The Messiah Choice

3. THE DAMSEL IS DISTRESSED

The two men stood at the edge of the helipad just down from the Institute and watched the helicopter come in. It was the company’s fanciest model, with all the luxuries and amenities of the very rich and well connected and jet powered, too.

“Well, here she comes.” John Medford Byrne sighed. At fifty-three he was director of the Institute, a post which also placed him on Magellan’s board of directors. He more than coped on his U.S. $157,000 annual salary with all the fringes thrown in. Tall, distinguished, gray-haired and tanned, he looked in his fancy tailored brown business suit like he should be on the cover of Business Week. In truth, he was by all accounts a genius at administration who earned every dime he made and then some, but he was uncomfortable now. At the moment, Magellan was running smoothly as usual, but eventually, when Sir Robert’s will was fully probated, there would have to be a board and stockholders’ meeting at which control would be passed.

“She’s the eight-thousand-pound gorilla, MacDonald,” Byrne added. “Anything she wants she gets, including me dressing up in a suit in this climate. You remember that.”

MacDonald, who was less formally dressed and far more comfortable, having not brought a suit or tie or anything resembling them when pulled to the island, nodded. Byrne had been after him on and off for several days on this. He was a little sour on the whole thing himself. I’m expected to save all their fat corporate asses, he thought, and if I do they might give me a thousand dollars bonus for Christmas, if they remember at all. If not—well, his job, low as it might be, was as vulnerable if not more so than theirs.

The thing that made them all uncomfortable was that not one of them had known that Sir Robert had a daughter or, for that matter, any other immediate living relatives. A long lost brother they might have at least accepted, but Sir Robert was always rather cold in all sexual matters, and those who had known him had considered him sexless or perhaps a self-repressed homosexual. All that anyone really knew about her was that her name was Angelique Montagne, that she was just barely old enough to inherit to the full without a conservator. They also know she was crippled in some way, for the company advance information warned them to provide for a wheelchair and a nurse.

That, and a couple of other things, not the least of which was that Sir Robert had made her sole and unequivocal heir to everything he had, including the controlling interest in Magellan. Lots of attorneys in many nations would be gearing up to contest or otherwise stall that part, but Sir Robert was a great businessman with the best attorneys money could buy. In the end, the will would stand, everyone seemed confident of that, and when it did anyone who contested would be on a particularly nasty enemies list. Nor would she be likely to be simply removed, even for the money at stake. Should she die before making her own arrangements, the will provided for such nasty things that all their jobs would go and it was quite likely that Magellan would be carved up and possibly dissolved.

MacDonald was there at her request, and feeling a bit uncomfortable because of that. His command appearance suggested that, other than burying her father, she had made solving the mystery of his death her only other immediate priority.

The helicopter landed, and several staff members went to it, opened the door, and provided a small set of steps for disembarkation. First off the plane was Derek Meadows, Sir Robert’s private solicitor and, like the dead man, a Canadian. Harold McGraw, Magellan’s chief counsel and an American, had already arrived and was at the Lodge. Next out was an elderly Anglican clergyman whom they took to be Father Dodds, an old and close friend of the dead man who would, by Sir Robert’s written orders, preside over the funeral.

Now two of the ground crew went to the helicopter as a wheelchair appeared at the door, and the two beefy men, aided by those still on board, lifted the chair and its occupant gently to the ground. Next out was a fortyish-looking woman who had to be the nurse, and, by her attire, was also quite obviously a Catholic nun.

MacDonald looked at the girl in the wheelchair and sighed. Why do the paralyzed ones always seem to be extraordinarily beautiful? he wondered.

Angelique was in fact a stunner, with lush reddish-brown hair, big green eyes, and the face and body of a very young Brigit Bardot. She was petite, beautiful, and she was, from all appearances, a quadriplegic.

The totality of her disability, particularly when coupled with her radiant, almost charismatic beauty, shocked both men, and for a moment both just stood there, not moving.

The wheelchair, however, was no ordinary wheelchair, as she proved, spotting the two standing at the edge of the tarmac. It had considerable bulk below and behind and might have weighed a ton. Without any assist from anyone, it started up and glided towards the pair.

As she reached them, both men saw that she was wearing some sort of headpiece plugged into the chair which included a tiny microphone. It resembled the communications gear of a modern telephone operator. The helicopter was completely switched off now, and they heard her say softly, “Arret!” The chair halted immediately. The nurse and Meadows had followed her and now stood behind, although it was Meadows who took the lead.

“Mademoiselle Montagne, let me present Mr. Byrne, the Institute’s director, and Company Investigator MacDonald, who is in charge of our own inquiry into the facts of your father’s death and is a fellow Canadian, I might add.”

She looked at them rather nervously. “How do you do, sirs,” she managed, in a pleasant, French accented soprano.

“Welcome to our island,” Byrne managed, trying to sound both fatherly and formal at the same time and coming off mostly stuffy. “Actually, it’s your island now, too, of course. You must be fatigued by your long journey. Would you care to come up to the Lodge right now and get settled in? Weighty matters can wait.’’

“I am feeling fine, Monsieur, and not at all out of sorts. I did little on the journey but sleep and think. I have not as yet had time to get used to all this.”

“Well, we understand that it must have been a shock to learn of your father’s death—” Byrne began, but she cut him off.

“No, no! You do not yet understand, I fear. Until only four days ago I did not know that he even was my father.”

That startled them both once again. It was a day for shocks. MacDonald’s curiosity broke through the ice.

“Um, you mean that you didn’t know Sir Robert at all?”

“Oh, oui, I knew him as ‘Uncle Robert,’ and I knew who he was, but all that I knew, all that my records ever said, was that I was the orphaned child of two people I thought were my parents, and that my father had been killed while serving with Sir Robert in Korea. I was raised mostly in a convent in the Gaspe, with Sir Robert a frequent visitor. I knew he had set up a trust fund for me, and this chair is the product of one of his companies, but that he was actually my real father— mon Dieu!—1 wish I had known!”

Byrne looked even more uncomfortable. “I suggest we still go up to the Lodge and get out of the sun. It’s air conditioned there, and we can have some tea or whatever and talk more comfortably. We have a small tram over there with a wheelchair lift—a few of the Fellows of the Institute also have need of wheelchairs—and we can be up there in no time at all.”

She nodded. “Very well.”

She commanded the chair, he noted, with simple commands in French in a very definite and slightly unnatural tone of voice. It was an amazing device to him, and one that, he knew, would be beyond the financial reach of many others who could use it. She could even make very small adjustments in its steering by uttering sharp nonsense syllables or clicks with her tongue.

The ride up was in silence, taking but four minutes. MacDonald kept his eyes on her throughout, drawing what deductions he could from the little he had. For one thing, it was unlikely that she’d been in this condition for a long time—the body was perfect, the muscle tone looked normal, and there was no sign of atrophy in any of the limbs. She looked as if she could get up out of that chair and dance if she only wanted to. And yet, her manner, her clear acceptance of the condition, and her total command over that state of the art chair system suggested years of therapy and practice. There was also something of the child in the way she looked at everything in wonder and took it all in, yet she had seemed quite confident and generally comfortable in her speech and manner. Her demeanor might mask someone who knew far more than she was telling, or it could be an equal disguise for someone scared to death and unadjusted to any of this. He wanted to know more, and quickly.

When they reached the Lodge, he excused himself and promised that he would be back in just a few minutes, hoping that it didn’t seem either rude or out of place. Byrne gave him a nasty look, but Angelique simply smiled and nodded understandingly.

He went down to the library section, which had a number of terminals plugged directly into SAINT. He was authorized to use the computer under certain restrictions and had the code and password to do so, but he disliked using it for more than routine tasks. By now, five and a half days since Sir Robert’s death, he was more than convinced that it could not have been done without using the computer, and he knew that anything he did, any correspondence, inquiries, or communications he had, would be monitored by not only Ross and his staff but probably by the murderer as well. This, however, was different.

Any questions fed in on Angelique prior to now had been met with what was called a “corporate block”—a required set of codes that no one on the island knew. Taking a guess that the need for such things was now past, he brought up the general information files and requested her profile. He had been correct. This time it came up, photo and all.

She was twenty-one by only a few weeks, but that was important. Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, to Adriene Montagne. The mother, from a suburb of Quebec City, had died of complications due to the birth less than twelve days after. Given over to the custody of her father, who was listed as a Pierre Montagne of Montreal. Now that was interesting, he thought. Baptized Roman Catholic shortly thereafter in the tiny Gaspe town of Matane on the St. Lawrence River. More interesting. McKenzie had been a lifelong Anglican. After death of father was raised in the Convent de Ste. Jean by special arrangement—with whom it didn’t say, as such things were not only rare these days but nearly impossible. She should have been placed in foster care… unless Daddy wasn’t really dead and was very well connected.

She had been a bright, athletic child who’d taken early to skiing and figure skating and enjoyed summer sailing on the river, which was both wide and rough at that point. In spite of her odd upbringing, she had the freedom of the small town and shared in the town’s social life. She was developing into a major athlete and a beautiful young woman when she was tragically and permanently paralyzed in a ski accident shortly before her fourteenth birthday.

MacDonald frowned. More than seven years ago, yet her body showed no signs of debilitation for that long a period.

For the next three years she’d been in an experimental physical and psychological program in Montreal wholly financed and supported by the Magellan-owned Master Therapeutics, Ltd. When released, she had accepted her disability as permanent and had reconciled it as a sign from God that she become a nun and devote her life to working with the disabled. She had not, however, taken final vows and had put them off a couple of times, but she was still a novice and had finally decided and scheduled final vows for May 11 of this year! Now that was leading somewhere. Sir Robert dies just before this, but in time for the death to at least slow it down if not stop it outright. The order she was about to join had a vow of absolute poverty. She would have been required to divest, and the only way to divest of something this huge would have been to give it to the Roman Catholic Church. That was motive enough for governments, let alone individuals dependent upon the corporation.

He punched up details of her injury and found it a baffler. She had all the classic symptoms of a spinal column severed just at the neckline. She had no sensation at all much below the neck, although she had some limited control of her shoulder muscles—but not her hands. However, while there had been some bruising there, there was no sign any of the best medical tests and even exploratory surgery could find of any injury there at all. For a long time they went under the theory that the illness was psychosomatic, but extensive psychiatric investigation and hypno and drug therapy couldn’t get at it if it was.

He quickly punched up the mysterious Pierre Montagne and was surprised to find that one existed. He had been with Sir Robert in Korea, and he had been employed as an office manager in Quebec City. He had also died in an auto accident when she was but two and a half.

He cleared the screen and closed down, knowing he’d dig more later. Still, he suspected that he already knew what he would find. Sir Robert had had a liaison with the woman, perhaps even loved her. She became pregnant and was almost certainly a good Roman Catholic, so she’d gone through with it, even though she’d probably been warned that she had some condition that made having a child risky and probably fatal. To legitimize the child and make something of her sacrifice he’d married her, probably very late in the pregnancy and in, of course, a Catholic ceremony which would include the pledge that the child be raised Catholic. Sir Robert was a man of the old school to whom giving his word meant quite a bit. Still, he did everything possible to cover it all up, including hauling in Montagne to pose as the child’s father and spiriting her away to a remote community.

Possibly he feared for her safety, but more likely he had to make the choice between continuing to build and shape his worldwide empire or raising the child and he’d chosen, perhaps wrongly, empire. Such men as Sir Robert were not saints; he’d inherited the first hundred million, it was true, but building it up into a multinational conglomerate worth billions was the job for a tough, hard man of flexible morality— particularly considering some of the nations he’d done work for, and the nature of that work. MacDonald could see Sir Robert’s thinking, although he found it very disagreeable. In his own odd world, with his own rather odd code, Sir Robert the father could not justify surrogates raising his daughter and being responsible for her—nor could he afford to without possibly having a child more loyal to other interests than his within the company. But as her kindly billionaire “uncle” he could excuse spending whatever he wished on her and also easily explain to auditors and questioners why he had such an interest and attachment to this girl. When Montagne, whom he’d trusted and essentially employed from that point to be her father, had died unexpectedly, he was caught in his own prefabricated set-up.

When he went back upstairs and entered the lounge, he found that some of the party, including Angelique, had gone. Ross was there, however, and came over to him. “Some real tragedy, huh?” he noted. “Girl lookin’ like that and inherits billions and can’t enjoy any of it.”

“Sensitive as usual,” MacDonald responded dryly. He looked around. “Where’d everybody go?”

“It finally caught up with her and she was taken to her room—V.I.P. One, ground floor. You know the one. It also connects to Sir Robert’s suite, so if they want to go in and poke around they can. I assume you were down there doing the run-down on her?”

He nodded. “Yeah, although there’s not much even unsealed. I keep feeling that there’s a lot more we don’t know about her, and maybe some she doesn’t know, either. She’s definitely his real daughter, though?’’

Ross nodded. “Oh, yeah. There are all sorts of documents on it—now. Stuff hidden away for years even from us, although we suspected it before. The old man knew what he was doing, I’ll tell you that.”

“You knew about her? How? If that’s not violating anything.”

Ross shrugged. “Nothing special, and before my time, but there was a tremendous investigation of her accident after they found no injuries in the tests to sustain it. She’s in a dozen medical books, though. The old boy pulled out all the stops on her. The therapy center she was at was nothing until she got there, then it became a big corporate priority. Bet it gets even more, now. You see how her body looks so normal?”

“Yeah, I noticed it.”

“It’s a series of drugs they developed at fantastic cost. The stuff can’t really be synthesized in bulk—costs a few grand a gram or more—but it works. Even if they could get the costs down, though, they don’t think it’d be very commercial unless they can figure a way to get those parts to work again on most people.

The detective nodded. “That explains a little bit, anyway. Even after working for this company for several years, I still can’t get used to the very rich and what they can do and get. I guess one day they’ll come up with some kind of robot, just stick her inside, and she’ll be able to walk and drive a car or whatever.’’

“They’re workin’ on it, brother, believe me. We can practically do it now.”

MacDonald’s mind went off again, as it did whenever new information was added. Sir Robert’s daughter was a quadriplegic. Because of that, Magellan had devoted tremendous resources first to curing her, and, when that failed, to doing the next best thing. A robot body for a human…

What would it weigh with an adequate power pack? Could you screw on legs that, perhaps, had three long clawed toes and reptilian features? Even if it were waterproof, you wouldn’t want to go into a heavy surf with it. If you toppled over, you’d drown when it filled before you could get it right again. But if you could get out, and get it to walk by itself into that ocean, you’d dispose of it and the tracks would be wiped away by the rising tide. It might even be computer remote controlled, then disposed of by just having it march into the sea… A machine perhaps hidden or sheltered in the area near the meadow, waiting for its quarry to come near, perhaps even baiting the trap.

Sir Robert had received some written notice of which there was no trace now with his morning papers. He’d read it, then gone out, rejected a cart, and walked to the glen.

It was a wild, impossible hypothesis, but it fit all the facts as he had them. In fact, the only thing he really didn’t have now was who did it and exactly why, and why the method chosen was actually selected. In other words, he had reduced it to a common premeditated murder with suspects limited to the few dozen on the island capable of carrying it out—or, of course, the several thousand executives and nations with stakes in the corporation who could have it all planned out elsewhere and carried out by any paid employee in any position as an accomplice. Or the few thousand who’d passed through here in the past two years with computer access who could simply command SAINT from any telephone jack in the world.

Angelique lay on the big bed and sighed. Sister Maria, who was checking out the luggage and trying to decide where its contents should go, heard and came over to the bed. “I thought you were going to sleep,” the nurse chided gently.

“Oh, I was, but I can not. This has simply been too much too quick! Just a week ago it was so simple. I thought I knew God’s will and my own origins and destiny. Then, suddenly, poof! It is now all so complicated. Good Uncle Robert is really my father and he has left me more money than there is in the world. Everyone and everything is at my beck and call. A big company of which I know almost nothing is scared I will fire them all or something. You saw how they all looked and acted here.”

The nurse nodded sympathetically. “I saw.”

“And, the worst is, I am already corrupted by it myself. God forgive me, but I actually had a thrill at the power they feared that has been invested in me. I liked the corporate jets, the suites like this one, all the attention.”

“And you are enjoying it.”

“God help me, but I am! On the plane, even now, I have fantasies. I have had no fantasies in years. No, don’t look that way—not those kind. That, in fact, just gets in the way. I saw them taking my inventory with their eyes. Sometimes I wish they would invent a way to take that away, just leave my head, my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, brain. Powered like that wheelchair or my little mechanical gadgets. Don’t look so shocked! There is nothing to me below the neck. Nothing. It does not exist. I no longer even dream of it, not since coming back from the Center. Even if they give me one day a contrivance so I can walk, I will not feel it. Enjoying good food and drink is the only pleasure of the flesh I will ever know. I have my mind and nothing else, so I must use my mind. Now I have a great fortune, and the power to direct some of it to good.”

“And those are your fantasies?”

She nodded. “Somewhat. But there is also the opportunity to enjoy life as much as I can. Have a gang of servants to literally do everything for me, be my body. See the whole of the world and meet the important movers and shakers of it.”

“All this is true,” the nurse agreed. “Why do you hesitate?”

“Would you? In my circumstances?”

Sister Maria shrugged. “I don’t know. I could never conceive of it.”

“But that’s just the trouble! Neither can I! Even now. I feel like a very un-godlike Jesus who upon the mount in the wilderness was offered the entire world by Satan as an alternative to dying on the cross. I was headed towards becoming a bride of Christ and doing His work, aiding the sick and handicapped. Now I am offered the world, and I am a poor sinner and not the Son of God! Will God be better served by my giving it all away, refusing it, or by my taking it and influencing what I can. Who knows what cures are possible with enough money and drive behind it? And what poverty might be cured? And all this while letting those who know what they are doing continue to run the businesses as always!”

“I can pray with you,” said Sister Maria, “but I can not guide you.”

“All this is for some purpose, some grand design,” said the woman on the bed. “My disability prevents much corruption and forever reminds me through my dependency of my own small self. It gives—humility, and, perhaps, perspective.” She was suddenly wide awake and excited. “Fix me a cup of coffee, will you? I would like to get started in this.”

After the coffee, Sister Maria dressed Angelique once more and strapped her into the chair. They had three fully charged battery packs and a fourth charging, so there was almost no limit to her range. After, they went next door, and looked over Sir Robert’s tropical getaway.

It was a suite much like theirs, although appointed differently, giving it less the look and feel of a luxury hotel suite than of a millionaire’s rustic hunting lodge, complete with a bear rug on the floor and stuffed animal heads on the walls.

They found his desk, an old, roll-top affair of weathered oak, and the nun set up an easel in front of Angelique, who took an unsharpened pencil in her mouth. She could now read through a stack of papers placed on the easel and, using the eraser, slide one sheet over to read the next. It was quite an art and had taken a great deal of practice, but it worked.

“This is quite enough, Maria,” she told the nurse. “Why don’t you go next door and lie down yourself? I’ll call if I need you for anything. I wish to go through this, and if I need some help some of the people at the Lodge will come in to help me. Just leave the door to the hall open.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

The nun wasn’t happy with the idea of leaving her alone, although in truth she was exhausted, but she also knew the value Angelique placed on being as self-sufficient as possible. And, as she said, the Lodge staff would be at her beck and call. “Call out if you need me for anything,” Maria told her, and then left.

Angelique was well experienced with her disability and quite self confident about it, far more so than she was about meeting and dealing with these strange people and this strange new life and power. A thermos with a long, stiff, curved straw was at one side of her chair, allowing her to sip whatever she had instructed be placed in it—in this case some ice tea—and to the other side was a small holder with a number of devices that could be grabbed by her with her teeth. The chair’s sophisticated microprocessor could by voice command raise or lower any part of it or the easel. She had other devices, not currently attached, that allowed her to do far more on her own than most people would believe possible.

Still, she had lied when she’d said she no longer had those kinds of fantasies. Indeed, it was just such urges that had caused her to put off taking final vows and truly committing herself to a new life.

She had lied, too, about no longer being attracted to men. She was, and she found them fascinating because they were different from the nearly all-female society in which she’d been raised. MacDonald, now—though she’d seen him little enough—she found attractive and handsome. He was the only one who didn’t dress up, nor quake in his boots at her every word. He’d even ducked out on the big meeting! She hoped he wasn’t a rotten character underneath. It would be nice to have a male friend who wasn’t fifty or sixty and didn’t ever wear a clerical collar.

She put such things out of her mind and began sifting through the stack of papers. MacDonald and the others had, of course, gone through much of this before, but they would have been less sure than she was as to what was or was not important.

It was laborious work, particularly with her handicap, but she had long conditioned herself to patience. Many of the papers had notes in cryptic words and abbreviations, mostly from Sir Robert to himself. Others were reminders of non-routine obligations and appointments, various ideas for expanding or changing things in the Institute—Sir Robert even seemed concerned about the color of the drapes in the library— and lots of other such mundane items. All of it seemed quite routine.

After a while she began to get the strong feeling that someone was watching her. It was a somewhat unnerving feeling, and she periodically glanced furtively up to see the open door to the hall and the equally open interconnect to her own suite, from which Sister Maria’s snores were quite evident. She also heard voices dimly down the hall, but there was no one anywhere near. And still the sensation persisted, as if someone were almost behind her, peering over her shoulder. The drapes had been closed and the lights off in the room when they’d entered, but she had turned on a strong lamp on a table beside the desk. Now, though, it seemed as if the dark shadows at the opposite side of the room harbored something or someone.

She knew she was being foolish, that the room and the events and the long trip had simply gotten to her, but still it persisted. Finally she could stand it no longer; taking a deep breath she said, quickly and sharply, “Demicercle droite!” The chair immediately pivoted around one hundred eighty degrees to the right.

For a moment she saw nothing. Then, for a second, she thought she saw movement in the shadows: a dark, manlike shape that seemed to move, then shimmer, a greater black against the darkness of the corner, and it was gone. “Avancer!” she commanded. “Lentement!” The chair crept slowly forward to the corner.

She did not fear that whatever it was was still present. Just as she had sensed its presence, so had she felt its leaving. Still, she had to take a look, if only to reassure herself. The corner was empty save for an old coat rack that contained only an umbrella and a well-worn sweater. There was room for a man and more here, but there was no exit of any kind, no place that such a man could go without coming first into the light.

She turned around once more and went back to the desk area, but she was too shaken to continue. She knew it would be foolish to tell someone. Nerves, they’d say. The coat rack was mistaken for a phantom. No way to prove otherwise, although she knew that someone had been there.

She decided that she didn’t want to be in the room any more, but she certainly wasn’t sleepy. She needed to get outside in the sun, and to talk to somebody—anybody. Well, she thought to herself, if I am to be queen of this place, then perhaps I should learn to act the part.

She commanded the chair forward, guiding it through the doorway to the hall, and then went down it a ways until she saw a security man standing there at his post. He watched her come, and approached when he sensed she wanted something. “Ma’am?”

“Pardon, if you please—will you remove the contents from this tray and replace it in the room back there?”

He reached over and, with her help, removed the tray/copy holder, took off the papers, and placed the tray in a compartment on the back of the chair. “I’ll see to it, Ma’am,” he assured her. “Anything else I can do to help?”

“Oui—yes,” she responded, catching herself. She was nervous, and whenever she was nervous she thought only in French. “Will you please use your radio or whatever and see if Monsieur MacDonald is available to talk to me?”

“I think I know where he is right now. Where do you want me to send him?”

“I will wait by the entrance there, where I can look out into the sunlight.”