The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [92]
However clever Geyer might be, though, he didn’t know everything that Lisa knew. He had no way of matching her guess as to the identity of the person behind the kidnapping. All he could do was to sit around and wonder why Morgan had thought his quest a partial failure—which would surely have driven him to the same hastily formed conclusion that Ms. X must have reached: that if Morgan had discovered a method of life extension that worked only on women, he would have immediately gone to work to find a way of making it work on men too. But surely, Lisa thought, neither Matthias Geyer nor Ms. X knew Morgan Miller as well as she did—unless, of course, she was a mere fool where Morgan Miller was concerned, and always had been.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Geyer flashed her a ghostly half smile that might have been a calculated reflection of her own. “Perhaps I’m not entirely sure what I mean myself,” he said. “Algeny encourages the use of the imagination—the everlasting intellectual struggle to transcend the mental limitations imposed on us by the idols of the theatre and the tribe. I deeply regret what has happened. I feel sure that Morgan Miller was an Algenist at heart, and I wish he had come to us forty years ago for assistance with whatever line of research it was that frustrated him so deeply. If you ever come to feel that your vocation in forensic science has run its course, Dr. Friemann, I hope you will consider the possibility of seeking employment with us. We need people of your caliber.”
Lisa remembered Leland’s assurance that he could fix her up with a job. She had thought at the time that he was merely trying to suggest that her decision to overstep the legal line wouldn’t cost her too dearly, but now she considered the possibility that the Algenists really were enthusiastic to recruit her because of what she might know about Morgan Miller’s stubbornly secret research. She had to control an impulse to laugh at Geyer’s temerity. Peter Smith’s expression of disapproval was a sight to behold.
“If you’ll forgive me, Herr Geyer,” the tight-lipped man from the MOD put in, “I must insist that we stick to the point at issue. Do you have a tape of your interview with Morgan Miller?”
“I’m afraid not,” the Algenist replied. “It’s not our policy to tape confidential conversations. I really am trying to be helpful, although I apologize for digressing so far as to tell Dr. Friemann that we value expertise like hers. You have my word that if there is anything I can do to facilitate Morgan Miller’s safe release, I shall certainly do it—but for the time being, I cannot see anything I can more usefully do than urge you to return forthwith to more profitable lines of inquiry. I have told you all I can.”
No sooner had Geyer finished speaking than Peter Smith’s phone rang. It seemed an uncanny echo of what had happened at the Ahasuerus Foundation. “Yes,” Smith said, putting the phone to his ear.
Whatever was said didn’t seem to lighten his mood. His spirits had already become fractious, but the call seemed to darken them even further. When he put the phone away again, all he said was: “Very well, Herr Geyer—we’ll leave it there for the time being.”
Lisa rose with an alacrity she could not have contrived an hour before, no matter how impatient she had become. Smith obviously didn’t want to say anything in front of Geyer that could be construed as an indiscretion, so she didn’t ask any questions. It was, however, left to her to thank Matthias Geyer for his assistance. Unlike Smith, she thought that he probably had been as helpful as he could, in his own way.
When they were back in the police car, with the gates of the Institute firmly closed behind them, she asked Smith what had happened.
“They’ve identified the Real Woman,” he said. “Cross-connecting her records with Filisetti’s revealed what seemed to be a promising network of mutual contacts, but the moment your people got to work on it, they found that it was hopelessly confused by a smoke screen. Someone’s been busy corrupting the files, and the corruption