Prodigal Son

what I am?"
        Jelly met his eyes, studied the tattoo and the ruin that it only half concealed, considered his hulking size. "Ben… he explained. I guess it could be true."
        "Believe it," Deucalion advised him. "My origins are a prison graveyard, the cadavers of criminals - combined, revitalized, reborn."

CHAPTER 14
        
        OUTSIDE, THE NIGHT was hot and humid. In Victor Helios's library, the air-conditioning chilled to the extent that a cheerful blaze in the fireplace was necessary.
        Fire featured in some of his less pleasant memories. The great windmill. The bombing of Dresden. The Israeli Mossad attack on the secret Venezuelan research complex that he had shared with Mengele in the years after World War II. Nevertheless he liked to read to the accompaniment of a cozy crackling fire.
        When, as now, he was perusing medical journals like The Lancet, JAMA, and Emerging Infectious Diseases, the fire served not merely as ambience but as an expression of his informed scientific opinion. He frequently tore articles from the magazines and tossed them into the flames. Occasionally, he burned entire issues.
        As ever, the scientific establishment could teach him nothing. He was far ahead of them. Yet he felt the need to remain aware of advancements in genetics, molecular biology, and associated fields.
        He felt the need, as well, for a wine that better complemented the fried walnuts than did the Cabernet that Erika had served with them. Too tannic. A fine Merlot would have been preferable.
        She sat in the armchair opposite his, reading poetry. She had become enthralled with Emily Dickinson, which annoyed Victor.
        Dickinson had been a fine poet, of course, but she had been God-besotted. Her verses could mislead the naive. Intellectual poison.
        Whatever need Erika might have for a god could be satisfied here in this room. Her maker, after all, was her husband.
        Physically, he had done a fine job. She was beautiful, graceful, elegant. She looked twenty-five but had been alive only six weeks.
        Victor himself, though two hundred and forty, could have passed for forty-five. His youthful appearance had been harder to maintain than hers had been to achieve.
        Beauty and grace were not his only criteria for an ideal wife. He also wished her to be socially and intellectually sophisticated.
        In this regard, in many small ways, Erika had failed him and had proved slow to learn in spite of direct-to-brain downloads of data that included virtual encyclopedias of etiquette, culinary history, wine appreciation, witticisms, and much else.
        Knowledge of a subject did not mean that one could apply that knowledge, of course, but Erika didn't seem to be trying hard enough. The Cabernet instead of the Merlot, Dickinson…
        Victor had to admit, however, that she was a more appealing and acceptable creature than Erika Three, her immediate predecessor. She might not be the final version-only time would tell-but whatever her faults, Erika Four was not a complete embarrassment.
        The drivel in the medical journals and Erika reading Dickinson at last drove him up from his armchair. "I'm in a creative mood. I think I'll spend some time in my studio."
        "Do you need my help, darling?"
        "No. You stay here, enjoy yourself."
        "Listen to this." Her delight was childlike. Before Victor could stop her, she read from Dickinson: "The pedigree of honey / Does not concern the bee / A clover, any time, to him / Is aristocracy"
        "Charming," he said. "But for variety, you might read some Thorn Gunn and Frederick Seidel."
        He could have told her what to read, and she would have obeyed. But he did not desire an automaton for a wife. He wanted her to be free-spirited. Only in sexual matters did he demand utter obedience.
        In the immense restaurant-quality kitchen from which staff could serve a sit-down dinner for a hundred without problem, Victor entered the walk-in pantry. The shelves at the back, laden with canned goods, slid aside when he touched a hidden switch.
        Beyond the pantry, secreted in the center of the house, lay his windowless studio.
        His public labs were at Helios Biovision, the company through which he was known to the world and by which he had earned another fortune atop those he had already accrued in earlier ages.
        And in the Hands of Mercy, an