‘You’re a newcomer to this game, Ursula. I’ve seen a little of your habitat now, enough to know that your security arrangements aren’t exactly top of the line.’
‘He’s in no danger of putting himself back together, Carl, unless you believe in telekinesis.’
‘I’m worried about what would happen if his admirers learn of his whereabouts. Some of them won’t be content just to know he’s being kept alive in pieces. They’ll want to take him, put him all the way back together.’
‘I don’t think anyone would be quite that foolish.’
‘Then you don’t know people. People like us, Ursula. How many collectors have you shown him to already?’
She tilts her head, looking at him along her up-curved nose. ‘Less than a dozen, including yourself.’
‘That’s already too many. I wouldn’t be surprised if word has already passed beyond the Circle. Don’t tell me you’ve shown him to Rossiter?’
‘Rossiter was the second.’
‘Then it’s probably already too late.’ He sighs, as if taking a great burden upon himself. ‘We don’t have much time. We need to make immediate arrangements to transport his remains to my habitat. They’ll be a lot safer there.’
‘Why would your place be any safer than mine?’
‘I design security systems. It’s what I do for a living.’
She appears to consider it, for a moment at least. Then she shakes her head. ‘No. It won’t happen. He’s staying here. I see where you’re coming from now, Carl. You don’t actually care about my security arrangements at all. It probably wouldn’t even bother you if Doctor Trintignant did escape back into Stoner society. It’s highly unlikely that you’d have ended up one of his victims, after all. You’ve got money and influence. It’s those poor souls down in the Mulch who’d need to watch their backs. That’s where he’d go hunting for raw material. What you can’t stand is the thought that he might be mine, not yours. I’ve got something you haven’t, something unique, something you can’t ever have, and it’s going to eat you from inside like acid.’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘I will. I always have. You made a dreadful mistake when you humiliated me, Carl, assuming you didn’t have a hand in what had already happened to the hamadryad.’
‘What are you saying? That I had something to do with the fact that Shallice stiffed you?’
He detects her hesitation. She comes perilously close to accusing him, but even here — even in this private cloister — there are limits that she knows better than to cross.
‘But you were glad of it, weren’t you?’ she presses.
‘I had the superior specimen. That’s all that ever mattered to me.’ With a renewed shudder of revulsion — and, he admits, something close to admiration — he turns again to survey the distributed remains of the notorious doctor. ‘You say he can hear us?’
‘Every word.’
‘You should kill him now. Take a hammer to his brain. Make sure he can never live again.’
‘Would you like that, Carl?’
‘It’s exactly what the authorities would do if they got hold of him.’
‘They’d give him a trial first, one imagines.’
‘He doesn’t deserve a trial. None of his victims had the benefit of justice.’
‘What history conveniently forgets,’ Goodglass says, ‘is that many of his so-called victims came to him willingly. He was not a monster to them, but the agent of the change they craved. He was the most brilliant transformative surgeon of our era. So what if society considered his creations obscene? So what if some of them regretted what they had freely asked him to do?’
‘You’re defending him now.’
‘Not defending him — just pointing out that nothing is ever that black and white. For years Trintignant was given tacit permission to continue his work. The authorities didn’t like him, but they accepted that he fulfilled a social need.’
Grafenwalder shakes his head — he’s seen and heard enough. ‘I thought you were exhibiting a monster, Ursula. Now it looks to me as if you’re sheltering a fugitive.’
‘I’m not, I assure you. Just because I have a balanced view of Trintignant doesn’t mean I don’t despise him. Here: let me offer you a demonstration.’ And with that Goodglass taps a command sequence into the air, disarming the security system. She is able to pass her hand through the laser-mesh without bringing down the armoured screen. ‘Walk over to the brain, Carl,’ she commands. ‘It isn’t a trap.’
‘I’d be happier if you walked with me.’
‘If you like.’
He hesitates longer than he’d like, long enough for her to notice, then takes a step into the enclosure. Goodglass is only a pace behind him. The eyeballs swivel to track him, triangulating with the smoothness of motorised cameras. He moves next to the bubbling brain vat. Up close, the brain looks too small to have been the wellspring of so much evil.
‘What am I supposed to look at?’
‘Not look at — do. You can inflict pain on him, if you wish. There’s a button next to the brain. It sends an electrical current straight into his anterior cingulate cortex.’
‘Isn’t he in pain already?’
‘Not especially. He re-engineered himself to allow for this dismantling. There may be some existential trauma, but I don’t believe he’s in any great discomfort from one moment to the next.’
Grafenwalder’s hand moves of its own volition, until it hovers above the electrical stimulator. He can feel its magnetic pull, almost willing his hand to lower. He wonders why he feels such a primal urge to bring pain to the doctor. Trintignant never hurt him; never hurt anyone he knew. All that he knows of Trintignant’s crimes is second- hand, distorted and magnified by time and the human imagination. That the doctor was tolerated, even encouraged, cannot seriously be doubted. He filled the hole in Yellowstone society where a demon was meant to fit.
‘What’s wrong, Carl? Qualms?’
‘How do I know this won’t send a jolt directly to his pleasure centre?’
‘Look at his spinal column. Watch it thrash.’
‘Spines don’t thrash.’
‘His does. Those little mechanisms—’
It’s all the encouragement he needs. He brings his hand down, holding the contact closed for a good five or six seconds. Under the brain, the stump of spinal matter twists and flexes like a rattlesnake’s tail. He can hear it scraping glass.
He raises his hand, watches the motion subside.
‘See,’ Goodglass says, ‘I knew you’d do it.’
Grafenwalder notices that there’s some kind of heavy medical tool next to the brain tank, a thing with a grip and a clawed alloy head. With his other hand he picks it up, testing its weight. The glass container looks invitingly fragile; the brain even more so.
‘Be careful,’ Goodglass says.
‘I could kill him now, couldn’t I? Put an end to him, for ever.’
‘Many would applaud you. But then you’d be providing him with a way out, an end to this existence. On the other hand, you could send another jolt of pain straight into his mind. What would you rather, Carl? Rid the world of Trintignant and spare him further pain, or let him suffer a little longer?’
He’s close to doing it; close to smashing the tool into the glass. As close as she is, Goodglass couldn’t stop him in time. And there would be something to be said for being the man who closed the book on Trintignant. But at the decisive instant something holds him back. Nothing that the doctor did has ever touched him personally, but he still feels a compulsion to join in his torment. And as the moment passes, he knows that he could never end the doctor’s life so cleanly, so mercifully, when pain is always an alternative.
Instead, he presses the button again, and holds it down longer this time. The spine thrashes impressively. Behind him, Ursula Goodglass applauds.
‘Good for you, Carl. I knew you’d do the right thing.’
