Raffa shook her head. “Not except for that mess when there was a war or something.” She realized that didn’t sound very intelligent, but after all she hadn’t been old enough to pay much attention.
“Well, before that we used to import a little from one of the planets there, and we still have reference samples. It’s not definitive, by any means, but the Patchcock system could be a source of the raw materials. I do know that there’s a sizeable pharmaceutical industry on Patchcock itself. The Morrelines, I believe, are major investors.”
Raffa wondered if those were the same Morrelines whose daughter Ottala had been such a pain at school. She and Brun had never liked Ottala that much—well, to be honest, at all—but she supposed she could look Ottala up when she got back to Familias space. “And the drugs themselves? Are they complying with your standards?”
“Aside from the fact that they’re breaking the licensing agreement by using an alternate process, those in the first sample submitted do meet our standards. The second sample, however, is subtly different. Do you read chromatographs?”
“No . . . I’m sorry.”
“Never mind. I’ll give you the complete analysis and references, of course . . . it’s important for your neurologists to have this, and understand the effects. In essence, the changes in the ring structures—the substitutions—are going to affect the quality of the rejuvenation, and this degradation will accumulate with repeated rejuvenations. It’s not as bad as the old method, and it should be reversible, but if your specialists have noticed some deterioration in memory and cognitive ability in some patients, this may explain it.”
“I know there’s concern,” Raffa said, without specifying whose concern.
“Frankly, I’m not surprised. It’s possible that this is merely sloppy quality control in manufacturing—if for instance the reaction in the fourteenth step is poisoned, it’s possible for that ring substitution to occur. But you must also consider industrial sabotage. Either a deliberate intent to adulterate the drugs to manipulate someone, or deliberate carelessness with the intent to maximize profits. Especially with the alternate process being used, it would be expensive to maintain the kind of quality we demand; the biologicals used to clean up the unreacted substrate can be difficult to extract.”
This was all gobbledygook to Raffa, except the part about sabotage and profit margins . . . she could see possibilities either way, and so, she was sure, could Lord Thornbuckle. “I think this is too important to depend on one messenger,” she said. She dug out the authorization card Lord Thornbuckle had given her. “Here’s the account number—”
Kemtre Lord Altmann, the former king of the Familias Regnant, limped slightly. His legs ached. He had walked more kilometers in the past week than in the year before. The Neurosciences Institute had refused to give him his sons’ address, had said they would not violate the privacy of their patients. When he tried to insist that he was their father, he had rights, they pointed out that under his law the clones had no legal identity at all.
“Here, they are eligible for full citizenship. The biological relationship is irrelevant, especially for clones derived not from division in the embryo but from tissue culture of an older individual. To the extent that these persons have a parent, it is the donor individual—their prime, as they called him.”
“But I was his father, too,” the king protested.
“And how many biological children did you father?”
“Three boys,” the king said.
“And what happened to them?” He could tell by the tone of the question that the interviewer already knew the answers.
“They’re dead,” he said, after a pause.
“All three. Somehow that doesn’t recommend you as a father.”
He wanted to say It’s not my fault, but he knew the other man thought it was.
“What we will do,” the man said, “is send word to the young men that you are here, and want to contact them. It is then their decision whether or not to seek you out.”
“But—but that’s not fair,” the king said. “What am I supposed to do if they won’t see me?”
“Go back to the Familias,” the man said, as if it were obvious.
“I can’t do that. I really want—I must see them. If I can only talk to them, I’m sure I can make them understand.”
The other man’s frown told him he had gone too far. “I rather doubt that—you haven’t convinced me. We will do as I said—tell them you are here, and let them decide. They are adults under our law; they’ve applied for full citizenship. They have the legal right to decide for themselves . . . and I should warn you that you have no legal right to harass them.”
He could hardly harass them when he couldn’t find them. He knew their alias, at least the one they had been given, and he had started with the Smiths in the city directory. The name was not so common here as in the Familias, but it was common enough. He had met Smiths who were bakers, who were attorneys, who worked in the city’s utility repair division, who were midwives and machinists. At least half of them were clones; he learned quickly not to explain his search. None would help him, not even to eliminate their clonesibs from the pattern. At this rate, it would take him years to find all the Smiths on this single planet.
“It’s not just your girlfriend,” Borhes said. “There’s some strange man looking for Smiths. Claims to be the king.” He took a gulp of his drink. “I didn’t dare get close enough to find out. If he saw me—”
“You should have changed your name,” George said helpfully. “At least you know that the Neurosciences people are keeping your secret.”
“There are lots of Smiths,” Borhes said. “And we didn’t really think anyone would come looking for us.”
“Surprise,” murmured George. Ronnie cocked an eye at him. Was George going to be odious again? Here? It was a bad time, he thought, eyeing the tension in every line of the clones’ bodies.
“Shut up,” said Andres. “I didn’t like you before, and I don’t like your idea of jokes.”
“We’re even,” George said. “I don’t like your idea of hospitality. This is silly, you know. Holding us like this doesn’t accomplish anything you want. You need new identities, so your father—sorry, Gerel’s father—doesn’t find you. You need to be free to move around; you need friends who will steer the king away from you, warn you when he’s near, all that. Instead, you have tied yourself down, and us up; you’re isolated, you don’t have friends—”
“I said, shut up!” Andres hit George, then looked at Borhes for his reaction. Borhes shrugged; Andres looked away.
“You could go on and kill us,” George said, undeterred by the blow that reddened his face. Ronnie felt a sneaking sympathy with Andres. “—But that wouldn’t help, either. You’d have to get rid of two fairly large, heavy corpses. Someone might see you, and although the Guernesi have been cooperative so far, I suspect that murdering us would strain their sympathy. It would certainly upset Raffaele, and since you don’t know her as well as I do, I warn you that she is likely to stick on Ronnie’s trail until she finds him, dead or alive.”
Ronnie felt himself blushing. “George, shut up!” he said. “You’re not helping.”
“Neither are you,” George said. “We’ve tried being nice. We’ve tried being polite, helpful, entertaining, amusing . . . and they’re still being idiots. Probably enough of that stupidity drug still in their systems—”
“It is not!” Borhes, this time, loomed over George with his hand raised.
In a tone of sweet reason that would have enraged angels, George persisted. “So I thought perhaps a bit of aggravation might make them wake up and think. If they can. Or listen to wiser minds, if they can’t.”
“We are not stupid!” That was both clones together, almost shouting.