The Dragon flexed its wings slightly, dismissing Wilson’s remarks. “Show me.”
“As you wish, Lord Dragon.” Wilson wet his lips with a pink tongue that only slightly protruded beneath his mustache. “With your indulgence, it will take a few minutes.”
The Dragon remained silent. Wilson turned quickly and vanished into the darkness of a side tunnel. A moment later, he reappeared emerging from a corridor onto the floor of the chamber to have a brief conference with a quartet of his fellows.
Hart wanted to get a closer view of the operation. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she retrieved a pair of glasses. She tapped once on the frame to adjust the setting to magnification and settled them on her head. What she saw on the screens was fascinating, though she understood very little of the abstruse hermetic formulae, much less the chemical formulae. She wished she had a copy to study at leisure.
The consoles forfeited her attention when they blanked at the first faint strains of thaumaturgic chant beginning to drift up from the group of mages gathered below. She scanned the bowl’s floor. All the ordinary technicians, save one, had disappeared. That one was attaching a hose to a wheeled canister. The other end of the hose was fastened to the vat. The technician moved to a nearby panel, where she adjusted a few knobs. Bilious green swirled into the vat’s fluid, commingling with the liquid until it resembled molten jade. As more and more of the green substance entered, the shape in the vat slowed its motion, ultimately becoming still. Apparently satisfied, the technician shut down her panel and vacated the floor.
As soon as she was out of sight, the mages raised their voices, strengthening the chant spell. The four who had joined their master split away in two pairs to take up station’s at opposite sides of the container. Their song rose again in volume as Wilson stepped up to the tank. The paired mages split, one of each couple remaining in place while the other walked a quarter of the way around the circumference. The cardinal points occupied, they raised their chant almost to a shout before dropping it to a soft, monotonous tone.
Within the hermetic circle, Wilson executed a series of intricate hand motions. The sweeping gestures described by his arms grew ever smaller until only hands and fingers moved. Then they too stopped. A heartbeat later, Wilson stepped back. A casual gesture of his right hand brought a harness down from the obscurity of the ceiling. A flaccid spider trailing its web, the straps plunged into the once more translucent liquid to snake around the limp shape. Wilson raised his hand and the harness rose in sympathetic motion.
The figure that emerged from the tank was humanoid. Though it was naked, Hart could discern no sexual characteristics, primary or secondary. Now that it was no longer a shadow, she could see that its skin was as milky white as the fluid had been when they arrived. The flesh was soft and unlined, barely disturbed by the swell of muscles. It seemed somehow undefined.
Around the bowl, computer screens sprang to renewed life, displaying columns and rows of figures as well as formulae and diagnostic illustrations. Hart had no interest in numbers or pictures. The limp shape, at once compelling and repulsive, absorbed her whole attention. The strength of her fascination blew her usual cool professionalism away on the faint breeze from the air purifiers.
“Quite extraordinary, isn’t it?”
Hart was startled. She had not registered Wilson’s departure from the floor of the chamber, let alone his return to the platform.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“No one has. That is part of what makes it so valuable.”
“Direct your attention to the reaction data, Hart.”
She was annoyed at the beast’s use of her name in front of the mage, but she did as she was told. Scanning the screen displaying physical data, she whistled. The specs would look good on an Olympic athlete, but no Olympian had ever excelled in so many areas. “Superlative,” she concluded.
The Dragon chuffed his satisfaction.
“Very good.”
The mage bowed in acknowledgment. his face was a carefully constructed combination of the praised servant and the acknowledged savant, but Hart could see behind the subservient mask to the relief that was the man’s real emotion.
The Dragon stood, arcing its neck in a stretch that radiated satisfaction. When they had left the birthing chamber behind and the barriers both astral and mundane had been restored, the Dragon spoke. “I believe it is time for Mr. Drake to begin Operation Turncoat.”
Hart could feel the beast’s anticipation.
5
“We came from the dust of this planet and to the planet we return our bodies, recycling without end. Yet, while our mundane dross returns to oneness with the Earth, our spirits soar onward to answer for our stewardship. Let us consider now the works of men, especially those of our brother Jiro.”
The priest stopped speaking and, after some scattered “amens”, silence filled the small chapel. The room was not crowded. Besides Sam, Hanae, and the priest, only ten others were present. Jiro had not made many friends in his year at the arcology. Most of those attending were business acquaintances. Of his family, only an uncle had come.
The only flowers were a single twig of cherry, its forced-growth blossoms wilting quickly. Their scent was overwhelmed by the musty odor of the earthen floor.
Sam contemplated the pasteboard coffin. It was cheap, degradable paper in keeping with the Conservationist creed. Paper was still relatively inexpensive in the Northwest. He’d read that believers in other regions used cloth bags or didn’t bother with a covering at all.
The priest rustled his cotton robes to attract the congregation’s attention. “Brothers and sisters, we are still here, alive in the living world. Our brother Jiro has moved on in the never-ending cycle. We pray that he has achieved unity with the great spirit of life. Now we commit his shell, not to interment within the earth, but to a proper and glorious dispersal. What our brother was shall enrich us all.”
As the priest spoke, the coffin slid back toward the chapel’s inner wall, disappearing into the darkness. After it had moved, Sam could see the faint lines of the dirt that had slid into the trackway for the electric-motored platform that was carrying the coffin away. Somewhere in the darkness, attendants would remove the box and place it on a conveyor down to the recycling operation. Any usable parts would already have been sent to the storage banks. The remains would be rendered down to constituent components. Conservationists took recycling seriously.
“The family has asked me to announce a luncheon at Hsien’s Natural Foods on Level 144. Those wishing to make a memorial contribution will find cards with a list of preferred organizations in the rack at the door of the chapel. You may, of course, contribute directly to the Church of the Whole Earth, Incorporated. All donations are tax-deductible. Thank you for coming.”
The priest bowed, then disappeared into the darkness at the rear of the chapel. When Sam and Hanae turned to leave after a moment of deference, Sam was startled to see Alice Crenshaw standing near the door. He would never have expected the hard-nosed security woman to show up. She always made such a show of being hard-shelled.