Visions of Liberty by Martin H. Greenberg, Mark Tier Page B

determined everyone's place in society according to maturity levels. Our duties and obligations and guilts are calibrated before we even pop out of the womb!"
    "I forgot the length of your essay" admitted the lady Lamarr.
    "I need another drink," said Palmer.
    Instead of a servo-mech, a ten-year-old chose that moment to wander over. He had no drinks to offer but provided an excellent prop for the prof.
    Placing his hand on the blue sphere surrounding the kid, Astaroth lectured some more: "I curse the day that social scientists and religious leaders were ever allowed to fraternize. That's carrying free speech too far. In an orgy of bipartisanship, they threw out all their good ideas and joined ranks on the bad ones. There was no need to actually burn the old Bill of Rights if it only applied to adults—and the rules for adulthood were constantly changed. Some of us can't vote until we're eighty. Some of us can't marry until we're fifty. The drinking age for everyone is forty. Heaven help those who are finally judged mature at all levels, and so condemned to eternal slavery for an ever-growing population of the immature."
    Professor Astaroth finally ran out of steam. They all looked at the smiling face of the ten-year-old boy in his protective bubble. He'd been watching the professor's mouth move. Astaroth did have a most expressive face. Palmer gave the ball a friendly push and sent the kid on his way, back to his parents or state warders. One was as likely as the other.
    "Well," said Palmer, "life's an itch. What's anyone to do?"
    "Order more drinks," said Astaroth, his most successful speech of the evening. "If I can't have an ideal society, I'll settle for more vodka."
    Just then a figure appeared at the service entrance, but it was too tall to be a servo-mech. The figure moved fast. Palmer instinctively reached for a gun that he'd left behind, a condition of attending the embassy ball. But the figure didn't attack. It stopped running and stood next to the threesome, a huge grin on its face—and an even huger cigar sticking at them between very white teeth.
    Hardly anyone smoked cigars anymore.
    The man wasn't easy to recognize. He was wearing a strange costume with baggy pants. A black mustache was painted on his upper lip. His eyebrows looked as if two Martian caterpillars (genetically bred to enrich the soil) had crawled on his forehead to die.
    Palmer recognized the man first. After all, he'd spent time with him. A blessedly short amount of time. This exasperating excuse for a human being had kept trying to convince Palmer that he was his own identical twin; and then he'd pretended to be the brother! And so on. And on.
    "Konski." Palmer said it like a curse.
    "Professor Astrolobe, you old fraud," said the guest of honor amiably. "Are you still looking for Freedonia?"
    "What are you doing in that costume?" asked Bretygne who had seen the ambassador on the uniweb many times. Researching his predilections and outré writings had hardly prepared her for this.
    "Never mind that," said Konski. "Pick a card."
    "You don't have any cards," Astaroth observed in a tired voice.
    "It's because of the Nano Collapse. So hard to have physical stuff any longer."
    The lady present was genuinely offended. "You don't have to use the 'n' word!"
    "We must never forget the hard lessons," said Konski. "I'm sure old Professor Astringent will agree that there were unexpected benefits to the Nano War. Or collapse. Or crap-out. Or crash. Or dissolution. Or . . . I forget the rest. Well, no matter. It was impressive, we'll all agree. Lots more special effects than any other war. Why, if Earth military forces hadn't used those molecular decompilers we'd all be so rich now we wouldn't have anything to do."
    He took off his hat—no one else was wearing a hat—and held it over his heart. "Let's shed a tear for the end of the nano-trick era. We wanted the treats instead."
    The solemn moment over, he threw the hat over his head and watched a