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but if we wished we could synthesize pigs, toads, horses, Centaurine proteoids, any form of life we chose. We pick our code, we arrange our RNA, and presto! The pattern of our find product emerges precisely as desired!”
    “Of course,” said the alpha, “we don’t follow the human genetic code in every respect.”
    Bompensiero nodded eagerly. “My friend here brings up a vital point. In the earliest days of android synthesis your father decided that, for obvious sociological reasons, androids must be instantly identifiable as synthetic creations. Thus we introduce certain mandatory genetic modifications. The red skin, the absence of body hair, the distinctive epidermal texture, are all designed mainly for identification purposes. Then there are the modifications programmed for greater bodily efficiency. If we can play the role of gods, why not do it to the best effect?”
    “Why not?” Manuel said.
    “Away with the appendix, then. Rearrange the bony structure of the back and pelvis to eliminate all the troubles that our faulty construction causes. Sharpen the senses. Program for optimum fat-versus-muscle balance, for physical esthetics, for endurance, for speed, for reflexes. Why make ugly androids? Why make sluggish ones? Why make clumsy ones?”
    “Would you say,” Manuel asked casually, “that androids are superior to ordinary human beings?”
    Bompensiero looked uneasy. He hesitated as if trying to weigh his response for all possible political impacts, not knowing where Manuel might stand on the vexed question of android civil rights. At length he said, “I think there’s no doubt about their physical superiority. We’ve programmed them from the moment of conception to be strong, handsome, healthy. To some extent we’ve been doing that with humans for the past couple of generations, too, but we don’t have the same degree of control, or at least we haven’t tried to obtain the same degree of control, on account of humanistic objections, the opposition of the Witherers, and so forth. However, when you consider that androids are sterile, that the intelligence of most of them is quite low, that even the alphas have demonstrated—pardon me, my friend—relatively little creative ability—”
    “Yes,” Manuel said. “Certainly.” He pointed toward the distant floor. “What’s going on right down there?”
    “Those are the replication vats,” said Bompensiero. “The chains of basic nucleic matter undergo division and extension there. Each vat contains what amounts to a soup of newly conceived zygotes at the takeoff stage, produced by our build-up procedures of protein synthesis instead of by the sexual process of the union of natural gametes. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Quite,” said Manuel, staring in fascination at the quiescent pink fluid in the great circular tanks. He imagined he could see tiny specks of living matter in them; an illusion, he knew.
    Their car rolled silently onward.
    “These are the nursery chambers,” Bompensiero said, when they had entered the next section and were looking down on rows of shining metal vaults linked, by an intricate webwork of pipes. “Essentially, they’re artificial wombs, each one enclosing a dozen embryos in a solution of nutrients. We produce alphas, betas, and gammas here in Duluth—a full android range. The qualitative differences between the three levels are built into them during the original process of synthesis, but we also supply different nutritional values. These are the alpha chambers, just below to our left. To the right are the betas. And the next room, coming up—entirely gammas.”
    “What’s your distribution curve?”
    “One alpha to 100 betas to 1000 gammas. Your father worked out the ratios in the beginning and they’ve never been altered. The distribution precisely fits human needs.”
    “My father is a man of great foresight,” said Manuel vaguely.
    He wondered what the world would have been like today if the Krug