Shock

"I hate to tell you this, but that's probably not true," Deborah said. "The egg contributes the mitochondrial DNA. The child has your mitochondria."

"I'm not even going to ask what mitochondria is," Joa

"I don't want to know because I don't want to believe there's anything of me in that child."

"Well, we now have an explanation why the success rate with your eggs was so low. Cloning by nuclear transfer is like that. On the positive side, it was better than the people got who cloned the sheep, Dolly. I think they went through two hundred attempts or so before getting one positive. You've got four positives in less than three hundred."

"Are you trying to make a sick joke?" Joa

"I'm being serious," Deborah said. "They must be doing something right. Their statistic is more than twice as good."

"I'm certainly not going to give them any kudos," Joa

"I would never tell you I told you so," Deborah teased. "I'd never do something like that. It would be too cruel."

Joa

"But I do have another suggestion if you think you're capable."

"I hate to ask what you have in mind," Joa

"I think we should visit the second child to see if our fears are justified."

They drove in silence for a while as Joa

"It's not going to make it any worse," Deborah said eventually. "We've already experienced the shock. It might help us to decide what we're going to do about all this, if anything. That's a conundrum we've studiously avoided."

Joa

"All right," Joa

The surname of the second child was Webster, and the Websters lived in a town a number of miles closer in toward Boston than Bookford. Joa

The conversation with Mrs. Webster was almost identical to the one with Mrs. Sard except for Mrs. Webster's breathlessness. She explained she'd had to run for the phone since she'd just taken Stuart out of the bath. Most important, she welcomed the women to stop by and gave explicit directions.

"At least the baby will be clean," Joa

A half hour later the women pulled into the driveway of a home that was the antithesis of the Sards'. The Websters' was a comparative mansion in brick colonial style with massive chimneys sprouting up like weeds in a garden. The women eyed the house and the carefully tended grounds. A rash of blooming magnolias and dogwoods graced the lawn.

"I'll have to say that Dr. Saunders is eclectic about his choice of stepparents," Deborah commented. "That is, if this child is another clone."

"Come on!" Joa

Once again both Joa

Mrs. Webster was as gracious as Mrs. Sard without Mrs. Sard's apparent starvation for company. She invited the women into her home, but the women declined and insisted on remaining on the front stoop.

Since Joa

After leaving the Webster house the women were silent, each absorbed in their own troubled thoughts. It wasn't until they got onto Route 2 and got up to highway speed that Deborah spoke up: "I don't mean to beat this issue to death, but you can see now why I was disappointed we couldn't get into the Wingate research files. My intuition tells me they're doing something really wrong out there and this cloning we've stumbled on is just the tip of the iceberg. With the kind of arrogance Dr. Saunders undoubtedly has, the sky's the limit."

"Cloning humans is bad enough."

"I don't think it's bad enough to get Saunders et al. closed down," Deborah said. "In fact, if it gets out in the media that they're offering cloning, there might be a stampede of infertile couples to their doorstep."

"What can I say?" Joa

"I'm not blaming you."

"Yes, you are]"

"All right, maybe a little. It's just so frustrating."

They lapsed into silence again. The engine droned. In the distance the Boston skyline appeared along the horizon.

"Wait a second!" Deborah blurted suddenly, causing Joa

"What are you talking about?" Joa

"The number of eggs they supposedly got from you," Deborah said. "How could they get hundreds unless…" Deborah paused and stared out through the windshield with a horrified expression.

"Unless what?" Joa

"Look in the donor file," Deborah said quickly, "and see if there are any more donors who have supposedly given hundreds of eggs."

Muttering under her breath, Joa

"You have to be joking!"

"I'm not," Joa

"They sound like Hispanic names."

"They certainly do," Joa

"Look and see if it suggests that all those eggs were individually implanted like with your eggs."

Joa

"Then they probably were all destined to be nuclear transfer clones,' Deborah said. "Are they all followed by Paul Saunders's name?"

"Most of them,' Joa

"I should have guessed," Deborah said. "It means they're working together. But, tell me! When you leaf through the names, do there seem to be quite a few Hispanic names in general or was it just a fluke with the As?"