Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (349 page)

That done, he returned his radio to its clip at his belt.

“Right!” he barked. “Let’s go!”

THE TOWER OF STRENGTH

…pharmacy was typical of its kind: long dark wooden counters with many drawers below; more drawers in the cabinets that lined the walls, holding leaves, roots, stalks, flowers, seeds, bark, fungi; organs from animals, birds, reptiles, fish; dried blood, musk, gall, even dung, especially from birds; at intervals, work-stations where the staff weighed out these and other substances on shiny new electronic scales, then comminuted them in electric grinders—to the annoyance of many of the customers who thronged the premises, for they were as conservative as their devotion to traditional medicine indicated, and felt that some subtle essence might be lost from a drug if it were not pounded with an iron pestle in a marble mortar. But the only pestle and mortar to be seen reposed in the display window, gathering dust alongside a set of old-style balances with wide shallow pans of tarnished brass.

One thing, however, absolutely had not changed: the smell. From earliest childhood Wang could testify to that. Never the same yet never different, the aroma of a pharmacy was unique.

And it seemed to make people more than usually discourteous and pushful—or perhaps that stemmed from the anxiety due to being ill, or having someone ill in the family. Under most circumstances the citizens of Guangzhou retained some of their ancient respect for authority, and would move aside at the sight of a police uniform, but in here he could scarcely take two steps together.

Eventually he worked his way to the nearer of the two cash desks, whose occupant seemed harassed enough to be the manager or even the owner. This was one place where the wind of progress had not yet stirred the dust; his fingers were flickering across an abacus.

Leaning forward, Wang said sharply, “They told me at the university that I could find Dr. Soo Long here.”

The manager, if such he were, looked as though he had bitten a sour fruit. He gave an inexact jerk of his head: Over there! Wang glanced around, but saw nothing bar customers, staff, and a closed door.

“Where—?” he began. The other sighed.

“In the stock-room, being a nuisance as usual.”

“Through that door?”

“Yes!” And back to counting, calculating, making change.

* * * *

A senior clerk was supervising a junior one as they unpacked a box containing several jars and packets. They tensed as Wang entered, as though the box might contain something illegal, but if so it was none of his business, today at any rate. He stared around. Obviously this room’s primary use was for checking and dividing up incoming supplies before transfer to the shop. At any rate the only other person visible—visible in the sense of giving a recognizable human shape to clothing, but in fact concealed head to toe by a green coverall and a black hood—was carrying out some kind of test on some kind of sample, using a machine that printed out density graphs on scaled paper.

“I’m looking for Dr. Soo Long,” Wang announced. The third person turned, removing the black hood.

“I’m Sue Long. What do you want?”

The words were in good Cantonese, albeit with a Hong Kong accent. But the face was wrong—thin and pale under near-white hair cut very short—and so of course was the sex. For a long moment Wang could only stare.

“Well?” Dr. Long said impatiently. Wang recovered himself and fumbled in a pouch that hung at his belt.

“Uh … Sorry to bother you, Dr. Long, but—uh—your department at the university said I could find you here. It’s about this.”

He held out one of the partly gnawed fruits they had recovered from the marten’s hamper.

The machine at Dr. Long’s side uttered a beep and spilled ten extra centimeters of paper tape, unmarked; the end of a run. Excusing herself, she extracted a sample of what looked like tree-bark—there was a strong whiff of industrial solvent—sealed it in an envelope and clipped it to the paper tape before accepting the fruit. For a moment she didn’t seem to know what to make of it: then the light dawned.

“Whose teeth? Some sort of cat—? No, that’s not a feline dentition. What?”

“A marten.”

“Really!” She raised the fruit to her nose and gave a cautious sniff. “That’s a peculiar odor for a fruit, isn’t it? But I guess it would have to be, to tempt a carnivore like a marten.”

Wang felt a stir of relief at not having to explain why she ought to be interested. “You don’t recognize it, then?” he ventured.

“No, I’ve never run across anything similar. How did you come by it?” She was turning it over in her hands—which, he suddenly noticed, were gloved.

He recounted the morning’s events. With every moment of the narrative she grew tenser. At the end she burst out, “Where did you say this peasant hails from, this Lin?”

He repeated the address on the man’s greasy ID papers.

“Is that so!” She whistled astonishment, by Chinese standards a most unwomanly act. But Wang had already begun to suspect that he was dealing with a person who didn’t fit pigeonholes. “Well!” she added after a moment. “I guess I’d better pay your inspector a visit.”

“Your work—?”

“Some of it’s waited thousands of years. Another day or two won’t hurt.”

She was peeling off her gloves as she spoke. Noticing his eyes on them, she explained, “To make sure cells from my skin don’t contaminate the specimens. This too, of course”—meaning the coverall which she now also discarded, revealing an open-necked shirt and denim shorts appropriate for the end-of-summer weather if not for the starchier citizens of Guangzhou. With brisk, practiced motions she disconnected her machine, which folded, gathered up her day’s findings, stowed the lot in a satchel and headed for a rear door.

“You don’t need to tell the boss—?”

“He’s not my boss, praise be! This way!”

In an alley beyond the door, chained to an iron grille, stood a Kawasaki motorcycle. From the satchel she drew a crash-helmet made of unilatrium, deformable in two dimensions but rigid in the third. She didn’t have a spare for Wang, but the traffic police were unlikely to challenge a fellow officer. Bestriding the machine, thumb poised over the starter, she interrupted herself.

“You do have more of those fruits?”

“Yes, the old man had a few left. He seems to have survived the whole trip on them. Plus rice and tea, of course.”

He hesitated. Mistaking his reaction, Dr. Long said, “If you don’t fancy riding with me—”

“No, no! That’s quite all right.” He had to lick dry lips nonetheless; the prospect of being a passenger on any motorbike in Guangzhou traffic would have been daunting. “No, I was just wondering about something.” He settled himself gingerly on the pillion.

“What?”

“Why you—uh—whistled when you were told where Lin comes from.”

They were under way with impressive smoothness. Also quietness; they needed to raise their voices mostly because of the traffic.

“Where’s the likeliest place in all of China to find an unknown fruit?”

Light dawned. “Green Phoenix Forest?”

“Where else?”

* * * *

For a while she concentrated on driving while he pondered the implications. Then, while they were stopped at a red light, he ventured, “If you don’t mind my asking, why did the university send me looking for you when I told them what we’d found?”

“Didn’t they explain about my work?”

“No, I was expecting to meet some sort of specialist or consultant acting as an advisor to the pharmacy.”

“That’s not my line.” The light changed; they hummed on, but only as far as the next. Walking would barely have been slower. “You know we’re wiping out one species after another—plants, animals, insects?”

“Yes, of course. Aren’t some of them supposed to be a terrible loss because they could have given us new drugs and even new types of food?”

“They’re a terrible loss in any case, but you’ve got the idea. Well, using a technique I developed jointly with colleagues in America, I’m trying to recover the DNA, the germ-plasm, of plants so rare they may already be extinct. Obviously, the likeliest place to find them is a pharmacy like the Tower of Strength. They don’t like me delving around in their expensive stock, but if there’s the slightest chance we may catch a vanishing species before it’s gone forever.… And whenever I get an opportunity—though this is mainly for my own interest—I also look for DNA in dragon-bones.”

Those were an ingredient in many expensive traditional medicines: dinosaur bones occasionally, typically those of more ordinary animals inscribed with questions in ancient times, prior to divination and the casting of lots to foretell the future. Wang assumed she was referring more to the former.

“Most people say it’s futile,” she added. “But you never know.”

* * * *

Within five minutes of entering the police station Wang found out why the university had recommended calling in Dr. Long. She raked Lin with questions like a salvo of guided missiles, each striking to the heart of a new subject. She lost a few minutes being sidetracked by what Wang had half-grasped at the station: Lin’s excuse was his wife’s illness. What it might be was unclear—some form of cancer, possibly. However, since the lady wasn’t here it seemed pointless to pursue the matter. Dr. Long was in any case far more interested in this curious fruit that appealed even to martens.

“And foxes, and cats, and dogs, and stoats and weasels!” Lin insisted, in hopes maybe of mitigating his inevitable punishment. A young man from the city zoo had turned up to claim the marten just before Dr. Long and Wang arrived, and was impatiently waiting for permission to remove it thither and go home.

“And humans,” Wang said dryly. Dr. Long glanced at him.

“Yes,” she said in an indecipherable tone. “And humans…Tell me please”—to the young man from the zoo—”is this animal healthy?”

A shrug. “So far as I can tell without a full examination. It seems a bit lethargic, but that may just be because its belly is full.”

“Yes.” Dr. Long pondered, tapping one of her large white front teeth with a fingernail. “Keep it under observation for the time being,” she continued at last. “Collect its urine, collect its droppings, above all preserve any vomitus. I want to hear of any unusual behavior the moment it happens. I’ll give you my card.”

Taking umbrage at being ordered about by a woman, and in particular a round-eye, the man from the zoo bridled and would have spoken but for intercepting a glare from Inspector Chen. Dr. Long either did not notice or successfully affected so.

“As to the fruit,” she went on, glancing at the window (why, it was growing dark—where had the day gone?) “I need it at my lab. I want to run a sample through an analyzer, then beam the results to the States and have them checked against a database. If it’s something already known, only I never heard of it, that’ll be great. Otherwise.…”

Inspector Chen cleared his throat. “Otherwise?” he repeated.

“Otherwise, Inspector, we may have an international lawsuit on our hands. It wouldn’t be the first time this country has released to the environment a genetically modified organism without proper safeguards, let alone FAO approval.”

Wang reacted to her choice of words before he could stop himself. “
We
may?”

Dr. Long glanced coolly at him. “I’m Chinese, Mr. Wang. For all that I was born in the States. I married a Chinese, moved here, took his nationality… And stayed on when he ran away. I trust that answers all your obvious questions?”

Wang wished very much he could vanish on a trapeze of clouds, like Monkey.

“Right! Now if you’ll kindly let me have the fruit, I’ll sign a pro-tem receipt. I’ll fax you an official one when I get to the lab, on behalf of the university. Don’t let the old man go, will you?”

“Of course not”—stoutly from Chen. “He’ll be hauled up in court and duly sentenced for—”

“Oh, forget that! He’s far too important to be sent to jail!”

Lin brightened visibly, like the sun emerging from cloud.

“He’s going to help us find the source of the fruit—
first!
”

The sun went in again.

Swinging her satchel with the remaining fruit in it, Dr. Long nodded to the company and headed for the door. Wang spoke up.

“Just a moment! I think I ought to come with you!”

Startled, Chen glanced at his watch. “You should have gone off shift half an hour ago,” he objected. “Though you’re quite right, of course. If this fruit is unique, at least around here—”

“Then if someone were to snatch Dr. Long’s bag,” Wang broke in, “it would be a disaster. I don’t mind escorting her.” (No mention of the real reason he would rather not go home). “To be honest, what she has told me about her work has sparked my interest. I’d like to find out more if she can spare the time.”

Chen hesitated, but saw no way to object. He often commended his subordinates for displaying interest in unusual subjects that might one day prove relevant to police work, and who could say that this would not turn out useful in connection with protected animals and illegal plants? In any case, he was forestalled.

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Wang. I carry a teargas pistol, of course, but it’s not a practical weapon on a motorbike. And you’re absolutely right; it would be a disaster if we lost this fruit.”

“You sound as though…” Chen began.

“As though I’m worried? Yes, Inspector, I am. I’ve lived in this country more than ten years. I’ve specialized in protected species of all kinds, animal and vegetable, terrestrial and aquatic. If there were anything in the literature about a fruit that not only humans but martens can thrive on, I’d know. I think. But I don’t.”