“I hope you won’t think me impolite, Michael,” said Wilde, “but I believe you are what common parlance calls a Natural, or a member of the New Human Race.” “Yes, I am,” Lowenthal agreed in a slightly surprised tone. “I congratulate you on your perspicacity. Most people can’t identify a Zaman transformation by means of superficial appearances.” “I’m something of a connoisseur of authentic youth,” Wilde admitted. “Charlotte is, of course, a fine specimen of the Old Race, but I could never doubt that she and I are of the same sad kind. Perhaps you think that I am too old to share her inevitable regret that her foster parents did not seize the opportunity of subjecting her embryo to the Zaman transformation, but I am not. I have been a genetic engineer all my life, you see, born in the days of prejudice. Like others of my kind, I have always known the perversity and tragedy of the folly which long withheld the generosity of the Finest Art from the most precious flower of all: the flower of human youth.“ “You are not so very old, Dr. Wilde,” said Lowenthal politely.
“Call me Oscar,” said Wilde reflexively. “Indeed I am not—but my youth has been hard-won. I have had to renew it three times over. Having been immunized against the ravages of age from the moment of conception, you have every right to expect—or at least to hope—that you will look hardly a day older than you look now when you have lived as many years as I.” A triple rejuvenate! Charlotte thought, knowing that her astonishment must be visible. I never saw a triple rejuvenate who looked like that! Even Gabriel King, who was far better preserved than most, had skin like weathered wood, until he was rudely transformed into flesh of a very different kind.
“The error which our forebears made in concentrating their efforts on the development of cleverer nano-technologies was understandable,” Lowenthal said, his tone relentlessly neutral. “They believed, not unreasonably, in the escalator effect—that true emortality would eventually be bestowed upon them if only they could keep on reaping the rewards of new and better instruments of repair. With the aid of hindsight, we can see that the hope was illusory—but as a triple rejuvenate, you must have believed in your own youth that presently imperfect technologies would nevertheless be adequate to deliver you into a world in which improved nanotechnologies really would give you the means to preserve your body and mind indefinitely.” “I never believed it,” Wilde said bluntly. “Even as a child, I could see that the logical end point of excessive reliance on inorganic nanotechnologies would be a dehumanizing robotization—that the only entities which could emerge from an endless process of repair would be creatures less human than the cleverest silvers: caricaturish automata. The only respect in which I have been forced to alter my opinion is that I feared such travesties would actually be able to think of themselves as human and even to believe themselves to be the same individuals who had been born into an earlier era. Mercifully, the workings of the Miller effect have spared us that. And now, at last, the old folly is over and done with. Now, we have a New Human Race, as artfully created as the best products of my own industry.” “I wish that you could be one of them,” said Michael Lowenthal politely as the elevator car came to a halt and the door slid open again to reveal the modified gloom of the Trebizond Tower’s subterranean garage, “since you wish it so fervently.” “Thank you,” said Oscar Wilde. “I hope that I shall never grow used to the cruelties of fate—and I hope that you, dear Charlotte, will preserve your own resentments as jealously. It will help you to be a better policeman.” Charlotte nearly fell into the trap of declaring that she had no such resentments and that she was perfectly content with the decision her eight parents had made to produce and foster a child of their own kind, but she strangled the impulse. Time was passing, and there was work to be done.
“My car’s over there,” she said, extending a finger to indicate to Wilde the direction he should take. “Will you follow us, Mr. Lowenthal?” “I’d rather travel with you, if you don’t mind,” Lowenthal said. “My superiors sent me out in person so that I could keep my finger on the pulse of the investigation, so to speak. There’s no purpose in my actually being here if I have to keep in touch with you by phone.” “Suit yourself,” said Charlotte shortly. “But I’d be obliged if you could both keep it in mind that this is an investigation, not a dinner party. We’re not here to talk about the relative merits of internal technology and Zaman engineering. We’re here to figure out who killed Gabriel King—preferably before the news tapes get hold of the grisly details of his demise.” “Of course,” said Lowenthal. “With luck, the DNA samples collected by Lieutenant Chai will lead us to the murderer—and then we shall only be required to figure out why.” He said it in a vaguely admonitory manner—as if he were suggesting that the relative merits of internal nanotech and engineered emortality might perhaps be the crux of the matter.
For the moment, Charlotte could only wonder whether, perhaps, they might.
Charlotte opened the doors of her car and climbed into the seat which offered primary access to the driver, leaving Wilde and Lowenthal to decide for themselves which seats they would take. As if to emphasize their newly cemented alliance, they both got into the rear of the vehicle, leaving the other front seat vacant.
Having keyed in their destination, Charlotte left the silver to plan and navigate a route. She turned to face her passengers, but she was too late to take control. Oscar Wilde had already begun talking again.
“I fear,” he said, addressing himself to Lowenthal, “that it might not be possible to get to the bottom of this affair before the newsmen unleash their electronic bloodhounds. If what I have so far seen is a reliable guide, the puzzle must have been carefully designed so as not to unravel in a hurry.” Lowenthal nodded his head sagely. “It does seem—” “That’s all the more reason to concentrate our efforts on the facts we have,” Charlotte cut in rudely. “So will you please tell me what you meant, Dr. Wilde, about the supposedly obvious suggestion that the woman in the tape might be Rappaccini’s daughter.” “Ah,” said Wilde. “The thickening of the plot. May I tell you a story?” “If you must,” Charlotte said as evenly as she could contrive. It did not help her mood to observe that Michael Lowenthal seemed to be suppressing a smile.
“In an age that was long past even in the nineteenth century,” Wilde began, relaxing into the delicate embrace of the car’s LSP upholstery, “a young man comes to study at the University of Padua. He takes a small room beneath the eaves of an old house, which looks out upon a walled garden filled with exotic flowers. This garden, he soon learns, is tended by the aged Dr. Rappaccini and his lovely daughter, Beatrice.
“Over a period of weeks, the student watches the delightful Beatrice while she is at work in the garden. Having some knowledge of botany, he soon notices that she can handle with impunity certain plants which he knows to be poisonous to other living things. He is fascinated by this revelation—and, of course, by the lovely girl herself. Eventually, his landlady shows him a secret way into the garden so that he can meet her.
“Beatrice, who has led an extraordinarily secluded life, is as fascinated by the handsome student as he is by her. Innocence and beauty are a fine and deadly combination in a young woman—a combination which ensures that he soon falls in love with her—and she mirrors his infatuation. The student is, however, a very respectable young man, and he is careful to maintain an appropriate distance from his chaste beloved.
“One of Rappaccini’s colleagues at the university discovers that the young man has managed to obtain access to the secret garden. He warns the student that he is in great danger, because the plants in the garden—many of which are Rappaccini’s own creations—are all poisonous. Beatrice, because she has grown up there, is immune to the poisons; but she has in consequence become poisonous herself. This rival professor, who despises Rappaccini as a ‘vile empiric’ defiant of tradition, gives the student a vial which, he claims, contains an antidote to the poisons. This, he says, can redeem the unfortunate Beatrice and make her as harmless as other women.
“T
he student gradually realizes that he too is being polluted by the deadly plants. By virtue of having entered the garden so frequently, he has been infected with the power to blight and kill. He accuses Beatrice of visiting a curse upon him but then proposes that they should both drink the antidote and be cured.
“Rappaccini has by now discovered the intrigue between his daughter and her suitor. He tries to intervene, warning Beatrice not to take the antidote because it will destroy her. He insists that what he has bestowed upon her is a marvelous gift, which makes her powerful while all other women remain weak.
“Beatrice will not listen to her father; she prefers the advice of her young lover. He, being deluded as to the true situation, recklessly urges her to drink the potion, which is to her peculiar nature a poison rather than an antidote.
She dies, and in dying, breaks the hearts of her father and lover alike.” Charlotte had struggled hard to follow the implications of this curious tale while it was being told, trying to figure out how it could possibly have anything to do with the murder of Gabriel King—or why Oscar Wilde might think that it did. In the end, she could only say: ”You think that the man you know as Rappaccini might be acting the part of his namesake—much as you make a show of acting the part of yours?” Wilde shrugged his shoulders. “In the story, it was Rappaccini’s jealous colleague who committed murder, if anyone did. But Rappaccini did collect the fatal flowers: les fleurs du mal. In today’s world, of course, it would be very difficult indeed to raise a child in such perfect seclusion as Beatrice. If the man I knew as Rappaccini had a daughter raised to be immune to poisons, but poisonous herself, we must assume that she would be wiser by far than her predecessor. She would surely know, would she not, that her glamor and her kiss would be poisonous?” “Her kiss?” Charlotte echoed.
“We saw her kiss poor Gabriel, did we not? Did you not think that it was a very deliberate kiss?” “This is too bizarre,” Charlotte complained.
“I quite agree,” said Wilde equably. “As lushly extravagant as a poem in prose by Baudelaire himself. But then, we have been instructed to expect a Baudelairean dimension to this affair, have we not? I can hardly wait for the next installment of the story.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Charlotte.
“I doubt that the affair is concluded,” Wilde replied.
“You think this is going to happen again?” “I’m almost sure of it,” said the beautiful but exceedingly infuriating man, with appalling calmness. “If the author of this mystery intends to present us with a real psychodrama, he will not stop when he has only just begun. The next murder, as your aptly named colleague must by now have deduced, might well be committed in San Francisco.” Charlotte could only look at Oscar Wilde as if he were mad—but she could not quite believe that he was. For a moment, she thought that his reference to her “aptly named colleague” was to Lowenthal, but then she remembered the stale jokes about Holmes and Watson, which had had to be explained to her when she had first been teamed with Hal. She recalled that Wilde considered himself an expert on nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature—or some of it, at least.
“Why San Francisco?” she asked, wishing that she did not have to hold herself in such an awkward position while her car threaded its way through the dense traffic. The funeral was long gone, but its congestive aftereffects still lingered.
“The item which was faxed through to me along with the peremptory summons that took me to the Trebizond Tower here was not a copy of the text which appeared on my screen,” Wilde belatedly informed her. “It’s a reservation for the midnight maglev to San Francisco. Inspector Watson discovered that when he traced the call.” The flower designer took a sheet of paper from a pocket in his suitskin and held it out for Charlotte’s inspection. She took it from him and stared at it dumbly.
“Why, didn’t you show me this before?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Wilde said, “but my mind was occupied with other things. I do hope that you won’t try to prevent me from using the ticket. I realize that Hal took great care to recruit me as an expert witness in order to make sure that I might be kept under close surveillance, but I assure you that I will be of more use to the investigation if I am allowed to follow the trail which the murderer seems to be carefully laying down for me.” “Why should we?” she replied, bitterly aware of the fact that it was entirely Hal’s decision. “We’re the UN police, after all—and this isn’t a game. Whether or not those flowers that killed Gabriel King were capable of producing fertile seeds, they constitute a serious biohazard. If something like that ever got loose… why do you think Lowenthal’s here?” “I thought he was with you,” said Wilde mildly.
“Well, he’s not,” Charlotte snapped back. “He’s from some mysterious upper stratum of the World Government, intent on making sure that we aren’t trembling on the brink of a new plague war.” “I hope you’ll forgive the contradiction, Sergeant, but I never said any such thing,” said Michael Lowenthal, speaking just as mildly as the man beside him.
“You seem to have taken the wrong inference from my declaration that I’m just a humble employee.” This was too much. “Well who the hell are you, then?” she retorted.
“I’m not required to divulge that information,” Lowenthal countered, apparently having taken it upon himself to see if he could match Oscar Wilde’s skill in the art of infuriation. “But I’d rather you weren’t laboring under any delusions about my working for the UN. I don’t.” Charlotte knew that every word of this conversation would eventually be replayed by Hal Watson, even if he were content for the time being to rely on her summary of its results while he was busy chasing silvers through the dusty backwaters of the Web. She was painfully aware of the fact that the replay wasn’t going to make her look good—or even halfway competent.
“What do you think is going to happen in San Francisco, Dr. Wilde?” she asked, taking a firm grip of her temper.
“Call me Oscar,” he pleaded. “I fear, dear Charlotte, that it may already have happened. The question is: what am I being sent to San Francisco to discover? I daresay that Hal is doing what he can to make the relevant discovery before I get there, and we shall doubtless find out whether he has succeeded in a few minutes’ time, but the pieces of the puzzle have so far been placed with the utmost care. There is so much in the unfolding picture that I am able to recognize without having to delve in esoteric databases that I am forced to the conclusion that the whole affair was planned with my role as expert witness very much in mind. I don’t know why this ingenious murderer should have taken the trouble to invite me to play detective, but it seems that I may be better equipped to draw inferences from whatever discoveries you may make than anyone else. I hope that you will trust my judgment, allowing me to help you in the way that seems most appropriate to me.” “And if we did that,” Charlotte said, “we’d look even more idiotic than the meanest sloth if it eventually turned out that you were the one who had planted all these crazy clues, wouldn’t we? If it turned out that you were the architect of the whole affair, and we’d let you lead us halfway around the world while posing as an expert witness, we’d look like the stupidest idiots that ever enlisted in the UN police.” “I suppose you would,” said Oscar Wilde. “I fear that I can’t offer you any incontrovertible proof that I’m innocent—but you’ll seem just as foolish, I fear, if you refuse to avail yourself of my expertise, and it later turns out that I am innocent and could have given you significant help in solving the mystery.” Charlotte had to admit, if only silently, that it was true. If Wilde really did have the temerity to have himself summoned to the scene of a crime which he had committed, so that he could savor the frustration of the UN’s investigators, the ticket to San Francisco might be a means of escape that he was flaunting in front of her, but if not… “If you’re going to San Francisco,” she said, hoping that she could get Hal to back her up, “then I’m going too.” On the theory that a reckless gamble shared was an uncomfortable responsibility halved, she added: “How abo
ut you, Mr.
Lowenthal?” “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Lowenthal said. “I’ll book our tickets now.” He unhooked his beltphone and set about doing exactly that.
“We have several hours in hand before midnight,” Charlotte said to Oscar Wilde, feeling a little better now that she had actually made an executive decision.
“Even if Hal hasn’t cracked the case by then, he’s sure to have turned up a wealth of useful information. If you really have been invited to the party in order to give us the benefit of your expertise, you’ll doubtless be able to give us a better idea of what it might all mean than any impression we can form on our own behalf.” “I certainly hope so,” he replied warmly. “You can count on my complete cooperation—and, of course, on my absolute discretion.” And you, Charlotte said silently, can count on being instantly arrested, the moment Hal digs up anything that will stand up in court as evidence of your involvement in this unholy mess. If you’re trying to run rings around us, you’d better not count on our getting dizzy.
The “new” UN complex built in 2431 was now under sentence of death, along with every other edifice on Manhattan Island, but it was intended to remain functional for at least another year while its multitudinous departments were relocated on a piecemeal basis. Charlotte thought that its loss would be a pity, given that it had so much history attached to it—the complex embraced the site of the original building, which had been demolished in 2039—but the MegaMall and the Decivilizers both saw the matter in a different light.
Charlotte had only the vaguest notion of how the Decivilization movement had come to be so influential, but she could see perfectly well that it was a matter of fashion rather than ideological commitment. Perhaps people had been huddled into the old cities for far too long, and perhaps the populations of the New Human Race ought to be more diffusely distributed if they were really to develop new and better ways of life, but that didn’t mean that history ought to be forgotten and all its artifacts rendered down into biotech sludge. What would happen when the fashion passed, and “Decivilization” ceased to be a buzzword? Would the Naturals then begin to restore everything that Gabriel King had demolished? There had once been talk of the UN taking over the whole of Manhattan, but that had gone the way of most dream schemes during the still-troubled years of the late twenty-second century. Now, an even more grandiose plan to move the core of the UN bureaucracy to Antarctica—the “continent without nations”—was well advanced and seemed likely to proceed to completion. Fortunately, that was unlikely to include the Police Department. Charlotte didn’t want to relocate to a penguin-infested wilderness of ice.
Architects of Emortality Page 7
