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26

 

Tiber, Day 8

THEY HAD NAMED the city Rome. It would be the capital of the world for at least as long as the string lasted, and the string was showing no signs of ending—each window was longer than the one before. Unless some evil-minded star came blundering by, the string might well survive long enough to make Tiber the Institute's greatest success.

Meanwhile Rome was a hopeless sprawl of Quonset huts and tents along the bare floor of the valley, stripped of the virgin woods that had once adorned it. Streets were either dust, or mud, or both, many still full of tree roots. A ditcher was laying water-lines and sewers. Away from the river, the shacks soon dwindled to animal sheds and lumber piles, until on its outskirts the town faded off into barns and airplane runways, barbed-wire fences and supply dumps. Already, with only three windows gone by, the supply dumps were huge. One flat patch of churned mud had been set aside for the window, whenever it was open. Someday, Abel thought, there would be a monument on that spot.

Meanwhile the sun was setting, an exhausted peace settling over Rome. The last wraiths of dust drifted away on a rumor of a breeze, and the smoke of cooking fires rose in sleepy coils amid the tents. Twenty-eight-hour days were just like twenty-four-hour days with four more hours' labor added. The overworked inhabitants had already developed a tradition of going to bed at dusk.

Noticing the fading light, Abel had pushed himself away from his desk and gone outside to watch the sunset and catch some fresh air. His home and office were located in a solitary outlying Quonset hut, close to the window site. Some irreverent wag had painted the words "Presidental Palace" on one side and "El Supremolar" on the other. Everyone thought that it had been done by Abel himself, and of course they were right.

He was pooped. His eyeballs were raw, his throat worse. He made a thousand decisions a day, spoke to a hundred people, ate on the run. Emily kept telling him that he had never been happier in his life, but he had not yet had time to consider the matter. His bad leg ached, which usually meant dry weather ahead.

Near the front door a clump of three and a half trees had survived humanity's onslaught. They had, in turn, preserved a minute triangle of pseudograss. The National Forest . . . He sat down there and leaned back against a glossy gray trunk. He wondered where he could squeeze some patio furniture into the priority schedule.

He watched a crimson and lavender butterfly float by, returning to its hive. The shadows were long, the sky a medley of colors beyond reproach. Tiber was a glorious planet, which had so far sprung no worse surprise than humanity's normal reaction to unfamiliar surroundings, a universal attack of the trots.

Twenty-three years old and king of the world? No, he had never been happier. Absolute power was certainly fun. It would not last long enough to spoil him . . . unfortunately.

The peace was too good to last, too—a long finger of shadow needled across the presidential lawn.

"Hi," Hubbard Cedric said.

"Hi, yourself," Abel said. "Take a chair."

Cedric dropped to his knees and offered a large and horny hand. He was wearing shorts and boots and a gun. He also wore a splendid tan and a patchy stubble of definitely reddish hue. He was not wearing much of a smile, Abel noticed, but his nose was almost back to normal, and he no longer had a bone-mender on his hand.

Abel had seen Cedric around, but they had not really had a chance to chat since the trip to Nile. "How's the world treating you?" he asked. "This world, that is."

"Fine."

Abel would have liked more enthusiasm. "The princess okay?"

"Oh! Oh, yes, she's fine." A very stupid grin slid over Cedric's face. Abel had seen much the same look on Emily sometimes, when her eye caught his, and maybe he wore it himself also, at those times. He had seen something similar on Alya when she talked of Cedric. Or Gill Adele when Bagshaw Barnwell K. came in sight. Strange creatures, humans.

"No one's taken any more potshots at you?"

Cedric pouted and shook his head. He had a burn on his cheek where someone had drawn a beam on him, the second day. The assailant had not been caught, but it must have been one of the Earthfirsters. Beyond doubt, the attack would have succeeded had Alya not rammed bodily into Cedric and knocked him down, about a thousandth of a second before the fire.

The moody silence needed lubricating, obviously. "Would you like a beer?" Abel offered.

"Yes, please!"

Abel sighed deeply. "So would I."

Cedric shot him an exasperated look, then settled himself more comfortably, crossing his meter-long legs. "What're you going to do with the Earthfirsters?"

"Put 'em on Devil's Island. We already have—most of 'em—only we told them it was called Paradise Island."

Cedric grinned briefly. "Which is it?"

"Oh, it's okay," Abel said. "Good as this—water and pseudograss. It's bigger than Ireland, so they shouldn't be bothering us much for a century or three." He yawned. "And we've promised to deliver their families, and supplies—they'll do a lot better than they deserve."

"Yeah."

Abel frowned at him. "Don't go blaming yourself, buddy. You did great. I just wish you'd fried more of them." Seeing that Cedric continued to stare glumly at the ground, he added, "We lost a lot more guys than they did. Served them right, what you did to them. You're a hero back in Cainsville."

"What's the word on Barney?"

"Oh, he's going to be fine," Abel said. "Good as new." That was a lie, but the kid did not notice.

Suddenly Cedric smirked under his stubble. "I guess I did do a job on those Earthfirsters. I wish I could have seen their faces when they realized I'd opened a window on them and they couldn't go home!"

It had not been Cedric who had opened the window—it had been Abel himself, and Fish Lyle. They had closed de Soto and opened Bering, but they would never have managed to corral all the invaders inside one dome had not Cedric knocked out the leaders and then unwittingly turned himself into a human fox and drawn the mob of hounds after him. Fish had accepted the lucky break like the champ he was, overriding the overrides, diverting the two golfies that contained Mother Hubbard and Cheung, and sending the rest on after Cedric. Yet there could be no harm in letting the kid believe that System had obeyed his commands.

But Cedric had gone back to poking grass with a twig.

"What's on your mind?" Abel asked innocently.

"Alya and I—we'd like to—we thought it might be a good idea to explore the pass through the mountains. The one on the satellite photos." He waved at the distant peaks, all salmon and peach in the evening sun, and then looked anxiously at Abel. "If you think so?"

The idea had come from Alya, of course, who had gotten it from Abel himself in the first place.

"I dunno . . . " Abel rubbed his chin. His stubble was gratifyingly much more widespread than Cedric's. "She's a wonder at translating. We should have called this dump Babel instead of Rome, and it's going to get worse. Sikhs and Brazilians coming next—can we spare her?"

Cedric looked up, worried. "We'd be a good scouting team—she can sense danger, and she knows so much—all that science stuff! And I can manage the ponies."

"You're also the best shot in the world."

Cedric shrugged, indifferent. "That's just a knack, though."

The hell it was! With a laser, marksmanship was pure iron nerve. The kid was as tough as steel bars and steady as a range of mountains, although he didn't know it. He was also important to Alya's intuition, for she had known to save him from the bushwhacker. She claimed that that sort of secondhand warning had never happened before, so he must be critical to her future, and that might mean critical to the colony's. Cedric was also the best all-round outdoorsman they had. Like it or not, and in spite of his low ambition rating on the GFPP, he was going to start collecting followers. In a few years he would rise to whatever heights the new world then offered: statesman, tribal headman, or senior horse thief.

Abel leaned back to inspect the sunset again, enjoying the balmy evening air and pretending to consider the request. "You'd be gone—what? Three weeks, maybe? Alya's all right. Don't know if we can spare you, though, Cedric."

"Me? What use am I?"

"Might run short of tent poles."

"How would you like a broken jaw?"

"Very much—then I wouldn't have to talk so much!" Abel laughed and thumped his companion on the shoulder. "Look—it sounds like a great idea. We're going to have to move half an army through to the other coast before winter, and I'd prefer to make them walk, if I can—good psychology! Exodus, you know? The Long March? Sure! You go scout the best route. Radio back and we'll pick you up by air, and then you can lead the migration."

The Banzarakis would willingly follow their princess, and that would shift Jar Jathro's political power base well away from the supply depot. Baker Abel's own power base lay in that cache of supplies and the Institute that was feeding it, and when the string came to an end, then the fast footwork would start. Whoever controlled the equipment would run the world. Having inherited some potent political genes from both his parents, Baker Abel was hoping to give all the Jar Jathro types a few pointers.

Cedric was scowling, probably at the thought of leading a mass migration. Abel tried to imagine him with a long beard and a staff, and decided that he would make a very good prophet figure. More important, though, a couple of weeks away from camp would do him a world of good. He would stop brooding over the killings and over all the Cedric clones he must keep running into—there were six of them—and it would give Abel a chance to round up the last of the Earthfirsters and ship them off to Devil's Island. Besides, the guy had earned a honeymoon. Any newly paired couple needed to go off alone and nuzzle undisturbed. It was basic human instinct.

Seven Cedrics! Of course they would start banding together fairly soon, like identical twins. And this one would be the leader. He was a hero already.

"When'll you leave?"

Cedric beamed. "Tomorrow, first light."

"Mmm," Abel said noncommittally. "Window's due around noon."

Cedric grunted and turned his face away to study the sunset. "Talked to one of the rangers," he remarked. "One who'd been out west. He said the ocean there is really something. Jellyfish with sails as big as yachts, he said. And things like seals that lie on the rocks and sing."

"While vigorously combing their long blond hair, I suppose? She keeps asking for you."

"Let her ask." Cedric rose and stretched, making Abel feel about knee high.

"What's so hellish hard about saying goodbye to her?" Abel demanded, craning his neck to peer up at the giant. "Is it Devlin and Eccles that bother you? I know the old woman plays hard-ball—if she didn't, you wouldn't be here, bud!"

"Sure. That must be it. We'll call you when we get to the sea." Cedric began to move.

"Wait, dammit! Sit down again."

"No. Gotta go. Lady waiting."

Abel sighed and scrambled to his feet also, but he hated having to argue with a man's collarbones. "Then please, as a favor to me, will you wait around tomorrow and say goodbye to Hubbard Agnes when the window opens?"

"No."

In the baffled silence that followed, Cedric just stood with his arms folded, staring placidly over Abel's head at the lights spread across the valley, among the tents. Finally he remarked, "See that glow in the west? Alya says it's the galactic center. She thinks it'll be a helluva show in the winter sky, when it's higher."

"It's the clone thing, isn't it?" Abel asked, wondering how it felt to greet oneself six times every morning.

Cedric looked down coldly at him, his eyes glinting. "Can I go now, please, sir?"

"No."

The big guy growled low in his throat. "All right. Yes, it's the clone thing. Who or what am I? Can you imagine what it's like not to have parents? I thought I was a Hastings clone, but I guess I'm not even that. Not a person! Not human! How the hell do I know what I am?"

Huh? This was not what Abel had expected.

"You could ask her."

"I wouldn't believe her if she told me the sky was blue."

"It's damned near black right now. No, you're not a Hastings clone—"

"Then why did System say I was?" Cedric's voice almost cracked.

Ah! "It did? What exactly did you ask it?"

Cedric scratched his chin loudly. "Don't remember my exact words—but I asked it to compare my DNA and his."

"How? Sequence the nucleotides? Just the active sites, I hope?" Surely the kid could not have been dumb enough to ask for chemical analysis?

"Don't recall."

Abel chuckled. "You may not have asked the right question. If you told it to compare your DNA and a chimpanzee's, it would tell you a better-than-ninety-nine percent fit, you know."

Cedric balled a gigantic fist.

"Me, too!" Abel said quickly. "Me, too! Human and chimpanzee DNA is that similar, honest! Of course, only about one percent of your DNA is genetically active anyway. Didn't you know all this?"

Cedric relaxed somewhat, still suspicious. "I don't know anything."

"You're learning. But obviously any two human beings are going to be more alike than a man and a chimp, so most of your DNA would match Hastings Willoughby's—almost all of it, for that matter. If you'd asked System to estimate the relationship between the two of you, it would have compared the common alleles and reported twenty-five percent. You really are his grandson, Cedric."

For a moment Cedric was silent. "How can I trust you?" he asked finally.

"If you're calling me a liar, then I think I'm going to take you down, sonny, big as you are. Now, which is it to be?"

For an icy moment Abel wondered if he'd been rash. Then Cedric growled, "Sorry."

"Okay. And furthermore, you're the original, the real Hubbard Cedric Dickson."

A long sigh escaped from Cedric's bony chest. "I am?"

"Yes, you are. You have six clones, and they're all here on Tiber now, but you are the genuine article. Cedric—I swear this!"

"Umph!" Cedric said, then quietly added, "Thanks."

Abel poked him with a finger. "And because you're wondering, yes, I do know what I'm talking about. Because for the last three years I've been her backup with the organages. That was why all the Cedric clones, see? She's been working on this for twenty years. The clones gave her access. Whenever she handed over a clone to be reared, then she became one of the gang; she was trusted. You see?"

Cedric nodded reluctantly.

Choosing his words with care, Abel said, "You're not unlike Willoughby, you see. At three or four weeks old, you're a quite believable baby Secretary General."

"Too believable for comfort! The organages all thought she was fronting for Hastings?"

"Of course. And of course she had help. There were others in this with her—have you seen the Iskander girls? Four of them? There's a couple of other sets around. Anyway, she's old, so she appointed me deputy in case anything happened to her. I've been keeping an eye on you all. I liked what I saw."

"Damned spy!"

"Yes," Abel said, unruffled. Of course, it would take the kid time to adjust. "I was glad to hear you were coming along on this jaunt. Or might be coming along. She had some uses for you first—"

Cedric grunted angrily. "Even if ends justify means, the means don't have to like it!"

"Maybe not." Abel shrugged. He had done about all he could.

"And if she planned that, then why did she tell Alya that I wasn't coming?"

"Dunno. Maybe she didn't want emotion messing up intuition? I know she was mad as spit at Alya for turning up in public at HQ. But she's truly your grandmother and you're truly what she said—the son of Hubbard John Hastings and Dickson Rita Vossler. The one and only. The real McCoy. Bona very fide. Conceived in utero. All others are imitations."

Cedric made an odd noise that seemed to express both satisfaction and surrender. "Awright! Thanks, Abe. Thanks for telling me. And just for that, I will wait around and say goodbye to the old bag. She can thank me for saving Cainsville, if that's what she wants. I may even thank her for breaking up the organage racket. But I won't say I love her, because that wouldn't be true. Or that I forgive her for the way she used me."

"I don't think she'd believe you if you did."

"Likely not. But I'll talk with her. Besides, there's something else I want to ask her about. G'night." Cedric turned and started walking away into the dusk.

Oops!

"And what might that be?"

Cedric stopped. He rubbed his chin. "Well . . . Now I can see roughly what she was up to. She paraded me like a purple poodle at that press conference—but Alya says she was passing different messages to different people. She made me look like a retarded hayseed, and herself not much better—senile old woman doting on idiot grandson. That was one feint, and she maddened the media. That was another. At the same time, she was using me as a red flag over the organages, hinting at clones and going public and so on—threatening hundreds of important people. Thirdly—or ninthly? I've lost count . . . Lastly, then, she was planning to go fishing for the murderers. The poison time capsule was the bait, I was the bent pin, and when they bit, she was waiting to haul in the string."

"So?" Abel inquired cautiously, surprised at how well Alya had worked it all out.

"And the worse mess I made of things the better, from her point of view, right?"

"I suppose."

"Devlin would never have gone to Nile without me along. And you, because he knew you were important to the Tiber mission."

Devlin had known more than that. "Thanks," Abel said.

"But I'm still wondering," Cedric concluded quietly, "why she gave me Grade One rating on System? I mean, it came in damned handy at the end, against the Earthfirsters, but even Gran couldn't have foreseen that!"

"Um."

"It just seems out of character somehow." Cedric's voice trailed off uncertainly. "Well—I'll ask her. Night, Your Majesty."

And it was out of character for Cedric to have thought of the problem in the first place. Obviously it was Alya's thinking—which made no difference. "Wait!" Abel said. It could not matter now, anyway. When all else fails, be honest. "I would really be much happier if you didn't bring up that subject with your grandmother, Cedric. Please?"

"Why not?" Cedric demanded, bristling. His assertiveness and confidence were growing day by day. Pairing with a girl like Alya would do exhilarating things to a man's self-esteem, of course.

"Because Mother H. knows nothing about it." Abel sighed. "She assigned you straight nines—personal grade and work grade both."

"Then who—"

"In confidence? No one else knows this."

"Sure. I may tell Alya, of course."

"I'm sure you will. It was me."

"What? Why? How?" After a spluttering sound, Cedric added, "When?"

"When? Just as you were flying in with Bagshaw. How? It was easy enough. I grew up around Cainsville and Nauc HQ. Nobody else—nobody!—knows this, but I broke System's master code when I was thirteen."

"Bullshit," Cedric said calmly.

"No."

"It's impossible—how?"

"I hid under a bed and overheard some very high-rank passwords being used."

Cedric's answer was a grunt that stopped just short of expressing more disbelief.

Abel chuckled. "I can't make it do everything I want—like I couldn't find you anywhere that night when she took you off to meet Cheung and Grundy—but most things I can get by." He grinned at the memories. All through adolescence he had used System as his personal genie for voyeurism, practical japing, cheating—Lord, it had been fun! "I could see you in bed with Alya that morning. You were lying on your belly and you pulled the sheet over your head."

"Bastard!"

"You don't sound very grateful."

"Well . . . Then she didn't know . . . " Cedric started to laugh, then stopped suddenly. "Why d'you do it? You go around giving Grade One to all your friends?"

"Ahh!" Abel stretched and yawned while he considered the question. It was a tough one. Why exactly had he thrown virtual control of Cainsville to that elongated hay-in-his-hair innocent? As a practical joke it had been going too far, even for him. Partly he had done it in a fit of anger. Baker Abel had lost his temper only twice before in his life, but that night he had been eaves-dropping on the scene in the President Lincoln Hotel bedroom—spying on what Hubbard and Fish were spying on—and he had been sickened. The strobe hypnosis itself, the ruthless ferocity with which it had been applied, and the beating that Bagshaw had then administered—apparently strong emotion right afterward was supposed to lock in the mind control, but it had still been a beating—all of those things had roused Abel to fury. The way the kid had resisted the treatment without buckling had won his heartfelt admiration.

Even so, Grade One rating had been going a bit far.

Abel's yawn ended. "Dunno. As you say, you made good use of it in the end. Guess I just had a hunch, that's all."

Cedric snorted disbelievingly. "And I didn't know you grew up in Cainsville!" He sounded hurt, cheated.

"Given the choice, I'd have taken Meadowdale. Any kid would."

"Organage?" Cedric sneered. "That's for clones, not real people."

"Goddammit it, man! Forget that! There's nothing wrong with being a clone."

It must have been his tone, or else Alya's brains were infectious—Cedric drew in his breath with a hiss. "Tell me!"

"Sit down."

"No. Tell me."

Abel sighed and leaned back against the tree to ease his leg. "Okay. Your grandmother's a strange woman, lad. She doesn't like failing, not at anything. And she failed at being a mother. She and John fought twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week. She dominated; he rebelled. He skipped when he was in his teens, and they didn't speak for years. She finally located him when he won the world calf-roping championship."

"Ah!" Cedric said, as though in sudden divine revelation. "He picked the sort of work she'd hate most?"

"Very likely. She tried to make up. She offered him a whole new planet—for him and his bride."

"Oak?"

"Oak. And it killed him."

A soft breath of wind brought a sudden odor of cooking wafting over the grassland. Sounds of children and distant singing or prayer came drifting up from the valley.

"And?" Cedric asked softly.

"She doesn't like failure—I told you."

"She tried again?"

"She tried again. She had a tissue sample on file. She had him cloned."

The dim blur that was Cedric's face nodded in the gloom. "So that was why Devlin insisted you go on the Nile trip? He wanted you along as insurance?"

"I guess so."

"Then . . . then Hastings Willoughby's your biological father? What did he say?"

"He doesn't know. She never told him what she'd done. I found out from System, but of course I couldn't tell anyone, even him, or they'd have wanted to know how I knew. When she did tell me—not very long ago—I decided not to bug him. He was too old to be interesting. He was a worse father than she was a mother, anyway."

"That's crazy! He must have seen you in the holo. The Marigold expedition? Or Buzzard. I knew you! Everyone knows your face!"

Abel sighed. "He's old. He has no interest in other worlds. And he hardly knew his son—John, the first version. They seem to have met about twice after John grew up. I told you—he wasn't much of a father. You're not the only orphan in the family."

"She wasn't much of a grandmother to me," Cedric said ruefully. "Even at a distance. I can't imagine her rearing a son."

"Oh, I fought, too! But not as bad, maybe. She'd learned a few things about mothering. I think my gawdawful sense of humor was my defense—it really used to rile her."

More silence, then Cedric said, "But . . . "

"But what?"

"But if Oak killed John, how'd she ever let you be party leader for this Tiber planting?"

Jeez! This kid was a leopard in drag! "When you're as old as I am, son," Abel said, as calmly as he could manage, "you'll learn that women are never predictable."

"Mmph?" Cedric muttered, his voice oily with suspicion. "It wouldn't have been because System was doing the evaluations, would it? That maybe none of the other candidates measured up—according to System? That you were the only possible choice—according to System?"

"Oh, I doubt that."

Cedric chuckled dryly. "I think I know now who was really pulling the strings, though. Well . . . " He held out a hand. "Good night, er, Dad?"

"'Night, son," Abel said. "See you in the morning."

"Yeah."

"Give Alya my love."

"Not findangle likely! She's got all of mine, and that's as much as any woman can handle." Hubbard Cedric stalked off into the dark, humming contentedly, and no doubt wearing that stupid grin again.

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