Imperial Earth

Even as a baby, Anitra was beautiful, and it was confidently predicted that when she grew up she would be completely spoiled. Needless to say, there were as yet no child psychologists on Titan; so no one noticed that the little girl was too docile, too well behaved-and too silent. Not until she was almost four years old did Malcolm and Ellen finally accept the fact that Anitra would never be able to speak, and that there was really no one at home in the lovely shell their bodies had fashioned.

The fault lay in Malcolm’s genes, not Ellen’s. Sometime during his shuttling back and forth between Earth and Mars, a stray photon that had been cruising through space since the cosmic dawn had blasted his hopes for the future. The damage was irreparable, as Malcolm discovered when he consulted the best genetic surgeons of four worlds. It was a chilling thought that he had actually been lucky with Anitra; the results could have been far, far worse…. To the mingled sorrow and relief of an entire world, Anitra had died before she was six years old, and the Makenzie marriage died with her in a flurry of grief and recrimination. Ellen threw herself into her work, and Malcolm departed on what was to be his last visit to Earth. He was gone for almost two years, and in that time he achieved much.

He consolidated his political position and set the pattern of economic development on Titan for the next half-century. And he acquired the son he had now set his heart upon.

Human cloning-the creation of exact replicas of another individual from

any cell in the body except the sex cells-had been achieved early in the twenty-first century. Even when the technology had been perfected, it had never become widespread, partly because there were few circumstances that could ever justify it.

Malcolm was not a rich man-there had been no large personal fortunes for a hundred years-but he was certainly not poor. He used a skillful combination of money, flattery, and more subtle pressures to attain his goal. When he returned to Titan, he brought with him the baby who was his identical twin-but half a century younger.

When Colin grew up, there was no way in which he could be distinguished from his clone father at the same age. Physically, he was an exact duplicate in every respect. But Malcolm was no Narcissus, interested in creating a mere carbon copy of himself; he wanted a partner as well as a successor. So Colin’s educational program concentrated on the weak points of Malcolm’s. Though he had a good grounding in science, he specialized in history, law, and economics. Whereas Malcolm was an engineer-administrator,

Colin was an administrator-engineer. While still in his twenties, he was acting as his father’s deputy wherever it was legally admissible, and sometimes where it was not. Together, the two Makenzies formed an unbeatable combination, and trying to draw subtle distinctions between their psychologies was a favorite Titanian pastime.

Perhaps because he had never been compelled to fight for any great objective, and had had all his goals formulated before his birth, Colin was more gentle and easygoing than Malcolm-and therefore more popular. No one outside the Makenzie family ever called the older man by his first name; few called Colin anything else. He had no real enemies, and there was only one person on Titan who disliked him. At least, it was assumed that

Malcolm’s estranged wife, Ellen, did so, for she refused to acknowledge his existence.

Perhaps she regarded Colin as a usurper, an unacceptable substitute for

the son who could never be born to her. If so, it was indeed strange that she was so fond of Duncan.

But Duncan had been cloned from Colin almost forty years later and by that time Ellen had passed through a second tragedy-one that had nothing to do with the Makenzies. To Duncan, she was always Grandma Ellen, but he was now old enough to realize that in his heart she combined two generations, and filled a void that earlier ages would have found it impossible to imagine or believe.

If Grandma had any real genetic relationship with him, all trace of it had been lost centuries ago on another world. And yet, by some strange quirk of chance and personality, she had become for him the phantom mother who had never even existed.

INVITATION TO A CENTENNIAL

“And who the bell is George Washington?” asked Malcolm Makenzie.

“Middle-aged Virginia farmer, runs a place called Mount Vernon-“

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. No relation, of course-old George was childless-but that’s his real name, and he’s perfectly genuine.”

“I suppose you’ve checked with the embassy.”

“Of course, and got a fifty-line print-out of his family tree. Most impressive-half the American aristocracy for the last hundred years. Lots of Cabots and Du Ponts; and Kennedys and Kissingers. And before that, a couple of African kings.”

“It may impress you, Colin,” interjected Duncan, “but now that I’ve glanced at the program, it all seems a little childish. Grown men