Clone, p.7
Clone, page 7
‘Where’s that?’
Norbert told her it was to the north-west of London.
‘And what are you doing down here?’
In the darkness Norbert’s honest brow puckered into a gloomy frown. He realized they must have left Aldbury to go somewhere. But where? A lungful of agro-14 had transformed what had once been bright with purpose into a cloudy negation. What’s more his head ached abominably.
‘Well?’ prompted Cheryl. ‘Are you on holiday?’
Alvin, who had been waiting for Norbert to supply the required information, seized his opportunity. ‘Yes,’ he said, ’that’s right. We are, aren’t we, Norbert?’
‘Uh?’ grunted Norbert dubiously.
‘Where are you staying?’
Alvin’s mind seemed to leap into overdrive. ‘Near here,’ he said. ‘Near you.’
’The Cumberland?’
‘Yes. Yes, that’s right.’
‘But the Cumberland’s H.O.’
’Oh, is it? Well, where do you live?’
‘Me? Bristol Street.’
*Is that H.O. too?’
‘It’s not a hotel.’
‘Well, there then,’ said Alvin brightly. ’That’s where we’re staying too, isn’t it, Norbert?’
‘Uh?’ muttered Norbert.
’Oh yes?’ said Cheryl suspiciously. ‘Since when?’
Alvin scratched his head furiously. Having been vouchsafed his vision the only thing that mattered now was to keep hold of her. Why, oh why hadn’t Doctor Pfizier taught him how to lie convincingly? ’Oh please let us stay with you!’ he cried.
‘With me! You must be crazy!’
‘I can cook,’ pleaded Alvin wildly, ‘and wash up, and clean and chop wood and…and take advantage of you if you’d like me to. Oh please, please let me, beautiful Cheryl.’
Cheryl’s laugh rose like a stream of silvery bubbles through the night air. ‘Let you WHAT?’
‘Cook and clean and chop—’
‘No. The other thing.’
’Take advantage,’ whispered Alvin and his ears glowed shyly in the darkness like a pair of luminous raspberry lollies.
’That’s what I thought you said,’ giggled Cheryl.
’Then you’ll let me?’
‘Indeed I won’t. I’ll do just what I said I would and that’s all. Come on. Who’s first?’
‘You go, Norbert,’ choked Alvin, turning away to hide his gushing tears.
‘Put your arms round my neck,’ Cheryl instructed the chimp, ‘and hang on tight. If you let go it’s your own funeral.’
Norbert did as he was commanded. There was a moment’s pause then Alvin heard a shrill hissing like a whistling kettle coming to the boil. Out of the comer of his watering eye he saw them rise, become a brief, denser darkness against the sky, and vanish over the top of the palisade. At that moment his sense of loss was considerably more poignant than any he had ever known.
True to her word, a minute later Cheryl was back. ‘Quick!’ she said. ’There’s something going on over there.’
As she spoke they both heard the distant droning of heavy duty electric motors. The inspection convoy from the Ministry of Sociology was trundling along Park Lane. Alvin flung his arms about Cheryl’s neck and for the first time in his life experienced the delight of clasping a girl to his breast. Unfortunately his ecstasy was short-lived, for with a shriek like a deracinated mandrake the A-G jets whisked them into the air.
They cleared the top of the palisade by a good twenty metres and had just begun their descent when a searchlight sliced across the park and pinned them like some grotesque silver beetle against the buttressed outer wall of the stockade. From somewhere in the outer darkness a loud hailer barked a command to halt. ‘Let go, you goop!’ hissed Cheryl. ‘I’m not having any part of this.’
But either from fear of breaking his neck or anguish at the thought of losing her, Alvin clung on the tighter. The next thing he knew they were both five hundred feet up in the air and the wind was pummelling at his ears like a pair of demented fists. Far below them the searchlight swept disconsolately back and forth among the tree tops. Alvin took one look down then squeezed his eyes shut and, for extra security, locked his legs tightly around hers. Astonishingly, Cheryl began to laugh. ‘Why didn’t you let go, you idiot? Now look at the mess we’re in.’
But Alvin wasn’t looking at anything. His nose was buried in the soft, perfumed flesh just below her left ear. As far as he was concerned, he was nine tenths of the way to Paradise. ‘Are you really an angel?’ he enquired.
’Oh, shut up.’
Experimentally, Alvin poked out the tip of his tongue and, very, very delicately licked the lobe of her ear. He thought it tasted rather like peanut butter.
TWELVE
Crouched in the clump of laurels where Cheryl had deposited him, Norbert heard the iron voice of authority and peeped out fearfully through the leaves just in time to see Alvin shooting up like a champagne cork towards the London ceiling. He muttered a prayer for their safe landing and wondered what would happen next.
The searchlight flicked across the palisade, probed among the trees, and then seemed to shrink as the truck on which it was mounted rolled forward and came to a halt some twenty yards from the fence. Two other vehicles purred up alongside, reached out with their articulated claws and lifted away a complete section of the prefabricated enclosure which they proceeded to stack on the back of the searchlight wagon. As soon as the wall was breached the three vehicles moved to one side and continued dismantling while a convoy of some twenty assorted trucks drove through the gap into the enclosure. Within minutes, portable, floodlights were bathing the arena in a cold, greenish-white glow, while in place of the rapidly vanishing wall, a ring of helmeted Security Guards sprouted up like crash-cultured snowdrops.
Professor Poynter stepped down on to the matted grass and gazed about her incredulously. The technical miracle of 3-D So-Vi had in no way prepared her for this appalling reality. She was reminded nauseatingly of a Gustave Dor6 engraving of the aftermath of Waterloo which had given her nightmares in her childhood. The faint hope she had been nourishing that her clone might somehow have survived the holocaust wilted and died as her stupefied eye wandered along the untidy heaps of slain. ’Astonishing, isn’t it, Professor?’ enquired an amiable voice at her ear and she turned to find the Minister himself beaming at her.
She nodded and tried to look alert and intelligent.
’As a piece of field research I must say I find it most impressive,’ he burbled. ‘I only wish the P.M. could have been here to see it. Just between the two of us I’ve wondered once or twice recently whether young Crowe wasn’t laying it on a bit thick with his agro-14. I mean to say, to a non-technical chap like me a Sika deer’s one thing and a human being’s another, but now, damn it, he’s converted me absolutely. By employing adrenal-hypertension to weed out the social misfits there’s no reason at all why we shouldn’t be able to double our density over the next fifty years.’ He giggled. ‘You might almost say the sky’s the limit now, eh?’
Professor Poynter managed a sickly smile and then blenched as a floater loaded with untidily severed limbs was guided past to a waiting freezer truck.
The Minister, observing her expression, clucked compassionately. ‘I usually find it helps to think of it simply as high-grade animal protein,’ he said. ‘Ah, here comes Douglas now.’
Doctor Crowe’s white lab coat already looked as if it had seen hard service in an abattoir, but his eyes were sparkling with boyish enthusiasm as he strode up to them. ‘Well, Sir Harold, did I exaggerate?’
‘No, dear boy, you most certainly did not. I’ve just been saying to Professor Poynter here that you’ve completely converted me to agro-14. You and Rodney have every right to congratulate yourselves. This really does look like the breakthrough we’ve all been waiting for.’
‘It’s good of you to say so, sir. At least it’s proved the principle’s sound and that’s the main thing. A couple more full scale trials like this and we’ll really be in business.’
‘Have you found any survivors yet?’ asked Professor Poynter faintly.
‘Four so far,’ said Crowe. ‘All juveniles. That makes sense of course. Even with conditioning as intensive as ours has been, adrenal development can’t be pushed effectively below a certain limit. But it’s beginning to look as though we’ll end up with well over 95% mortality. That’s considerably above our most optimistic estimate.’
‘Might I have a look at the ones who survived?’
‘Help yourself. They’re being oxygenated in the resuscitation unit. It’s over there.’ Doctor Crowe waved his hand towards the trees under which, a few brief minutes before, Norbert had lain.
Professor Poynter nodded her thanks and moved away. As she did so she was surprised by an unfamiliar prickling sensation located along her eyelids. Exploring with her fingertips she was bewildered to find that she was crying. ‘How odd,’ she thought. ‘Can the lachrymal glands really respond independently of physical or emotional stimulus? I must remember to ask Gordon.’
But it was not only her tear glands which were behaving oddly. Instead of stopping at the resuscitation unit her legs insisted on carrying her straight past it and on across the grass towards the patrolling perimeter guard. Since their orders related only to keeping people out they stood aside to let her past and she marched on blindly into the darkness beyond.
Norbert who was still lurking in the shrubbery, saw an elderly woman advancing straight towards him and concluded, naturally enough, that he had been spotted. Just to be quite sure he waited till she was no more than five yards away, then raised his arms above his head and stood up.
Had she not been suffering from acute hysteric shock, Professor Poynter, confronted by such an apparition, might have reacted very differently. As it was Norbert’s materialization seemed perfectly in keeping with the sort of insanity she had just witnessed. She came to an unsteady halt and blinked the tears from her eyes. ‘Who are you?’ she enquired wearily.
‘I’m Norbert, ma’am,’ replied the ape politely.
‘And what are you doing in that bush, Norbert?’
‘Hiding, ma’am.’
‘Is it a good place to hide in?’
‘Ma’am?’
‘I asked if it was a good place to hide in,’
This was what Norbert had thought she had said but it had seemed somewhat too improbable. ‘I hardly know how to answer, ma’am,’ he said hesitantly. ‘But since you have discovered me, I should say that it wasn’t,’
Professor Poynter nodded approvingly at the logic of his answer. ’Then there is really no point in my joining you, is there?’
‘No, ma’am,’ agreed Norbert, taking a chance and lowering his arms. ‘Were you looking for somewhere to hide?’
’To hide?’ repeated Professor Poynter vaguely. ‘I don’t really know…you see I’m not feeling very…well…I…’ Norbert sprang out of his sanctuary just in time to catch her as her knees buckled beneath her. He was painfully aware that some two hundred yards away were a great many people who would consider only one possible interpretation for such a situation. But although common prudence counselled him to put as much distance as possible as quickly as possible between himself and this unfortunate woman, he had never been an ape who placed the preservation of his own skin before what he considered to be his Christian duty. He stooped, hoisted her over his shoulder and set off at a steady lope in the direction of the Serpentine.
It took him about five minutes to reach the lake’s edge and another minute before he discovered a suitable place to lay down his burden. When he had done so he felt in his pocket for his handkerchief and, having found it, dipped it in the water, wrung it out, and applied it in the form of a cold compress to the Professor’s forehead. While he was doing this he became aware that he was no longer alone. A number of dark shapes had crept out of the undergrowth and had gathered round him a sinister, watchful, semicircle.
—What you got there, monkey?’
—‘Got you a pinkie, have you?’
—Where d’you get her, monkey?’
—‘Still warm ain’t she?’
Listening to the whispered questions Norbert felt the hair rise along the back of his neck. He guessed from their speech that these were what were known as ‘bad apes’—chimps who had dropped out and now lived an illegal sort of twilight existence on the fringes of civilized society. Among them the insulting epithet ‘monkey’ was a veritable badge of kinship, signifying the brotherhood of the lower depths.
‘She’s sick,’ he grunted dabbing the wet cloth across the Professor’s deathly brow.
Who ain’t?’ came the laconic retort.
A sinewy arm stretched out from the darkness and a hairy hand descended speculatively on Professor Poynter’s flat chest. Norbert knocked it aside and flashed his teeth in a rage warning. The shadows skipped back a wary pace and squatted down. The whispered questions began again.
—‘Where d’you get her, monkey?’
—‘Anyone see you?’
—Where you from, monkey?’
—‘Reckon he’s an Albert?’
This last remark was a reference to a chimp who, back in the 1990’s, had gained a (Posthumous) Congressional Medal for sacrificing his life to save those of three human companions in a spacecraft disaster. To these drop-outs it symbolized the ultimate in ’Uncle Tom’ism.
‘We were in that march,’ grunted Norbert.
‘So what?’
‘So that makes me an Albert?’
‘Don’t give us that V.F.A. shit, monkey,’
‘Hey, what happened in there?’ enquired a different, younger voice.
‘You don’t know?’
‘Some sort of shindy?’
‘Shindy?’ Norbert spat. ‘A massacre. Only two of us got out alive.’
‘You and her?’
That’s right.’
‘Hey, whatja know? ’S that what all the excitement’s about?’ Under his hand Norbert felt Professor Poynter stir. He prayed that she wouldn’t give the game away.
The shadows were whispering again but this time with a different purpose and a new sense of urgency.
—There has to be pickings.’
—‘We can do a drop. They won’t skin the trees,’
—‘What’s the screw on, monkey?’
There are Guards round the edges,’ said Norbert. ‘Not more than a couple of dozen.’
—‘What’re we waiting for?’
A sudden scuffling in the undergrowth and they were gone. Norbert let out his breath in a protracted sigh and felt the bristling hair along his neck slowly settle. ‘Come on, ma’am,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not safe for us to stay here.’
Professor Poynter’s teeth chattered like shaken pebbles. He slid,his arm beneath her quivering shoulder and coaxed her up into a sitting position. ‘Can you walk, ma’am?’
‘Mad,’ shuddered the Professor. ‘Stark, raving mad!’
‘We can’t stay here, ma’am,’
‘Cold blooded mass murder! Insane! Absolutely and utterly insane!’
‘Ma’am,’
‘Adrenal hypertension…breakthrough…augmented adrenal hypertension…sound principle…all mad…mad…arms…legs and arms…I her voice broke into a harsh dry sobbing.
Norbert hooked one of her arms round his neck and stood up, pulling her with him. ‘Where d’you live, ma’am?’
‘So much blood and pain,’ sobbed the Professor. ‘Just because it’s legal doesn’t give them the moral right…’
Norbert shook her gently and repeated his question more urgently.
‘Richmond,’ gasped the Professor. ‘Kew Mansions, Richmond.’
The chimp looked round at the horizon, now pinpricked with a million hazy apartment lights. Behind him the Minisoc floodlights seemed to have blown a bubble of greenish light among the trees. To the south a crimson sky sign smouldered out the message: SUBURBAN EXPRESSWAY. ‘Come on, ma’am,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s try our luck over there.’
THIRTEEN
Cheryl unbuckled her A-G harness and hung it in the closet alongside her bag of assorted oblivions. Then she washed her hands, gave her hair a perfunctory scrub with a perfumed flexi-brush and returned to the living room. ’Oh, are you still here?’ she said, affecting surprise at the sight of Alvin’s beaming face. ’The front door’s down there.’
‘Could I use your toilet, please?’
’Oh anything,’ sighed Cheryl. ‘Just make yourself at home.’ ’Thanks,’ said the clone fervently. ‘Where is it?’
‘Second on the right.’
She watched him poke his nose round the door of the ablution cubicle before disappearing inside. Shaking her head in mock despair she walked over to the videophone and dialled a number. A plump avuncular face loomed up in the screen. ‘Ah, there y’are, Cheryl! Mission completed?’
She nodded.
‘Well done, lass. It’s time for your break now anyway.’
‘Do you know what’s been going on down at Speakers’ Corner, Dommy?’
‘Did ye not see “Your Day”?’
‘How could I? My set’s been dead for the last fortnight.’
‘A couple of lots of protestors went for each others’ throats. Quite a pitched battle, I can tell ye.’
‘But why should they do that?’
‘Why indeed? The whisper has it that Minisoc were behind it.’
Were they?’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me, and that’s the truth. Was that where your call was?’
’Oh no,’ said Cheryl hastily. ‘It was just that I noticed a lot of activity down there. Thanks anyway, Dommy.’
‘A pleasure, my love. I’ll be slottin’ you in for the 24 to 2 rush. O.K.?’
Cheryl nodded and smiled then thumbed the ‘line clear’ button. As the glow faded from the screen she tried to reconcile what Dominic had told her with her visual recollection of the heaps of mangled corpses scattered under the trees. However hard she tried to push them together the two pictures just wouldn’t fuse. She was still pondering on it when Alvin emerged from the toilet, glanced shyly in at her and shuffled hesitantly into the room. Cheryl regarded him thoughtfully. ’Tell me, Alvin, just what did happen down there in the Park?’
