the link between Czastka and Biasiolo, they immediately compared Walter Czastka’s DNA profile with the record Regina Chai obtained from Gabriel King’s bedroom. The overlap’s no better than random. Consanguinity zero!” “But how can that be?” Charlotte complained. “If Czastka and Biasiolo are close relatives, and the woman is Biasiolo’s daughter…” “She’s not!” Lowenthal was quick to say triumphantly. “The only way that Czastka and the woman could each have fifty percent of Biasiolo’s genes without being significantly consanguineous themselves is by being his parents. She’s not Rappaccini’s daughter at all: she’s his mother!—and Walter Czastka’s his father!” “Congratulations,” said Oscar Wilde dryly. “You seem to have found me guilty of an illegitimate inference—and you doubtless feel that if one of my inferences is defective, the rest might be equally mistaken. But you seem to be overlooking the true significance of the finding—” “Wait a second,” Charlotte interrupted. “This doesn’t make sense. It’s perfectly plausible that Walter Czastka had made a sperm deposit while he was still in his teens, but he certainly couldn’t have applied for a withdrawal only two or three years later! We’re not talking about the Dark Ages here, or the aftermath of the Crash. People of his generation never exercised their right of reproduction when they were in their twenties—it’s only in very special circumstances that they exercise them even now, while they’re still alive.” “If Czastka had made any formal application,” Lowenthal agreed, not in the least confounded by her argument, “then his name would be included in Biasiolo’s record. Obviously, he didn’t—but he was training as a geneticist, and he must have had privileged access to a Helier hatchery. He must have substituted his own sperm for a donation which had been legitimately drawn from the bank. He wouldn’t have been the first hatchery tech to do that, nor the first to have got away with it.” “But it doesn’t help your hypothesis that Czastka is the designer behind Rappaccini Inc.,” Charlotte pointed out. “Your original contention was that Biasiolo was a mere phantom, invented by Czastka for the purpose of establishing a separate identity under which he could undertake various clandestine endeavors.” “That’s true,” Lowenthal agreed. “It’s now established that Biasiolo is a real person, not a ghost—but he’s Walter Czastka’s son. Doesn’t that put Czastka behind Rappaccini Inc.?” “But if your scenario is accurate,” Charlotte objected, constructing the argument as she spoke, “he’d never know it—Biasiolo, I mean. I suppose Czastka might have kept track of a substitute donation, if he’d made one, but he could hardly tell the foster parents about it, could he? What he did—according to you—was a criminal offense. He could never tell Biasiolo that he was his biological father.” “You’re still missing—,” Oscar Wilde said.
Michael Lowenthal didn’t let him finish; for once, he was fully engaged with Charlotte. “He could never tell anyone,” the man from the MegaMall said, in answer to her quibble, “but that doesn’t mean that nobody knew what he’d done.
Maybe it wasn’t his own idea.
Maybe it was some kind of challenge, some kind of initiation into a secret society. He was a student, after all—and so were Gabriel King, Michi Urashima, and Paul Kwiatek. Maybe they all knew. Maybe—“ “I fear that your flair for melodrama is getting out of hand, Michael,” said Wilde impatiently, firmly reclaiming center stage. “As Charlotte says, we’re not talking about the Dark Ages—but we are talking about the past. It isn’t in the least surprising that an authentically young woman might have undergone sufficient genetic engineering to reduce an actual consanguinity of fifty percent to an apparent overlap of forty-one, but it’s not plausible that two closely related old men should be that much less similar, unless something very odd had happened. As for this secret-society initiation, it’s the stuff of ancient romance—and it provides no explanation of the timing of the murders. If Walter were Biasiolo’s father, how could