He shivered, a strange mixture of pain and elation coursing through his veins. It was as he'd thought – Augustus had been right. Amos's experiment was still going on.
He stared at the genetic chart, matching it to the one he held in memory – the one he had first seen in the back of his great-grandfather's journal that afternoon in the old house – the day he had lost his hand.
The two charts were identical.
He flicked through the files again until he came across his father's. For a time he was silent, scanning the pages, then he looked up, nodding to himself. Here it was – confirmation. A small note, dated 18 February 2185. The date his father had been sterilized. Sterilized without him knowing it, on the pretext of a simple medical.
A date roughly five years before Ben had been born.
He flicked through again, looking now for his mother's file, then pulled it out. He knew now where to look. Anticipated what it would say. Even so, he was surprised by what he read.
The implant had been made seven months before his birth, which meant that he had been nurtured elsewhere for eight weeks before he had been placed in his mother's womb. He touched his tongue to his teeth, finding the thought of it strangely discomfiting. It made sense, of course – by eight weeks they could tell whether the embryo was healthy ohim.
It made sense. Of course it did. But the thought of himself, in utero, placed in a machine, disturbed him. He had always thought...
He let his hands rest on the edge of the drawer, overcome suddenly by the reality of what he had found. He had known – some part of him had believed it ever since that day when he had looked at Augustus's journal; even so, he had not been prepared. Not at core. It had been head-knowledge, detached from him. Until now.
So it was true. Hal was not his father, Hal was his brother. Like his so-called ‘great-great-grandfather', Augustus, his ‘great-grandfather', Robert and his ‘grandfather', James. Brothers, all of them. Every last one the seeds of Old Man Amos. Yes. Sons of Amos and his wife, Alexandra.
He flicked through until he found her file, then laughed. Of course! He should have known. The name of the clinic – Melfi. It was his great-great-great-grandmother's maiden name. No. His mother's maiden name.
Which meant...
He tried another drawer. Again it opened to his touch, revealing the edges of files, none of them marked with that important acorn symbol. And inside? Inside the files were blank.
‘It's all of a piece,' he said quietly, nodding to himself. All part of the great illusion Amos built about him. Like Augustus's town in the Domain, filled with its android replicants. Like the City Amos had designed to Tsao Ch'un's order. All a great charade. A game to perpetuate his seed, his ideas.
And this, here, was the centre of it. The place where Amos's great plan was carried out. That was why it was hidden in the Mids. That was why security was so tight outside and so lax within. No one else came here. No one but the Shepherd women. To be tested and, when the time was right and the scheme demanded it, to have Amos's children implanted into their wombs. No wonder Tung T'an had been disturbed to see him here.
He turned, hearing the door slide back behind him.
It was Tung T'an.
‘What in hell's name...?' The Consultant began, then fell silent, seeing the open file on the drawer in front of Ben. He swallowed. ‘You should not be in here, Shih Shepherd.'
‘No, I shouldn't. But I am.'
‘If you would leave now...'
‘Of course. I've seen all I needed to see.'
The Han's face twitched. ‘You misunderstand...'
Ben shook his head. ‘Not at all, Tung T'an. You see, I knew. I've known for some time. But not how. Or where. All this...' He indicated the files. ‘It just confirms things.'
‘You knew?' Tung T'an shook his head. ‘Knew what, Shih Shepherd? There's nothing to know.'
‘As you wish, Tung T'an.'
He saw the movement in the man's eyes, the assessment and reassessment. Then Tung T'an gave a reluctant nod. ‘You were never meant to see any of this. It is why...'
‘Why you kept the Shepherd males away from here.' Ben smiled. ‘Wise. To make it all seem unimportant. Women's business. But old Amos wasn't quite so thorough here, was he?'
‘I'm sorry?'
Ben shook his head. No, Tung T'an knew nothing of just how thorough Amos could be when he wanted to. The old town was dthbega Qn was dthan example of that, complete down to every last detail. But this... In a sense this was a disappointment. It was almost as if...
He laughed, for the first time seriously considering the idea. What if Amos had wanted one of them to discover all this? What if that, too, were part of the plan? – a kind of test?
The more he thought of it, the more sense it made. The boarded-up old house, the hidden room, the enclosed garden, the lost journal. None of these were really necessary unless they were meant to act as clues – doors to be passed through until the last door was opened, the final revelation made. No. You did not preserve what you wished to conceal. You destroyed it. And yet he had stumbled on this by accident. Coming here had not been his doing, it had been Meg's. Unless...
She had come a week early. Why? What reason could she have had for doing that? A week. Surely it would have made no difference?
Tung T'an was still staring at him. ‘You place me in an impossible situation, Shih Shepherd.'
‘Why so, Shih Tung? You can't erase what I've seen, or what I know. Not without destroying me. And you can't do that.' He laughed. ‘After all, it's what all of this here is dedicated to preserving, isn't it? You have no other function.'
Tung T'an lowered his head. ‘Even so-'
Ben interrupted him. ‘You need say nothing, Tung T'an. Not even that I was here. For my own part I will act as if this place did not and does not exist. You understand me?' He moved closer to the Han, forcing him by the strength of his will to look up and meet his eyes. ‘I was never here, Tung T'an. And this conversation... it never happened.'
Tung T'an swallowed, aware suddenly of the charismatic power of the young man standing before him, then nodded.
‘Good. Then go and see to my sister. She's like me. She doesn't like to be kept waiting. Ah, but you know that, don't you, Tung T'an? You, of all people, should know how alike we Shepherds are.'
Meg sat across from Ben in the sedan, watching him. He had been quiet since they had come from the clinic. Too quiet. He had been up to something. She had seen how flustered Tung T'an had been when he'd returned to her and knew it had to do with something Ben had said or done. When she'd asked, Ben had denied that anything had passed between him and Tung T'an, but she could tell he was lying. The two had clashed over something. Something important enough for Ben to be worrying about it still.
She tried again. ‘Was it something to do with me?'
He looked up at her and laughed. ‘You don't give up, do you?'
She smiled. ‘Not when it concerns you.'
He leaned forward, taking her hands. ‘It's nothing. Really, sis. If it were important, I'd tell you. Honest.'
She laughed. ‘That doesn't make sense, Ben. If it's not important, then there's no reason for you not to tell me. And if it is, well, you say you'd tell me. So why not just tell me and keep me quiet?'
He shrugged. ‘All right. I'll tell you what I was thinking about. I was thinking about a girl I've met here. A girl called Catherine. I should have met her, two hours back, but she's probably given up on me now.'
Meg looked down, suddenly very still. ‘A girl?'
He squeezed her hands gently. ‘A friend of mine. She's been helping me with my work.'
Meg looked up at him.
He was watching her, a faint, a I&&rsq Qint, a I&lmost teasing smile on his lips. ‘You're jealous, aren't you?'
‘No...' she began, looking down, a slight colour coming to her cheeks, then she laughed. ‘Oh, you're impossible, Ben. You really are. I'm curious, that's all. I didn't think...'
‘That I had any friends here?' He nodded. ‘No. I didn't think I had either. Not until a week ago. That's when I met her. It was strange. You see, I'd used her as a model for something I was working on. Used her without her knowing it. She was always there, you see, in a café I used to frequent. And then, one day, she came to my table and introduced herself.'
A smile returned to her lips. ‘So when are you going to introduce her to me?'
He looked down at her hands, then lifted them to his lips, kissing their backs. ‘How about tonight? That is, if she's still speaking to me after this morning.'
Ben was sitting with Meg in the booth at the end of the bar when Catherine came in. He had deliberately chosen a place where neither of them had been before – neutral ground – and had told Meg as much, not wanting his sister to feel too out of place. Ben saw her first and leaned across to touch Meg's hand. Meg turned, seeing how Catherine came down the aisle towards them, awkward at first, then, when she knew they had seen her, with more confidence. She had put up her flame-red hair so that the sharp lines of her face were prominent.
Looking at her in the half-light, Meg thought her quite beautiful.
Ben stood, offering his hand, but Catherine gave him only the most fleeting of glances. ‘You must be Meg,' she said, moving round the table and taking the seat beside her, looking into her face. ‘I've been looking forward to meeting you.' She laughed softly, then reached out to touch Meg's nose gently, tracing its shape, the outline of her mouth.