Swans and Klons by Nora Olsen Read Free Book Online

terrible singing voice. “You’re probably warping their development.”
    “These ones will be decanted in just a couple of months. That should be exciting. Come look at some of the others,” Salmon Jo said.
    Some of the fetuses were just froglike blobs. Salmon Jo said they were called embryos. A few of the tanks looked empty, but Salmon Jo insisted they contained something really small called blastocysts. Rubric was surprised to see a glossy black cat curled up under one of the tanks, sleeping.
    “They say being around pets is good for the fetuses,” Salmon Jo said. “I can’t see how, but there’s a lot of data supporting the claim. And the cats like to lie under the tanks because they’re so warm.”
    “I’m surprised they don’t need someone monitoring the tanks at night,” Rubric said. “What if something happened?”
    “Actually, someone comes in every three hours,” Salmon Jo said. She checked the watch hanging around her neck. “So maybe we should move along.”
    Rubric put her hand on the nearest tank, which held a jellyfish-like glob with a barely recognizable head and dots for eyes. “Good-bye, little thing,” she cooed. It was amazing to get to see the fetuses, to watch the miracle of life in action. She thought this should be part of academy students’ annual trip.
    They closed the door of the fetus room behind them. “One more stop,” Salmon Jo said. “The office. It’s pretty boring, but it’s where I spend most of my time.” They went through the last door in the hallway. As Salmon Jo had warned, it was just a large room with hexagonal areas enclosed by bamboo screens to give people private space. Every desk and table was cluttered with terminals, handheld screens, and other equipment. The walls were covered with graphics. A lot of the chairs seemed to be held together with electrical tape. In short, the office was a mess.
    “So what is it that people do here?”
    “Planning. They crunch a lot of numbers to see how many Klons and humans they need to hatch to keep the city’s population steady, and what Jeepie Types. And how many blastocysts they should create to get that number, since a lot of Klon fetuses lose viability in the tanks. And a lot of the Klons are hatched defective and have to be put down.”
    For the first time, Rubric became interested in Salmon Jo’s boring numbers problem. “Really? It’s just the Klons that are hatched defective?”
    “Yeah. No one told me, I figured that out myself from running the numbers. Literally all the humans are perfect. And all the defective ones that are put down and composted are Klons. Only around forty percent of Klons are healthy, nondefective Hatchlings that are brought to the nursery. It seems like someone should be working on that problem. There must be some kind of design flaw.”
    “Hmm, when do the fetuses become Klons?” Rubric mused. “Is it when they stick the nucleus into the ovum or whatever you said? The thing they do in the lab?”
    “No. They use the same genetic material for both Klons and humans. They told me that much.”
    “Maybe they know which ones are going to be Klons, but they’re keeping it a secret.” Rubric felt like there was something obvious that was eluding her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
    “What would be the point of that?” Salmon Jo said.
    “Oh!” Suddenly it was all illuminated for Rubric. “It’s very simple, you see! They’re just not designated Klon or human until after they fail or succeed. That would explain everything. Perfect Hatchlings, automatically human. Everything that goes wrong, automatically Klon. Any perfect Hatchlings that they don’t need for humans, they can become Klons too.”
    Salmon Jo just laughed. “That’s thicko, Rubric. By the time they’re hatched, the alteration, whatever it may be, has been done. They have to be decanted either as humans or Klons.”
    Rubric didn’t like being laughed at. She stubbornly stuck by her idea. “Maybe