The Stone Dogs (38 page)

"Yes. Yes, sir." Lefarge straightened, set his beret on his head.

"I'm to report in a week? Well, if you'll excuse me, sir, I intend to go take advantage of the time. First, by getting very drunk.

Safely, alone."

Stoddard sighed and dropped his face into his hands as the door closed.
I cannot weep
, he thought.
For if I do, will never
stop.

CLAESTUM PLANTATION

DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

PROVINCE OF ITALY

MAY, 1976

"Yolande? "

She stopped, caught between impatience and sick relief at the excuse for delay. It was John, looking grimmer than she had seen him in a long time, since Mandy got back from the last operation, in fact. Jolene was behind him, trying to make herself invisible. Yolande stopped, sighed, rubbed a hand over her forehead.

"Yes, John?"

He faced her, looked aside for a moment, then directly into her eyes.

"There's somethin' I'd like to discuss with yo', sister," he said.

A nod in the direction of the plain door ahead; they were in a little-used section of the manor, only sketchily finished at all, suited for the use she had put it to. "That serf of yours, in particular."

The day was warm, but Yolande felt her skin roughen under her field jacket. "That's… not somethin' I care to discuss, brother," she said carefully, eyes on his face. The dappled sun-shadow patterns from the tall window at her back fell across the hard tanned planes of it, bleak and angry.

"
I
care to discuss it," he said. "Not just fo' myself. Fo' our parents, yo' sisters, for Mandy."

She opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. The look on his face was enough to bring her out of self-absorption, with a prickle of feeling that it took a moment for her to recognize.

Danger
. This was the wrong context, the wrong person; this was her brother, Johnnie… and a very dangerous man, an extremely angry one. A cold-water feeling, a draft of rationality through the hot, tight obsession these rooms had come to represent.

"All right," she said, impatiently. "Say yo' say."

"Not here. In there."

Yolande blinked, conscious of her lips peeling back.

Unconscious of her hand dropping to the butt of her sidearm, until she saw him copy her motion with flat wariness.

"If that's the way yo' want to discuss it, 'Landa."

"I—gods, Johnnie!" She shook her hand loose. "All
right,
then." Her back went rigid at the thought of another seeing this with her. She pushed open the door.

The American serf had been sitting at a table, picking listlessly at the wood. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and scuttled to the far corner of the room; her hands caught up the tablecloth in passing, held it tented out in front of her as she scrabbled to push herself back into the stone.

"Noooooo," she said. They could see her mouth through the thin fabric, open in an O as round as her eyes. "Nooooooo.

Ahhhhhhhh. Nooooooo." The serfs face looked fallen in, as if something had been subtracted from it, and her arms were wasted.

Yolande swallowed and turned her back; it was different, seeing it with John there. Suddenly she felt herself seized, the back of her neck taken in a grip as irresistible as a machine, turning her about.

"Look at that!" John said. "That is what I wanted to… This can't go on, 'Landa, it cannot. I will not allow it. None of us will."

The serf was making a thin whine, clutching the tablecloth to her with arms and legs, rocking. Yolande reached back, used a breakhold on the thumb to free herself, spun to face her brother, panting.

"Yo' disputin' my right to do as I will with my own?" she grated.

"Not on my land!"
he roared, the sound shockingly loud.
"Not
in my family's home!"
John reached over and pulled her pistol free, grabbed her hand, pressed it into her palm.

"Kill her, if that's what yo' want. Or get rid of her. Or if yo'

want to keep actin' like a hyena, "
get yo' gone."

Yolande looked at the weapon, up at her brother, her eyes hunting for a chink in his rage. "Are—" She fumbled the weapon back into its holster. "Are yo' tellin' me I'm not welcome in my family's home?" she said, in a small high voice.

"My sister Yolande is always welcome here," he said flatly.

"My sister wouldn't do that,"—he jerked his head at the moaning serf—"to a mad dog. It's your property… Don't yo' understand,

'Landa, yo' doin' this to
yo'self.
Every time yo' think of Myfwany, yo' takes it out on that poor bitch. Does that ease yo' pain? Does it? Is
that,"
—he pointed again— "what yo' want your memories attached to? Yo've got to start livin' again. Not just goin' through the motions."

Yolande turned, braced her hands against the wall. Something inside her seemed to crumble, and she felt an overwhelming panic.
Gods, he's right. I'm poisoning all I have left.
That couldn't be right.
It's her
fault
… Or is it my fault?

"All right," she said dully. "All right." His hand touched her shoulder gently, and she turned into his embrace. "All right." Her neck muscles were quivering-rigid, but her eyes stayed dry.

"Yo' want me to handle gettin' rid of her?" he asked.

She straightened, wiped her hands down her trouser legs, looked over at the serf. Appraisingly, this time. "No," she said calmly. "Yo' right. I won't use the controller on her any more. I'll try and have her patched up… but I'm not lettin' her go. Lettin'

go isn't my strong point, brother. But thank yo'. Thank yo' all." A nervous gesture smoothed back her hair. "Iff'n she recovers, I'll…

Oh, I don't know. Find somethin' else fo' her to do. That enough."

He nodded. "Welcome back."

She laughed, quietly bitter. "Not yet. Just startin', maybe." A glance at the sunlight. "I've got the afternoon, befo' I have to take the car in." She was on short-leave. "See yo' at dinner."

I am Marya.

"Oh, y' poor hurt thing."

Gentle hands were lifting her, holding a glass to her lips. She recognized the hands, the scent; they were surcease from pain.

Black hands, sweet voice.

I am Marya Lefarge.

"C'mon, honey, we gets y' to the doctor. Give y' somethin' to sleep. Mistis isn't goin' do that no mo', she was just crazy, honest, no more."

I am Captain Marya Lefarge.

She was walking into a place that smelled half medicinal, half of country air, warmth. Children were playing outside, she could hear them. She was lifted into a soft bed; a pill was between her lips. Drowsy.

"No more painmaker, no mo'."

I am Captain Marya Lefarge, and nothing can hurt me
.

Because beside
that
there was no pain. She had felt the worst thing in the world, and she was still alive.
Nothing can hurt me.

I will remake myself. However long it takes, I will.

"Ah, Myfwany." The turf had healed over the grave, on the hill across from the manor. It was lonely here, not many graves in the Ingolfssons' burying ground yet… She looked up to the next space; that would be hers.

"I wanted to die, Myfwany, for… it seemed like a long time. Or to go away, go away from it all. And I had to keep goin', keep on doin' things. The things we talked about, the Astronautics!

Academy, qualifyin'. So
dry
, it was like I
was
dead, dead on my feet and rottin', and nobody could notice. They say it heals… Oh, do I want it to?"

Yolande hugged her knees to her and laid her head on them; one hand smoothed the short damp grass. Somewhere she could feel a pair of warm green eyes open, somewhere in the back of her mind.

"Yes, love, I know. I takes things too much to heart." A rough laugh. "Yo' wouldn't have gone… hog-wild with that Yankee, the way I did. It should've been yo' that lived that night, love."

The Draka rose, dusting off her trousers. "I promise I'll do bettah now, Myfwany-sweet. Somehow I'll find a true revenge fo'

yo'. And…" Her eyes rested on the far hills.
I think it would be
better if I could weep,
at least alone,
she thought. "I'll live, as yo'd have said. Make the memories live, somehow." Her eyes closed, and she felt scar-tissue inside herself.
Scars don't bleed,
but they don't feel as well, either.
"Goodbye fo' now, my love. Till we meet again."

EUGENICS BOARD NATALITY CLINIC

FLORENCE

DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

PROVINCE OF ITALY

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

SEPTEMBER, 1976

"Now, shall we proceed, Citizen?" the doctor asked politely.

He had glanced at the medal ribbons as she came into the office, and Yolande suspected he would look up her record again as soon as she left. A tall thin wiry man with cropped graying dark hair and brown eyes, with a Ground Command thumb-ring.

Technical Section,
she decided.

The office was a large room near the roofline of a converted Renaissance
palazzo
down near the Arno; the windows looked away from the river, out to the Cathedral with its red-and-white candystripe Giotto belltower and the green mountains beyond. It was cheerfully light, white-painted with a good tapestry on the inner wall, bright patterned tile floors, rugs, modem inlaid Drakastyle furniture. There was a smell of river and clean warm air from outside, faint traffic noises, the fainter sound of a group of brooders counting cadence as they went through their exercises.

"The brooder I sent in is satisfactory?" she said.

The doctor kept his eyes steady on hers as she turned back from the window, but could not prevent an inward flinch. You saw suffering in his line of work, but not like
that
.

"A little underweight, but otherwise fine," he replied, calling up the report. "The psych report indicates stabilized trauma, surprisin' recovery. Hmmm, primagravida… good pelvic structure, but are yo' sure a licensed Clinic breeder wouldn't do?"

Yolande shook her head wordlessly. "The technicians report she's… hmmm, seems to have been under very severe stress.

Good recovery, as I said, no biological agent; still, I'd swear she's been sufferin' from
somethin."

"She has," Yolande said, with a flat smile.

"What?"

"Me."

The doctor opened his mouth, shut it again with a shrug. It was the owner's business, after all. "Well," he said after another consultation with the screen. "We adjusted her hormone level, so she's ready fo' seeding anytime. Now, as to the clone." He paused delicately.

Yolande lit a cigarette, disregarding his frown. The new gene-engineered varieties of tobacco had virtually no carcinogens or lung-contaminants, and the soothing was worth the slight risk.

"I'd think it was simple enough," she said. The glassy feeling was back, a detachment deeper than any she had ever achieved in meditation. "My lover was killed in India. I want a clone-child, with
this
wench as brooder."

"Tetrarch Ingolfsson… yo' do understand, a clone is not a reproduction? All the same genes, yes, but—"

"Personality is an interaction of genetics an' environment, yes, I
am
familiar with the facts, doctor." She sank into a chair. It was odd, how the same physical sensation could carry such different
meanings
. The smooth competence of her own body; a year ago, it had been a delight. Now… just machinery, that you would be annoyed with if it did not function according to spec. "I realize that I'm not getting Myfwany back." Something surged beneath the glass, something huge and dark that would shatter her if she let it.
Breathe. Breathe, calm.

The medico steepled his fingers. "Then there's the matter of the Eugenics Code."

She stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. "I'm askin fo' a
clone
. Doctor. Not a superbeing."

"Yes, yes… are yo' aware of the advances we've made in biocontrol in the last decade?"

Yolande shrugged. "I've seen ghouloons," she said. "Bought a modified cat awhiles ago."

He smiled with professional warmth. "If yo'll examine that-there screen by yo' chair, Citizen." It lit. "Now, we've had the whole human genome fo' some time now, identified the keyin' and activation sequences." His face lit with a more genuine warmth, the passion of a man in love with his work.

"Naturally, we're bein' cautious. The mistakes they made with that ghouloon project, befo' they got it right! We're certainly not talkin' about introducing transgenetic material or even many modified genes. Or makin' a standard product."

Double-helix figures came to three-dimensional life on the screen. "Yo' see, that's chimp DNA on the left, human on the right. Ninety-eight percent identical, or better! So a few changes can do a great deal, a great deal indeed." Seriously: "And those changes are bein'…
strongly encouraged.
Not least, think of how handicapped a child without them would be!"

"Tell me," Yolande said, leaning forward, feeling a stirring of unwilling interest beneath the irritation.

"Well. What we do is run analysis against the suggested norm, an' modify the original as needed. Saves the genetic diversity, hey? With yo' friend—"

His hands moved on the keyboard, and Myfwany's form appeared on the screen; it split, and genecoding columns ran down beside it. Yolande's hands clenched on the arms of the chair, unnoticed despite the force that pressed the fingernails white.

"See, on personality, we're still not sure about much of the finer tuning. We can set the gross limits—aggressive versus passive, fo' example, or the general level of libido. Beyond that, the interactions with the environment are too complex. With yo'

friend, most of the parameters are well within the guidelines anyway. So the heritable elements of character will be identical to an unmodified clone."

"Next, we eliminate a number of faults. Fo' example," he paused to reference the computer, "yo' friend had allergies.

"We get rid of that. Likewise, potential back trouble…

would've been farsighted in old age… menstrual cramps… Any problems?"