Before the deadline, his life had been measured by the aristocratic ticktock of duty. His conception, his birth, schooling, friends, work, lovers, even death. His parents had succumbed ten minutes apart, under a coroner’s report of joint suicide. Their corpses had chased him to the train station, reminding him of the deadline for marrying a woman whom they both knew to be genetically unsuitable. They accepted that any children he had with her would have been a strong candidat