Fathers have very little defence against their children, especially when they expect you to be a combination knight hero and Santa Claus.

I glanced nervously at the kitchen, where I could hear Jocelyn moving about. «I said, next week,» I told Nicolette in a low voice. «This is too soon.»

«You had one,» Nathaniel said.

«I had to have one, it's my job.»

«We need them,» Nicolette insisted. «For school, for talking with our friends. We'll be ostracized again if we're not affinity-capable. Is that what you want?»

«No, of course not.»

«It's Mum, isn't it?» she asked, sorrowfully.

«No. Your mother and I both agree on this.»

«That's not fair,» Nathaniel blurted hotly. «We didn't want to come here. OK, we were wrong. Bringing us to Eden was the greatest thing you've ever done for us. People live here, really live, not like in the arcologies. Now we want to belong, we want to be a part of what's going on here, and you won't let us. Well, just what do you want us to do, Dad? What do you want from us?»

«I simply want you to take a little time to think it through, that's all.»

«What's to think? Affinity isn't a drug, we're not dropping out of school, the Pope's an idiot. So why can't we have the symbiont implants? Just give us one logical reason.»

«Because I don't know if we're staying here,» I bellowed. «I don't know if we're going to be allowed to stay here. Got that?»

I couldn't remember the last time I'd raised my voice to them—years ago, if I ever had.

They both shrank back. The shame from watching them do that was excruciating. My own kids, fearful. Christ.

Nathaniel rallied first, his expression hardening. «I'm not leaving Eden,» he snapped. «You can't make me. I'll divorce you if I have to. But I'm staying.» He very deliberately put his bubble cube down on a small table, then turned round and stalked off to his room.

«Oh, Daddy,» Nicolette said. It was a rebuke that was almost unbearable.

«I did ask you to wait. Was one week so difficult?»

«I know,» she said forlornly. «But there's a girl; Nat met her at the water sports centre.»

«Great. Just great.»

«She's lovely, Dad. Really pretty, and she's older than him. Sixteen.»

«Pension age.»

«Don't you see? She doesn't mind that he's a few months younger, that he's not as sophisticated as she is, she still likes him. That never happened to him before. It couldn't happen to him, not back on Earth.»

Sex, the one subject every parent dreads. I could see Corrine's face, leering knowingly. Eden teenagers use affinity to experiment. Thoroughly.

I must have groaned, because Nicolette was resting her hand on my arm, concern sculpted into her features.

«Dad, are you all right?»

«Bad day at the office, dear. And what about you? Is there a boy at the sports centre?»

Her smile became all sheepish and demure. «Some of them are quite nice, yes. No one special, not yet.»

«Don't worry, they won't leave you alone.»

She blushed, and looked at her feet. «Will you speak to Mum about the symbionts? Please, Dad?»

«I'll speak to her.»

Nicolette stood on tiptoes, and kissed me. «Thanks, Dad. And don't worry about Nat, his hormones are surging, that's all. Time of the month.» She put her bubble cube on the table next to Nathaniel's, and skipped off down the hall to her room.

Why is it that children, the most perfect gift we can ever be given, can hurt more than any physical pain?

I picked the two bubble cubes up and weighed them in my palm. Sex. Oh, Christ.

When I turned round, Jocelyn was standing in the kitchen doorway. «Did you hear all that?»

Her lips quirked in sympathy. «Poor Harvey. Yes, I heard.»

«Divorced by my own son. I wonder if he'll expect alimony?»

«I think you could do with a drink.»

«Do we have any?»

«Yes.»

«Thank Christ for that.»

I flopped down in the lounge's big mock-leather settee, and Jocelyn poured me a glass of white wine. The patio doors were open wide, letting in a balmy breeze which set the big potted angel-trumpet plants swaying.

«Now just relax,» Jocelyn said, and fixed me with a stern look. «I'll get you something to eat later.»

I tasted the wine—sweet but pleasant. Shrugged out of my uniform jacket, and undid my shirt collar. Another sip of the wine.

I fished about in the jacket for my PNC wafer, and accessed the JSKP's personnel file on Hoi Yin, or Chong's bimbo, as Caldarola had called her. I'd been curious about that ever since.

Surprisingly, my authority code rating was only just sufficient to retrieve her file from the company memory core; its security classification was actually higher than Fasholé Nocord's. And there I was thinking my troubles couldn't possibly get any worse.

•   •   •

My fourth day started with a re-run of the third. I drove myself out to Wing-Tsit Chong's lakeside retreat. Eden confirmed Hoi Yin was there, what it neglected to mention was what she was doing.

I parked beside the lonely pagoda and stepped down out of the jeep. The wind chimes made a delicate silver tinkling in the stillness. Chong was nowhere to be seen. Hoi Yin was swimming in the lake, right out in the middle where she was cutting through the dark water with a powerful crawl stroke.

I would like to talk with you, i told her. Now, please.

There was no reply, but she performed a neat flip, legs appearing briefly above the surface, and headed back towards the shore. I saw a dark-purple towel lying on the grass, and walked over to it.

Hoi Yin stood up just before she reached the fringe of water lilies, and started wading ashore. She wasn't wearing a swimming costume. Her hair flowed down her back like a slippery diaphanous cloak.

There's an old story which did the rounds while I was at the Hendon Police College: when Moses came down from the mount carrying the tablets of stone he said, «First the good news, I managed to get Him down to ten commandments. The bad news is, He wouldn't budge on adultery.»

Looking at Hoi Yin as she rose up before me like some elemental naiad, I knew how the waiting crowd must have felt. Men have killed for women far less beautiful than her.

She reached the edge of the lake and I handed her the towel.

Does nakedness bother you, Chief Parfitt? You seem a little tense.she pulled her mass of hair forwards over her shoulder, and began towelling it vigorously.

Depends on the context. But then you'd know all that. Quite the expert, in fact.

She stopped drying her hair, and gave me a chary glance. You have accessed my file.

Yes. My authority code gave me entry, but there aren't many people in Eden who could view it.

You believe I am at fault for not informing you what it contained?

Bloody hell, Hoi Yin, you know you're at fault. Christ Almighty, Penny Maowkavitz designed you for Soyana, using her own ovum as a genetic base. She altered her DNA to give you your looks, and improve your metabolism, and increase your intelligence. It was almost a case of parthenogenesis; genetically speaking, she's somewhere between your mother and your twin. And you think that wasn't important enough to tell me? Get real!

It was not a relationship she chose to acknowledge.

Yeah. I'll bet. Quite a shock for her, I imagine, finding you up here with Chong. She ignored nearly all of Calfornia's biotechnology ethics regulations to work on that contract; and indenture is pretty dodgy legal ground even in Soyana's own arcology. Your file says you were created exclusively as a geisha for all those middle-aged executives, that's why you were given Helen of Troy's beauty. Maowkavitz considered you an interesting organism, nothing more. You were a job that paid well, and twenty-eight years ago Pacific Nugene needed that money quite badly. Everything which came later, her success and fortune, was all founded on the money which came from selling you right at the start, you and Christ knows how many other sisters like you. Then you came back to haunt her.