“Do you want to die, Walter?” he asked finally. It was not an aggressive question, and the inflection suggested that it was not rhetorical.
“No,” said Czastka sourly. “I want to live forever, like you. I want to be young again, like you. But if I do die, I don’t want flowers by Rappaccini at my funeral, and I don’t want anything of yours. If I do die, I want all the flowers to be mine. Is that clear?” “Given that he must have known for a long time what you never did—that he was your biological son—why should Rappaccini have hated you?” Wilde asked, trying as hard as he could to make the question seem innocuous, although it was obviously anything but.
“I don’t know,” Walter Czastka said resentfully. “I don’t hate anyone. It’s not in my nature to hate. It’s not supposed to be in anyone’s nature anymore, is it? Didn’t we leave the era of hatred behind after the Crash, when Conrad Helier and PicoCon saved the world with the New Reproductive System and dirt-cheap longevity? We don’t hate one another anymore because we don’t expect other people to love us, and we don’t feel slighted when they don’t. This is the Era of Courtesy, the Era of Common Sense, when all emotion is mere histrionic display. I was born a little too early to adapt myself fully to its requirements, but you and Rappaccini always seemed to me to have mastered the art completely. I don’t even hate you, Oscar. I don’t hate you, I don’t hate Rappaccini, I don’t hate Gustave Moreau, and I certainly don’t expect any of you to hate me. You don’t hate me, do you, Oscar? You might despise me, but you don’t hate me. You wouldn’t want to kill me—why should you take the trouble, when you think I’m hardly alive to begin with? Why should anyone take the trouble?” The heat of Czastka’s bitterness had faded while he spoke, its near incandescence cooling into ashen SAP black, but Charlotte couldn’t begin to figure out why the Creationist had felt the need to say all that.
“I think we’re on our way to see you, Walter,” said Oscar Wilde placidly. “I don’t know how long it will take us to get there—quite some time, I expect, given the stately progress we’re making at present. I hope everything will be all right when we get there. We can talk then.” “Damn you, Oscar Wilde,” said the old man. “I don’t want you on my island. You stay away, do you hear? I don’t want to talk to you. I’ve said everything I have to say. You stay away from me. Stay away!” He broke the connection without waiting for any response.
Oscar turned sideways to look at Charlotte. His face looked slightly sinister in the dim light of the helicopter’s cabin.
“He knows,” he said. “He may not understand exactly why Rappaccini wants to kill him, but he knows what’s behind it. The strange thing is that although he doesn’t care at all about the possibility of being murdered, there’s still something he does care about. I think I understand, now, what Rappaccini has done, and maybe even why he’s done it—but only in broad terms. There’s still a devil somewhere in the detail. Maybe if I can talk to McCandless. He lives on Kauai; he must know Walter and Rappaccini, alias Moreau. He may even have made up some of the jokes that Walter found so strangely objectionable—after all, there can’t be many people on Kauai familiar with the work of H. G. Wells.” “Why don’t you let me do this one?” Charlotte asked as politely as she could. “I am supposed to be the detective, after all.” Wilde’s answering smile was very faint. The cabin lights had come up automatically as darkness had fallen, but they seemed somewhat lacking in power, like the plane itself.
“Please do,” he said as infuriatingly as ever. Despite what Walter Czastka had said about the Era of Courtesy and the obsolescence of hatred, it wasn’t too difficult for Charlotte to imagine that a man like Oscar Wilde might be hated—or that a man like Oscar Wilde might be capable of hate.
It didn’t take as long as Charlotte had expected to get through to the ex-vice-chancellor. Hal had obviously been at his most brisk and businesslike.
As she had also expected, Stuart McCandless was not answering his phone in person, but this time there was no need for begging or blustering. She simply fed his sim her authority codes and it summoned him to the comcon without delay.
“Yes?” he said, his dark face peering at her with slightly peevish surprise. He would be able to see that she was in a vehicle of some kind, but he wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify it as a plane. “I’m still going through the data you people dumped into my system, although I’m sure that it’s quite unnecessary.
It’s going to take some time to look at it all. I promised that I’d get back to you as soon as I could—this isn’t helping.” “I’m Sergeant Charlotte Holmes, UN police, Professor McCandless,” she said. “I’m in an airplane which has apparently been programmed by Gustave Moreau, alias Rappaccini. He seems intent on providing my companion, Oscar Wilde, with a good seat from which to observe this unfolding melodrama. We’re heading out into the ocean from the American coast. We don’t know what destination has been filed, but we may well be heading your way, and I’m afraid that the killer might get there ahead of us. Have you ever met Moreau?” “Once or twice. I know very little about him, except for the jokes that people tell. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never seen his alleged foster daughter on Kauai, and I certainly can’t imagine that he or she could have anything against me.” McCandless’s voice was by no means as bitter as Walter Czastka’s, but he did seem petulantly resentful. He plainly did not believe that anyone might be trying to kill him, in spite of the fact that the only thing the four known victims had in common was an item of biography that he shared.
“Have you remembered anything about your time at Wollongong that might link you to the four dead men and Walter Czastka?” Charlotte demanded, desperate to get something from the interview to justify the fact that she had placed the call in Wilde’s stead. “Anything at all?” McCandless shook his head reflexively but vigorously. “I’ve already answered these questions,” he said irritably. “I’ve tried—” “But you’ve looked at the tapes of the girl who visited Gabriel King and Michi Urashima, haven’t you? Are you certain that you’d be able to recognize her if she altered her disguise yet again?” “I’d be able to study your tapes more closely if you’d allow me time to do it, Sergeant Holmes,” McCandless snapped back. “I’m looking at them now, but quite frankly, in these days of ever-changing appearances it’s almost impossible to recognize anyone except people one knows intimately. I don’t know whether the person in those pictures is twenty years old or a hundred. I’ve had dozens of students who were similar enough to be able to duplicate her appearance with a little effort—perhaps hundreds. I’ve a guest here with me now who would only need a little elementary remodeling to resemble any one of a hundred people I see on TV every day—and your suspect could do exactly the same.” For the second time within a quarter of an hour Charlotte felt Oscar Wilde’s hand fall upon hers, exercising significant pressure. This time it was quite unnecessary. The moment the meaning of McCandless’s words had become clear she had felt a veritable chill in her blood. She was already trying to work out how best to phrase the next statement in such a way as not to seem crazy.
“How well do you know this visitor, Professor McCandless?” she asked, astonished by the evenness of her tone.
“Oh, there’s not the slightest need to worry,” McCandless replied airily. “I’ve known her for years. Her name is Julia Herold. I’ve just told your colleague in New York all about her—I’m sure he’s checking her out, and equally sure that he’ll find everything in perfect order.” “Could you ask her to come to the phone?” asked Charlotte. She looked sideways at Oscar Wilde, certain that he would share the agony of her helplessness. Even Michael Lowenthal was paying attention again, leaning avidly between the seats so that he could see the image on the screen.