“Was that Mr. Franconi’s double?” Candace asked. “The other liver transplant?”

Kevin shook his head. He pressed several keys, asking the computer the identity of forty-two. The name Warren Prescott appeared.

“So where’s forty-two?” Melanie asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but I know what I fear,” Kevin said. Kevin clicked and again the numbers and red lights alternately flashed on the screen.

When the entire program had run its course, it had indicated that seven of the bonobo doubles were unaccounted for, not including Franconi’s, which had been sacrificed.

“Is this what you found earlier?” Melanie asked.

Kevin nodded. “But it wasn’t seven, it was twelve. And although some of the ones that were missing this morning are still missing, most of them have reappeared.”

“I don’t understand,” Melanie said. “How can that be?”

“When I toured that island way back before all this started,” Kevin said, “I remember seeing some caves in that limestone cliff. What I’m thinking is that our creations are going into the caves, maybe even living in them. It’s the only way I can think of to explain why the grid would fail to pick them up.”

Melanie brought up a hand to cover her mouth. Her eyes reflected a flicker of horror and dismay.

Candace saw Melanie’s reaction. “Hey, come on, guys,” she pleaded. “What’s wrong? What are you thinking?”

Melanie lowered her hand. Her eyes were locked on Kevin’s. “What Kevin was referring to when he said he was terrified he’d overstepped the bounds,” she explained in a slow, deliberate voice, “was the fear that he’d created a human.”

“You’re not serious!” Candace exclaimed, but a glance at Kevin and then at Melanie indicated that she was.

For a full minute no one spoke.

Finally Kevin broke the silence. “I’m not suggesting a real human being in the guise of an ape,” Kevin said finally. “I’m suggesting that I’ve inadvertently created a kind of protohuman. Maybe something akin to our distant ancestral forebears who spontaneously appeared in nature from apelike animals four or five million years ago. Maybe back then the critical mutations responsible for the change occurred in the developmental genes I’ve subsequently learned are on the short arm of chromosome six.”

Candace found herself blankly gazing out the window, while her mind replayed the scene two days previous in the OR when the bonobo was about to be inducted under anesthesia. He’d made curious humanlike sounds and tried desperately to keep his hands free so that he could continue to make the same wild gesture. He’d been constantly opening and closing his fingers and then sweeping his hands away from his body.

“You’re talking about some early hominidlike creature, something on the order of Homo erectus,” Melanie said. “It’s true we noticed the infant transgenic bonobos tended to walk upright more than their mothers. At the time we just thought it was cute.”

“Not so early a hominid as not to have used fire,” Kevin said. “Only true early man has used fire. And that’s what I’m worried I’ve been seeing on the island: campfires.”