[mentioned in passing] City, apparently under the
jurisdiction of China, where a Morale Corps sergeant gave birth by Caesarean
to a two-headed boy. The event was recorded for television broadcast.
ancestry
Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith was German-American, having changed his name from
Schmidt probably because of World War I prejudices.
Long Beach, California, minister who broadcast the show Equal Time for
God, and claimed that the world had ended on December 31, 1999.
Matthew Barnes
Bureaucrat who processed applications for migration to Luna. Joan
Eunice Smith took him to task for wasting her time.
Mrs. Baum (no first name)
[mentioned in passing] Woman who ran a notions shop in Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's childhood neighborhood. She had one son who was
killed in World War I, and another who made a name for himself in electronics.
Betsy
Eunice
Branca's pet name for her automated stenodesk.
[mentioned in passing] Owner of a pawnshop from whom
Jake Salomon got a certified check, at Johann Sebastian Bach Smith's insistence, with which to pay for a life insurance policy with Eunice Branca as the beneficiary.
Expensive women's clothing store in Gimbel's
Compound. [French, "shop"]
Lindsay Boyle
Australian surgeon who performed successful brain transplants on
chimpanzees. He was banned from practicing medicine in Australia because of
controversy over his research and results; he moved to South America, then
ultimately became a citizen of China. He transplanted Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's brain into Eunice
Branca's body.
Angela Branca
[mentioned in passing] Joe Branca's sister, unwed mother of
three children.
Annamaria Branca
[mentioned in passing] Joe Branca's sister, an unwed
mother.
Eunice Evans Branca
Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's personal secretary. A beauty contest winner at 18,
she rejected the chance of a video career for a degree in secretarial
electronics with a minor in computer language and cybernetics. Married and
childless (except for a child she bore but gave up for adoption at 16), she
was killed at age 28 and her body donated for Smith's brain transplant; they
shared a rare blood type. The transplant was a success, but Eunice's
personality remained in the body and she regularly communicated with Smith.
Blanca
Mispronunciation of Eunice Branca's surname in a sensational newscast
about Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's identity hearing.
Jose (Joe) Branca
Eunice
Branca's husband, a gifted artist although illiterate. After Eunice's
death he remarried; he and his wife briefly joined Joan
Eunice Smith on her ocean voyage.
Mrs. Branca (no first name)
Joe Branca's mother, an alcoholic dependent on welfare and on her son and
daughter-in-law's charity. She lived in another city, to the couple's relief.
[mentioned in passing] Club in Kansas
City circa 1934, remembered by Joan
Eunice Smith as featuring nude waitresses.
Chubby (no other name)
Man involved in a gangbang with Winifred
Gerston the night of her graduation from nursing school. She remembered
him because he left her coffee, food, and hangover remedy the next morning.
[mentioned in passing] Extreme left-wing political party in
the United States.
Mrs. Crampton
One of Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's granddaughters (either Marla or Elinor); she was
involved in the suit to have him declared dead so they could inherit his
wealth.
[mentioned in passing] Company that presumably operated on
Luna or between
Earth and Luna.
Dr. Lyndon Doyle
[mentioned in passing] Name under which a warrant was
issued for Lindsay
Boyle after he performed Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's brain transplant; Boyle was out of jurisdiction
before it was issued.
[mentioned in passing] Name of a Food Cave in the Lunar colonies.
Winifred (Winnie) Gerston
Joan
Eunice Smith's private-duty nurse after Joan Eunice's brain transplant.
Joan Eunice hired her as a "lady's maid" after she was fully recovered. Winnie
married Dr.
Roberto Garcia and accompanied Joan Eunice on her ocean voyage.
[mentioned in passing] When she was chosen Miss Universe,
she announced her intentions to be the first starship commander, inspiring a
sharp rejoinder from the space pilots' union.
Woman who lived with Eunice
and Joe Branca's neighbor Big Sam. She
modeled for Joe, and married him after Eunice's death, doing her best to
manage their finances. She and Joe accompanied Joan
Eunice Smith through part of her ocean voyage.
[mentioned in passing] When Joan
Eunice Smith used this name to connote "conventional morality", Eunice
Branca countered that she was Eunice's fourth-grade teacher, who had an
affair with the principal.
Marian H (full surname not given)
[mentioned in passing] Woman with whom Jake
Salomon had had an affair; he called her "Maid Marian".
Handy (no first name)
Senile Supreme Court Justice who overturned standards for lunar
immigration. The Lunar colonies
ignored him because he lacked jurisdiction.
Hank (no last name)
Son of Fred and Della; he accompanied Joan
Eunice Smith on her ocean voyage.
One of Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's granddaughters (either Marla or Elinor), involved
in the suit to declare him legally dead after the brain transplant.
Colonization organization. It was operated the Interstellar Advisory
Subcommittee that made the first attempt at interstellar flight, choosing Tau Ceti
over Alpha Centauri for the destination.
Machine Tools Division
[mentioned in passing] Division of Smith
Enterprises interested in acquiring control of Homecrafts, Ltd.
Miss MacIntosh (no first name)
Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's private-duty nurse. She threatened to quit when
Johann her authority and called her "Miss Bedpan". He immediately apologized
and raised her salary.
[mentioned in passing] Employees of the laboratory found
artifacts of an extinct human-equivalent intelligence. Chinese members of the
expedition denied they were artificially produced.
Judge who had Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith declared a ward of the court after his brain
transplant, with Jake
Salomon as his guardian, mostly to protect him from his granddaughters. He
later presided over the identity hearing. He was Johann's lodge brother. He
was called "Mac" by his friends.
Norma McCampbell
[mentioned in passing] Judge McCampbell's wife.
Mrs. McIntyre (no first name)
Alias used by Joan
Eunice Smith when she went to a medical clinic for her pregnancy test.
[mentioned in passing] It was occupied by the People's
Agrarian Emergency Government (what their political philosophy or agenda was
is not described, nor their purpose in occupying the state house).
[mentioned in passing] Site of perpetual peace
negotiations.
Parkinson (no first name)
Member of the board of directors of Smith
Enterprises, who moved that Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith be invited to retire; he got no support from the
other members. Wealthy through his mother-in-law (possibly one of Johann's
daughters), he was fired from the board when his voting stock dropped below 5%
of the total.
Chief counsel for Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith and for Smith
Enterprises. He had an affair with Eunice
Branca, and after her death he authorized Johann's brain transplant into
her bodied. He married "Joan
Eunice Smith" but died of a heart attack several months afterward. Both
Eunice and Joan Eunice called him Jock.
Sam (no last name)
Usually called "Big Sam", a neighbor of Joe and Eunice
Branca and a self-styled guru.
Incredibly wealthy but old to decrepitude and kept alive by machines, he
arranged to have his brain transplanted into a young body (secretly hoping he
would die in the attempt). The transplant into the body of his secretary Eunice
Branca, however, was successful; he retained his memory and personality
but Eunice was in the "background" of his mind. He took the name Joan Eunice
Smith, weathered an attempt by his granddaughters to have Johann Smith
declared dead, and had "herself" impregnated with "his" sperm. Joan Eunice
married Jacob Salomon, emigrated to Luna, and
died in childbirth, possibly of delayed rejection syndrome.
Roberta Smith
Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's daughter, alienated from him by his ex-wife, but
"reconciled" with him because of his money.
[mentioned in passing] Insurance underwriter whom Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith suggested to fill out an insurance policy on him with
Eunice
Branca as the beneficiary.
Alec Train
Attorney who prosecuted the suit that challenged Johann
Sebastian Bach Smith's identity after his brain transplant.
Although it included 54 states, it was rapidly descending into chaos. The
traditional political parties (Democratic, Republican) were fringe groups, and
most cities were armed camps.
The Heinlein
Society was founded by Virginia Heinlein on behalf of her husband, science
fiction author Robert Anson Heinlein, to "pay forward" the legacy of Robert A. Heinlein to future generations of "Heinlein's Children."