The Cassandra Complex

“But he didn’t tell you what the data in question might be?” Smith asked. Lisa didn’t think much of Smith’s interrogatory technique, but he was severely handicapped by his reluctance to ask the questions he actually wanted answered. To introduce the topic of antibody packaging would be recklessly indiscreet.

“As you’ll see for yourself when you look at the transcript,” Goldfarb murmured defensively. Lisa realized that one reason why Smith hadn’t taken the wafer from her was that he was signaling to Goldfarb that he knew perfectly well that the transcript could easily have been doctored and didn’t consider it worth the silicon and rare earth it was printed on. “All he said,” Goldfarb added when he realized that Smith and Lisa were waiting for him to go on, “is that he’d been trying to solve a seemingly intractable problem for nearly forty years, and that although he’d failed, he thought he ought to make his data available so that other researchers wouldn’t have to repeat all his wasted stratagems.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lisa said immediately. “I’ve known Morgan Miller for thirty-nine years, and I’ve followed every step of his quest to solve the problem of developing a universal transformation system. Even if he hasn’t published every last detail of his failed attempts, there’s nothing esoteric about the work. Anyway, why should he think that an organization like yours would be interested in his records? He’s never done anything specifically relevant to longevity research or suspended-animation techniques.”

“Really?” said Goldfarb, who seemed genuinely surprised. “I must admit that isn’t the impression he gave me. When you look at the transcript—”

“What isthe impression he gave you?” Smith butted in.

Goldfarb hesitated, but only for a moment. “Well,” he said, blushing again, “I did get the impression that the data to which he referred wasdirectly relevant to the core element of our mission statement.”

“The extension of the human life span?” Smith was quick to clarify.

“The fostering of human emortality,” Goldfarb corrected him. Glancing sideways at Lisa, he added: “That’s emortality with an ‘e.’ Our founder disliked the word immortality’ because he thought it implied an inability to die no matter what, whereas—”

“I know what emortality means,” Lisa said through slightly gritted teeth. “I’m a scientist, not a community policeman—and I’ve known Morgan Miller well for nearly forty years. Are you suggesting that Morgan was engaged throughout that time on some clandestine line of research that he never even mentionedto me?”

Goldfarb shrugged. “I know nothing about the circumstances …” he began, but trailed off in evident confusion, unable to decide where the sentence ought to go.

“But you’re definitely telling us that whatever this line of research was, it was unsuccessful?” Smith put in. “According to what he told you, he only wanted to save others from wandering up the same blind alleys, not knowing that they’d already been checked.”

“That’s what he told me,” Goldfarb agreed hesitantly. It didn’t need a psychologist to spot the implied “but.”

“And what did youtell New York?” Smith demanded.

Goldfarb didn’t reply. He and his superiors had obviously agreed that he had a duty to override the issues of confidentiality that were relevant to his conversation with Morgan Miller, but Smith’s question presumably went beyond that decision. “It was just an impression I got,” the little man said defensively.

“We’ve already taken note of the fact that you’re the kind of man who forms a lot of impressions,” Smith said rather intemperately. “What did you tell New York?”

“Nothing,”Goldfarb insisted. “It’s just… I’m trying to helpyou here … it’s just that scientists nowadays have got into the habit of playing their cards very close to their chests. Miller came here fishing for information, and I wasn’t entirely sure that he’d have bothered doing that if his results had been as uniformly negative as he said they were. I told New York that I thought he was probably keeping something up his sleeve.”

Goldfarb was blushing again, having obviously considered the possibility that it might have been his “impression” that had prompted Morgan Miller’s kidnapping. It didn’t seem very likely to Lisa, but in a crazy world, it sometimes didn’t need much to trigger precipitate responses.

“That was rather irresponsible, don’t you think?” she put in.

“There’s also the possibility that he’d missed something,” Goldfarb retorted, shifting his ground uncomfortably. “Scientists don’t always have a clear view of the implications of their own results, especially if they haven’t exposed them to any kind of peer review. I told New York that I thought Miller might be uncertain about the causes for his failure, and that he might want someone else to take a look at his results in case they could pick up something he’d overlooked. He did seem … well, frustrated.As if he were a

“That’s ridiculous!” Lisa said, unable to contain her a

Lisa saw that Smith was frowning, and realized that Mike Grundy would probably have been blazing mad if she’d gone off like that during one of his interviews. She knew she shouldn’t be throwing speculations of this sort at a witness—but everything Goldfarb said had needled her.

“How good is your security, Dr. Goldfarb?” Smith asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“Oh, the very best,” Goldfarb assured him, seemingly glad that the subject had been changed. “Our founder was a systems expert, thoroughly versed in methods of encryption, and he knew as well as anyone what damage can be done when confidential information becomes available to people who want to use it for their own ends.”

Such as precipitating stock-market crashes, Lisa thought.

“So nobody outside your organization could possibly have obtained a copy of the text on the wafer you’ve just given my colleague?” Smith followed up. “Even though it’s been to New York and back, and even though you’ve recently produced a decrypted version?” Unless, of course, Lisa added silently, it was deliberately leaked, here or across the pond.

“Nothing’s absolutely certain,” Goldfarb admitted cautiously, “but I have to say that it’s very unlikely. At the very least, we’d surely have some indication if our systems had been hacked. We have verygood alarm bells.”

As if on cue, a bell began to sound. Goldfarb spun around as if he’d been burned, but he relaxed almost immediately when he realized that it wasn’t an alarm at all. It was Peter Grimmett Smith’s phone.

Smith scowled, turning his back to take the call.

“I thought for a moment that something had crashed downstairs,” Goldfarb said to Lisa, as if to establish the fact that he was not listening in to Smith’s conversation. “It seems to happen more frequently with every week that passes. It’s all that newspaper talk about ‘slaves of the machine’—nobody with half a brain wants to do basic inputting and negotiation anymore in case they get stuck with a reputation as an idiot, so we get stuck with actual idiots minding reception and the parking facilities. They’re always pressing the wrong buttons and getting flustered because they can’t work their way out of the error maze. Believe me, Dr. Friema