After-dinner drinks were served in the library-cum-bar. As midnight tolled on the antique grandfather clock in the corner, the guests began to make their farewells. Amanda left with Cardenas and Big George. Pancho stayed until everyone else had gone.
“First in, last out,” she said, once she finally put her glass down on the bar. “I never want to miss anything.”
Humphries let Verwoerd escort Pancho to the door. He stepped behind the bar and poured himself a stiff single-malt, neat.
Verwoerd returned, a subtle smile creasing her sultry lips. “She’s even more beautiful in person than her on-screen image.”
“I’m going to marry her,” Humphries said.
Verwoerd actually laughed. “Not until you get up the nerve to speak to her, I should think.”
Anger flared in his gut. “Too many people around. I can’t say anything meaningful to her in a crowd like that.”
Still smirking, Verwoerd said, “She didn’t have much to say to you, either.”
“She will. I’ll see to that.”
Picking up her half-finished drink from the bar, Verwoerd said, “I noticed that the other woman didn’t have much to say to you, either.”
“Doctor Cardenas?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve had our… differences, in the past. When she lived here at Selene.”
“She used to run the nanotech lab, didn’t she?”
“Yes.” Kris Cardenas had been shut out of her lab because of Humphries. He was certain that Verwoerd knew it; the feline smile on her face told him that she knew and was enjoying his discomfort over it. And his inability to say more than a few words to Amanda. She’s enjoying watching me turn myself into knots over the woman I love, he fumed silently.
“It’ll be interesting to see what they have to say tomorrow, if anything,” Verwoerd mused.
“Tomorrow?”
“At the conference.”
“Oh, yes. The conference.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Verwoerd.
“You won’t be there.”
Her eyes went wide for just a flash of a second, then she regained control of herself.
“I won’t be at the conference? Why not?”
“Because you’ll be in the medical lab. It’s time for you to be implanted with my clone.”
Verwoerd’s self-control crumpled. “Now? You’re going to do that now, with the conference and—”
He had just made up his mind. Seeing the smug superiority on her face had decided him. It’s time to show her who’s in charge here; time to make her realize she’s here to do my bidding.
“Now,” Humphries said, enjoying her shock and confusion. “I’m going to marry Amanda and you’re going to carry my baby.”
CHAPTER 50
So it boils down to this, Dorik Harbin said to himself as he read the message on his screen. All this effort and maneuvering, all these ships, all the killing, and it comes down to a simple little piece of treachery.
He sat in his privacy cubicle and stared at the screen. Some flunky who had once worked for Fuchs had sold out. For a despicably small bribe he had hacked into Fuchs’s wife’s computer files and found out where Fuchs had planted communications transceivers. Those little electroptics boxes were Fuchs’s lifeline, his link to information on where and when he could find the ships he preyed upon.
Harbin smiled tightly, but there was no joy in it. He opened a comm channel to his ships and began ordering them to the asteroids where Fuchs’s transceivers lay. Sooner or later he would show up at one of those rocks to pick up the latest intelligence information from his wife. When he did, there would be three or four of Harbin’s ships waiting for him.
Harbin hoped that Fuchs would come to the asteroid where he himself planned to he in wait.
It will be good to finish this fight personally, he told himself. Once it’s over, I’ll be wealthy enough to retire. With Diane.
Diane Verwoerd spent a sleepless night worrying about the ordeal she faced. I’ll bear Martin’s child without really being impregnated by him. I’ll be a virgin mother, almost.
The humor of the situation failed to ease her fears. Unable to sleep, she went to her computer and searched for every scrap of information she could locate about cloning: mammals, sheep, pigs, monkeys, apes—humans. Most nations on Earth forbade human cloning. The ultraconservative religious organizations such as the New Morality and the Sword of Islam jailed and even executed scientists for merely doing research in cloning. Yet there were laboratories, private facilities protected by the very wealthy, where such experiments were done. Most attempts at cloning failed. The lucky ones suffered spontaneous abortions early. Less lucky women died in childbirth, or gave birth to stillborns.
My chances for presenting Martin with a healthy son are about one in a hundred, Verwoerd saw. My chances for dying are better than that.
She shuddered, but she knew she would go through with it. Because being the mother of Martin Humphries’s son was worth all the risk to her. I’ll get a seat on the board of directors for this. With Dorik to protect me, there’s no telling how far I can go.
Humphries awoke that morning and smiled. It’s all coming together nicely, he told himself as he got out of bed and padded into his tiled lavatory. Amanda’s here without Fuchs. By the time the conference is over he’ll be totally cut off from her and everybody else. I’ll have the chance to show her what kind of life she can have with me.
The mirror above the sink showed him a puffy-faced, bleary-eyed unshaven image. Will she want me? he asked himself. I can give her everything, everything a woman could possibly desire. But will she turn me down again? Will she stick with Fuchs?
Not when the man is dead, he thought. Then she’ll have no choice. The competition will be over.
His hands trembled as he reached for his electric toothbrush. Frowning at this weakness, Humphries opened his medicine cabinet and rummaged through the vials lined up there in alphabetical order. A cure for every malady, he said to himself. Most of them were recreational drugs, cooked up by some of the bright researchers he kept on his payroll. I need something to calm me down, Humphries realized. Something to get me through this conference without losing my temper, without making Amanda afraid of me.
As he pawed through the medicine cabinet, the image of Diane Verwoerd’s troubled, frightened face flashed in his mind. I wiped her superior smile away, he thought, relishing the memory of her surprise and fear. He tried to remember how many women had carried clones of his, all to no avail. Several had died; one had produced a monstrosity that lived less than a day. Diane’s strong, he told himself. She’ll come through for me. And if she doesn’t—he shrugged. There are always other women for the job.
He found the little blue bottle that he was looking for. Just one, he said silently; just enough to get me through the meeting on an even keel. Later on, I’ll need something else, something stimulating. But not yet. Not this morning. Later, when Amanda’s here with me.
Pancho dressed carefully for the conference in a pumpkin orange silk blouse and slacks with a neat patchwork jacket embellished with highlights of glitter. This is an important conference and I’m representing Astro Corporation, she told herself. Better look like a major player. She thought she would be the first one to show up for the conference, but when she got there Doug Stavenger was already standing by the big window that swept along one wall of the spacious room, looking relaxed in an informal cardigan jacket of teal blue.
“Hello,” he called cheerfully. Gesturing toward the side table laden with coffee urns and pastries, he asked, “Have you had your breakfast?”