The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(164)

But Armand understood their nature. And he couldn’t help but see past the monster Valerie became under the influence of her animal self to the scared little girl who had clung to him after he lifted her onto his horse. Nor could he help falling in love with her. For Ramsey and many other of Bompard’s colleagues, that had been his mistake: to attempt to suppress the young girl’s instinct to kill, to deprive her of human flesh, unaware that her corrupted bodily fluids had to infiltrate the blood of a receptor in order to create the immunity everyone was so desperately searching for. Persuaded by the Church of Knowledge to continue his research in another world, Bompard was forced to abandon Valerie, whom he had made his wife, and, despite fulfilling his duties in his new posting, he could never forget her. He grew embittered, taciturn, given to depression, and even overbearing; he started to drink too much, he disobeyed orders, and finally, when it was rumored that it wouldn’t be long before the Other Side sent an Executioner to deal with him, Bompard saved them the trouble. He took his own life barely a week after Higgins managed to obtain a blood sample from Clayton, the same day on which he, and all the other Scientists scattered through the multiverse, received a delivery with instructions to make it their research priority. It contained a preparation of the CoCla cells, the legendary cells born of the sacrifice his beloved made for the sake of another man.

Bompard had killed himself for love, Ramsey said aloud as he sat alone in his sitting room. And although that act of rebellion seemed to vindicate the Church of Knowledge’s view that intense emotions were fatal, it was also true that the multiverse was about to be saved thanks to a lovesick policeman and a tormented woman abandoning themselves to them. Furthermore: if that multiverse deserved to be saved, it wasn’t only so that a stale, dying civilization could find a new home. No, Ramsey told himself, glancing about cautiously, as though fearing someone might read his blasphemous thoughts. That world was worth saving because of its wealth of feelings, which hadn’t yet been sacrificed on the altar of some Supreme Knowledge. Of course, everything there was mistaken, misguided, and divorced from the truth, but that was precisely why people’s imaginations were so fertile, their art so stimulating, their emotions so intoxicating . . .

Yes, Ramsey understood very well why Bompard had been on the verge of betraying their world for love. Had he not been tempted to do so himself out of a simple sense of friendship? He smiled sadly as he recalled Crookes, that passionate enthusiast, as brilliant as he was na?ve, for whom he had felt a deep fondness and whom he had nevertheless betrayed. When his friend had fallen desperately in love with that wretched cronotemic called Katie King, who thought she was the dead daughter of a pirate, Ramsey had seriously considered telling him the whole truth, sharing the Supreme Knowledge with him. Did Crookes not deserve this token of his trust? Wasn’t that the mark of true friendship? But Ramsey had done nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he had joined in the scientific community’s ridicule of Crookes’s research, publicly renouncing his disgraced friend. And not content with that, he had reported to the Executioners so that they could hunt down the Destructor Katie King. Afterward, he had eased his conscience by telling himself he had simply been doing his duty. After all, the fate of two universes was at stake. But that thought hadn’t consoled him any more than it would have consoled Bompard. And although many years had passed since then, whenever he remembered Crookes, or heard his name come up (there was a rumor going round that Crookes had installed some mysterious columns in his garden that glowed and flashed at night, scaring his neighbors out of their wits), Ramsey would feel a pang in his chest, as if someone had ignited a flame too close to his heart.

But this wasn’t the time for such thoughts, he reproached himself, or for questioning whether his world might not be mistaken. Not now that they had reached the final effort. Higgins had just returned from the Other Side, and after the hibernation period to recover from the extreme conditions to which he had been exposed, he would bring round the latest serum approved by the Church, the most effective of all the prototypes they had synthesized. They must go to work on it immediately, because, although the vaccine had been perfected, the problem remained of how to administer it. For the moment, the patient had to be inoculated via injection and then given three booster shots to ensure the vaccine’s full effectiveness. Naturally, it would be impossible to inject the entire population of the multiverse one by one, so they had to find another way of doing it. If only they knew where and when the first infection had occurred, Ramsey thought, then they could inoculate the primary source of contagion, and the shock wave of inverse causality would probably neutralize the epidemic, although they could not be absolutely certain of that. In any event, they didn’t know, and so they could only attempt to change the route of administration of the serum. Perhaps if they could make it airborne, it would simply spread through hyperspace like a fine dew, pollinating all the atmospheres in the multiverse, and everyone would breathe it in without even realizing. There was a slim chance it could work! Ramsey said to himself, leaping up from the table with a burst of enthusiasm. And they might manage it in time . . .

Just then, he felt something vibrate in his pocket. He took out his fob watch and opened the lid, which was engraved with a Star of Chaos. He turned the glowing dial to the wall, where it threw a beam of light that traced his colleague’s flickering face in the air.

“What is it, Higgins?” he asked. “Are you still at home?”