Statue in the Catacombs

Turning fifty people to stone was the worst thing that Mary Jo ever did, but as she stared at the broken leg of the tiny stone mouse, shorn jaggedly from its hip by a careless movement of her thumb, she didn’t feel that way. She stood with her mouth open in surprise and fright, her body frozen almost as solidly as the petrified rodent. Only her eyes moved, darting back and forth from the mouse to the display screen overhead, where she watched in false color the creature’s morphic field flashing erratically before finally guttering out like a candle at the end of its wick.

“I told you to be careful!” the Promethean snapped. “I warned you that the fossilized limbs are extremely brittle at the onset. Now we’ll have to petrify another. Go back and get—”

“No! This is horrible! If I kill another mouse, I’ll just—” Her words trailed off into inarticulate groanings of disgust and frustration.

“Pity,” he intoned. “Had you shown the same concern for human beings as for rodents, none of this would be necessary.”

Pity? What pity? The ancient, frowning visage of the man who was both her jailer and benefactor reflected no commiseration. She imagined he learned it from the cold disappointment of Barbarossa as he slipped sternly beneath the Saleph, refined it with insouciant contempt of John Lackland before Runnymeade, and perfected it when Da Vinci was still a piker at capturing human expression. She drowned in the contempt of his blue-gray eyes.

She cast the stony mouse into the waste bin. “That’s not fair! I haven’t killed any human beings!”

When she petrified the visitors of the New York Metropolitan Museum, she hadn’t even thought twice about it. She was high on the excitement of achieving the impossible, and higher still at the thought of showing off her triumph to the world. She did not see her deed as malicious. Not once did she think she was doing anyone real harm: at worst, it would be a temporary inconvenience. When the effect wore off, as she was sure it would, they could all laugh about it. And, she thought, some of them would secretly be proud to have been part of a story that the world would never forget, a story that their great-great-grandchildren would still be talking about a hundred years from now.

“Why can’t we test the de-fossilization process on plants?”

“Because plants are even less like the human beings you petrified than those mice are! Really, Chemistra, your sentimentality is preposterous. Petrify another mouse and don’t be so clumsy this time!”

“Fine.” She pouted as she walked toward the cages at the far end of the lab. “Though it seems to me that it would be safer to just let them sit for a year until they thaw naturally.”

The Promethean eyed her cooly. “It seems to me it would have been safer to leave you in prison for a year instead of arranging your release so that you could assist me. Besides, are you so certain that they’ll actually recover in that time? You cannot be certain that you duplicated Boris Yvain’s formula exactly. Your own experiments were less than rigorous.”

That much was true. Mary Jo had never seen any of her own living fossils revert to normal; indeed, she had only succeeded in completing the formula a month before the botched robbery. And her process — so dependent on her own ability to psionically manipulate molecules and the use of synthetic elements that didn’t even exist a century ago — was sure to be substantially different than however the long-dead Boris Yvain managed to create his formula. But what evidence they had, from the historical record to degradation of the lithic components in the biopsies, suggested that the fossilization was going to wear off in the near future. On the other hand, no one knew what dangers would accompany their attempt to accelerate their thawing. Mary Jo had a nagging fear that some of her petrified human victims were going to end up as badly as the mouse.

She had locked another mouse in the clear plastic chamber and was just about to flood it with the fossilization gas when the laboratory airlock whooshed open and the Savant walked in. Emotionless, expressionless, dome-headed, with skin so pale it was almost translucent, the Savant was the Promethean’s personal assistant; an ultra-high function autistic talent, a computer in human form. Chemistra loathed him.

“I apologize for the interruption, Don Mancini,” the Savant began in his soft, unnervingly flat voice. “Dr. Templeton is on the line. I would not have disturbed you, but he said it was relevant to the petrification crisis.”

The Promethean frowned in thought. “Is that so? Please pipe him through.”

“There is a video component to the transmission as well, my lord.”

“Fine. Put it on that big monitor over there,” the Promethean replied vaguely.

The Savant bowed minutely and one of the wall screens flashed over to a washed out, somewhat grainy image of a sun-bronzed man in orange safety glasses, with a swoop of black hair pasted to his sweat-dampened forehead.

“Promethean! Sorry to interrupt, but I know you’ll want a look at this. Can you see me?” The man’s voice echoed. He panned the camera slightly, and the bouncing image revealed dark tunnels and earthen walls lit at intervals by bright electric lights.

“Yes, George, I can see you just fine. Looks like you’re underground again, but then, you usually are, aren’t you?”

‘Geo’ Templeton, the famous subterranean explorer, nodded. “You betcha. I’m actually underneath your old hometown. Some trespassing tourist fell into a previously undiscovered chamber in one of the old catacombs, and the Vatican bureau of antiquities called us in to survey it. You wouldn’t believe some of the artifacts we’ve found. One of the lads spotted a stone statue set on one of the biers, which was a bit of a surprise since they’re usually filled with moldy skeletons, you know? Anyway, he asked me to have a look, and as soon as I saw it I thought, ‘Hey, Geo, you’ve seen something like this before, and quite recently, too!’”

He panned the camera away from his face and focused it on the statue. “Put a little more light on that, boys!” Templeton shouted from off-camera.

Chemistra hurried over beside the Promethean, squinting at the video with amazement. “But that… that looks like—”

“Notice the sort of fluorescent blue traceries, like blood vessels, and the warm glow in the chest, right about where the heart would be,” Templeton narrated. “And you’ll notice the dynamic positioning of limbs, and the complete lack of a pedestal. I don’t think this is a normal statue. To me, it looks like one of those poor people from the Met. What do you say, Promethean?”

The Promethean’s expression tensed and he looked questioningly at Chemistra.

“I’ve never been to Rome in my life,” she said in answer to his unspoken question.

“George, is there any indication how old that is? Could it be recent?” the Promethean asked.

“Unlikely. The chamber that we found it in had been sealed off at least since Julius Burger mapped out this catacomb in the early 1900s, and it was covered by so much mold and debris that it must have been laying there an awfully long time. My guess is it’s been down here at least since the early Christians moved in, maybe two thousand years.”

“That’s impossible!” Chemistra declared. “It looks like the same petrification process, but it should have worn off ages ago!”

“You would know better than me, miss. You cooked it up, after all,” Templeton replied sourly.

“George, make that statue ready for shipment immediately. I must have it in hand!” said the Promethean.

“Well, OK, but Antiquities isn’t going to be too happy about that idea.”

“As a Roman antiquity myself,” the Promethean said, with the barest hint of a smile, “I am more qualified to make the decision than some stripling 70-year-old bureaucrat.

Templeton panned the camera back to his face and looked into it closely. The explorer’s voice was a conspiratorial whisper. “Listen, Promethean, they’re pretty touchy about letting such things leave the country. They might even boot out my whole team just for asking.”

“My good man, whoever told you to ask permission? Prepare the statue, George, and I’ll see to it that it leaves Rome covertly. I’ll send a man to you presently. George, do you know young Paul Wendling?”

“You mean Bull’s boy?” Templeton nodded. “Sure, I’ve seen him a time or two.”

“Do as he instructs and the bloody ‘Antiquities Bureau’ will never be the wiser. If anyone interferes, I’ll smooth things over with the Curia personally. I am in the confidence of the Holy Father, you know.” The Promethean smiled smugly. “In fact, I had occasion to take him over my knee when he was just a little brat; I should have no problem doing it again if necessary.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Templeton chuckled. “You got it, Promethean. I’ll have him wrapped up for you with a neat little ribbon. Geo, out!”

Chemistra kneaded her suddenly cold and bloodless hands, nervously murmuring to herself. “It’s impossible. It would’ve had to have worn off by now.”

She was close to fainting, or throwing up, or both at the same time. She turned to the Promethean with wide, pleading eyes. “I spent months piecing together Yvain’s notes; thousands of hours of simulations and experimentation. It can’t be the same process — can it?”

The Promethean crossed his arms and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “And why not? If you duplicated the work of Boris Yvain, could not Boris Yvain have duplicated the work of another? He was a lover of the classical arts, and too curious for his own good. Might he not have discovered some forgotten truth behind a hoary legend like the Gorgons? Or some Hermetic grimoire fallen into his hands while combing the ruins of Europe’s libraries and cathedrals?

“Assuming we are dealing with the same effect — and much further study will be necessary to bear that out, despite the clear similarities — the matter then turns to why Yvain’s fossilizations wore off in a year while this relic has remained as it is for more than two millennia. Because if one man can be petrified indefinitely…”

“Yes, I got the implication already. I’m not dense.”

“I hope not,” he sharply replied. “Too many lives depend on it. Now, forget about the mice and go to bed. You’ll need steadier hands and a fresh perspective for the morning when we begin the examination of this statue.”

“Tomorrow morning? Do you think they’ll be able to fly it here that quickly?”

“Flown?” The Promethean shook his head as he led her out of the laboratory. “Turning people to stone and squiring for the Copper Knight, but the imagination of a tavern maid. What an absurd woman you are.”

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