Read Online Robot Blues by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin - Free Book Online Page B

altering was popular, scientists set out to breed a race of superior
people. Wise, intelligent, gifted with all manner of attributes, these people
were destined to be rulers and were known as the Blood Royal. The current king,
Dion Starfire, and now his newborn son, are the last of that bloodline. At that
time, the Adonians also began experimenting with genetics with hopes of
producing a superior being—one designed to meet their own standards. The
Adonians did not seek intelligence and wisdom. They sought aquiline noses, flat
ears, thin thighs, cleft chins, melting eyes, and firm buttocks. If you are
beautiful, reasoned the early Adonians, you don’t need to think. Thinking will
be done for you.
    The Adonians
succeeded. They created a species of human noted galaxy-wide for extraordinary
beauty. Males and females were so wonderfully attractive that the term “gorgeous
as an Adonian” passed into popular usage. But it seems that the Creator demands
a price for tampering with His creation. The more beautiful the Adonians became
on the outside, the less beautiful they grew within, until at this time in
their history, they were noted as being a society completely devoid of morals.
    The Adonians are
not immoral. Immorality implies that one has a sense of the difference between
right and wrong. The Adonians lack this. For example, Adonians have passed laws
stating that it is legal to “refuse to sustain” a child if it is born ugly. To
them, this is mercy killing. The Adonians care about nothing except beauty and
pleasure—in any and every form.
    Following this
line of thinking, one might assume that the home world of Adonia would be a
cesspool of iniquity, a den of vice. This is not true.
    The Adonians
believe that their planet must be beautiful, in order to suitably showcase the
beautiful populace. If planet and inhabitants are beautiful, people in the rest
of the galaxy will come visit and enjoy, admire and emulate, and—of paramount
importance—spend money. Since most methods of earning money (factories,
offices, and such) tend to either smell bad or look disgusting or cause
wrinkles, the Adonians banned these from their world, which left them with only
one major source of income. What they live for—pleasure.
    Adonia became a
hedonistic paradise. The Adonians have only one entry requirement: You must
either be at least passable in appearance or agree to wear—at all times—a mask
so that your looks will not offend any of the more sensitive in nature.
    As Darlene rode on
the Adonian shuttlecraft—one of the most luxurious she had ever encountered—she
found herself growing increasingly nervous. The thought of having to pass
through customs, of being deemed “unacceptable” in appearance, the possibility
of having to wear a mask, was unnerving. Bothered her far more, she was
startled to realize, than the thought of an assassin stalking her.
    “I’m being silly,”
she argued with herself. “What do I care what a bunch of vapid, ignorant,
egotistic, prejudiced people think of my looks?”
    Nevertheless, she
did care. Perhaps it was being in such close proximity to so many Adonians on
the shuttle, staring at them in awe, listening to them talk about shampoo and
cosmetics, the latest fashions, the most exotic perfumes. Darlene caught
herself pulling her hair to the back of her head in a vain effort to hide the
split ends, and wishing that she’d taken Raoul’s advice as to her makeup.
Several Adonians glanced at her and hastily averted their eyes.
    Raoul himself was
in a state of bliss not to be approximated by artificial stimulants. It had
been three years, he told Darlene, since he’d returned to his home world for
Hedonist Days and he had missed it dreadfully.
    “Mummy and Daddy
made so much of it,” he said during the shuttle trip. The tears of childhood
memories glistened in his eyes. “Baking the phallic cookies, setting up the
condom tree, mixing the hallucinogens for the punch. That was my