Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [38]
“Jafri Biasiolo, alias Rappaccini, in 2381,” Hal said.
He pressed more keys, and another image appeared in the center of the screen.
This one showed two men side by side, apparently posing for the camera. One of them was clearly the same man whose image was on the left of the screen.
“Isn’t that…?” Charlotte began as she recognized the other.
“I fear that it is,” said Wilde regretfully. “I looked a lot older then, of course. The photograph was taken in 2405,1 believe, at the Sydney exhibition.” “It was 2405,” agreed Hal. At the command of his fingers a third picture appeared, again showing Biasiolo alone. This time, Charlotte realized why Hal had taken the trouble to display them.
“This is 2430,” Hal said. “Rappaccini’s last personal appearance in the corridors of his own organization.” There was hardly any difference between the three images of Jafri Biasiolo. The man had evidently not undergone a full rejuvenation between 2381 and 2430, although he must surely have employed conventional methods of light cosmetic reconstruction to maintain the appearance of dignified middle age.
“If he really was born in 2323 he seems to have delayed rejuvenation far longer than was usual,” said Lowenthal pensively.
“He must have had a comprehensive rejuve very soon after the last picture was taken,” Hal agreed. “He probably came out with a very different appearance as well as a new name—but now we know the approximate date, I can set a silver to trawl all the records.” “On the other hand,” Lowenthal suggested, “he could have used purely cosmetic somatic engineering to appear older than he actually was in 2381.” “If he was actually born considerably later than 2323 he might have falsely assumed the identity of Jafri Biasiolo,” Hal conceded. “It’s possible that he always maintained a second identity alongside his manifestations as Rappaccini and merely reverted in 2430 to being the person he’s really been all along. It’s a pity that picture-search programs are so unreliable—very messy data. That’s why it’s proving so difficult to track the woman who visited Gabriel King’s apartment. There are plenty of cameras on those streets, and the silvers which are interrogating them are state-of-the-art, but a little old-fashioned paint and powder and a wig can cause a great deal of confusion when half the people on the street have modified themselves to fit a currently fashionable ideal. We’re checking all the passengers who took the maglev to San Francisco during the twenty-four hours after she left the apartment, of course.” There was another beep. Charlotte knew immediately, by virtue of the expression of relief that formed on Hal’s face, that it was Regina Chai’s forensic report.
Hal immediately began printing out a gentemplate, presumably that of the flowers which had consumed Gabriel King’s flesh, but he didn’t watch its emergence from the printer’s mouth. His fingers were dancing with what seemed to Charlotte to be impossible rapidity, and he was watching a virtual display whose detail she could not make out at all.
“We’ve got a good DNA print of the woman from the bedsheet detritus,” he said eventually, sounding far less enthusiastic than he should have. “Unfortunately, we can’t get a match with the print of any living person. Ordinarily, that would imply that she must be much older than she seems—” “But in this case,” said Oscar Wilde, “it might mean that I was wrong to suggest that it would be impossible to raise a child in absolute seclusion in today’s world.” “What do you mean by ordinarily?” Charlotte asked Hal, judging from his expression that he had not even considered Wilde’s caveat.
Hal glanced at Michael Lowenthal before replying. “Regina says that the woman’s DNA trace also shows evidence of some rather idiosyncratic somatic engineering.
It’s possible that the tissues which left the traces on King’s bedsheets have been deliberately modified to obscure the print—to make sure that it wouldn’t match the woman’s natal record. We’re conducting a more detailed search for near matches, but