I was silent. Neil looked at me and took my hand. I squeezed it and let it go. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said slowly.
Her eyes gleamed brightly across the table. ‘There was a phrase about the time I did my first degree,’ she said. ‘It was “the bottom line”. A useful phrase, do you know it?’
I nodded.
‘The bottom line is, do you feel your modification is worthwhile? Were they right to Proclaim you inhuman? Or are you more than human and you’d like your line to continue?’
‘Give her the tissue,’ said Neil quietly. I stared at him.
‘There is nothing about you to be ashamed of. On the contrary.’
‘What will you do with it?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said frankly. ‘I haven’t had a chance to think. I didn’t expect you at my door.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Would you like a guarantee I won’t combine it with any other major modification? And I won’t create a viable clone of you either, at least not without your permission. I have a feeling I might like to use your modification for my next great-great-grandson, that’s all. That and a few other little tinkerings—nothing outrageous, not for my boys.’
‘You only have boys?’
‘Much more useful. They were my insurance policy in the pandemics—one male can impregnate ten thousand women, as I’m sure you are aware. I wanted to be sure that whatever happens to the world my own genes would live on. But I’m so used to having my boys around me now I’d hate to change.’
I bit my lip. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘You can have my tissue.’
She clapped her hands. ‘Lovely! Just lovely! Now finish up your coffee and we’ll take a little trip into the lab.’
‘And the information?’ asked Neil.
She smiled at us again. ‘Tomorrow after breakfast. Croissants and smoked turkey, how does that sound? The fashion for croissants has quite died out in the City, I’m told. So sad, after so long. You’d think humans would find the best that food has to offer and stick to it instead of chasing fads. And croissants really are one of the great, simple dishes of the world, so good it would be a crime even to try to tinker. Now if you’re quite sure you’ve finished, shall we go into the lab?’
Chapter 31
Dinner was noisy, occasionally hilarious and extremely good.
The long table in the dining room was set for fifteen: Neil and me, the doctor and the twelve ‘boys’, who ranged in age from fourteen to their early twenties. It seemed that although the other offspring of varied generations lived in separate houses nearby, it was evidently the family habit for young unattached men to live with their progenitor until they married.
They were boisterous and good-humoured, clearly fond of their work and even fonder of the woman they referred to as ‘Grandma’. They were even more obviously used to occasional clients appearing. Their lack of questions was as marked as their failure to mention anything to do with doctors or engineering.
Instead they talked of turkeys and someone’s wedding, comparing the personal habits of turkey cocks to the prospective groom, and Neil watched and ate and occasionally laughed with them. And I laughed and watched them and Neil, and absentmindedly fingered the SkinTite on my arm and wondered what the fate of that small amount of flesh I’d given up might be.
Was she planning to simply isolate my modification? Or did she plan to use more of my genes—which were good ones. The City doesn’t waste potentially important modifications on bad stock.
I’d probably never know. In one year, ten years, a hundred years, a child might toddle around the turkey pens, and be a closer genetic relation to me than any natural child I might have, and I would never know that child or even that he or she existed.
Unless, of course, I came back to see.
The thought was curiously disturbing. I thrust it to the back of my mind to consider another time and tried to think of more important things.
The youngest of the boys got up and took my plate. I’d noticed that the actually serving of the meal—as well as the final preparations—had been done by the boys, not Dr Meredith, and they certainly did all the clearing up. It seemed she did exactly as much as she wanted to and then sat back and observed with every sign of enjoyment.
The group split up after dinner. Two of the boys went visiting. I gathered Greene Trees kept at least one floater and several dikdiks. Another excused himself to study. The rest of us traipsed into a large and slightly shabby living room and sat in surprisingly comfortable chairs to watch a vid.
It was the first time I had watched a vid since I’d left the City. The shimmer screen shivered and expanded and the giant figures pranced through the room—it was a soap, the plot and characters still vaguely familiar to me, though I’d never particularly followed it.
I glanced around me. Most of the boys seemed to have locked into Virtual mode. Their bodies twitched and their eyes had the fixed, too concentrated stare of those whose reality had shifted sideways. Dr Meredith sat with her red-slippered feet up on a footstool, concentrating on the vid as much as her knitting—a long shapeless garment made with no skill that I could discern—and Neil, to my embarrassment, was watching me.
I turned back to the soap and tried to follow it. But it was too boring to be engaging, especially when limited to only sight and sound, without the tactile complexities that made up most of its charm.
The soap was followed by a comedy, too City topical to be really enjoyable. I was surprised how many allusions I no longer understood. Instead I watched the boys and wondered how many Proclaimed modifications their Grandma had engineered into their genes. And what others she’d added that the City still knew nothing of.
They didn’t look different. But then neither did I.
Dr Meredith dropped a stitch, swore good-humouredly and stood up. ‘An old lady needs her rest,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you to your room.’
We followed obediently. It suddenly occurred to me that she had assumed we were a couple. ‘Your room,’ she had said, not ‘rooms’, and if I didn’t say anything now…
I didn’t. Nor did Neil. Dr Meredith led us down the corridor towards her lab, then down a branching corridor and opened the last door. ‘There you are. Quite private,’ she said. ‘The bathroom is next door. I think there should be everything you need.’ She grinned at me. ‘It’s set up for unexpected patients. You’ll hear the gong half an hour before breakfast. Sleep well.’ Her red slippers flapped back down the corridor.
I followed Neil into the room. It was small and seemed even smaller now, inhabited by Neil’s bulk, carpeted, with rose-patterned wallpaper and chintz-covered chairs, an ornately plastered ceiling and a bed that would be large for one and small for two.
I looked at the bed then looked away. Neil was investigating the cupboards.
‘A nice selection of dressing gowns,’ he said. ‘Also disposable undies, which is a relief. Next time we decide to track down a vampire murderer, I’ll remember to bring a change of clothes.’
‘We could have come back tomorrow,’ I said.
‘We’d have had to ask her for a note excusing us,’ said Neil lightly. ‘Do you want the bathroom first or will I?’
‘Do you mind if I go first?’
‘Be my guest.’
I selected one of the dressing gowns out of the wardrobe and brushed past him into the bathroom. It too was small, white tiled and functional. Easy to keep reasonably sterile when patients were in residence, I supposed.
I found a new bar of soap on the basin—roughly chopped and certainly not City produced—and also, arranged on a shelf in small pottery jars, shampoo and what I took to be either bubble bath or liquid soap. Probably the latter, as there was a shower but no bath. There were also toothbrushes, teethflic and an unopened jet of vagisheath, convenient for either menstrual or contraceptive purposes. I left it unopened and showered quickly, and washed out my bra and pants. If they were still damp in the morning I would use the disposables, but only then—the preservative in the blast
ed things made me itch. I tied the dressing gown firmly around my waist, brushed my teeth and went out to join Neil.
He was lying on the bed, still clothed but with his boots off, leafing through an old book of animal holoclips. He looked at me over the top of it. ‘Finished?’ he asked.
I nodded.
He hauled himself off the bed and went into the bathroom without bothering to select a dressing gown. I hesitated, then hung the dressing gown on a hook by the bed, got into the bed and turned off the light.
The sheets were cool against my skin. Either Neil hadn’t noticed the on/off thermascreen or he preferred to get into an unheated bed and, as it was Link-controlled not manual, I had no choice in the matter.
There was the sound of water in the bathroom. The shower switched off. Water gurgled in the sink, stopped. The door opened and the bathroom light flicked off, then suddenly the other side of the bed sagged under Neil’s weight.
Neither of us said anything. I wondered if I could imitate a snore—a discreet feminine snore—then decided I didn’t want to.
More silence.
‘Danielle?’ said Neil softly.
‘No big deal,’ I said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s what you said last night. About sharing a bed. “No big deal.”’
‘I lied,’ said Neil.
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘You could have asked for a separate room,’ said Neil. ‘They probably have lots in a place this big.’
I said nothing.
‘Danny?’
‘Don’t call me that!’ I said.
A silence. Then, ‘I’m sorry,’ Neil said stiffly.
‘Oh God, Neil, don’t be. I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s just that…’ I stopped.
‘Go on,’ said Neil softly.
‘I’m scared, that’s all. Not of you. Of what I’d feel, what I mightn’t feel. I’ve never made love with anyone who wasn’t Forest before.’
‘And you think it might be too—simplified—to be worthwhile.’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I feel like an ancient Roman who’s so used to orgies she can’t do anything normal any more.’ I tried to smile.
‘Was that what it was like?’ asked Neil slowly. ‘Orgies?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, half shocked, half amused. ‘We never went in for group sex…not that sort of group sex. It’s hard to explain. I suppose what I’m trying to say is…’
‘That you don’t want to,’ said Neil.
‘No,’ I said miserably. ‘I do want to. But I’m scared.’
I turned to look at him. His nakedness seemed almost transparent in the half-light from the window.
Neil sighed heavily. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose I shall just have to sacrifice myself for the sake of science and your continuing education.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Make love to you so you can compare the experience of Forest and Tree.’
I felt a giggle rising like a bubble. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out,’ I said.
‘On the contrary,’ said Neil solemnly.
Ten minutes later—give or take an hour—he asked, ‘Are you bored yet?’
This time I did giggle. ‘No,’ I said.
‘Perhaps we should ask Dr Meredith for one of her notebooks so you can record when you are.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ I said.
Chapter 32
Imust have slept deeply afterwards. This was hardly surprising. It had been several nights since I had had much sleep. The bed was empty beside me when I woke up.
I lay back against the pillows and wondered if I was more relieved or disappointed. Disappointed, certainly—I’d hoped we would make love again. My body had woken half aroused, expecting it. But also relieved because…because…
I tried to work out exactly where relief fitted in.
Sex had been good. Of course it had been good. I’d been celibate for months, and Neil was undeniably attractive, with a smooth-muscled body of a man, especially that lovely bare stretch between shoulder and hairline and his lower back where the hair…
I closed my mind off firmly.
But it was only lust…just lust. We had nothing else in common. No interests, no shared way of life—and they were important, weren’t they? My whole life had been shared with people who were so like me. Even the deaths of my parents had seemed almost unremarkable. They weren’t like me, like Mel and Michael and Tom.
Which must have been why Neil had left. He knew we had nothing in common. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe…
I gave it up, and showered and dressed. My underwear was dry. My uniskirt, though worn for two days, was still not too grubby. I gave it a brief wipe down inside and out with a damp towel and went out and found my way back to the kitchen.
‘It all depends on your catchment area and in the relative root depth of the trees,’ Neil was saying to one of the boys. ‘In the last drought we found that…’
Nothing in common, I thought, preparing a smile. I opened the door.
Neil stood up and grinned. For a moment I thought he might have been going to come over and embrace me. I stiffened, he hesitated and sat down again. Dr Meredith looked up from her well-laden plate, her charcoal eyes bright with amusement. ‘Good morning,’ she said.
‘Good morning,’ I mumbled. My mouth suddenly felt like it was full of cotton wool.
She looked at me critically. ‘Coffee,’ she decided. ‘And porridge. Lines your stomach so you can cope with the coffee. I offered you croissants and smoked turkey too, didn’t I?’
Evidently she believed that breakfast wasn’t a meal for experimentation, and couldn’t be bothered cooking it either…one of the boys tended the stove, passing me over a bowl of oatmeal and gesturing to the coffee hotflask and dish of croissants on the table.
I poured myself a cup, rejected the offer of syrup, and scattered sugar on my porridge. I had only tasted it once before, in a Scottish Highlands Virtual I’d taken with Mel. That porridge hadn’t felt quite as gluey on the tongue. I added milk and took another mouthful before meeting Neil’s eyes.
‘You’ve finished breakfast?’ I asked.
He grinned, but his eyes were watchful. ‘Hours ago.’
‘Half an hour at least,’ said the doctor dryly.
‘I’ve been down to the turkeys,’ said Neil. ‘Always thought they were stupid birds before.’
‘And these aren’t?’
‘Of course not,’ said Dr Meredith composedly. ‘This lot is greatly improved. But discreetly. I don’t suppose it has ever occurred to the City that they might be eating modified stock.’
‘Don’t they do a DNA check?’ I asked. I knew quite well they did do a DNA check—quite a rigorous one on anything imported into the City.
‘Genetic modifications don’t always leap up and shout “Here I am,”’ said Doctor Meredith sardonically. ‘There’s nothing but turkey genes in those birds. Just a little helped along.’
The boy at the stove grinned. It was obviously a phrase he’d heard before. I looked at him curiously, wondering how much he had been ‘helped along’ too. He seemed normal, healthy, happy. For a bitter moment I felt myself longing for my old skills and a half hour with the doctor’s records conveniently digitised…
Dr Meredith had been observing us with interest as she layered cream cheese, smoked turkey and cranberry jelly on her croissant. Now she stood up. The red slippers had been put away this morning. Today’s were green, with feathers round the ankles.
‘Finished?’ she asked.
I pushed the bowl away from me. ‘Finished.’
‘Question time then.’
‘Question time,’ I agreed.
She led the way, not to the surgery I’d seen last night (I suppose the need for sterility makes all surgeries much the same) but to a long room at the back of the house, filled floor to high ceiling with books.
‘My records,’ she said, pulling up an ancient, cushioned chair. ‘Sit yourse
lves down and get comfortable.’
There was a choice of a two-seater sofa or chairs. Neil sat on one end of the sofa. I tried not to meet his eye and sat on a chair.
I looked at the floor-to-ceiling paper and then at Dr Meredith. ‘The retrieval problems, the fire risk…’
She grinned. ‘This place has accumulated more security devices and fire preventions over the years than you’d think possible,’ she said. ‘As for data retrieval.’ She shrugged. ‘The data that’s useful stays in my head. If I have to look it up, I’m probably not going to be able to do much with it anyway.’
She smiled at my lack of comprehension. ‘I don’t have repeat patients like a MediTech. I don’t have to look up the records to check if it’s Mrs Patrick with haemorrhoids or Miss Wilson with angina. I’m a creator, whether it’s with biscuits or strands of DNA. Now for your questions. You want to know whether I have ever created a vampire. Well, yes, of course I have and all from human genetic material, no outside genes at all.’
Neil gave a muffled exclamation. I stared at her. She laughed delightedly. ‘People today are so wonderfully shockable! All this stuff about Truehumans, and Proclamations and there you sit Proclaimed yourself and you still believe it.’
‘You mean,’ said Neil, ‘that you have actually deliberately created a vampire?’
‘And a mermaid. Four of them if my memory serves, plus a werechild, several fairies and a whole herd of unicorns, though those, of course, weren’t human stock.’
‘But…but how could you?’ I asked.
‘Well, to answer “how”, my girl, I’d have to give you several years of lessons. But that isn’t really what you’re asking, is it?’
‘No,’ said Neil watching her steadily.
‘Then, no, I am not an inhuman monster—and I use the word “human” with far more thought and perspective over many more years than you.
‘I created those designs primarily because I was asked to, it’s true, and because I enjoyed the challenge of creation. Also true. But I wouldn’t create them now.’
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