«What have you done? What is going on here?»

Tiarella grinned ruefully. «Small wonder he frightened the life out of me in that dinghy this morning.» She cocked her head to one side, looking up at Eason. «There's just one last thing to show you.»

He hadn't even known the house had a cellar. Tiarella took a torch to lead him down the slippery stone steps. There was a metal airlock door at the bottom. It was open, leading into a small decontamination chamber. The door at the far end was shut.

«This is Dad's old lab,» Tiarella said as she pumped the manual handle to open the inner door. «The electrics fused in a storm years ago, but it's all still functional, I think.»

Inside, Eason found a world completely removed from the rest of Charmaine. Benches of glassware glinted and sparkled as Tiarella swept the torch beam round. Dead electronic modules sprouted wires and optical fibres to mingle with the tubes, bulbs, and dishes. Autoclaves, freezers, synthesis extruders, and vats stood around the walls, along with cabinets he couldn't begin to understand. Two large computer terminals occupied the central desk, a high-resolution holographic projector on the ceiling above them.

«Most of Charmaine's foliage was spliced together in here,» Tiarella said. «And those pesky firedrakes.»

«Right.»

She came to a halt in front of a large stack of machinery. «What I'm trying to show you, Eason, is that Dad knew what he was doing. He took his master's degree at Kariwak University. Several bitek research labs offered him a position, but he came back here.»

«OK, I believe you. Nyewood was good.»

«Yes. So have you worked it out yet?»

«Tell me.»

«He cloned Vanstone for me. A parthenogenetic clone, identical to the original. There was enough of him left after the accident.»

«Oh Jesus wept. Rousseau said you gave one of your babies away. Twins! He said you had twins.» Then he realized.

«That's right. Dad cloned me as well. He engendered them in here.» She tapped the stack of machinery. «And I nurtured the pair of them in my womb. A second little me, a second little Vanstone, growing together even then. After they were born I kept Althaea here, and gave Mullen to the Church orphanage. He grew up in exactly the same environment as Vanstone did.»

«You really think she's going to fall in love with him, don't you?»

«She already has; she couldn't do anything else. The love between us is too strong, too beautiful. I couldn't let something that wonderful die, not when I had a chance to see it renewed.»

«You used me. You crazy bitch, you used me. You had a lover before Vanstone. That's why you let me come here; to make the conditions for Althaea as close as possible to your time.»

«Of course I did. As you used us to escape whatever it was you were fleeing. Althaea had to learn the difference between a meaningless sexual infatuation and the true love which only Mullen can provide.»