Carsten: Derain et Cie Officer In Eye And Talon
Carsten was an elderly man with a cane in K. W. Jeter's 2000 novel Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon. He had been chief technical officer of Derain et Cie, a rival firm that held key replicant patents, and he said he was the only Derain executive from the home office in Poitiers who survived when U.N. troops cleared the field for the Tyrell Corporation. He received Iris Knaught in a room of caged owls, showed her a buried workshop of sleeping Eldon Tyrell copies, and was killed by Meyer in a doorway there.
Biography
The Room Of Owls
Carsten received Iris in a room of live owls kept in cages along one wall. He stood in front of the cages with both hands folded on the rubber grip of his cane, looking up at the birds. A russet-brown owl came down to his extended arm, and he fed it scraps before sending it back to its perch. He said the owls no longer drew his blood, though it had taken a while, and quite a few scars, before they reached that point. When Iris asked if any of them was Scrappy, the living Tyrell Corporation owl she had been sent to find, he called it a worthwhile inquiry and said that none of the birds in that room was that owl.
Derain et Cie
Carsten had been chief technical officer of Derain et Cie, a company that held several key patents, without which, he said, no viable replicants could have been made. There had been several other companies making replicants, and he walked Iris through that history: blue-helmet raids on the rival shops, and Tyrell's grip on the trade once the U.N. troops had cleared the field. Of the Derain executives at the home office in Poitiers, he said he was the only one who survived. The people who chased Iris and Vogel through the Tyrell Corporation ruins were, he said, loyal employees.
The Buried Workshop
Carsten walked Iris into a trench that held a stolen workshop and a row of glass-lidded boxes. The boxes held sleeping copies of Eldon Tyrell, and Carsten treated those copies as inventory. The workshop had been taken in twelve hours at most, then buried for what he called several good reasons. He spoke of Eldon Tyrell as a complicated man, and of the moment in Urbenton's film when Roy Batty's hands closed around Tyrell's skull. When Iris used her gun, he called it suicide with the shooter left standing, pulled the weapon from her hand, and opened the chamber door.
Meyer Kills Carsten
When Carsten opened the chamber door, Meyer was already waiting on the other side and cut him down before Carsten could raise the gun. Carsten's dying shot smashed a fluorescent fixture and dropped the lab into darkness. Iris crawled behind the coffins, then later took her gun back from Carsten's hand.
Personality And Traits
Carsten is a measured, mildly amused talker, an old man who folds both hands on a cane and quotes wisdom while feeding caged owls from a bag in his jacket. "The moderation of one's desires," he told Iris, "is the point at which wisdom commences." He cleans reddened fingertips with a handkerchief, pours her a refill, and speaks of patents, raids, and dead executives in the same unruffled tone he uses for the birds. He is an old company man from a firm that Tyrell's rise had already broken, and he dies in a doorway before he can raise a gun.
Famous Quotes
- "You may call me Carsten, if you like." Carsten, to Iris, in Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon
- "The moderation of one's desires is the point at which wisdom commences." Carsten, among the caged owls
- "Eldon Tyrell was a complicated man." Carsten, in the buried workshop
Behind The Scenes
Carsten appears in K. W. Jeter's Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon, published by Gollancz in 2000, the fourth novel in Jeter's Blade Runner sequence and the follow-up to Blade Runner: Replicant Night. It is in this novel that he names Derain et Cie and the home office in Poitiers, and that he receives Iris among the caged owls. He does not appear in the earlier Jeter books, and he is not a figure from Ridley Scott's 1982 film.
Conclusion
Carsten is the last Derain et Cie executive left from the home office in Poitiers, an old man with a cane who spoke for a company the U.N. had already wiped out for Tyrell's benefit. He received Iris among the owls, opened the buried workshop of sleeping Tyrell copies, and died in the doorway when Meyer cut him down.
Appearances
- Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon by K. W. Jeter (Gollancz, 2000)
Tag Categories: Blade Runner Lore | Blade Runner Characters
