"I guess we'd better go."
"I. . ." He took a step toward her, then stopped. "Look, all of this..." He let out a long sigh. "It's difficult. I didn't mean..."
She faced him angrily. "Oh, you meant it, Michael. It was there in your voice. What's more, ifs what you've been thinking all these months, isn't it? Thinking how generous you've been, and how grateful I ought to feel for that!"
He looked down, hurt by her comments. "Is that what you think?"
"Well, what am I supposed to think?"
"That I love you."
Emily was silent a moment, then she shrugged. "I don't know . . ."
"Look," he said, moving closer, taking her arms, touching her for the first time since they'd been reunited. "It really is difficult, okay? You . .. well, it is easy for you. It couldn't be easier. But I've got to learn." He smiled. "You've got to teach me."
"You want that?"
He nodded. "I want that."
She swallowed, then looked down. "You know, you never really owned it all, Michael. It owned you." She looked up at him and smiled. "All those servants, all those employees you were responsible for. All of those locks and bars and codes and armed guards. Let it all go, Michael. It belongs to the old order."
He laughed and squeezed her arms gently.
"What?" she said. "What is it?"
"Just that I've no real choice. It's gone, Emily. The Hang Seng collapsed four days back. All that's left is here, in this Mansion." He stared down at her, amused by her surprise. "Oh, I still own it all on paper - all the factories and shops and research facilities - but that doesn't mean a great deal anymore. You need a massive market to sustain giant Companies like ImmVac, and that's gone. Nor do I think we'll see it again in our lifetime."
She smiled. "So what was all that about just now?" "I don't know. A lifetime's habit, I suppose." He sighed, then held her close, smelling her hair. "So will you stay?"
"Maybe," she said, putting her arms about his back, her head nuzzling into his chest. "Maybe."
Meg pushed the cellar door open with her knee, then made her way down the unlit stairwell, her bare feet finding their own way down the uneven stone steps.
At the bottom she elbowed the inner door open, her hands occupied by the tray she was carrying. Inside, in the half-light of the crowded basement, she looked about her.
"Ben?"
"Over here . . ."
She moved toward the sound, stepping between the close-packed shelves, past wired morphs and electrical cabinets, stacked files and odd-looking packing cases.
Emerging from between two rows of free-standing shelves, she was surprised to find her brother crouched over the refrigeration unit, his bare arse exposed to her.
"Ben?" She laughed, then set the tray down beside one of the big notebooks which was open on his work table. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Looking for eggs," he said, straightening up and grinning at her over his shoulder.
She tutted, then took his blue silk wrap from beside Hugo, his favourite morph, and draped it over his shoulders.
"Eggs?"
He smiled and, shrugging on the wrap, turned to face her. "That the stew?"
She nodded. "There's bread, too. And cheese for after."
"Ah ..." He stepped past her and lifted the lid of the pot, sniffing deeply, his eyes closed. For a moment Meg watched, the familiarity of that gesture - so like their father - touching something deep in her. But she could not allow that feeling to stop her from saying what had to be said.
"Ben?"
"Yes."
"Ben, I want to go and see Tom. I want to talk to him, persuade him to come home."
"Uhuh?" But the way he said it put her back up. He wasn't listening, or if he was he didn't care.
"I said ..."
He turned to her, smiling. "I heard. And I know you miss him. But you can have sons, Meg. As many sons as you want."
She stared at him. "What?"
"You heard me."
"But I thought..."
Still smiling, he turned and took a hunk of the bread, beginning to chew it. "I changed my mind."
"I. . ." She frowned, confused now. She thought she knew her brother - his whims and ways - but this? He had been quite adamant about not wanting any more children after Tom and had been furious at first when Catherine told him about Dogu. She took a breath, then spoke again.
"What's going on, Ben? Why have you changed your mind?"
Ben moved past her, a hand resting briefly on her hip, and reached into the freezer unit. Lifting something, he turned and handed it to her. It was a tray, a tray of tiny vials, six in all.
Eggs, she realised, recognising the acorn symbol etched into the transparent lid of the tray and into the smooth face of each of the tiny glass vials. They were the fertilised eggs of her great-great-great-great-grandfather Amos Shepherd and his wife Alexandra Melfi.
She shivered. "I thought you meant. . ."
But he was staring at her and smiling now, as if this was the best thing he could ever do for her.
"Six children," he said, confirming only what her own eyes had already noted. "If s what you want, Meg. What you always wanted."
She felt something freeze inside her, as if the six deep-frozen eggs had been placed directly into her womb at that moment.
It wasn't what I meant, she thought, horrified by his utter insensitivity as he turned and, lifting the lid of the pot, began to spoon the steaming stew into his mouth. / meant our children, Ben. Ours!
"Em?"
Emily came from the bed, a cloak hastily wrapped about her nakedness, and stood beside Michael at the balcony rail. Below them the endless feeding went on, the wall-lamps lit now as the sun began to sink below the compound walls. But Michael wasn't looking down, he was looking out across the endless rows of red-tiled roofs toward the south.
"Fires," he said, putting his arm about her.
She looked toward where he was pointing, seeing the tall plumes of black smoke far to the south, counting them.
"Eight. No, nine . . ."
"Hmm." Michael stared a moment, deep in thought, then sighed. "Maybe we ought to leave here, Em. Find somewhere."
"No," she said, snuggling in to his side.
"No?" He looked down at her. "What do you mean?"
"Just no. No more running. This is as good a place as anywhere now."
"But the fires . . ."
Her hand moved gently against his side, reassuring him, as if he were one of her boys. "Bodies," she said. "They're just burning the bodies." Then, "Forget that now and come back inside. I think we've a lot of time to make up for."
They were gathering the dead together, piling them in huge ^tacks and burning them.
Pausing for a moment's rest, Tybor rested on a low wall, stretching his long, inhuman legs. Dust.. . there was so much dust here, and the fires made his throat burn, but this had to be done. Things had to be cleared before they could begin their proper task.
Yes, and if the survivors ran from them in fear, what did it really matter? In their place, he too would be afraid.
Tybor turned his head, looking toward his point of origin -Charon, Pluto's twin. There was not a moment of the day or night when he did not know its position in the sky relevant to him; though the width of the earth came between he and it, still he knew.
The world might turn, he thought, yet Charon remains constant in the sky.
He looked back at the mounting flames. It was such a shame, such an awful shame. They could have done so much here.
One of his three companions came across and stood before him. "We're finished here, Tybor. Shall we move on?"
"Okay," he said, promising himself that they would rest soon. And when my Master comes? But there was no thinking of that now. Now there was only the burning of the dead.