Halcyon

Contents Cover Other Titles Title Page Copyright Contents Dedication Epigraph Part One: Discovery Part Two: Disease Part Three: Petition Part Four: Diagnosis Part Five: Accusation Part Six: Inquiry Part Seven: Adjudication Part Eight: Halcyon Acknowledgments A Note About the Author Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Contents Start Copyright Print Page List b iii iv v vii 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 73 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 147 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 185 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 239 241 
 
 
 
 
 Also by Elliot Ackerman
 The Fifth Act
 2034
 Red Dress in Black and White
 Places and Names
 Waiting for Eden
 Dark at the Crossing
 Istanbul Letters
 Green on Blue
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 this is a borzoi book published by alfred a. knopf
 Copyright © 2023 by Elliot Ackerman
 All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
 www.aaknopf.com
 Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Ackerman, Elliot, author.
 Title: Halcyon : a novel / Elliot Ackerman.
 Description: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2023.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022049908 (print) | LCCN 2022049909 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593321621 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593321638 (ebook)
 Classification: LCC PS3601.C5456 H35 2023 (print) | LCC PS3601.C5456 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022049908
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022049909
 Ebook ISBN 9780593321638
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 Cover image: Gettysburg, The First Day, 1863 (detail) by James Walker. IanDagnall / Alamy
 Cover design by John Gall
 DNA strand on title page by Mister Emil/Shutterstock, DNA model on part titles by Neokryuger/Shutterstock
 ep_prh_6.1_143767943_c0_r1
 
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Also by Elliot Ackerman
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 
 
 Part One: Discovery
 
 
 Part Two: Disease
 
 
 Part Three: Petition
 
 
 Part Four: Diagnosis
 
 
 Part Five: Accusation
 
 
 Part Six: Inquiry
 
 
 Part Seven: Adjudication
 
 
 Part Eight: Halcyon
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 A Note About the Author
 
 
 
 _143767943_
 
 
 
 In memory of
 Edmund N. Carpenter II
 1921–2008
 
 
 
 
 
 
 “And what does it mean—dying?”
 —Anton Chekhov,The Cherry Orchard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ONE
 
 DISCOVERY
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 News of the great discovery trickled out: resurrection, new life, had become a scientific possibility. The story ran below the fold in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on an unseasonably cold Sunday in April. The two narrow columns of text described how a team of government-backed geneticists had leveraged findings from the recently mapped human genome to regenerate cells in cryopreserved mice. Weeks and even months after death they were resurrecting these mice.
 I had read about the “Lazarus mice” in a rented guest cottage nestled in the foothills of the snowcapped Blue Ridge. My reason for coming here was to escape, among other things, the relentless binges of breaking news that over the years had quietly subverted and replaced what was once known as “the national conversation.” The history department at Virginia College, where I taught (but have since left) had granted me a semester’s writing sabbatical along with a healthy allowance.
 After finishing the Times-Dispatch that morning, I pitched it into the stone hearth at the cottage’s center where a half-burned back log still glowed; that is, I pitched all of it except the story on the Lazarus mice. I held on to that, choosing to save it for later that day, when my landlord, Robert Ableson, would come around for one of his early-evening visits. These visits proved a pleasant interlude after tedious, unproductive hours spent alone at my desk. I had rented the cottage from Ableson’s wife, Mary, who was more than twenty years his junior. This age difference, he admitted, had proven quite the scandal amidst the prudery of decades past—less so now. Mary was an old soul and Ableson was anything but, which caused her to joke that he was, in fact, her younger man. Handsome in a minor key, with clear bluish-gray eyes and carefully groomed hair still flecked with strands of reddish brown, his appearance belied his ninety years. His face was high-boned, his cheeks rosy and vital, his features distinct. He would have been a natural for a caricature except caricature freezes, and his face was a paradigm of fluid expression. He was possessed by a vigor that he insisted