(urth) Someday they'll want us.

[James Wynn]

>>> My understanding is that Mr. Million and his successors are exceedingly
>>> narcisisstic, which is why they continue to clone themselves. Their
>>> thinking is that the goal of planetary or even inter-planetary rule could,
>>> of course, be accomplished by such a superior person if only they had more
>>> than one lifetime to pursue the goal. Frustration is expressed over the
>>> fact
>>> that after several lifetimes they have not progressed beyond being an
>>> aristocratic pimp on St. Croix. So the "us" is the sucession of clones and
>>> the
>>> "they" are the fellow humans who refuse to acknowledge and submit to his
>>> superiority
>> I think the only manipulator who actually counts is Mr. Million. All the
>> other clones are his test subjects. Note that Auntie Jeanine died rather
>> precipitously after she began acting as though she owned the house.
> Did she? I haven't read it recently, but she's described as digging up
> the house for a while and searching for Maitre's hidden fortune, and
> only when she finally dies does Mr. Million try (and fail) to run the
> brothel. She had enough time to damage it quite a bit, which isn't
> very consistent with Mr. Million offing her quickly, and given his own
> predictable failure, he wouldn't want to off her.

When I say "acting as though she owned the house" I mean when she 
relinquished her duties running the family business to search for the 
fabled hoard. We know this only occurred, coincidentally, "in her last 
days". And Jeanine lived less than three years after Matre's murder 
although she was apparently healthy enough prior to that.  And she could 
not have been more than in her early 40s at the most. Number Five does 
not tell us, I believe, if he knows, how long "her last days" were. Nor 
does he say how much damage she did. It was probably trivial since there 
is no discussion of extensive renovation. N5 only says the house was "in 
a confused state".  After she ceased to be a benefit from stand-point of 
the experiment she passed away. As I said, very convenient. But, 
probably, one of the principle reasons she was kept around was as a 
legal backstop in the case a clone did something that made him incapable 
of direct inheritance (this situation had arisen before with Maitre). So 
she would not have lasted long anyway once N5's release became imminent.

It would have not been a trivial act to eliminate her with Number Five 
in prison for the foreseeable future. It had to have been a drastic act. 
As a robot, it would not be a physically simple thing in any case. But 
more importantly, he could not himself continue to run by himself. After 
her death, he had to lay off all the household and shut down any attempt 
at business because, as a robot, he couldn't enforce his will.

U+16B9