of behavior.”
    “That’s where you and me part company, boy.” They were tooling down the main drag of Los Perros now, and Revel was gaping at some chicly dressed women. “Dig it, Tug, thanks to oil, a lot of carbon in your yuppie neighborscomes from Texas. Like or not, most modern life is fundamentally Texan.”
    “That’s pretty appalling news, Revel,” smiled Tug. He took the last remaining hilly corners with a squeal of his Michelins, then pulled into his driveway. He parked the Animata under the rotting, fungus-specked redwood deck of the absurdly overpriced suburban home that he rented. The rent was killing him. Ever since his lover had moved out last Christmas, Tug had been meaning to move into a smaller place, but somewhere deep down he nursed a hope that if he kept the house, some nice strong man would come and move in with him.
    Next door, Tug’s neighbors were flinging water-balloons and roaring with laughter as they sizzled up a huge aromatic rack of barbecued tofu. They were rich Samoans. They had a big green parrot named Toatoa. On fine days, such as today, Toatoa sat squawking on the gable of the house. Toatoa had a large yellow beak and a taste for cuttlebone and pumpkin-seeds.
    “This is great,” Revel opined, examining the earthquake-split walls and peeling ceiling Sheetrock. “I was afraid we’d have some trouble findin’ the necessary space for experiments. No problem, though, with you rentin’ this sorry dump for a workshop.”
    “I live here,” said Tug with dignity. “By California standards this is a very good house.”
    “No wonder you want to start a company!” Revel climbed the redwood stairs to Tug’s outdoor deck, and dragged a yard-long plastic pressure cylinder from within his duffel bag, flinging aside some balled-up boot socks and a set of watered-silk boxer shorts. “You got a garden hose? And a funnel?” He pulled a roll of silvered duct tape from the bottom of his bag.
    Tug supplied a length of hose, prudently choosing one that had been severely scorched during the last hillside brushfire. Revel whipped a French designer pocketknife from within his Can’t-Bust-’Ems and slashed off a three-footlength. He then deftly duct-taped the tin funnel to the end of the hose, and blew a few kazoo-like blasts.
    Next Revel flung the crude horn aside and took up the pressure cylinder.