Monsters in Orbit

by Jack Vance

  There was silence around the room.

  Jean continued, “Do you know whose money Cherry is going after? No? Well, it’s mine. I’ve got lots of it. And as soon as Cholwell knew it, he began scheming how to get it. Now he thinks hell send Cherry to my trustee. He’s told her what to do, how to pry at Mycroft. Mycroft won’t know the difference. Because she’s not only like me. She is me. Even our fingerprints, our handprints.”

  “Of course.”

  Jean cried out angrily, “The trouble with you is that you’ve never had to work or fight; you’ve sat around like pets. Chickens, Cholwell calls you. And now all your guts are gone. You put up with this—this…” Words failed her. She made a furious gesture around the room.

  “You don’t fight. You let him treat you like babies. Somehow he got us away from our mothers, somehow he treated us, molded us so that we’re all the same, somehow—”

  A dry cutting voice said, “Very interesting, Jean…May I have a few minutes with you please?”

  There was a rustle of movement, apprehension. Cholwell stood in the doorway. Jean glared over her shoulder, marched out into the corridor.

  Cholwell conducted her with grave courtesy to a cheerful room furnished as an office, taking a seat behind a modem electric desk. Jean remained standing, watching him defiantly.

  Cholwell picked up a pencil, held it suspended between two fingers. He chose his words carefully.

  “It becomes clear that you constitute a special problem.”

  Jean stamped her feet. “I don’t care about your problems, I want to get back to Angel City. If you think you can keep me here very long, you’re crazy I”

  Cholwell inspected the pencil with every evidence of interest. “It’s a very peculiar situation, Jean. Let me explain it, and you’ll see the need for cooperation. If we all work together—you, me and the other girls—we can all be rich and independent.”

  “I’m rich already. And I’m independent already.”

  Cholwell smiled gently. “But you don’t want to share your wealth with your sisters?”

  “I don’t want to share my wealth with old Polton, with you, with the cab driver, with the captain of the Bucyrus…Why should I want to share it with them?” She shook her head furiously. “No, sir, I want to get out of here, right now. And you’d better see to it, or you’ll run into so dam much trouble—”

  “In regard to money,” said. Cholwell smoothly, “out here we share and share alike.”

  Jean sneered. “You had it figured out from the first time you saw me in Mr. Mycroft’s office. You thought you’d get me out here and send in one of your girls to collect. But you’ve got Mr. Mycroft wrong. He won’t be hurried or rushed. Your girl Cherry won’t get very much from him.”

  “Shell get enough. If nothing else well have the income on two million dollars. Somewhere around fifty thousand dollars a year. What more do we want?”

  Jean’s eyes were flooding with tears of anger. “Why do you risk keeping me alive? Sooner or later I’ll get away, I’ll get loose, and I won’t care who gets hurt….”

  “My dear girl,” Cholwell chided gently. “You’re overwrought. And there’s so much of the background that you’re not aware of; it’s like the part of an ice-berg that’s below the water. Let me tell you a little story. Sit down, my dear, sit down.”

  “Don’t ‘my dear’ me, you old—”

  “Tut, tut.” He put away his pencil, leaned back. “Twenty years ago I was Resident Physician here at the Rehabilitation Home. Then of course it was still in full operation.” He looked at her sharply. “All of this must remain confidential, do you understand?”

  Jean started to laugh wildly, then a remark of monumental sarcasm came to her tongue. But she restrained herself. If old Cholwell were so eaten up with vanity, if the need for an intelligent ear were so extreme that he must use her, so much the better.

  She made a non-committal sound. Cholwell watched her with veiled eyes, chuckled as if he were following the precise chain of her thoughts.

  “No matter, no matter,” said Cholwell. “But you must never forget that you owe me a great deal. Humanity owes me a great deal.” He sat cherishing the thought, rolling the overtones along his mental palate. “Yes, a great deal. You girls, especially. Seven of you—it might be said—owe me your actual existences. I took one and I made eight.”

  Jean waited.

  “Seventeen years ago,” said Cholwell dreamily, “the director of the Home entered into an indiscreet liaison with a young social worker. The next day, fearing scandal if pregnancy developed, the director consulted me, and I agreed to examine the young women. I did so and by a very clever bit of filtration I was able to isolate the fertilized egg. It was an opportunity for which I had been waiting. I nourished the egg. It divided—the first step on its march to a complete human being. Very carefully I separated the two cells. Each of these divided again, and again I separated the doublets. Once more the cells separated; once more I—”

  Jean breathed a deep sigh. “Then Mollie isn’t my mother after all. It’s almost worth it…”

  XII

  The doctor reproved Jean with a look. “Don’t anticipate…Where I had a single individual, I had eight. Eight identities. I let these develop normally, although I suppose I could have continued the process almost indefinitely…After a few days, when the cells had become well established, I brought eight healthy women prisoners into the dispensary. I drugged them with a hypnotic, and after priming them with suitable hormones, I planted a zygote in the womb of each.”

  Cholwell settled comfortably in his chair, laughed. “Eight pregnancies, and never have I seen women so amazed. One of these women, Mollie Salomon, was granted a remission and left the Home before the birth of her child. My child, I suppose I should say. She actually had very little to do with it. By a series of mishaps I lost her and this eighth child.” He shook his head regretfully. “It left an unpleasant gap in the experiment—but after all, I had my seven . , . And then, seventeen years later, in Metropolis on Earth, I wander into an office and there—you! I knew that Destiny moved with me.”

  Jean licked her lips. “If Mollie isn’t my real mother—who is?”

  Cholwell made a brusque motion. “A matter of no importance. It’s best that the direct correspondence be forgotten.”

  Jean said casually, “What is your goal? You’ve proved the thing can be done; why do you keep the poor girls hidden out here on Codiron?”

  Cholwell winked roguishly. “The experiment is not quite at an end, my dear.”

  “No?”

  “No. The first phase was brilliantly successful; now we will duplicate the process. And this time I will broadcast my own seed. I want eight great sons. Eight fine Cholwell boys.”

  Jean said in a small voice, “That’s silly.**

  Cholwell winked and blinked. “Not at all. It’s one of humanities most compelling urges, the desire for offspring.”

  “People usually work it out differently…And it won’t work.”

  “Won’t work? Why on earth not?”

  “You don’t have access to foster-mothers as you had before. There’s no—” She stopped short, almost bit her tongue.

  “Obviously, I need search no farther then my own door. Eight healthy young girls, in the springtime flush of life.”

  “And the mother?”

  “Any one of my eight. Dorothy, Jade, Bernice, Felice, Sunny, Cherry, Martha—and Jean. Any one of you.”

  Jean moved restlessly. “I don’t want to be pregnant. Normally or any other way.”

  Cholwell shook his head indulgently. “It admittedly represents a hardship.”

  “Well,” said Jean. “Whatever you’re planning—don’t include me. Because I’m not going to do it, I don’t care what you say.”

  Cholwell lowered his head, and a faint pink flush rose in his cheeks. “My dear young woman—”

  “Don’t ‘my dear young woman’ me.”

  The telescreen buzzer sounded. Cholwel
l sighed, touched the button.

  Jean’s face shone from the screen, frightened and desperate. Behind was an official-looking room, two attentive men in uniform.

  Cherry, no doubt, thought Jean.

  At the sight of Cholwell’s face, Cherry cried out in a quick rush, “—got me into this thing, Dr. Cholwell; you get me out of it!”

  Cholwell blinked stupidly.

  Cherry’s narrow vivid face glowed with anger and indignation. “Do something! Say something!”

  “But—what about?” demanded Cholwell.

  “They’ve arrested me! They say I killed a man!”

  “Ah,” said Jean with a faint smile.

  Cholwell jerked forward. “Just what is all this?”

  “It’s crazy!” cried Cherry. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t even know him—but they won’t let me go!”

  Behind her one of the policemen said in a gruff voice, “You’re wasting your time and ours, sister. We’ve got you so tight you’ll never get out.”

  “Dr. Cholwell—they say they can execute me, kill me for something I didn’t do!”

  Cholwell said in a guarded voice, “They can’t prove it was you if it wasn’t.”

  “Then why don’t they let me go?”

  Cholwell rubbed his chin. “When did the murder occur?”

  “I think it was this morning.”

  “It’s all nonsense,” said Cholwell in relief. “You were out here this morning. I can vouch for that.”

  Behind the girl one of the policemen laughed hoarsely. Cherry cried, “But they say my fingerprints were on him! The sheriff says there’s absolutely no doubt!”

  “Ridiculous!” Cholwell burst out in a furious high-pitched voice.

  One of the policemen leaned forward. “It’s a clear-cut case, Cholwell. Otherwise your girl wouldn’t be talking with you so free and easy. Me, I’ve never seen a cleaner case, and I’ll bet a hundred dollars on the verdict.”

  “They’ll kill me,” wept Cherry. “That’s all they talk about!”

  “Barbarous!” Cholwell stormed. “Damned savages! And they boast about civilization here on Codiron!”

  “We’re civilized enough to catch our murderers,” observed the sheriff equably. “And also fix it so they murder only once.”

  “Have you ever heard of de-aberration?” Cholwell asked in a biting voice.

  The sheriff shrugged. “No use singing that song, Cholwell This is still honest country. When we catch a murderer, we put him where he won’t bother nobody. None of this fol-de-rol and fancy hospitals for us; we’re plain folk.”

  Cholwell said carefully, “Why are you trying to pin it on—this girl?”

  “There’s eye-witnesses,” said the sheriff complacently. “Two people identify her positively as entering the place where this Gem Morales was killed. There’s half a dozen others that saw her in Paradise Alley at about the right time. Absolute identification, no question about it; she ate breakfast in the New York Café. And to tie on the clincher, there’s her fingerprints all over the scene of the murder…I tell you, Cholwell, it’s a easel”

  Cherry cried desperately, “Dr. Cholwell, what shall I do? They won’t let me—I just can’t make them believe—”

  Cholwell’s face was a white mask. He said in a taut voice, “I’ll call you back in a little while.”

  He turned off the contact. The screen died on the contorted face.

  Jean sighed tremulously. Witnessing the scene had been more frightening than if she had been directly involved; it was watching herself in terror and unable to move a muscle to help: a nightmare where the feet refuse to move.

  Cholwell was thinking, watching her from eyes which suddenly seemed detestably reptilian. He said, enunciating with faint sibilance, “You killed this man. You devil’s imp.”

  Jean’s wide flexible mouth spread into a smile. “What if I did?”

  “You’ve ruined my plans I”

  Jean shrugged. *Tou brought me out here. You sent her into Angel City to catch the packet—to go after my money. She was supposed to be me. That’s what you wanted. Fine. Excellent.” She laughed, a silver tinkle. “It’s really funny, Cholwell.”

  A new thought struck Cholwell. He sank back into his chair. “It’s not funny…It’s terrible. It breaks up the octet. If she’s found guilty and killed by those barbarians in Angel City, the circle is broken, this time irrevocably.”

  “Oh,” said Jean brightly. “You’re worried about Cherry’s death because it—ruins the symmetry of your little circle?”

  “You don’t understand,” Cholwell said in a waspish voice. “This has been my goal for so long…I had it, then phwish—” he jerked his hand, raised his eyebrows despairingly “—out of my reach.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Jean mused, “except that she’s so much me. It makes me feel funny to see her scared. I don’t care a cent for you.”

  Cholwell frowned dangerously.

  Jean continued. “But—it should be easy to get her loose.”

  “Only by turning you in,” Cholwell gloomed. “And that would bring publicity to bear on all of us, and we can’t stand that just yet. I wouldn’t be able to cany through…”

  Jean looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. “You’re actually serious about that?”

  “Serious? Of course I’m serious.” He glared angrily. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “If I were really hard-hearted,” said Jean, “I’d sit back and have a good laugh. It’s so terribly funny. And cruel…I guess I’m not as mean and tough as I think I am. Or maybe it’s because she’s—me.” She felt the glare of Cholwell’s eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan to run into town, bare my bosom and say I did it’. But there’s a very simple way to get her off.”

  “So?”—in a silky voice.

  “I don’t know much about law, except to keep the hell away from it. But suppose all of us trooped into court. What could they do? They couldn’t arrest all of us. They couldn’t pin it on Cherry. There’s eight of us, all alike, even our fingerprints alike. They’d be sad. Their only case is identification and fingerprints; they think that points to one person. If there are seven others the evidence fits equally well, they can’t do anything but throw up their hands, say please, whoever did it, don’t do it again, and tell us to go home.”

  XIII

  Cholwell’s face was a mask carved in yellow wax. He said slowly, “What you say is perfectly true…But it’s impossible.” His voice rose into a snarl. “I told you we can’t stand publicity. If we carried out a stunt like that, we’d be known across all space. Angel City would be overrun with journalists, busy-bodies, investigators. The great scheme would be—out of the question.”

  “By ‘great scheme’,” asked Jean politely, “you mean the project of making us all mothers?”

  “Of course. Naturally. The great scheme.”

  “Even if it means sacrificing Cherry? Her life?”

  Cholwell looked pained. “You express it in unpleasant terms. I don’t like it in the slightest degree. It means seven instead of eight…But sometimes we are forced to be brave and bear up under setbacks. This is one of those times.”

  Jean looked at him with glowing eyes. “Cholwell,” she whispered. She was unable to continue. Finally she said, “Sooner or later—”

  The closet door banged open.

  A harsh voice said, “Well, I’ve heard all I can stand. More’n enough.”

  Out from the closet marched Mollie Salomon, and behind her the tall yellow-faced woman Svenska.

  Magic, a miracle, was Jean’s first startled supposition; how else to explain two big women in a broom closet? Cholwell sat like an elegantly dressed statue, his face a brown study. Jean relaxed her breath. Conceivably they had squeezed themselves close; the air, she thought wryly, must have been rich and thick.

  Mollie took three swift steps forward, put her hands on her hips, thrust her round white face forward. “You nasty thing,
now I know what went on….”

  Cholwell rose to his feet, backed away, quick and yellow as a tortoise-shell cat. “You’ve no right here, you’d better get out!”

  Everything happened at once—a myriad bedlam jangle of sound, emotion, contorted faces. Farcical, grotesque, terrible—Jean sat back, unknowing whether to laugh madly or run.

  Svenska cried in a voice guttural with passion, “You ruined me, you pig—”

  “Rare puzzlement,” snarled Mollie, “and all the time it was your fooling and fiddling!”

  “—I beat my head, I cry, I think my husband is right, I am no good, I am—”

  Cholwell held up his hands. “Ladies, ladies—”

  “I’ll ladies’ you.” Mollie snatched a broom from the closet, began whacking Cholwell with the flat of it. He seized hold, tried to tear it away; he and Mollie capered and wrestled across the floor. Svenska stepped in, flung long sinewy arms around his neck, squatted; Cholwell stumbled over backwards. They both sprawled to the floor. Mollie plied the broom.

  Cholwell gained his feet, rushed to the desk, came up with Jean’s dart-box. His hair fell lank, his mouth hung open, and he panted heavily. Deliberately he raised the box. Jean slid down in her seat, kicked out at his arm. The dart exploded in the door-frame with a dry clacking sound.

  Svenska flung herself on him, Mollie hit his arm with the broom. The dart-box fell to the floor; Jean picked it up.

  Mollie threatened him with her broom. “You should be ashamed of yourself for what you did!”

  Svenska reached out, gave his shoulder a shake. He stood limp, unresisting.

  “What you gonna do about it?” Svenska cried.

  “Do about what?”

  “My husband.”

  “I’ve never even seen him.”

  “No. You never seen him,” she mimicked in elaborate scorn. “No. But me—he comes, he looks at me. Big; seven, eight months, that’s me. He calls me no good woman, and so—he goes. Off to Puskolith, and I never get no more husband. That’s eighteen year.”

  Jean said mischievously, “You should make Cholwell marry you.”

  Svenska considered Cholwell a minute, came to a decision. “Pah, little shrimp like him is no good.”