They followed Tung T'an into a suite of rooms every bit as luxurious as the first. Big, spacious rooms, decorated as if this were First Level, not the Mids. Tung T'an tapped out a combination on a doorlock, then turned, facing Ben again, more composed now.
"If you would be kind enough to wait here, Shih Shepherd, we'll try not to keep you too long. The tests are quite routine, but they take a little time. In the meantime, is there anything one of my assistants can bring you?" "You want me to wait out here?"
"Ben . . ." Meg's eyes pleaded with him not to make trouble.
He smiled. "All right. Perhaps you'd ask them to bring me a pot of coffee and a newsfax."
The Consultant smiled and turned to do as Ben asked, but Meg was looking at him strangely now. She knew her brother well. Well enough to know he never touched a newsfax.
"What are you up to?" she whispered, as soon as Tung T'an was out of the room.
He smiled, the kind of innocuous-seeming smile that was enough to make alarm bells start ringing in her head. "Nothing. I'm just looking after my kid sister, that's all. Making sure she gets to the Clinic on time."
She looked down, the evasiveness of the gesture not lost on Ben.
"I'll explain it all, Ben. I promise I will. But not now." She glanced up at him, then shook her head. "Look, I promise. Later. But behave yourself while you're here. Please, Ben. I'll only be an hour or so."
He relented, smiling back at her. "Okay. I'll try to be good."
A young girl brought him coffee and a pile of newsfax, then took Meg through to get changed. Ben sat there for a time, pretending to look at the nonsense on the page before him, all the while surreptitiously looking around. As far as he could see he was not being observed. At the outer gates security was tight, but here there was nothing. Why was that? It was almost standard for companies to keep a tight watch on their premises.
He stood up, stretching, miming tiredness, then walked across the room, looking closer at the walls, the vents, making sure. No. There was nothing. It was almost certain that he wasn't being observed.
Good. Then he'd delve a little deeper, answer a few of the questions that were stacking up in his head.
He went out into the corridor and made his way back to the junction. Doors led off to either side. He stopped, listening. There was the faintest buzz of voices to his right, but to his left there was nothing. He tried the left-hand door, drawing the sliding door back in a single silent movement. If challenged he would say he was looking for a toilet.
The tiny room was empty. He slid the door closed behind him and looked around. Again there seemed to be no cameras. As if they had no need for .them. And yet they must, surely, if they had a regular clientele?
He crossed the room with three quick paces and tried the door on the far side. It too was open. Beyond was a long narrow room, brightly lit, the left hand wall filled with filing cabinets.
Eureka! he thought, allowing himself a tiny smile. And yet it seemed strange, very strange, that he should be able to gain access to their files so easily. As if they weren't expecting anyone to try. His brow wrinkled, trying to work it out; then he released the thought, moving down the line of cabinets quickly, looking for the number he had glimpsed on the card Meg had shown at the gates. He found it without difficulty and tried the drawer. It opened at a touch.
Meg's file was missing. Of course . . . they would have taken it with them. Like a lot of private clinics most of the work was of a delicate nature, and records were kept in this old-fashioned manner, the reports handwritten by the consultants, no computer copy kept. Because it would not do ...
He stopped, astonished, noting the name on the file that lay beneath his fingertips. A file that had a tiny acorn on the label next to the familiar name. Women's business. . .
And then he laughed, softly, quietly, knowing now why Tung T'an had been so flustered earlier. They were here! They were all here1. He flicked through quickly and found it. His file, handwritten like all the rest, and containing his full medical record—including a copy of his genetic chart.
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 February 18, 2185. The date his father had been sterilized. Sterilized without knowing it, on the pretext of a simple medical procedure.
A date roughly five years before Ben had been bom.
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 or otherwise. His embryo would have been— what?—an inch long by then. Limbs, fingers and toes, ears, nose, and mouth would have formed. Yes. By eight weeks they would have been sure.
It made sense. Of course it did. But the thought of himself, in a false uterus, 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. He shuddered. So it was true. Hal was not his father, Hal was his brother. Like his so-called great-great-grandfather Robert, his great-grandfather Augustus, and his grandfather James. Brothers, all of them. Every last one of them seeds of the old man. Sons of Amos Shepherd 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 mothers 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 the town in the Domain, filled with its android replicants. Like the City his son had designed to his order. All a great charade. A game to perpetuate his seed, his ideas.
And this, here, was the center 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."