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 Tears Of A Clone By CSquared





   _"I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley."_ - Bob Dylan -
_"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"_



   Chapter 1: The small jet speeder tore through the air, leaving a long,
but rapidly vanishing vapour trail.  The old man sitting inside sighed
wearily.  Even at this speed, the huge, gleaming metal spire did not seem
to be getting any closer.  He did not even have the opportunity of piloting
the small craft to relieve the monotony - everything was automated.  He
leaned back in the plushly upholstered seat, and closed his eyes.  it was a
shame - such a beautiful world - but it would, inevitably, soon be torn
apart by war.  His aged heart was heavy with the thought.

   At its approach, large, slightly curved doors swung open to accept the
jet, and the man rose.  As the ship rolled to a halt, he stepped up to the
doors and punched the `release' button.  There was a hiss of hydraulics,
and the door swung open, then slid into the fuselage.  The air outside was
cold, compared to the controlled environment of the transport, and the old
man shivered momentarily.  Walking down the now-extended gantry, he was met
by a small, hovering robot.  It was built from golden metal, floated about
one and a half metres above the ground, and looked, he felt, rather
sinister.  It said nothing, but beckoned with its sharp, cold hand for the
man to follow it.  He hated the flying things, but had to admit they were
more efficient than people.

   He trailed the robot down the long corridors, until it led him into the
giant cloning halls.  They stretched for miles ahead of him, covering, in
all, approximately seventy-four square miles.  Layers upon layers of
humanoid forms hung suspended within tall, thin, egg shaped containers. 
The man stepped onto a platform with barriers, which swung away from the
gantry around the edge of the brobdignagian room, and sped him towards the
centre, towards his own three clones.

   The platform slowed and stopped, and the man clambered down the millenia
old steps leading to his doppelgangers.  The steps were formed from the
rock of the cavern floor that the room had been created in.  They showed
the wear of the millions of people that had traversed them in their time,
and the man found it a little difficult to keep his balance on the rounded
and smooth stone.  He reached the base of the outcrop, and stared up at the
three indetical copies of himself, kept in permanent suspended animation.
They were not frozen, or in stasis.  They had simply never been born.  They
had lived for the one hundred and sixty-five years of the man's existence
inside artificial wombs, only ever being disturbed to use as tissue donors.
The man had never called on them much, he had had a relatively safe
childhood.  Only one set of clones along, two of the pods contained only
skulls attached to spines.  Placing his wizened hand on the smooth, soft,
warm surface of the protein shell of the centre clone, he breathed a sigh
of remorse.  He knew it was wrong, what he was about to do, but it would be
more wrong for him not to do it.  The war was coming, he was sure of it,
and to leave the clones here to be awakened would be like condemning them
to a life of hell.  To be born, already one hundred and sixty-five years
old, would be a fate worse than death.  Closing his eyes, he slid his hand
down the pod, and onto the control panel in front of him.  He hovered his
finger above the button for a moment, as if still deciding whether to go
through with it or not, but then suddenly his finger shot down and pressed
the `kill' switch.  His clones jerked and spasmed, and streams of bubbles
escaped from various orifices, mainly their mouths.  He span on his heel,
and made his way up the steps, back onto the platform, turning his back
forever on the world he had known.  He moved as fast as he could back to
his jet, and left.