The Premier's adult daughter begins behaving with an utter absence of wherewithal and insight. An Admiral's dreamboat son engages in five years of profligate behavior after his sterling, top-of-his-class Academy graduation.
A doctor called in to examine both scions determines they're mutaclones. Her wife kidnapped and her clinic bombed, the doctor flees across the galaxy—into the stronghold of her antagonists.
Multigenre author with a strong track record.
The uterpod convulsed wildly, and somewhere, a muted alarm began to ping.
Even from a distance, Fred F4RB8C3 knew the mutaclone was in distress. Not another! he thought. That'll be the fifth this year! Maneuvering his extensile to the uterpod, Fred shoved the catch basket beneath it, and then examined the figure inside the transparent membrane.
Arms and legs akimbo, a fem mutaclone stared back at him, eyes wide with terror. At the sight of her, five thousand copulation positions tried to crowd into his mind at once, his escoriant simumems intruding, nanostimmed into him during his gestation. He pushed aside the memories.
Where'd she come from? Fred wondered, only factory drudges growing in this sector. Mutaclone drudges, like himself. He pulled up her gestation history on his corn. She'd been recently moved from the escoriant sector, where escort variants were grown to order, this perfect-looking specimen flagged as defective.
Doesn't look defective to me, he thought, in spite of her contortions. Even limbs akimbo, she looked perfectly proportioned, her anatomy visible in all its detail.
Fred considered a sedative. Her flailing jostled the mutaclones all around her. The tough uterpod membrane gave at every jab of her limb, the derma designed to contain but not restrict. He had to do something, the uterpod derma too tough, too resilient, and too elastic to escape from the inside.
Fred F4RB8C3 looked both ways. To the right and left, uterpods extended for hundreds of feet, two walls of glistening pods facing each other with just enough room between them for his extensile lift. Above and below, more pods, his sector nearly two hundred yards tall.
Glad no one was near, Fred pulled out his injectile. The needle looked deadly, its fat, menacing barrel ending in a sharp, shiny point.
Her eyes went wide, and she kicked at him violently.
