Pannotia?! she thought, but something else came from her lips; “It seems nice.”
Any compliment was allowed in order not to confront the Director.
Sadly, she forgot Bernardo knew her well, and just as she used to detect the emotions hidden behind his monotonous voice, he could also recognize when a comment of hers was shallow or had some underlying meaning.
Snorting, Bernardo tucked the tip of his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How can you be such a brilliant scientist, and at the same time, be so stupid?”
There were his hurtful words! The truce had been too brief.
“We’re in Columbia, Lucy! This continent is eighty percent ice. I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to find supplies in a place like this.”
“But we started here so we wouldn’t have to worry about Markabians going through our stuff,” she said. “Why go back to their territory? Why not better go to Gondwana?”
“Jules Rotanev is in Gondwana, and I’d rather stay away from that man,” Bernardo said. “Pannotia is the best thing I have at my fingertips now, Lucy. The project is getting more and more complex, and I need access to materials fast, fast! I can’t wait for a damn boat to bring them to me every three months.”
Lucy pursed her lips. She had just lost her fifth pregnancy at the age of forty-one, her fifth pregnancy! and the person in front of her did nothing but lecture her.
“You speak as if you were doing the project by yourself,” she pointed out; just like they had in the nursery room, the words just spilled out of her mouth. “Maybe you forget that there was a time when you and I, yes, Bernardo, you and I, worked for the Empire and our relationship with them did not end on good terms.”
It’s done. Lucy had told him. And without stuttering! And immediately afterward, her blood left her body. This time she didn’t turn red—tomato red—this time, she went pale like spoiled yogurt; and when she was about to apologize, the anguish over her recent loss prevented her from doing so.
Bernardo’s mouth became a curved line, pointing down, highlighting the lines that came down from the dimples of his hooked nose to the end of his pointed chin.
“If you think that’s something I haven’t considered, maybe you’re not as bright as I thought,” he said, turning off the projector. “There are powerful people who are willing to invest a lot of money to keep the noses of the Empire very far from us. It’s decided, Lucy. At the end of the month, we will move and, if necessary, we will move again. We will take the Binary-C with us to New Somalia.”
“His name is Broga,” Lucy said, more abruptly than she’d have wanted. Again, that untimely defiant attitude had circumvented her inhibitions; it’s just that the term Binary-C sounded too cold and inhumane.
Bernardo gave her a look as if to say, ‘Stop with the nonsense, will you?’
“The Binary-C,” he emphasized, “will come with us. We’ll send the Binary-R to another continent, perhaps to Rodinia, and it’ll be as soon as possible.”
‘My brother Brun is not coming with you?’
‘Tomorrow, I’ll bring him so you can say hello’.
The promise Lucy had made to Broga a few minutes ago burst into her consciousness with the same force as the image of the child smiling at the prospect of seeing his brother again, and her tongue tangled with the words and the emotions.
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“W-why are you going to set-set them apart?” she asked.
“If we can’t keep them in a vegetative state,” Bernardo said, “it’ll be better to put as much distance as possible between one and the other. These types of blood must be prevented from touching each other before their time. Besides…” With a sign, he asked her to close the door. Lucy obeyed. “I’m worried about what happened yesterday,” he added quietly. “I assume you’ve heard the rumors.”
“That s-someone tried to steal a dose of the Primary Plasma? But-But they say it was a misunderstanding, that they took it away to try to replicate it, because according to a new study—”
Bernardo interrupted her with a snort and dropped into the chair.
“C’mon, Lucy!” He blew out a long breath and rubbed his eyes under his glasses again. “It’s no secret that everyone has been pretty frantic these last few years looking to capitalize on these two kids. Since the first blood tests came back positive, there hasn’t been anyone who doesn’t want to do something with those proteins. That is good for us because we have infinite resources at our disposal, but you know how investors are; if you smile at one, the other gets offended. And on the other hand, you have the Order, who is not interested in who smiles and who is offended, only the final result.”
“We know that well, Bernardo...”
“Well, I was talking to Bobby Grant. He told me that another group of scientists is currently completing the first stage of their project there in Gondwana, successfully. Their clones of the Binaries will soon be a year old... and they’re still alive.”
“Oh!” Lucy got surprised. “None of ours…”
“Yes, yes,” Bernardo agreed, “none of ours has reached two months. I know. Apparently, Jules Rotanev is very excited about that prognosis and looking forward to betting his fortune on it. And now I know there is another one who just joined his enterprise, an ambitious man named Gerard… Gerard something.”
“And you’re not in the least bit excited about that,” she pointed out.
“It’s not professional jealousy, believe me,” Bernardo hastened to defend himself. “It’s just that, according to Bobby, well... Rotanev intends to turn the clone into a kind of living Primary Plasma tracker to find the doses that may be spread around the planet.”
“But that’s good, right? I heard one of the Vicars say that many doses were lost during the first great expansion of the Order.”
“Whatever, Lucy, but Rotanev’s experiments require active doses of the Plasma, and we have the largest reserve. Even though we have priority for conducting the major project, maybe someone…”
Lucy thought she understood what Bernardo was insinuating. “Are you saying that the other day was not a mix-up, but a... robbery?” It was hard for her to fathom that this was true.
Bernardo shrugged. “I would have believed the excuse that it was a misunderstanding and that they took the dose to replicate it if they had given it to me a decade ago,” he said. “Today we all know well that replicating Plasma is impossible. If Rotanev invests in bringing a Plasma tracker to life, it is because he is sure that Plasma is irreproducible.”
Well, that was true.
“From what Bobby told me, besides the groups that operate in Gondwana, there are already six factions that are fighting to get the most out of those proteins and everything those brats can offer. Ha! Like dogs fighting over a piece of meat. And of course, each faction does so with the endorsement of the Order and with the samples that we ourselves have delivered to the Vicars who have supervised us over the years. We can’t object to anything, right? This has become a race to see who gets to the final result first, and I know that many people will have no qualms about skipping a few steps of the project to see results as soon as possible. I fear that, in the effort to achieve it... Well, some will try to sabotage us.”
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t know…” Bernardo took his second long breath; the matter had him really worried. “But, even if I were wrong, Lucy, remember that there are only a few doses of the Plasma left; they can’t be wasted in an attempt to please a bunch of greedy men who can’t wait.” And then came the third sigh. “I’ll separate the Binaries as a preventative measure. I know that the members of the Order will understand, especially now that we are so close to the end.”
“The children are only four years old,” Lucy pointed out; “we are twenty-one years close to the end.”
And there was silence.
Had that been a remark that sounded like sarcasm, or had it been sarcasm that sounded like a remark? Even she didn’t know; what she did know was that none of the alternatives was to Bernardo’s liking.
“Even if it were forty years away,” he said, “after all our people have been through, it would still be close.”
And again, Bernardo was right.
‘My brother? My brother Brun is coming with you?’ the little one had asked her.
‘Tomorrow, I’ll bring him so you can say hello,’ she had replied. All right, the separation didn’t have to be tomorrow, but it might be the day after tomorrow.
And with that child’s hopeful smile in mind, Lucy knew she had to flee from the office before she started crying right there. She was afraid of breaking down and telling Bernardo about the loss of the baby.