Dr. X placed the diamond slide into a stainless-steel cylinder. At one 
end was a Teflon-gasketed flange riddled with bolt-holes. Dr. X handed it to 
one of his assistants, who carried it with both hands, as if it were a golden 
egg on a silken pillow, and mated it with another flange on a network of 
massive stainless-steel plumbing that covered most of two tabletops. The 
assistant's assistant got the job of inserting all the shiny bolts and 
torque-wrenching them down. Then the assistant flicked a switch, and an 
old-fashioned vacuum pump whacked into life, making conversation impossible for 
a minute or two. During this time Hackworth looked around Dr. X's 
laboratory, trying to peg the century and in some cases even the dynasty of 
each item. A row of mason jars stood on a high shelf, filled with what looked 
like giblets floating in urine. Hackworth supposed that they were the gall 
bladders of now-extinct species, no doubt accruing value by the moment, better 
than any mutual fund. A locked gun cabinet and a primæval Macintosh 
desktop-publishing system, green with age, attested to the owner's previous 
forays into officially discouraged realms of behavior. A window had been cut 
into one wall, betraying an airshaft no larger than a grave, from the bottom of 
which grew a gnarled maple. Other than that, the room was packed
with so many small, numerous, brown, wrinkled, and organic-looking objects that 
Hackworth's eyes lost the ability to distinguish one from the next. There were 
also some samples of calligraphy dangling here and there, probably snatches of 
poetry. Hackworth had made efforts to learn a few Chinese characters and to 
acquaint himself with some basics of their intellectual system, but in general, 
he liked his transcendence out in plain sight where he could keep an eye on 
it—say, in a nice stained-glass window—not woven through the 
fabric of life like gold threads through a brocade.