"Brennert, Alan - Cradle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brennert Alan)

itself that will cause her to suspect how -- experimental --it really is?"

Chernow shook his head. "We've already done the hard work. Considering the ways
in which your DNA was altered, just before your death, it's remarkable it took
us only two years to reproduce the genetic code. Once we remove the surrogate's
ova, she'll have no inkling her DNA's being wiped from the eggs-- or that yours
is being imprinted onto them. All she'll actually see are the fertilized eggs
being implanted in her uterus."

Marguerite exhaled a stream of smoke. She would have to quit, of course, before
the baby arrived. "And then?"

"Then, with luck, a normal pregnancy, a normal birth. Though obviously, since no
one's ever tried this before, we can't know for certain."

Marguerite nodded. The car turned up Queens Road, high above Sunset, toward the
doctor's pied-a-terre in the hills; Marguerite glanced to her left and caught a
glimpse of the golden lattice of lights -- gridwork constellations extending to
the horizon-- that Los Angeles became at night. She would have dearly loved to
see it, just once, by day: and not just on videotape.

"Marguerite?"

She turned. "Yes, Stewart?"

Chernow hesitated. "I . . . have my anxieties about this procedure." "Why? It
won't harm the surrogate, will it?"

"Not the process itself, no. But your DNA was altered, irrevocably, by the bite
that . . .transformed you. Some of your -- characteristics --will doubtless be
passed on, genetically. Almost certainly your child will be, at least partly, a
vampire."

Marguerite nodded. "I know that. I accepted that long ago." She studied him.
"And that frightens you?"

"I . . . don't like the idea," he said in measured tones, "that I've helped
create a new way for your-- kind -- to propagate themselves."

Marguerite laughed. "Stewart, trust me, the old method of propagation is far
faster and more efficient than this," she said, smiling. When he didn't join
her, she put a hand on his. "Stewart . . . you've known me for twenty years. I
don't hunt; not when I can buy as much blood as I want. I don't seek the company
of others of my 'kind.' I have no lust for power, or conquest, at least not any
more."

She took his hand in hers, and held it as gently as her great strength allowed.
"I was twenty-five when I died," she said, and this time the softness in her
tone was genuine. "I never had a chance to have a child. Two hundred years
later-- science offers me that chance. That's all I want." She let go of his