“Right,” I said. “Figuring that the human race can spare them most easily.” He nodded.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Yussuf Lamehd laughed as he got up and shook my hand, too. “Welcome to our city.”
“Thanks,” I said. “ Son.”
He seemed puzzled at the emphasis.
“That’s the rest of it,” I explained. “Never got married and was too busy getting drunk and tearing up the pavement on my leaves to visit a sperm bank.”
“Oho,” Weinstein said, and gestured at the walls with a thick thumb. “So this is it.”
“That’s right: this is it. The Family. The only one I’ll ever have. I’ve got almost enough of these—” I tapped my medals “—to rate replacement. As a sling-shot commander, I’m sure of it.”
“All you don’t know yet,” Lamehd pointed out, “is how high a percentage of replacement will be apportioned to your memory. That depends on how many more of these chest decorations you collect before you become an—ah, should I say raw material?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling crazily light and easy and relaxed. I’d got it all out and I didn’t feel whipped any more by a billion years of reproduction and evolution. And I’d been going to do a morale job on them! “ Say raw material, Lamehd.”
“Well, boys,” he went on, “it seems to me we want the commander to get a lot more fruit salad. He’s a nice guy and there should be more of him in the club.”