Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [45]
Charlotte kept all the usual intimate technology at home, and her sexual desires were nowadays mostly served within that context, but she had found that there was a certain frisson which she could only gain from eye contact with actual human beings. She did not consider herself a slave to fashion and did not care at all whether real partners were in or out just now. She had not the slightest interest in joining an aggregate household, because she could not bear the thought of sacrificing all the joyous luxuries of solitude, so she was reasonably well accustomed to the tactics of forming occasional temporary liaisons. She could not help considering such a possibility while she bathed in the slight thrill of lust awakened by Wilde’s perfect features, even though she was more than half-convinced that he was a murderer whose present occupation was trying to make a fool of her.
“Can you make, an antidote?” said Michael Lowenthal suddenly, as he finally finished spooning broccoli from the serving dish to his plate.
The question obviously shifted Wilde’s train of thought onto a new track, and for a moment or two he looked puzzled. Then he said: “Oh, of course! You mean a generic antidote—one that could be used to protect anyone and everyone against the possibility of encountering an amaranth tailored to consume his own flesh.
Yes, Mr. Lowenthal, I could—and so could any halfway competent doctor now that we have the fundamental Celosia gentemplate. A problem would arise if another natural species had been used as a starting point for a similar weapon, but given the complexity of the project that seems unlikely. One would, of course, have to be able to identify the individuals who might require such protection, unless one were to administer the antidote to the whole population.” Not if you were only concerned with defending a small minority, Charlotte thought. As long as the Knights of the Round Table could be protected, and the Gods made safe in their Olympian retreat, the rest of us could take our own risks. She knew as she formed the thought, however, that the judgment was unfair. What the proprietors of the MegaMall would actually be enthusiastic to do would be to put the antidote on the market as soon as their faithful newscasters had wound public alarm up to its highest pitch. She even found time to wonder whether it was conceivable that the MegaMall might commission the murder of a high-profile target in order to stimulate the market for a product that might otherwise seem unnecessarily expensive—but she dismissed the idea as a monstrous absurdity.
“You met the man who posed as Rappaccini more than once,” Charlotte said, trying to return her wandering mind to more fruitful areas of conjecture. “Did he seem to you then to be a madman—a potential murderer?” “I must confess that I rather liked him,” Wilde replied. “He had an admirable hauteur, as if he considered himself a more profound person than most of the exhibitors at the Great Exhibition, but he did not strike me as a violent or vengeful person. I dined with him several times, usually in the presence of others, and I found him to be a man of civilized taste and conversation. He appeared to like me, and we shared a taste for antiquity—particularly the nineteenth century, to which we were both linked by our names. Memory is such a feeble instrument that I really cannot remember in any detail what we discussed, but I may have some recordings in my private archives. It would be interesting, would it not, to know whether we talked about nineteenth-century literature in general, and Baudelaire in particular?” “We’ll need access to those archives,” said Charlotte.
“You are more than welcome,” Wilde assured her. “I’m sure that you’ll find them absolutely fascinating.” “A silver would do the actual scanning, of course,” she added, blushing with embarrassment over the reflex that had caused her to state the obvious.
“How sad,” Wilde replied teasingly. “Artificial