Strings (32 page)

Cainsville, April 11

CEDRIC WAS SHOUTED awake before he was even aware that he had started to nod. The ache in his neck said he had slept a long time. He lurched up, woolly-headed, and lumbered after his grandmother as she headed for the door. Shivering mightily, he stumbled down the steps behind her and stalked at her side across the great bare floor of the hangar. The guards stayed by the plane.

The two men had returned, presumably explored and inspected inside and out just as thoroughly as Cedric and Gran had been. They were advancing toward four chairs that stood in the center of the dome, but they, too, had left their escorts behind, so the meeting would be watched by the three private armies from a respectful distance; it would not be overheard unless there were trick mikes aimed at it. Then Cedric remembered Dr. Fish—of course there would be trick mikes, and probably the visitors’ aircraft had some, also. The low-rank muscle round the edges would not hear, though.

“Grundy Julian Wagner, of BEST,” his grandmother remarked as they walked. “And Cheung Olsen Paraschuk, speaker of the Chamber.”

“Okay. And I say nothing.”

“That’s right. Your name may not even be Cedric.”

Then they had reached the chairs. The men were already seated. The only greetings were nods of recognition.

Cedric sat with Gran on his left and he recognized Cheung on his right: heavy, sleek black hair, eyes so padded they were hardly visible. His face had been carved from brown butter, and he might be any age from thirty to seventy. Cedric felt none of the thrill he had known four days earlier, when he had first met the Secretary General. Either he was growing blasé about celebrities, or he just was not properly awake yet.

“I understood that the fourth person was to be Hastings Willoughby?” Cheung’s voice was extremely low and measured, as profound as an underground river.

“This is my grandson, Hubbard Morris.”

“And I understood your grandson’s name was Cedric.” Grundy, opposite Cedric, sounded high-pitched and unpleasantly nasal. He was hunched and leathery, his hair thin and colorless, and even his hands seemed curiously elongated. He was not tall—not by Cedric’s standards—but he seemed spare and fleshless. He smiled ironically, revealing long yellow teeth.

“That was another grandson,” Agnes said evenly. “He was lost yesterday on the world we call Nile.”

“Identical twins?” Grundy chuckled, showing his teeth again.

“At least. Spontaneous cleavage of the ovum is not uncommon during defrosting. He—they—were a posthumous gestation.”

Cedric was cold. He resisted a desire to shiver, wishing he had a coat. He could only admire his grandmother’s brazen false-hoods—he could hardly disapprove of them on moral grounds when she so obviously did not expect to deceive anyone. He wished she had chosen a better name for him than Morris.

“How many grandsons do you have, Director?” Cheung asked, in his black, oily voice.

“I have not counted them recently.”

“Ah. And of course the birth certificates are on file.”

“Of course.” She was certainly lying, Cedric thought, but the papers could soon be forged if she ever wanted them.

“And the nose?” Grundy inquired. “Cedric had one just like that. Must we presume that, in a moment of trivial sibling dissension, they reacted with the identical reflexes of their monozygotic inception and simultaneously punched each other on the snoot?”

Neither Cheung nor Gran paid any attention, and for a moment there was thoughtful silence. Of course Grundy and Cheung must know that Cedric was Hastings’s clone. He had been brought along as a threat, perhaps, or as a confusion, to throw them off balance. They would be wondering how he had escaped the Nile tragedy and how many more clones might there be. He himself had never considered that there might be more of him around somewhere, but of course there could be. That thought made him feel even more insecure and worthless than before; he shivered.

“You will speak for Hastings, then, Director?” Grundy inquired.

“I think I do have some influence with him.” She seemed quite impervious to the cold, or the godless hour of night, or the threat of hundreds of armed men and women waiting menacingly on the distant sidelines. She was as calm as if she were back in her office with its big pentagonal table and expensive holo walls.

“Then we can dispose of this lean young man?” That was Cheung’s deep organ tone. He might be a very fine bass singer.

Agnes glanced up at Cedric thoughtfully. “No, he may yet be useful. Do you recognize this man, Ce—Morris?”

“Dr. Cheung. I’ve seen him on the news often.”

“You haven’t seen his face anywhere else?”

“No, Gran, I—
Oh, God
!”

“Well?”

“Gavin!” It was not really true that all Chinese faces looked alike. Cedric had just never noticed the resemblance.

“Gavin?” his grandmother echoed.

“Wong Gavin—at Meadowdale! His father’s president of—”
Nonsense
! Chipper, cheeky little Gavin was another clone. The lump that suddenly filled Cedric’s throat was so real that for a moment he thought he would choke. He forced a deep breath somehow. How old was Gavin—ten, maybe? So another eight years or so would see him fully grown—fewer if there were an emergency need, for a heart, say. “Harvesting” his grandmother had called it.

Cheung had not changed expression at all. “Let us to our business,” he said deeply. “All those gun-toting apes are making me nervous. What are you asking, ma’am?”

“Me?” Hubbard seemed astonished. “I am asking nothing. Your presence here makes you the petitioners. Ask.”

“No, you ask,” Grundy said. “For mercy.”

Again the other two paid him no attention, but Cedric inspected him with growing distaste and a vague feeling that he ought to know him also. He had recognized Gavin’s resemblance to Cheung because Cheung’s face was smoothly round and flat and almost babyish. Grundy’s features were much bonier, and his baldness did not help. His long skull seemed to have grown out through his hair, and his chin was long and pointed. His eyes were baggy, his brow marred by spots.

“China has declared,” Cheung said. “Withdrawn its recognition of the U.N. It will hold elections for Chamber representation.” He moved a hand in a small gesture that seemed to convey many things. He had thick hands with short, powerful fingers, but they were quite hairless. “We heard the news on the way here. Both Japans have followed. Others will do so as the day progresses.”

“My congratulations.” Hubbard Agnes sniffed, as though disapproving of the metallic, oily scent of the hangar. “Why should that concern me?”

Cheung studied her impassively for a moment. His massive stillness conveyed to Cedric a sinister sense of power that was missing from Grundy’s sneering restlessness.

“Today marks the end of the General Assembly,” the deep voice said. “The end of the U.N., and of Hastings.”

“And of you,” Grundy interjected, with a leer at Gran.

She shrugged. “Maybe. You lack the financial resources of the U.N., of course.” She gazed inquiringly at Cheung, and for a moment the two locked eyes. Cedric remembered Jathro explaining how Stellar Power financed the U.N. officially, and Hastings’s graft unofficially.

Grundy made another of his shrewish remarks, but Cedric did not hear it. Grundy had clenched his fists. His hands were all bones, wrapped in mottled parchment, and his wrists were thin and hairy. Somehow those fists had the same tantalizing familiarity as his face. Cedric was working his way through every child in Meadowdale. It had to be Meadowdale—his whole life had been Meadowdale. The half memory was like a maddening, unreachable itch. Who?

Still his grandmother seemed unworried. Her curt, precise tone had not changed. “Of course your joy at the China news can hardly be undiluted, Dr. Cheung.”

“Why do you think so, ma’am?”

“Because the present China delegates are so-called ‘temporaries,’ appointed by you. Under your own rules, as I understand them, they are now discredited. Also the Japanese, and all those others you mentioned.”

“They will be replaced by officially elected representatives very shortly.”

“But that will take time, won’t it?” She waited for him to comment, but when he didn’t she said, “And meanwhile the old ones cannot vote. By your own rules, I repeat.”

“What’s she getting at, Ollie?” Grundy barked. His voice grated, rough and uncultured compared to Cheung’s.

For the first time the mask shifted, the butter seeming to shift and become less bland—Cheung was favoring Hubbard Agnes with a small frown. “That is so. It is true, then, that Hastings has actually been encouraging some of the fence-sitters to come down on our side?”

A wisp of satisfaction thinned Gran’s pale lips. “I did suggest that he should recognize the difficulties certain parties were having in remaining loyal.” She considered, then added, “And that he ought not hold them too harshly to a course that may have become untenable for them. The Japans, for example.”

“This is surrender!” Grundy crowed.

“Not quite, I think.” Cheung was still studying Agnes.

“Why? You mean she’s got some trick up her sleeve?” Grundy waved a fist.

That did it—
Dwayne
! Kroeger Dwayne! He had been about three years older than Cedric. Kroeger Dwayne and McClachlanne Greg had liked to take younger boys behind the barn for puberty experiments. They had tried to do some on Cedric himself once.

He shivered, but whether it was memory or the temperature in the vast hangar, he could not be sure. He had hated and feared Kroeger Dwayne, but the guy had not deserved
that
…

“Tell us, ma’am,” Cheung said.

“You have lost your majority,” Gran said simply. “By Friday or so, Huu Ngo will be the new speaker of the Chamber.”

Cheung leaned back and gazed up at the high sweep of the dome. “I don’t count it that way.”

“Try again. We have forty-two from Neururb, over eighty from Nauc. What remains of the Mediterranean is solid for us. You must withdraw voting rights from most of India, China, Japan…” The litany droned on. There was no triumph in her voice, only clinical authority and the usual impatience.

The Grundy man was an older version of Kroeger Dwayne. He looked just as mean. He had his long fangs bared again, as he waited for Cheung and Gran to complete their calculations.

The big man sighed and straightened.

“You may be right. It will certainly be close. But not all those you have bought will stay bought, and a quick adjournment—”

“No adjournment,” Agnes said firmly.

“Then dissolution and a general elec—”

“No dissolution.”

For a long moment Cheung studied her with a face as unreadable as pulped newspaper. When he spoke, his voice had sunk even lower, an unbelievable bass. “Your coalition is unstable, ma’am. It will not hold together for long. And even if I have to go into hiding for a month or so, until the new representatives take their seats—”

“Fool!” Grundy shouted. “Dolt! Huu will control those elections! You thought you were only up against that senile old coot, Hastings. I warned you he would call for help from this—this pestilent witch!”

Dwayne had enjoyed blaming others, too.

Cheung continued to ignore his companion. He and Hubbard Agnes studied each other once more, as though each were waiting for the other to make the first move. If so, then she won, and for the first time the big man showed traces of anger.

“I would be naive to say you fight unfairly, Dr. Hubbard, but you have introduced a whole new factor into the game now. You have been wielding a new threat—but I am not at all sure you can sustain that particular blackmail for very long. You fight with children! Where are they? What have you done with them?”

Cedric tore his eyes off Grundy, an unpleasant reflection of the odious Dwayne. What was that about children?

Gran’s cold glare had become colder yet. “I did not start that, Dr. Cheung. Besides, are they children? Technically they are referred to as COC’s.”

Cedric broke her rules to ask, “What’s that stand for?”

She flashed him a glare of warning. “Cultured Organ Complex.”

Cheung sighed very deeply. “You will not believe this, for of course I have no evidence.” He glanced at Cedric, including him in the negotiations for the first time. “I admit I have a clone which goes…who goes…by the name of Wong Gavin. He was a rash decision on my part, one I now regret. I have long since vowed that I shall not molest him. When he reaches adulthood I shall give him his liberty and let him find his own way in the world.”

“You think so?” Grundy jeered. “You think so now! Wait until the chest pains start, or the jaundice. Every drowning man breathes water in the end.”

“You may be right.” Cheung turned back to Gran. “The point is that I now no longer have the choice, do I? Certain unwritten rules have been breached, and the consequences are incalculable. What will you do with them, Director? Dump them in a refugee camp, or sell them back to their owners? Put them out of their misery? You can’t go public with them, because you have used them to buy votes, haven’t you? Will you kill them all?”

“I bought votes with them, but return of goods was never included, only confidentiality.”

“Hah!” Grundy shouted. He jabbed a finger to emphasize his words, and that had been a Dwayne trick, too. “She’s been threatening to expose, but she can’t expose some without blowing the whole organage business! Then her big stick is broken—call her bluff, Ollie!”

“At the moment I am more concerned with finding out why the rules were changed.”

“I repeat—I did not start that, Dr. Cheung.”

“That’s utterly irrelevant—” Grundy began.

Cheung’s dark voice cut him off. “Explain, please?”

Gran indicated Cedric with a casual wave of her hand. “Cedr—Morris—my grandson was raised in Meadowdale. On Tuesday I sent him credit for a ticket and told him to come to HQ, in Nauc. I deliberately gave him a day in hand and more credit than he needed. Of course he set off to explore—but he headed straight to the Norristown sector—and BEST.”

Cedric was about to tell them how Cheaver Ben had suggested Norristown to him. He didn’t, because they all seemed to be waiting for something—waiting, he saw at last, for Dr. Grundy to call it a coincidence. But Grundy did not speak, either.