by David Walton
"Different? What if it's not? What if thought is no more than the rearrangement of the atoms in your brain? Think how a tamarin makes a connection with another tamarin— by inserting physical material from its tail. If that material is paired with material still in its body, then what do you have? A bell- box. Possibly hundreds or thousands of bell- boxes, each as small as an atom. The arrangement of the atoms in the brain could then be transferred across those bell- boxes in a totally material way."
The church fell silent. The atomists were all nodding, but the Aristotelians were shaking their heads. Gibbs had just confirmed the main reason most of them refused to consider atomism: it was inherently atheistic. If thought was pure mechanism, that implied that the personality and the soul were mere byproducts of atoms crashing together in random ways. If the universe was just a machine, what room did that leave for God?
"Would you deny the spiritual altogether?" Kecilpenny asked softly, voicing what many in the room were thinking.
"You don't understand," Catherine said. The silence, already uncomfortable, grew awkward. Most Society members, particularly those who came from the more exalted traditions of academia, weren't used to the idea of a woman offering her opinion in a gathering of men. Parris, however, did not correct her, and she continued. "It's not like sorting buttons in a sewing box. We don't get to argue and then decide based on who is most convincing or who shouts the loudest. Either atoms exist or they don't. The only way to find out for sure is to test it."
Parris allowed a small smile to play across his face. This experimental philosophy was new, and difficult for many traditional theorists to grasp. Learned men thought knowledge came from the books of the ancients. It didn't occur to them to test what they read. But how could the ancients have anticipated what they had never seen? Matthew and Catherine recognized this was a new world, to be studied in new ways.
"I don't understand most of what you all are saying," Huddleston said, rubbing the stubble on his face with his rough bricklayer hands. "But I understand what she said. If it's true, then it's true."
"Well spoken," a voice said. Parris looked around the room to identify the speaker, but all of the Society members were looking up at him. No, not at him— at something behind him. Parris turned around to see Christopher Sinclair. He must have entered by the doors in the back of the nave.
"Come in. Welcome," Parris said. He was surprised, but delighted. Perhaps the exalted governor was finally ready to share his discoveries and submit to the rigor of group opinion.
Sinclair walked around and sat in the pew behind Matthew and Catherine. "Carry on."
Parris waited expectantly, but no one continued the conversation. "Any new presentations?" Parris said, but again, no one volunteered. He looked at Matthew, who shook his head. Nothing new. "Governor?"
Sinclair shrugged.
"No?" He waited a moment more, but Sinclair didn't speak. "That's it, then, I suppose. Meeting over."
CATHERINE watched the Society members file out, feeling irritated. She knew she should respect these older and more educated men, but sometimes their learning just seemed to keep them from accepting what they saw with their own eyes. What did it matter what Aristotle said? If he was right, then fine. But it was ridiculous to cling to what he said if it didn't match reality.
Master Sinclair leaned forward from the pew behind her and said, "I've been studying boarcats."
Catherine didn't turn around. Matthew had gone up front to talk to Father, so for the moment they were alone.
"Does the venerable Society know how boarcats mate?" Master Sinclair said.
Catherine stifled a laugh. "No," she said. "We've never seen it." A boarcat was a yellow brush pig the size of a small dog, but with claws like a tiger. She and Father had seen them frequently, but Father always insisted they keep their distance, since the claws were venomous. One thing they had discovered was that its yellow fur was due to sulfur, though what purpose that could serve they didn't know.
"I'll tell you, then. The male brings an offering to the female. It pulls the meat off a diki with its teeth and presents it to her. If she's pleased with it, she'll mate with him."
Catherine was intrigued. Dikis were fat little flightless birds with plenty of good meat. A child could catch and kill them, but they had poisonous bone ridges concealed in their feather fluff which made eating them next to impossible. "How do they avoid the spines?"
"They don't."
"But . . ."
"They slice their mouths bloody pulling off the meat. Sign their own death warrants. They drag it to the female and then die at her feet."
Catherine turned slightly so she could see his face. "I thought this was a mating behavior."
Sinclair's eyes danced with his secret. "It is. If the female is pleased with the offering, she brings him back from the dead to mate with him."
A long silence followed. Catherine watched the corners of his mouth for some sign that this was a joke.
"Back from the dead," she repeated.
Sinclair nodded once and shrugged. "You know how lethal diki poison is."
"But how . . . ?"
Sinclair shook his head. "That's all I'm willing to say."
She blew out air, annoyed. "Why tell me at all, then?"
"Because I've reproduced it. I brought a male boarcat back from the dead."
She faced forward again, but Father was still deep in conversation with Matthew. Was it possible? Father always talked about finding an answer to death, but she'd never really believed it. Though in some ways it wasn't all that different from what she'd seen the snake do on their parlor floor in London. A walking stick could hardly be said to be alive, and yet the snake's life was stored somewhere and then returned to its living body. "How did you do it?" she said.
"I'm not going to tell you. It's more complex than you even dream. But not only does it work, it's not limited." Sinclair dropped his voice dramatically. "I can bring back anything. Anyone."
Catherine's heart thudded in her chest, so hard it was difficult to speak. "You've brought back . . . ?"
"Not humans. Not yet. I don't know how much harder that will be. But it's possible. It will be done."
Every inch of her body tingled with the thrill of what he was saying, but she was wary. If what he was saying was true, why didn't he announce it at the meeting? "Why are you telling me?"
"Because you're the only one in this room with any sense," Sinclair said. "Your father gets it sometimes, but he's still too mired in old ways of thinking. You're too young and bright to waste your time with these amateurs."
"What do you want?"
"Your help. I want to try to bring back a human, and it's more than I can accomplish on my own. Will you help me?"
Her cheeks felt hot, and she covered them with her hands, hoping Matthew and Father didn't look her way.
"To night," Sinclair said. "My house."
She heard him standing up. "Wait," she said. "Is it dangerous?"
"Yes," he said. "If that stops you, you're not the girl I thought you were."
Chapter Twenty-three
CATHERINE sat in the shade of the palisade, watching Matthew use a thin saw to cut a beetlewood board precisely into one half of a dovetail joint. For a bishop's son, he'd grown remarkably good at woodworking. Since his first, poorly constructed bell- boxes, he'd watched the carpenters and asked them questions until he could copy many of their techniques.
"What was Master Sinclair saying to you?" Matthew said.
"Nothing of importance."
"Liar. I saw your face. He told you something."
"He wanted me to help him with an experiment."
"Really? Why you?"
She was annoyed. "Why not me? Just because everyone treats you like a demigod doesn't mean you're the only one who can be useful."
"I know what he's doing. He's trying to raise someone from the dead."
Catherine gaped at him. "How—"
"It's what he's been after all along,
isn't it? He's not a man to waste time."
"You're just sullen because he didn't ask you."
Matthew blew the joint clear of sawdust. "Who says he didn't? You didn't say yes, did you?"
"What if I did? You're not my father."
"I know what your father would say if he knew."
"He won't know."
"Listen. Sinclair is using you. He doesn't care about you or anyone else. He flattered you and invited you secretly because he wants you to do something dangerous."
"I don't care. And don't you dare tell my father."
"He could get you killed."
"Or he could do the most amazing thing anyone's ever done! Aren't you at least a little excited? That it might be possible? He says he already brought an animal back. What if he really raises a person from the dead?"
Matthew shook his head. "It's not possible."
"Who says so?"
"My father does. I do. There's a big difference between an animal and a human being. A human being has a soul. You can't bring that back once it's gone."
"What about Lazarus? He had a soul."
"Of course. God can bring someone back, soul and all. But people can't do it."
"How do you know? Just because your father says it, that makes it so?"
"Don't mock my father."
"I'm not. I'm mocking you."
Matthew flushed. "You think there won't be consequences if he tries to turn back death? It's a spiritual problem, not a physical one."
"Then it shouldn't hurt to try."
Matthew fitted the wood he'd been working on into another piece, completing the third side of a box. "What if he does bring a man back, but the man has no soul? What would that be like?"
"What if he succeeds? Think, Matthew! What if, after someone died, we could bring them back again?" It irritated her that he kept working on his box instead of making eye contact. She looked a little closer. "What are you making, anyway?"
"A box."
"It's too big if you just want to trap a beetle."
"True."
She tried to think of what other creature would be the right size. "I give up."
"It's to trap a void."
She raised her eyebrows.
"It's about time we tried it," he said, defensive. "We can't stay ignorant forever."
"And you're lecturing me about risk?"
"We think the beetlewood might contain it. Since the creatures that pass through solids probably do so by sliding atoms around each other through the void, and since beetlewood stops them from doing it, it stands to reason—"
"Who is 'we'? You and Sinclair?"
Matthew had the grace to look abashed. "It was his idea. He suggested it to me as a line of research."
"Let me understand. Sinclair wants you to study probably the most dangerous thing we've encountered so far, something that even terrified him by my father's account. And you think he's using me?"
"It's not reckless. He's planning a trip to the Edge. We'll test it there, just in case, so we can hurl it over if it grows too large."
"What if you can't?"
"There's always some risk. We all risked our lives just to come here. I think we're taking responsible precautions."
"I see. It's perfectly understandable for him to consult you. But if it's me he includes in a project . . ." Her eyes stung, and she was embarrassed to feel them welling up with tears. "You're all the same."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing, Dr. Marcheford, sir. I'll just sit and learn at your feet." She brushed the tears away. "When did you get so exalted?"
"You asked me what I'm making, and I told you. I wasn't bragging about it."
She could have screamed. "I taught you how to think this way. You were only interested in quintessence in the first place because of me."
"I know it. So what?"
"So now you treat me like I'm not bright enough to understand it."
"I never said that."
"But you think it. Everybody does. They pat me on the head and expect me to embroider. You, they worship."
"That's not true."
"It is."
"You have to give them a chance to get used to you. You're different. People don't expect important thinking from . . ."
"From a woman?"
He shrugged.
"Sinclair doesn't belittle me," she said. "If the Society really values everyone's input, like they say, why does Sinclair appreciate me more than they do?"
"Don't do it, Catherine. You don't want to play with life and death."
"I don't? Why not? Because you say so?"
"What if he succeeds, as you say? Do you really want someone to have power over who stays dead and who comes back to life? The whole world would go to war for that power. Even if it is possible, we're better off without it."
"My brother isn't better off without it."
"Your brother is with God. He is better off ."
Catherine felt the blood rush to her face. Matthew did it; her father did it; all the men in the Society did it. They made pronouncements. Do this. Don't do that. This is the way things are. They thought themselves so open to new ideas, but in some ways they were as blind and prejudiced as the inquisitors they'd left England to escape.
Only one person had never treated her that way, not from the first time she'd seen him showing magic tricks in an English parlor. Only they hadn't been tricks at all. They were real.
"If it's so much better to be dead," she said, "why don't you throw yourself off the Edge and be done with it?"
SINCLAIR'S house was the largest in the settlement, though only he and Maasha Kaatra lived there. He referred to it as the governor's mansion, but Catherine thought that was more to remind everyone that he was governor than because he anticipated passing it down to future officeholders. It was set on a small hump of land, making it higher than all the buildings in the colony but the church.
Less than half of the mansion was devoted to living quarters; the rest was for his laboratory. All his alchemical supplies from the ship had been moved here, and he insisted that any new animal or plant discovered by anyone be brought first to him. It infuriated Father. Things sometimes disappeared into Sinclair's mansion before anyone else had been permitted to examine them.
But Catherine was going inside. She would see all the things Sinclair had been hiding and report back to the Society. Father would forgive her. Eventually.
The front door was made of thick beetlewood and fastened with an elaborate series of locks and chains. Sinclair beckoned her through, then closed it and slid home a heavy bolt.
At the sound of the bolt, a shiver of foreboding slid through her, but she shook it off . Sinclair had no reason to hurt her. This was her chance to contribute to something on her own, out of Father and Matthew's shadows. They never let her handle venomous animals or get near caustic fluids, never mind how much they did so themselves. They treated her as if she were fragile, when she'd shown time and again how strong she could be. Well, this time they could be the ones standing in the back and taking notes.
Sinclair led her through the parlor and down a hallway to a doorway in the back that led to his laboratory. Maasha Kaatra stood there, waiting for them, and followed them into the room. She heard chatterings and growls and other, less recognizable sounds before she even entered the room, but when she passed the threshold, the sounds increased tenfold. Beasts of all color and shape leaped or fluttered or shook the bars of their cages, which were lined up on tables and sitting on the floor. A tiny bird, smaller than a mouse, made an incredible screeching racket by scraping its claws on its silver beak, while a striped toad belched sooty smoke as if it had swallowed an oil lamp. Catherine gaped at them, astonished. Most of them she recognized, but she had no idea Sinclair was keeping such a bestiary. What was he doing with them all? How could he possibly study them all by himself? About once a week, Matthew came out with a new invention that somehow improved the lives of the settlers, and other inter
ested dabblers had made discoveries, too. Sinclair had produced nothing. At least nothing he'd seen fit to share.
Sinclair walked straight through the room, ignoring the animals. From a shelf in a dark corner, he lifted a wooden box. On the far side of the room stood another door, this one banded with iron and a heavier lock. The iron wouldn't keep out a tamarin; this door was meant to exclude other humans. He reached under his doublet and pulled a delicate and complex key from around his neck. He fitted it into the lock and rotated it three times. The door swung open.
