“Larry,” Moshe said, turning to speak to another man. Kira was left facing Hidey. She felt awkward and embarrassed. “Have you thought about anything we might work on?” she asked, trying to fill the silent void between them.
“I’ll be calling a meeting sometime this week,” he answered. “I do have something in mind. I’ve been thinking of it for years.”
She pulled at a button on her lab coat. “Well, I’d better go get ready for my class,” she said, looking away from him. She turned and almost collided with Emma Valois.
“Hello, Kira,” the psychiatrist said.
“Hello,” Kira replied, feeling trapped. “I wish I could stay and talk, but I have a class soon. I’d better get going.” She found herself wondering if Emma knew about Hidey.
She moved through the room and into the hallway, sighing with relief as she headed for her office.
Kira left her office late. The students in her comparative anatomy class had been livelier than usual. She often felt that the summer students, many of them older workers making use of their three-month vacations, were more interesting than the younger students she taught during the rest of the year. Two of them had followed her back to her office, one needing advice on which courses he should take, the other, a bad student, needing help on getting through this one.
She was thinking about the bad student as she walked through the hallway. He should never have taken the course in the first place, but it was a little late to drop it. The end of the summer term would be upon them soon. The student had, as usual, waited until now before panicking and it had quickly become obvious that he was under parental pressure; his parents were medical researchers and expected him to do the same. The old story. People never seemed to change. There was at least one of these unfortunates in class every semester.
She saw that Hidey’s office door, up ahead on the curving corridor, was open. She halted, suddenly afraid to walk past it. You’re being ridiculous. She took one step forward, hesitated, then started to turn around.
The door to Hidey’s office moved and she found herself facing him. She gestured with a hand in greeting.
“Kira. Do you have a moment?”
“Sure,” she replied, shrugging in what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion. She followed him into the office and sat down as he closed the door.
“I guess,” she said, “you want to talk about what kind of research we might do. Jonis mentioned something to me about organ regeneration, she’s been pretty interested in O’Connor’s papers on the subject. Of course it’s pretty theoretical, but she thinks O’Connor’s laid the groundwork. If we can find the mechanism that would trigger regeneration, we could put the organ banks out of business. We could certainly get a grant from the military for the work, if you don’t mind going to that particular source of funds.” She was stating the obvious, running off at the mouth.
Hidey, instead of seating himself in a chair, had paced toward the wall, then perched on the edge of his desk. “I’m afraid I’ve been very foolish,” he muttered, looking at the floor.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. “I’ve become disappointed in myself,” he went on. “I like to think I’m free of the prejudices that other people have, I always thought I was. But I wasn’t, and pretty soon I realized how easy it is to make problems where there aren’t any.”
She did not know what to say. She waited, curling her hands in her lap. “You were cloned from the best friend I ever had and ever will have, and it made a difference to me. I thought there was something wrong about what I felt. I couldn’t see you as an individual, as a separate person. It would have been more surprising if I hadn’t felt the way I do. I thought I was turning into an old senile fool, cavorting with a young woman, but I was only doing what I’ve been too busy to do for most of my life.”
“Hidey,” she said at last. “You don’t have to make excuses to me.”
“Certainly I do. I haven’t been too considerate of your feelings. I have some bad habits, I’m used to women who ask nothing of me and are there when I have time to fit them into my schedule, or when they have time to fit me into theirs. I noticed how you’ve been acting around me, at first it bothered me, I didn’t know why you couldn’t just forget the whole thing, and then I realized it might be for the same reason I couldn’t.”
He was silent. She wanted to walk across the room to him, say something, but she seemed locked to the chair. She forced herself to look at him. He was watching her with his brown eyes.
“I want to get out of this office for a while and just have a quiet dinner with you somewhere, try to make up for lost time, you might say, if it’s all right with you.”
At last she was able to stand. “Come on, then,” she said, and felt herself smiling. “I’m starving.” He reached for her hand and she grasped his. “Sometimes you’re an awful dope, Hidey.”
“I know.”
She was nudged awake early. She could smell coffee being waved in front of her nose. Groaning, she pulled the covers over her head.
“Come on, it’s eight-thirty.” Kira opened her eyes and saw Hidey, already dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed with a mug in his hand. He put the coffee down on an end table next to her.
“Damn it, Hidey, this is the only day I can sleep late, I haven’t got a class until eleven.”
“I forgot. Wake up anyway, we can go have breakfast somewhere and talk about possible projects. Or I’ll cook some here with that crap everyone nowadays thinks tastes like bacon and eggs.”
She put her arms around his neck. “There’s only one thing I’m going to wake up for.”
He leaned over and kissed her. “I’d better head over to my office then, even though I’d rather stay here. I’ve got a desk full of work crying out to me.”
“Let it.”
“I can’t. I’m an old man, Kira, I can’t change my habits overnight.”
“I don’t want to hear that ‘old man’ stuff. You’re up and ready to go to work while I’m exhausted and ready to sleep all day. You did all right last night for an old man.”
“I promise I’ll leave early tonight.” He kissed her on the forehead. “All right?”
“All right.” She heard him get up and leave the room as she closed her eyes.
But she could not go back to sleep. She thought of the night before, the few hours of sleep snatched between sessions of lovemaking. Images flashed through her mind, some so vivid that she could feel as well as see them: Hidey’s hands on her hips, his body under hers as she knelt above him, his arms around her as he slept.
She threw off the covers and got up, putting on a robe as she walked toward the bathroom across the hall. She showered quickly and then remembered the coffee next to her bed. She wandered back to her room, the blue robe over her arm. The coffee was already cold and she would have to make more. She was combing her hair, thinking of Hidey again, when she heard the front doorbell.
She put the robe on again and hurried downstairs, curious about who would be there at this hour. Maybe Hidey had decided to come back after all. She would have to give him a key. She moved toward the door, smoothing her shoulder-length hair with her hands.
She opened the door slightly and peered out through the crack, then flung it open.
Her brother Jim stood there, holding a battered suitcase. Two young women, one a tall brunette and the other a slender redhead, stood behind him.
“I would have just come in, but I thought you might be home, so I rang.” Jim drifted into the living room, the two women following him.
“I thought you were with Sonia in New York,” she managed to say. The women sat on the sofa while Jim sprawled in a chair. “Mike said something about you being an editor.”
“You could go crazy in New York,” he said. “I couldn’t take it. I didn’t have any time for writing anyway.”
Jim had grown thinner. His shaggy beard needed a trim. He stretched his legs, clothed in shabby brown slacks, in front of him. He looked sli
ghtly flabby as well, as if he had gotten no exercise for a while.
He gestured at his companions. “This is Carole Elashvili,” he said, waving his arm at the brunette, “and Ellie Clayton.” He motioned toward the redhead. “I met Carole in New York,” he went on. “She and Ellie wanted to see the country and I wanted some company on the trip.”
Kira looked at the women more closely. Carole seemed oddly remote. She resembled an ancient Egyptian with large brown eyes and heavy black hair that hung to her shoulders. Her perfect lips curved in a small smile. Ellie grinned awkwardly, running her hand through the unruly red curls on her head.
“I hope you don’t mind them staying for a while,” Jim said.
“Of course not, we have the room.” Kira smiled at the women. Carole, clothed in a long white sleeveless dress, hardly moved. Only her eyes darted restlessly around the room.
“Jim’s helping me with my writing,” Ellie said. Kira tried to place the woman’s accent; Tennessee perhaps, or West Virginia. “I shouldn’t even call myself a writer, why, I haven’t published a word, unless you want to count some brochures I did for a cassette company.” Ellie pulled at the waistband of her green shorts. “I just had to leave the city for a while, that town was grinding me down. I may take a look at what’s doing at the university here, maybe if I knew more, I’d have more to write about.”
“Are you a writer, too?” Kira asked Carole.
Carole was gazing over Kira’s head. “I was working in a bank.” She said nothing more.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Kira asked, beginning to feel at loose ends.
“I think we’re going to retire, if you don’t mind,” Ellie replied. “We didn’t get much sleep last night. Don’t you let us bother you, just keep doing what you were doing before we got here.” The two young women stood up. Jim led them out of the room and upstairs.
Kira wandered into the kitchen and put on more coffee. She felt disconcerted by her brother’s visit. She did not know if she was ready to deal with Jim’s moods now. He was obviously “between things” again, as he seemed to have been for most of his life.
She thought of Hidey again and was suddenly afraid of what Jim would think. It’s none of his business. She sat down at the table as Jim came into the kitchen.
He looked at the coffee pot, then sat down across from her. “How do you like Mike?” he said quickly. “Ed called me before I left and told me about him and his wife. I couldn’t believe it. Competent Mike who could handle anything. I guess he’s just like everybody else after all.” He smiled bitterly.
“Have some sympathy for him.”
“Sympathy! He sure showed me a lot, with all his sanctimonious shit about how I should do this and do that. He refused to get me anything with the p.r. people in his company, you know. He said I wasn’t reliable. Why should I care about his fuck-ups?”
“Jim…”
“Just let him try to lecture me about my life once more.” Jim looked at her more closely. “How’s everything with you?”
“All right.”
“Are you and your biologist friends getting ready to cook up some more horrors now that the ban’s off?”
“Don’t start that again.” She got up, poured two cups of coffee, and slammed Jim’s down on the table. A little coffee spilled over the sides of his mug. “Just don’t start criticizing my work. I would think you’d know better by now.”
“Maybe Takamura’ll start cloning more people. That would be interesting. We wouldn’t be the only ones any more. He should clone himself and see what it’s like, having a bunch of identical little Takamuras running around.”
“Shut up, Jim.” She was angry now. She sipped at her coffee quickly and burned her lip slightly.
“What do you think of Carole and Ellie?” he asked, changing the subject.
“What can I think of them? I only saw them for about five minutes. Ellie seems nice.”
“Carole’s very shy, that’s why she didn’t say much. It just takes a while to get to know her. She’s only eighteen, she was in New York for only a few months. She’s trying to decide what she wants to do. Ellie’s a little older. I met them at a party.”
“Maybe you should decide what you’re going to do,” Kira said acidly, “before you start advising everyone else.”
“You sound just like Mike.”
“He does say something sensible once in a while.” She drank some more coffee, then got up and put the cup in the sink. I shouldn’t start bickering with him, she thought, feeling slightly guilty. “I’d like to sit around and talk,” she said gently, “but I have to teach a class this morning. I’d better get ready.”
“Now you’re trying to make me feel guilty.”
She was irritated. “I’m just saying that some of us have work to do.”
“Christ!” Jim slammed his palm on the table. “I can’t believe I came out here to listen to this. I’ve been working pretty hard. A microfiche publisher bought my novel, you know.”
“It’s about time.”
“So I figured as long as I had some money, and Mike wasn’t going to help me, I’d come here and try to get a book finished. You seem to think that just because someone doesn’t go to a place of employment every day, he’s not doing anything.”
“All right, Jim, I’m sorry.” She sighed wearily. “I have to start getting ready.”
She left him in the kitchen and went back upstairs. As she entered her room, she saw her rumpled bedding and wondered if Jim had noticed it when he passed in the hallway. It doesn’t matter, he couldn’t know about Hidey.
She made the bed quickly.
They gathered in one of the conference rooms in the late afternoon. Hidey, sitting next to a large ashtray, smiled at Kira as she entered the room with Jonis and sat down at the round table.
Bert Ramsey was next to Hidey. Next to Bert was Ike Jefferson, who had arrived the year before from a southern school. Cesar Gomez, puffing on a large aromatic cigar, was discussing something with Kurt Schultz.
Apparently none of the instructors or laboratory assistants had been called to the meeting. Bert looked around the room quickly and then back at Hidey.
“Shouldn’t there be more of us?” Bert asked.
“I didn’t call the people who are only interested in teaching,” Hidey replied, “and I left out others who have their own projects to do, although we’ll consult with them later.”
“Why don’t you give us your ideas first, Hidey,” Bert said. “You’ve probably got more to say about a possible project than the rest of us anyway.”
Everyone seemed agreeable to this. Hidey leaned forward. “I should say a few preliminary things first. Whatever kind of project we undertake is just going to mean more work for everybody here, at least for a while. We all have pretty full schedules right now and even if we can get a grant, we’ll still be overworked. I don’t mind that myself, I’m used to sleeping in my office and working on weekends, but some of you may feel like having more time to yourselves.” He paused to light a cigarette. “I know,” he went on, “that none of you here are used to working on any kind of crucial research project. All you’ve done is improved on what was done thirty years ago, refined some techniques; that’s all the moratorium has let us do. We always know in advance what we’ll come up with. Now there’s no reason why we have to do anything else. The university would be just as happy to let us go our own way and the park service will keep giving us grants to clone endangered species at least until they finish setting up their own facilities. If any of you want to keep on with what you’re doing, just say so, and we can all go home.”
Cesar Gomez gestured with his cigar. “I’m just speaking for myself,” the small dark man said, “but I was trained to do research and so was everyone else here. We haven’t been able to do a damn thing with our training. I enjoy teaching, but I’d enjoy it a lot more if I was training students to do something more than develop what we already know. Everybody knows what a disaster that moratorium was,
even if they don’t want to admit it. We’ve lost a lot of the best students over the years. They knew they wouldn’t be able to achieve anything, that they would be little more than technicians. The rest of us have just been hanging on like damn fools,
waiting for the day when we might really be able to work again, and wondering if it would ever come. We haven’t even been able to teach, really, we’ve just been indoctrinating students in a static field. It’s going to be years before we can get some of those minds we lost replaced as it is. I say we go ahead.”
“Same here,” Ike Jefferson drawled. “I’m mighty tired of arousing the curiosity of students and then having to tell them they can’t try to answer certain questions. It violates the spirit of free inquiry and everything else we should stand for.” The others nodded.
Hidey smiled and seemed to relax. “There’s another problem that might be easier to resolve, a political one. You all know how a lot of people, even now, feel about me. I was accused of grandstanding in the past.” Kira saw Kurt Schultz’s blue eyes drift in her direction. “No matter what we undertake, a lot of people are going to be watching me. You may make your work easier if you let me retire. I’ve got my pension and I could probably find something to do. The only reason I’ve been here this long is by threatening to take the university to court if they force me to retire, and every old person around, even the ones that hate me, would be on my side there. No one wants forced retirement established again.”
“No,” Kurt said, running his hand over his short silvery blond hair. “You stay. If you go, Kira will have to go also. We would get just as much interference from those who might wonder what kind of project a clone might work on, considering that she was the result of one of the last projects before this moratorium. We cannot concern ourselves with such matters. Besides, I doubt that we could think up a reason for getting rid of Kira. We would be obligated to help find her a new position and then we would have to find two replacements for you both. That would not be easy, given the lack of talent in the field at the moment.”
Cloned Lives Page 20
