"It's a wonder we're still around," said Bailey.
"That's exactly right. And that points us, at least speculatively, to a theory on the purpose of sex. You see, sex is not an efficient way to reproduce. Face it, it's complicated — you have to bring two people together, the sparks have to fly, it's hit or miss. Why bother? We're here. Why not just divide all by ourselves like an amoeba? It would make life a lot simpler."
"Why not indeed?"
"To shed all those bad mutations. Sex is the only way to confront one set of chromosomes with an entirely different set of chromosomes to cancel out the bad ones. It's a way of shuffling the deck every generation."
"I knew there had to be a practical reason," said Jennifer.
The women laughed again.
"I think," said Schwartzbaum, "that asexual reproduction is narcissism carried to the final extreme, the ultimate ego trip. Nothing more counts than the continuation of Self. The direction is clear. Tomorrow, we'll have people giving birth to themselves."
"Good-bye, Eros," said Hartman.
"Hello, Thanatos," said Bailey.
"Speaking of tomorrow…" said Ellen, looking at her watch. "I have to get up early."
On that note, the dinner party broke up. The guests filed out into the bug-filled night, chatting as they went. Schwartzbaum moved down the front walk with a stately gait. Hartman had whispered to Jude and Skyler to stay behind, and he motioned them into a drawing room while Jennifer put the children to sleep. The house fell noticeably quiet.
Hartman poured himself another drink and offered them one. Both declined.
Jude looked at Skyler and decided to plunge ahead. He told Hartman part of the real story — how they had met only recently and believed that they were possibly brothers, but with an age difference. And so they were looking into the possibility — as incredible as it may seem — that they were clones.
Hartman simply laughed. "I thought you showed more than a journalistic attention to detail. That's all right" — he waved them silent—"you don't have to say a word. Why not let me talk?" He laughed again. "As if I haven't been doing enough of that.
"It hasn't escaped my attention that you two look alike, dyed blond hair or no. But let me put your mind at ease. What you're wondering about, what you're probably afraid of, if you have any sense — at least I would be if I were in your shoes—cannot possibly be true. Let me repeat that: it cannot be true. So eliminate it as a possibility, wipe it from your mind."
Skyler, stunned by the man's certainty, spoke. "How do you know? How can you be so sure?"
"For one simple reason: you're how old? Twenty-five? Twenty-eight?"
Skyler shrugged.
"Thirty," said Jude.
"Thirty, even more. Well, the technology for what you have in mind, for cloning, it exists today, no doubt about that. But it wasn't around thirty years ago. Not unless it was done on another planet, because no one on this one could have done it."
"No one at all?"
"Nope."
Hartman was quiet as he ran the names through a mental file.
"We all keep up with each other, you know. We keep an eye on what we're doing. Half out of comradeship, half out of anxiety. I mean, you saw those postcards and photographs in my office. I could tick off all the names for you and probably tell you where they all are at this very moment."
He seemed to stumble for a second; he had stubbed his toe, mentally speaking.
"There was one guy, years and years ago, but no one's heard anything about him for a long time. Dropped out of Harvard or maybe Chicago, or was sent away, I believe, for overstepping the bounds. Said to be brilliant and eccentric, all that. Went underground, did who knows what. This was a long time ago, in the sixties. He was rumored to have surfaced briefly in the early seventies, when he won a big award in the Netherlands. No one really knew if the fellow who picked it up was him or not. More than a little mysterious, as you can gather."
"His name?"
"Don't know the original name. The new one's odd. Ricard, or something like that."
"Rincon?"
"That's it. Very good. How did you know?"
"I've heard it around."
"Well, don't worry about him. No one's heard anything about him in ages. If he's done anything big lately, he's kept it a state secret. We scientists don't like secrets. We like prizes. So put your minds at ease."
He leaned back, gave them the once-over.
"I'd say if you've just met, you're twins separated at birth. Nothing wrong with that, it happens from time to time — it should be exotic enough for you. You don't have to look any further."
They thanked him and moved to the front door. Jennifer came down the stairs to say good night. She kissed them each on a cheek, the opposite cheek, a mirror image good night.
"By the way," she said, "how did you like the meat?"
"Very tasty," replied Skyler.
"I'm glad. It's a sort of home recipe we like to spring on people. It's half goat and half cow. A chimera. My husband made it."
Chapter 19
When they drove to Milwaukee to meet Tizzie, she seemed distracted, even troubled. She told Jude she didn't want to be picked up at home, insisting that it would be easier all around if they met her downtown at the old bus station. He took that as a bad sign, but shrugged it off. The way things were going, it didn't pay to overthink anything these days.
They drove his car, the windshield now streaked with crushed bugs and the backseat floor littered with maps and coffee containers, along the innercity boulevards until they spotted the terminal. She was sitting on the curb waiting, with the small duffel bag by her side. She gave a half wave and stood. Skyler was eager to see her and leapt from the car as soon as it stopped. He gave her a hug, casually, and she hugged him back, and he reached down to put her bag in the trunk, and she let him do that, too.
Jude could tell at once, as soon as she settled into the front seat next to him, that she had been through a rough time.
"Things bad at home?" he asked.
She said yes.
"And your father — how's he doing?"
"He's aged," she said. "Every time I see him, he's aged more than I expect. My mother, too."
Jude nodded slowly. "It happens."
"I know," she said peevishly. "But that's not why I'm upset."
"Why then?"
She looked over, sorry that she had snapped at him.
"Sorry. I just don't want to talk about it — not now. Tell me about you. Did you find out anything?"
"Bits and pieces. Enough to know we're on the right track. Of course, I have no idea where the hell that track is leading."
He filled her in on their conversations with Hartman and related in detail all that they had learned about cloning.
"It's amazing," he said. "The cloning stuff seems so complicated at first, but when you hear him talk about it, it all seems straightforward and simple and doable. You can imagine sitting down and doing it yourself."
"That's the hallmark of a great scientist," put in Skyler.
"Pardon?" said Jude, surprised at the voice from the backseat.
"A scientist takes a complicated process or theory and strips it down to its essentials; he reduces it and experiments with it and makes it basic. And in trying to make it understandable, he may blunder into a fundamental truth. That's the way it works. Karl Popper said it—science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplication."
"Karl Popper — the philosopher?"
Skyler nodded.
"Christ, you don't even know where the hell you were raised, but you know about Karl Popper."