“How did you learn that I was living, and where I could be found?”

“Oh, through the kids,” he said casually. So much for all my precautions. “I figured you’d find a hiding place an’ lie low for as long as you could stand, but eventually you’d not be able to resist. You’d get around to cloning ’em. I knew that if you did it one at a time, I’d never find you. But you did all eighteen too close together. I had a long-term screen on the data net for that type of anomaly, and it popped right up with the first six.”

“Starting eleven years ago.”

“Right.” Seth picked up on my unasked question. “So why haven’t I turned you in? You can answer that as well as I can.”

“Because I am a specialist in telomod therapy, and if I were to be placed again into long-term judicial sleep, you would have no access to my knowledge.”

I knew what Seth apparently did not. Although a pioneer-hubris tempts me to say the pioneer-in the techniques of telomod therapy, I left that field many years ago. I have since gone on to new researches, and others have developed protocols less risky and more routine than mine.

“A bit of that, at first.” Seth, disdaining peat water, refilled his glass with neat whiskey. “But it’s really a lot simpler. Try again, an’ let’s put it the other way round. Why should I turn you in?” • I considered. With Seth Parsigian there was no need for pretense. “Because I am Oliver Guest, a murderer and monster. Because I killed eighteen teenage children. Because I was sentenced after due process in a court of law to spend six centuries in judicial sleep, and most of that sentence has yet to be served.”

“Not my department. Justice wants you, let Justice find you. If they can’t, screw ’em. I told you, it’s simpler than you think.” He leaned forward. “I get you locked up an¹ iced down, you’re gone. History. No way you can ever help me. But I leave you free, you owe me-big-time. If I need help, you can give it to me. An’ I’m telling you, Doc, I need help now.”