Grafenwalder mulls the possibilities. Rifugio’s disappearance provides damning confirmation that some kind of deception has taken place. But if that deception merely extends to the fact that the Denizen isn’t unique, Grafenwalder considers himself to have got off lightly. He still has a Denizen, and that’s infinitely better than none at all. He’ll find a way to trace and punish Rifugio in due course, but for now retribution isn’t his highest priority.
Instead, what he desires most is communication.
By nightfall, when the keepers have finished their work, he descends to the tank and brings the lights back on. Not harshly now, but enough to alert the Denizen to his presence; to wake it from whatever shallow approximation of sleep it appears to enjoy when resting.
Then — satisfied that he is alone — he talks.
‘You can understand me,’ he says, for the umpteenth time. ‘I know this because my keepers have identified a region in your brain that only lights up when you hear human speech. And it lights up most strongly when you hear Canasian, the language of the Demarchy.’
The creature watches him sullenly.
‘It’s the language you were educated to understand, two hundred years ago. I know things have changed a little since then, but I don’t doubt that you can still make sense of these words.’ And as he speaks Canasian, he feels — not for the first time — an odd, unexpected fluency. The words ought to feel awkward, but they flow off his tongue with mercurial ease, as if this is also the language he was born to speak.
Which is absurd.
‘I want to know your story,’ he says. ‘How you got here, where you came from, how many of you there are. I know now that Rifugio lied to me. He’ll pay for that eventually, but for now all that matters is what you can tell me. I need to know everything, right back to the moment you were born in Europa.’
But the Denizen, as ever, shows no external sign of having understood him.
Later, Grafenwalder has his keepers install a waterproofed symbol board in the tank. It’s an array of touch-pads, each of which stands for a word in Canasian. As Grafenwalder speaks, the symbols light up in turn. The Denizen may reply by pressing the pads in sequence, which will be rendered back into speech on Grafenwalder’s side of the glass. Grafenwalder’s hoping that there’s something amiss with the Denizen’s language centre, some cognitive defect that can be short-circuited using the visual codes. If he can persuade the Denizen to press the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ pads in response to simple questions, he will consider that progress has been made.
Things don’t move as quickly as he’d hoped. The Denizen seems willing to cooperate, but it still doesn’t grasp the basics of language. Once it has understood that one of the pads symbolises food, it presses that one repeatedly, ignoring Grafenwalder’s attempts to get it to answer abstract questions.
Maybe it’s just stupid, he thinks. Maybe that’s why this batch was discontinued. But he doesn’t give up just yet. If the Denizen won’t communicate willingly, perhaps it needs persuasion. He has his keepers tinker with the ambient conditions, varying the water temperature and chemistry to make things uncomfortable. He withholds food and instructs the keepers to take further biopsies. It’s clear enough that the Denizen doesn’t enjoy the process.
Still the creature won’t talk, beyond issuing simple pleas for more food or warmer water. Grafenwalder feels his patience stretching. The keepers tell him that the Denizen is getting stronger, more difficult to subdue. Angrily, he accompanies them on their next trip into the tank. There are four men, all wearing power-assisted pressure armour, and now it takes three of them to pin the Denizen against one wall of the glass. When it breaks free momentarily, it gouges deep tooth marks in the flexible hide of Grafenwalder’s glove. Back outside the tank, he inspects the damage and wonders what those teeth would have done to naked flesh.
It’s fierce, he’ll give it that. It may not be unique; it may not be particularly intelligent; but he still doesn’t feel that all the money he gave Rifugio was wasted. Whatever the Denizen might be, it’s worthy of a place in the bestiary. And it’s his, not someone else’s.
He puts out the word that there is something new in his collection. Following Ursula Goodglass’s example, he tells the visitors to drop by whenever they like. There must be no suspicion that the Denizen is a stage-managed exhibit, something that can only perform to schedule.
It’s three days before anyone takes him up on his offer. Lysander Carroway and her husband are the first to arrive. Even then, Grafenwalder has the sense that the visit is regarded as a tiresome social duty. All that changes when they see the Denizen. He’s taken pains to stoke it up, denying it food and comfort for long hours. By the time he throws on the lights, the creature has become a focus of pure, mindless fury. It strives to kill the things on the other side of the glass, scratching claws and teeth against that impervious shield, to the point where it starts bleeding. His guests recoil, suitably impressed. After the study in motionless that was Dr Trintignant, they are woefully unprepared for the murderous speed of the Europan organism.
‘Yes, it is a Denizen,’ he tells them, while his keepers tend to the creature’s injuries. ‘The last of its kind, I have it on good authority.’
‘Where did you find it?’
He parrots the lie Rifugio has already told him. ‘You know what Ultras are like, with their pets. I don’t think they realised quite what they’d been tormenting all those years.’
‘Can it speak to us? I heard that they could talk.’
‘Not this one. The idea that most of them could talk is a fallacy, I’m afraid: they simply weren’t required to. As for the ones that did have language, they must have died over a hundred years ago.’
‘Perhaps the ones that were clever enough to talk were also clever enough to stay away from Ultras,’ muses Carroway. ‘After all, if you can talk, you can negotiate, make bargains. Especially if you know things that can hurt people.’
‘What would a Denizen know that could hurt anyone?’ Grafenwalder asks scornfully.
‘Who made it,’ Carroway says. ‘That would be worth something to someone, wouldn’t it? In these times, more than ever.’
Grafenwalder shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so. Even the ones with language weren’t that clever. They were built to take orders and use tools. They weren’t capable of the kind of complex abstract thought necessary to plot and scheme.’
‘How would you know?’ Carroway asks. ‘It’s not as if you’ve ever met one.’
There’s no malice in her question, but by the time the Carroways depart he’s in a foul mood, barely masked by the niceties of Circle politesse. Why can’t they just accept that the Denizen is enough of a prize in its own right, without dwelling on what it can’t do? Isn’t a ravenous man-fish chimera enough of a draw for them now?
But the Carroways must have been sufficiently impressed to speak of his new addition, because the guests come thick and fast over the next week. By then they’ve heard that he has a Denizen, but most of them don’t quite believe it. Time and again he goes through the ritual of having them scared by the captive creature, only this time with a few additional flourishes. The glass is as secure as ever, but he’s had the tank lined with a false interior that cracks more easily. He’s also implanted a throat microphone under the skin of the Denizen, to better capture its blood-curdling vocalisations. Since the creature needed to be sedated for that, he also took the liberty of dropping an electrode into what his keepers think is the best guess for the creature’s pain centre. It’s a direct steal from what Goodglass did to Dr Trintignant, but no one has to know that, and with the electrode he can stir the Denizen up to its full killing fury even if it’s just been fed.