what I have for you, Mister Grafenwalder: enough to silence those qualms of yours.’
The case is lined with black foam. Glass vials reside in neat little partitions. The palanquin probes the case and detects only biological material: exactly what Rifugio promised. With his left hand, Rifugio digs out one of the vials and holds it up like a magic charm. Dark red fluid sloshes around inside.
‘Here. Take this and run an analysis on it. It’s Denizen blood, with Denizen DNA.’
Grafenwalder hesitates for a moment, despite the assurances from his palanquin that it can deal with any mere biological trickery. Then he permits the machine to extend one of its manipulators, allowing Rifugio to pop the vial into its cushioned grasp. The machine withdraws the manipulator into its analyser alcove, set just beneath the frontal window. Part of the biological sample will be incinerated and passed through a gas chromatograph, where its isotopic spectrum will be compared against the data on Denizen blood Grafenwalder has already compiled. At the same time, the DNA will be amplified, speed-sequenced and cross-referenced against his best-guess for the Denizen genetic sequence. There’s no physical connection between the analyser and the interior of the palanquin, so Grafenwalder cannot come to harm. Even so, he wills the analyser to complete its duties as swiftly as possible.
‘Well, Mister Grafenwalder? Does it meet with your satisfaction? ’
The analyser starts graphing up its preliminary conclusions: the material looks genuine enough.
Grafenwalder keeps the excitement from his voice. ‘I’d like to know where you found it. That would help me decide whether or not I believe you have the genuine article.’
‘The Denizen came into my possession via Ultras. They’d been keeping it as a pet, aboard their ship.’
‘Shallice’s men, by any chance?’
‘I obtained the Denizen from Captain Ritter, of the Number Theoretic. I’ve had no dealings with Shallice, although I know the name. As for Ritter — in so far as one can ever believe anything said by an Ultra — I was told that he acquired the Denizen during routine trade with another group of Ultras, in some other god-forsaken system. Apparently the Denizen was kept aboard ship as a pet. The Ultras had little appreciation of its wider value.’
‘How did Ultras get hold of it in the first place?’
‘I have no idea. Perhaps only the Denizen can tell us the whole story.’
‘I’ll need better provenance than that.’
‘You may never get it. We’re talking about beings created in utmost secrecy two hundred years ago. Their very existence was doubted even then. The best you can hope for is a plausible sequence of events. Clearly, the Denizen must have left Europa’s ocean after Cadmus-Asterius and the other hanging cities fell. If it passed into the hands of starfarers — Ultras, Demarchists, Conjoiners, it doesn’t matter which — it would have had a means to leave the system, and spend much of the intervening time either frozen or at relativistic speed, or both. It need not have experienced anything like the full bore of those two hundred years. Its memories of Europa may be remarkably sharp.’
‘Have you asked it?’
‘It doesn’t speak. Not all of them were created with the gift of language, Mister Grafenwalder. They were engineered to work as underwater slaves: to take orders rather than to issue them. They had to be intelligent, but they didn’t need to answer back.’
‘Some of them had language.’
‘The early prototypes, and those that were designed to mediate with their human overseers. Most of them were dumb.’
Grafenwalder allows the disappointment to wash over him, then bottles it away. He’d always hoped for a talker, but Rifugio is correct: it could never be guaranteed. And perhaps there is something in having one that won’t answer back, or plead. It’s going to be spending a lot of time in his tank, after all.
‘You’ll treat it with kindness, of course,’ Rifugio continues. ‘I didn’t liberate it from the Ultras just so it can become someone else’s pet, to be tormented between now and kingdom come. You’ll treat it as the sentient being it is.’
Grafenwalder sneers. ‘If you care so much, why not hand it over to the authorities?’
‘Because they’d kill it, and then go after anyone who knew of its existence. Demarchists made the Denizens in one of their darker moments. They’re more enlightened now — so they’d like us to think, anyway. They certainly wouldn’t want something like a living and breathing Denizen — a representative of a sentient slave race — popping out of history’s cupboard, not when they’re bending over backwards to score moral points over the Conjoiners.’
‘I’ll treat it fairly,’ Grafenwalder says.
At that moment the analyser announces that the blood composition and genetic material are both consistent with Denizen origin, to high statistical certainty. It’s not enough to prove that Rifugio has one, but it’s a large step in the right direction. Plenty of hoaxers have already fallen at this hurdle.
‘Well, Mister Grafenwalder? Have you reached a decision yet?’
‘I want to see the other samples.’
Rifugio fingers another vial from the case. ‘Skin tissue.’
‘I don’t have the means to run a thorough analysis on skin — not here anyway. Give me what you have, and I’ll take it back with me.’
Rifugio looks pained. ‘I’d hoped that we might reach agreement here and now.’
‘Then you hoped wrong. Unless you want to lower your price…’
‘I’m afraid that part of the arrangement isn’t negotiable. However, I’m willing to let you take these samples away.’ Rifugio snaps shut the lid. ‘As a further token of my goodwill, I’ll provide you with a moving image of the living Denizen. But I will expect a speedy decision in return.’
Grafenwalder’s palanquin takes the sealed case and stores it inside its bombproof cargo hatch. ‘You’ll get it. Don’t worry about that.’
‘Take me at my word, Mister Grafenwalder. You’re not the only collector with an eye for one of these monsters.’
Grafenwalder spends most of the return trip viewing the thirty-second movie clip, over and over again. It’s not the first time he’s seen moving imagery of something purporting to be a Denizen, but no other clip has withstood close scrutiny. This one is darker and grainier than some of the others, the swimming humanoid shifting in and out of focus, but there’s something eerily naturalistic about it, something that convinces him that it could be real. The Denizen looks plausible: it’s a monster, undoubtedly, but that monstrosity is the end result of logical design factors. It swims with effortless ease, propelling itself with the merest flick of the long fluked tail it wears in place of legs. It has arms, terminating in humanoid hands engineered for tool-use. Its head, when it swims towards the camera, merges seamlessly with its torso. It has eyes, very human eyes at that, but no nose, and its mouth is a smiling horizontal gash crammed with an unnerving excess of needle-sharp teeth. Looking at that movie, Grafenwalder feels more certain than ever that the creatures were real, and that at least one has survived. And as he studies the endlessly repeating thirty-second clip, he feels the closed book of his past creak open even wider. A question forms in his mind that he would rather not answer.
What exactly is it that he wants with the Denizen?
Things go tolerably well the next day, until the guests are almost ready to leave. They’ve seen the adult- phase hamadryad and registered due shock and awe. Grafenwalder is careful to remind them that, in addition to its size, this is also a living specimen, not some rotting corpse coaxed into a parodic imitation of life. Even Ursula Goodglass, who has to endure this, registers stoic approval. ‘You were lucky,’ she tells Grafenwalder through gritted teeth. ‘You could just as easily have ended up with a dead one.’
‘But then I wouldn’t have tried to pretend it was alive,’ he tells her.
It’s Goodglass who has the last laugh today, however. She saves it until the guests are almost back aboard their shuttles.
‘Friends,’ she says, ‘what I’m about to mention in no way compares with the spectacle of an adult-phase hamadryad, but I have recently come into possession of something that I think you might find suitably diverting.’
‘Something we’ve already seen two days ago?’ asks Lysander Carroway.
‘No. I chose to keep it under wraps then, thinking my little hamadryad would be spectacle enough for one day. It’s never been seen in public before, at least not in its present state.’
