“Call me Oscar,” said Wilde reflexively. “Indeed I am not—but my youth has been hard-won. I have had to renew it three times over. Having been immunized against the ravages of age from the moment of conception, you have every right to expect—or at least to hope—that you will look hardly a day older than you look now when you have lived as many years as I.” A triple rejuvenate! Charlotte thought, knowing that her astonishment must be visible. I never saw a triple rejuvenate who looked like that! Even Gabriel King, who was far better preserved than most, had skin like weathered wood, until he was rudely transformed into flesh of a very different kind.

“The error which our forebears made in concentrating their efforts on the development of cleverer nano-technologies was understandable,” Lowenthal said, his tone relentlessly neutral. “They believed, not unreasonably, in the escalator effect—that true emortality would eventually be bestowed upon them if only they could keep on reaping the rewards of new and better instruments of repair. With the aid of hindsight, we can see that the hope was illusory—but as a triple rejuvenate, you must have believed in your own youth that presently imperfect technologies would nevertheless be adequate to deliver you into a world in which improved nanotechnologies really would give you the means to preserve your body and mind indefinitely.” “I never believed it,” Wilde said bluntly. “Even as a child, I could see that the logical end point of excessive reliance on inorganic nanotechnologies would be a dehumanizing robotization—that the only entities which could emerge from an endless process of repair would be creatures less human than the cleverest silvers: caricaturish automata. The only respect in which I have been forced to alter my opinion is that I feared such travesties would actually be able to think of themselves as human and even to believe themselves to be the same individuals who had been born into an earlier era. Mercifully, the workings of the Miller effect have spared us that. And now, at last, the old folly is over and done with. Now, we have a New Human Race, as artfully created as the best products of my own industry.” “I wish that you could be one of them,” said Michael Lowenthal politely as the elevator car came to a halt and the door slid open again to reveal the modified gloom of the Trebizond Tower’s subterranean garage, “since you wish it so fervently.” “Thank you,” said Oscar Wilde. “I hope that I shall never grow used to the cruelties of fate—and I hope that you, dear Charlotte, will preserve your own resentments as jealously. It will help you to be a better policeman.” Charlotte nearly fell into the trap of declaring that she had no such resentments and that she was perfectly content with the decision her eight parents had made to produce and foster a child of their own kind, but she strangled the impulse. Time was passing, and there was work to be done.

“My car’s over there,” she said, extending a finger to indicate to Wilde the direction he should take. “Will you follow us, Mr. Lowenthal?” “I’d rather travel with you, if you don’t mind,” Lowenthal said. “My superiors sent me out in person so that I could keep my finger on the pulse of the investigation, so to speak. There’s no purpose in my actually being here if I have to keep in touch with you by phone.” “Suit yourself,” said Charlotte shortly. “But I’d be obliged if you could both keep it in mind that this is an investigation, not a dinner party. We’re not here to talk about the relative merits of internal technology and Zaman engineering. We’re here to figure out who killed Gabriel King—preferably before the news tapes get hold of the grisly details of his demise.” “Of course,” said Lowenthal. “With luck, the DNA samples collected by Lieutenant Chai will lead us to the murderer—and then we shall only be required to figure out why.” He said it in a vaguely admonitory manner—as if he were suggesting that the relative merits of internal nanotech and engineered emortality might perhaps be the crux of the matter.

For the moment, Charlotte could only wonder whether, perhaps, they might.

Charlotte opened the doors of her car and climbed into the seat which offered primary access to the driver, leaving Wilde and Lowenthal to decide for themselves which seats they would take. As if to emphasize their newly cemented alliance, they both got into the rear of the vehicle, leaving the other front seat vacant.

Having keyed in their destination, Charlotte left the silver to plan and navigate a route. She turned to face her passengers, but she was too late to take control. Oscar Wilde had already begun talking again.

“I fear,” he said, addressing himself to Lowenthal, “that it might not be possible to get to the bottom of this affair before the newsmen unleash their electronic bloodhounds. If what I have so far seen is a reliable guide, the puzzle must have been carefully designed so as not to unravel in a hurry.” Lowenthal nodded his head sagely. “It does seem—” “That’s all the more reason to concentrate our efforts on the facts we have,” Charlotte cut in rudely. “So will you please tell me what you meant, Dr. Wilde, about the supposedly obvious suggestion that the woman in the tape might be Rappaccini’s daughter.” “Ah,” said Wilde. “The thickening of the plot. May I tell you a story?” “If you must,” Charlotte said as evenly as she could contrive. It did not help her mood to observe that Michael Lowenthal seemed to be suppressing a smile.

“In an age that was long past even in the nineteenth century,” Wilde began, relaxing into the delicate embrace of the car’s LSP upholstery, “a young man comes to study at the University of Padua. He takes a small room beneath the eaves of an old house, which looks out upon a walled garden filled with exotic flowers. This garden, he soon learns, is tended by the aged Dr. Rappaccini and his lovely daughter, Beatrice.

“Over a period of weeks, the student watches the delightful Beatrice while she is at work in the garden. Having some knowledge of botany, he soon notices that she can handle with impunity certain plants which he knows to be poisonous to other living things. He is fascinated by this revelation—and, of course, by the lovely girl herself. Eventually, his landlady shows him a secret way into the garden so that he can meet her.

“Beatrice, who has led an extraordinarily secluded life, is as fascinated by the handsome student as he is by her. Innocence and beauty are a fine and deadly combination in a young woman—a combination which ensures that he soon falls in love with her—and she mirrors his infatuation. The student is, however, a very respectable young man, and he is careful to maintain an appropriate distance from his chaste beloved.

“One of Rappaccini’s colleagues at the university discovers that the young man has managed to obtain access to the secret garden. He warns the student that he is in great danger, because the plants in the garden—many of which are Rappaccini’s own creations—are all poisonous. Beatrice, because she has grown up there, is immune to the poisons; but she has in consequence become poisonous herself. This rival professor, who despises Rappaccini as a ‘vile empiric’ defiant of tradition, gives the student a vial which, he claims, contains an antidote to the poisons. This, he says, can redeem the unfortunate Beatrice and make her as harmless as other women.

“The student gradually realizes that he too is being polluted by the deadly plants. By virtue of having entered the garden so frequently, he has been infected with the power to blight and kill. He accuses Beatrice of visiting a curse upon him but then proposes that they should both drink the antidote and be cured.

“Rappaccini has by now discovered the intrigue between his daughter and her suitor. He tries to intervene, warning Beatrice not to take the antidote because it will destroy her. He insists that what he has bestowed upon her is a marvelous gift, which makes her powerful while all other women remain weak.