Clone, p.5
Clone, page 5
Norbert took advantage of a lull to put his lips to Alvin’s ear and say: ‘We’ll drop out when we get to Marble Arch. It’s only ten minutes from there to the station.’
‘All right,’ said Alvin concealing his disappointment as best he could. ‘It’s been fun, hasn’t it?’
‘We’ll have a chorus or two of S.O.S.’ called the man with the beard. ‘Give it plenty of soul and take the time from me. Ready? One, two, three!’ And with that he launched them dolefully into ‘Save our Sperms’ to the ancient tune of Three Blind Mice.
‘Save our sperms,
Save our sperms,
They may he germs,
They may be germs,
They’re all a mans got to give to his wife!
But why shouldn’t they have a right to life?
So save our forks from the government knife And save our sperms!’
They sang it through three times and by the time they reached the final chorus they had also reached Marble Arch. At that very moment a scarlet flare trailing a cloud of dense pink smoke sailed up over the trees by Speakers’ Corner. ‘Oh dear, this looks like trouble,’ muttered the tall beardless man as a posse of Security Guards galloped past on their prancers, stun probes at the ready. Up ahead Alvin could see banners waving wildly under the trees. There was a lot of distant shouting and screaming.
‘Come on, son,’ said Norbert grimly, ‘this is where we drop out.’
But it was already too late. Borne forward by the press of marchers behind them and hemmed into the roadway by the rapidly swelling crowds of spectators they found themselves swirled forward like so much unwilling flotsam into the vortex of a pitched battle. It was impossible for Alvin and Norbert to tell who was fighting whom, but judging by the way in which banners were being wielded as weapons on both sides, two opposing armies of protest seemed to have converged head on.
Not the least extraordinary aspect of the scene was the sudden appearance of the articulated So-Vi camera cranes. They stooped over the struggling mass like long-beaked water waders, pecking here and there as fancy dictated. Alvin gazed in astonishment as one of them soared high into the air, appeared to hover for a moment, then swooped down just as a solid placard bearing the one word ‘love’ descended like a mediaeval battleaxe to cleave the bald pate of an elderly gentleman who, at the moment of impact, looked utterly astonished.
As for the Security Guards, instead of attempting to separate the antagonists, they had formed themselves into a sort of human arena, open only at either end to allow the opposing rearguards to join the fray. Once the last contingent was inside, the ring completed itself, and with levelled probes the Guards ensured that none of those inside got out.
Not that many of them seemed to want to, for those that did were treated to a whiff of agro-14 from a red gas pistol as soon as they approached the perimeter of the arena. This had the instantaneous effect of sending them rampaging back into the fray like the war horse who smelt the battle from afar and cried Ha! Ha! among the trumpets. It no longer mattered who was friend and who was foe; to bash, beat, club, strangle and claw was all that counted now.
In a quite remarkably short space of time there was no one left standing. Men and women, young and old, were heaped dead, dying, maimed, or simply unconscious under the indifferent trees. In place of the wild berserker shouts of rage there were now only moans and whispers and the occasional bubbling gasp. The proboscises of the cameras probed fastidiously here and there seeking their last arty morsels—a child’s gouged-out eye or a fingerless hand—before zooming out and up to diminish the perspective from high above.
A whistle was blown, the masked Guards brought their lances up, spun on their booted heels, and lowered their weapons among the hushed spectators. There was an immediate backward shuffle to get out of range. Another whistle blast and the Guards moved slowly forward, driving back the perimeter of the battlefield further and even further until at last the crowd was dispersed.
EIGHT
In the three years which had elapsed since her traumatic experience with Alvin and his brothers, Professor Poynter had suffered from what can best be described as periodic formication of the conscience. She had gradually become convinced that she had acted in blind panic, engendered in her by a primitive sense of sexual outrage, at discovering herself to be standing, stark naked, in a technicians’ washroom surrounded by half a dozen utterly astounded chimpanzees. To get there she had seemingly been instantaneously defabricated, reconstituted, and passed through a nine inch wall of carbon-reinforced siliconized concrete, travelling in all a distance of some eight metres linear in a southeasterly direction. But instead of embracing the experience as a heaven-sent confirmation of her sixteen years’ faith in the value of her experiment, her reaction had been to seize upon the first available cannister of azaguanine-12 and blindly blot out the perpetrators of the miracle. Admittedly the effects of her action had been infinitely more drastic than she had intended, but in her heart of hearts she knew, only too well, that even if that cannister had happened to contain triapsincyanide she would have used it just the same. This shameful realization was what she had been wearing next to her soul like a coconut-matting liberty bodice for 39 long months—the bitter knowledge that, at the moment of supreme crisis, her nerve had failed her, and she had behaved just like an ordinary woman.
Now at last a single glow-worm of hope seemed to have wriggled out of the ruins. Damnably, that nincompoop Pfizier had been hopelessly unspecific about the precise nature of Alvin’s experience (there you go again, Miriam, blaming someone else when you know perfectly well that if you had dared to be more specific in the first place, Pfizier would have known what to look for!), but why on earth the stupid man should have harped so on the boy’s awakening sexual proclivities when all she was concerned about was this single, possible (dare she even say the word?) eidetic manifestation, was almost beyond the bounds of comprehension. Still (credit where credit was due) the lad should have been ‘null libido’, and if he wasn’t (and whatever else Pfizier wasn’t, he had certainly been positive enough on that score!) then conceivably the A-12 erasure might not have been as complete as it had appeared on the encephalographic record. In which case…
The jingling carousel—which was what Professor Poynter’s mind seemed to have become in the last eight hours—churned round and round in its restless circuit. Twice already she had videophoned Aldbury hoping to discover precisely when she could expect the clone to arrive, only to be told that, as far as they knew, he was safely on his way in the care of a trusted anthropoid named Norbert. She had hung about at the M.O.P. until 20.00 hours going over Alvin’s electroencephalogram again and again until she felt as if each individual squiggle on the chart had been scratched directly on to the surface of her own cortex. Finally, after leaving the strictest possible instructions that she was to be videophoned the instant the clone arrived, she had summoned a ministerial buggy and been driven to her home in Richmond where Hortense, her beautiful, 30-year-old Eurasian wife, was awaiting her.
The Professor found her curled up on the hydro-couch watching So-Vi. She was sipping at a tall tulip glass on vintage eroticon and smelt, deliciously, of almonds. ‘You look bushed, my sweet,’ she murmured. ‘Come and sit down here and I’ll fix you one of these.’ She uncoiled her long legs, stood up, and willowed her way across the room to the cocktail cabinet.
Professor Poynter subsided thankfully into the couch and let out her breath in a weary sigh. ‘You’ll never guess what’s turned up, petal.’
‘Then tell me,’ said Hortense sensibly.
’One of my four clones might—just might, mind you—have begun to regenerate!’
‘But that’s marvellous!’
’Isn’t it? I can hardly dare to believe it. I’m not breathing a word to a soul yet, of course.’
‘When will you know for sure?’ asked Hortense, replacing the stopper in the crystal decanter and lifting the filled goblet delicately by its slender stem.
Tonight, I hope.’
‘Tonight! Explique-moi, cherie!’
‘They’re ’phoning me from the lab the minute he arrives. I’ll go over and collect him.’
“
‘Collect him”? you mean you’re going to bring him back here?’
‘Yes, of course, it’s the obvious thing to do. I can run the tests just as well here—far better, in fact. Furthermore I suspect a sympathetic environment may prove absolutely critical. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Why should I mind, my love? Here’s your drink.’
‘Bless you,’ murmured the Professor, accepting the proffered glass and smiling up into the dark eyes above her. ‘And what have you been doing with yourself?’
Hortense shrugged. ‘Nothing very exciting. Watching that. Your Day, isn’t it? Shall I switch it off?’
Professor Poynter’s eyes actively registered the video-screen for the first time. Viewed from high above, two spiky millipedes of protestors were advancing steadily upon each other—the ‘Hampstead and Highgaters’ along Oxford Street and the ‘Bermondsey and Batterseas’ along Park Lane.
Hortense moved across to the set and was about to switch it off when Professor Poynter said: ‘No, leave it a moment, pet.
Douglas Crowe was telling me about this the other day. It’s something Minisoc have dreamt up—I think he called it a field trial for manipulated aggression,’
‘And what’s that when it’s been processed?’ asked Hortense. ‘Crowe and his friends have been culturing anti-socials in each district for the past year. Now they’re ready to see if the dissidents can’t be induced to eliminate each other by artificial over-stimulation of the adrenal system. It’s an interesting theory,‘ Hortense pulled a face and moved back to join her husband on the couch. ‘It looks as if it’s working, doesn’t it?’ she observed. ‘Ugh! How beastly!’
‘Fascinating,’ breathed the Professor. ‘It really does look as if they might have a winner this time. My goodness! Did you see that?’
‘Oh, really/’ protested Hortense. ‘Must we?’
‘But this is tremendously significant, my pet. Manipulated aggression on a really worthwhile socially therapeutic scale,‘ ‘It’s horrible,’ muttered Hortense making a feeble attempt to look the other way and finding that her eyes were drawn back to the carnage in spite of herself. ‘They’ve all gone mad! Ooh, look at that!’
As the camera zoomed in to proffer their succulent titbits of stereoscopic anguish to millions of enthralled viewers throughout the Western network, Hortense finally succeeded in closing her eyes.
They were still shut tight when she heard a gasp of astonishment and felt her husband’s fingers tighten suddenly round her wrist. ‘No, it can’t be!’ exclaimed Professor Poynter.
Hortense opened her eyes and quickly shut them again. ’Oh, do switch it off!’ she wailed. ‘It’s making me feel ill,’
Rather to her surprise the Professor got up from the couch and did as she was asked, but then, instead of resuming her seat and indulging Hortense with the consolatory caresses she was expecting, she disappeared into the study to emerge, a minute later, bearing the album that Sir Gordon Loveridge had presented to her back in ’69.
‘What on earth have you got there?’ demanded Hortense.
‘Just look at this,’ said the Professor stabbing her forefinger at the bland features of one of the four clones (it was Bruce, actually, but there was no way of telling them apart except by their clothes) ‘and now take a look at this.’ She stepped across to the So-Vi, pushed the playback button, held it for a second or two, then thumbed the viewer. After flicking back and forth for a few moments she grunted triumphantly: ’There! That’s the one!’
The picture that had materialized within the screen was a 3-dimensional close-up of a moon-faced youth, with remarkably protuberant ears, in the process of being slowly throttled by an obviously enraged ape. Allowing for the differences of facial expression, i.e. slight surprise in the album and utter astonishment on the screen, the similarity between the two sets of features was certainly extraordinary.
‘Could it be him?’ asked Hortense curiously.
‘Well, if it isn’t him, it’s certainly one of them,’ said the Professor. ‘What’s more it would explain why he hasn’t turned up.’
‘But what was he doing there?’
’There are some things, my pet, which even I can hardly be expected to answer—yet,’ said the Professor, clicking off the picture and striding purposefully towards the door of the apartment.
‘Where are you off to now?’ wailed Hortense.
’To try to locate him, of course.’
‘But he’ll be deadf
We don’t know that, do we? And even if he is, he’ll still be some use to me.’
’Oh really, Miriam, this is absurd! At least have some dinner first.’
But Professor Poynter was already on her way.
NINE
Alvin was not dead as it happened, only very, very unconscious. His recovery of his senses was a weirdly unreal process in which, like some huge, indolent fish he seemed to rise slowly to the surface, gulp, and then sink as slowly back again into the cloudy depths. This was repeated at least a dozen times with the intervals between the gulps growing shorter and shorter until, finally, with one heart-rending groan he opened his reluctant eyes.
His first coherent thought was that, wherever else he might be, he was certainly not lying in his bunk at Aldbury. Directly above him, through a sort of macabre gothic arch formed— though Alvin did not realize it—from the crotch of a stiffening Highgate Quaker, he glimpsed a salmon-pink wisp of cirrostratus tangled like a feather in the topmost twigs of a dead elm. As he peered disbelievingly up at it it faded slowly from his sight and its place was taken by a small bird which, after emitting a couple of wistful cheep-cheeps, fluffed out its feathers and prepared to settle down for the night. ‘Hey!’ croaked Alvin in sudden alarm. ‘Hey! Help!’
From the shambles around him his appeal evoked a few feeble groans. These continued for a few moments then died dispiritedly away.
Alvin somehow succeeded in dislodging the Quaker’s right thigh from its resting place on his own right shoulder and struggled up into a sitting position. His throat was extremely painful and he found considerable difficulty in swallowing. For hundreds of yards in all directions about him the gentle evening shadows were congealing around untidy heaps of bodies from which the splintered shafts of placard handles projected haphazardly like ill-directed banderillas. As he surveyed the dismal scene, uselessly but quite understandably, Alvin began to weep. Through the shifting lens of his tears the scattered corpses gained, for a little while, an illusory animation.
Staggering to his feet he began to pull despairingly at odd arms and legs, as though by doing so he might galvanize them back into more than just a semblance of life. So it was that, by sheer chance, he stumbled upon a leg that seemed to respond to his tugging.
Apologizing to the dead for his intrusion, he began frenziedly dragging aside the corpses that were covering the body to which the limb was attached and succeeded at last in lugging it clear. How can one hope to convey his delirious delight when he discovered that the object of his efforts was none other than Norbert? Flinging himself upon his friend he began at once to administer the kiss-of-life, a technique in which—despite Doctor Somervell’s contention—he had long ago acquired a considerable degree of expertise.
After five minutes of dizzying effort the chest of the chimp began a fluttering rise and fall, whereupon Alvin, seizing him by the shoulders of his jacket, dragged him backwards across the trampled grass, propped him up against the bole of a tree and ran as fast as he could to seek further assistance.
He had covered no more than a couple of hundred yards when he found his headlong flight was blocked by a high black wall. This was a prefabricated palisade which the authorities had erected round the battlefield while Alvin was still lying insensible. It was now stretched to left and right in an unbroken line enclosing a roughly oval area about a third of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide.
Trotting disconsolately round this black perimeter trying to find some way out, Alvin came upon a fountain at which he was able to relieve his aching throat. A short distance beyond the fountain was a public videophone booth. This, like the fountain, had got itself included within the scope of the fence.
With a display of initiative which would certainly have surprised his friends at Aldbury Alvin thrust his way into the booth and confronted the instrument. While he was wondering who to summon to his aid his attention was caught by a glocard riveted to the wall: ‘desperate? life proving too much for you?
CALI. SAMARITANS OOOO.’
Convinced that his prayers had been answered Alvin delved into his pocket, discovered a £2 piece, thrust it into the metal slot and pressed the ‘o’ button four times.
Thirty seconds later the screen had cleared. He waited impatiently for a face to surface from its depths, but all that happened was that a feminine voice breathed gently from the speaker into his ear: ‘You need our help?’
‘Oh, yes’ cried Alvin fervently.’Please*
‘You’ve lost your nerve, have you?’
‘Eh?’
‘You found you couldn’t go through with it?’
‘What?’
‘You do want our help?’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Alvin.
‘All right. Now where exactly are you?’
‘I’m not sure. Marble Arch, I think.’
‘How high?’
‘?’
‘How high up are you?’ repeated the voice patiently.
Alvin looked down at his feet in some bewilderment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘About half a metre, I suppose.’
In his ear he heard something that sounded improbably like a chuckle. ‘Oh dear,’ said the voice, ‘then it’s not much use jumping, is it?’
