Then Duun turned his face to him; and there was no sound except something mechanical behind one window and a whisper of air from the ducts.
"Have you come for your answer?" Duun asked.
"Yes," Thorn said. He sat upright, hands on his thighs, ankles crossed. He looked unflinchingly at Duun.
"You've studied genetics," Duun said. "You know what governs heredity."
(Be quick. Drive the knife in quickly, Duun.
O gods, I don't want to sit through this.) "Yes. I understand."
"You understand that genes make you what you are; that every trait you manifest is no matter of chance. A harmonious whole, Haras."
"Are you my father?"
"No. You had none. Nor mother. You're an experiment. A trial, if you will-"
Thorn was strangely numb. Duun's voice drifted somewhere in the half-dark, in the timelessness of the view. The night went on forever and he went on hearing it.
"I don't believe this," Thorn said finally. Not because he did not believe it was something equally terrible. But that he saw no way to accomplish it. "Duun. The truth. I'm something that went wrong-"
"Not wrong. No one said wrong. There are things right about you. But you're different. An experiment. You know how conception takes place. You know genetic manipulation's done-"
"I don't know how it's done." (Clinically. Precisely, like a lesson. It could not be him they discussed, a thing in a dish, a mote floating in a glass.) "I know that it is done. I know they can put things together and come up with something that didn't exist before."
"You know when someone wants a child and there's a-physical impediment-there's the means to bring the embryo to term. A host.
Sometimes a volunteer. In other cases a mechanical support system. An artificial womb. That was so in your case."
(A machine. O gods, a machine.)
"There's nothing remarkable in that," Duun said. "You have that in common with a thousand, two thousand ordinary people who couldn't be born any other way. Medicine's a marvel."
"They made me up."
"Something like that."
He had struggled not to cry. The tears welled up out of nowhere and ran down his face, endless. "When they were putting me together in this lab-" He could not talk for a long time and Duun waited for him. He began it again. "When they made me did they bother to do it twice? Is there anyone else like me?"
"Not in all the world," Duun said. "No."
"Why? For the gods' sake why?"
"Call it curiosity. There are undoubtedly reasons adequate for the meds."
"The meds-"
"They're your fathers if you like. After a manner of speaking Ellud is. Or others in the program."
"What are you?"
"A hatani solution."
Small warnings went off. A prickle of alarm. (Self-preservation. Why should I bother? Why should I care?) But there was fear. "Whose?"
"I might have done many things. I chose to give you the best chance I could give. The only chance I'm equipped to give. Like Ehonin and his daughter."
"Who asked for it?"
Duun was silent for a long time. "The government,"
"Asked a hatani solution?" The enormity of it washed over Thorn like a flood. Duun's stare never gave him up.
"You are one of my principals. I gave you all I could give. I'll go on giving that. It's all that I can do."
The stars glittered on, awash. "I wanted to love her, Duun."
"I know."
"I want to die."
"I taught you to fight. Not to die. I'm teaching you to find solutions."
"Find this one."
"I've already been asked."
Thorn shuddered. All his limbs shook.
"Come here," Duun said. Held out his hands. "Come here, minnow."
Thorn went. It was a pathetic thing Duun offered, shameful for them both. Duun took him in his arms and held tight till the shuddering stopped. After that he lay still against Duun's shoulder for a very long time, and Duun's arms cradled him as they had done before the fire, in Sheon, when he was small.
He slept. When he woke Duun had fallen asleep over him, and his back ached, and it was all still true.
IX
"Well," Ellud said, "we're still tracing the files as far as we can. When official channels decide to fake a record they can do it with remarkably few tracks."
"No matter." Duun kept his back straight. The cracked rib and a twisted night put slowness in his movements; and he sat cross-legged on the other riser in Ellud's office with a cup of herbal tea in his hands. He savored the warmth and the quiet. "I congratulate the council. The security service background-true or false- accounted for the way she held herself."
"Young and bright and probably indebted as hell to someone."
"Try Dallen Company. Trace it and make as much noise as you like. It ought to keep Shbit prudent awhile."
"I'm embarrassed about this."
"She cost them. A lot of years forging that identity. What worries me is how she got out of the building untracked. Dammit, how did they foul that up?"
"We're trying to find that out too."
Duun stared at Ellud a moment and poured himself another cup of tea from the vessel which sat at his left knee. He lifted the cup and looked at Ellud again, making his face expressionless, his eyes uninformative as glass. "He's growing to be a man, all fine points aside; the matter was bound to come up. Betan was a solution when I picked her. I sensed she had the nerve to deal with him. That was understatement, at least. Thorn, gods know, could take care of himself-up to a point. But at least she was bent on creating an incident. That's likeliest. And at worst case, she would do that and kill him in the process. If she could. She had nerve for it. Pity the Guild didn't get her."
"Free-hatani?"
"I've thought of that. I don't think so. Free-ghota, maybe."
"Good gods, if you thought that-"
"Hindsight. She might be the same vukun as Shbit's own bodyguards. They're capable.
Maybe even one of Dallen Company's guilded hire-ons. She botched it up if killing was what she intended, but she wasn't bad. And I doubt it was all that simple." Another sip of the tea. "You won't find her, not now, I think. She likely did clear the building. Look for old friends in Security."
"I'm doing that."
"She'll probably suicide after she reports. I embarrassed her, and not in her youthful modesty. Shbit will see the body disappears. I'll be glad to see her go to him, frankly. It'll make solutions a lot neater."
"I don't like this kind of thing."
"I don't like it either. I may yet visit Shbit. But this discomfiture ought to slow him down a while. He can't bring his witness to light now. That's all spoiled-the charges of assault and ravishment-" Duun drew a deep breath. Ellud's distress was evident. "Well, it's over. For a while. I put him to work in the gym this morning, refused all further questions, and poured a sedative down him afterward. Right now he's sleeping and Hosi's standing over him. Tomorrow, well, we'll change that school situation. I think it's best. With thanks to your staff. I'd like to pull him out, get him out to the country-"
"Gods, no! We just had one security breach. You want another business like Sheon?"
"-but I know it's not feasible."
"Duun. Duun-hatani." Ellud reached beside him on the desk, picked up the optic sheet and waved it. "I'm getting inquiries. We've got a slow leak that's going to become a panic, for the gods' sake, Duun! We haven't got that much maneuvering room left. I want that program to go on, I want it back on schedule. I'm telling you this. It's not just Shbit now. It's coming from the provinces. We're getting inquiries. Do you understand?"
"I've always understood. There's a limit, Ellud. The mind has limits. I want him tranquil. I want him whole. He's closer now than he ever was. But give him room"
"He doesn't know about Betan, does he?"
"How could I explain that without getting into the whole council business? That's why I couldn't stop her on the spot. What would I say? Some people want you killed? He already avoids mirrors. Let the scars heal over before he gets the rest." It was the two-fingered hand that held the cup. Duun contemplated that, rolled it in his fingers and set it down. "Put Sagot on it."