Another smile and she turned back to me.
I met her eyes. The too-narrow eyes, amused and thoughtful.
‘Questions first,’ I said.
‘
D
idn’t you find it—difficult—convincing the City to employ you?’
Eleanor smiled at me over her teacup. It was a charming smile, but I wasn’t charmed at all. ‘Not once Michael had read my book. Besides, a good management consultant is always a bit of a werewolf. Or a vampire, if you prefer—we suck the information out of our clients. Then we have to think how to put the pieces back together so that they work more efficiently.’
We were in her study, sipping our tea from one of the thin china teacups that Emerald had brought in on a tray before limping back to her kitchen. Not just Realtea, either, but City hydroponic Altitude tea from that special factory that duplicates Darjeeling’s climate. The sound of children’s yells and the occasional growl from Uncle Dusty floated in from the garden.
At least there were proper chairs in here. Low to the ground, wide-seated, cushion-soft, but still chairs. I looked around. It was strange to think that Michael had been here only a few minutes ago—in Virtual, naturally but, as Emerald said, it was as though his scent still hung in the air.
The living wood here had been smoothed and painted a soft yellow. Carpet, desk, the same sort of comfortable office chair as Theo had back at home, Terminal and Virtual receiver side by side. A wide, irregularly shaped window looked out over the valley. A bone lay under the desk.
She saw me looking and smiled. ‘Not mine. I hardly ever chew bones while I’m working.’ The voice held a pleasant mockery. ‘It’s Connie’s. She loves her bones. Just like her father.’
‘Nice room,’ I said noncommittally.
‘My halfway house. In Virtual I’m human, out there I’m werewolf—human and wolf combined. In here…’
‘You’re what?’
‘Myself.’ She sank into one of the armchairs and lifted her feet up onto a footstool. ‘Ah, that’s good. You have no idea how sore your feet get when you’re pregnant. At least I’m nowhere near as big this time. Have you ever been pregnant?’
‘Me? No. No kids.’
‘Planning to?’
Neil and I hadn’t discussed it. Michael and I had, but in a vague ‘someday our kids will laugh at this’ way. Our children would have inherited the modification from both their parents. Our children would have been…what? Our own genius squared? The same but with our experience to guide them? Or something totally different, in the way I suspect children often are.
Not that it mattered. Our modification was recessive. If either of us had children with someone else they’d be Truenorms.
‘Who knows?’ I said.
‘It’s a good thing having children.’ The hint of the instructress now, the management consultant taking over from the hostess. ‘Motherhood makes you more efficient. You learn to prioritise. Multitask.’ She smiled. ‘My heavens, do you multitask. More than that…’ she hesitated, watching me out of those strangely placed eyes.
‘What?’
‘Having children makes you determined to succeed. Especially if you’re a woman.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s simple. Why does anyone want to succeed?’
‘I don’t know. For the pleasure of doing whatever it is, I suppose.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Doing things well—that’s a pleasure in itself. But succeeding, being better than others, forcing yourself to be the best—that’s something else. Males do it naturally. Aggression is a male’s hormonal heritage. Be bigger, be stronger and you’ll catch your mate and beat off the opposition while you do it.
‘But for us? For women? No, we want to succeed for our children. To keep them safe, to win them the best possible world as they grow up…’
She smiled. The thin dark lips pulled back over her teeth. Long teeth, by human standards, and just a little too wide. ‘The old wars were mostly fought by men. But when women had to fight we were more ruthless. Men kill anyone who is temporarily their enemy. Women kill only in desperation, but when we do…’ the narrow eyes were still watching me closely,’…we are efficient.’
‘So,’ I said slowly. ‘You’d expect this murderer to be male?’
‘Of course. The murders were too bloody. Messy. Male.’ She had been leaning forward. Now she leant back again, seemingly relaxed. I wasn’t taken in. Even relaxed Eleanor was still in charge. All it needed was someone to threaten her domain then…
‘Bam wham powee!’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That’s the way men kill. In anger. Messily. The
person who murdered those men did it messily. Ergo, the murderer is almost certainly a man.’
Eleanor rubbed her feet for a moment. ‘Women kill in two ways. Either in self-defence, in which case it’s unpremeditated, or secretly, carefully. They used to call poison the woman’s weapon. Now…well, I’d imagine a women could be even more discreet.’
‘How would you kill someone?’
‘Me? You know, I’ve never thought about it—apart from occasionally wanting to strangle my husband. No, don’t get me wrong. I love Rusty dearly and I’m certainly not confessing to homicidal leanings. But men—well, they can be exasperating.’ She smiled at me, as though expecting me to cosily agree. I said nothing.
Eleanor shut her eyes momentarily. ‘How would I kill someone then? Virtual feedback,’ she decided, opening her eyes and meeting my gaze full on. ‘Give someone a basic Virtual scenario—werewolves feeding by moonlight perhaps.’ The thin dark lips grinned at me. ‘Then give it unlimited feedback so they feed on their own terror. Result: heart attack. No sign of violence. No proof of murder. Tidy. A woman’s weapon.’
‘Someone tried to kill a friend of mine that way once,’ I said, thinking of Neil at the vampire castle and trying not to be impressed by her insight. ‘But it wasn’t a woman.’
‘Really? That surprises me.’
‘Well…’ I thought about it. ‘He called himself Uncle Bertie,’ I said slowly. ‘But he said he had no sex.’
‘He was a woman,’ said Eleanor casually. ‘Bet on it. Women are subtle. Men go for blood and gore.’
She was right, I thought. The more I thought about it, the more her analysis seemed correct. Very impressive
indeed…I tore myself back to the present and tried to regain a little of the upper hand. ‘So…you believe these murders were done by a male?’
‘By a man,’ she corrected. ‘A human man. Wolves don’t murder. Neither do other animals, so that rules out a wild dog. Wolves and dogs kill for food. Humans are the murderers. So, yes, this was done by a man. Messily.’
‘Not by a woman in self-defence? You can’t always kill neatly if you’re taken by surprise.’
Again the charming smile. Her teeth were so nearly Truenorm. ‘Two cases of self-defence in two weeks? That’s a very careless woman. Besides, how could a woman inflict so much damage—so much messy damage—in self-defence?’
‘All right then. Say the murderer is a man. A human-type man, not a werewolf. Why did he do it?’
‘That I can’t tell you. They weren’t nice people. I imagine quite a few people are delighted to see them gone.’
‘Down at Black Stump they think the murderer is a Wanderer, who’s left the district. Well, Gloucester doesn’t, but the others do.’
‘Black Stump thinks well of everyone,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’d like to think they were right.’
‘But you don’t?’
Eleanor shrugged. Like Dusty’s, her shrug was slightly wrong. ‘Call it animal instinct. I just have the feeling that something…smells bad. There’s still danger in the air.’ She smiled. ‘Probably just a pregnant woman’s nerves. But a wandering murderer seems too convenient to be true.’
‘So you think we are still looking for someone in the valley,’ I said. ‘Let’s look at the first murder then.’
‘Ah, the Patriarch. I have no idea what his real name was. One man, eight wives, and every one of them is a clone of the Patriarch.’
‘What! How can women be a clone of a man?’ My mind scrolled back to long-stored data, absorbed when my mind meshed with any network storage system that I chose. ‘Yes,’ I said slowly, ‘it would be possible. Select a single cell for cloning, then replace the Y chromosone with an X from another cell. Same person, different sex…’
‘Well done.’ It was impossible to tell if she meant it or was just flattering me. ‘Every child is a clone too. That’s the way it’s been for, what, four generations now.’
‘That’s incredible. Surely someone should stop them?’
‘Who? You’re in the Outlands now.’
‘But why would you want to live with yourself? Mate with yourself…’ I halted. I was sitting opposite a woman who had married her brother, who’s parents had been brothers and sisters. I hoped she couldn’t smell my embarrassment.
She could. She looked amused. ‘Some people don’t like outsiders. They just take it to the extremes. The Patriach was bad enough. He wouldn’t even let his young be part of the school Net with the cubs. The Matriach—the next clone in line was female—is worse.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Two of the junior members came up here last night. Tried to burn us out.’
‘What! It’s hard to burn living wood. Are they stupid too?’
‘Not stupid. I imagine it was symbolic. A warning. Spread enough oil around, light it, see the wolves run.
They didn’t get that far of course. Dusty and Emerald smelt them out before they got past the fence. They left the oil and torches behind when they ran.’
Which explains the lookout now, I thought. ‘Well, at least none of his wives murdered him as he was really them too—if you know what I mean.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Another too-charming smile. ‘But of course they could have killed him. They’re the most likely suspects. Imagine having a tyrant who was really yourself. You hate them but can’t bring yourself to leave, because you can’t cope with strangers. So rather than change yourself, so they can no longer tyrannise you, you kill the tyrant.’
‘What about Brother Perry?’ I asked.
‘Ah, Brother Perry. How can I explain Brother Perry?’
‘You don’t have to. I met Brother Perry earlier this year.’
‘Then you’ll know that he is no loss, won’t you? A disgusting little man. And I don’t say that just because he hated werewolves. Besides, he didn’t hate all of us. Last time he was here I thought Rusty would go for his jugular, the way he was sniffing after young Jen.’
I must have started at her words.
‘I used “go for his jugular” in a metaphorical sense,’ added Eleanor dryly. ‘Rusty would never do anything of the kind. Just a little dogsbreath and teeth in his face, and a suggestion that if he valued his testicles he’d stay at home next time a gathering was held up here.’
I nodded. Given that the last time I had seen Brother Perry, he was trying to rape an unconscious girl, Rusty’s reaction seemed quite restrained. ‘So, who are we looking for then? Someone public-spirited?’
‘A vigilante with a taste for blood? Perhaps. You
know,’ Eleanor’s dark eyes met mine again, ‘we have something in common, you and I.’
‘You mean Michael?’ I spoke without thinking.
‘Well, that too. But something else as well.’
‘Our modifications?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. But not just the fact that we are modified—or that we’re both barred from the City. The main thing you and I have in common is that our modifications frighten the City because they instinctively realise we are superior to them. They are frightened of our ability.’
I shrugged. Suddenly she didn’t seem to be flattering me at all, or trying to ingratiate herself by showing that we were sisters under our skin, but perfectly sincere. ‘The reason they’re frightened doesn’t really change our situation, does it?’
‘Perhaps not.’ Eleanor was silent for a moment. ‘That’s what I have dedicated my life to, you see,’ she said. ‘Showing the City that it needs me. Needs people like my family, like you. People who are different. That wolf genes make us more able, not less. It’s what you should be fighting for too.’
I didn’t answer. She must have read something in my expression though, because she said more gently. ‘The City needs you too. Why do you think Michael has asked you to do this? Not just as a favour to me. He asked you because he realises you can be useful to him. In three years, five at the most, you’ll be like me…employed by the City, but not part of it. Unless you prove yourself so indispensable that if you threaten to withdraw your services they will have to—
have to
—give in to you.’
‘You mean you intend to blackmail them into letting your family live in the City? They’ll never do that!’
She smiled. It was a close-lipped smile. I wondered if she had practised smiling so those too-wide teeth didn’t show. ‘No, I’m realistic. There is no point being ambitious if it’s an unrealisable ambition. My immediate aim is simply to be allowed into the City in person on a permanent visa—a precedent, if you like—and one or two of my children to be allowed to use their Virtual nets to study there. Sound possible?’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. The more I thought about it the more possible it seemed. ‘I was let in on a temporary visa last year.’
Eleanor answered, ‘I know.’
And, I thought, the presence of modified students—even if their presence was only Virtual—would get the other students in their course used to working with the modified. I was sure Eleanor would choose the courses well too. Her children would be studying and making friends with the future leaders of the City. Eleanor was no fool.
She smiled at me. ‘No, I’m no fool,’ she said.
I blinked. She laughed delightedly. ‘I read it in your face. And in your smell. Another something from the wolf genes. Often you can tell as much from someone’s smell as from their words—hate, love, fear, envy, admiration. A lot of the scent clues are lost in Virtual of course—the receptors are sensitive enough to satisfy human noses. Not nearly enough for a wolf. A pity—scent is useful. It helps to be able to read your opponent, without them realising what you’ve done. But you and I aren’t opponents, are we?’ She smiled. ‘Despite the fact that we are both dominant females, who like to be…will you be insulted if I say “top dog”?’
It was impossible not to smile back. ‘I’m not insulted.’
‘Then you’ll help us?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll help.’
She stood up slowly. ‘Well then, if you’ll excuse me, I need a rest before dinner.’ She grinned. ‘There are drawbacks to having kids, no matter what I said earlier. Pregnancy is one of them. I’ll get someone to show you to your room.’