Read The Reproductive System (Gollancz SF Library) for Free Online

‘Amy, make a note. I think this one is a commy,’ he spat with disgust, ‘as well as a fairy.’
    ‘Let me hit him, Pop !’ bawled Louie. ‘Let me use Origami on him.’
    Kurt and Karl went on explaining the system, as though they had not been interrupted.
    ‘It is “ergetropic”,’ Karl explained. ‘That is, it can seek and use nearly any kind of power.’ He gestured to his brother as one vaudeville partner to another.
    ‘It is metallotropic,’ Kurt added. ‘Some cells are oriented
    more towards metal, some towards energy. May we demonstrate?’
    The twins each picked up one box gently. They were the size of fat attaché cases. ‘This is a power-seeking cell,’ Karl explained. ‘That one is metal-seeking.’
    The wheels of the two machines whined as they set them on the floor. One spun around and headed straight for the light socket. The other dashed about the room, sampling the legs of metal furniture, pausing to nibble at the corner of a filing cabinet. Cal shooed it away and it scooted behind a lab table, out of his reach. Between the table and the wall, he could see the box working its way along towards the far corner, towards the oyster tank.
    ‘Kinda cute at that,’ said the general.
    One of its legs eaten through, the oyster tank collapsed. As water from it spread across the floor, the fat box outran it, heading for the door. It carried a metal wastebasket, holding it aloft in crab-claws, a hard-won trophy.
    ‘Stop it !’ Cal shouted. The general began to laugh.
    ‘Halt !’ shouted the marine guard. He fired a warning shot but the attaché case kept coming. He lowered his gun and fired directly at the little box. Bullets rang on the wastebasket. The marine emptied his gun, just as the box dashed between his polished boots and out of the door.
    ‘All you had to do,’ said Karl, ‘was pick it up.’
    The general leaned on the table, doubled up with coarse laughter. The twins and Cal were trying to trap the other box. Excited by the gun-flashes, it scooted in circles all over the room.
    ‘I’ll be goddamned,’ the general kept saying. ‘Funniest thing I seen since the war.’ His weight was tipping the table, and as the boxes rushed towards him it tipped even further.
    Cal cornered the energy-seeking box and bent to turn it off. He saw that the toggle switch had been damaged, apparently by a welding arc. It was a fused lump of metal on top of the box. Something else occurred to him then : there had been a lot of cells running around on the table with broken or missing switches. Odd. He would have to ask someone about that.
    But just now there was nothing to do but pick this one up off the floor. Cal was frightened of it, but he was even more frightened of letting it go free.
    ‘Careful !’ someone shouted. ‘You’re standing in brine !’
    ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Cal. He looked up to see the table overturn on General Grawk, the boxes sliding off …
    But then the scene froze, like a film hung up in the projector. And, like a stuck film, everything shrivelled and vanished, leaving only bright white emptiness.

MIT
     
    ‘O goodly usage of those ancient times,
In which the sword was servant unto right.’
    S PENSER
     
     
    Cal was brought up on a farm in Minnesota. His father Codman Codman Potter, was taciturn, even for a farmer. In fact, Cal could only recall his father’s speaking to him twice in all his life. Codman seemed a bottomless reservoir of wisdom; whenever he spoke, the family went into a panic.
    The awful voice sounded when Cal was eight. His mother had given him a book of Aesop’s fables, and one evening he lay on the living room floor, reading of the frogs who wanted a king. His father looked at him and said loudly :
    ‘There’s plenty of things you don’t learn from books. Books only ruin your eyes. It’s life that’s important, not god damned books !’
    Alarmed, Cal’s mother took the book from him and burned it. He never dreamed of objecting. From then