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don't tell me everything."
"That's no better an explanation," Cameron said, getting into the act.
"Just a minute," Lathe interrupted. "I think I may know how they did it." He
hesitated, not meeting
Caine's puzzled frown.
"Well?" Tremayne prompted.
"Near the end of the war someone apparently broke the old problem of short
lifetimes for human clones...."
With a kind of numb horror Caine listened as Lathe outlined his theory. It was
a possibility that had never occurred to him. His parents, the Resistance
people who'd trained him none of them had ever hinted that he was anything
special. But it made sense... and the more he considered it, the more sense it
made. There was no other way to explain how Rienzi's medical records had been
such a perfect fit for him. No wonder Kratochvil and Marinos had been so
casual about the ID records all the hard work had been done twenty-seven years
earlier!
Lathe finished, and for a moment there was silence. "Well, it's an interesting
theory," Tremayne said at last. "Unprovable, of course."
"I only offered it as a possibility," Lathe reminded him.
"Yes. I suppose we'll have to settle for that." Tremayne glanced at Valentine,
but the blackcollar offered no objection. "All right, then. We'll let you know
about the vets; and you'll let know your us plans for getting them out."
Lathe nodded. "As I said I would."
The meeting broke up, and Caine headed straight for the door. He wanted to be
alone, to sort all this out in privacy... before he reached the door Novak and
Mordecai had fallen into step with him. He ignored them as he strode out into
the hall. A clone. A duplicate person and if one, why not more?
He'd assumed the personal tutelage had been a normal part of Resistance agent
training. But now he doubted that. Special treatment went with special tools.
How many more Allen Caine Specials were there on Earth, being as carefully
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maneuvered through life as he had been?
A puppet, that's what he was. A clone-puppet, his broken strings picked up by
Lathe and Radix.
A clone.
I should feel something, he told himself dully.
Anger; resentment.
He'd been lied to his whole life; a piece of biological merchandise told he
was a human being while everyone else
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The Blackcollar chuckled at his naïveté.
At the very least, he thought, I should feel shame.
But all he had was numbness numbness and the knowledge he still had a job to
do. His conditioning was too good to fall apart over even a revelation like
this.
"Caine?"
The figure waiting across from the blackcollars' room stepped forward.
Stopping, Caine pulled his mind back from its brooding and forced his eyes to
focus.
It was Lianna Rhodes, the Radix leader from Janus. "What?" he growled.
"I'd like to talk to you a moment," she said.
The last thing in the universe he wanted at the moment was to talk to an
Argentian, and he was opening his mouth to say so when Mordecai butted in.
"Probably shouldn't," he muttered.
Something deep within Caine flipped polarity. "Sure," he told Lianna instead.
"Come on in."
Just this once, the puppet was going to handle his own strings.
If Mordecai was upset by the decision, he didn't show it, and Novak similarly
made no comment as he unlocked the door and slipped inside for a quick check.
Once inside, Caine led Lianna to a pair of chairs near the window. The two
blackcollars made no effort to follow them, but took up their usual positions
near the door.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, motioning the girl to one of the chairs as
he sank into the other.
Over her shoulder he could see Novak and Mordecai and realized that he'd
instinctively seated
Lianna with her back to them, allowing the lip-reading blackcollars to confirm
he wasn't giving away any secrets and putting her into the worst possible
combat position. Even in a rebellious mood, he couldn't shake his training.
So much for handling his own strings.
"Caine "
"Allen."
"Whatever. Look, we've been stuck here for a week now, waiting on thin-shelled
eggs for something to happen. My men are getting bored and edgy a combination
I hate. We've heard about that crazy raid of yours, and rumors are flying
about a massive assault against Henslowe Prison. I need to know whether or not
that's true."
"I don't know, but I doubt it. Certainly not any time soon."
"So what are you planning?"
Caine shook his head. "Sorry, but the mission's still confidential."
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The Blackcollar
"I'm not asking about your damn mission," she snapped. "I don't really care
what you and your hotshots are up to. All I want to know is how my men are
going to be involved, because I'm not going to throw them blindly into
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something unless I know their chances of coming out alive."
Caine looked at her with sudden insight. The slightly sarcastic manner with
which she faced the world it wasn't impatience or ego. It was fear. Fear for
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