City of Night

as if half mesmerized by the domestic smells and sounds, Randal opens the door wider and ventures forth into the hall.
    The threshold of the kitchen is less than fifteen feet away. He sees the singing woman as she stands at the stove, her back to him.
    Now might be a good time to venture deeper into the house and search for Arnie O’Connor. The grail of his quest is near at hand: the smiling autistic with the secret of happiness.
    The woman at the stove fascinates him, however, for she must be Arnie’s mother. Carson O’Connor is the boy’s sister, but this is not Carson, not the person in that newspaper photo. In an Old Race family, there will be a mother.
    Randal Six, child of Mercy, has never previously met a mother. Among the New Race, there are no such creatures. Instead there is the tank.
    This is not merely a female before him. This is a being of great mystery, who can create human life within her body, without any of the formidable machinery that is required to produce one of the New Race in the lab.
    In time, when the Old Race is dead to the last, which will be the not too distant future, mothers like this woman will be mythical figures, beings of lore and legend. He cannot help but regard her with wonder.
    She stirs the strangest feelings in Randal Six. An inexplicable reverence.
    The smells, the sounds, the magical beauty of the kitchen draw him inexorably toward that threshold.
    When she turns away from the cooktop and steps to a cutting board beside the sink, still softly singing, the woman fails to catch sight of him from the corner of her eye.
    In profile, singing, preparing dinner, she seems so happy, even happier than Arnie looked in that photograph.
    As Randal reaches the kitchen, it occurs to him that this woman herself might be the secret to Arnie’s happiness. Perhaps what is needed for happiness is a mother who has carried you within her, who values you as surely as she does her own flesh.
    The last time Randal Six saw his creation tank was four months ago, on the day that he emerged from it. There is no reason for a reunion.
    When the woman turns away from him and steps to the cooktop once more, still not having registered his presence, Randal is swept away by feelings he has never experienced before, that he cannot name, for which he has no words of description.
    He is overwhelmed by a yearning, but a yearning for what he is not certain. She draws him as gravity draws a falling apple from a free.
    Crossing the room to her, Randal realizes that one thing he wants is to see himself reflected in her eyes, his face in her eyes.
    He does not know why .
    And he wants her to smooth the hair back from his forehead. He wants her to smile at him.
    He does not know why .
    He stands immediately behind her, trembling with emotion that has never welled in him previously, feelings for which he never realized he had the capacity.
    For a moment she remains unaware of him, but then something alerts her. She turns, alarmed, and cries out in surprise and fear.
    She has carried a knife from the cutting board to the stove.
    Although the woman makes no attempt to use the weapon, Randal seizes it in his left hand, by the blade, slashing himself, tears it from her grip, and throws it across the kitchen.
    With his right fist, he clubs her alongside the head, clubs her to the floor.
     
     
     

Chapter 41
     
    Following vespers, in the rectory of Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Deucalion watched as Father Patrick Duchaine poured rich dark coffee into two mugs. He had been offered cream and sugar, but had declined.
    When the priest sat across the table from Deucalion, he said, “I make it so strong it’s almost bitter. I have an affinity for bitterness.”
    “I suspect that all of our kind do,” Deucalion said.
    They had dispensed with preliminaries in the confessional. They knew each other for the essence of what they were, although Father Duchaine did not know the particulars of his guest’s creation.
    “What happened to your face?” he asked.
    “I angered my maker and tried to raise a hand against him. He had implanted in my skull a device of which I was unaware. He wore a special ring that could produce a signal, triggering the device.”
    “We’re now programmed to switch off, like voice-activated appliances, when we hear certain words in his unmistakable voice.”
    “I come from a more primitive period of his work. The device in my skull was supposed to destroy me. It functioned half well, making a