CLONER : a Sci-Fi Novel about Human Cloning (A Captivating Story about Reproduction Outside the Womb and Identical Humans) (27 page)

All fitted to perfection. Not strained, as a few moments before, but with a bit of give.

Lisa looked around for the T-shirt. The second child, the one she’d momentarily forgotten, was approaching her, tumbling to his knees, crawling over to her, the yellow T-shirt incongruously trailing along the needled ground behind him.

‘I’d better put that on Jacob,’ she said, a sadness in her voice. Jacob was a clone. He’d be more delicate than Janus. The little boy squirmed determinedly towards her. ‘You always wanted to be free to clone, Jansy,’ she told him. ‘Well, now you are. You can do it as often as you want. I’ll see to it that you’re not stopped again.’

She’d dress Jacob, and then take them both back to the car, and wrap Janus in the cardigan she’d left there. Slowly, methodically she finished dressing the child who was wearing the earring. Carefully she brushed off the pine needles, the damp grass, small spikes of pine cone. He was dressed. The time had come for action.

She had no choice but to explain what had happened to Morgenstein - she could not hide the new toddler. And there was no law against cloning, after all! She would take both children to the doctor, ask him to check them both over, and then take them both home. That would be the time to explain everything to Alec. She had two children with her, and they were hers. There was no way she was going to give either of them up.

She slung her handbag over her shoulder and contemplated the two toddlers in front of her. She had to get them back to the car. How was she going to do that with two children? She couldn’t carry both of them together for any length of time, even if each one was ten pounds lighter than the Janus of a few moments ago.

A loud ferocious bark distracted her attention away from her thoughts. Looking behind her she saw the huge black and white body of a Dalmatian advancing on her. Her mind stopped functioning rationally. She snatched both children up and began to stumble, teeter, blunder across hummocky grass still wet with dew, pine needle carpet slick under her, the naked children slithery under her arms.

‘Rover!’ a male voice shouted, loud and commanding. ‘Stay, boy!’

The dog, crashing at her heels, stopped howling, but still loped after her.

‘Rover!’ she heard again, the repeating sound filling her mind, excluding rational thought. ‘Heel, damn you, heel!’

Lisa was moving more slowly now. She couldn’t go on like this. The naked toddler snaked out of her arm and she held his hand tight. She had to think. Stop and think!

‘Mumumum,’ he burbled at her.

She put the dressed child down as well, released her bag, sank to the ground and tried to take stock. Whether Janus was normal in the usual sense or not, he
looked
like any other toddler, he acted like one. More than that, he was identical to her other toddlers, and he was her son. Could she deal with the aftermath of a world which would know he was a cloner? At least she could vouch for the fact that only these two children were involved. But would her other two toddlers, safe with Betsy, escape the consequences of her decision?

Lisa pulled her knees up to her face, put her head between her hands, and wept. Great gulps of emotion welled through her. She could not help herself.

Little fingers grasping at her brought her back to the present. Straining her ears she thought she could hear a rustling in the undergrowth, a yapping which sounded oddly familiar. Was someone watching them? Startled, Lisa looked at the naked child playing with pine cones, then turned and saw the dressed child waggling away, her handbag trailing behind him. He giggled happily, his little legs, strong and fast, windmilling through the debris on the forest floor.

‘Jacob!’ she called. ‘Wait! Wait for Mummy!’

He carried on unheeding. Lisa looked at the naked child now sitting down. She could catch the dressed child faster if she was on her own. She’d have to run and leave the other for the moment. He couldn’t possibly stray far while she went after his brother. Galvanised into action she sprinted after the small yellow figure.

A surface root of a tree already felled trapped her left foot. She tumbled head first, momentarily stunned, then picked herself up and only dimly saw the yellow gleaming ahead, taunting her to go after him.

The child swayed on and Lisa followed him. Was there someone behind her? Someone with a dog whose yapping sounded familiar? She had the oddest feeling she was being trailed, then concentrated once again on the child running away from her.

She saw him again, sprawled on the ground, like herself a victim of the roots. He dadadaed happily, his fall cushioned by pine needles, his little legs sticking in the air. One shoe was missing.

‘You’re as bad as Jansy,’ Lisa gasped, grabbing the child, hitching her handbag to her left shoulder. ‘That’s got the car keys in it. Now then, let’s go back and find Jansy.’

She picked the toddler up and tried hard to remember just where she’d come from. There were no distinguishing marks; one spruce after another, all at the same stage of development, all dripping green. Was this the way?

A yellow shoe! They were stepping through the trees in the right direction. Lisa put the shoe on the child. Tiring rapidly, she put him down to walk. He dragged hard against her hand, the trees grew denser, the forest floor more slippery, less even. Lisa pulled the toddler along, ignoring his moans, looking stonily ahead, no thought now in her mind except to search for the second child.

How could she find him? What was there to lead her to him? A dog ran past her. The taut off-white coat of a bull terrier, she noticed dimly. And she caught sight of a trouser-clad figure with the dog. He ducked away and into the shadows.

The child with her began to wail. He stumbled, half crawling, half dragged by her hand. Lisa panted, fatigue overwhelming her. All she’d ever wanted was to be a mother, to take her children into the countryside, the woods, singing to them as they walked, hand in hand, through Hansel and Gretel land. The situation now was very different. She strained to pick up sounds which would lead her to the second toddler.

She made out the small soft mewls of a young child crying. Jansy! Was she getting near him at last? Would she find him quickly? Would he come running up to her?

Lisa had a little lamb, his fleece was white as snow
, chattered through Lisa’s mind. Where was the other toddler, her little lost lamb?

‘Jansy? Is that you, Jansy?’ she called out, searching the undergrowth, peering into the shade.

A thin wail as she followed the direction of the cry.

‘Jansy!’ she called again hopefully, her voice becoming high and squeaky. ‘Where are you, Jansy? Can you hear me?’

And everywhere that Lisa went, the lamb was sure to go,
she murmured to the child with her, comforting herself. She could hear nothing but the heaving in her chest, the whining of the toddler beside her. He was tottering, hardly able to stand. She picked him up and held him close. He became quiet.

Lisa listened again: only the distant barking of dogs, the roar of traffic. No sound of crying now. Plop. She heard a big plop. They were deep in the woods, the ground was sloping downwards and she found it relatively easy to carry the tired, almost inert, toddler she had with her. His arms embraced her neck. She kissed him.

The ground became wetter, spongier. She skirted a deep hole, almost slid down into it and, as she wondered where she was, heard something slipping on the other side of her, down, down... What was it? She couldn’t see, she had no more energy, she let it go and sank to her knees.

She could hear the same odd, plopping sound, more yapping, snuffling, a bark. There was the sound of something falling into the pit. But what? A stone, a squirrel scurrying nuts, a small rabbit hunted by a terrier?

Lisa could not see anything. The trees were dense and foreboding above her, the daylight only just filtering through. She peered down into the void, through the gloom and leaves, but could not distinguish anything. A small keening sound, quite faint, then even that faded away. An owl, a child? Impossible to tell.

Exhausted now, no longer able to think, Lisa staggered to her feet, then reeled. How could she leave without the other child? She floundered round the trees, then noticed movement.

A stolid striding shape, a gait she vaguely recognised, followed by something on all fours, slithered away from her. Not a child - much too large. Someone walking their dog.

A chill shuddered through Lisa. Her head began to throb, her limbs to ache. She looked desperately round her. The trees, all the same size, waved mocking branches at her. They formed a circle of darkness which surrounded her, closed in on her, threatened to suffocate her.

A curtain crashed down on her mind. What other child? Lisa scolded herself. Jansy was with her. She’d undressed him, allowed him to pee the bloating away. And he’d turned into a lighter brighter delightful child just like her other three. He needed her to mother him, to look after him. That’s what she had to do.

‘You’re my little lamb,’ she whispered into the child’s ear. ‘You’re one of Lisa’s little lambs.’

Resolute now, she hoisted him across her shoulders and took her bearings. ‘We’ve got to find our way out of here,’ she said. ‘We’d better try to find some sort of road.’ And Lisa began to walk towards the light, the path, and finally the broad avenue leading to her car.

CHAPTER 23

‘Mrs Wildmore,’ Dr Morgenstein announced, affable, sweeping up to Lisa. Both hands were stretched outwards in an attitude of avuncular greeting.

Lisa shifted her toddler carefully on to her left arm and, politely, stretched out her right hand. The specialist covered it with both of his and smiled beyond her. His grey three-piece, she noticed, was immaculate. Her eyes swept to his manicured fingers. Could she now pull away her hand? Holding a weight of thirty pounds without her steadying right arm was beginning to cause problems. Lisa thrust her left hip forward in an effort to achieve balance. Looking down she noticed Dr Morgenstein’s shoes had been polished into brilliance. She pulled her hand away to stop the toddler, now leaning away from her, from falling out of her arms.

‘Do sit down, Mrs Wildmore.’ Dr Morgenstein motioned her to the upright chair on the far side of his desk and walked back to his seat. ‘So this is the little man in trouble, is it?’

Lisa was uncomfortably aware of her muddy tights, her stained skirt. She manoeuvred the child she was holding to cover as much of her clothing as possible. The extra pair of shoes she’d had in the car gleamed incongruously clean. They were, however, out of sight.

‘This is Ja - Janus,’ she said, widening her mouth to cover her unease. ‘He’s one of my identical triplets.’

‘Of course.’

‘We have been rather worried about him lately. He did seem - well, sort of
bloated
,’ she went on helplessly, aware that the child on her lap was nothing of the sort.

‘I see,’ the specialist encouraged her. ‘Where, precisely, do you feel he’s bloated?’

‘Well, err, you see...’ Lisa looked over the bare, polished desk at the man keenly assessing her. She watched, distracted, as his steel-rimmed glasses slid down his narrow nose.

‘Yes? In your own words, Mrs Wildmore.’

‘Actually,’ Lisa blurted out rapidly, ‘He was bloated all over until about a couple of hours ago.’ She sounded feeble-minded even to herself.

‘Two hours ago?’

‘I stopped the car by some woods because he was crying quite a bit.’ The doctor was watching her with interest. ‘Well, screaming. He seemed to be in great pain.’

‘I see.’ He was making some notes on a pristine pad.

‘His clothes seemed too tight on him. I took them off and he started peeing.’

‘He hasn’t been urinating as much as usual?’

Lisa looked desperately round for inspiration. ‘No, no, it wasn’t that. His whole body was just so swollen - but then he peed and peed and it seemed to go down.’

‘I’m not quite sure that I entirely follow you, Mrs Wildmore. You’ve brought James along?’

‘Janus.’

‘Of course; Janus, yes. You’ve brought Janus along as an emergency because he seemed terribly bloated to you and this worried you. Is that right?’

‘And he was in considerable pain, yes.’ She looked at the docile child on her lap. ‘And his behaviour had changed. He was becoming terribly aggressive.’

‘You were sufficiently worried to seek specialist help rather than consulting your GP.’

‘I’ve taken Janus to Dr Gilmore several times. He couldn’t find anything wrong with him. I
know
there’s something, but I can’t pin it down. So I thought I’d bring him before the bloating subsided again.’

‘It comes and goes?’

It builds up alarmingly just before he feels the urge to clone, Lisa thought grimly. But I can hardly tell you
that
.

‘It seems to get worse over a period of time, and sort of reach a climax. Then it goes down again. As I said, I have mentioned it to Dr Gilmore. He suggested I get an expert opinion.’

‘Of course, quite right. And you feel the child has released the extra fluid now because he urinated quite extensively on the way up here?’

‘I know it sounds unlikely.’

‘He could just be the type of person who holds fluids more than others.’

‘His brothers are identical with him, and they don’t do it.’

‘No two human beings are ever identically the same,’ Dr Morgenstein pursed his lips severely. ‘And of course it may just have been that he eats more salt food than the others.’

‘I never use salt in cooking. I don’t consider it healthy.’

‘Even foods specially prepared for young children contain salt, I’m afraid. Marmite is often recommended, for example,’ the specialist smiled slightly. ‘So even if you don’t use salt for cooking he may have imbibed a fair amount.’ Neat writing began to fill up the page in front of him.

Lisa used unsalted Marmite, and never allowed her children packaged food, but she decided to keep her nutritional knowledge to herself. Let him think she was an idiot, as long as he examined the child properly.

‘But you will check him over?’

‘Of course, Mrs Wildmore. I’m just making a few notes to start with. We’ll give him a thorough examination, take specimens, the whole routine, in a few moments. Then you won’t need to worry in the future.’

‘My husband was getting worried, too,’ she added.

‘I can assure you I am taking the matter seriously,’ the doctor told her as he rang the bell for his nurse. ‘Just take, err, Jason,’ he started out, blinking at his notes.

‘Janus.’

‘Janus. Get him ready for me, will you please, Miss Dobbs?’

It seemed the paediatrician was good with children. Lisa could hear the child gurgle with pleasure throughout the whole of the half-hour check-up. That child wasn’t the Janus she’d started out with that morning. That much was clear.

Twisting her wedding ring around her finger, Lisa tried thinking back to the events of the Priddy Woods. Her mind simply refused to do it. All she could picture was a small yellow figure running away from her in the shrouded tangle of spruces.

Was Alec right? Was she the one who needed medical help, and not the toddler she’d brought with her? That could not be the only explanation. Alec had also been alarmed by the bloating, had noticed the aggression. Even Betsy had admitted Janus was waterlogged.

‘Nothing at all to worry about, I’m sure,’ Dr Morgenstein assured Lisa suavely. ‘Naturally we’ll send all the samples to the laboratory.’ He smiled benignly. ‘A very healthy toddler, Mrs Wildmore. If you have two more like him you’ve very lucky.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a marvellous family. And after thinking I was infertile, too!’

‘You were worried about infertility?’

Had that been an unwise thing to say? ‘Some years ago,’ she brushed it off. ‘When we were still in London.’

‘You took fertility drugs?’