A Four brought Walt's breakfast, and David returned to his room. He rested and slept fitfully for a few hours, then showered and went to the cave entrance, where he was stopped by a Two.

"I'm sorry, David," he said. "Jonathan says that you need a rest, that you are not to work now."

Wordlessly David turned and left. Jonathan. W-1. If they had decided to bar him from the lab, they could do it. He and Walt had planned it that way: the cave was impregnable. He thought of the elders, forty-four of them now, and two of that number terminally ill. One of the remaining elders insane. Forty-one then, twenty-nine women. Eleven able-bodied men. Ninety-four clones.

He waited for days for Harry Vlasic to appear, but no one had seen him in weeks, and Vernon thought he was living in the lab. He had all his meals there. David gave that up, and found D-1 in the dining room and offered his help in the lab.

"I'm too bored doing nothing," he said. "I'm used to working twelve hours a day or more."

"You should rest now that there are others who can take the load off you," D-1 said pleasantly. "Don't worry about the work, David. It is going quite well." He moved away, and David caught his arm.

"Why won't you let me in? Haven't you learned the value of an objective opinion?"

D-1 pulled away, and still smiling easily, said, "You want to destroy everything, David. In the name of mankind, of course. But still, we can't let you do that."

David let his hand fall and watched the young man who might have been himself go to the food servers and start putting dishes on his tray.

"I'm working on a plan," he lied to Walt, as he would again and again in the weeks that followed. Daily Walt grew feebler, and now he was in great pain.

David's father was with Walt most of the time now. He was gray and aged but in good health physically. He talked of their boyhood, of the coming hunting season, of the recession he fearedmight reduce his profits, of his wife, who had been dead for fifteen years. He was cheerful and happy, and Walt seemed to want him there.

In March, W-1 sent for David. He was in his office. "It's about Walt," he said. "We should not let him continue to suffer. He has done nothing to deserve this."

"He is trying to last until the girls have their babies," David said. "He wants to know."

"But it doesn't matter any longer," W-1 said patiently. "And meanwhile he suffers."

David stared at him with hatred and knew that he couldn't make that choice.

W-1 continued to watch him for several more moments, then said, "We will decide." The next morning Walt was found to have died in his sleep.

Chapter 9