He took her hand then and placed her palm on the sensor-scribe beside the hatch—”To record your entry time.” She felt an odd stinging sensation as her palm touched the scribe.

Murdoch smiled, but there was no mirth in it. His free hand went out to the lock-cycling switch. The hatch hissed open and he thrust her into it.

“In you go.”

She heard the hatch seal behind her, but her attention was on the inner hatch as it opened. When it had swung wide, she realized that what she had thought was a grotesque statue standing there was actually a naked living creature framed by the open end of the lock. And . . . and there were tears streaming down the creature’s cheeks.

“Come in, my dear.” His voice was full of hoarse gruntings.

She moved toward him hesitantly, aware that Murdoch was watching through the sensors overhead. The room she entered was lighted by corner tubes which filled the entire space with a deep red illumination.

The gargoyle took her arm as the hatch sealed behind her and he swung her into the room.

His arms are too long.

“I am Jessup,” he said. “Come to me when you are through.”

Rachel looked around at a circle of grinning figures—some of them male, some female. There were among them creatures even more grotesque than Jessup. She saw that a male with short arms and bulbous head directly in front of her had an enormous erection. He bent over to grasp it and point it at her.

These people are real! she thought. This is not a nightmare.

The rumors she had heard did not even begin to describe this place.

“Clones,” Jessup whispered beside her, as though he had been reading her mind. “All clones and they owe their lives to Jesus Lewis.”

Clones? These aren’t clones; they’re recombinant mutants.

“But clones are people,” she whispered.

Bulbous-head lurched one step toward her, still holding that enormous erection pointed at her.

“Clones are property,” Jessup said, his voice firm but still with those odd gruntings in it. “Lewis says it and it must be true. You may develop an . . . appreciation for certain of them.”

Jessup started to move away, but she clutched his arm. How cold his flesh was! “No . . . wait.”

“Yes?” Grunting.

“What . . . what happens here?”

Jessup looked at the waiting circle. “They are children, just children. Only weeks old.”

“But they’re . . .”

“Lewis can grow a full clone in a matter of days.”

“Days?” She was clutching at any delay. “How . . . I mean, the energy . . .”

“We eat a lot of burst in here. Lewis says this is the reason his people invented burst.”

She nodded. The food shortage—it would be amplified enormously by the requirements of making burst.

Jessup leaned close to her ear, whispered: “And Lewis learned some beautiful tricks from the kelp.”