Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [46]
“I am trying, but it was a long time ago, and our memories were not shaped by evolution to sustain themselves over a life span of a hundred and thirty years.
I have preserved my mental capacity far better than some of my peers—but not, it seems, as well as Rappaccini.” Charlotte’s beltphone buzzed and she picked up the handset. “Yes, Hal,” she said.
“Just thought you’d like to know,” he said. “Walter Czastka called in. He’s alive and well. I sent him the data Wilde’s been looking over, so we should have a second take on that by morning. We have a highly probable link between the suspect and a passenger who boarded a maglev two hours after she left the Trebizond Tower. Her ticket was booked in the name of Jeanne Duval. The ID’s fake and the account is a cash-fed dummy, but I’ve got a flock of surfers chasing every last detail down. It could be the vital break.” “Thanks,” said Charlotte. Polite discretion had presumably dissuaded Hal from simply reappearing on the table’s screen and interrupting their meal—unless he was using politeness as an excuse for leaving Michael Lowenthal out of the loop for a few minutes. If so, she thought, she had better be careful. Hal would, of course, have to copy Lowenthal’s employers in on the results of his chase—but if it were possible, he would infinitely prefer to catch the quarry first. In a race like this, minutes might make all the difference, and the reputation of the UN police was on the line.
“We reached Walter Czastka,” Charlotte informed Wilde as she picked up her fork again. “He’s alive and well—and he’s double-checking your work.” “You might have made contact with him,” Wilde said waspishly, “but I doubt that anyone has actually reached Walter for half a century or more.” “You don’t seem to like Walter Czastka,” Charlotte observed. “A matter of professional jealousy, perhaps?” Wilde hesitated briefly before responding, but decided to ignore the insulting implication. “I don’t dislike Walter personally” he said carefully. “I will admit, however, to a certain distaste for the idea that we’re two of a kind, equal in our expertise. He’s an able man, in his way, but he’s a hack; he has neither the eye nor the heart of a true artist. While I have aspired to perfection, he has always preferred to be prolific. He will identify the Celosia and will doubtless inform you that it is based on a gentemplate of mine, but he will not be able to see Rappaccini’s handiwork in the final product. I hope that you will not read too much into that omission.” “But Czastka must have artistic ambitions of his own,” Michael Lowenthal observed. “While you’ve been in New York, undergoing a third rejuvenation which most people would consider premature, he’s been laboring away on his private island, patiently building his personal Eden.” “Walter has Creationist ambitions, just as I have,” Wilde admitted, “but that’s not what you’re interested in, is it? You’re exploring the possibility that Walter might be the man behind Gabriel King’s murder, and wondering whether I might be underestimating him. You’re wondering whether he knows what I think of him—and whether, if so, he might have involved me in his criminal masterpiece merely in order to make a fool of me. You’re wondering whether he might have planned this magnificent folly to show the world how absurdly wrong I have been in my estimate of his abilities. I almost wish that it were conceivable, Michael, but it is not. I’ll gladly stake my