“I think of him often.”

“What’s wrong with your stomach? . . . Oh. You’re pregnant again.”

She shrugged and looked away.

I took her arm and found her a place to sit, on a bench carved out of the rock wall.

“Rosa, how did you get her out of the American Hospital?”

Rosa shrugged. “Do you really want the details? . . . The key was that she wanted to come out, despite everything she says. Didn’t you, child?”

Lucia huddled over her baby, hiding her face.

Rosa said, “I’ve done what you asked, George. Can I talk to him now?”

“Go ahead.”

She turned to the rock wall and raised her voice. “I don’t know why you want to do this, Peter McLachlan. What harm have we done you—or anybody? We are an ancient religious order. We dedicate ourselves to the worship of God, through Mary, the mother of His son. We were founded for benevolent reasons. We educate. We store knowledge that would otherwise be lost. In times of trouble we act as a haven for vulnerable women . . . You can’t deny any of this.”

“Of course not,” Peter said. “But you don’t see yourself clearly. You can’t, in fact; you’re not supposed to. Rosa, even you, who were born outside, have been here too long. Your conscious purposes—the religion, your communal projects—are just by-products. No, more than that—they are glue to bind you together, dazzling concepts that distract your conscious minds. But they are not what the Order is for. They could be replaced by other goals—cruelty instead of benevolence, futility instead of useful purpose—and the Order would work just as well. The truth is the Order exists only for itself . . .”

In broken phrases he sketched his beliefs. The Order was an anthill, a mole rat colony, a termite mound, he told her. It was not a human society. “Your handful of mamme-nonne, pumping out infants. Your sterile sisters—”

Rosa frowned. “Celibacy is common in Catholic orders.”

“Not celibate. Sterile,” he hissed.

She listened to his arguments, her face working.

“And you can’t argue with the reality of Lucia,” he said. “Suppose she walked into a medical office in Manchester. The doctor would think Lucia was extraordinary—and so would you, if not for the fact that you grew up here. You have all been down in this hole for a long time. Time enough for adaptation, selection—evolution, Rosa.”

Lucia looked up at me. “What’s he saying? If I am not human, what am I?”

Rosa touched her hands. “Hush, child. It’s all right . . .” She paced around, her heels clicking softly on the rock floor. I had no real idea what was going through her mind.