"There's an anomaly."
"What of it?" Melanie asked. She was aware of it but had discounted it. She had spent years investigating birth, death and marriage records, tracing her ancestry back through ten generations to an original colonist from Earth. Every record except her mothers had been thoroughly verified and cross-checked with supporting genetic evidence.
"You must understand," replied Fletcher carefully. "admission to Descendants brings enormous benefit. It is often the target of unscrupulous claimants."
Melanie started to protest, trailing off at his expression.
"If we had the slightest hint of fraud Ms Cook we would be in court." His manicured hands slid across the black glass, pausing to press at strategic points, as he concentrated on the information in his desktop. "Your Grandmother was born in twenty twenty five and you in ..."
"Twenty forty seven" finished Melanie
"Quite. Twenty two years later. At best, your grandmother and your unknown mother would have given birth at eleven."
Melanie had known it was unlikely, nevertheless, it had to be true. Her grandmother's date of birth, like the total absence of any records for her mother could be rationalised away as faulty record keeping. The genetic markers were irrefutable.
"Fortunately" continued Fletcher, looking up from his study of the desk's display and smiling for the first time, "our hospitals have tissue samples of everyone since colonisation. I have requested a complete rework of the genetic profiles of your parents and grandparents. The results should be here shortly." He took his long white fingers away from the smoky glass desktop and leaning back, laced them behind his head.
Melanie stared reflectively out the window at the pearly concavity of the dome. Her mother, her adoptive mother that is, had let slip she Melanie, had started as a surrogate contract. The contract had been made between representing lawyers. But shortly after implantation Melanie's genetic parents had disappeared. Her surrogate mother had adopted her.
A tiny glow on the desk strobed.
"Ah!" Said Fletcher, tapping his fingers lightly on the black glass. He frowned, looked up at Melanie then back at the desk.
Melanie could not contain herself. "What?"
"This is unprecedented, I will have to get a ruling."
"If you've found an error in my genealogy, I'd like to know, even if it disqualifies me."
"Quite the contrary, Ms Cook, It seems your genetic heritage is accurate, as is your grandmothers birth date. We have pre-natal tissue samples from her only child in twenty forty six."
Melanie struggled to assimilate this import of his revelation. How was it possible for her grandmother to be pregnant with her mother, the year before she herself was born. When was there time for her mother to have lived.
"The girl," continued Fletcher, "did not come to term. The fertilised ovum hosted by your surrogate mother was illegally harvested from the unborn foetus."
His words struck Melanie like a soft blow. Her mother had never been born.