Rosacher had climbed the tower in order to be alone (an ambition thwarted when he discovered Cattanay, bearded and bedraggled, sketching on the platform) and to gain perspective, though not on the painting. He had taken to sleeping as little as possible, doing everything in his power to stay awake, yet some sleep was essential and he had woken that morning to discover he had lost another four years—at this rate he calculated that he had at best another week or so to live, and he hoped this elevated position would lend itself to a fresh comprehension of the problem. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Cattanay, who seemed as perturbed by Rosacher’s presence as was Rosacher with his, returned to his sketching, and Rosacher sat on the lip of the platform, dangling his legs off the side, staring at the golden blotch. His thoughts were in disarray and resisted all attempts to marshal them. He kept coming back to the panicked recognition that he was now, as best he could determine, forty-three years old, and that the better part of sixteen years had been stripped from him. The obvious thing to do would be to stop moping and get to work on his study of the blood and hope that it led to an insight into his current difficulties. He had built a laboratory in his factory and nothing stood in his way…unless it was Griaule. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he must have been close to achieving a breakthrough, one detrimental to the dragon’s health or contrary to his schemes, for Griaule to have intervened and set his life upon such a different course. This inspired him to go forward with his researches, but the idea that Griaule might thwart him at any second neutered the impulse. And, too, he wondered if he still retained the discipline to stare for hours into a microscope. Ludie was probably right—he made a more successful criminal than he did a scientist.
Boards creaked behind him and, turning, he saw Cattanay sitting cross-legged, unwrapping a sandwich from a packet of brown paper. Glancing up, he offered half to Rosacher, who declined. Cattanay took a bite, chewed with gusto and swallowed. He made a contented sound and brushed crumbs from his beard.
“This cheese is excellent,” he said. “You should try it. Allie, my companion, soaks it in an infusion of berries. Quite tasty.”
Again Rosacher declined. He watched the artist eat for several seconds and then, feeling awkward with the silence, he asked how the work was going.
Cattanay shrugged. “It goes and it goes. I’ve been unable to manufacture a proper magenta. The color changes so much on the scales…” He gestured with the sandwich. “We’ll get it right sooner or later.”
“I meant to ask if you had any idea of how long Griaule can survive?”
“Haven’t a clue. Sorry. I suppose he could pop off any old time. You need to ask an expert in dragon physiology…if there are such. You were a doctor once, no? You’re more qualified than I to give an opinion.”
Pigeons perched on a beam beneath the platform began to squabble. The wind shifted, bringing a burning smell from the vats. Rosacher realized he’d become so accustomed to the dragon that most of the time he paid it no more attention than a rock—whenever he spoke about Griaule, he did so in the abstract, as if he were referring to an idea, a principle, something other than the dragon’s monstrous reality
“How’s business?” Cattanay asked.
“Manageable. We make plenty of missteps, but one learns to adapt.”
“It’s the same with me. Always something. Loggers haven’t returned with wood to keep the vats going or someone’s taken a fall. I’ve delegated responsibility, yet it’s a rare day when I’m not called away to deal with some trouble.”
“At least when you’re done you’ll have a monument to commemorate your labors.”
“The mural? I doubt it. How long do you think it’ll take before they decide to rid themselves of Griaule’s corpse? A week? A month? No more, surely.”
Rosacher murmured in agreement.
“There’s a man in Punta Esperanza who’s had some success with reproducing images from life,” said Cattanay. “Perhaps by the time it’s finished, he’ll have refined the process and the mural will survive in that way. It’s hardly the same thing, though.”
Cattanay had another bite of sandwich and Rosacher, kicking his heels against the side of the platform, said, “May I ask a personal question?”
His mouth full, Cattanay signaled him to go ahead.
“Are you happy?”
Cattanay swallowed, wiped his mouth. “That’s a hell of a question…though I hear it often. Allie asks it of me almost every night.”
“I’m certain the context is very different.”
“Oh, without a doubt.” Cattanay picked at a bit of food trapped between his teeth. “Happy’s not a word I generally apply to myself. You might say I’m content. I’m doing work I love. Things aren’t perfect, but I suppose I’m happy enough. Happier than you by the look of it.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that account.”
Tipping his head to the side, Cattanay seemed to study him as though he were a troublesome area on a canvas. “Perhaps you lack passion,” he said. “That’s what people need in order to know even a minute’s happiness. Without passion and the focus passion brings, there’s only confusion. That’s how I view it, anyway.”
“I used to be passionate about science, but no more. I was never passionate about the business. The business…it was something to do, something easier than science. I think I’ve used it as an excuse not to do what I really wanted.”
“You’d best find something else you really want, then. That is, if happiness is your goal.”
“I think my goals may be changing.”
“Pah! Mine change a dozen times each morning before lunch. I’ll wish for a better source of a magenta and then the sight of an art student with a nice derriere…well, you know how it goes.”
With a grunt, Cattanay got to his feet. He balled up the paper in which his sandwich had been wrapped and tossed it off the tower. Thin streams of people were passing in the streets below. “I have things to take care of at the vats. Have you been up on the dragon recently?”
“Not for years…and then only to the edge of the mouth.”
Cattanay stepped into the basket of the elevator attached to the side of the tower and prepared to lower himself. “You ought to take a walk up there when you have a chance. It can be inspiring. You never know what you might encounter.”
+
After puttering in his laboratory the rest of the morning and into late afternoon, unable to come to grips with the scientific elements of the issue that confronted him, Rosacher heeded Cattanay’s advice and climbed the scaffolding to the vats and then walked out onto the dragon’s back, following a meandering track through dry-leaved thickets until he came to Hangtown. The settlement had grown from a handful of shacks surrounding a polluted puddle of rainwater half an acre in circumference to a village of perhaps two hundred souls housed in fifty or sixty shanties, the largest of these serving as a tavern and marked by a neatly hand-lettered sign that read: