“She still doesn’t answer,” Angela announced, replacing the receiver. She looked accusingly at Charles, busy fitting a movie cassette into the VCR he’d brought to her apartment that evening.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked grumpily.

“There must be something!” Angela told him urgently.

“You’re gonna love The Third Man,” Charles told her. “I can’t believe you’ve never . . .”

“Goddammit, Chas!” Angela exploded. He looked up, startled.

“Vivienne’s missing, don’t you understand?”

“Don’t dramatize,” he said. “She’s probably . . .”

“What? She’s probably what?” Angela challenged. “Look at me, Chas!”

Charles dropped tiredly onto the sofa.

Angela stood in front of him, hands on her hips. “She said Wednesday evening. Today’s Friday. She hasn’t called, she hasn’t written . . . Don’t you wonder what the hell’s going on? Don’t you care?”

“Of course I care,” Charles said. “It’s just . . .”

“It’s just convenient that she hasn’t come back, isn’t it? She isn’t here, so we don’t have to tell her about us, so let’s not look for her, is that it?”

Charles was silent.

Angela flopped down beside him. “I feel guilty enough about all this as it is,” she said sorrowfully. “But if Vivienne’s in trouble and we don’t try to help her because of what’s happened between us, then I don’t like us very much. Do you?”

“Do you really think something’s wrong?” Charles asked at last.

“Come on, Chas, think about it. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he said at last. Angela rose and began to pace. She’d been tormenting herself the last few days, going over and over her actions of the past week, and her guilt and worry had been growing hourly.

If she hadn’t accepted Charles’s offer of a blueprint, she and Vivienne wouldn’t have fought on the telephone, and then maybe Vivienne wouldn’t have felt the need to visit the Institute.

If she hadn’t told Charles that Vivienne was going to Spain, he wouldn’t have called Brian Arnold.

She’d not only betrayed her best friend, but if Vivienne was now in real trouble, she herself had been the conduit.

She turned back to Charles. “I can’t do this anymore,” she announced.

“Do what?” Charles looked up sharply, alarmed by her tone.

“I can’t . . . be with you anymore. Not like this.”

Charles went to her and put an arm around her shoulder, but she pushed him away. “I didn’t think it through, not any of it,” she told him. “I didn’t realize what loving you would mean, how it would tear me apart.” Tears started, but she brushed them away impatiently.

“It’ll be all right,” Charles said soothingly. “I’ll look for Vivienne, and we’ll tell her about us, and . . .”

“Maybe I didn’t think through the genetic blueprint either,” Angela continued, not hearing him. “Maybe Vivienne’s right. She asked me to wait. Why didn’t I?”

Again Charles approached her and again she moved away. “Please. Let me help,” he said.

“You want to help? Then go find Vivienne. Make sure she’s okay. Meanwhile, I need some time alone.” She collapsed on the sofa as tears streaked her face. “I’m confused and I’m angry, Chas! Angry at you and angry at me too. We should never have let this happen, never!”

“Angie, it wasn’t our fault . . .”

“Then whose fault was it? Vivienne’s?” said Angela scathingly. She sniffed loudly, and Charles reached out his handkerchief and handed it to her. It was soft and white and smelled just like him, which made her start crying again.

“I can’t live like this, Chas,” she told him through her tears. “I think we should stop seeing each other.” She blew her nose and crumpled the handkerchief in her fist. “I think you should leave.”

“Leave? You mean that’s it?” Charles stared at her in disbelief. “Just like that? You feel a little guilty and all of a sudden it’s over?”

“Not all of a sudden. It’s been eating at me for days.” She looked up at him. “Please understand. My feeling for you . . . that hasn’t changed. But I can’t live with myself. And I can’t live with you, not now. Maybe someday, when you and Vivienne have resolved whatever you have to resolve . . . maybe when you’re really free. But for now, yes, it’s over.”

She really means it, he thought in amazement. No woman had ever broken up with him before; he’d always been the one to walk out. He shook his head in disbelief. He was hurt and saddened, but he also felt a sneaking respect for her decision. He too had been feeling guilty.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” he told her.

“No, Chas. You’ll leave now. Please.”

“Now? You’re sure?”

She nodded. “Please.”

Slowly he got to his feet and went to the closet for his coat. They both felt like strangers, suddenly awkward and uncomfortable.

“Keep the VCR,” he said.

He opened the front door, then turned to see if she’d changed her mind. She smiled at him and shook her head. “Where will you go?” she asked.

“Oh, you’re not the only woman I have in this town!” he told her with an attempt at jocularity. Her expression didn’t change. “A hotel,” he said with a tiny smile. “I’ll go to the Westbury or something.”

He crossed the small space between them and kissed her gently on the top of her head. “I’ll find her,” he said. “I promise.”

He turned and walked out of the apartment without closing the door. She listened to his footsteps echoing in the stairwell, leaving her.

Leaving her.

Talmidge strode back to his apartment, his mind churning. Had Bascado returned? So much depended on what he had found.

Bascado answered on the first ring.

“Got anything?” Talmidge demanded without preamble.

“A notebook from the doctor’s room. A letter from the girl’s. Hey, can I have her afterward?”

“Bring the papers to my office,” Talmidge ordered. “Now!” He smashed down the phone and headed upstairs.

Seated at his massive oak desk, Talmidge thought about what Eric’s notebook could mean. Spying. He’s been spying on me. Yet it was logical for a doctor to take notes. Perhaps the note-taking was innocent. It would have to stop, of course. And he himself would destroy the notebook. Surely Eric would understand. He’d make him understand. God, he didn’t want to lose Eric.

The girl’s letter was probably nothing. Written before she’d actually seen the clones, it could only contain the same suspicions she’d already voiced to Charles and Brian. If that was all, he had nothing to worry about. And if it wasn’t, well, he’d have the letter. And the girl.

A discreet knock told him Bascado had arrived. He went to the door and pulled it open with some force, reaching for the letter and notebook.

Eric’s notes were more or less what he had expected; they could mean anything or nothing. He put the notebook aside and reached for the letter, noticing with a shock that the handwriting on the envelope was the same. It wasn’t Vivienne’s letter at all; it was Eric’s.

As he read it, his face went white with rage. The letter made everything horribly clear. He, Ben Talmidge, had nurtured a serpent in his bosom.

I horrify you, do I? he thought. Just wait, boy. I haven’t begun to horrify you.

And little Vivienne is part of the plot, eh? How delightful.

His mind raced, amending the plan he’d formulated for her. I’ll catch them both in one net, he decided. And then I’ll . . . I’ll . . .

A deep sadness overtook him then, at the thought of Eric’s destruction. I want to keep him, he thought, but after this, how can I?

Suddenly he pounded the table with his fist, once, twice. “How dare he do this?” he roared. And then more softly he cried out, “How could he do this to me?”

Bascado was embarrassed, but determined. “Can I have the girl?” he asked again.

Talmidge looked over at him. “When I’m through with her, perhaps,” he answered. “But I don’t think even you will want her then.” He waved his hand in the direction of the door. “Thank you for your fine work,” he said, “Get out.”

When he was alone again, he dialed the number of the cluster-staff supervisor and spoke softly into the phone in rapid Spanish. A wintry smile flitted across his face as he thought of Vivienne down in the cluster. Of course, she’d try to tell “Charles” about the outside world. So what? Clone conditioning was far too strong. And besides, she wouldn’t be talking for long.

For some moments, he sat silent and unmoving. Then he pushed back his chair, swung his feet up onto the desk, and started to plan.

* * *

“Think!”

Once the initial shock of being left in the cluster had worn off a little, Vivienne forced herself to examine her options, Surely Talmidge didn’t intend to leave her here permanently; he was just trying to scare her. Well, she could scare him too.

She’d tell Charles’s clone what was really going on down here.

“Think!” she urged him again. “There’s a whole world outside the cluster.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “That is not possible,” he told her.

“Where do those people come from?’ Vivienne demanded, gesturing at the staff people. “Where do they go at night?”

“They go to a different cluster,” Charles told her. “Everyone lives in a cluster.”

“But they aren’t Giver’s, are they? Why not?”

Charles looked down, embarrassed. “They are not worthy,” he said sadly. “I do not love them less for that. It is not their fault. But I feel sad for them.”

“Sad? Sad for them because they don’t get pieces cut out of them to give to other people?”

“Exactly!” Charles’s face brightened. “You do understand! At first, I thought you were one of them,” he said, indicating her medical coat, “but now I understand. You are a Giver too.”

Vivienne looked at him in horror. “No,” she said. “No one should be a Giver. Not like that.”

“But to be chosen as a Giver is the highest honor,” Charles told her. “It is hard to tell feelings. I will play music for you to explain.”

He positioned himself at the cello and began to play. The music was haunting and beautiful. Tears filled Vivienne’s eyes.

How can I make him understand? she thought helplessly. She looked at her watch: she’d been in the cluster for over half an hour. Where was Talmidge?

Jim and Larry were talking softly about the things Vivienne had told them. They clearly didn’t believe her, but they seemed somehow troubled by her ideas.

The door at the far end of the room clanged open, and a staff person entered. She smiled brightly at Vivienne as she crossed the room to her.

“The doctor would like you to come with me,” she said.

“It’s about time!” In her relief Vivienne allowed herself a little irritation, but she followed the woman back across the room. She stepped through the doorway into a small examining room. Talmidge wasn’t there, but several blue-uniformed orderlies were.

“Please to sit,” said the woman, indicating the examining table.

“Where is Dr. Talmidge?” Vivienne asked.

“Please to sit,” the woman repeated, sliding a look at the orderlies, who moved closer.

Vivienne turned toward the door by which she’d entered, but found it blocked by one of the orderlies, who now closed it firmly.

She looked back at the woman and was stunned to see she was now holding a hypodermic needle.

“Relax,” the woman said.

“No!” Vivienne went for the door, but the orderlies were too quick. They took hold of her firmly, pulling her back against the examining table.

“Relax,” the woman repeated as Vivienne struggled to free herself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The orderlies held her arm tightly. She felt a sharp prick and things started to go misty.

She knew where she was and then she didn’t. Her vision blurred, and her arms and legs became powerless. She felt the movement as they carried her back into the music room, but it had no meaning for her. Her face fell into a lax smile, and her head lolled to one side.

Charles’s face showed real concern as they carried her past him, but the orderlies smiled reassuringly, and the woman told him not to worry.

“She has been sick,” the woman told him. “Did she say some wrong things?”

Charles nodded. Wrong, yes. The things Vivienne had told him about what she called “outside” were wrong, of course, they were. Charles felt relieved.

“We will make her better,” the woman said. “We will let her sleep now.”

Sleep, Vivienne thought drowsily. I want to sleep.

They placed Vivienne in a chair and strapped her in, head resting on her arm. “Why not play her some music?” the woman asked.

In Talmidge’s office, the outside telephone shrilled, startling him out of his almost trancelike state. He took a moment to compose himself, then picked up the receiver.

“Ben Talmidge here,” he said with icy calm.

“Ben, this is Charles Spencer-Moore.”

How appropriate, Talmidge thought. Aloud he said, “Charles! How nice to hear from you!”

“Yeah,” said Charles. “Look, have you heard from a woman named Vivienne Laker?”

Talmidge hesitated. “Laker? No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Screw the bells. She’s my fiancée. She was due back from a photographic shoot two days ago, and she hasn’t turned up. I thought she might have decided to visit you.”

“Really? Why would she want to do that, Charles?”

“Well, she had a sample taken for the Institute, and I told her a little of what goes on there, and . . . she got a little upset.”

“Upset?”

“Well, it bothered her. A lot, actually. I thought she might have decided to go see for herself.”

“Sorry, Charles, but she hasn’t turned up here. Naturally, I’ll call you if she does.”

“Thanks,” said Charles. “It was a long shot. Sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble,” said Talmidge brightly. “No trouble at all.”