Shadow Puppets (The Shadow 3)

"Yes," said Bean, "here I am, and very tall for my age, too, as you seem to keep trying to verify."

"I'm sorry," said Volescu. "I know that other business has brought you here. Very important business."

"You're sure," said Bean, "that your test for Anton's Key is absolutely accurate and nondestructive?"

"You exist, don't you? You are what you are, yes? We would not have kept any in which the gene did not take. We had a safe, reliable test."

"Every one of the cloned embryos was brought to life," said Bean. "It worked in every one of them?"

"I was very good with planter viruses in those days. A skill that even now isn't much called for in procedures with humans, since alterations are still illegal." He chuckled, because everyone knew that there was a lively business in tailored human babies in various places around the world, and that skill in gene alteration was in more demand than ever. That was almost certainly Volescu's real business, and the Netherlands was one of the safest places to practice it.

But as Petra listened to him, she became more and more uneasy. Volescu was lying about something. The change in his manner had been slight, but after spending months observing every tiny nuance in Achilles's demeanor, simply as a matter of survival, she had turned herself into a very precise observer of other people. The signs of deception were there. Energized speech, overly rhythmic, too jovial. Eyes that kept darting away from theirs. Hands that wouldn't stop touching his coat, his pencil.

What would he be lying about?

It was obvious, once she thought about it.

There was no test. Back when he created Bean, Volescu had simply introduced the planter virus that was supposed to alter all the cells of the embryos, and then waited to see if any embryos lived, and which of the survivors had been successfully altered. It happened that they all survived. But not all of them necessarily had Anton's Key.

Maybe that was why, of all the nearly two dozen babies, only Bean escaped.

Maybe Bean was the only one in whom the alteration was successful. The only one with Anton's Key. The only one who was so preternaturally intelligent that he was able, at one year of age, to realize there was danger, climb out of his bassinet, get himself inside a toilet tank, and actually stay alive there until the danger passed.

That had to be Volescu's lie. Maybe he had developed a test since then, but that was unlikely. Why would he imagine he'd need it? But he said that he had such a test so he could...could do what?

Start his experiment again. Take their leftover embryos, and instead of discarding the ones with Anton's Key, he'd keep them all and raise them and study them. This time it wouldn't be just one out of two dozen who had the enhanced intelligence and the shortened life-span. This time, the genetic odds suggested a fifty-fifty distribution of Anton's Key among the embryos.

So now Petra had a decision to make. If she said out loud what she was so certain of in her mind, Bean would probably realize she was right and the entire deal would be off. If Volescu had no way to test, it was certain nobody else did. Bean would refuse to have children at all.

So if she was to have Bean's child, Volescu had to be the one to do it, not because he had a test for Anton's Key, but because Bean believed he did.

But what about the other embryos? They would be her children, too, growing up as the slaves, the experimental subjects of a man like this, completely without morals.

"Of course you know," said Petra, "that you won't do the actual implantation."

Since Bean had never heard this wrinkle in their plans, he was no doubt surprised--but, being Bean, he showed nothing, merely smiled a bit to show that she was speaking for both of them. Such trust. She didn't even feel guilty that he trusted her so much at a moment when she was working so hard to deceive him. She may not be doing what he thought that he wanted, but she knew she was doing what he really desired, deep down in his genes.

Volescu showed surprise, however. "But...what do you mean?"

"Forgive me," said Petra, "but we will stay with you through the entire fertilization process, and we will watch as every fertilized embryo is taken to the Women's Hospital, where they will be under hospital security until the implantation takes place."

Volescu's face reddened. "What do you accuse me of?"

"Of being the man you have already proven yourself to be."

"Many years ago, and I paid my debt."

Bean understood now--enough, at least, to join in, his tone of voice as light and cheerful as Petra's. "We have no doubt of that, but of course we want to make sure we don't have any of our little embryos with Anton's Key waking up to some unpleasant surprises in a room full of children, as I did once."

Volescu rose to his feet. "This interview is over."

Petra's heart sank. She shouldn't have said anything at all. Now there would be no implantation and Bean would discover...

"So we proceed to extract the eggs?" asked Bean. "The time is right, I believe. That's why we made the appointment for this day."

Volescu looked at him sharply. "After you insulted me?"

"Come now, Doctor," said Bean. "You take the eggs from her,