Point Blank

white people. They could not marry white people. They could not share whites’ toilets, restaurants, sports arenas, or bars.
    They had to carry passes. They were treated like animals.‛
    ‚It was horrible,‛ Alex said.
    ‚It was wonderful!‛ Mrs. Stellenbosch murmured.
    ‚It was indeed perfect,‛ Dr. Grief agreed. ‚But as the years passed, I became aware that it would also be short-lived. The uprising at Soweto, the growing resistance, and the way the entire world—including your own stinking country—ganged up on us … I knew that white South Africa was doomed, and I even foresaw the day when power would be handed over to a man like Nelson Mandela.‛
    ‚A criminal!‛ Mrs. Stellenbosch added. Smoke was dribbling out of her nostrils.
    Alex said nothing. It was clear enough that both Dr. Grief and his assistant were mad. Just how mad they were was becoming clearer with every word they spoke.
    ‚I looked at the world,‛ Dr. Grief said, ‚and I began to see just how weak and pathetic it was becoming. How could it happen that a country like mine could be given away to people who had no idea how to run it? And why was the rest of the world so determined for it to be so? I looked around me and I saw that the people of America and Europe had become stupid and weak. The fall of the Berlin Wall only made things worse. I had always admired the Russians, but they quickly became infected with the same disease. And I thought to myself, If I ruled the world, how much stronger it would be. How much better…‛
    ‚For you, perhaps, Dr. Grief,‛ Alex said. ‚But not for anyone else.‛
    Grief ignored him. His eyes, behind the red glasses, were brilliant. ‚It has been the dream of very few men to rule the entire world,‛ he said. ‚Hitler was one. Napoleon another. Stalin, perhaps, a third. Great men! Remarkable men! But to rule the world in the twenty-first century requires something more than military strength. The world is a more complicated place now.
    Where does real power lie? Oh, yes—in politics. Prime ministers and presidents. But you will also find power in industry, in science, in the media, in oil, in the Internet… Modern life is a great tapestry, and if you wish to take control of it all, you must seize hold of every strand.
    ‚This is what I decided to do, Alex. And it was because of my unique position in the unique place that was South Africa that I was able to attempt it.‛ Grief took a deep breath. ‚What do you know about nuclear transplantation?‛ he asked.
    ‚I don’t know anything,‛ Alex said. ‚But as you said, I’m an English schoolboy. Lazy and ignorant.‛
    ‚There is another word for it. Have you heard of cloning?‛
    Alex almost burst out laughing. ‚You mean, like Dolly the sheep?‛
    ‚To you it may be a joke, Alex. Something out of science fiction. But scientists have been searching for a way to create replicas of themselves for more than a hundred years. The word itself is Greek.‛
    ‚The Greek word for twig,‛ Mrs. Stellenbosch muttered.
    ‚Think how a twig starts as one branch but then splits into two,‛ Grief continued. ‚This is exactly what has been achieved with lizards, with sea urchins, with tadpoles and frogs, with mice and—yes—on the fifth of July, 1996, with a sheep. The theory is simple enough. Nuclear transplantation: to take the nucleus out of an egg and to replace it with a cell taken from an adult. I won’t tire you with the details, Alex. But it is not a joke. Dolly was the perfect copy of a sheep that had died six years earlier. She was the result of no less than one hundred years of experimentation. And in all that time, the scientists shared a single dream: to clone an adult human. Well … I have achieved that dream!‛
    He paused.
    ‚If you want a round of applause, you’ll have to take off the handcuffs,‛ Alex said.
    ‚I don’t want applause,‛ Grief snarled. ‚Not from you. What I want from you is your life, and that I will take.‛
    ‚So who did you clone?‛ Alex asked. ‚Not Mrs. Stellenbosch, I hope. I’d have thought one of her was more than enough.‛
    ‚Who do you think? I cloned myself!‛ Dr. Grief grabbed hold of the arms of his chair, a king on a throne of his own imagination. ‚Twenty years ago I began my work,‛ he explained. ‚I told you—I was minister of science. I had all the equipment and money I needed. Also, this was South Africa! The rules that hampered other scientists around the world did