"Am I right that these people have met the new Administrator, Sir?" the older Armitage asked.
Quelgrum nodded. "They've just come from Haven, so I'd guess they're feeling a little puzzled right now," he drawled. "Why don't you enlighten them, Professor?"
"My name is Robert Armitage," the Professor said, in an exact replica of his near-doppelganger's voice. "My kinship with the Administrator is, as you have guessed, very close: as close as possible, in fact. We are as one in our heredity."
"You are too old to be a twin of Armitage," Tordun declared. "You must be twenty years his senior."
The older Armitage smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment," he said. "The actual figure is more like forty years, but certain drugs can do wonders for a man."
Grimm suppressed a shiver at the word 'drugs', remembering his own recent addiction to the herbs Trina and Virion, but he said nothing. Further revelations must be forthcoming.
"The original Administrator of the Haven Correctional Facility was George Armitage," the Professor said. "When I say 'original', I mean that he was the Administrator before the Final War.
"As I understand it, he was a fine, pragmatic scientist of the first order; a capable, dedicated man, who inspired all around him to give their utmost in the struggle to uncover the essential inmost workings of the human mind. Haven had a fine team of people working for him, with a number of scientific disciplines at their disposal. One of these was genetic engineering."
Grimm's brows furrowed. He had read these last two words once before in an ancient book in the Arnor Scholasticate Library, but they had meant nothing to him.
"Is any of you familiar with the word 'clone'?" Robert Armitage asked.
During his long, lonely hours in the Library, Grimm had cultivated an interest in the study of horticulture, which had stood him in good stead in his basic training in Herbalism.
"That is when a plant is grown from a cutting, so as to preserve the unique properties of an interesting or rare mutant," he said, not understanding the bearing that this might have on the issue.
Armitage clapped his hands. "That's almost a textbook answer, my young friend. Do you know anything of genetics?"
Grimm nodded. "A little; genetics is the study of heredity, allowing desired traits of animals and plants to be selectively bred and enhanced, with a known, statistical chance of success."
"You are correct, as far as your definition goes," the scientist said. "However, in the decades before the Last War, the science became almost an art. We learned the very mechanisms of genetic transference and became able to manipulate them, almost at will. Each living thing contains within each of its cells the information required to build that man; that tree; that fish; that fungus.
"During sexual reproduction, the parents' units of genetic information, the genes, become mixed and shuffled before being passed on to the offspring, ensuring a unique genetic identity for each child, with the exception of identical twins, who are split from a single fertilised egg. The complete genetic information of an individual is called a genome."
The man's bearing was that of a teacher lecturing a group of rapt students. Indeed, he had a captive audience, since Grimm and his companions were surrounded by armed guards, with belligerent expressions which quelled any thought of rebellion.
Nonetheless, Grimm found himself engrossed by this new-old-Armitage's monologue, and he leaned forward, ignoring a sour look from Xylox.
"At the peak of human scientific achievement, we became capable of separating an individual's unique genetic information from almost any cell of his, her or its body, placing it into an evacuated egg cell and stimulating it to act as if newly fertilised. At first, the success rate was low, and individuals so produced died young, since they had been born from a genome that was already old. However, it became possible to rejuvenate the genome, to reset the clock, so to speak, and it became feasible to recreate a human being who was an exact copy of his genetic donor."
Armitage's gaze locked upon each of his 'students' in turn, as if the force of his will alone could lock his arcane learning into their brains. Grimm almost expected the man to add, "I shall be testing you on your retention of this knowledge later," in the manner of Magemaster Crohn, although he did not.
"Any creature formed from the complete genome of another, by whatever means," continued Armitage, "is called a 'clone'. When the Final Destruction came, no more individuals came to Haven. The decision was made to sterilise all personnel to prevent inbreeding, and its concomitant problems of the proliferation of undesirable genes and mutations."
Tordun's pale face reddened. "How do you decide which genes are 'undesirable'?" he snapped. "Those of people like me, perhaps?"
The white titan shivered with apparent rage, but he kept his huge fists lowered.
"Not at all," Armitage replied, apparently unfazed. "A normal breeding population has good and bad genes, which are shuffled at each new generation. When a limited population interbreeds, such genes begin to proliferate, and the population dwindles and dies out.
"The decision was made to reproduce the population only by means of the cloning of selected, valuable individuals, until such time as new genetic information became available."
Drex began to stand, but she was pushed back into her chair by an impartial but firm prod from a guard's black-nosed weapon.
"Who decided who was important?" she cried. "Who decided whose line would live on, and whose would die out?"
Armitage shrugged. "It must have been a difficult decision, and I don't doubt there were many heated debates on the subject. However, you must remember that I played no part in it. George Armitage and his colleagues are long dead, and there has been a long, long succession of their clones, of which I am just one example."
The white-clad man shivered, as if some dark power had been conferred on him by his hereditary legacy.
"I was brought up in a similar manner to George Armitage and educated in the same disciplines as him, as were countless others before me, to ensure my personality would be similar to his. I am not him, and there are differences between us. However, I'm proud to share the same genome of that long-dead, admirable man, who sustained a community of people through difficult times, just as General Quelgrum does.
"I was the Administrator of Haven for many decades, but I grew tired of a life in such a restrictive, claustrophobic regimen. I was permitted to resign my post only on the provision of an heir; a man of the true Armitage line. One such clone remained, and I dedicated many years to his training and conditioning. By the time the next clone had attained maturity, we looked identical, and we were able to operate as one individual. Nobody except a few confidants suspected that I was training a clone to replace me when the time came. After a few more years, even those to whom I had entrusted the knowledge, the last clones of the original Haven officials, died, and we didn't have the means of producing more."
Armitage reached out for a glass of wine at Xylox's left shoulder, and he sampled it with an appreciative lifting of his eyebrows. If the senior Questor's expression could have killed, then the Professor would have been a cooling cadaver, but the white-clad man seemed, or pretended, not to notice. Resuming his lecturer's stance, Armitage resumed his monologue.
"On a lone scouting mission, I discovered this site, just after the General's party arrived. I showed him how to use the machinery and advanced weapons we found here, how to maintain them, and how to manufacture more. Much of the ancient equipment here was all but decayed, but a lot of it was crated, greased and in remarkable condition for such an ancient site. Some of the weapons here are new, but many are thousands of years old, and as good as new, a tribute to their long-dead manufacturers."