by John Brunner
“Bernie, you lied to us,” he said.
The hacker shrugged. “You try doing anything else when this lot are around,” he sighed, and sank half his brandy at a single gulp. And then, as though relenting, as though inclined to apologize, he added, “My fault, I suppose. I thought if I could track them down before you and Claudia did I could get the fee from the Comet. I’m broke, aren’t I? Same as virtually everybody in this poor sick country! And I have kids of my own!”
Peter jolted upright, but before he could speak Claudia had whispered, “We didn’t know.”
“Why should you?”—with contempt. “My bitch of a wife took them away from me. All I do nowadays is pay for them…”
He finished the brandy and held out his glass for more. Silently, one of the boys brought the decanter. Peter wondered which of them it was and what crimes he had been guilty of. The more he looked at these children, the more they seemed to resemble one another. He hadn’t noticed until now, but they were all wearing the same kind of clothes, girls as well as boys being clad in jeans and sweaters. It was as though the fashion-clock had stopped somewhere in his own teens. He had worn precisely similar garb…
This is distracting me!
Foggily, perhaps more than ever because of the brandy, Peter strove to make sense of what was happening. He forced out, “There’s something in the air! Is it a drug?”
Claudia glanced up at that, and a trace of color returned to her cheeks. Perhaps that was something she too had thought of, and been unable to express in words.
But Harry said with prudish sternness, “Peter! Do you really think Alice and I would let these kids use drugs while they’re in our charge?”
Our—charge…?
Once again Peter felt a sense of total bafflement. But David touched his knee with a gentle hand.
“Don’t bother trying to work it out. We’ve brought you here for explanations, and as soon as you’re ready—”
“Ready?” Peter exploded. “Bocky starving for them!”
“Very well.” David sat back composedly on his cushion, folding his hands in his lap. “You’re right: there is something in the air. But not a drug. Bernie?”
At first the hacker was reluctant to respond, but a stern unison glare from the children seemed to compel him. Noticing, Claudia feebly tried to push her chair closer to Peter’s, but though it was on casters, the carpet was deep-piled and she couldn’t manage it. At a signal from David, however, Harry was prompt to assist her, and she and Peter were able to link fingers across the abutting chair-arms.
Meantime Bernie had found words.
“I suspected this from the start,” he muttered. “In fact I’m surprised Claudia didn’t spot it before I did.”
Nettled, she retorted, “You saw my analysis!”
“Yes, but you were asking the wrong questions… Oh, the hell with it. I don’t want to talk about it. Leave it to David.”
And he subsided into private misery.
Summoning all his concentration, Peter rose to his feet. He said, “Now you look here! Apparently you brought—you lured—us here because you want me to tell the world that what you’ve done to General Thrower is right and justified! If that’s the case, I tell you right this moment, you are barking up the wrong bocky tree!”
“That’s only secondary,” David said with a trace of weariness. “More importantly: we wanted to meet our father.”
“But there are too many of you!” Peter blurted.
For a second he imagined he had scored a masterly point. David, however, was patiently shaking his head.
“Clever of you to think of that, but you’re wrong. In fact, we aren’t too many. We are actually one too few. Now tell us: what was the name of the woman you made pregnant while keeping company with Ellen’s mother?”
“I never knew her name!”
“You said she was called Sindy, didn’t you?”
“Y-yes.” Uncertainly he licked his lips.
“In full, her name was Cynthia Hallam,” said one of the interchangeable girls. “I’m Pepita Hallam, her daughter. And yours.”
For a terrifying instant Peter had imagined her to be Ellen. The rest of what he had intended to say died in his throat.
Another of the girls, who had been standing against the wall, stepped into the middle of the floor. She said, “You were right, Dave. It does work the way you said… By the way: hello, Dad! I’m Crystal—Crystal Knight.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You keep saying that! Save your bocky breath, will you? David claimed that our talent can stop people asking the wrong kind of questions before they agree to do as we want. Most of us were pretty doubtful, even though we’d seen what we can do to Harry and Alice, not to mention the people who come in to clean up and help around the house. But he called you Dad already, and you didn’t seem to catch on, so I guess he’s proved his point. Either that, or you must be so shell-backed the computer people would like to know your secret… Ah! It looks as though Dr. Morris has finally logged on!”
Snap. It was the sound of Claudia’s brandy glass breaking between her fingers. Blood ran down. There was an interval of mopping up and finding sticking-plaster. During that whole time Peter stood as fixedly as a statue. It didn’t seem to him as though he had been petrified; it didn’t seem as though he had been ordered to stand still. It was just that so many hints and clues and odds-and-ends of data had clashed together, so belatedly, that he had no energy to spare to move a finger. He barely retained the ability to breathe.
And kept thinking, over and over: What am I actually breathing?
Claudia’s cut fingers being dressed, as though he had read Peter’s mind David threw over his shoulder, “Not drugs—I speak with authority on that subject, I may say—but pheromones. That’s what I hoped Bernie would have the guts to tell you. But as usual he’s chickened out. So you’re going to have to take it straight from me. Alice—Harry—I’m sorry. It’s not going to be much fun for you, either. But it sure as hell isn’t going to be as bad as it has been for most of us kids. I’m the lucky one, and I thank you for it. The others…” He shrugged, and resumed his cushion. “Well, we aren’t going to ask you to pass judgment. We already did, especially on General Sir Hateful Thrower. Your function now—your only remaining function—is to shut up and do as you’re told.”
Where’s Ellen?
The question sprang unbidden to Peter’s mind as he sank slowly back into his chair. He needed his daughter’s love and affection at this moment, to help him combat the terrible accusation he did not dare confront alone: the charge that these were his children, not those of Louis Parker…
But the midday light in here was so dim he could not distinguish Ellen from the other children. She too, he remembered, had donned sweater and jeans this morning, plus an anorak that now lay discarded in the hall…
I can’t recognize my own daughter any more!
The taste of defeat was sour in his mouth. He tried to wash it away with another sip of brandy, but that didn’t work. In the end, he husked, “Damn you! Go on!”
“Precisely as I predicted,” said David Shay. “Your response on meeting your family for the first time is to say—damn you!”
And suddenly the air was full of menace. Gone was the sense of diffuse calm, of relaxation, of protection against the sight of Thrower burned halfway to death. Now there were eyes in the twilight like the eyes of wolves, watching and waiting for the moment to pounce…
Peter wanted to scream, but even that surcease was denied him.
“It’s time,” David said, and his voice seemed to have grown deeper and more resonant, like the tolling of a funeral bell, “for you to meet your children, and be told what they have suffered because you wanted a few more pounds to spend.”
It wasn’t like that! But Peter couldn’t frame the words. The room had turned into a court of justice, and there seemed to be no jury, only judges. Even Harry, even Alice… Even Ellen! Which of them was she?
/> “I’ll start with myself,” David said. “My ostensible father Harry had himself vasectomized because he wasn’t interested in his first family and indeed was glad to say good-bye to them when he acquired a younger and more beautiful new wife. Only he still retained the macho image of a Man’s Man as one who had to have offspring around, and in this view Alice heartily concurred. She wanted to be a Mother, capital M, as well as the partner of a successful businessman who could provide her with the sort of lifestyle to which she had always hoped to grow accustomed. Since Harry wasn’t willing to risk an attempt to reverse his operation, the answer was the Chinn-Wilkinson clinic.
“Where you, Peter Levin, were the provider. Invoking Louis Parker was a clever attempt to evade the responsibility, but—well, the story goes that they had to supply him with ramrod porn before he could make his donations. As for Dr. Wilkinson, one assumes she was afraid of her femininity and obliged to sublimate it via the fertility clinic…”
He snapped his fingers. “Oh, yes! A point I’ve been meaning to mention. According to Ellen you tell people that Levin means ‘love-friend’! But did you know it also means thunderbolt? That makes us the children of the thunder, doesn’t it? The Boanerges of our day! And the storm is due to break…”
In the gloom his eyes seemed to glow, as though they were looking far beyond the here-and-now. Peter strove to speak and could not. Nor, as he saw when he glanced at her in desperation, could Claudia; she was in as piteous a plight as he.
And David was holding forth anew.
“Now let me introduce you to the rest of these children whom you just damned—and explain why we were already damned without exception, including me. Did I want to be a necessary status symbol rather than a proper son? I think I know what that means. Harry doesn’t.”
From the corner of his eye Peter saw Harry cringe. He wondered whether this was the first time the accusation had been brought against him so publicly, so nakedly… and had no time to complete the thought, for the inexorable words were flowing onward like an unstoppable river.
I’m being put on trial. For something I didn’t even realize I’d done…
Once more it was as though David had read his inmost thoughts. He said, “Before I go on, perhaps I should cite another legal principle. I admire the law, and wish more people paid attention to it… Not knowing something is against the law is no defense, as I mentioned. But it has been held for centuries that a reasonable person is responsible for the foreseeable consequences of his actions.”
“Foreseeable!” Peter managed to blurt out.
“Foreseeing is a duty,” David countered in a dead voice. “How often did you, Peter Levin, consider the outcome of what you were doing when you donated sperm?”
“I—I hoped I would be making childless couples happy!”
“Very good!”—in a tone of surprise. “You have, as it were, entered a plea of not guilty. But these, here now assembled, are all your children. It is their verdict you must face.”
“Children I’ve never met before?”
“We’ll come to that. Right now, what concerns us is not your intentions but their outcome.”
“I’m to be condemned because half a score of kids I knew nothing about were badly treated by their—?”
“No! No! No!” David was on his feet in a single swift motion. “You still don’t understand!
“We are humanity’s only hope of salvation.”
With a sense of indescribable despair Peter realized:
He’s a megalomaniac, and he’s infected the others with his beliefs. And given that they have this power…!
He buried his head in his hands.
Suddenly Peter felt his cheek being stroked, and within seconds the future seemed less terrible. Of course, he could not reconcile the fact that he was calming down, even relaxing, while in the power—Power? Yes, that was the only word for it—in the power of these children who had demonstrated their willingness to submit another human being to indescribable agony…
Another human being? But even if they are my offspring, are they human?
Such thoughts evaporated as a hand sought his. It was Ellen’s (yes, really, this time it was Ellen beside him) and he clasped it gratefully. Claudia was clinging to her other hand, jaw clamped tight to stop her teeth from chattering with terror.
“Now let me introduce the rest of us and tell you their life stories so far,” David was saying in a didactic tone, rather like a lecturer conscious of teaching an unpopular subject. Peter couldn’t help being reminded of Jim Spurman. “Then I’ll explain how we got together, and deal with any questions you may have. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or so, and afterward we can have lunch. In passing, Dr. Morris, let me compliment you on having traced us all, even though of course as soon as I realized how close you were I took steps to prevent you contacting any of us directly. For the fact that you were misled into believing it was Louis Parker who was always one jump ahead of you I have Bernie to thank, he being already predisposed to blame someone else even before Peter offered him a scapegoat—and of course Ellen, who has proved immensely helpful.”
Loosing her hand from Peter’s, Claudia bit her knuckles to suppress a hysterical giggle. David favored her with a patronizing smile, and resumed.
“I thought of introducing us in order of age, but I think it might be easier to do it in the order in which we got together. As it happens I am the oldest, but we’re all pretty close, naturally.”
Naturally? A sick joke sprang to Peter’s tongue, but it remained unspoken, surviving only as a bitter taste.
“I’ve told you about my own background. So we might as well carry on with Dymphna—Dymphna Clancy, from Ireland. Her mother, living under a régime that forbade divorce, was married to a man who treated her abominably for not producing children. In the end he drove her insane. One of the first signs, no doubt, of her impending breakdown was that she flew to London where such treatment was legal and, using a forged letter of authority purporting to be from her husband, had herself inseminated at the Chinn-Wilkinson clinic. That establishment was not run on quite the impeccable principles to which its directors claimed to aspire… Dymphna eventually wound up in a Catholic orphanage where, after reaching puberty, she delighted in committing supposedly mortal sins and getting away with them.”
Peter could recognize Dymphna by her broad grin. Though she was paler, and freckled, and there was a tinge of red in her hair, she was unmistakably Ellen’s half-sister…
“The blame, though, does not lie with her—nor with any of us. A sick society, that made her mother’s husband so cruel to his wife, is what’s at fault… And now to Roger, whose offenses were not dissimilar.
“Born to a mother who agreed with her husband that, while it was their duty to produce a child, that child should be sent away as soon as possible for at least three-quarters of the year to boarding school, Roger discovered when he entered puberty that he had certain tastes and certain talents. At the ripe old age of thirteen he was successfully operating a service for pedophiles, from which, by the way, he accumulated a considerable sum of money. Nothing like as much as I derived from selling my designer drugs, of course, but—”
Despite the restraining grasp of Ellen’s hand Peter could contain himself no longer. He burst out, “You sold drugs? You dealt in narcotics?”
David gazed at him blandly. “No. I designed them. Others manufactured them and sold them. I simply took a commission. Why not? None of us would ever be stupid enough to use them.”
It was the first time he had so blatantly implied that he and the other children regarded themselves as different.
How different? A different species? Do they think of themselves as “the man after man”?
Ellen released her fingers and began to soothe the back of his neck, easing away tension with every stroke. Peter had intended to continue, but was forestalled. Claudia, regaining at least a modicum of self-control, was leaning forward.
“You keep referring
to puberty,” she whispered.
David nodded.
“Like most human pheromones, ours is hormone-related, more so in the case of the girls. In them secretion ceases for a short time once a month. In compensatory fashion, when it’s at its peak it’s far more powerful, and more effective against both men and women.”
Against? The terrifying possibilities implicit in that single word made Peter shiver—but once again he had no chance to speak, for David had resumed his exposition. Apart from the occasional sound of a vehicle passing on the distant roadway, the silence was virtually total, as though the children were waiting to hear what he said about them and prepared to issue their own verdict afterward.
Or—and this thought was absolutely chilling—do these pheromones knit them together into a superorganism, so that they will inevitably agree with their leader because they can’t do otherwise…?
The implications almost prevented him from hearing what David said next.
“After Roger, I got in touch with Crystal. She’s had a very bad time indeed. Her legal parents died in an epidemic of meningitis. A cure was found, but too late. If a fraction of what this country spends every day on armaments had been invested in a vaccine they would almost certainly have survived. Crystal would not have been committed to the care of a couple of religious bigots—would not have been beaten for petty offenses until she was driven to run away and seek a living as a prostitute, having to sell her body for the first time to the doctor who vaccinated her against AIDS.”
Peter, appalled, could tell which Crystal was. She was nodding slowly, back and forth, with the measured rhythm of a mandarin statuette.
“Compared to her—though he might not agree—Garth had things easy. Trapped on an isolated farm by parents whose convictions about ‘going back to the land’ deprived him of most of the ordinary experiences young people should be able to look forward to, he did at least find it possible to turn the tables so that he wound up in control of them, and not vice versa. Correct, Garth?”