Old folks were real hard to get along with sometimes. Like they were all the time talking about money, getting out all these bills and spreading them over the dining-table just to look at them while they talked about money. What was he supposed to do all day? Sit around looking at their dumb wedding picture — it sure was Ma and Pa all right, but they must of changed a whole lot since then — or just listen to them talking about bills for electronic stuff and the adoption and Pa’s cough, and for all the special materials Ma needed for this ideal head, that wasn’t going to be no more use than the little legs Pa was making.
‘Go on, try ’em out, son.’
‘It feels pretty high, what if I fall over?’
He hated the little legs, all they were good for was stumping around in the snow until his battery went flat. But Pa was proud of them, and you had to humour old folks.
Roderick wore the new legs when Ma took him along to see Mr Swann.
‘My, haven’t we grown, heh heh, just take a seat there kid, read your comics while Mrs W. and I get down to business. Now Mrs W. you may recall I said this wouldn’t be easy, and it won’t be. Not much hope of finding a precedent, you see, not in the legal adoption of an artifactual, um, person.’
‘Sorry!’ Roderick’s feet made a loud clattering sound as he got down from his chair. ‘Sorry!’ He stumped over to the window.
‘In fact it er can’t really be considered a person at all, a person in law I mean, not as things stand. Better to just establish a trust, call it a pet and leave everything in the hands of trustees, funds delegated to the ah care and feeding and so on. But no, I see that doesn’t appeal to you, heh heh, we country attorneys get pretty good at reading faces, see the pet idea upsets you, right?’
The Christmas decorations were up all along Main Street. In fact they had been up since September and would remain until January 2, when the Easter stuff went up. People bustled back and forth across the street, loading their cars with presents and holly and squashed-down trees and cases of bottles. If Roderick put his head to the pane he could hear music.
‘So even if you don’t like the trust arrangement now, keep your options open, Mrs W., keep it in the back of your mind because my guess is in the long run it’ll be the cheapest, most direct way. Of course the first thing there would be to establish ownership, right? You need your bill of sale or your deed of gift, otherwise the real beneficiary of the trust might turn out to be anyone who could establish prior ownership, prior to your possession through say loan or rental, they would of course be entitled to all monies accruing to their rightful property including any or all interest devolving upon it, from any trust or estate.’
‘See you’re still not too stuck on the idea, so just let me point out to you a few of the substantial tax benefits, such as depreciation under the Class Life Asset Depreciation Range System, assuming Roddy here was put into service after January I, 1971 which of course it was, I can see by just looking that this is an expensive piece of machinery that — No, okay, right, I’ll stop trying to sell you on that idea.’
The cars were all caked with dried mud, the people all looked squashed down and, for all the bustle, no one was smiling.
‘Well the easiest way to make Roddy a person in law is to just incorporate it — him, I mean — under the laws of maybe the Virgin Islands, that way no need to go into his antecedents not in the Virgin — but no, I see you’re thinking of going all out and trying to prove it in court, that Roddy is albeit artifactual — a ward of court? Sure but first there’s this really tricky — this unprecedented — it’s like this: we can argue that its, his inventors began with a living body person in law and that it then underwent extensive replacements. Only one precedent there, case of a knife without a blade which had no handle if you know what I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Roderick. ‘A knife without a blade which had no handle?’
Mr Swann smiled at him but continued. ‘See, this Supreme Court case, St Filomena’s Hospital versus Mann. The Mann family contending that the hospital had replaced so much of their daughter’s body that she was no longer legally their daughter so they could refuse responsibility for the hospital bill. Plaintiff arguing though that the continuity of certain well-defined functions — anyway the case established the principle that with functional continuity, total cell replacement would be acceptable without jeopardizing legal identity, that is for insurance and tax purposes. So far of course we have no precedents regarding brain replacement, but if we argued that if it was replaced a bit at a time, say the right frontal lobe then the left then the right something else and so on, see the key is functional continence, continuance, continuity. So we say Roddy here is just some kid who’s undergone a whole-body prosthesis, more or less, and… but I ought to warn you, this could run into money.’
Ma stood up. ‘It already is, Mr Swann. Every time I come here you tell me some new complication, some new wrinkle — last time it was what if the court considered him an unauthorized data bank, publisher demanding payment every time he reads a library book, and would we be allowed to show him any copyright material without prior consent, was it?’
‘Hey, but mister what about that knife with—’
‘Very good, Mrs W., I did go into that but only in connection with the possibility of setting him up as a literary property like a comic book or a sheet of music, abandoned that avenue didn’t we on account of the fifty-year reversion to the public domain but don’t—’ He had to shout the last as she and Roderick left, ‘Don’t worry Mrs W., we’ll explore every possible ave—’
Roderick continued thinking about that knife.
He was still thinking about it a few days later when Pa took him along to Dr Welby’s office.
‘Good to see you, Pa, looking better eh? Good, good. Any more trouble from the old, eh? No? Good, good. Now let’s just listen to the, ah. Very good. Just wish all my patients your age had half as much, er. ahm. Eh?’
Pa said, ‘Well this cough is worse, and I can’t seem to sleep, doc. Them pills you prescribed seem to—’
‘Uh-oh? Side-effects! Still, not abnormal in these cases. Thanodorm often starts off like that, supposed to make you sleep only at first keeps you wide awake, eh? But it’s working, it’s just taking hold.’
‘Fine, only it ain’t Thanodorm, it’s Toxidol. That’s what it says on the bottle.’
‘You give it another week, then if you don’t sleep like a baby, okay fine, I’ll try Toxidol. Didn’t know you were familiar with that, Pa, hardly ever use it myself.’ Dr Welby beamed over his platinum-rimmed glasses. ‘Gets so a doctor has a heck of a time keeping up with his patients, eh?’
‘No but doc, I’m taking Toxidol right now. You were the one who—’
Welby stopped smiling and pushed a button on his desk. ‘Pa, just ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”’
A woman in white rushed in. Dr Welby said: ‘Jean, Mr Wood has just admitted to me that he’s taking medication not prescribed by me. Toxidont, make a note of it.’