Manuscript A -- Tsing-Doh Dig

So we decided we wanted to get a child fron Danielle, in hopes that her duplicated 02_05_09 gene would spread into the population and do interesting things. Her unusual mixed coloration, mostly buff but with orange-brown legs, also made her attractive as a breeder. So first we tried to put her and a male or two in the garden together, but nothing happened, and other females kept wandering in. So then we put her up in the treehouse, where hardly anyone ever goes by accident, with Grayson. There was a bit of kissing, quite a bit of slapping, and one or two pops, but no eggs. We put Ringo, a healthy and good-natured male, up there as well, but with no better result.

While we were doing this, our assistant noticed that baby Bill was asleep in the elevator down by the Death Cap, and she said that one of the mushroom caps was missing. We checked his health, and it was only 18%! He'd probably eaten that cap. We quickly injected him with some energy, and gave him Feverfew to eat (my favorite herb). Fortunately he'd been taught about the plants, and ate it right up. This got his health to around 25 or 30%, enough to move him. We took him to the garden and he ate some of the natural Feverfew, and recovered very nicely. He seems fine now.

But it was clearly a choice between getting Danielle to breed, and attention to the world in general. We chose the former. We got every male into the treehouse with her, and left the other females to fend for themselves (they were mature norns, and unlikely to get into trouble). We stocked the treehouse with food and hooch, and encouraged kissing and tried to discourage slapping and running. It didn't work. Grayson seemed irrational (forgetting his own name), and Danielle was proving to be an incorrigible slapper and runner. I felt guilty about using up the lives of the other females, so after a futile attempt to get Molly to take the underwater mover to the watchtower and maybe play with the cannon, I exported all the other females.

Shortly afterwards, I came back from looking around the world for a ball to find that all the norns were piled into the cable car, and the air was full of slaps and squeals and grunts! Naturally, Bobo had chosen this time for one of his periodic attempts to escape from the beehives via cable-car, and for once not only did I fail to notice in time, but he found a passle of norns to slap at the other end. I managed to lure Bobo out of the car into the treehouse (he's always responded very well to his name), and sent the cablecar off toward the bees. But loaded with five or six norns as it was, the little control stick was constantly pushed and pulled, and I began to fear that the random walk would never get to either end of the cable! Which would make it hard to get to any egg that might be laid. I lured Bobo down into the catacombs by the still, and eventually got the cablecar back to the treehouse.

The slapping and running continued, and I decided that perhaps the constant attention was wearing Danielle out. So I exported all the norns except Grayson and Danielle. This was the smallest population we'd had since Bab was hatched back in Hour One! But Grayson seemed very confused by the whole thing, and was more interested in the lift than in Danielle. So we brought them down to the Garden, and imported Andrew. But Grayson and Andrew both seemed to frighten Danielle as well, and there was more slapping than popping.

Figuring that the modern generation of males might just be brutes, we exported Grayson, and brought in Al, the First Patriarch, and father of four healthy children. But he's rather old now, and while he's not used up by any means, he seems to be too wise to bother with a slapping female, however exotic her coloration. So we sent him back to disk.

The next obvious candidate for stud was Al's grandson Freddy, also a father of four. We imported him, but he died on import! Lying down, eyes right, looking very peaceful. Normally this would have called for a decent period of mourning, but in my frenzy to breed Danielle's genes I pretended it had never happened, and imported Freddy's backup. Imagine my surprise when this new Freddy turned out to be an infant not even ten minutes old! I brought him up to the computer and made sure he knew his language, gave him some carrots, and moved the camera back to the garden to check on Danielle and Andrew. Still lots of "stop norn" and "run".

Well, this was getting frustrating. One last thing to try: perhaps if Danielle and Freddy were alone together for a long time, as this Freddy grew up, they would get to be friends, and more effective lovers. So Andrew was exported, and again we had a World Built for Two. (Bobo had vanished entirely by this time, and it's so hard to search a world containing only two norns that we haven't bothered looking for him. We had one close encounter at the Temple elevators, but he went up just as Danielle and Freddy were coming down, and then he wandered off grunting.)

Danielle and Freddy seemed to get on pretty well, kissing and laughing and pulling food, with life forces up in the seventies. I took them exploring, and they were the first norns to spend any time in the Music House, and the first to eat the natural tomatoes. I managed to get them munching in the tomato grove just as Freddy came more or less of age, and a few good kisspops resulted. But still no eggs! And lots of stop norn and run norn.

Freddy's fertility is not high. I don't really know what influences male fertility; my few attempts to study it via the Breeder's Kit haven't been very successful. Males whose offical fertility was low at the time have become fathers, and males whose graph was considerably higher have failed to.

Danielle's cycles, the one or two that I've had the patience to watch, don't seem very promising either. Estrogen goes up and down, but sex drive stays at zero. The few kisspops that happen during periods of falling estrogen haven't had any result. It's all very discouraging! But perhaps it's just a sign fron the Overhand that I was not meant to be a one-at-a-time norn breeder. Danielle's about seven hours old, and her time in Albia may be getting short.

Now I've exported Freddy (take two) and Danielle, and the world is empty (except for Bobo, who is no doubt wandering and grumbling somewhere, looking for pots of honey: Pooh as grendel). I think next I'll bring in two or three males and two or three females, let them wander and pair as they will, and restore the laid-back party-world Albia of old. Maybe bring in one more egg from the hatchery for some extra genetic diversity. I guess the question is: should Danielle be one of the imports? Or should I let her rest awhile?