Cloned Lives

by Pamela Sargent

  “And they’ll be like you,” Bill said.

  “There’s no doubt about that. I’m the only parent, after all.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Bill said. “You’re a nice fellow, Paul. I imagine the kids will be asking questions all the time when they’re not being quiet and thoughtful, and doing quadratic equations by the time they’re four. And they’ll be good cooks too. That was a great supper.” He patted his stomach.

  “And you’ll want us to treat them as individuals, not just as a group,” Zuñi said. She brushed a few crumbs across the white tablecloth into her napkin. “I had two friends once who were twins. In fact, that’s what people called them, the O’Hara twins, never Mary and Molly. Their mother used to dress them in identical outfits, the whole business. They got to resent it after a while, but they were very dependent on each other too. It’ll be a thousand times worse with your kids. They’ll be just like you as well as each other, and people are bound to make comparisons. They won’t even be mirror images of each other, the way twins are. They’ll be completely identical.” She smiled slightly. “You want to be sure that each one has a sense of being a person in his own right.”

  “You sound,” Paul said carefully, “as if you’ve already taken the job.”

  “Of course,” Bill replied. “We’re looking forward to it, and to meeting the kids as well.”

  Paul felt relieved. Maybe things were not going to be as bad as he thought. Zuñi and Bill hadn’t found anything to fear in the idea of clones. But how many people were like the Hathaways? He had been lucky to find them at all.

  “By the way,” Zuñi said, “when do we meet them?”

  “In the middle of September,” Paul answered, “if everything goes as planned.”

  “No reason to think it won’t,” Bill said. “An artificial womb isn’t going to have labor pains in the middle of the night.”

  Paul stood on his front porch, surveying the lawn. His house stood on the top of a small hill and at the end of the road leading past his neighbors’ houses. The small suburban neighborhood was beginning to look a bit rundown. Overgrown and untrimmed yards blossomed with weeds. The porch in front of one gray house had been propped up with stones. The white paint on a nearby Colonial home had begun to peel away, exposing the wood underneath; flakes of whiteness littered the garden around it.

  Many people were moving into arcologies such as Alasand, where they could live in homes on the various levels and yet be within walking distance of whatever they needed. Some had moved back to the city, which was almost pleasant without cars roaring through the streets. But Paul had grown used to his house. It was surrounded on three sides by wooded land; since suburbs were becoming unprofitable, a lot of land that would have been developed was reverting to nature.

  Bill and Zuñi had decided to move into Paul’s house at the beginning of June. It would give them time to feel at home in the house and, more important, feel at home with him. The Hathaways still worked at Alasand on weekends but would quit their jobs there in August, take a vacation, and then begin their new job.

  They had brought surprisingly little with them when they moved in. They owned few books. The Hathaways, as did many people, purchased microfiche copies of those they wanted to keep, obtaining copies of others through the computer linkups almost every home had. Paul had about three thousand books of his own in paperback and hard covers. He still found pleasure in holding a book in his hands and enjoyed the smell of paper and old print.

  Zuñi and Bill had quickly settled in one of the upstairs bedrooms down the hall from Paul’s room. Almost immediately, Zuñi had decided to paint the two rooms which would serve as nurseries. Luckily the house was big enough so that by the time the children started school, and the Hathaways moved out, each could have a separate bedroom. Eviane had insisted on a large house. She had lived in apartments all her life and had wanted room to sprawl.

  The weather was warm and sunny. Gentle summer breezes ruffled Paul’s hair as he stood on the porch. Billowy white clouds sailed across the clear blue sky. Zuñi was upstairs, busily painting walls, hoping to finish the rooms before the end of June, when the weather would become hot, humid, and “lazy-making,” as she put it.

  She had also managed to buy five used cribs from the Alasand child-care center. Paul had been ready to buy new ones but Zuñi had persuaded him that would be a waste of money. Instead, she got new mattresses for the cribs, painted each a different color, and made toys out of old beads and wooden objects that could be attached to the cribs. These, she explained, would help the children develop their perceptual abilities. She had also insisted on installing a sound system in each nursery, after telling Paul of the marvelous results they had achieved at Alasand when classical music was played for the children.

  “We have to stimulate them,” she told Paul. “We have to encourage them to explore with all their senses. We already know that music can work as an antidepressant and we think it helps the children in understanding mathematical concepts. It might make them smarter, believe it or not.” As it turned out, Paul had saved little money on the used cribs after purchasing the sound system.

  Bill was puttering around on the hydrogen-powered lawn mower in the front yard. He turned slightly in his seat and waved at Paul. “Hey,” he shouted, “how about joining me with a cold beer?”

  “Okay,” Paul shouted back.

  “I’ll be done in a couple of minutes.”

  Paul headed back inside and went through the living room and dining room to the kitchen. He rummaged in the refrigerator for the beer. He was surprised at how easily he had adjusted to having the couple in his home. There were no arguments about how to handle things around the house. They had quickly settled into a routine, each taking on different household tasks in turn. It was good to hear voices in the house again, voices that managed to take his mind off the spirit of Eviane that he often felt was lingering in the rooms.

  Bill was already on the porch when he returned, seated in the wooden rocking chair he had appropriated since moving in. Paul handed Bill his beer and sat in the white plastic lounge chair next to him.

  “That tastes good,” Bill said, taking a swig. “I’d better relax while I can. Zuñi’ll be ready for the second room soon and she needs me to paint the ceiling.”

  “You two are working pretty hard already. You’re going to be worn out by the time the kids arrive.”

  “Don’t worry. When we’re done, you’re welcome to polish the floors and move the cribs in while we relax.” Bill swallowed more beer. “Paul,” he went on, suddenly sounding serious, “I don’t want to alarm you, but something’s bothering me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Maybe it’s nothing. When Zuñi was visiting our friend Irene at Alasand yesterday, she ran into this fellow, well, she didn’t run into him exactly. She thought for a while he was following her. Then she got annoyed, turned around, walked up to the guy, and asked him if he was looking for something. He gave her some story about looking for a friend and losing his way. But then he started to pump her, began to ask a lot of questions. It seemed innocuous at first, she thought maybe he was trying to pick her up or something, but then he mentioned you.”

  Paul was startled. “What did he say?”

  “Not much at first. He said he heard we were working for you and he wondered why, since he knew we were working at the child care center. He turned out to know a lot about us. He gave her a lot of talk about what a great fellow you were, how he read one of your books once and so on. She was ready to tell him off, but she controlled herself and said you’d hired us for some editorial work. It’s a clumsy story, I guess, but our friends bought it. She said this guy looked like he knew it was a lie.”

  “Look, Bill, he could just be a nosy guy.”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but then Zuñi described him to me. I know this sounds weird, but I could swear he was a man I saw in the biological sciences building the day Zuñi and I went to meet Dr. Takamura
and Dr. Jabbar. I wouldn’t have remembered him except that I could swear I saw him driving around this neighborhood the same damn day.”

  “Couldn’t Zuñi tell you if it was the same man?”

  “No. She didn’t see him the day we went to the lab. Dr. Takamura’s coffee machine wasn’t working and I went to the lounge to get some. I saw the guy lurking at the end of the hall.”

  “What did he look like?” Paul asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

  “A tall blond man, good-looking, with a lot of hair and a thick beard.”

  “I’ve seen him,” Paul said, “intermittently. I thought maybe he was seeing one of the women students or something. I always had the feeling he was nosing around.”

  “Maybe he is, but if he knew anything, you probably would have heard about it by now. It could just be chance.”

  “Maybe.”

  “How are the clones coming along?”

  “Great. Eli says they should be very healthy kids.”

  “Good.” Bill was silent for a few seconds, then went on. “Maybe I should-n’t tell you this, but I think I can be frank with you. I’ve been thinking a lot about cloning lately, and suddenly I realized that if it works, if the kids turn out to be normal, it means I could have my own kids.”

  “You’re assuming,” Paul said, “that there won’t be any restrictions, that anybody would be allowed to clone and that facilities would be available.”

  “That’s not the point. Let me see if I can explain it. I’ve known I was sterile ever since my teens. Frankly, it didn’t really bother me much. If didn’t affect my virility, I knew that, and I grew up in a family where my brother and sister were adopted. I adjusted to the fact that I would never have a child that was physically mine, whether we had artificial insemination or adopted or did both. But now...” Bill paused for a moment and brushed back his thinning brown hair from his high forehead. “Now I know that theoretically at least I could have my own child. I don’t know how to explain it, but it started to matter to me. I honestly never thought it would. I know logically that it’s extremely doubtful I would ever be cloned, but emotionally...” Bill stopped.

  “Do you think it’s going to bother you then, being in this house with clones?”

  “If I thought it would, I wouldn’t be here now, it wouldn’t be fair to you. But I did go to see Dr. Valois about it. She told me pretty much the same thing you did, said she thought new restrictions would probably be put in effect by somebody. She told me that eventually I would accept the fact and realize it wasn’t really possible for me to have a child, I had lived with it before and would again. It might just take a little while.” Bill finished the beer and placed his bottle next to his chair. “She may be right. But I think I just might live long enough to see such limits lifted. The birthrate’s falling and besides, people won’t always be afraid of these techniques, at least I have a small hope now and that may be better than none at all. I don’t resent you or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. She asked me if I wanted to stay, I told her I did, and she said I should.”

  “I think you should too. And I’m glad you felt free enough to...”

  The phone was buzzing inside. Paul got up and hurried into the house. He picked up the receiver in the living room and saw Hidey’s face on the small screen.

  “We’ve got trouble,” Hidey said before Paul could open his mouth. “I have a visitor here with me.”

  Paul’s mind was racing ahead of him. I know, he thought wildly, I know. His mind was starting to add things up.

  “Who is it, Hidey?”

  “His name is Mort Jason and he’s a big blond bruiser who works for the International Newsfax Service as a reporter and feature writer. He knows. I hope you can get here fast.”

  The tall blond man was the first person Paul noticed as he walked into Hidey’s office. He had driven over as quickly as he could, not bothering to change. Now he felt suddenly ill at ease in his stained work slacks and denim shirt.

  Emma and Elijah Jabbar were in the office too, seated on the cot over by the left wall. The office was gray with cigarette smoke, some of it the reporter’s but most of it, Paul was sure, Hidey’s. His friend looked worn and nervous. He glanced at Emma and Jabbar. Emma’s eyes glittered and Jabbar’s face was set like an obsidian sculpture.

  Jason was apparently a pacer. He was not seated but was slowly wandering from one side of the room to the other, a model of good grooming in his sleeveless blue shirt and pale lace-covered slacks. Paul caught a whiff of a piney scent and felt even more conscious of his sweat-stained clothing. He closed the door and took the one remaining seat.

  “Hello, Dr. Swenson,” Jason said, “nice to see you again. I should tell you what I just told your friends. I found out about your little experiment. I know what’s going on. I can’t divulge my source, needless to say, but I filled Dr. Takamura in on what I found out so he knows I’m not bluffing.”

  “We know who the fucker was,” Jabbar said suddenly. “He admitted if to me before I came in here. I hope you paid Johnson plenty. He’ll never work in a bio lab again if I can help it.” Emma put a hand on Jabbar’s arm and his mouth clamped shut.

  “Why are you talking to us then if you’ve got your story?” Paul said. Mort Jason stopped pacing and leaned against the door.

  “I pride myself on some sense of responsibility,” the reporter replied. “Now I could go and do a scary Faust story on Paul Swenson, the Nobel laureate who is so obsessed with his own greatness that he wants to give the world copies of himself, and all the mad scientists here who are tampering with the laws of nature and who don’t believe every person born should be a unique individual, and about fetuses dying in the lab, that sort of thing. But I don’t like that kind of trash. They had it thirty years ago and we wound up with a moratorium.” Jason leaned toward Hidey’s desk and put out his cigarette, then walked back to the door. He folded his arms and began to rock back and forth on his heels. “I like to inform people, not scare the shit out of them. I want your cooperation, but I should tell you that whether or not I get it I’ll do a story and right away. Others are sniffing around. A few of us thought something might be going on around here when the moratorium ran out. It seemed a likely spot, although I did check some others. I want this story, and I want to do it before any of my journalistic brethren get wise.”

  “Just what sort of story do you want?” Hidey asked.

  Jason stopped rocking, and smiled slightly. “What I’d like is an interview with you people, pointing out why you’re doing this, what you hope to find out, what motivated you. You could tell me how you went about the experiment and I could try to simplify things for the general public. It could be a sympathetic piece, a nice feature story in addition to being headline news. Or you can refuse to talk to me and I might have to start speculating about what you’re trying to hide.”

  “Sounds like blackmail to me,” Jabbar said grimly.

  “What are you trying to hide?” Jason said. “You knew you couldn’t hide it forever. I’m willing to de-emphasize certain unpleasantries, such as that one fetus which died. Accidents can happen, and mothers miscarry all the time, no sense in playing it up.”

  Jabbar and Hidey both looked ready to speak at this point, but Paul motioned to them with his hand. “Listen,” Paul said, “we’re not trying to hide anything. We intended to announce this procedure as soon as we were ready and we were afraid, I’ll admit, of announcing it prematurely. We might have been stopped if we had revealed our intentions before starting. Even if we had announced it after going ahead, we might have been forced to abort the experiment. It would have been no different from aborting a pregnancy.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” the reporter said, “but no one’s going to do that now. They’re too far along. With modern techniques they could survive outside those wombs if you removed them right now. And I don’t think any sane person will want them executed.”

  “Please let me finish,” Paul said. “There’
s more at issue here than that. Those children in there may eventually suffer from any premature publicity, surely you realize that. Look at what’s happened in the past to quintuplets, who are a natural if infrequent occurrence. What kind of beginning will it be for them if they’re exposed to unrestricted publicity? They’ll have problems enough.”

  “You certainly do sound like the outraged parent,” Jason said smoothly. “You can’t hide it forever, Dr. Swenson. If I break the story now, some of the excitement will have worn off by the time you bring those kids into the world. They might have less trouble then. And to be honest, I think you might prefer dealing with me rather than some of my professional colleagues. I’ve always thought this moratorium business was like hiding your head in the sand. I’m somewhat sympathetic to what scientists are trying to do. I can’t say the same for some others.” Jason paused to light another cigarette. “I don’t want to brag,” he continued, “but my name has some influence and I’m presently negotiating with my employers for a daily column and a weekly program of interviews and commentary on one of the networks. I could be an influential friend. Or I could be a thorn in your side.”

  “You don’t leave us much of a choice,” Hidey muttered. “I guess this was bound to happen.” He leaned over his desk and rested his chin on his arms. “Could you give us an hour or two to discuss this?”

  “Certainly,” Jason replied. He turned and opened the door. “I’ll be back around three. And please don’t call any other reporters. It’ll gain you nothing but a momentary revenge, and make me forget my principles about responsible journalism.” He left the office.

  Emma looked around at the others. “How the hell,” she said, “are we going to get ready for an interview in that length of time?”

  “You sound,” Jabbar said, “as if we’re going to talk to the bastard.”

  “We have to, Eli,” Hidey said. “We have to make the best of this, not make matters worse. Unless one of you can figure out a way to commit the perfect murder.”