‘Is Eastman working for you, too?’

‘Emphatically no.’ He steepled his fingers, contemplating a problem. ‘Eastman is a real danger to us, much more than the unfortunate Martin Hagger.’

‘But Hagger found you out.’

‘He came close.’

‘So you killed him.’ All the impotence and anger inside me suddenly found a point to fix on. ‘You talk about the sanctity of life—’

‘Life with a capital L.’

‘You talk about building a better human. There are some pretty obvious upgrades you can make yourself.’

‘I didn’t kill Martin Hagger, Thomas.’

‘He’d almost rumbled you.’

‘And I had found a way to, ah, discourage him. Who do you think told the Nature editors to re-examine Hagger’s sample? Who planted the idea in Francis Quam’s head — discreetly, of course — that if Hagger stayed it would jeopardise his precious funding? Everything was in hand.’

‘Evidently not.’

‘Unforeseen circumstances.’ Again the five fingers curled into a fist, like a flower closing its petals. ‘For some time, we’ve allowed Thomas — our Thomas — the liberty of the island. We felt it was important to his development; also, we wanted to observe him in the wild. Obtain real-world data. Thomas is relatively impervious to extremes of heat and cold; he lived in an abandoned building in Vitangelsk. One day — last Saturday, to be precise — he came across Martin Hagger on our back doorstep.’

‘He didn’t know what he was doing,’ Louise said. ‘He was frightened.’

She looked too tired for someone so young. Bags under her eyes, a grey tint to her skin. I don’t suppose she saw much sunlight, but it was more than that. It can’t have been easy for her, alone with Pharaoh so long. He’d always needed fuel for his tremendous energy, I remembered, and he drew it from other people. That was why so many of his students burned out.

‘Hagger provoked him. Thomas overreacted,’ said Pharaoh briskly. ‘Thomas’s emotional development has not kept pace with his physical and mental capacity.’

Again, I thought of Greta climbing towards the light.

‘You mean he’s got the body of a wrestler, Mensa-level intelligence and the moral compass of a two-year-old. There’s a word for that kind of person in real life. We’d call him a psychopath.’

‘There’s an interesting debate to be had on the co-morbidity of certain desirable and undesirable behaviours. What’s socially acceptable may not ensure the species’ survival. How that plays out in Thomas’s development is one of the major factors we’ll be looking at over the next few years.’

‘Did he sabotage the plane as well?’

‘He couldn’t bear to see you go.’ That smile again, like someone speaking a foreign language, not sure you understand him. ‘Thomas has developed a certain fascination with you. It was he, you see, who attacked you on the glacier when you went back there. He recognised you, then; he understood who you were. That’s why he let you go.’

The figure from my dreams. The arm raised, the face staring down at me. Recognition.

‘Why would Thomas care about me?’

‘When we made Thomas, we didn’t start with a blank sheet of paper. That would have taken too long. We took an existing human genome and edited the code. No point reinventing the wheel. Thomas is aware of that. He’s fascinated by the idea that he has a twin brother.’

The words hit me like a bullet. ‘You used my DNA? My DNA to create this …’

I caught Pharaoh smiling at me. I almost punched him — but I had to know.

‘Not yours. You and he share only fifty per cent of your varying DNA. Before improvements.’

Louise was trying to look at me without catching my eye. The way I used to watch her in the lab, sometimes. Pharaoh glanced at her.

‘You’d better do this.’

Louise put out a hand to steady herself. The mug rattled on the glass tabletop.

‘He’s talking about Luke.’

Fifty-one

Emotions erupted I never knew I had. ‘You used our son’s DNA for this?’

It wasn’t the most outlandish thing they’d told me that night. In fact, it made all the sense in the world, a piece that fitted perfectly. None of the rough edges that distinguish a lie. And for all that, it was the hardest thing I was being asked to believe.

She nodded.

‘How?’

‘The cord blood.’

Umbilical-cord blood is rich in stem cells; at birth, you can take a sample and freeze it. We did it for Luke when he was born — Louise insisted, though it cost a thousand pounds we didn’t really have. Imagine if he gets leukaemia, or needs a transplant, and those stem cells are the only thing that can save him, she said. And of course, I agreed. For Luke’s sake.

‘That was for him.’ I felt empty, as if the most precious thing I owned had been snatched from me and dashed to pieces. ‘Not this …’ I didn’t shy away from saying it any more. ‘… this monster.’

I stood. Hurt and anger charged up inside me, years of accumulated friction ready to discharge like a bolt of lightning. I didn’t mind if it killed me. As long as it took her too.

Remember Luke, I told myself. I had to get back to him. For all the menace in the room, the strange unreality, I wasn’t a threat to Pharaoh. He hadn’t broken any laws — there weren’t any on Utgard. If I revealed what he’d done, he’d be hailed as a genius, biology’s Einstein. Or maybe Robert Oppenheimer. As long as I kept calm.

I forced myself to sit, gripping the sides of my chair.

‘So what happens now?’

Pharaoh went to the kitchenette and got a bottle of whisky and a glass from a cupboard. He poured himself a generous measure. Didn’t offer me one.

‘We’re not going to publish in Nature, if that’s what you mean. We won’t make ourselves popular if we announce to the world that seven billion humans have just become obsolete. My company is discreetly patenting some of the more advanced techniques we’ve developed. We’ll feed them into the mainstream gradually, educate public understanding until this process feels as natural, as logical, as giving your kid his shots.’

It was a good spiel. Pharaoh had enough bombast that he almost carried it off — certainly, if I’d been an investor, I’d probably have opened my wallet. But coming from a man as sharp as Pharaoh, it all sounded rather vague. Some of the things he was describing might come to pass, and some might not, but there wasn’t a master plan. He’d done this thing to prove he could. Because he was curious. Because he wanted the power.

‘And me? Do I get pushed down a crevasse too?’

Another tic of irritation. ‘I’ve already told you …’

‘Or will you have your creature do your dirty work?’

‘I’m not a murderer, Thomas. I’m in the business of improving life, not ending it.’

‘What about him? Will you take him to New York, unveil him on Broadway? You’d make the cover of Time, no question.’

‘I think Life would have been more fitting, don’t you? If it was still with us.’ Another chuckle. ‘No. Thomas will stay here. The accelerated development you noticed means he probably only has a few years of life. We’ll observe him, and apply those lessons to the next generation. In that respect, Utgard’s perfect. A quarantine zone with no escape.’

‘And Zodiac? Is he going to pick off the scientists one by one, if he doesn’t like the way they look at him?’ I had to laugh, though it sounded borderline hysterical. ‘Like the fucking Thing.’

This time, I hadn’t heard him coming. The door opened and the creature came back in, dressed to go out in a yellow parka and black ski trousers. For some reason, he had the DAR-X logo sewn on to the sleeve.

‘I told you to go,’ said Pharaoh. The icy voice of a parent who wants you to know his patience has limits.

The creature crossed to the television on the wall and turned it on. You could see his strangeness in every step he took, disproportioned limbs making disproportioned strides.