Cloner A Sci-Fi Novel About Human Clonin - By Emma Lorant Page 0,81

in his mouth!’

True so far as it went, Lisa thought to herself; but certainly not what was really going on.

Janus was sitting on the bench beside James, round blue eyes clamped on Lisa, determined jaws rhythmically chomping apple.

Crunch, crunch. The apple slices set out in front of the child disappeared at an alarming rate, and when he’d finished those he grabbed at James’s.

Lisa’s hand shot out to stop him.

‘Those are Jiminy’s, Jansy. If you want more you can always ask.’ She saw Alec’s head emerge sideways from behind the paper, watching her.

‘Mau, mau,’ Janus said promptly, hand outstretched.

‘More please.’

‘Mau pees!’

‘I’ll cut you some.’

The knife, a small sharp kitchen knife for paring vegetables, rapidly cut another Golden Delicious in half, took out its core and sliced swiftly through the soft flesh, cutting crescents. Lisa pushed three slices at Janus and saw him grasp them and devour them. This time he stuffed all three into his mouth at once.

‘Steady on there, young man,’ Alec smiled at him, but Lisa saw a faint frown of worry on his brow. ‘You’ll choke yourself!’

He was greedy enough to do it. Lisa put the knife carefully away and watched Janus’s reactions to the new supply of apple with growing distress. Trickles of liquid dribbled from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. As she watched him swallow, gulping large chunks of apple, Lisa saw him swell up even more. If he doesn’t clone soon he’s going to burst, suddenly flashed across her brain. And he can’t clone if he’s got an earring on.

She saw the child fingering his earlobe, pulling it down. He was quite capable, she suspected, of pulling the lobe off to get his way. And then - and then the clone would also have a piece out of his lobe.

Lisa began to feel herself slip into another world; an eerie, surrealistic world where cloning was the norm. Had she imagined it, or were there far more spiders, spinning dense webs around her home, trapping more flies? She watched a large black fly, slowed by the cool of morning, crawl slowly up a kitchen windowpane. Transfixed, she seemed to see its swollen body elongate, then buzz its wings and prise apart as it split and two more wings emerged from the centre. Two smaller flies crawled slowly up the pane. It reminded her of the stag beetle which had crawled towards the spilt milk. Don had squashed it, she remembered now. Pushed his heavy boot on it without a qualm. Because he’d known that if the beetle drank the milk it might start to clone.

A feeling of hopelessness enveloped Lisa. She wanted to share her terrible secret with Alec, to scream her horror at this catastrophe about to engulf the world, to sob her fears away. What if she did? He wouldn’t believe her, he’d call in the caring professions, they’d find out she was telling the truth and - she’d lose her children. And the phenomenon would still be there. What had been started could not be undone.

Lisa, trying to appease Alec, merely succeeded in widening her mouth into a nervous grin.

‘You think it would be funny if he choked?’ she heard him demand. He could be quite sarcastic.

‘Of course not. I was thinking about something else.’ She supposed it had been rather an odd reaction. If Alec knew what she was really thinking he’d call in a whole gaggle of psychiatrists.

‘I’m glad you’ve got time to think,’ Alec crabbed at her, putting down his paper and energetically spooning cereal into Jeffrey. ‘I think your other sons need your attention. I’ve told you till I’m sick of repeating it: get some more help. We could arrange for Geraldine to come in a couple of hours on Saturdays.’

He wanted Geraldine back. He was using their children as an excuse to see more of her.

‘With Duffers, I suppose,’ Lisa snapped at him, her lips drawn tight. ‘Two extra mouths to feed.’ If she allowed Janus to eat whatever he demanded, would he actually burst?

‘You would at least have help for part of the weekend,’ Alec intoned. Using the accusing persistent voice of someone who knows all the answers. ‘I can’t always be there.’

‘I have no problems on my own with them,’ Lisa thrust at him. ‘It’s only when you’re around that they give trouble.’

‘I know,’ he said, resigned. ‘I put them up to it.’

‘And, anyway, I think there’s something wrong with Janus.’

‘He’s a toddler, Lisa. Just a little assertive, that’s all. He’s stronger