Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [128]
And finally we came upon an immense amount of material on Rowan herself—her career, her achievements in research, her personal plans for the Center, her pet projects, her attitudes, her goals.
We couldn’t possibly cover it all.
We decided we had to take the microprocessor with us. No choice really. Had to take Oberon’s as well. No traces of the tragedy would be left for strangers.
Rowan and Stirling were first off the plane, Rowan in jeans and plain white shirt and Stirling in a tweed suit. Immediately they reacted to the spectacle of the three Taltos, in fact, Rowan appeared to go into a silent shock.
I presented Rowan with the microprocessors from the two computers, which she entrusted to an assistant who put them safely on the plane. Lorkyn watched all this with eyes as unreadable as Rowan’s, though they looked much softer, perhaps part of a very sweet mask. She had been absolutely silent all during the wait and she showed no change now.
Miravelle was weeping. Oberon, having relieved himself of the bandanna and brushed his hair, looked beyond handsome, and deigned to give Rowan a slight nod of his head.
Then Rowan said to Mona:
“Where are the bodies?”
Out of the plane as if on cue came a crew of men in white scrubs, on down the metal stair carrying what looked like a giant sleeping bag. They had other equipment I couldn’t decipher or describe.
We went back to the freezer.
All this time Lorkyn made no protest, though Quinn held her tightly, but she kept her large exquisite eyes on Rowan, except for occasional glances at Oberon who never stopped staring at her with a look of pure venom.
Rowan stepped cautiously inside the freezer as I’d done before. She examined the bodies minutely. She touched the stains of frozen fluid on the floor. She studied patches of discoloration on their skin. Her hands returned to their heads. Then finally she withdrew and let the team do its work of taking the bodies to the plane.
She looked at Mona:
“They’re dead,” she said. “They died a long time ago. Most likely right after they first lay down together here.”
“Perhaps not!” said Mona desperately. “Maybe they can survive temperatures that we can’t.” She looked frail and worn in her black feathered dress, her mouth shuddering.
“They’re gone,” Rowan said. Her voice was not cruel. It was solemn. She was fighting her own tears and I knew it.
Miravelle began to cry again. “Oh Mother, oh Father. . . .”
“There’s evidence of widespread decay,” Rowan said. “The temperature was not consistently maintained. They didn’t suffocate. They fell asleep as people do in the snow. They were probably warm at the end, and they died peacefully.”
“Oh, that is so lovely,” said Miravelle with the purest sincerity. “Don’t you think, Mona? It’s so very pretty. Lorkyn, darling, don’t you think it is very sweet?”
“Yes, Miravelle, dear,” said Lorkyn softly. “Don’t worry anymore about them. Their intent has been fulfilled.”
She had not spoken in so long that this warmth took me by surprise.
“And what was their intent?” I asked.
“That Rowan Mayfair know of their fate,” said Lorkyn calmly. “That the Secret People not vanish.”
Rowan sighed. Her face was indescribably sad.
She opened wide her arms and shepherded us out of the kitchen, a doctor leading us away from a deathbed.
We went out into the warm air, and the landscape seemed peaceful and given over to the rhythm of the waves and the breeze—cleansed by violence and mercilessness.
I looked beyond the lighted buildings to the huge mass of hovering jungle. I scanned again for any presence, human or Taltos. The dense growth was too thick with living things for me to detect any one creature.
I felt soul sick and empty. At the same time the three Taltos were worrying me in the extreme. What precisely was going to happen to them?
The crew with the frozen bodies ran past us to board the plane, and we made our way slowly to the metal steps on the tarmac.
“Did Father really ask for this, this freezing?” Oberon wanted to know. He had lost all of his scornful manner. “Did he go willingly