"If you know so much, why do you need me?" asked Volescu.
"Eight names and addresses," said Bean. "The women who are bearing our babies."
"Even if I knew," said Volescu, "what purpose would be served by telling? None of them have Anton's Key. They aren't worth studying."
"There is no nondestructive test," said Petra. "So you don't know which of them had Anton's Key turned. You would have kept them all. You would have implanted them all."
"Again, since you know more than I do, by all means tell me when you find them. I'd love to know what Achilles did with the five survivors."
Bean walked up to his biological half-uncle. He towered over him.
"My," said Volescu. "What big teeth you have."
Bean took him by the shoulders. Volescu's arms seemed so small and fragile within the grasp of Bean's huge hands. Bean probed and pressed with his fingers. Volescu winced.
Bean's hands wandered idly along Volescu's shoulders until his right hand nested the back of the man's neck, and his thumb played with the point of Volescu's larynx. "Lie to me again," whispered Bean.
"You'd think," said Volescu, "that someone who used to be small would know better than to be a bully."
"We all used to be small," said Petra. "Let go of his neck, Bean."
"Let me crush his larynx just a little."
"He's too confident," said Petra. "He's very sure we'll never find them."
"So many babies," said Volescu genially. "So little time."
"He's counting on us not torturing him," said Bean.
"Or maybe he wants us to," said Petra. "Who knows how his brain works? The only difference between Volescu and Achilles is the size of their ambitions. Volescu's dreams are so very, very small."
Volescu's eyes were welling up with tears. "I still think of you as my only son," he said to Bean. "It grieves me that we don't communicate any better than this."
Bean's thumb massaged the skin of Volescu's throat in circles around the point of his larynx.
"It surprises me that you can always find a place to do your sick little brand of science," said Petra. "But this lab is closed now. The Rwandan government will have its scientists go over it to find out what you were doing."
"Always I do the work while others get the credit," said Volescu.
"Do you see how I nearly encircle his throat with just one hand?" said Bean.
"Let's take him back to Ribeirao Preto, Julian."
"That would be nice," said Volescu. "How are my sister and her husband doing? Or do you see them anymore, now that you've got to be so important?"
"He's talking about my family," said Bean, "as if he were not the monster who cloned my brother illegally and then murdered all but one of the clones."
"They've gone back to Greece," said Petra. "Please don't kill him, Bean. Please."
"Remind me why."
"Because we're good people," said Petra.
Volescu laughed. "You live by murder. How many people have you both killed? And if we add in all the Buggers you slaughtered out in space...."
"All right," said Petra. "Go ahead and kill him."
Bean tightened his fingers. Not that much, really. But Volescu made a strangled sound in his throat and in moments his eyes were bugging out.