The Chemickal Marriage

page.
    ‘
Delicious
.’ He gently closed the book. ‘Time enough … time enough.’
    The braziers with their oil, the glass balls with their somnolent gas, the explosions and the sharp-edged spurs – in how many other ways had Vandaariff expanded the Comte’s initial discoveries? Schoepfil was a fool to underestimate him. And where
was
Schoepfil? If Vandaariff’s men had not brought him down like Bronque, they must have sent word of his intrusion … but the fact did not appear to perturb.
    At a touch the key emerged from the book and Vandaariff tucked it away. The acolyte reverently restored the book to a case holding a score of others – most only partially extant, their bindings cracked.
    Vandaariff sighed. ‘It was a second Library of Alexandria. Now so much is lost, and so thoughtlessly.’
    ‘These are not the tragedies of Agathon. Chang deserves to live, in his own skin.’
    ‘Chang is forfeit.’
    ‘As are you. The rot in your body proclaims it –’
    ‘Please, we have been down this road. You are not here to lecture.’
    ‘Then why? To witness my friend’s place in your
collection
?’ Svenson glared angrily at the books. Both acolytes moved to block his way.
    ‘Doctor Svenson, you cannot hold a single thought much less two or three. I have brought you to my person through deliberate steps, knowing your preference for my death. Why? Because, plain enough for a cat to perceive,in exchange for your aid I offer you something you desire, available nowhere else on earth.’
    ‘That Chang will survive, of course, and Miss Temple –’
    Vandaariff shook his head. ‘No. No, they are gone. Their consumption is required.’
    ‘I will not be party. I will do anything in my power –’
    Vandaariff rubbed the skin beneath his feathered mask and groaned with impatience. ‘Doctor, I beg you,
think
. What have you
done
today? Beyond all sane probability?’
    ‘Madelaine Kraft was healed. As Chang might now be –’
    ‘
Not
Chang!
Never
Chang! Chang has become raw goods. No, Doctor Svenson, who else? What else in the world would prick your virtue like the balloon I know all virtue to be?’
    Another glass book was set on the table. Vandaariff inserted the key and, resting a fingertip lightly on the glass, turned the pages to the clouded leaf he sought. He rotated the book so that it faced the Doctor.
    ‘
Taste
.’
    ‘I won’t.’
    ‘You will not regret it.’
    ‘Damn you.’ Svenson stabbed his forefinger onto the glass.
    The first impression was too sharp, like whisky on his tongue, a pungent whirl of hair and scent, of softness and weight, tenderness, doubt, carnality –
    He yanked up his hand. Vandaariff fed on his reaction with an ugly leer.
    ‘O … do take a little more.’
    Svenson swallowed. ‘How … how in all hell –’
    ‘You know yourself! You were
there
!’
    ‘Tarr Manor,’ Svenson whispered. ‘Her memories were taken. Only a few, still, she almost died –’
    ‘A singularly aggressive reaction – and the only reason these memories survived! Set aside for study – the actual information, once Arthur Trapping was dead, bore no interest. But
now
it bears all manner of interest – for you! And, through your inevitable compliance, for me!’
    Svenson shook his head. ‘I won’t. I won’t. She is
dead
–’
    An acolyte hooked an arm around the Doctor’s neck, while the othercaught his hand and pressed it, palm down, upon the glass. Svenson bucked against the contact. Yet, at its bite, he could not but drop his gaze …
    … and enter the memories of Elöise Dujong, the whole of her relations with Arthur Trapping from innocent affection to shame-filled lust. The Doctor gasped at intimacies he himself had never shared, her body in gross and sweet detail – assignations, fervent, guilty, compulsive. He swam in her tears, sank in her self-recriminations, thrilled to the touch of kisses down her neck, Trapping’s fingers tracing the inner sweep of her white thigh –
    Svenson blinked, in tears, the confinement of the helmet unfamiliar and strange. The acolytes had pulled him free. Vandaariff stood at the glass wall, shouting.
    ‘
No!
This must not occur! Stop him! Mr Foison!
Mr Foison!
’
    Mahmoud held a length of copper wire and swung it like a whip at an acolyte foolish enough to have gone near. The wire slashed through the white robe and the acolyte dropped screaming. The big man took the acolyte by the scruff of the neck and hurled him down the trapdoor stairs, a