She didn't look back. She was hurrying against time, hurrying toward a destination that obsessed her thoughts. I followed quietly enough, but I think I might have thundered like an elephant herd and still been unheard.
We passed a strange double-walled door with a warning of some sort lettered on it in red; then she swung into a side corridor where the passage was just wide enough for one. On either side were empty tiers of shelves waiting for suspendees. I speeded up to reach the corner before she could disappear.
But she wasn't hurrying now. She had come to a bay of shelves where a hundred or so bodies lay wrapped in their plastic sacks, each to his own shelf. Dropping to her knees, she began checking the tags on the cocoons at the lowest level.
She whispered something sharp and imploring. Then, straightening abruptly, she dropped the gas gun and took up the glittering thing in her other hand. Now I could see that it was a hypodermic kit in a crystal case. From it she took a little flask of purplish liquid and, fingers shaking, shoved the needle of the hypodermic into the plastic stopper of the vial.
Moving closer, I said: "It won't work, Rena."
She jumped and swung to face me, holding the hypodermic like a stiletto. Seeing my face, she gasped and wavered.
I stepped by her and looked down at the tag on the cocooned figure. Benedetto dell'Angela, Napoli, it said, and then the long string of serial numbers that identified him.
It was what I had guessed.
"It won't work," I repeated. "Be smart about this, Rena. You can't revive him without killing him."
Rena half-closed her eyes. She whispered, "Would death be worse than this?"