Even the wrathful volcanoes that had created the Hawaiian islands were now quite tame, sufficiently manipulable that they could be forced to yield upon demand the little virgin territories which the likes of Walter Czastka and Gustave Moreau had rented for their experiments in Creation.

Charlotte felt her eyes growing heavy again; although she had slept, she still felt drained by the efforts and displacements of the previous day. She found, somewhat to her distress, that her memory of the rambling arguments which Oscar Wilde had laid before her was already becoming vague. She knew that she had to pull herself together in order to be ready for the final act of the drama, and she tried to do it. Reflexively, she rubbed the surface of her suitskin, her hand traveling from her shoulder to her thigh by way of her ribs. The smart fabric needed no such stimulation in order to continue its patient work of absorption and renewal, but the touch had some psychological utility. When she had stretched the muscles in her arms and legs she could imagine her internal technology springing back to life, priming her metabolism for the long day to come.

She turned to the seat in which Oscar Wilde had placed himself when they boarded the plane, but it was empty. So was the seat that Michael Lowenthal had occupied. They had both retired to the bunks to make themselves more comfortable while they rested.

She saw that her beltphone was still plugged into the aircraft’s comcon, and that text was parading across the screen, presumably at the command of Hal Watson’s fingertips.

“Hal?” she said. I’m awake.” “Good morning, Sergeant,” came the prompt reply. “I was about to wake you.

You’ve certainly taken your time about it, but you’re only twenty minutes from Kauai now, and your autopilot has requested a landing slot—although there’s nothing for you to do there.” Because she was slightly befuddled by sleep, it took Charlotte a second or two to work out what he meant by the last remark.

“McCandless is dead!” she said finally.

“Quite dead,” Hal replied. “The local police—who were, of course, on standby all night while a host of spy eyes kept watch on him—had him removed to an intensive care unit as soon as he showed signs of illness, but there was absolutely nothing to be done for him. The biotechnologists inspecting the organisms which killed the previous victims haven’t yet come up with the kind of general antidote that Wilde talked about, although they’ve promised it by noon. That leaves us with no chance at all of getting it out to you in time to save Walter Czastka, if he is indeed the next intended victim.” Charlotte was much quicker to see the implications of that remark.

“They didn’t get her, did they?” she said.

“No, they didn’t.” Charlotte knew that she ought at least to feign astonishment and outrage, but all she actually felt was a sense of bitter resignation.

“How?” she asked dully. “How could they possibly fail to intercept her?” “She’d already left the house when the local police first got there,” said Hal dispiritedly. “That was long before McCandless began to show signs of distress.

He told them she’d gone for a moonlight swim, and still refused to believe that she wasn’t exactly what she seemed to be. There were mechanical eyes set to follow her, of course, mounted on hoverflies and flitterbugs—but as soon as they entered the water they were mopped up by a shoal of electronic fish. By the time they were replaced by more robust entities she was beyond the scope of their location faculties. The flying eyes watching avidly for her to surface couldn’t possibly have missed her, so we must infer that she had a breathing apparatus secreted offshore and some kind of mechanized transport.” “A submarine?” said Charlotte incredulously.

“We’d have detected anything as big as that,” said Hal. “More likely a simple towing device of some kind.” “But we know where she’s going, don’t we?” Charlotte said. “When she comes out of the water again on Walter Czastka’s island, we should be able to stop her from reaching him. In any case, he knows how dangerous she is, even if McCandless didn’t.” “He certainly knows,” Hal agreed. “The thing is—does he care? I can’t get a peep out of him. His sim is stonewalling all communications. If he knows why she’s after him, he certainly isn’t going to tell us—and I’ve trawled every remaining record relating to Maria Inacio, however obliquely. There’s no clue as to what might have happened to her. She probably never said a word to anyone—except, we must presume, Jafri Biasiolo. The Kauai police have dispatched four helicopters to wait for her, but Czastka’s sim has forbidden them permission to land.

They’re prepared to remain airborne until they actually catch sight of her—at which point his permission becomes irrelevant, because they’ll be pursuing a fugitive.” “What about me?” Charlotte asked urgently. “Can I get there in time?” “Who can tell? There’ll be a helicopter ready for you and Lowenthal when you land, and there’s also a machine awaiting Oscar Wilde, although he may prefer to make use of the police vehicle if you and Lowenthal are willing to take him along. Notionally, the whole operation is under my command—which, in effect, puts you in immediate control as my proxy. I’m hoping that if Biasiolo really has set things up to provide a ringside seat for Wilde, the woman won’t proceed to stage six until you and he arrive. In theory, of course, Wilde will be unable to land unless Czastka relents and gives him permission, but he’s probably not as enthusiastic to stick to the letter of the law as the commander at Kauai.

“In case you haven’t noticed, by the way, you’re surrounded by caster flies. So are the copters from Kauai. For every flitterbug we’ve got on Czastka’s island, the news tapes probably have a dozen. The whole of the morning news, bar fifteen seconds of other headlines, was given over to the five murders, described in the minutest detail. Having identified the text on the first condolence card, they’re headlining it Flowers of Evil—except for that crank French station which is still trying to maintain the purity of the native tongue. As soon as we failed to apprehend the woman on Kauai the MegaMall took the gloves off—however this works out, we’re not going to look good. In fact, we’re going to look very, very bad. If she were to succeed in killing Czastka too…” “Have you considered evacuating him?” “Of course I have—but I can’t do it against his will. He’s sealed himself in. If I ordered the helicopters to land and seize him, I’d look even more stupid than I already do if they couldn’t actually get to him to execute the order. He really does seem to be intent on securing his own destruction. He may not actually want to die, but he’s perversely determined not to be saved.” “As he said before, all he actually needs to do is to keep the house sealed,” Charlotte pointed out. “If we can’t get in, neither can she. He must know that—he’s perfectly safe, as long as he doesn’t open the door to her, unless she has an atom bomb as well as a submarine. If all she has is nanotech, it’s his against hers—and his ought to win, given that they have the home-ground advantage.” “It all sounds so simple, put like that,” Hal agreed. Charlotte could tell that he had no more confidence in the calculation than she had. All the evidence said that the woman had no chance at all of getting to Czastka, but even Hal couldn’t quite believe that Rappaccini’s grand plan was going to fizzle out into a soggy anticlimax.

“We located the real Julia Herold, by the way,” Hal continued. “She’s a dead ringer for the fake. She really was on Kauai while the Inacio clone was making her way around the world—and, for that matter, while her double was carefully forging a relationship with Stuart McCandless in her name. She spends a lot of time in VE, and she’s rather careless about security of her sims and systems. If you want more details, I’ve downloaded everything to the copter that’s waiting on Kauai—and to the machine in front of you, although you won’t have time to look at it before you land. It’s all in place: every detail of the woman’s journey; every dollar of the money trail. It’s a magnificent job of case building, although no one will ever believe that, given that we failed to apprehend the killer on Kauai.” Charlotte wished that she were capable of feeling more sympathy for Hal’s plight, but she still had her own to worry about—and she was distracted by the fact that Michael Lowenthal had just risen from his bunk. The emissary from Olympus climbed into the seat formerly occupied by Oscar Wilde and said: “What’s new?” Charlotte took a deep breath and began to tell him.