Cloned Lives

by Pamela Sargent

  “Emma’s given you a clean bill of health anyway,” Hidey said, waving his cigarette in the air.

  “I won’t say you’re average, or even normal,” Emma said. “You have a tendency to get extremely depressed, I notice, but probably for good reason, and it hasn’t debilitated you yet, so I don’t suppose it will. And your family history doesn’t indicate anything that might be genetically rooted. I must confess I was wondering about that grandfather who committed suicide.” Her handsome face watched him speculatively.

  “Jesus, Emma,” Hidey said, throwing his hands up, “don’t turn him down now. Everyone else I know is completely crazy.”

  “I don’t think,” Paul said, “you should hold that against me. He was an old man at the time, and very sick. He didn’t want to linger on as an invalid.”

  “Personally,” Emma said, “I don’t like to rationalize any suicide, but...” She shrugged. “I guess you’ll do. Damn it, Hidey, I wish you’d give me more time. Those damn machines and tests can’t tell me everything.”

  “Sorry,” Hidey said. “I can’t give you the one or two years I know you want. We’ve got to start, and by next week if possible.”

  They had decided earlier that they would create six clones. Hidey wanted to be sure that there would be enough for a proper study. It would be interesting to see whether an identical group of that size would diverge or remain similar in their pursuits. Hidey also wanted to allow for any error. It was conceivable that not all the clones would survive, even in ectogenetic chambers.

  It was known that one-fourth of normal pregnancies were terminated by natural causes. Paul pushed that thought out of his mind.

  “How are you going to care for them?” Emma asked.

  “I’m trying to find a reliable couple around here.”

  “Just don’t tell them anything,” Hidey said, “and for God’s sake make sure it’s somebody who won’t be scared off when they find out. And when you’ve narrowed it down to two or three couples, make sure you send them to Emma right away.”

  “I’m having enough trouble trying to find one couple.”

  “You’ve got a good nine months for that.” Hidey leaned back in his chair. “The ectogenetic chamber has never been used immediately after the moment of conception except with animals, but it should work with humans. We have the best ones we could get and we’ve added some refinements of our own. Frankly, we would have had trouble lining up six women as hosts, and that would introduce some variables I’d just as soon avoid.” He paused for a moment. “I was thinking, it might be interesting to have two female clones in the group.”

  “Why two girls?” Paul asked, and was rewarded with a glare from Emma.

  “Look,” Hidey answered, “we’re dealing with a group that’s genetically identical, right? The only difference among them will be the gender. I want to see if that makes any difference in their personalities and development.”

  “Oh, honestly, Hidey,” Emma said, “I can’t believe that you think it will.”

  “We don’t really know, do we?” Hidey went on. “This is a unique opportunity to investigate. It may not matter but we might as well check it out.” He put out his cigarette and promptly lit another. “It’ll be tricky, we’ll have to hook on an X chromosome and remove the Y, which could be a problem. We should at least test the technique on humans, though.”

  “But won’t the girls be sterile?” Paul asked. “Isn’t that just creating another problem?”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “Sterility doesn’t bother people as much as it used to, and of course the daughters could have cloned children of their own. Who knows, by the time they’re adults, it might not matter at all. An ovarian transplant was tried before the moratorium, and it might work in the future.”

  “Do you mind having a couple of daughters, Paul?” Hidey said. “Or sisters. Hell, it’s hard to keep reminding oneself what relation they are to you.”

  “Socially, they’ll be daughters, and of course I don’t mind. But you may not prove much one way or the other. I’m almost fifty and kind of settled in my ways. I might treat my daughters differently from my sons and not even realize I’m doing it.” Daughters, he had said. Already he was thinking of them as his children, worrying about them before they even existed.

  “Well,” Hidey said. The three looked at each other and then away. “We’ll be ready to start in a couple of days. Frankly, I’m scared.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Emma said. “It makes me think you’re not so crazy after all.”

  Paul sat in the faculty lounge of the biological sciences building and wondered if his apprehensive feelings were the same as those of anyone about to become a parent. Probably worse, he thought. He had to sit there and look calm in case some inquisitive person should walk over and ask him what was the matter. He was not proficient at lying. He would be forced to ignore the person or be overtly rude, and he was not good at either. Outside of the people involved in the experiment and Jon Aschenbach, no one could know for another nine months at least.

  Paul understood the cloning procedure. The nucleus would be removed from the unfertilized female egg cells. In the absence of this haploid maternal nucleus, diploid material obtained from Paul would be inserted into the ovum. The egg, having a full set of chromosomes instead of a half set, would begin to divide as though normally fertilized, becoming a blastocyst. The blastocyst, programmed entirely with Paul’s genetic endowment, would be implanted in an ectogenetic chamber. It would then attach itself to the wall of the chamber, protected by a synthetic amniotic fluid and nourished by an artificial umbilical cord winding around the outside of the “womb.” At least they’ll have navels, Paul thought, almost chuckling aloud. The ectogenetic chamber could expand as necessary throughout the “pregnancy,” in imitation of a natural womb. After nine months, the clones would be removed from their chambers, be spanked, Paul supposed, and cry like any other children.

  Paul had not wanted to be in the lab while the process of conception was taking place, nor even in Hidey’s office. He worried about this now, wondering what it might mean. It suddenly struck him as ludicrous not to be present at the conception of his own children and he almost laughed aloud. But then he grew pensive, thinking that the clones might hold it against him some day. He was not indifferent, he knew that. Perhaps he was simply afraid to see it occur in the lab; maybe it was a threat to him psychologically in some way he did not fully understand. Men whose wives conceived by artificial insemination were often told to make love to their wives during the same day. This allowed them to believe, if they needed to, that the child just might be the result of their own natural efforts. Paul could not protect himself in any similar fashion. Still, he thought, here he was making an effort, the only kind relevant to this task.

  I want those children. The desire seized him more fiercely than it ever had in the past. I want those children. Wasn’t that really the important thing after all? Many children were only accidental byproducts of a careless night, the focus of an unfulfilled parental ambition, or conceived as pawns to be used in a loveless battle. Some, even now, were concessions to a society just beginning to realize that parenthood was not a goal to which everyone should aspire.

  Paul had achieved most of his goals and was as satisfied with his life as he could be. For the first time in his life he felt ready for parenthood. Wasn’t it at least possible that the conception of these clones was as great an act of love as any other conception? He hoped it was. If he had any goals at all for his children, they were that the clones would in some small way change others’ lives for the better, that they would bring people to some sort of understanding about themselves that they would not have had otherwise. If he had a goal for himself, it was that he would be a good father. It might turn out to be his most important accomplishment.

  He picked up a journal from the table in front of him and began to leaf through it aimlessly. Gradually he became aware of the fact that a man on the other side of the room was
watching him. Paul looked over at the man, who was leaning against the yellow wall, and tried to remember if he had seen him before on any of his visits. He had, directly or in passing, met or seen most of the people who worked here. Hidey practically lived in the biological sciences building and Paul had spent a lot of time with his friend here before the project. He couldn’t recall the man, but that meant little since he could be a new faculty member or a graduate student.

  The fellow apparently noticed Paul’s gaze and started to walk over. Paul felt apprehensive. He scolded himself silently: What are you afraid of? This business is making you paranoid. He forced himself to smile.

  “Hello,” Paul said in what he hoped was a jolly voice.

  “Hello,” the man responded. He was a young, handsome, and hairy person with blond hair and a thick blond beard. “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but aren’t you Paul Swenson?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I thought so, I recognized you from a photo on one of your books.”

  “That’s pretty good. They always use the same one. I had brown hair, a moustache and was ten pounds thinner. I didn’t think anyone could recognize me by that. You’ve disillusioned me. I thought my gray hair was a pretty good disguise.”

  “Your face is still the same.” The man paused for a moment to light a cigar. “Isn’t that something, though. I read this book you wrote, what was it called?”

  “I’ve written fifteen.”

  “Studies of the Universe,” the young man said. “Jesus, I liked that book. I even got that cassette of stellar photographs with your lecture. What little I know about stars, I got from you.”

  “Thank you,” Paul said. He still felt slightly uneasy.

  “I didn’t expect to see you hanging around here.” The man sat down in a chair across from Paul and crossed his legs.

  “I have a couple of good friends in the department of genetics. I think I spend more time here than in my own office. Hidehiko Takamura and I have been friends since college.” Paul suddenly felt as though he had said too much. Something about the man did not fit in with the setting. He did not seem to belong here. An idiotic idea, he told himself, who am I to decide who belongs here and who doesn’t?

  “You must be new around here,” Paul said, going on the offensive. “I guess you just arrived in time for the next semester. What’s your specialty?”

  The blond man looked a bit annoyed. “Oh. I’m waiting for a friend,” he said finally, after a long pause.

  “Anybody I know?” I’ve met almost everybody around here.”

  “I don’t think so. Well, I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed your book.” The man stood up. He nodded at Paul, crossed the lounge and sat down next to the windows.

  Paul realized that he had almost forgotten what was taking place in the lab. There was no sense sitting there worrying about it. He pulled some revised lecture notes out of his briefcase and tried to concentrate on them. He would have to lecture that afternoon and had not prepared himself as well as he would have liked. A friend at the Komarov Observatory on the moon had sent him some material he was sure would be of interest to the class.

  He stared at the notes and wondered if he would ever regret not going to the moon, which was rapidly becoming the most interesting place to study astronomy and astrophysics as well as the most highly selective. He and Eviane had looked forward to going once. She had been invited by the radio astronomers there, and those working on the star drive had asked Paul to join them several times. But Eviane had become ill just as they were getting ready to leave. After her death, Paul hadn’t had the heart to go.

  He now contented himself by trying to keep in close contact with the Lunar scientists, sending them voluminous notes over the computer link-up and making expensive phone calls to them when necessary. But he would go some day, when the clones were adults and when the Lunar gravity would be a relief to his old bones.

  “Paul?” a voice said. He looked up and recognized Hidey’s young colleague, Elijah Jabbar. Jabbar, superficially an impulsive young man who wore gold earrings and affected African dress, was in reality a serious, hardworking biologist whose desire for perfection exhausted those who worked with him.

  “Everything’s fine,” Jabbar said softly, his dark face breaking into a grin. “At least so far.”

  Paul sighed with relief. “Wonderful,” he said, then remembered the blond man by the windows. He got up quickly and left the room with Jabbar.

  He stopped outside the lounge and gestured toward the man inside. “Tell me,” he said, “have you ever seen that man around here before?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jabbar answered in a low voice. The young biologist pulled at the woolen robe he wore under his lab coat, trying to adjust it. “But you know, he looks familiar. I can’t place him, though. I know I’ve seen him somewhere.”

  Paul felt somewhat relieved. I have been getting paranoid, he thought.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t think so,” Paul replied. “I’m just nervous.”

  “If it’s that guy in there, he’s making me a little nervous too, I don’t know why.” Both men began to walk down the hall. “I still can’t place him, but I’d almost bet he’s not connected with the university.”

  “We’re past the worst already,” Hidey said, “at least as far as the chamber is concerned. They’ve been in there a month and nothing’s happened yet.”

  Paul stood in front of the ectogenetic chambers. He could barely see the tiny beings encased in the plastic-like material of the artificial wombs. They were still no more than tiny droplets suspended in fluid.

  The chambers were attached to their own power source, a generator down the hall that was being watched twenty-four hours a day by maintenance people on eight-hour shifts. There was an auxiliary generator as well; they were taking no chances on a possible power failure. The maintenance people did not know why the generator was so crucial, having been told only that it was being used in an important experiment.

  Pipes and wires trailed out of the wombs. They were attached to large metal oxygenators which piped in nourishment and removed wastes. The blood circulating through the chambers was Paul’s, donated for two months prior to the experiment. Paul recalled how doubtful he had been at the time, not really believing, in spite of the blood being drawn from his veins, that the experiment would ever take place. The oxygenator made it possible to recirculate the blood almost indefinitely, and Paul could always supply fresh blood if needed.

  In a corner of the room, next to the chambers, sat a computer. It was connected to each chamber and monitored the life functions of the tiny embryos. Elijah Jabbar sat on a stool in front of the computer, watching various gauges and leafing through the last print-out. “I’m a little worried about number six there, Hidey,” he said. “Maybe it’s too soon to be sure, but I don’t think it’s doing as well as the others.”

  “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be developing at the same rate as the others, from what our readings show. That could always change, I guess. The computer’s already checking the equipment for any small imperfections it might need to repair.”

  Paul looked at Hidey, who had been momentarily distracted by one of the lab assistants, a tall heavy woman named Nancy Portland. “Here’s the new clone-watch schedule,” she said, handing a sheet of paper to Hidey, “and we’ll be giving the males their androgen next Thursday.” Even though the computer could probably take care of any unexpected problems, someone would always be in the lab.

  Hidey nodded, then turned to Paul. “Don’t worry. They’re better off in there than they would be in a natural womb. There they would be at the mercy of whatever bad health habits the mother had developed, and plenty of other things besides. A womb can be pretty goddamned dangerous, in spite of what some people think. We’re not even allowed to smoke in this room. He sighed. “Not even me. Let’s go to someplace a bit more lax, like my office.”

  As the three men left t
he lab, Hidey turned toward Jabbar. “Has that story from China been confirmed?”

  “Yes. They aren’t even trying to make a secret out of it.” The three entered Hidey’s office and sat down.

  “They’re not cloning,” Paul said.

  “No,” Jabbar said, “but they are using the ectogenetic chamber, They aren’t using it on a wide scale yet, just in a few large cities. Their press releases claim that they want to free women from childbirth so they’ll have more time to work for the people. Sounds logical.”

  “Yet when the moratorium was in effect,” Hidey said, “they were quick to say that it was a wise move, since the use of certain techniques might weaken and ultimately threaten the well-being of humanity. I guess they can rationalize anything over there, or maybe it’s just their way of being flexible and innovative.” Hidey lit a cigarette. “As far as we know, they’re not cloning, but we don’t know. No one knows we are either.”

  “Do you think some others might be trying?” Paul asked.

  “Frankly, I’m not sure,” Hidey replied. “I suppose somebody could be. This might sound arrogant, but I don’t think anyone else is. This laboratory is the most likely place, we have the most talented people in this specialty. We’ve been cloning animals for longer than any other group in the world. Others might be planning to clone, but I think it’ll take them longer to prepare for and set up an actual experiment.”

  “What about China?” Paul said. “After all, the synthetic placenta was developed by Huang Tsu. Their meat production has been increased by cloning cattle and hogs.”

  “So has everyone’s. I don’t think they’d be as likely to clone a person,” Jabbar said. “The Chinese have assumed up to now that it is environment that makes a person what he is. Their collective society is designed to form a certain kind of human being. They wouldn’t be likely to practice certain types of genetic engineering.”