“Nothing at all,” Geyer said. “I am merely trying to save time. Our aims are widely misunderstood, and clearing up misconceptions can be a vexatious business. It is true that a few of our intellectual antecedents harbored some very strange hopes, but in the days when there was no technology available to carry forward their aims, they had little alternative but to place optimism above practicality. Now that technology has replaced superstition, we have shed the delusions of the past. Professor Miller did not seem to be confused or dismayed by the kind of slanders that have occasionally been leveled against our organization, and I find it difficult to believe they are relevant to your inquiry—unless you believe that mere contact with us might have been enough to inspire his kidnapping by political extremists.” Geyer seemed to find that possibility amusing, implying by his attitude that the suggestion was absurd.
“I believe that’s possible,” Smith said doggedly. “Has your Institute ever had any links with a movement whose members call themselves Real Women?”
“No,” Geyer said, still manifesting slight but rather contemptuous amusement.
“But you’ve heard of them?”
“Yes. We have nothing against what they refer to, rather oxy-moronically, as natural physical culture. I suppose they might have regarded our endeavors as a kind of unnatural physical culture, but I’m not aware that they ever singled us out for particular criticism.”
“You’re using the past tense,” Smith pointed out.
“My impression is that the feminist movement no longer has any meaningful existence, as a movement,” Geyer said. “If I’m mistaken, I apologize. Is this really relevant?”
“It is if Morgan Miller has been kidnapped by Real Women,” Smith answered sourly.
Geyer turned to look at Lisa again. “You must have discussed Nietzsche with Morgan Miller, Dr. Friemann,” he said. “Perhaps you could advise your colleague that he is taking the wrong inference from his citation in our charter.”
“I’m not so sure that he is,” Lisa replied. She felt strangely calm now that the effect of the pills was no longer manifest as a disturbance. “I haven’t read your charter myself, and I never had the privilege of hearing Morgan’s views on Vril—or, for that matter, on your particular brand of algeny. If it was a recent enthusiasm of his, he’s more likely to have discussed it with Stella Filisetti, his current research assistant. Did he mention her contribution to his experiments, by any chance?”
“I don’t believe so,” Geyer said. “He gave me to understand that he had begun this work before or shortly after the turn of the century. If so, he’d have been far more likely to credit you as a contributor, don’t you think?”
“Did he?” Lisa inquired. She could feel a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and wondered how long it had been since she had last smiled.
“I fear not,” Geyer admitted. “He implied that it was a sideline to the research on which his early reputation was based—an unexpected spin-off. Perhaps he was reluctant to discuss it with his colleagues until he’d made more tangible progress.”
“You just told us that he’d hinted to you that he had made more tangible progress,” Lisa pointed out.
“Perhaps there came a time, quite recently, when he reviewed his results and began to wonder whether they were as disappointing as they had seemed at the time,” Geyer suggested.
“We need detail, Herr Geyer,” Lisa said. “We need to know precisely how this hypothetical research was supposed to make a contribution to the cause of human evolution. If it wasn’t a failed life-extension technology, what was it?”
“I wish I knew,” Geyer said, exuding sincerity with practiced ease. “The puzzle becomes more intriguing with every hour that passes. He did not tell me. But if I were to answer as an Algenist rather than as a mere witness, I would point out that one cannot alter one aspect of human nature without altering others. A man who did not age, and who might live forever if he did not die violently, would differ from you and me in many subtle ways, Dr. Friemann, and perhaps in some not so subtle. Ancient romances of the elixir of life could sidestep such questions, but serious scientists cannot. If someone came to you with a supposed elixir of life, Dr. Frie-mann, you would be bound to ask the awkward questions, would you not? How, exactly, does it work? What, exactly, are its side effects? There are unintended consequences in everything we do, are there not?
“If Morgan Miller had told me in so many words that what he wanted to give me was a technology that would allow people to live longer, those are the questions I would have asked him—but he did not tell me what he had discovered, or why it had not lived up to his expectations, or why his attempts to overcome the problem had come to nothing. If the people who have abducted him had not asked those questions beforehand, they have acted precipitously, perhaps at the risk of bitter disappointment. If they had asked them but had jumped to the wrong conclusions, the depth of their disappointment will be all the greater. Do you see what I mean?”
It was impossible to be certain, of course, but Lisa thought she could see at least part of his meaning. If Matthias Geyer had reached the same tentative hypothesis that she had, he’d had more time to think about its implications, with fewer distractions. Smith’s reference to Real Women hadn’t seemed to come as any surprise to him, which reinforced Lisa’s suspicion that Leland and the Institute of Algeny were hand in glove—but while Leland had seized upon the apocalyptic aspects of the Real Woman’s speech, Geyer might have taken the same view as Lisa as to its actual import.
However clever Geyer might be, though, he didn’t know everything that Lisa knew. He had no way of matching her guess as to the identity of the person behind the kidnapping. All he could do was to sit around and wonder why Morgan had thought his quest a partial failure—which would surely have driven him to the same hastily formed conclusion that Ms. X must have reached: that if Morgan had discovered a method of life extension that worked only on women, he would have immediately gone to work to find a way of making it work on men too. But surely, Lisa thought, neither Matthias Geyer nor Ms. X knew Morgan Miller as well as she did—unless, of course, she was a mere fool where Morgan Miller was concerned, and always had been.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Geyer flashed her a ghostly half smile that might have been a calculated reflection of her own. “Perhaps I’m not entirely sure what I mean myself,” he said. “Algeny encourages the use of the imagination—the everlasting intellectual struggle to transcend the mental limitations imposed on us by the idols of the theatre and the tribe. I deeply regret what has happened. I feel sure that Morgan Miller was an Algenist at heart, and I wish he had come to us forty years ago for assistance with whatever line of research it was that frustrated him so deeply. If you ever come to feel that your vocation in forensic science has run its course, Dr. Friemann, I hope you will consider the possibility of seeking employment with us. We need people of your caliber.”
Lisa remembered Leland’s assurance that he could fix her up with a job. She had thought at the time that he was merely trying to suggest that her decision to overstep the legal line wouldn’t cost her too dearly, but now she considered the possibility that the Algenists really were enthusiastic to recruit her because of what she might know about Morgan Miller’s stubbornly secret research. She had to control an impulse to laugh at Geyer’s temerity. Peter Smith’s expression of disapproval was a sight to behold.
“If you’ll forgive me, Herr Geyer,” the tight-lipped man from the MOD put in, “I must insist that we stick to the point at issue. Do you have a tape of your interview with Morgan Miller?”
“I’m afraid not,” the Algenist replied. “It’s not our policy to tape confidential conversations. I really am trying to be helpful, although I apologize for digressing so far as to tell Dr. Friemann that we value expertise like hers. You have my word that if there is anything I can do to facilitate Morgan Miller’s safe release, I shall certainly do it—but for the time being,
I cannot see anything I can more usefully do than urge you to return forthwith to more profitable lines of inquiry. I have told you all I can.”
No sooner had Geyer finished speaking than Peter Smith’s phone rang. It seemed an uncanny echo of what had happened at the Ahasuerus Foundation. “Yes,” Smith said, putting the phone to his ear.
Whatever was said didn’t seem to lighten his mood. His spirits had already become fractious, but the call seemed to darken them even further. When he put the phone away again, all he said was: “Very well, Herr Geyer—we’ll leave it there for the time being.”
Lisa rose with an alacrity she could not have contrived an hour before, no matter how impatient she had become. Smith obviously didn’t want to say anything in front of Geyer that could be construed as an indiscretion, so she didn’t ask any questions. It was, however, left to her to thank Matthias Geyer for his assistance. Unlike Smith, she thought that he probably had been as helpful as he could, in his own way.
When they were back in the police car, with the gates of the Institute firmly closed behind them, she asked Smith what had happened.
“They’ve identified the Real Woman,” he said. “Cross-connecting her records with Filisetti’s revealed what seemed to be a promising network of mutual contacts, but the moment your people got to work on it, they found that it was hopelessly confused by a smoke screen. Someone’s been busy corrupting the files, and the corruption extends into the heart of the police net.”
“Oh,” said Lisa. She had not anticipated this, but now that the information had been laid before her, she could see that it was not in the least astonishing. “What kind of smoke screen?”
“The statistical sort threw out a substantial list of names,” Smith told her glumly, “but the top three, at least, appear to be somebody’s idea of a joke. Guess whose name is number one, even though she didn’t even recognize the woman in question?”
“Mine,” said Lisa, her heart sinking slightly as she realized that this might look a lot worse than Stella Filisetti or one of her confidantes spraying the word TRAITOR on her door. Even so, she couldn’t help adding: “And I bet I can guess who numbers two and three are too.”
“Go on,” Smith invited, trying hard to pretend that it wouldn’t make him any more suspicious than he already was if she happened to guess right.
She went ahead anyway. “Chief Inspector Judith Kenna,” she said, “and Mrs. Helen Grundy.”
“Spot-on,” Smith confirmed. “I suppose I ought to be grateful that they had no way of knowing I’d be sent down from London, or they’d have put my wife’s name in as well.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced of that.
“What about Arachne West?” Lisa asked.
“She was on the list too,” Smith confirmed. “Farther down, of course—but near enough to the top to assist the theory that her name’s one of those that the smoke screen is trying to conceal, not part of the smoke screen itself. It’s only a matter of hours, of course, before the disinformation is eliminated. By dawn, or shortly thereafter, we’ll know for sure who our enemies are and be able to begin tracking down their current whereabouts. Once we can start making arrests, we’ll be able to ascertain Morgan Miller’s whereabouts soon enough.”
Lisa considered telling Smith that she already knew who Smith’s so-called enemies were, and that she already had a plan for ascertaining Morgan Miller’s whereabouts, but she decided against it. Until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t want to be one of those so-called enemies, she had to work alone—or almost alone. There was one person to whom she still felt a limited sense of obligation, although it wasn’t going to be easy to give him fair warning without compromising her temporary advantage in the game of hide-and-seek.
“I need some sleep,” she said. “If I’m to be of any use to you when the disinformation is eliminated, I have to get my head down.”
“So do I,” he said. “We’ll go straight back to the hotel—but as soon as the sun comes up, we’ll have to move on.”
By daybreak, Lisa thought, I’ll have moved already—and with luck, you won’t catch up with me until I have all the answers I need.
SEVENTEEN
As soon as Ginny had eased the helicopter into the air again, Peter Grimmett Smith rounded on Lisa. “Okay,” he said. “So tell me—what was all that about? You were practically flirting with the guy.”
“As a matter of fact,” Lisa informed him frostily “it was he who was practically flirting with me. He seemed to feel that you were a trifle hostile and that I might be more sympathetic. Wasn’t that the point of my being there?”
“Of course,” Smith conceded ungraciously. “But you have to remember that he’s a suspect. He could be the one who had Miller kidnapped.”
“I doubt it. He’s infinitely more likely to be the one who set Leland loose—indirectly, if not directly. He had no reason to think that Morgan would prefer Ahasuerus to the Institute, given that Morgan doesn’t have your knee-jerk response to the mention of Nietzsche and that Morgan never suggested there was any kind of competition going on. When he heard about Morgan being abducted, though, he must have had a sudden anxiety attack that something so nearly in his grasp might be snatched away before he even got a chance to find out what it was. He was probably on the phone to Leland within minutes, although he might have checked with Switzerland first.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s on our side,” Smith reminded her sharply. “The fact that you and this Leland character seem to have embarked on some kind of conspiracy—”
“That’s bullshit,” Lisa was quick to put in. “I’m happy to let Leland follow his own priorities while freeing Morgan is number one on his list, but I’m under no delusions as to whose side he’s on. I’m in no sort of conspiracy with anyone. The only reason Geyer was eager to talk to me was that he didn’t like the way you were talking to him. You were right to cut it short when the new information came in. Once you’ve purged the data relating to Stella’s contacts, the true guilty parties will be easy enough to identify. The priority now is making sure they don’t do anything too stupid when they’re cornered. They haven’t killed anybody yet, but they’ve come close enough to suggest that Morgan may still be in a mortal danger.”
“That’s not the only issue,” Smith said grimly.
It is for me, Lisa thought. But that was because she wasn’t yet prepared to believe that whatever Morgan had taken to Goldfarb and Geyer had had any military or commercial value.
The lights of Swindon were fading into hungry darkness as the helicopter reached its cruising altitude, but Lisa looked in vain for any hint of dawn on the horizon they were fleeing. For the first time, she felt the lack of the personal equipment she had abandoned to the plastic bag when she had been forced to change her tainted clothing. She had lost contact with the patient cycle of the hours; the pills that had banished her fatigue had disconnected her from any sense of passing time.
She had to raise her head over the top of the front seat and scan the red lights of Ginny’s instrument panel in the hope of catching sight of a clock face or digital display. When she finally found one, she was startled to observe that it was five to four, twenty-four hours to the minute since the panic had set in. A single day was all it had required to crack and bruise the veneer that sixty-one years had ingrained upon the surface of her life. It was undoubtedly the most eventful day she had ever lived—but while she watched, the display changed.
It was now four minutes to four, and a new day had begun: a day that would likely wrench the cracks apart, turn the bruises into bloody wounds, and shatter to smithereens everything she had patiently made of herself.
“It’s not just a matter of identifying the ringleaders,” Smith added, following his own train of thought into the tunnel of silence. “We need to know how wide the conspiracy extends. If Stella Filisetti did remove a number of mice from the university, they might already have been split into several different consignments and moved out of the cityplex. We need t
o cover the Institute and Ahasuerus, of course—but how many other possible destinations are there, and how many potential couriers? They obviously want the data as well as the animals, but losing the animals might be a serious breach of security in itself. It’s a pity that mice are so small.”
“If they weren’t” Lisa pointed out drily, “Mouseworld would never have been a possibility.” Smith was right, though; unless Stella could be persuaded to tell them exactly how many mice she’d taken and how they’d been dispersed, it would never be possible for the MOD to be sure they’d plugged the leak. Without a record of exactly how the mice had been transformed and how they had fared, it would be a long and difficult process to work back from a DNA analysis to the production of a new transformer.
“But you’re right, of course,” Smith said, switching to a conciliatory tone with all the subtlety of a charging hippopotamus. “Our first priority is to liberate Morgan Miller, and if Herr Geyer is trying to do that too, he’s not our enemy—at least not for the time being. I might have misjudged him—but you have to admit that his organization merits suspicion. What did you mean about my ‘knee-jerk response to the mention of Nietzsche’?”
“That’s what Herr Geyer seems to think,” Lisa was quick to say, conscious that it would benefit her to be a little more diplomatic. “He seemed to assume that you hadn’t quite understood the relationship between algeny and Nietzschean morality. He probably thinks your interpretation of the term übermensch is a little on the vulgar side.”
“So educate me,” Smith said acidly. “What does he think it means?”
“Nietzsche’s idea of the overman was rather vague,” Lisa told him, “but he would certainly have been horrified by the subsequent usurpation of the idea by the Nazis. Nietzsche seems to have thought of overmen—and he did mean men in the narrow sense, although I hope that modern Algenists are more generous—as intellectuals and creative artists, definitely not swaggering oafs in jackboots. Nietzsche’s critique of moral systems is complicated, but one of its fundamental observations is that the old moral systems tend to see good in negative terms, as the absence of manifest evils like hunger, pain, injury, and death. That was perfectly reasonable in societies so primitive that they were perpetually assailed by all the ills that made even human life nasty, brutish, and short—but it no longer makes much sense in advanced societies that have the means to oppose the elementary evils and drastically reduce their role in everyday life.
The Cassandra Complex Page 21