“Ben? Brian Arnold.”

“Hello, there, Brian.” You asshole.

“Sorry to bother you at this hour, but there’s something I think you should know.” You pomposity.

Brian Arnold and Ben Talmidge had a love-hate relationship which dated back twenty years to the early days of the Institute. Arnold was too poor then to be considered investor material. But he’d known a good thing when he’d heard of it through one of the wealthy young patients who patronized his new “vitamin” practice. He’d flown to Spain in the early days, and been impressed by both the Institute and the concept. But he found Talmidge scientifically overpowering and personally ridiculous.

Over the years, his dealings with Talmidge had been cordial, even friendly, but once the network from his office to the Institute had been established, Brian had never visited again.

It wasn’t the place itself; Arnold had no qualms on that score. When Charles once spoke to him of the horrors his father had seen, Arnold only smiled grimly and said that horror was in the eye of the beholder. To him, it had seemed not horrible, but fascinating. In fact, he said, he’d enjoyed it. That seemed to make Charles uncomfortable, which Arnold also enjoyed. Putting people at their ease was not nearly as much fun for him as watching them squirm.

And yet Arnold had always approached Talmidge with something like awe; he hero-worshiped the scientist, while scorning the man.

Talmidge, for his part, had little respect for Brian Arnold or for the kind of practice he ran. Brian, he felt, battened off the weaknesses of others in a most unscrupulous way, pandering to their lowest instincts, whereas Talmidge considered himself a savior, a saint.

Still, Arnold was extremely useful “running errands,” as Talmidge phrased it to himself. Brian had done a thorough check on Eric Rose, for example. And he often passed on useful gossip.

“What have you got for me, Arnold?” he said. You jerk.

“Charles Spencer-Moore’s got himself a girlfriend,” said Arnold. You megalomaniac.

“Another one?” Talmidge asked, bored now.

“A curious one,” Arnold told him. “Asks too many questions. And Charles gave her too many answers.”

“Your problem, surely.” I’m not cleaning up your mess.

“Not anymore. She’s headed your way.” You deal with it, Mr. Big.

“Whatever for?”

“You cultured her recently - Vivienne Laker; remember I sent you the sample?”

“I can’t remember all their names. Get to the point.”

“Well, she’s gone nuts on us. Actually broke into . . . uh, has these crazy ideas about what’s going on. Insists on seeing for herself.”

“No problem. I’ll give her the ten-cent tour and send her home.”

“Good, good. Well, I just thought I’d warn you. I mean, unlike most of your visitors, she’s not coming to tell you how terrific you are.” You crazy old coot. “I mean, she’s kind of hysterical about the whole thing. Completely out of proportion.”

“Enough said, Brian.” You sonofabitch. “I’ll look out for her.”

“Good. By the way, how are things working out with that guy you asked me to check out for you - Eric Rose?” I wonder what that’s all about.

“Just fine, fine.” None of your damn business.

“Well, glad I could help. So long, Ben.” You certifiable old pissant.

“Good night, Brian.” You sniveling little snake.

Ben Talmidge, having had the last word, smiled as he replaced the phone on the bedside table. Then he pulled up the quilt and slipped back into a dreamless sleep.

Eric set the razor back on the narrow ledge below the bathroom mirror and inspected his face, running a hand across his chin. His image looked back at him, troubled.

Sleep had been elusive recently as he wrestled with the implications both of the work Talmidge was doing and of his own place in it. He was fascinated and repulsed, excited and horrified. It had seemed so simple when he and Harris had hatched the plot: get in there, look around, grab the secrets, and bring them back for the good of humanity. Yeah.

They’d spoken, he recalled, of discovering Talmidge’s method of differentiated cell development, of forcing a group of cells to become a liver, a kidney, a heart. But now he knew Talmidge had no such method, because cloning organs was not what Talmidge was doing. Talmidge was cloning people.

Well, surely such a process could be used in other ways, for the good of all.

Cynically he regarded himself in the steamy mirror. You’re only here for humanitarian reasons. Sure.

For days he’d tried to deny it to himself, but last night he had finally come face-to-face with the fact that he was driven to uncover Talmidge’s secrets, not for humanity, but simply for the sake of knowing. His moral outrage, his empathy with both donors and recipients, all paled when compared with his desire for knowledge. He knew he would continue to do whatever was required of him here until he had learned all there was to learn.

Eric wanted to weep at his own weakness. Instead he splashed some water on his face, toweled off, and began to dress.

As he walked across to his car, several early risers waved and smiled. It was the same at the Institute; colleagues gathered in the staff lounge were friendlier, more accepting of him. Even Marta seemed less dour. They all know I’m one of them now, he thought.

But Talmidge remained secretive. While the donor in their dual procedure of several days before was being carried below by the moving operating table, Talmidge had also disappeared, leaving Eric a list of duties and minor procedures. The work had taken him throughout the Institute, but he hadn’t run into Talmidge since.

Around midmorning, Eric was just finishing up a difficult IV insertion when Talmidge suddenly reappeared at his elbow, looking formidable in freshly pressed whites.

“Let her do that,” he ordered, waving at the nurse who was assisting Eric to tape the Heplock connector in place. “Put these on.” He thrust a pile of whites into Eric’s arms and gestured toward the patients’ bathroom. When he looked surprised, Talmidge became irritated. “Stop mooning about,” he said.

Eric changed into the freshly laundered white shirt and pants, putting on his own white jacket over them. When he emerged holding his clothes, an impatient Talmidge was already out in the hall. Eric caught up with him halfway down the corridor.

They headed up the left-hand upright of the H-shaped building, bypassing the crossover hallway leading past reception and around to the OR, and continued past the recovery-room nurses’ station.

“What’s up?” Eric asked, but got no answer.

At Recovery, Talmidge stopped, then went to the door across the corridor. It was marked “Utility” in Spanish and English. Talmidge pushed the door ajar, then turned back. “Come on!” he said impatiently. “They’re waiting for us!”

Eric had checked out the utility room over a week ago, when he’d sought the interior of that small exterior door which had somehow bothered him. Puzzle solved, he’d thought then, spying a matching door half-masked by two large water heaters and a jumble of floor waxers, mops, and assorted machinery. Now he entered it again, looking around carefully in the shadowy gloom. What had he missed?

“Close the door behind you!” Talmidge ordered. “No, don’t switch on the light.” Taking a key from his pocket, he approached the water heater, which stood just next to the door, and inserted it into a tiny lock disguised as a manufacturer’s label plate. A small panel beneath the label slid open, disclosing a digital plate. Talmidge punched in some numbers, which Rose was too late to see, and the lock clicked open.

I’ll be damned, Eric thought. The inside of the door’s a fake. It’s positioned maybe three feet over; the real door opens . . . into the water heater?

The entire front of the heater was sliding down into the floor; for some reason this struck Eric as very funny. Talmidge was already entering the water heater - Eric really had the giggles now - and gesturing for Eric to follow. He bit his tongue to keep from laughing, tossed the clothes he was carrying onto an old metal chair, and stepped inside. A semicircular landing - yes, there was the real interior side of the outside door just across from him - gave onto a narrow stairway, faintly lit, which led down into the earth.

“Hit that button!” Talmidge ordered, pointing up at a glowing square of yellow plastic, and as Eric did so, the front of the water heater slid back into place.

They descended quickly, Talmidge surefooted, Eric stumbling with nervousness. It got colder as they went deeper. At last they bottomed out at a half-circle of a landing; a curved door was set into the rounded wall. Another of those damned digital panels, Eric thought as Talmidge dialed in four numbers. Then, straining to peer over Talmidge’s shoulder, he gasped. Talmidge had used the same combination Eric had used to get inside his office. Did that mean that all the panels were programmed with the same four numbers? Why would Talmidge do such a thing? Or was he so impressed with his own omnipotence, he never imagined his code could be broken?

His speculations were interrupted as Talmidge turned to him, placing his hands on Eric’s shoulders.

“What you’re about to see,” he said solemnly, “has been seen by very few. The workers here on the other side have seen it, of course, but they do not understand. I have told them this is a hospital for the hopelessly deranged. They believe me - or say they do. This is a poor town, and they need the money.” He smiled grimly. “The few medically trained people who have worked here knew better. Unfortunately, their knowledge made them greedy. Greed is a terrible thing.”

He looked at Eric carefully. “I hope you are not greedy.”

“I’m greedy for knowledge,” Eric said honestly.

“That will be refreshing,” said Talmidge. He turned and gestured toward the doorway; bright light streamed onto the landing. “You know what is in there?” he asked.

“I think so,” Eric answered slowly.

Talmidge smiled. “You think so,” he repeated. “I don’t. Whatever you may have imagined, nothing will have prepared you for what lies beyond this door.”

“You mean . . . monsters?” Eric stuttered.

“Judge for yourself,” said Talmidge, and together they walked out into the light.

Nearly twenty people, sipping drinks from clear plastic glasses, milled around the high-ceilinged room. A woman - a waitress? - circulated among them with more drinks on a tray. Talmidge took two from her and handed one to Eric, who eyed it suspiciously.

“Apple juice,” said Talmidge with an amused smile.

Eric followed Talmidge through the small crowd toward a raised platform at one end of the room, smiling and nodding as Talmidge chatted and introduced him here and there; everyone spoke English and seemed to be on a first-name basis; the staff room, he decided.

He hung back as Talmidge mounted the platform, but Talmidge motioned for Eric to join him. The room was quite warm, especially after the coolness of the stairway. He wished he’d left his jacket in the utility room with his other clothes; nobody else was wearing one. The men and women moved closer to the platform as Talmidge began to speak.

“My friends,” he said, “we are here to honor someone newly risen to the rank of the Givers. But first I want to introduce to you a new member of our family, Dr. Eric Rose.” He waved toward Eric, who smiled and raised a hand in greeting.

“Dr. Rose is good and kind, and a fine doctor. He will become a familiar face to you all, and you will be happy he has joined us.”

The smiling faces pressed closer, welcoming, accepting.

“It is fitting,” Talmidge continued, “that he begin his work here by witnessing our most important ceremony.”

Eric noticed that everyone was wearing a sort of uniform of loose pastel clothing, ornamented in some cases by small metal pins. Nametags? He couldn’t quite see . . .

“First, let us praise the glory of giving, which is the highest state of life.”

Strange, thought Eric. The whole staff is so young, not a graybeard among them. You’d think at least one or two would be . . .

“I see before me the decorations of giving. And I see the faces of those who have not yet been called upon to give, but who are ready.”

Eric looked around, but saw no one aside from the staff and several powerfully built men in blue orderlies’ uniforms, watching attentively from the back of the room. Who could Talmidge be referring to?

“Today we are honoring a man from Cluster Six, a man we love and respect. Yet in honoring him, we honor all.”

A ripple of excitement went through the crowd as a man began to make his way slowly toward the platform, a broad smile on his face. Eric thought he looked familiar.

Perhaps this was the staff member in charge of Cluster Six, whatever that was, he thought. He sidled forward to peer closer at the metal pin on the shirt of the woman nearest him. It was shaped like a little . . . holy shit!

“Step forward and receive your Organ Medal!” Talmidge led the applause as the man reached the side of the platform and climbed the three stairs leading up onto it. Talmidge clapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand, beaming. Then he took from his pocket a small white box.

In what was obviously an often-practiced ritual, the man knelt before Talmidge, his hands together, palms up, right hand overlapping. Like taking Communion, thought Eric with a shiver.

“Glory to the Giver!” Talmidge’s voice boomed out across the room as he held the box aloft, then placed it in the man’s outstretched hands. The man bowed his head to kiss the box. Tears of joy stood in his eyes.

With great reverence Talmidge lifted the cover from the box and withdrew the Organ Medal within: a small bronze-colored pin in the shape of a kidney. And suddenly it all came together for Eric, and he remembered where he’d seen that face before: in the emergency room of New York General. This man was younger, slimmer. But the face was the same.

Talmidge fastened the pin onto the collar of the man’s loose-fitting shirt, then lifted his hand in blessing. “Welcome, Jim of Cluster Six, to the rank of Giver!” Slowly Jim rose to his feet as the onlookers applauded.

The brother who doesn’t exist, Eric thought. The man willing to donate a kidney only if the operation were performed in Spain; the reason James Abbott didn’t need antirejection drugs.

Jim descended the steps to the group below the platform, to be hugged and congratulated by them. Then the blue-clothed guardians came forward and gently herded the group out of the room, Talmidge put an arm around Eric’s shoulder and walked him over to the side of the platform where a number of chairs had been pushed to make way for the ceremony he had just witnessed. Eric sank gratefully into one, and Talmidge did the same.

“We usually hold the Giver ceremony sooner - Jim donated in June - but he developed a bad infection as a result of the operation, and he’s just now out of the woods,” Talmidge’s mouth tightened as he thought of Haddad. “I’ve, uh, made some changes in procedure since then,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

Eric was experiencing a disorienting sense of unreality. Hang in there, he told himself. He turned to Talmidge. “How many, er, people do you have down here?”

Talmidge looked closely at Eric. He was pale and shaken, yet in control of his emotions. Best of all, he still wanted to learn, not out of greed, but for the pure joy of knowing. You could see it in his eyes, Talmidge thought. This pleased him. The reactions of people like Haddad, insensitive and totally self-involved, were crassly predictable. They were amazed, perhaps frightened, but once past the initial shock, they began to figure the angles, to plan a way to profit from this new information. To Talmidge, such people were tools, sometimes useful but ultimately disposable. Eric was different. Good.

“There are fourteen clusters at the moment,” he said. “Each cluster contains fifteen to twenty people. More than that and the relationships among them become difficult to control. They know there are other clusters, but only minimal mixing between clusters is allowed. We tell each cluster that it is the finest, the best; we encourage insularity.”

Eric’s stomach churned at the thought of nearly three hundred people living out their lives in this sterile underground world. “But surely they ask questions about life outside,” he said.

“Outside? They don’t know of any world outside. The doctors, nurses, and other attendants come, they think, from a special service cluster, inferior to theirs of course, since the service cluster is not permitted to ‘give.’ Its sole purpose is to serve the Givers. We encourage them to be kind to the service-cluster members, since service people cannot aspire to the highest state of life.”

“But any book would tell them . . .”

Talmidge looked sternly at Eric. “Exactly. So we never so much as mention books,” he said. “They do not read or write, and neither does anyone else down here, not even the medical personnel. Charts never leave the chart room, in a locked wing.” He paused reflectively. “It’s difficult,” he admitted. “Every now and then a cluster invents symbols of communication - we permit painting, you see. Then we have to punish the inventors harshly. Fortunately, with so little stimulation, lethargy is far more common than inventiveness. Sedatives are administered daily. And stronger drugs are always an option.”

Suddenly Eric had a terrifying thought. He doesn’t mean for me to live down here now, does he? As if reading his mind, Talmidge smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry. You’re far too valuable for me to bury you down here. You’ll work here when necessary, of course, I’ll need you to supervise post-op care, for example. And do simple maintenance procedures in the cluster OR, the one with the hydraulic table. But you’ll be invaluable in tandem surgery upstairs, as well as with our, uh, real patients, Monsieur Frayne was quite favorably impressed with you.”

He stood and walked toward the door through which the patients had exited. “A little tour would be helpful, I think,” he said. “Show you the layout, introduce you to some of the staff.” He turned back to make sure Eric was following him. “You can be a big help to me, Rose,” he said. “And really, our people can be quite pleasant in their way.”

Eric thought of the metal-drawer room. “You’ve never brought any of them into our world?” he asked.

“You’re thinking of Jorge, of course. Very observant. Jorge was damaged in some way during the development process. In fact, I’d already decided to destroy him.”

Like a burnt cookie, thought Eric.

“But then it hit me: what an opportunity for a fascinating psychological experiment,” Talmidge continued. “Of course behavioral psychology is the key to our being able to maintain all this. That and subliminal conditioning during the development phase. Well, I considered how useful his gift could be in a controlled environment. So I put him in a cluster for several years, and then removed him and pointed out the terrible trials of giving. I explained that as long as he did the jobs he was given and followed my orders to the letter, he would never be asked to give. Naturally, I couldn’t put him back into a cluster after that. He lives alone in a small cell within the Cold Room. I consider him one of my triumphs.”

Talmidge turned to Eric, and taking his open-mouthed horror for awe, he beamed in self-congratulation. “Well, I’ll admit that I can’t take all the credit,” he said. “I was taught by one of the best behavioral psychologists in the country. I met her in graduate school. She was somewhat older than I but wonderful! Wonderful!” he repeated. “She was fired by my dreams, my vision. She came out here with me, planned the clusters, the medals for giving . . .” He fell silent, remembering.

“What happened to her?” Eric asked cautiously.

“She . . . died,” replied Talmidge, his face furrowing with emotion. “Simply wouldn’t listen to reason.” He paused, then brightened. “Of course she’s still with us, in a sense.”

“You mean her work lives on.”

“No. Her cells. The first time I reproduced her it was not a success. The spark of brilliance wasn’t there. And I had been so sure . . . Someday I’ll try again.”

Shaking off his reverie, Talmidge opened the door to the cluster corridor; strains of music, haunting and strangely beautiful, curled into the room like smoke.

“Jim’s playing again,” said Talmidge. “He’s celebrating his Organ Medal. Most of our people turn to music or painting for self-expression, but Jim’s a sort of genius, really. Quite amazing, considering his hard-headed, er, counterpart.”

“Abbott, you mean?” said Eric, reeling.

“Precisely. An interesting argument for environment and conditioning over heredity.”

“Just one more question,” Eric said. Think of something, he told himself. Talk. Try to sound normal. “You have about three hundred people living here. But surely you’ve collected many more samples. The staff alone, over the years, must have amounted to . . .”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Talmidge replied. “And although we culture each sample, and create and freeze the embryos - that alone takes months; a full-grown young adult takes two years - we don’t develop staff embryos.”

No need to tell him about Ricardo, Talmidge decided. His moderately successful experiments in doctor-making would no doubt make Eric even more nervous than the Cyclopropane did. Developed from cells taken from one of his early medical assistants, Ricardo had been trained to do the one job Talmidge had chosen for him, but a full medical course was out of the question for many reasons. Still, he served his limited purpose well, and thanks to the constant psychological conditioning, knew his place. Unlike the deceased donor of his cells, thought Talmidge grimly.

Dazed yet exhilarated, Eric followed Talmidge through the doors at the rear of the room and into a narrow hallway painted a dusty blue.

Talmidge led him past a sleeping hall, a dining room, and what he called a recreation room, elegant and airy with a high arched ceiling. Musical instruments lay recently abandoned at one end, paints and easels at the other; it was now bath time, Talmidge explained.

After the events of the morning, the empty clusters seemed anticlimactic. Yet there was still one big question Eric felt no nearer to answering than before. Again Talmidge seemed to sense his thoughts. He turned and smiled.

“You know the ingredients,” he said. “But you need the recipe.”

“Ingredients?”

“Genes, hormones . . . but how do I do it? That’s what you want to know.”

Eric nodded.

“I won’t tell you,” Talmidge said. “But I’ll show you something.”

Abruptly Talmidge about-faced and led him back through the clusters. Just beyond the meeting room where Jim had received his medal, the corridor curved sharply and ended at a set of steel gates that ran from floor to ceiling. Beyond that the corridor turned sharply right again.

Talmidge punched his ubiquitous code into the lock plate in the central panel of the first gate; it clicked and Talmidge pushed it open, ushering Eric ahead of him.

He waited until the gate had closed behind them, then pushed through the second gate and out into the far corridor.

The light was dimmer here, and as they rounded the corner, the hallway ended at a steel wall.

“I think of this as my garden,” said Talmidge. He turned and put a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “I can’t tell you the recipe. Not yet. But I’ll show you the oven.”

He spoke his name into the air and a hidden voice-identification mechanism apparently approved, because a panel in the wall began to open. Eric stepped forward but Talmidge stopped him with a gesture.

“First you must understand that what you are seeing is just the beginning,” he told Eric proudly. “Yes, this is only the beginning.”

He began to pace with excitement. “Despite our incredible achievements, we’re still in the early stages. But I have plans, and soon I’ll have the financing. Within ten years, more than three thousand people will be living beneath these mountains.”

“A secret city,” said Eric.

“A secret kingdom,” said Talmidge, his eyes gleaming.