He must also have an agent here, someone he could trust implicitly. That would not be difficult; Karl had met hundreds of Terrans—
“Oh, my God,” Duncan breathed. “That explains everything...”
He wondered if he should cancel his trip to Zanzibar; no, that took priority over all else, except the speech he had come a billion kilometers to deliver. In any case, he did not see what more he could do here in Washington until he had further news from home.
He was still operating on pure guesswork, without one atom of proof. But there was a cold, dead feeling in the general region of his heart; and suddenly, for no good reason at all, Duncan thought of that solitary iceberg, gliding southward on the hidden current toward its irrevocable destiny.
31. The Island of Dr. Mohammed
El Hadj’s deputy, Dr. Todd, was one of those medical men who seem, not always justifiably, to radiate an aura of confidence. This despite his relative youth and informality; for reasons which Duncan never discovered, all his colleagues used his nickname, Sweeney.
“I’m sorry you won’t meet El Hadj this time,” he said apologetically. “He had to rush to Hawaii, for an emergency operation.”
“I’m surprised that’s necessary, in this age.”
“Normally, it’s not. But Hawaii’s almost exactly on the other side of the world—which means you have to work through two comsats in series. During telesurgery, that extra time delay can be critical.”
So even on Earth, thought Duncan, the slowness of radio waves can be a problem. A half-second lag would not matter in conversation; but between a surgeon’s hand and eye, it might be fatal.
“Until twenty years ago,” Dr. Todd explained, “this was a famous marine biology lab. So it had most of the facilities we need—including isolation.”
“Why is that necessary?” asked Duncan. He had wondered why the clinic was in such an inconveniently out-of-the-way spot.
“There’s a good deal of emotional interest in our work, and we have to control our visitors. Despite air transportation, you can still do that much easier on an island than anywhere else. And above all, we have to protect our Mothers. They may not be very intelligent, but they’re sensitive, and don’t like being stared at.”
“I’ve not seen any yet.”
“Do you really want to?”
That was a difficult question to answer, for Duncan felt his emotions tugging in opposite directions. Thirty-one years ago, he must have been born in a place not unlike this, though probably not as spectacularly beautiful. If he had gone full term—and in those days, he assumed, all clones did so—some unknown woman had carried him in her body for at least eight months after implantation. Was she still alive? Did any record of her name still exist, or was she merely a number in a computer file? Perhaps not even that, for the identity of a foster mother was not of the slightest biological importance. A purely mechanical womb could have served as well, but there had never been any real need to perfect so complex a device. In a world where reproduction was strictly limited, there would always be plenty of volunteers; the only problem was selecting them.
Duncan had no memory whatsoever of his unknown foster mother or of the months he must have spent on Earth as a baby. Every attempt to penetrate the fog that lay at the very beginning of his childhood was a failure. He could not be certain if this was normal, or whether the earliest part of his life was hidden by deliberately induced amnesia. He suspected the latter, since he felt a distinct reluctance ever to investigate the subject in any detail.
When he formed the concept of “Mother” in his mind, he instantly saw Colin’s wife, Sheela. Her face was his earliest memory, her affection her first love, later shared with Grandma Ellen. Colin had chosen carefully and had learned from Malcolm’s mistakes.
Sheela had treated Duncan exactly like her own children, and he had never thought of Yuri and Glynn as anything except his older brother and sister. He could not remember when he had first realized that Colin was not their father, and that they bore no genetic relationship to him whatsoever. Somehow, it had never seemed to matter.
He appreciated, now, the unobtrusive skills that had gone into the creation of so well adjusted a ‘family’; it would not have been possible in an age of exclusive marriage and sexual possessiveness. Even today, it was no easy task. He hoped that he and Marissa would be equally successful, and that Clyde and Carline would accept little Malcolm as their brother, just as wholeheartedly as Yuri and Glynn had accepted him...
“I’m sorry,” said Duncan. “I was daydreaming.”
“Can’t say I blame you; this place is too damned beautiful. I sometimes have to draw the curtains when I want to do any work.”
That was easy to believe—yet beauty was not the first impression to strike Duncan when he landed on the island. Even now, his dominant feeling was one of awe, mixed with more than a trace of fear.
Starting a dozen meters away, and filling his field of vision right out to the sharp blue line of the horizon, was more water than he had ever imagined. It was true that he had seen Earth’s oceans from space, but from that Olympian vantage point it had been impossible to envisage their true size. Ever the greatest of seas was diminished, when one could flash across it in ten minutes.
This world was indeed misnamed. It should have been called Ocean, not Earth. Duncan performed a rough mental calculation—one of the skills the Makenzies had carefully retained, despite the omnipresent computer. Radius six thousand—and his eye was about six meters above sea level—that made it simple—six root two, or near enough eight kilometers. Only eight! It was incredible; he could easily have believed that the horizon was a hundred kilometers away. His vision could not span even one percent of the distance to the other shore...
And what he could see now was on the two-dimensional skin of an alien universe, teeming with strange life forms seeking whom they might devour. To Duncan, that expanse of peaceful blue concealed a world much more hostile, and more terrifying, than Space. Even Titan, with its known dangers, seemed benign in comparison.
And yet there were children out there, splashing around in the shallows, and disappearing underwater for quite terrifying lengths of time. One of them, Duncan was certain, had been gone for well over a minute.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” he asked anxiously, gesturing toward the lagoon.
“We don’t let them get near the water until they’re well trained. And if you must drown yourself, this is the place for it—with some of the best medical facilities in the world. We’ve had only one permanent death in the last fifteen years. Revival would have been possible even then, but after an hour underwater, brain damage is irreversible.”
“But what about sharks and all the other big fish?”
“We’ve never had an attack inside the reef, and only one outside it. That’s a small price to pay for admission to Fairyland. We’re taking out the big trimaran tomorrow—why don’t you come along?”
“I’ll think about it,” Duncan answered evasively.
“Oh—I suppose you’ve never been underwater before.”
“I’ve never been on it—except in a swimming pool.”
“Well, you’ve nothing to lose. Though we won’t complete the tests for another forty-eight hours, I’m sure we’ll be able to clone successfully from the genotypes you’ve given. So your immortality insurance is taken care of.”
“Thank you very much,” said Duncan dryly. “That makes all the difference.”
He remembered Commander Innes’ invitation to the Caribbean reefs, and his instant though unexpressed refusal. But those mere children were obviously enjoying themselves, and their confidence was a reproach to his manhood. The pride of the Makenzies was at stake; he looked glumly at that appalling mass of water, and realized that he would have to do something about it before he left the island.