CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (33 page)

‘Just what is going on, Lisa?’ Alec walked into the room and turned the overhead light on, flooding her out of the shadows. ‘I’d have to be an idiot not to know something is. Let’s have it. There’s more to it than I realised. Seb keeps saying that Jiminy, who does look rather pale, is “another Jansy”. It doesn’t make sense to me, but he must mean something by it. What’s that supposed to mean, “another Jansy”? Have you been encouraging him to play conjuring tricks?’

‘Seb lives in a dream world; you know how imaginative he is. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

Dare she take the plunge, tell Alec? He was, after all, as entangled in the situation as she was herself.

‘Something is going on, Lisa. I know I’ve thought it’s you cracking under the strain, but this is different. This time Seb’s talking what sounds like rubbish.’

The urge to confide in him, the only human being who would, after all, be really motivated to support her, was overwhelming. She had to tell him if she was to survive, and help her children to survive. Their father was the obvious person to share the burden with her. He was involved with them intimately, now. The triplets weren’t strangers, newly born infants. They were his sons, he’d grown to love them. He would be as unlikely to betray them as she was.

‘All right, Alec. I’ll have to tell you this time. He’s your son as well as mine, and I can’t keep it to myself any longer.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘You’ll think I’ve really flipped.’

‘Try me.’

‘Seb is quite right. James was “another Jansy”. When he was born.’

‘Come on, Lisa! Even in fun, what
are
you talking about?’

‘I put the gold earring in Jansy’s ear because he was about to clone again. I lost the silver one.’

‘
Clone
? Jansy was going to
clone
?’ He looked almost distraught. ‘For God’s sake, Lisa, what is
that
supposed to mean?’

‘Split into two identical beings. Reproduce himself.’

‘Reproduce his complete body?’

‘He can only clone when he’s completely free of anything which isn’t part of his body,’ Lisa rushed at him. ‘If there’s nothing, and he’s naked, and the time is ripe, he simply splits.’

Her husband just looked at her. ‘Splits,’ he repeated mechanically, evidently humouring her. ‘Of course.’ Ice cold, detached. He didn’t believe anything she’d said. ‘Go on.’

‘The first cloning was in the womb, just before I gave birth. The doctors said it couldn’t be twins because the scan only showed one foetus. They were quite right; the first baby, Janus, split into two identical babies just before they were born. That’s why they weighed exactly the same. The only difference between them was the shape of the head - you must remember that yourself. Apart from that, the two foetuses would have been identical. Witherton, of course, thought they were identical twins.’ She looked at Alec. ‘Which, in a sort of way, they were.’

‘I see. And then?’

‘The second time was when I had the triplet,’ she said. ‘You
assumed
I’d given birth. What else were you to think? So I let it ride, almost convinced myself. The truth, after all, is so incredible. But it did happen. Apart from me, only Seb knew. Janus cloned, split into two separate human beings. Seb saw the two babies together in Janus’s cot. He can tell which is which.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ Alec said, keeping his voice a monotone. ‘You didn’t give birth to a third triplet; you found two identical infants, together, in Janus’s cot?’

‘It was hot, remember. Obviously Janus had kicked his nappy off, so there was nothing attached to him - and then he cloned.’ She paused and saw that Alec was simply waiting for her to go on. ‘The real truth is so unbelievable, so utterly unheard of among vertebrates, that everyone believed that I’d had a late triplet. That has been known.’ She smiled slightly. ‘Then I had to work out what was actually happening. I finally cottoned on. I had to fasten something to the cloner’s body to stop him doing it again. Actually, Don Chivers put me on to it, though at first I didn’t understand what he was telling me.’

She looked at Alec. He was staring at her, speechless, waiting for her to go on.

‘I did mention it to you; Don came to warn me after the twins were born.’ She stopped to collect her memories. ‘I thought it odd at the time that he should be interested in the twins. In fact I got quite cross with him. He was only trying to alert me, trying to draw my attention to how he coped with the farm animals.’

‘Animals? You’re comparing our children to farm animals?’

‘Remember when Don said if he didn’t tag the newborn lambs immediately after they were born, that there’d be more?’

‘You’re suggesting our children should have been tagged as soon as they were born,’ he said, slowly and deliberately. ‘Just like Frank’s lambs.’

‘We all have bodies, Alec. Humans are no different from animals in that respect.’

‘In fact it’s what you arranged in the end - the bracelets, then the earrings. Those were their tags.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you think Janus swells up just before the cloning,’ Alec said quietly, searching her face, looking into her eyes.

‘And becomes more and more aggressive.’

‘What happened when you went to see Morgenstein?’

She told him what had happened in Priddy. ‘At first I thought I’d lost him, Alec - when I ran after Jansy. In the end I thought I must have imagined it all. Then, a couple of months later, Frank told us about the mauled toddler on HTV news. Now I’m sure that was him.’

She could see the pity in his eyes. He didn’t believe anything she’d told him. Why would he? How could he? This type of reproduction outside the womb was unknown among the higher animals. As every secondary schoolchild knew, binary fission was the reproductive system used by amoebae and other primary animal organism, not by humans. But that was precisely what had happened to Janus. It was just scientific jargon for what amounted to cloning.

‘Tell me about this afternoon,’ Alec said wearily. ‘After all, it’s different this time. There are still only triplets, not quads.’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘Unless, of course, you’re maintaining Janus did away with one of them?’

‘It’s not funny, Alec. The new clone could be dead moments after cloning. They don’t always survive, you know. I found that out from Don as well.’

Her weeping, so long suppressed, burst forth into a fountain of tears, a wailing of sobs. She could not go on - could not bring herself to tell the story of the cloning in the bath, the death, the disappearance of the body. It was too much.

‘If you don’t mind, darling,’ Alec comforted her. ‘I’m going to ask Gilmore to prescribe something for you. You really can’t go on like this. Try to tell me what happened this afternoon.’

He waited while the sobs lessened, while she sipped the herb tea and calmed herself.

‘We were just going to have a picnic, when Jansy said he had to pee.’

‘Honestly, Lisa. He does it all the time.’

‘Not like this. He went on and on and on, just like he did in the Priddy Woods. Not really pee; a viscous, deep yellow fluid with an odd smell.’

A spark lit up Alec’s eyes. ‘And the puffiness went down?’

‘Exactly; he wasn’t quite so bloated. So I knew he was about to clone again.’

‘Just like the time you stopped off in the woods on your way to Morgenstein,’ Alec pointed out succinctly. He sat in his chair, his right knee over his left leg, trembling slightly. ‘So did he?’

It seemed to Lisa nothing was real any more. ‘Did he what? Pee? I told you; loads of it, all that revolting yellow.’

‘Did he clone, Lisa? You said he was about to clone!’

‘I took Jeffers’ earring off and jabbed it into Jansy’s earlobe before he finished peeing.’

‘So that he couldn’t clone,’ Alec said gently, looking at her.

‘Yes.’ She gulped again, pouring tea down herself. She could feel it affecting her, sedating her. ‘I had to be quite brutal. The hole was smaller, almost closed.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Seb said Jiminy had gone. I was concentrating so hard on Jansy, pushing the earring in, I didn’t notice what else was going on.’

‘And was he?’

‘Gone, d’you mean?’

‘Yes. Had Jiminy gone?’ Alec said, his voice rising somewhat.

Fear began to clutch at Lisa again. He wasn’t going to credit a single word; he simply thought she was insane. She saw his face through tear-filled eyes, swimming in front of her, his glasses, magnifying his eyes, goggling at her.

‘Jiminy was down on the beach. I thought he’d fallen over the precipice.’

‘And?’

‘I told you. He’d slipped down a sand run, but he was okay.’

‘And Jansy?’

‘He can’t clone with the earring in his ear, and he can’t take it out by himself.’

‘He’s allergic to gold, Lisa!’

‘You still think that’s all it is?’

Her husband looked at her, then walked towards the drinks cupboard. ‘Better drink this.’ He poured a stiff whisky. His voice had taken on a gentle, caressing tone. ‘You look all in, darling; what on earth possessed you to take them to the beach all by yourself?’

‘It was such a lovely day.’ She shuddered. ‘I thought Jiminy was dead. Seb was shaking me; he said Jiminy had gone. And when I looked I saw two triplets. The third one was down on the beach. I thought the heap on the sand was Jiminy’s body. It seemed to be quite still. When I went down he was half sitting, half lying there. Then he began to move.’

‘He was all right in the bath, no sign of any injury.’

Lisa nodded. ‘He seemed to be okay, though I couldn’t be sure. But he isn’t himself. I expect you’ve noticed that.’

‘He did seem very tired. That’s it?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

Alec took a long, hard look at her.

‘You don’t believe any of it, do you?’

‘I believe you think these extraordinary events happened. I don’t think they did, no.’

‘You didn’t immediately know which was which, either! They’re more alike than ordinary identicals.’

‘Because Jiminy isn’t well, you said so yourself. And Jansy is much less bloated.’ He sighed. ‘That’s because I took his earring off. It’s finally showing results. Morgenstein did spell it out for you, Lisa. Janus is allergic to metal.’

‘Just try to think there may be something to what I’m telling you, Alec. First I had twins unexpectedly. An identical triplet turned up in a most unusual way. Janus swells up all the time, and he is very much stronger, brighter and more assertive than his identical triplet brothers.’

She sighed as her eyes filled again with tears. They seemed to pour from her, in a never-ending stream. Just like the way Janus peed, she found herself thinking. His way of crying about his fate, perhaps.

She had done all she could to share her terrible secret with her husband, the father of her children. He thought she was, at best, deluded. She’d tried to enlist Trevor, too. He hadn’t wanted to know. Neither of them believed anything she told them. Because it had never happened before, they thought it could not happen at all. But who, she thought to herself, believed in test tube babies just a few years ago? That had been considered impossible.

She couldn’t tell Meg, she was Frank’s wife. There was only one person she could trust, one human being who knew what she was saying was the truth. And he was far too young to help her.

There was nothing further she could do to convince Alec. Until the next time. That’s when she’d confront him with the evidence. At least when Janus cloned again his father would have been forewarned.

CHAPTER 29

‘Out of the blue.’ Frank stood on the terrace, passing thick fingers through hair matted by his hardtop.

‘You can tether Light Amber in the field.’ Alec’s lips were compressed into white. ‘Use the electricity pole. She can’t come to any harm with that.’

The grey jodhpurs winged stiff and wide as Frank walked slowly towards the paddock. ‘Get going, Amber. Us baint got all day.’

‘You need a drink,’ Alec said gently. ‘Tether her, then come and sit down; I’ll get it for you.’

‘How on earth could it have happened?’ Lisa asked.

Even though she hadn’t known Susan Andrews all that well, she was shocked - dumbfounded - to hear she’d drowned. Susan had been a staunch support for Lisa during the two weeks after James was ‘born’; she’d helped out intermittently after that. She’d sorted out the best feeds, arranged the switch from goat’s milk to soya. Lisa knew there had always been a bond between them, a feeling of comradeship. But the midwife had never probed, never asked direct questions.

‘Weather’s been that wet.’

‘But Susan must know these roads well enough to drive blindfold. She’s out on her rounds here all the time.’ Meg had repeatedly warned Lisa about the dangers of slipping into the rhynes or the Sheppey in rainy weather, but Lisa hadn’t expected someone to die because of that.

‘Don’t matter how well her knows ’un; they verges do give when wet.’

‘Too exhausted to feel the car sliding, you mean? Tired out by yet another late night call?’

‘Could be; don’t think that be it. Her’s been a bit depressed; Meg reckons as the night-hag were about.’ Frank shivered slightly, in spite of having ridden over. ‘Misled she, Meg says.’

‘Night-hag? What on earth is that?’

‘Barn owl.’ Frank looked uneasy, as though an owl was some sort of bad omen which might have brought about Susan’s death. ‘Saying be that seeing the night-hag means her be after newborn babes. Susan’s been that worried. Us reckons they banks gave way without she noticing. Old Beetle must have slipped, right by the bridge; knocked she out, I daresay. Police said her drowned.’

There was no question that Frank was deeply disturbed. It seemed out of character to Lisa. The man was pretty callous, death was something he lived with every day. He hadn’t shown the slightest twinge at slaughtering his entire livestock, yet he was visibly shaken by Susan’s death. Why? He hardly knew her.

‘I can’t believe it. She was so strong and capable. She always looked as though she could handle anything,’ Lisa said, trembling, remembering Susan’s brisk practicality.

‘Her were up on Blight Moor, delivering Jennifer Sims. Another emergency; month or so early. Twins.’

‘Twins? Jennifer Sims had twins?’ Lisa looked at Alec, but talk of more twins didn’t seem to alert him to anything unusual. Susan, Lisa remembered, was Don’s nephew’s wife. Had Don talked to her about the large numbers of multiple births on Crinsley Farm?

‘Them be very small. Probably that be what fashed Susan, made she less careful, like.’

‘Did Jennifer know she was going to have twins?’ Lisa’s voice sounded strained. Was this another pre-birth cloning? And if so, was Susan’s death really an accident? Could it have been a way of silencing a witness, someone who might draw attention to the appearance of unexpected twins? Her clinical notes could have shown cause for an investigation. And that could lead to Flaxton...

Frank lowered the glass he was about to put to his lips and stared at Lisa over it. A deep penetrating stare she found distinctly unnerving. Challenging her; he was challenging her to say something. She dropped her eyes hastily.

‘Us reckon her knew; them allays do they scans. Anyways, it were all sorted out as far as Susan goes. Her’d sent for the flying squad. Them took over and her be driving home. Bit of a mist on the moor; nothing special.’

‘How could someone like Susan Andrews possibly drown in the Sheppey? It’s still fairly shallow, in spite of all the rain,’ Alec said, clearly puzzled.

‘Who’s to say?’ Frank muttered, truculent. ‘Happened, right?’

‘I still can’t understand why no one saw her,’ Lisa thought aloud, then bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything more.

‘T’were pitch dark that night; no moon nor nothing,’ Frank went on, dogged. ‘Be them rear lights as did give she away. Tim Graves did spot that old Beetle downalong somewhen. Him be that cackhanded, but him fetched the police.’