Текст книги "Architects of emortality"

Автор книги: Brian Stableford

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“Do you know when he died?” “Yes—it’s all on camera. I suppose we’re lucky that he never made it back to the bedroom. The metamorphosis happened very quickly. It appears that the seeds of that plant devoured him as they grew, transforming his flesh into its own.” “Quite remarkable,” said Oscar Wilde. He said it very lightly, but the understatement must have been carefully calculated. “How did the seeds get into him—or onto him?” “We don’t know. We’re trying to trace his last visitor, of course, but it’s conceivable that the seeds might have been lying dormant in his body for some time.” “Fascinating,” Wilde opined, in a tone which seemed to have more admiration in it than horror.

“Fascinating!” Charlotte echoed in exasperation. “Wouldn’t you say it was a little more than merely fascinating, Dr. Wilde? Can you imagine what an organism like that might do if it ever got loose? We’re looking at something that could wipe out the entire human race.” “Perhaps,” said Wilde calmly, “but I think not. How long ago did he die?” “Between two and three days,” Hal told him, swiftly excluding Charlotte from the conversation yet again.

“He seems to have felt the first symptoms about seventy hours ago; he was incapacitated soon afterward and died a few hours later.” Oscar Wilde licked his full lips, as if to savor his own astonishment. “Those delightful flowers must have a voracious appetite,” he said.

Charlotte eyed him carefully, wondering exactly what his reaction might signify.

“I don’t have to explain to you how serious this matter is, Dr. Wilde,” Hal said. “Quite apart from the fact that the man must have been deliberately infected, the laws regarding the creation of artificial organisms hazardous to human life have clearly been breached. We need your help to find the maker of those flowers. Incidentally, do you happen to recognize the other flowers—the ones in the vase?” “Indeed I do,” the designer replied. “They’re mine—my newest line. I’m rather proud of them; I never suspected that Gabriel had such good taste. You realize, of course, that the flowers which have replaced poor Gabriel’s flesh are similar to mine in that they’re single-sexed flowers from a dioecious species? They’re all female, incapable of producing fertile seed. Our murderer isn’t as reckless as he may seem.” OUR murderer! Charlotte echoed silently. This investigation is becoming ridiculously crowded.

“Could you make plants like those, Dr. Wilde?” Hal asked insouciantly.

Oscar Wilde glanced sideways to meet Charlotte’s inquisitive gaze. She was at least six centimeters shorter than he, but she attempted to look at him as if their stares were perfectly level, trying with all her might to deny him the psychological advantage. He frowned slightly as he appeared to consider the question. Then he said: “It all depends what you mean by ‘like,’ Inspector Watson.” He was still looking at Charlotte.

“Don’t play games with me, Dr. Wilde,” Hal retorted. “Just answer the question.” “I’m sorry,” Wilde said silkily, his eyebrows arching slightly as he invited Charlotte to join him in a conspiracy of sympathy. “I meant no offense. I assume that you’re asking whether I could make a plant which would do what this one has apparently done—grow in the flesh of a human being, utterly consuming everything but the bones. I believe that I could, although I assure you that I never have and never would.” “And how many other people could do it?” Hal wanted to know.

“You’re going too fast, Inspector Watson. I was about to continue by saying that although I—and many other men—could design a plant to do what this one has done, I must confess that I could not have designed this plant. I could not have designed an organism to work with such astonishing speed and such amazing precision. Until I saw this marvel I would have judged that no man could. This is work of a quality that the world has never seen before, and I am eaten up by envy of the genius which produced it.” “You’re saying that you know of no one who could have done this?” Hal said.

Although he was invisible, the impatience in his voice made it obvious that he was skeptical.

“Had you asked me yesterday whether this were possible,” Wilde stated punctiliously, “I would have said no. Clearly, I have underrated one of my peers.” Charlotte stared hard at the uncannily beautiful Oscar Wilde, trying hard to weigh him up. She wondered whether anyone in the world were capable of committing a crime like this and then turning up in person to confront and mock the officers investigating it. It seemed difficult to believe that anyone who looked so young and so perfect could be guilty of anything, but she knew that his apparent youth and apparent perfection were both products of ingenious technology. Wilde was not a man who could be judged by appearances—and those of his appearances that were entirely under his own control announced clearly enough that he was a man who loved artifice and ostentation.

Charlotte decided that if Oscar Wilde could be guilty of the primary madness of planning and committing a crime such as this, the secondary madness of revisiting the scene while it was still under the supervision of investigating officers might easily be within his compass.

“Someone clearly has the required technical expertise to do this, Dr. Wilde,” she said stiffly, to lend unnecessary support to Hal’s patient inquisition.

Oscar Wilde shook his luxuriantly furnished head slowly. He did seem genuinely perplexed, even though the apparent level of his concern for the victim and for the fact that a serious biohazard had been let loose left much to be desired.

“The technical expertise, my dear Charlotte, is only a part of it,” he said. “I might be able to cultivate the relevant technical expertise, were I to attempt such a thing. Perhaps a dozen others might have been able to do it, had they been prepared to put in the time and effort. But what kind of man would devote his energies to such a project for months on end? Who has a reason for doing this kind of work with this degree of intricacy? I confess that I am deeply intrigued by the sheer demonic artistry of the organism.” “I really don’t think that matters of demonic artistry are important here, Dr.

Wilde,” said Charlotte, taking sarcastic advantage of Hal’s continued silence.

“This is murder.” “True,” admitted the green-eyed man. “And yet—a great genetic artist is every bit as distinctive in his work as a great painter. Perhaps we might learn as much from the style of the creation as from its evident purpose. My presence here suggests that some such judgment is required. It seems—does it not?—that the UN Police Department was not alone in requiring my presence as an expert witness.” “What do you mean?” Charlotte asked warily.

“Given that it seems to be impossible that I was summoned here by the victim,” Wilde said, as though it were perfectly obvious, “I can only conclude that I was summoned by the murderer.” As if to provide a dramatic counterpart to this remarkable statement, the tape that was running on the wallscreen was abruptly switched off. Hal Watson’s face reappeared in its stead. “I find that hard to believe, Dr. Wilde,” Hal said, reclaiming the interrogation.

“It is hard to believe,” Wilde agreed. “But when we have eliminated the impossible, are we not committed to believing the improbable? Unless, of course, you think that I did this to poor Gabriel and have come to gloat over his fate?” Charlotte had to look away when he said that, and could only hope that she was not blushing too fiercely.

“I can assure you,” Wilde continued, still looking at Charlotte with arched eyebrows, “that although I disliked the man as heartily as he disliked me, I did not dislike him as much as that– and if I had for some peculiar reason decided to murder him, I certainly would not have revisited the scene of my crime in this reckless fashion. A showman I might be, a madman never.” A posturing ape, Charlotte thought, yet again. “Why should the murderer take the trouble to summon you to the scene of his crime?” she demanded. “We would probably have shown all this material to you anyway, given that Walter Czastka’s in the Hawaiian islands and that I couldn’t get through to him by phone. Why would the murderer send you a message?” “I’m deeply offended by the fact that your first choice of expert witness was Walter Czastka,” Wilde murmured infuriatingly, “but I suppose that I must forgive you. He has, after all, made so much more money than I have.” “Dr. Wilde—,” Hal cut in—and was promptly cut off.

“Yes, of course,” said Oscar Wilde. “This is a very serious matter—a murder investigation and a potential biohazard. I’m sorry. At the risk of annoying you further, I think I might be able to guess why a message was sent in order to summon me here. It seems insane, I know, but I suspect that I might have been brought to identify the person who made those flowers. As to whether or not he is your murderer, I cannot say, but I believe that I know who forged the weapon.” “How do you know?” Charlotte demanded.

“By virtue of his demonic artistry,” Wilde replied. “I hesitate to accuse a man of a serious crime on the basis of a purely aesthetic judgment, but on due reflection, I believe that I do recognize his style.” “That’s ridiculous,” Hal Watson said petulantly. “If the murderer had wanted to identify himself, all he had to do was call us or leave a signed message. How would he know that you would recognize his work—and why, if he knew it, would he want you to do it?” “Those are interesting questions,” admitted Oscar, “to which I have as yet no answers. Nevertheless, I can only suppose that I was sent an invitation to this mysterious event in order that I might play a part in its unraveling. I can see no other possibility—unless, of course, I am mistaken in my judgment, in which case I might have been summoned in order to lay down a false trail. I repeat, however, that I cannot conclusively identify your murderer—merely the maker of his instrument.” “Who?” said Charlotte, more succinctly than she would have preferred.

Oscar Wilde opened his arms wide in a gesture of exaggerated helplessness. “I cannot claim to be absolutely certain,” he said, “but if appearances and my expert judgment are to be trusted, those flowers are the work of the man who has always been known to me by the pseudonym Rappaccini!” The name of Rappaccini was perfectly familiar to Charlotte, as it was to everyone who had ever attended a funeral procession or watched one on TV, but she had always assumed that it was the name of a company rather than an individual. The carriages leading the funeral train she had been watching only a few minutes before would undoubtedly have been decked with produce bearing that name, although the actual flowers would have been the handiwork of subcontractors using mass-produced seeds manufactured according to patented gentemplates. No fashionable funeral—and there were no longer many unfashionable ones within the boundaries of the USNA—could be reckoned complete without flowers by Rappaccini Inc. The name would doubtless have been found on every condolence card attached to every wreath.

Charlotte remembered something Regina Chai had said: “The card that came with the yellow flowers might have given him a clue, if he’d bothered to read it, but he didn’t.” “I fear,” Wilde continued with annoying casualness, “that I never thought to ask Rappaccini’s real name in the days when he used to appear in public. Most members of the Institute of Genetic Art preferred to exhibit their work pseudonymously in those days—a hangover from the era when there were too many people still alive who associated genetic engineers with the weapons employed in the plague wars and the chiasmatic transformers which caused the Crash.” “Is Oscar Wilde a pseudonym?” Hal Watson was quick to ask.

Wilde shook his head. “My name was a jest naively bestowed upon me by my parents. I was happy to use it in those days because it sounded like a pseudonym—a double bluff encouraged by the delight I took in aping the mannerisms of my ancient namesake.” “Perhaps,” Hal said suspiciously, “the message which summoned you here was also a double bluff. Perhaps your identification of the pseudonymous Rappaccini as the person who made the flowers is a double bluff too.” Oscar Wilde shook his head sorrowfully and breathed in deeply, as though to prepare for a huge sigh. “I wish that I could take pride in being a prime suspect,” he said dolefully, “but I really am aware of the serious implications of this matter. Perhaps I should be flattered that you think me to be capable not only of producing these astounding blooms, but also of returning to the scene of my crime in this cavalier manner; I really must not be tempted to take credit for such daring and arrogance, however. It would only hold up your investigation. I can assure you that I have an ironclad alibi for the time of death. Three days ago I was in a small private hospital, and the flesh of my outer tissues was unbecomingly fluid. I had been there for some time, undergoing rejuvenation treatment.” “That doesn’t prove anything,” Charlotte put in. She was beginning to think that this facetious poseur might be capable of almost anything. “You might have made the seeds months ago, and you might have taken great care to make sure that they were delivered—or, at least, that they began to take effect—while you were in the hospital.” “I suppose I might have,” said the man who had programmed his sim to call him the Young Master in anticipation of his reemergence from the hospital, “but I didn’t. If you are determined to ignore my advice there is evidently nothing I can say to change your mind—but I assure you that your investigation will proceed much more smoothly if you forget about me and concentrate on Rappaccini.” Charlotte could not tell whether or not Wilde’s manner was calculated to give an impression of arrogant insincerity. It was, she supposed, just about possible that he conducted himself in this florid fashion all the time. She could not help glancing at Michael Lowenthal, as if to inquire what he thought of all this, but the blond man was content to watch in fascination; he did not even meet her glance.

“If the murderer wished to be identified,” Hal Watson said, “why didn’t he simply leave his own name on the screens in King’s apartment, with an explanation of his motive?” “Why did he not simply shoot Gabriel King with a revolver?” countered the geneticist. “Why has he gone to the effort of designing and making this fabulous plant? There is something very strange going on here, no matter how much you might wish that it were simpler than it seems. We must accept the facts of the matter and do our best to see the significance within them.” Charlotte noticed Michael Lowenthal nodding his head slightly, presumably in mute agreement. She wished, belatedly, that she had had the patience to stand by, as Lowenthal had done, and watch the farce unfold while wearing an expression of keen concentration. Unlike Hal and herself, Lowenthal had not yet contrived to make a fool of himself by dueling verbally with Oscar Wilde.

“Perhaps there is no real significance in the more bizarre facts,” Hal said, stubbornly plugging on. “As you must have realized, Dr. Wilde, we’re obviously dealing with a mad person: a very dangerous mad person. The method of murder may simply be an expression of his—or, of course, her—madness.” “Perhaps we are dealing with a mad person,” Wilde agreed, refusing to respond to the obvious suggestion that he might be the mad person in question, “but if this is madness, it is very methodical madness, and madness with a hint of artistic genius. You must confess that as crimes go, this qualifies as one of the most unusual ever devised—highly original, and executed with great care.” “Dr. Wilde,” said Hal, his voice weary with tried patience, “originality is not an issue here. This was cold-blooded murder, and it has to be treated like any other murder.” “I love that phrase,” said the geneticist teasingly. “Cold-blooded murder. It’s so provocative.” Charlotte stared at him, wondering whether she might indeed be face-to-face with a uniquely dangerous madman—and whether, if so, he might still be a murderously inclined madman. She did not know what to make of the man at all, any more than she knew what to make of the crazy investigation into which he had so casually intruded himself. She knew that she was supposed to leave the real detective work to Hal Watson, but she couldn’t help wrestling with the logic of the affair, trying hard to see some glimmer of sense somewhere within the absurd pattern.

“Hal,” she put in, remembering again what Regina Chai had said. “Wasn’t there a card with the flowers? Have you a still you can put up on the screen?” Hal apparently had sufficient respect for her judgment not to ask her why—although, for once, he was probably glad of the opportunity to let go of the conversation.

* * * The image on the screen flickered, then shifted to a shot in which the camera was zooming in on something which lay on the glass-topped table, propped up against the vase containing the yellow flowers. It was a small cardboard rectangle. It had already been monomol-sealed as a safety measure, but the transparent film did not obscure the words written on the card.

Charlotte’s eyes went directly to the bottom right-hand corner of the card, which bore the legend: Rappaccini Inc.

Perhaps he did leave his name after all, Charlotte marveled. If the flowers in the vase are one of Wilde’s designs, the card might conceivably refer to the others: the ones which consumed Gabriel King. If Wilde’s right, the arrogant swine has actually signed his crime! But what, she quickly wondered, if Wilde were a liar? What if this had been planted purely and simply to back up his story? Her eyes had reflexively moved from the bottom of the card to the top, so that she could read the message of condolence inscribed there. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand the words; the message was not written in English. It read: La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la tésine, Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps, Et nous alimentons nos amiables remords, Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.

“ ‘Stupidity, error, sin, and poverty of spirit,’ ” Oscar Wilde obligingly translated, thoughtfully, “ ‘possess our hearts and work within our bodies, and we nourish our fond remorse as beggars suckle their parasites.’ Hardly an orthodox condolence card—if Rappaccini mass-produces them, I can’t believe that he sells very many.” “Do you recognize the words?” Charlotte asked suspiciously.

“A poem by Charles Baudelaire. ‘Au lecteur’—that is, ‘To the Reader.’ From Les Fleurs du Mal. A play on words, I think.” The camera’s eye had obligingly moved back, to focus once again upon the black flowers which had destroyed Gabriel King. It occurred to Charlotte that Hal must have known about this all along—and in spite of that advantage and all of his experience, he had still allowed Oscar Wilde to rattle him.

“He’s right,” Hal said, as if on cue. “I checked—that’s where the words come from. The book was originally published in eighteen fifty-seven. Dr. Wilde is also an expert of nineteenth-and twentieth-century literature. The condolence card is a fake, though—no such message has ever been commercially released by Rappaccini Inc.” “My expertise does not extend to all of nineteenth-and twentieth-century literature,” said Oscar Wilde modestly. He was wearing a slight frown, as if he had taken offense at the suggestion that his judgment might have been mistaken.

Charlotte wondered how many men there were in the world who could recognize six-hundred-year-old poems written in French. Surely, she thought, Wilde must have made up the card himself. He must be the person behind all this. But if so, what monstrous game was he playing? “What significance do you attach to the poem, Dr. Wilde?” Hal asked, having recovered his most officious manner.

“Assuming that my earlier reasoning was correct, I must suppose that its message is directed to me,” replied the imperturbable and ever ingenious Wilde.

“Rappaccini—if he is indeed the ultimate author of this affair—seems to have made every effort to ensure that I would be a witness to, and perhaps a partner in, your investigation. I must assume that all of this is communication—not merely the card, and the message which summoned me, but the flowers, and the crime itself. The whole affair is to be read, decoded, and understood. I am here because Rappaccini expects me to be able to interpret and comprehend what he is doing. There is more to this, Sergeant Holmes and Inspector Watson, than has yet met our eyes. May I address you as Charlotte and Hal, by the way? If we are to work together in this matter, it will be more convenient—and you, of course, must call me Oscar.” Charlotte tried to remain impassive, but she knew that her amazement must be showing. She was grateful when Michael Lowenthal spoke to Wilde for the first time. “In that case,” he said, “you must call me Michael. It seems that we shall all be working together.” There was a pause before Hal’s voice came back on line. “I’m blocked on Rappaccini for the moment,” he said, evidently having turned away to consult one of his many assistant silvers. “Publicly available information regarding the founder of the company gives his real name as Jafri Biasiolo, but there’s hardly any official data on Biasiolo at all apart from his date of birth, 2323. It’s all old data, of course, and it’s possible that it’s just sketchy disinformation. I’ll have to mount a deep scan into Rappaccini’s more recent activities—especially his business interests—but it looks as if that will involve cutting through some very tangled undergrowth.” Charlotte knew what Hal’s contemptuous reference to “old data” implied. Old data was incomplete data, often corrupted by all kinds of omissions and errors—although she noticed that Hal had said “disinformation,” which meant lies, rather than “misinformation,” which meant mistakes. In Hal’s view, old data was senile and corrupt data, too decrepit and intrinsically unreliable to be of much use in a slick, modern police inquiry. But Gabriel King had been nearly two hundred years old, and Oscar Wilde—in spite of appearances—might well be over a hundred, given that he had just undergone intensive rejuvenation treatment. If the man who had once called himself Rappaccini really had been born in 2323, the motive for this affair might conceivably date back to the mid-twenty-fourth century.

In theory, the Web had been fully formed as early as the beginning of the twenty-first century, but its checkered history was full of holes. In the wake of the epidemic of sterility that had caused the Crash a century afterward many data stores—including many that had come through the plague wars unscathed—had been irredeemably lost and many others fragmented. The losses had been further compounded by data sabotage, which had itself become epidemic as the twenty-second century gave way to the twenty-third, loudly advertised as “youth’s last stand against the empire of the old.” Once it had become clear, in the late twenty-third century, that all the miracles of nanotechnology could not give human minds more than two centuries of effective life, the young had realized that they would, after all, inherit the earth if they would only be patient – but the years spanning the birth dates of Gabriel King and Jafri Biasiolo, 2301 and 2323, remained years of acute data blight in the reckoning of perfectionists like Hal Watson. It was an era in which the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth had rarely been recorded, and whose already inefficient records had been markedly eroded in the interim.

Given that the data on file was so old and so sparse, and quite probably misleading, Charlotte knew that it might be very difficult to find—or even reliably to identify—the founder of Rappaccini Inc. It was, alas, easy enough in the late twenty-fifth century to establish electronic identities whose telescreen appearances could be wholly maintained by silver-level sims. Virtual individuals could play so full a role in modern society that their puppet masters could easily remain anonymous and hidden, at least until they came under the intense scrutiny of a highly skilled Webwalker. Hal had the authority to get through any conventional information wall, and he was clever enough to work his way through any data maze, but if the man behind Rappaccini Inc. had gone into hiding, it would take time to winkle him out.

Charlotte still had a gut feeling which told her that the real author of this crazy psychodrama was right in front of her, taunting her with his excessively lovely presence, but she didn’t dare say so to Hal. Hal Watson was no respecter of gut feelings.

“Have you traced the call which summoned Dr. Wilde here?” Michael Lowenthal asked Hal Watson. Charlotte heard the hesitation in Hal’s voice and knew that natural discretion must be begging him not to lay all his cards on the table where both Lowenthal and Wilde could see them, but he answered the question.

“It was placed some days ago from a blind unit, time-triggered to arrive when it did,” Hal reported reluctantly. “Effectively untraceable, I fear—the ticket too.

My best surfers are working on it, but they haven’t even been able to track the woman to or from the building. I need the DNA analyses before I can take the next step.” The wall unit buzzed as another caller clamored for attention.

“Hold on,” Charlotte said to Hal, thumbing the relevant key. Rex Carnevon’s face appeared on the screen as the image of the apartment blinked out.

“I have tenants, you know,” said the building supervisor rudely. “As long as your quarantine lasts, half of them are trapped inside their apartments and the other half are locked out. Your forensic team drove off thirty minutes ago.

What’s the holdup?” “Please be patient, Mr. Carnevon,” Charlotte said, painfully aware that she was under observation from all sides. “We’re conducting an investigation here.” “I know,” Carnevon retorted. ”What I want to know is when you’re going to conduct it somewhere else.” “We’ll let you know,” Charlotte said brutally, switching back to Hal without further ado.

Hal’s face didn’t reappear. The tape patched together from the apartment’s eyes was playing again. Now there was somebody in the apartment. This section had been recorded several days before. Gabriel King, alive and well, was talking to a young woman.

“Ah,” said Oscar Wilde softly. “Cherchez la femme! Without a mysterious woman, the puzzle would be lacking its most important piece.” Charlotte studied the woman carefully, although her back was turned to the camera. She seemed to be authentically young—perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age—with a profusion of lustrous brown hair that she wore unfashionably long.

When the tape switched to a different eye, Charlotte saw that the woman had clear blue eyes like Michael Lowenthal’s. She also had finely chiseled features—but they had not, of course, been molded in recognition of the same ideal of beauty as Lowenthal’s. Psychobiologists had produced seven supposed female archetypes and seven male ones; whereas the woman’s flesh had been sculpted into a variant of the most commonplace female archetype, Lowenthal had been modeled on one of the less fashionable male ideals.

Even in this day and age, when cosmetic engineers could so easily remold superficial flesh, the exceptional beauty of Gabriel King’s visitor was very evident—but it did not seem to Charlotte to be as striking as the beauty of Michael Lowenthal, or of Oscar Wilde. That, presumably, was a matter of taste and sexual orientation; Hal probably saw things differently.

King and his visitor were speaking to one another, but the sound track had not yet been added to the tape. Charlotte watched as the two of them moved toward the bedroom door, and saw the woman stop the gantzer in his tracks, compelling him to turn and kiss her on the lips before proceeding into the room and closing the door behind them.

The kiss did not seem particularly passionate to Charlotte, but it was definitely tender. It might, she thought, as easily have been a polite greeting between people who had some history of intimacy as a prelude to a first erotic encounter, but it certainly did not have the appearance of a transaction between a prostitute and a client.

The tape ended, and Hal’s face returned to the screen.

“She was inside for about half an hour,” said Hal, presumably addressing Oscar Wilde. “King was still perfectly healthy when she left, and it wasn’t until some twelve or thirteen hours later that he felt sufficient discomfort to call up a diagnostic program. He never had a chance to hit his panic button; the progress of the plant was too swift. The woman might have had nothing to do with it, but she was the last person to see him alive. Do you have any idea who she might be?” “I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen her before,” Wilde answered. “I fear that I can only offer the obvious suggestion.” “Which is?” Hal said.

“Rappaccini’s daughter.” Hal had nothing to say in reply to that, and neither did Charlotte. They simply waited for clarification.

“It’s another echo of the nineteenth century,” said Oscar, with a slight sigh.

“Rappaccini borrowed his pseudonym from a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne entitled ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’ You don’t know the period, I take it?” “Not very well,” Charlotte said awkwardly, when it became obvious that Hal wasn’t about to reply. “Hardly at all” would have been nearer the truth.

“Then it’s as well that I’m here,” the beautiful man said in a manner that surely must be calculated to infuriate. “Otherwise, this exotic performance might be entirely wasted.” The wall unit’s buzzer sounded again.

Charlotte stabbed at it angrily and didn’t give Carnevon the opportunity to open his moudi. “All right!” she snapped, no longer caring whether she was under observation or not. “We’re going. Apart from King’s apartment, everything’s usable—but you’d better remember what I said about leaks, Carnevon, because if any information gets loose from here that might confuse or impede our investigation, I’ll be back.” Then she ripped the plug of her beltphone from the wall and said, “We’d better continue this conversation in the elevator and the car. It would probably be better if we were all back at base when that DNA data begins to come in. Then Hal can get to work on tracing the woman and Dr. Wilde can get to work on the gentemplate of the killer plant—while you and I, Mr. Lowenthal, can rest our weary feet. With luck, we’ll have the killer in custody in time to make the Breakfast News.” “I fear, dear Charlotte,” murmured Oscar Wilde as they all moved toward the open elevator car, “that this might be the kind of case in which luck will not be of much assistance.”