Given that the data on file was so old and so sparse, and quite probably misleading, Charlotte knew that it might be very difficult to find—or even reliably to identify—the founder of Rappaccini Inc. It was, alas, easy enough in the late twenty-fifth century to establish electronic identities whose telescreen appearances could be wholly maintained by silver-level sims. Virtual individuals could play so full a role in modern society that their puppet masters could easily remain anonymous and hidden, at least until they came under the intense scrutiny of a highly skilled Webwalker. Hal had the authority to get through any conventional information wall, and he was clever enough to work his way through any data maze, but if the man behind Rappaccini Inc. had gone into hiding, it would take time to winkle him out.

Charlotte still had a gut feeling which told her that the real author of this crazy psychodrama was right in front of her, taunting her with his excessively lovely presence, but she didn’t dare say so to Hal. Hal Watson was no respecter of gut feelings.

“Have you traced the call which summoned Dr. Wilde here?” Michael Lowenthal asked Hal Watson. Charlotte heard the hesitation in Hal’s voice and knew that natural discretion must be begging him not to lay all his cards on the table where both Lowenthal and Wilde could see them, but he answered the question.

“It was placed some days ago from a blind unit, time-triggered to arrive when it did,” Hal reported reluctantly. “Effectively untraceable, I fear—the ticket too.

My best surfers are working on it, but they haven’t even been able to track the woman to or from the building. I need the DNA analyses before I can take the next step.” The wall unit buzzed as another caller clamored for attention.

“Hold on,” Charlotte said to Hal, thumbing the relevant key. Rex Carnevon’s face appeared on the screen as the image of the apartment blinked out.

“I have tenants, you know,” said the building supervisor rudely. “As long as your quarantine lasts, half of them are trapped inside their apartments and the other half are locked out. Your forensic team drove off thirty minutes ago.

What’s the holdup?” “Please be patient, Mr. Carnevon,” Charlotte said, painfully aware that she was under observation from all sides. “We’re conducting an investigation here.” “I know,” Carnevon retorted. ”What I want to know is when you’re going to conduct it somewhere else.” “We’ll let you know,” Charlotte said brutally, switching back to Hal without further ado.

Hal’s face didn’t reappear. The tape patched together from the apartment’s eyes was playing again. Now there was somebody in the apartment. This section had been recorded several days before. Gabriel King, alive and well, was talking to a young woman.

“Ah,” said Oscar Wilde softly. “Cherchez la femme! Without a mysterious woman, the puzzle would be lacking its most important piece.” Charlotte studied the woman carefully, although her back was turned to the camera. She seemed to be authentically young—perhaps eighteen or nineteen years of age—with a profusion of lustrous brown hair that she wore unfashionably long.

When the tape switched to a different eye, Charlotte saw that the woman had clear blue eyes like Michael Lowenthal’s. She also had finely chiseled features—but they had not, of course, been molded in recognition of the same ideal of beauty as Lowenthal’s. Psychobiologists had produced seven supposed female archetypes and seven male ones; whereas the woman’s flesh had been sculpted into a variant of the most commonplace female archetype, Lowenthal had been modeled on one of the less fashionable male ideals.

Even in this day and age, when cosmetic engineers could so easily remold superficial flesh, the exceptional beauty of Gabriel King’s visitor was very evident—but it did not seem to Charlotte to be as striking as the beauty of Michael Lowenthal, or of Oscar Wilde. That, presumably, was a matter of taste and sexual orientation; Hal probably saw things differently.

King and his visitor were speaking to one another, but the sound track had not yet been added to the tape. Charlotte watched as the two of them moved toward the bedroom door, and saw the woman stop the gantzer in his tracks, compelling him to turn and kiss her on the lips before proceeding into the room and closing the door behind them.

The kiss did not seem particularly passionate to Charlotte, but it was definitely tender. It might, she thought, as easily have been a polite greeting between people who had some history of intimacy as a prelude to a first erotic encounter, but it certainly did not have the appearance of a transaction between a prostitute and a client.

The tape ended, and Hal’s face returned to the screen.

“She was inside for about half an hour,” said Hal, presumably addressing Oscar Wilde. “King was still perfectly healthy when she left, and it wasn’t until some twelve or thirteen hours later that he felt sufficient discomfort to call up a diagnostic program. He never had a chance to hit his panic button; the progress of the plant was too swift. The woman might have had nothing to do with it, but she was the last person to see him alive. Do you have any idea who she might be?” “I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen her before,” Wilde answered. “I fear that I can only offer the obvious suggestion.” “Which is?” Hal said.

“Rappaccini’s daughter.” Hal had nothing to say in reply to that, and neither did Charlotte. They simply waited for clarification.

“It’s another echo of the nineteenth century,” said Oscar, with a slight sigh.

“Rappaccini borrowed his pseudonym from a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne entitled ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’ You don’t know the period, I take it?” “Not very well,” Charlotte said awkwardly, when it became obvious that Hal wasn’t about to reply. “Hardly at all” would have been nearer the truth.

“Then it’s as well that I’m here,” the beautiful man said in a manner that surely must be calculated to infuriate. “Otherwise, this exotic performance might be entirely wasted.” The wall unit’s buzzer sounded again.

Charlotte stabbed at it angrily and didn’t give Carnevon the opportunity to open his moudi. “All right!” she snapped, no longer caring whether she was under observation or not. “We’re going. Apart from King’s apartment, everything’s usable—but you’d better remember what I said about leaks, Carnevon, because if any information gets loose from here that might confuse or impede our investigation, I’ll be back.” Then she ripped the plug of her beltphone from the wall and said, “We’d better continue this conversation in the elevator and the car. It would probably be better if we were all back at base when that DNA data begins to come in. Then Hal can get to work on tracing the woman and Dr. Wilde can get to work on the gentemplate of the killer plant—while you and I, Mr. Lowenthal, can rest our weary feet. With luck, we’ll have the killer in custody in time to make the Breakfast News.” “I fear, dear Charlotte,” murmured Oscar Wilde as they all moved toward the open elevator car, “that this might be the kind of case in which luck will not be of much assistance.”

Intermission One: A Lover in the Mother's Arms

Magnus Teidemann was exhausted by the time he got back to the tent, but it was a good kind of exhaustion: the kind that resulted from a long walk through resentful undergrowth, carrying a heavy pack loaded with specimen jars.

The specimen jars had been carefully dug out of the humus-littered forest floor, where they had served as pitfall traps to capture wandering insects and arachnids. As the director of the Seventh Biodiversity Survey, Magnus had a legion of assistarits to carry out such work, but he insisted on taking shifts himself. There was no tokenism about the gesture; the reason he had involved himself with the Natural Biodiversity Movement in the first place was to have the opportunity to work at ground level.