Origin in Death (In Death 21)

"Yes." The third Avril smiled. "You understand. He couldn't save his wife and the baby she carried. For all of his skill and knowledge, he was helpless, as he'd been to save his own mother. But he began to see what could be done. How many loved ones might be saved."

"By cloning."

"Quiet Birth." The first took over again. "There were so many dead, so many lost. So many in pain. So many children, orphaned, injured. He intended to save them. Was driven to."

"By extraordinary means."

"They, the father and Wilson, worked in secret. The children, after all, so many of the children would never have real lives. They'd give them better. They'd give them the future."

"They used children they found in the wars?" Peabody demanded. "They took kids?"

"This appalls you."

"Shouldn't it?"

"We were a child in the war. Dying. Our DNA was preserved, our cells taken. Should we have died then?"

"Yes.

"

They looked back at Eve. And each nodded. "Yes. It's the natural order. We should have been allowed to die, to stop being. But we weren't. There were failures. And the failures were destroyed, or used for further study. Again and again, day after day, year after year, until there were five who were viable."

"There are two more of you?" Eve asked.

"There were. We were born in April."

"Back up a minute. Where did he get the women who were im­planted?"

"There weren't any. We weren't developed in a human womb. We weren't given even that gift. The wombs are artificial, a great achieve­ment." Now her voice hardened, and the anger simmering under it flashed into her eyes. "Every moment of development can be moni­tored. Every developing cell can be engineered, adjusted, manipulated. We have no mother."

"Where? Where is it done?"

"We don't know. We don't remember the first years. It was eraser Drugs, treatments, hypnosis."

"Then how do you know what you're telling me?"

"Will. He shared some of this. He loved us, was proud of what we are. Was proud of his father and the achievements. Some we knew from Deena, and some we learned when we began to question."

"Where are the other two?"

"One died at six months. We were not able to sustain. The other.

They paused, linked hands. "We learned the other lived for five years. We lived five years. But we weren't strong enough, and our in­tellect wasn't developing according to the required levels. He killed us. He injected us as you might a terminally ill pet. We went to sleep, and never woke. And so, we're three."

"There's documentation of this?"

"Yes. Deena obtained it. He made her very smart and resourceful. Maybe he miscalculated the range of her curiosity, her ... humanity. She learned she'd been two, but one hadn't been allowed to develop past the age of three. When she told us, we couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She ran away, she wanted us to come, but..."

"We loved Will. We loved the father. We didn't know how to be without them."

"She contacted you again."

"We were always in contact. We loved her, too. We kept her secret. We married Will. It was so important to make him happy, and we did. When we got pregnant, we asked only one thing of him and the father. One thing. Our child-any children we would have together-would never be re-created. They'd never be used this way. They gave their word."

"One of us had a son."

"Another a daughter."