Architects of Emortality (31 page)

“There!” she said, pointing at a dark blur only half-emerged from the dazzling face of the sun. It was descending rapidly toward them, growing hugely as it did so.

The approaching craft was a light aircraft, whose engines were even now switching to the vertical mode so that it could land helicopter-fashion.

Charlotte followed Wilde and Lowenthal as they hurried into the shelter of the building from which they had come, in order to give the machine space to land.

The plane was, of course, pilotless—and the first thing Charlotte saw as she hurried to the passenger cabin was a message displayed on its one and only screen which said: ANY ATTEMPT TO INTERROGATE THE PROGRAMMING OF THIS VEHICLE WILL ACTIVATE A VIRUS THAT WILL DESTROY THE DATA IN QUESTION.

She had expected that and was sufficiently glad to have access to an adequately powerful comcon. For the moment she did not care exactly where the machine might be headed. While Oscar Wilde and Michael Lowenthal climbed in behind her she plugged her beltphone into the comcon and deposited her bubblebugs in the decoder.

As soon as the doors were closed, the plane began to rise into the air.

“Hal,” said Charlotte as soon as the connection was made. “Sorry to be out of touch. Vital data coming in—crazy message from Biasiolo, alias Rappaccini, delivered by sim. It’s conclusive proof of Rappaccini’s involvement. Pick out the face of the fifth victim and identify it for me. Send an urgent warning to Walter Czastka. And tell us what course this damn plane is following, if you can track it from orbit.” Hal Watson acknowledged the incoming information, but paused only briefly before saying: “I’m sure all this is very interesting, but I’ve closed the file on Jafri Biasiolo, alias Rappaccini, alias Gustave Moreau. We’re now concentrating all our efforts on the woman. We assume that she’s a modified clone of Maria Inacio, illegally and secretly created by Biasiolo before his death.” “Death!” Charlotte echoed, dumbfounded by the news. “When? How?” Unfortunately, Hal was busy decanting the data from her bubblebug and didn’t reply immediately. There was a long, frustrating pause. Wilde and Lowenthal were waiting just as raptly as she was.

Charlotte filled in time by looking around the cabin. The airplane was a small one, built to carry a maximum of four passengers. Again, Lowenthal had been left to play odd man out. Behind the second row of seats there was a curtained section, but the curtains were drawn back, allowing her to see the four bunks it contained. That implied that they were in for a long flight—and the plane’s engine seemed distinctly fainthearted. They were traveling no faster than they had on the maglev or the transcontinental superhighway.

“Hal!” she said as soon as her colleague’s image appeared on the inset screen.

“What do you mean, you’ve closed the file? The tape is proof of Rappaccini’s involvement.” “He’s dead, Charlotte,” Hal repeated, calmly emphasizing the crucial word. “He’s been dead all along. I found the new identity he took up after his rejuvenation, with the aid of a much-changed appearance, as soon as I’d cut through the obfuscations in the leases pertaining to the artificial islands in the vicinity of Kauai. Actually, he’d established half a dozen fake identities under various pseudonyms, but the one he appears to have used for everyday purposes is the late Gustave Moreau. As Moreau, Biasiolo leased an islet west of Kauai; he’s been Walter Czastka’s nearest neighbor for the last forty years. He’s spent most of the last quarter century on the islet, never leaving it for more than three or four weeks at a time. According to the official records, he was alone there, but we now presume that he was taking advantage of the quarantine gifted to all Creationists in order to bring up his mother’s clone. All of this was carefully obscured, of course, but it was just a matter of digging down. We’ve touched bottom now—everything’s in place except the location and arrest of the woman.” “The late Gustave Moreau,” Charlotte repeated, glancing sideways at Oscar Wilde.

It had been Wilde, she remembered, who had said that the Moreau name was just part of a series of jokes, not worth taking seriously—but that was before they had seen the “play” whose stage set was based on a painting by the original Gustave Moreau. Was it possible, she wondered, that Biasiolo/Rappaccini/Moreau had gone out of his way to involve Wilde in this comedy simply because he, like Wilde, had taken the name of a nineteenth-century artist fascinated by the legend of Salome? “That’s right,” Hal replied patiently. “Gustave Moreau, alias Rappaccini, alias Jafri Biasiolo, died six weeks ago in Honolulu. The precise details of his conception might be lost in the mists of obscurity, but every detail of his death was scrupulously recorded before the body was released. According to the boatmaster who handled Moreau’s supplies, the corpse was shipped back to the islet—where the mysterious foster daughter presumably took delivery of it.

There’s no doubt that the dead man was Biasiolo; I’d have found the DNA match if I’d only thought to check Biasiolo’s record against the register of the dead as well as the living. It was the same error of omission I initially made with the woman’s DNA, delaying her identification as an Inacio clone.” “The comcon links to Moreau’s island haven’t been closed down, but there’s no one answering at present. The boatmaster says that he’s been shipping equipment and bales of collapsed LSP from the islet to Kauai for over a year, every time he’s made a supply drop. According to him, there’s virtually nothing left on the islet except for the ecosystem which Moreau built—and, presumably, his grave.

The UN will send a team in to examine and record the ecosystem. Under normal circumstances it would probably take three months or so to put the people together and another three before they finished the job, but in view of the biohazard aspect of the case I’ve put Regina Chai in charge and I’ve asked her to make all possible speed. She and her team will be there before the end of the week.” “But Biasiolo’s still responsible for all this, isn’t he?” Charlotte protested, again glancing sideways at Oscar Wilde. Wilde was staring upward with an expression of annoyance on his face which strongly implied that he was mentally kicking himself for failing to deduce that it was Rappaccini’s death which had determined the timing of this remarkable posthumous crime. “He must have set it all up before he died. The woman is obviously implicated, but what we just saw in that cellar must have been put in place years ago—and it must have taken years to build up, if what you say about Biasiolo never leaving the islet for more than a month at a time is true.” “Agreed,” said Hal. “But we can’t charge a dead man. She’s the one we want—the one we need. The evening news broke the full story of the sequence of murders—the story so far, at any rate. I don’t know how much the MegaMall will hold back, but now that they know for sure that this isn’t aimed at them, however obliquely, I suspect they’ll just sit back and enjoy the show along with everybody else. The news tapes haven’t identified the killer, of course, but they know what’s going on. By now there’ll be a whole swarm of hoverflies heading for Kauai and Biasiolo’s island.” Charlotte turned to look at Michael Lowenthal, who did indeed have the air of a man who had decided to sit back, even if the remainder of the show afforded him little enjoyment. His face was a picture of misery—presumably because even he had now been forced to accept that Walter Czastka was not the guilty party.

Given that the assassination of Gabriel King had not been aimed at the MegaMall he must now be regretting that he had ever become involved in the investigation at all.

“You haven’t picked her up yet,” Charlotte said, slowly realizing that it wasn’t over yet. “You don’t even know where she is.” “We think we know where she’s going,” Hal replied. “She’s headed for Walter Czastka’s island.” “Not directly!” Charlotte said, her voice suddenly insistent. “Look at the tape, Hal! There’s a fifth intended victim—one she’s set out to hit before she gets to Czastka. His face is on the tape!” “If the tape has any significance,” Hal replied with reflexive skepticism. “It looks to me like a shoddy version of the dance of the seven veils!” He obviously had it set up on one of his screens, and he was playing it through.

Charlotte didn’t bother to congratulate him on his perspicacity. “Fast-forward to the severed head!” she said urgently. “Track the changes!” “I don’t think he’ll be able to reach her before we do,” Oscar Wilde said softly. “As slow as this glorified giant hoverfly is, I suspect that we’ve been given the fastest available track to the climax of the psychodrama. That’s the way it’s been planned, at any rate. Whoever the fifth man is, he’s probably already dead—perhaps for some time. I understand now why the simulacrum said that we might have difficulty identifying the true name among the false, for reasons which I would understand. He must have thought of Moreau as his true name, by then—but he knew that the coincidence would make me assume that it was a mere pseudonym. There must be more hints hidden in the tape. I must talk to Walter again, if I can only get through.” “The fifth face is Stuart McCandless,” said Hal suddenly. “We already had him in the frame as a possible victim. We’ve spoken to him once and shown him pictures of the woman, so he’s been warned already. I’m trying to get through to him again now—his house AI says that he’s out walking. It’s sent out a summoner. Oh, and your plane’s heading is a few degrees south of due west—dead on course for Kauai.” This, at least, was one datum of which Charlotte was already aware; the blood red sun was slipping inexorably toward the horizon almost dead ahead of them, and its last rays would soon be teasing the surface of the ocean.

“I’ll try to get through to McCandless again,” Hal said. “I’ll alert the local police as well—and I’ll picture-search everyone who’s arrived on the island since our busy murderess left San Francisco.” Charlotte’s fingers were still resting on the rim of the keyboard, claiming it for her own, but Oscar Wilde put his hand on top of hers, gently insistent “I have to call Walter,” he said. “Hal will take care of McCandless.” Charlotte let Wilde take control of the comcon, although she felt, uncomfortably, that she should not be allowing her authority to slip away so easily. She, after all, was still the investigating officer. Oscar Wilde was only a witness. She no longer thought he was a murderer, but that didn’t affect the fact that he was the one who should only be along for the ride, if he had any entitlement to be here at all.

Wilde’s call was fielded by a sim, which looked considerably healthier than the real Walter Czastka.

“This is Oscar Wilde,” said the geneticist. “I need to talk to Walter. It’s extremely urgent.” “I’m not taking any calls at present,” said the simulacrum flatly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Walter,” said Wilde impatiently. “I know you’re listening in. I know that the police have told you exactly what’s going on, even if you haven’t had the courtesy to acknowledge it. This is no time to go into a sulk.

We have to talk.” The sim flickered, and its image was replaced by Czastka’s actual face. “What do you want, Oscar?” he said, his voice taut with aggravation. “This is nothing to do with you.” “I’m afraid that you’re a player in this game whether you like it or not, Walter,” Wilde said soothingly. “I know it’s a nuisance, but we really do have to try to figure out why your natural son and next-door neighbor intends to kill you.” “I’m not in any danger and I don’t need protection,” said Walter in a monotone that was as replete with stubbornness as it was with weariness. “There’s no one else on the island, and no one has been here. No one can land here without the house systems knowing about it. I can seal all the doors and windows if I need to. I’m perfectly safe and I don’t need any assistance. I never heard of anyone called Jafri Biasiolo and I never had the slightest suspicion that I had fathered a child, let alone the lunatic on the next island over. I can’t think of any reason why he or anyone else should want to murder me.” It sounded to Charlotte like a rehearsed speech—one that he had probably recited more than once to the UN police. It also sounded to Charlotte like a pack of lies: a refusal to cooperate, or even to acknowledge the problem, whose pigheadedness would not have been out of place in the fake personality of a low-grade sloth.

“I don’t think Rappaccini’s motive is conventional, Walter,” said Wilde, “but the six intended victims of his murderous sequence certainly weren’t chosen at random. There must be some kind of connection linking you to King, Urashima, Kwiatek, Teidemann, and McCandless, and it must be something that happened when you were all at Wollongong. It must have to do with the circumstances in which you fathered a child with Maria Inacio.” Charlotte noted that Walter Czastka looked astonishingly pale. His eyes were unblinking, his features set firm.

“As I told your friends, Oscar,” Czastka said in a voice devoid of all emotion, “I don’t remember. Nobody remembers what they were doing a hundred and seventy years ago. Nobody. I have no memory of ever having met Maria Inacio. None.” Lies, thought Charlotte. He knows everything—but he’s determined not to let us in on the secret. It won’t work. Everything will come out, and everyone will know. Now that Rappaccini has recruited the vidveg as well as Wilde, everyone will be interested. That’s what Rappaccini intended.

“I’m not sure that I can believe that, Walter,” said Wilde, treading very softly indeed. “We forget almost everything, but we can always remember the things which matter most, if we try hard enough. This is something which matters, Walter. It matters now, and it mattered then. Are you certain that you don’t know the woman whose picture they showed you—the Inacio clone? The others all seemed to know her—perhaps you’ve met her too? She seems to have been born and raised on the island next to yours—perhaps you met her in Kauai.” “I can’t.” The word was delivered with such sudden bitterness and flaring anguish that Charlotte flinched.