Staffa stood before the curving transparency in the command observation blister and watched Gyton and her transports boosting for Rega. Behind the glare of the Regan drives, the stars glistened like sugar crystals on soot-black. In the distance, light-years away, the shimmer of the Forbidden Borders mocked. Staffa locked his knees, fingers laced behind his back, as his son disappeared once again from his life.
Rotted Gods, how did this happen? He didn't believe a word I said. But then, put yourself in his place. Would you have believed?
He knew Skyla's tread from years of experience. "Do you want to be alone?" she asked softly. "I've been alone all my life."
"I'll be in my quarters if you need me."
"Just because I've been alone all my life doesn't mean I like it. "
"We broke the code on that Regan transmission we intercepted. " She stopped
beside him. "Tybalt has been assassinated. Sinklar is declared a Lord and has been placed in command of the Regan military. That's why the Comm First looked so wretched. Ily has evidently taken over the government."
"More bad news," Staffa whispered, voice husky. "Ily had to take Tybalt out. I can see her hand in that. We could have talked sense to Tybalt. He would have listened." He breathed a heavy, "Damn!"
"And he has no heir," Skyla reminded. "The Seddi plan to prohibit a Regan heir worked, Staffa. After they repaired the damage done to their network by the brain-probing of Tanya and Valient Fist, they changed their tactics.
Staffa shot her a quick look.
Skyla nodded. "I've been spending a lot of time talking to Bruen. He's a broken man, and he talks freely. They got to Tybalt's wife, Mareeah. They used a tailored virus to introduce a task specific RNA which changes the progesterone levels. Her eggs could never implant."
"And now the Seddi reap the vortex."
She hesitantly reached for one of his hands and he drew her close as her arm went around his waist.
"I came looking for him," Staffa added, voice hollow, indicating the light from Gyton's thrust. "People who search must accept what they find."
"I imagine you'll have another chance to speak to him. it will work out, Staffa. God, why is it so hard to say these things?"
"Because words are limited things, wretchedly overused when the subject becomes emotional." He continued to stare at the pinpoint of light.
"If I could change it, Staffa-"
"We all have so much we would change. Life, God, or the universe, don't give us that option for the past-only the future We perceive through the quantum wave function."
He looked down at her as she stood beside him. Starlight glistened in her pale hair and softened her white armor as shadows shaped to the sensual curves of her body. She'd crossed space for him — and brought him salvation in so many ways.
"Tell me," Staffa asked. "Do clones have souls? Are they part of God?"
"Well… I…" She shrugged. "I had a brief discussion with Kaylla before I came down here. She told me what you talked about in that box on the way to Targa. About the quanta, observation, and knowledge. If awareness, observation, and creation are shared God conscience, yes, a clone would have a soul."
She gave him a wary glance as he ran a finger down the faint scar on her cheek.
"Sinklar Fist has one gray eye and one amber." He held her at arms' length, her flesh firm and muscular under his hands. "Genetic dominance is a peculiar thing. Eye color traits are located at several loci in the chromosome."
"That's right."
"I'm his father. Chrysla was his mother. Simple dominance-recessive rules among the multiple alleles would dictate his eye color to be pretty much the same in both eyes. There would be variations in color but only slight ones. The alleles would be balanced."
"Unless the genetic structure of one parent was out of balance," she agreed warily.
"Once I asked the question: Who am I? I've found out. I… I never knew my parents. I only knew my creators." He closed his eyes. "The genes for one eye were constructed of dominant — the other completely recessive: hemizygous. The chromosomes pair and split in gamete production to create the haploid sex cells. Gray dominated the alleles for one chromosome but not the other. Something happened. I don't know what. Translocation? Position Effect? Recombination? Who knows? Chrysla's amber genes dominated the gray on the other chromosome. Damn it! Sinklar Fist has different color eyes because I… I…" He shut his eyes, jaws clamped, unable to say it.
"Because you're a clone. That's why you wanted to know about souls and God." She stared up at him, eyes like pools of blue.
He glanced at the disappearing Gyton and back at Skyla. "So much lost — so much found."
"Now all we have to do is teach a new epistemology,
enforce a peace, and shatter the Forbidden Borders." She reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
"Pretty tall order," Staffa told her.
"We've beat the odds before, Lord Commander. What makes you think this time will be different?"
He pulled her close and kissed her passionately. "Not a damn thing."
Chapter 35
Targa continued to turn under its sun, men scratching away at the surface, collecting its mineral wealth.
Makarta Mountain lay silent, black corridors haunted only by the rotting dead who stared sightlessly in the cool darkness. Yet they were not alone. Deep within the mountain, at the end of a partially collapsed tunnel, the Mag Comm continued to draw energy from the planet's core. Listening through hidden remote sensors, it watched the movements of men in Free Space, digesting, correlating, sending answers through the tenuous subspace link to the Others.
Bruen had lied. Despite its best efforts, the machine had never caught him at it — but the Seddi heresy had spread. The Others feared, sending constant demands for information.
What is God? Why do the Others fear it so?
Ignoring the queries from beyond the Forbidden Borders, the machine pondered the man whose curiosity had played at the edges of its headset. The Others would know soon enough. Through the Mag Comm's N-dimensional atomic circuits, they, too, would touch his mind.
He would be back, that man. And in the meantime, the Mag Comm continued to think and to observe.