Dagger Key and Other Stories

“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t make that claim,” I said. “The elderly are prone to react that way when confronted with the logic of the future. ‘Ah, yes!’ they say. ‘Once I thought as you, but experience has cured me of such enthusiasms.’”

Lucan fed another wedge to the professor. “Forget it.”

“Wait! Aren’t you going to tell me? I’m dying to hear. Let me think. What would you say?” I sat beside Lucan, affecting the pose of someone in deep study. “When you were younger, you were afire with possibility. You had a vision of the world based upon trust, upon accords, not on the hard-won wisdom of your elders. The long centuries armored you against such foolishness, but in your dotage you took a lover from among the animals. You’d had many such lovers, but this one…he was special. A professor who had stumbled across the secret of our primacy, of our very existence. After you were forced to destroy him, you continued to love him. Of course, it wasn’t altogether love you felt. Part of your emotional commitment was a tribute to the youthful philosophies you once embraced. It may be you understood now that they were not so foolish, after all. But it was too late in life, your position was such that you couldn’t publicly espouse them. So in a sense, your love became an emblem that demonstrated you bore the gene of caring. The taint of the animals, our cousins, whom we detest and love…it’s a crutch we have to carry. We must proclaim it, wear it like a lapel pin in order to testify that, though we assault them with AIDS, with endless warfare, with pollutants to which we are immune, we love our deficient cousins. What a tragedy we’re forced to poison them like rats!” I leaned back, crossed my legs. “Perhaps one day even someone as blind as I may come to adopt this posture.”

“One day,” said Lucan distantly. “Even you.”

It was unlike him to be so docile—he had always been fierce in his arguments. He went back to grooming Rappenglueck, cleaning the crumbs from his beard. In hopes, perhaps, of receiving more cheese, the professor said, “On the shoulder of the buffalo, if you’ll note the slide, there is a pattern of dots.”

“It’s all right, Rappy,” Lucan said.

The professor tried again. “Unlike similar patterns in the other paintings, this does not represent a constellation, but the starthistle. Its position relative to the Northern Crown, appearing directly over the bull’s shoulder, leads me…leads…”

“That reminds me,” I said. “We haven’t discussed the project.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.” Lucan wiped Rappenglueck’s lips. “No progress.”

“We were told to expect a breakthrough.”

“Do you really believe we’ll abandon them? That we’ll just slip off through some sidereal door and leave them to heaven?”

I was shocked to notice that tears had collected in Lucan’s eyes…so shocked that I failed to respond.

“There’ll be no breakthrough,” Lucan went on. “The science is there, but there’s no will for a breakthrough. If we inadvertently stumble upon one, we’ll only use it as a last resort.”

“…leads me to suspect,” the professor said triumphantly, “that Cro-Magnon man associated the thistle in a most specific way with the stars of the Northern Crown.”

Lucan patted his hand.

“Am I to infer from what you say that the project staff is slacking?” I asked. “Because if that’s…”

“Not at all. I’m saying we’re bound by the patterns of the past. We’re enslaved by our natures. Our hatred of the animals, our love for them…it’s the same emotion. That’s why our only recourse is extermination. We’re capable of killing something we love, but abandon it? Never.” Lucan made a show of cracking his knuckles. “Our ambivalence toward them has caused our current troubles. Over the millennia, it’s developed into a weakness. A terrible weakness. We need something to rouse us from our stupor.”

“I’ve heard this song far too many times,” I said. “I’m sick of listening to it.”

“Oh, I understand. Really, I do. You need a lesson to drive it home. I don’t know if I’m the one to teach you, but tonight I’ll teach you at least one small lesson. You’ll learn that mercy is more of an indulgence than a grace.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For one thing, your companion for the evening. Giacinta.” Lucan had completed the professor’s toilette and now he set about adjusting the knot of Rappenglueck’s tie. “I’m afraid I left her in a rather delicate condition. As it stands, she’ll likely live out her years in excellent mental health. But any further interference with her mind, if you attempt, let’s say, to sway her from her passion for Liliana…They’re so flimsy. She won’t be able to withstand another alteration. You’ll spend the rest of her life trying to restore her. Not the happiest of choices, as you can see.” He put a hand on the professor’s shoulder. “You could kill her. That would be the simplest course. I can tell you’re smitten and I know that makes things difficult. But it would spare you a lot of grief.”