New security precautions would have to be put into effect, he told himself. Tougher rules about clone behavior. Oakes would have to be brought into these decisions. They would have to raid Colony, and Ship, for replacements—more clones, more staff, more guards, more supervisors. Murdoch and the Scream Room were going to be very busy for a time. Very busy. Well, gardening had always been a brutal business: root out the weeds, kill off the predatory grazers, destroy the pests. Lab One’s special-purpose area was correctly labeled: The Garden. Producing flowers for Pandora.

“We’ve used up the chlorine and it looks clean out here,” Illuyank said.

“Take us back inside,” Lewis ordered. Then: “When you get back to Colony, I don’t want any mention of the chlorine.”

“Right.”

Lewis nodded to himself. It was time now to consider what he would tell Oakes, how this disaster would be explained to make it an important victory.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Clones are property and that’s that!

—Morgan Hempstead, Moonbase Director

“THANK YOU for complying with my invitation.”

Thomas watched the seated speaker carefully, wondering at the sense of peril aroused by such a simple statement. This was Morgan Oakes, Chaplain/Psychiatrist—the Ceepee, The Boss?

It was late dayside on Ship and Thomas had not been long enough from hyb to feel completely awake and familiar with his long-dormant flesh.

I am no longer Raja Flattery. I am Raja Thomas.

There could be no slip in the new facade, especially here.

“I have been studying your dossier, Raja Thomas,” Oakes said.

Thomas nodded. That was a lie! The stress in the man’s voice was obvious. Didn’t Oakes realize how much he betrayed himself to trained senses? You could not believe a word this man uttered! He was careless—that was it.

Perhaps there are no other trained senses to test him.

“I responded to a summons, not to an invitation,” Thomas said.

There! That was the kind of thing a Raja Thomas would say.

Oakes merely smiled and tapped a folder of thin Shippaper in his lap. A dossier? Hardly. Thomas knew that it was in Ship’s interest to conceal the real identity of this new player in the game.

Thomas! I am Thomas! He glanced around the Shipcell to which Oakes had invited him, realizing belatedly that this once had been a cubby. Oakes had taken out bulkheads to expand the cubby. Then, as Thomas recognized a mystical decorative motif between two dark-red woven wall hangings, he suffered one of the worst shocks in this awakening.

This was my cubby!

It was obvious that Ship had expanded enormously since those faraway Voidship days when it had housed only a few thousand hybernating humans and a minimal umbilicus crew. The changes he had seen on the trip here from hybernation hinted at even deeper changes behind them. What had happened to Ship?