So he’s been conned. But if the Denizen is a con, it’s an extraordinarily thorough one. He’s had the chance to examine it closely now, and he’s found no obvious signs of fakery. It’s no mean feat to engineer a biological gill that can sustain an organism with the energy demands of a large mammal. The faked Denizens he’s examined in the past began to die after only a few dozen hours of immersion. But this one shows every sign of thriving, of gaining strength and quickness.
Grafenwalder considers other possibilities. If the blood and tissue samples don’t agree, then maybe it’s because there’s more than one kind of Denizen. The Europan scientists engineered distinct castes with differing linguistic abilities, so perhaps there were other variants, with different blood and tissue structures. They were all prototypes, after all, right up to the moment they turned against the Demarchy. This Denizen might simply be from a different production batch.
But that doesn’t explain why Rifugio provided him with non-matching samples. If Rifugio had the creature, why didn’t he just take samples from it directly? Did Rifugio make a mistake, mixing samples from one specimen with another? If so, he must have had more than one Denizen in his care. In which case, the whole story about the Ultras keeping the Denizen as a pet was a lie . . . but a necessary one, if Rifugio wished Grafenwalder to think the creature was unique.
Grafenwalder mulls the possibilities. Rifugio’s disappearance provides damning confirmation that some kind of deception has taken place. But if that deception merely extends to the fact that the Denizen isn’t unique, Grafenwalder considers himself to have got off lightly. He still has a Denizen, and that’s infinitely better than none at all. He’ll find a way to trace and punish Rifugio in due course, but for now retribution isn’t his highest priority.
Instead, what he desires most is communication.
By nightfall, when the keepers have finished their work, he descends to the tank and brings the lights back on. Not harshly now, but enough to alert the Denizen to his presence; to wake it from whatever shallow approximation of sleep it appears to enjoy when resting.
Then - satisfied that he is alone - he talks.
‘You can understand me,’ he says, for the umpteenth time. ‘I know this because my keepers have identified a region in your brain that only lights up when you hear human speech. And it lights up most strongly when you hear Canasian, the language of the Demarchy.’
The creature watches him sullenly.
‘It’s the language you were educated to understand, two hundred years ago. I know things have changed a little since then, but I don’t doubt that you can still make sense of these words.’ And as he speaks Canasian, he feels - not for the first time - an odd, unexpected fluency. The words ought to feel awkward, but they flow off his tongue with mercurial ease, as if this is also the language he was born to speak.
Which is absurd.
‘I want to know your story,’ he says. ‘How you got here, where you came from, how many of you there are. I know now that Rifugio lied to me. He’ll pay for that eventually, but for now all that matters is what you can tell me. I need to know everything, right back to the moment you were born in Europa.’
But the Denizen, as ever, shows no external sign of having understood him.
Later, Grafenwalder has his keepers install a waterproofed symbol board in the tank. It’s an array of touch-pads, each of which stands for a word in Canasian. As Grafenwalder speaks, the symbols light up in turn. The Denizen may reply by pressing the pads in sequence, which will be rendered back into speech on Grafenwalder’s side of the glass. Grafenwalder’s hoping that there’s something amiss with the Denizen’s language centre, some cognitive defect that can be short-circuited using the visual codes. If he can persuade the Denizen to press the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ pads in response to simple questions, he will consider that progress has been made.
Things don’t move as quickly as he’d hoped. The Denizen seems willing to cooperate, but it still doesn’t grasp the basics of language. Once it has understood that one of the pads symbolises food, it presses that one repeatedly, ignoring Grafenwalder’s attempts to get it to answer abstract questions.
Maybe it’s just stupid, he thinks. Maybe that’s why this batch was discontinued. But he doesn’t give up just yet. If the Denizen won’t communicate willingly, perhaps it needs persuasion. He has his keepers tinker with the ambient conditions, varying the water temperature and chemistry to make things uncomfortable. He withholds food and instructs the keepers to take further biopsies. It’s clear enough that the Denizen doesn’t enjoy the process.
Still the creature won’t talk, beyond issuing simple pleas for more food or warmer water. Grafenwalder feels his patience stretching. The keepers tell him that the Denizen is getting stronger, more difficult to subdue. Angrily, he accompanies them on their next trip into the tank. There are four men, all wearing power-assisted pressure armour, and now it takes three of them to pin the Denizen against one wall of the glass. When it breaks free momentarily, it gouges deep tooth marks in the flexible hide of Grafenwalder’s glove. Back outside the tank, he inspects the damage and wonders what those teeth would have done to naked flesh.
It’s fierce, he’ll give it that. It may not be unique; it may not be particularly intelligent; but he still doesn’t feel that all the money he gave Rifugio was wasted. Whatever the Denizen might be, it’s worthy of a place in the bestiary. And it’s his, not someone else’s.
He puts out the word that there is something new in his collection. Following Ursula Goodglass’s example, he tells the visitors to drop by whenever they like. There must be no suspicion that the Denizen is a stage-managed exhibit, something that can only perform to schedule.
It’s three days before anyone takes him up on his offer. Lysander Carroway and her husband are the first to arrive. Even then, Grafenwalder has the sense that the visit is regarded as a tiresome social duty. All that changes when they see the Denizen. He’s taken pains to stoke it up, denying it food and comfort for long hours. By the time he throws on the lights, the creature has become a focus of pure, mindless fury. It strives to kill the things on the other side of the glass, scratching claws and teeth against that impervious shield, to the point where it starts bleeding. His guests recoil, suitably impressed. After the study in motionless that was Dr Trintignant, they are woefully unprepared for the murderous speed of the Europan organism.
‘Yes, it is a Denizen,’ he tells them, while his keepers tend to the creature’s injuries. ‘The last of its kind, I have it on good authority.’
‘Where did you find it?’
He parrots the lie Rifugio has already told him. ‘You know what Ultras are like, with their pets. I don’t think they realised quite what they’d been tormenting all those years.’
‘Can it speak to us? I heard that they could talk.’
‘Not this one. The idea that most of them could talk is a fallacy, I’m afraid: they simply weren’t required to. As for the ones that did have language, they must have died over a hundred years ago.’
‘Perhaps the ones that were clever enough to talk were also clever enough to stay away from Ultras,’ muses Carroway. ‘After all, if you can talk, you can negotiate, make bargains. Especially if you know things that can hurt people.’
‘What would a Denizen know that could hurt anyone?’ Grafenwalder asks scornfully.
‘Who made it,’ Carroway says. ‘That would be worth something to someone, wouldn’t it? In these times, more than ever.’
Grafenwalder shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so. Even the ones with language weren’t that clever. They were built to take orders and use tools. They weren’t capable of the kind of complex abstract thought necessary to plot and scheme.’
‘How would you know?’ Carroway asks. ‘It’s not as if you’ve ever met one.’
There’s no malice in her question, but by the time the Carroways depart he’s in a foul mood, barely masked by the niceties of Circle politesse. Why can’t they just accept t
hat the Denizen is enough of a prize in its own right, without dwelling on what it can’t do? Isn’t a ravenous man-fish chimera enough of a draw for them now?
But the Carroways must have been sufficiently impressed to speak of his new addition, because the guests come thick and fast over the next week. By then they’ve heard that he has a Denizen, but most of them don’t quite believe it. Time and again he goes through the ritual of having them scared by the captive creature, only this time with a few additional flourishes. The glass is as secure as ever, but he’s had the tank lined with a false interior that cracks more easily. He’s also implanted a throat microphone under the skin of the Denizen, to better capture its blood-curdling vocalisations. Since the creature needed to be sedated for that, he also took the liberty of dropping an electrode into what his keepers think is the best guess for the creature’s pain centre. It’s a direct steal from what Goodglass did to Dr Trintignant, but no one has to know that, and with the electrode he can stir the Denizen up to its full killing fury even if it’s just been fed.
It’s still too soon to call, but his monitoring of Circle gossip begins to suggest that interest in Trintignant is declining. He’s still jealous of Goodglass for that particular coup, but at last he feels that he has the upper hand again. The memory of Rifugio’s lies has all but faded. The story Grafenwalder tells, about how the Denizen came to him via the Ultras, is repeated so often that he almost begins to believe it himself. The act of telling one lie over and over again, until it concretises into something barely distinguishable from the truth, feels peculiarly familiar to him. When his keepers come to him again and report that a more detailed analysis of the Denizen DNA has thrown up statistical matches with the genome of a typical hyperpig, he blanks the information.
What they’re telling him is that the Denizen isn’t real; that it’s some form of genetic fake cooked up using a hyperpig in place of a human, with Denizen-like characteristics spliced in at the foetal stage. But he doesn’t want to hear that; not now that he’s back on top.
The last of the guests to visit are Ursula Goodglass and her husband. They’ve waited a lengthy, although not impolite, interval before favouring him with their presence. Once their shuttle has docked, Goodglass sweeps ahead of her husband’s palanquin, trying to put a brave face on the proceedings.
‘I hear you have a Denizen, Carl. If so, you have my heartfelt congratulations. Nothing like that has been seen for a very long time.’ She looks at him coquettishly. ‘It is a Denizen, isn’t it? We didn’t want to pay too much attention to the rumours, but when everyone started saying the same thing—’
‘It is a Denizen,’ he confirms gravely, as if the news is a terminal diagnosis. Which, in terms of Goodglass’s current standing in the Circle, it might as well be. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘Of course we’d like to see it!’ her husband declares, his voice piping from the palanquin.
He takes them to the holding tank, darkened now, and issues assassin’s goggles to Ursula, assuming that her husband’s palanquin has its own infrared system. Allowing the guests to see the floating form, albeit indistinctly, is all part of the theatre.
‘It looks smaller than I was expecting,’ Ursula Goodglass observes.
‘They were small,’ Grafenwalder says. ‘Designed to operate in cramped conditions. But don’t let that deceive you. It’s as strong as three men in amp-suits.’
‘And you’re absolutely sure of its authenticity? You’ve run a full battery of tests?’
‘There’s no doubt.’ Rashly, he adds, ‘You can see the results, if you like.’
‘There’s no need. I’m prepared to take your word for it. I know you wouldn’t take anything for granted, given how long you’ve been after one of these.’
Grafenwalder allows himself a microscopic frown. ‘I didn’t know you were aware of my interest in acquiring a Denizen.’
‘It would be difficult not to know, Carl. You’ve put out feelers in all directions imaginable. Of course, you’ve been discreet about it - or as discreet as circumstances allow.’ She smiles unconvincingly. ‘I’m glad for you, Carl. It must feel like the end of a great quest, to have this in your possession.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It does.’
The palanquin speaks. ‘What exactly was it about the Denizen that you found so captivating, if you don’t mind my asking?’
Grafenwalder shrugs, expecting the answer to roll glibly off his tongue. Instead, he has to force it out by an effort of will, as if there is a blockage in his thought processes. ‘Its uniqueness, I suppose, Edric.’
‘But there are many unique things,’ the palanquin says, its piping tone conveying mild puzzlement. ‘Why did you have to go to the extremes of locating a Denizen, a creature not even known ever to have existed? A creature whose authenticity cannot ever be confirmed with certainty?’
‘Perhaps because it was so difficult. I like a challenge. Does it have to be any more complicated than that?’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ the palanquin answers. ‘I merely wondered if there might not have been a deeper motive, something less transparent.’
‘I’m really not the man to ask. Why do any of us collect things?’
‘Carl’s right, dear,’ Ursula says, smiling tightly at the palanquin’s dark window. ‘One mustn’t enquire too deeply about these things. It isn’t seemly.’
‘I demur,’ her husband says, and reverses slightly back from the heavy glass wall before them.
Grafenwalder judges that the moment is right to bring up the lights and enrage the Denizen. He squeezes the actuator tucked into his pocket, dripping current into the creature’s brain. The lights pierce the tank, snaring the floating form. The Denizen snorts and powers itself towards the wall, its eyes wide with hatred despite the glare. It slams into the weakened inner layer and shatters the glass, making it seem as if the entire tank is about to lose integrity.
‘We’re quite safe,’ he says, anticipating that Goodglass will have flinched from the impact. But she hasn’t. She’s standing her ground, her expression serenely unmoved by the entire spectacle.
‘You’re right,’ she comments. ‘It’s quite a catch. But I wonder if it’s really as vicious as it appears.’
‘Take my word. It’s much, much worse. It nearly bit through my glove when I was inside that tank, wearing full armour.’
‘Perhaps it doesn’t like being kept here. It didn’t seem very happy when you turned the lights on.’
‘It’s an exhibit, Ursula. It doesn’t have to like being here. It should be grateful just to be alive.’
She looks at him with sudden interest, as if he has said something profound. ‘Do you really think so, Carl?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Absolutely.’
She returns her attention to the tank wall. The Denizen is still hovering there, anchored in place by the tips of its fingers and the fluke of its tail. The cracks in the shattered glass radiate away in all directions, making the Denizen look as if it is caught in a frozen star, or pinned to a snowflake.
Goodglass removes her glove and touches a hand to the smooth and unbroken glass on the outer surface of the tank, exactly where the Denizen has its own webbed hand. That’s when Grafenwalder notices the pale webs of skin between Ursula Goodglass’s fingers, visible now that she has taken off the glove. Their milky translucence is exactly the same as the webs between the Denizen’s. She presses her hand harder, squeezing until her palm is flat against the glass, and the Denizen echoes the movement.
The air feels as if it has frozen. The moment of contact seems to last minutes, hours, eternities. Grafenwalder stares in numb incomprehension, unable to process what he is seeing. When she moves her hand, skating it across the glass, the Denizen follows her like an expert mime.
She takes another step closer, bringing her face against the glass, laying her cheek flat against the cold surface. The Denizen presses itself against the shattered inner layer and mirrors her posture, bringing its own head against hers
. The flesh of their faces appears to merge.
Goodglass pulls her face back from the glass, then smiles at the Denizen. It tries to emulate her expression, forcing its mouth wide. It’s not much of a smile - it’s more horrific than reassuring - but the deliberateness of the gesture is beyond doubt.
Finally Grafenwalder manages to say something. His own voice sounds wrong, as if it’s coming from another room.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m greeting it,’ Ursula Goodglass says, snapping her attention away from the tank. ‘What on Earth did you think I was doing?’
‘It’s a Denizen. It doesn’t know you. You can’t know it.’
‘Oh, Carl,’ she says, pityingly now. ‘Haven’t you got it yet? Really, I thought you’d have figured things out by now. Look at my hand again.’
‘I don’t need to. I saw it.’
She pulls back her hand until she’s only touching the glass with a fingertip. ‘Then tell me what it reminds you of - or can’t you bring yourself to say it?’
‘I’ve had enough,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but it isn’t true to the spirit of the Circle. I insist that you leave immediately.’
‘But we’re not done yet,’ Goodglass says.
‘Fine. If you won’t go easily, I’ll have you escorted to your shuttle.’
‘I’m afraid not, Carl. We’ve still business to attend to. You didn’t think it was going to be quite that easy, did you?’
‘Leave now.’
‘Or what? You’ll turn your household systems on us?’ She looks apologetic. ‘They won’t work, I’m afraid. They’ve been disabled. From the moment our shuttle docked, it’s been working to introduce security countermeasures into your habitat.’ Before he can get a word in, she says, ‘It was a mistake to invite us to view the adult-phase hamadryad. It gave us the perfect opportunity to snoop your arrangements, design a package of neutralising agents. Don’t go calling for your keepers, either. They’re all unconscious. The last time we visited, the palanquin deployed microscopic stun-capsules into every room it passed through. Upon our return, they were programmed to activate, releasing a fast-acting nerve toxin. Your keepers will be fine once they wake up, but that isn’t going to happen for a few hours yet.’
The Revelation Space Collection Page 359