The Messiah Choice

5. THE SAINT AND THE SINNERS

As MacDonald had predicted, it was a closed coffin affair; a simple burial service for a very complex man. They were all there—not merely the top people at the Institute and Magellan’s company men, but also many top corporate leaders from the home office in Seattle including, very briefly and just for the ceremony, the President and Chief Operating Officer, Alan Kimmel Bonner. He was a big, rough-looking man with a huge shock of gray hair that seemed in eternal disarray and a hard, chiseled face. He looked more like the popular perception of a dockworkers’ union president or perhaps a Mafia godfather than the shrewd head of one of the world’s largest multinational corporations.

Although he didn’t lack for toadies, he spoke only briefly and gruffly to most of the people there, having a few longer and softer words only with Angelique. After the service he was whisked up to the Lodge for a brief conference with Director Byrne and then he was gone. The island regulars could not remember him ever having even visited the island before, and, from his manner and speed of departure, it seemed unlikely that he would repeat the occasion.

They laid Sir Robert to rest, as he had stipulated, in the small graveyard by the tiny village church, his grave facing not the Institute but the sea. It had surprised some that he had instructed an island burial at all, but he had a strong feeling for this place, which was created a fair bit out of his own imagination, and no really strong feelings for anywhere else. There was a family crypt just outside of Halifax, but he had never gotten along much with his father and other family members and had in any event outlived all of them except his daughter.

They had found a dark suit that almost fit MacDonald, and he walked back from the burial towards the town anxious to be rid of it. Angelique would be the titular hostess at a reception at the Lodge later and would be too busy; he decided to skip whatever he could. As he walked towards the small main street of the tiny town, constructed in an earlier era to resemble a Tudor village, he spotted Ross. The security man was just standing there, watching him.

As he approached, the security man said, “You know they’re pretty pissed off at you for endangering her like that yesterday. Byrne told Bonner he wanted the authority to fire you for it.”

MacDonald stopped and shrugged. “And am I fired?”

“You’d know by now if you were. Hell, you gave her a bigger thrill than she’s probably had in years, and charmed the shit out of her in the process. It might be in your best long-term interest to stay away from her for a while, you might know.”

“I’ll bet. I’m just like the rest of them, though, Ross. When she calls, I got to come.”

“Yeah. Sergeant MacDonald of the Yukon, off to the service of distressed damsels, out to lock up the villains and take their own whips to them. Come off it, MacDonald. Give it up. You ain’t gonna get a dime of her old man’s dough no matter what.”

Suppressing an urge to punch out the security man, Mac-Donald stared hard into the other’s eyes. “Ross—tell me, are you a total and complete incompetent who should be canned yesterday or are you a willing accessory to murder.’’

Ross’s composure was slightly shaken. “What the hell does that mean?’’

“You got the cliff sides wired, you got an electronic security scan system that even includes the beach, yet at ten in the morning the biggest man under your watchful eye gets turned into tomato juice and you don’t know why or by whom. I’ll bet you can quote every word she and I said to one another, yet you couldn’t pick up and scramble on something fifteen or twenty feet tall. Either you are more of an incompetent than you are an asshole or you helped kill him, at least by looking the other way while it was being done. There’s no third possibility.”

“You’ve seen the scan tapes. You know damned well there’s only one blip from the meadow to the beach. The tripwire cameras, which are stills, didn’t show much, either. One had some of Sir Robert’s leg, the other, the beach scan, shows nothing even though it should have shown anything on that beach at just the right moment. There’s nothing on the audio, not even birds and ocean, but nothing tests out as erased. I’m good at what I do, but somebody was better and beat the system.”

“Well, I’m good at what I do, too, Ross. I’ve got motive and opportunity. When I get method, I’m going to nail the bastards. After that you can start covering up for them, like a good little boy, but I don’t have to be concerned with that. I stand on my original comment, Ross. Either you know or your machinery was so nicely tampered with under your very nose that you should be assigned to guard copper mines in Montana. And, for your information, I wouldn’t turn down a billion, but that thought had not even entered my head. Now go find a fireplug and have a good pee, eh?” And, with that, he walked on, leaving the security man fuming and staring at his back as if trying to kill him with willpower alone.

Angelique nodded and smiled and made small talk but it was clear that she was pretty unhappy. Most of the guests put it down to the trauma of the burial and were sympathetic, not knowing, or wanting to think, that it was the guests and not the funeral that was the trouble. It was impossible to explain to these people what was going on in her mind, and so this was simply an ordeal that had to be weathered.

How could she explain to them without seeming cruel and inhuman, she wondered, that she felt virtually nothing at the service today or even at the graveside? Sir Robert had been a kindly and wonderful friend as a sort of honorary rich uncle, but now that she knew who he really was she could feel only bitterness. He had from the start placed her off in a corner, away from the modern world, a distant second in his own life’s priorities. How do you love a father who treated you as a minor corporate property, who scheduled meetings when it was convenient for him and paid the bills but who was unwilling even to tell you the truth? Even now she wasn’t a person, let alone a daughter; she was a corporate weapon, a bit of nasty black humor exercised by a man beyond the grave. He had left her everything, but prepared her for nothing.

The accident had ended her formal education while still in the eighth grade, and she had never really taken up offers of tutoring. Beyond the religious studies and the fascination with automation and medicine from her years at the Center, she’d mostly gotten what she knew from reading books or watching television, and even there her main interests had been romances and soap operas. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind.

She knew it was silly, juvenile, and totally irrational, yet she could not deny it. He was older, yes, but handsome, rugged, intelligent, confident, and kind. She was aware of what sort of a risk he had taken with her yesterday and how much these people probably hated him for it, but that had only cemented her first, admittedly emotional, impressions. She had fantasized about him the previous night, imagining things that she never knew she was capable of imagining before. She wished he were here now, but understood why he was not. Particularly after yesterday, Greg MacDonald would not be welcome or at ease in this crowd.

Byrne acted as host, with his wife, Carla, serving as hostess. She was far younger than Byrne, an Italian who might be quite attractive if she wasn’t dressing and acting as the corporate executive’s wife. Clearly she enjoyed ruling the social roost and used her husband’s authority as her own.

The rest of them seemed to come from many nations and all seemed to be called Doctor something or other. There was the medical doctor, a Dane, and a number of men and women, ranging in age from the thirties to the sixties, from places as diverse as India and Kuwait. West Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Britain, and Brazil. All seemed pleasant, many seemed preoccupied, and, thankfully, none of them seemed anxious to discuss what their work was here. She was having quite enough trouble without displaying her total ignorance.

Sister Maria, dressed for the day in the old-fashioned black habit, seemed to enjoy herself, and had a long and animated conversation with one of the scientists, a tiny and attractive woman who looked young enough that at first Angelique had thought her one of the wives. Still, overall, Maria kept close to her charge and made certain that Angelique was neither trapped nor left alone.

The most interesting of the batch was Sir Reginald Truscott-Smythe, who was everything Greg had warned. Middle aged and ruddy-complected, with a small moustache and neatly trimmed hair—and buck teeth—he was very, very British, y’know. He was so stereotypical he reminded her of a comedian putting on the British upper classes, but “Reggie,” as he insisted he be called, was exactly what he seemed to be, at least in looks and manner. He was also the one man willing to discuss his own work that she wanted to hear from, and this delighted him no end.

“You are the man who really runs the whole business, I think,” she said to him.

“Oh, dear me, no! What I am, you see, is the world’s highest priced mechanic, and SAINT is mostly self-diagnosing and self-repairing, so it’s not much of a job, really. Oh, I shouldn’t say that to you—you’re the boss now, after all!”

She laughed. “No, no. it’s all right. From what I understand, you are worth every cent.”

He seemed more than pleased by that. “It allows me time to try and see what SAINT can really do. We’ve barely scratched the surface.”

“This computer—it can really think?”

“Oh, my, yes! Don’t think of it as one of those things you see in all the cinema versions of computers with their anachronistic whirring tape drives.”

“But it is enorme, no?”

“Oh, no, not really. It’s quite small, actually, as the popular vision of these things go. The basic device is probably no more than four by four meters by about six high, and not a moving part in the whole sand pile. The old computers used to perform a few thousand calculations on a small chip; we increased that to tens of millions and then stacked the chips, each not much larger than a tea coaster, into massive interlinked sandwiches. It is capable of thousands of millions of calculations per second, and is to the old business mainframe computer, the one that took a room, what that computer was to the abacus.”

“But if it is so powerful, then why all the space below I am told it needs?”

“Well, some of it is because we are dealing in silicon here—plain old fused and formed sand. Put those tens of thousands of tiny transistors together, pack them tight, and run them constantly at full throttle, and the bugger gets tremendously hot. It requires a massive power supply and extreme cooling—it must live permanently in a sort of giant meat locker, as it were, constantly chilled to keep its temperature down. And everything is triplicated, at least, so that if any tiny unit fails there are three to seven other paths to get to the same thing. That way we make certain that if one part goes down nothing is noticed in the system except that we’re given a notice of what and where and what to do to fix it. The rest of the space is for memory storage, cooling machinery, the telecommunications network, that sort of thing— the stuff SAINT runs and the raw material it uses.”

“But—it thinks?”

“Indeed yes. It talks, too. Holds conversations in a decent voice that sounds deceptively human. I like the voice, but most people prefer the usual terminals with text readouts. Still, you can give instructions to it vocally and it will then do what you wish, including put up information on a screen. That might be very convenient for someone like yourself to whom keyboards are a roadblock, if you’ll pardon me making the point.”

“Please—I have long since gone beyond the stage where I take any offense at others noting my limitations. I, in fact, have less patience with someone who tries very hard not to notice. This robotic chair is what gives me a life. That is why I am so fascinated with your SAINT.”

“Indeed yes. We are close to the day when the marriage of human and machine will be direct. Even now many paralyzed folk are walking using their own muscles with the nerves connected to microprocessors. The day is not far off when we can fabricate a human-looking body carrying its own internal power supply and microprocessors of the type and density used in SAINT. Connected to the nervous system above the point of injury, it might well be that those bodies will move at the thought-command of the wearer. Eventually, it might be merely something put on, bridging the gap caused by the injury and thereby restoring the natural body. You’ll walk yet, my dear.”

She smiled. “Thank you for the thought. I hardly have the background and skills to take charge of the company even if my father’s will goes through, but I do intend to have some input, to insist on investment of time and money and resources into that very sort of thing.”

“Quite so. Well, listen—when you’re ready and able, let me know and I’ll introduce you to SAINT and show you how to use him.”

“Him? It is now a person?”

Sir Reginald looked a bit sheepish. “The voice is masculine, and I hold so many conversations with him, well, it just seems like a person to me, you see.”

“Um—I apologize for the question, but aren’t you sometimes concerned about it?”

“Huh? In what way?”

“I mean, it has more information than a hundred libraries, thinks millions of times faster than we do, and it actually does think and talk. What if it gets—ideas—of its own?”

Sir Reginald chuckled. “My dear, you must forget those hoary old sci fi horror cliches the telly always belches out. First of all, it only does what we tell it to do. It’s not off in a silicon corner hatching plots. SAINT serves and amplifies our own abilities, solves our questions, just like all the machines of the past once did. And if it still gets uppity, we can always pull its plug. Cut its power or simply cut off its air conditioning and watch it fry. I’d hate that—like doing it to one’s child, don’t you know—but it’s frightfully vulnerable.”

Finally the ordeal was over, and just about everyone drifted out. Still there, however, was Father Dobbs, who hadn’t said much more than condolences to this point, and Harold McGraw, her father’s attorney. Both now seemed interested in talking more and neither seemed to realize until then that the other was of similar mind.

“Father, why don’t we go back to my rooms and talk?” she suggested. “Monsieur McGraw, please make yourself comfortable and when we are done I will send for you. Fair enough?”

McGraw nodded and excused himself, and she and the priest went back to the suite. The tall, lean, balding clergyman looked and sounded more like an undertaker than a priest, and seemed to have a dour expression at all times as well. She bade him take a seat on the couch near the windows and waited.

“I hardly know where to begin,” Dobbs said uncertainly. “This has been a real shock to me, you know. I’ve known your father for more than thirty years.”

“Oui. Go on.”

“I—ah—I’m well aware as well that your feelings towards him are, at least, ambivalent.”

“No, I can not say that. I am most definite about my feelings at this point,” she told him coldly.

He got the message. “Miss McKenzie, the fact is that your father was a great man, a genius, and he did a lot of good. A saint, however, he wasn’t, and would never be. He treated you most shabbily, he knew it, he felt guilty about it, but he never changed that. That is one of the great many things in his life that can not be excused save by the mercy of God.”

“You came here, then, to ask me to forgive him? That I can do only in the Christian sense, I fear. As you say, forgiveness of his sins is in God’s hands. I am one of these sins and I am still here. He can not buy with his money what he did not earn with his deeds, yet I will pray for his soul in Purgatory. And my name is Montagne, s’il vous plait. If my father did not wish me to have his name in life I see no reason to change it now. I can pray for understanding on my part and salvation on his, but more than that—no.”

The priest nodded. “That is all that I can ask.”

“But you did not take me aside to talk solely of this.”

“No, that’s true. Miss Me—Montagne, pardon me. Would it shock you to know that your father believed that he might be killed?”

“I have no reason to know one way or the other, but this interests me. Go on.”

“He came to me not long ago—a few weeks at best—and at that time he said that he felt he might be done away with. He didn’t know by who as yet, but he was becoming convinced of it. He felt that he was being followed and monitored by those outside his employ, that they were stalking him.”

“Who is ‘they,’ if I may ask?”

“I wish I knew. But while your father never spoke much of theology, it was all he could talk about that time. I put it down to depression or perhaps an illness unknown to me, or even job stress, but he pressed and pressed. He was particularly concerned with interpretations of the Book of Revelations—the Apocalypse—and on things having to do with Satanism and paganism. I only knew so much and referred him to an expert in the field who’s in England, Bishop Whitely. I don’t know, though, if he ever saw the Bishop, who’s rumored in poor health and had to retire somewhat prematurely, but he told me that if anything violent or mysterious happened to him I was to convey this to you.”

She stared at him. “Do you know why?”

“I’m afraid not, nor do I know why this should be of any importance to you. I merely convey the message as I promised him.”

“This Bishop Whitely—who is he?”

“A noted academic and scholar in the church and quite a conservative theologian for an increasingly liberal denomination. He was formerly Bishop of Durham at Yorkminster, although briefly—that gave him a lordship, and he is about the fourth highest ranking cleric in the Church of England. I don’t really know him at all beyond that. He’s not really connected to the Canadian church. He is, however, an academician—most Bishops of Durham have been—and a former Oxford professor who still does some academic research work. He is also a theological conservative and a mystic, probably more conservative than the average Roman Catholic bishop by some measure. They got into some trouble with that Bishopric the last few times around, with one of them questioning publicly the virgin birth and the divinity of Christ.”

She was shocked. “And they let this man be Bishop of a supposedly Christian church?”

“We all have our problems, I fear, particularly with the hierarchies. Whitely was appointed ultimately to mollify Church conservatives outraged by many of those elevated to Bishoprics in the past couple of decades. That’s all I can tell you about him, except that I only really know him by several books he wrote on the Apocalypse and on prophecy, the occult, and such matters. He is fully as controversial in his own way as his predecessors were in theirs, but he is certainly the world’s foremost expert on those matters that so intrigued your father in his final weeks.”

She thought things over for a moment. “Tell me. Father Dobbs—did my father say anything about a dark man?”

Dobbs looked startled. “Why, now that you mention it, I believe he did! He mentioned something about there being no privacy from the dark man or something like that. I didn’t pay much mind to it, assuming it was a reference to someone in his business that was troubling him. Why? Does this give you more information to go on?”

“I—I do not know. Perhaps. Is there anything else?”

“No, not really, I’m afraid. But—tell me, where do you plan to go from here? Have you given it any thought as yet?”

She shook her head negatively. “I’m afraid not. I think perhaps I will stay here for a while. I have no real home at the moment in any case, and this is a good place to learn what must be learned.”

He nodded. “And keep away from the press. I’m afraid that once the news of Sir Robert’s death came out they scrambled for any and all information on you and discovered some pictures from someplace. They’ve run all over Canadian, American, and probably even New Zealand television and in all the newspapers. I’m told that there’s a standing offer of thousands of dollars to anyone who gets an interview with you and I know that security patrols have intercepted a raftload of reporters attempting to sneak onto this island. Perhaps it’s best you do stay here for a while, until you’re ready to test the waters, as it were. They’re like vultures— ghouls. And they act like you are their property.”

That frightened her a bit. “When I go, if I go, I will have to have some good protection.”

Father Dobbs sighed and got up to leave. “You can certainly afford it, my dear.”

Harold McGraw was all smiles and warmth, but it was an act and she knew it. The presence of his briefcase indicated that he was there for business reasons only, and he got the pleasantries out of the way quickly.

“I must tell you that perhaps a million dollars in attorney and research fees to experts all over the world went into your father’s will, and it’s the best document of its kind ever constructed, I wager. That won’t stop it from being contested by every sixteenth cousin thirty times removed who discovers your family somewhere in its genealogy, but I wouldn’t worry about it. There is a separate trust fund already established in your name and containing massive amounts of stock and convertible paper. It is beyond the scope of the will and is administered by us directly. I hope we can continue to do so in the future.”

“I am content with it for now. May I ask how much it represents?”

“Um, at current values, give or take ten percent for the usual fluctuations, it amounts to about twenty-two million dollars. That’s American dollars, by the way. Their laws on such trusts are more liberal than ours, although it’s directly held as an international account in the Royal Bank of Canada.”

The amount staggered her, even though everyone had been talking in huge terms. “And this is—mine?”

“Regardless of the rest. It’s free of taxes and fees, of course, and is entirely yours. Considering the unsteadiness of certain markets, however, I would suggest that, to leave principal untouched, you not spend more than one million a year without first consulting us.”

She was reeling from the idea. “A million … a year?”

“Yes. The easiest way to do this is, well, whenever you wish to buy something, simply have the bill sent to us. For major purchases—say a hundred thousand or more, such as houses, yachts, planes, and the like—have the seller contact us directly so we can work out payment terms to keep it within the range of self-generating income.”

“Uh—-excuse me. Monsieur McGraw, but I am not yet recovered from this. The very concept of such wealth is beyond my grasp right now, I fear. But still I must go on. If this is my trust fund, as you call it, what is the whole estate worth?”

McGraw shrugged. “Miss Montagne, Magellan is one of the four largest privately held corporations in the world. By ‘privately held,’ I mean that its stock is not publicly traded, although many subsidiary corporations that it owns are. The whole of the corporation may be worth fourteen to twenty billion dollars American. I can’t be more specific than that. The estate consists of approximately two hundred and twenty million dollars in liquid assets—those things and properties owned by your late father and his bank accounts and personally held stocks and bonds—and fifty and one-half percent of the stock of Magellan. Taxes and death duties are likely to whittle his personal assets to about a hundred million, I’m afraid, but the stock remains. It’s rather complicated, but while they will try and get it, it is not directly convertible to value and is protected by stratagems even I can’t fully understand from death duties.”

“And he left me—all of it?”

McGraw sighed. “All of it. I’ve yet to do the formal reading of the will, but this talk will suffice as there are no other pertinent parties. Oh, he left some considerable sums to various charitable and religious groups and established trusts and annuities for many old friends and business associates, but I’ve already deducted them from the totals I’ve given you.”

“And this will take years to clear up?”

“I doubt it. Oh, the court cases could drag on into the twenty-second century but I wouldn’t worry about them. Actual title should be a matter of months, certainly no more than a year if the unforseen comes up. For all intents and purposes, you own it all as of now. You see—well, let me read pertinent parts of the will. They’re already causing bombshells in Magellan’s corporate offices now, I can assure you, and probably in many world capitals as well.”

He reached into his briefcase, fiddled a bit, then came up with a small sheaf of papers stapled together. They were clearly copies, and had been marked up with a red pen.

The early parts of the document were long and formal declarations of thus and so, and he began skipping early. When he got to a particular section, though, McGraw couldn’t suppress a slight smile.

“Should anyone named in this last will and testament contest or question any part of it, that person shall receive nothing. Should anyone in the employ of or connected with Magellan or anyone in any way employed in one of my holdings have any part in said contest, whether as plaintiff or as party or witness, said individual shall have his or her employment immediately terminated and shall not receive any further income or employ from any of said companies and holdings for at least twenty years from the date of contest,” McGraw read her. “Likewise any corporation, contractor, or government contesting or being a party to said contest shall have immediately and at the date of contest all dealings with any holdings covered herein suspended and shall not be allowed any further dealings with any said holdings. These conditions remain even if a plaintiff later drops a contest or withdraws its complaint or reverses his or her testimony.”

The attorney noted, “Magellan’s holdings are incredible and extensive and are at the heart of some nations’ defense and economic establishments. Possibly one in twenty jobs in the west would be directly or indirectly connected to it. Many folks are going to think twice about any contests.”

She gulped and nodded.

“But the real kicker comes further on,” he told her. “It says—ah, here. ‘If any contest should succeed against my daughter and heir named above, said contestor should be warned that they will win nothing. Should such a contest be upheld through every available court and means, at that very moment Magellan will become worthless. Also, should my daughter die, by any means, natural or unnatural, within five years of assuming her inheritance free and clear, this will also be true. It will be automatic, absolute, and irrevocable. The means of this I keep to myself and take with me to whatever place I go, but I ask one question of anyone who does not believe this, and provide no answer: what would happen if every single data bank in the entire Magellan network suddenly erased itself?’ ”

She shook her head in wonder. “But—what does it mean?”

“I think it means that he arranged, totally outside Magellan, for something to be built in, something that automatically would trigger such an erasure. The computers, all of them, even the big one here, would suddenly be blank again, all information lost.”

“And this would do what?”

“World panic, I should imagine. The banking and financial records alone would be nearly impossible to track down and claim, let alone use. The value of stock in all publicly held corporations either owned by, controlled by, or doing a lot of business with Magellan, would sink. Years of brilliant research would go down the drain. Some nations’ economies would collapse, while others would find things from routine imports and exports to defense simply falling apart.”

“Then they will duplicate and move this quickly, yes?”

“Well, because of the sheer volume and the computer’s dominance of international telecommunications it’d be damned near impossible. They will save some of the important stuff, the vital stuff, but hardly all. So, you see what he’s done? The international financial community and the governments of many nations will scramble, but also hedge their bets by devoting all their time and resources to getting you clear title to it all as quickly as possible. That’s why I say it will be months, not years, and why everyone is treating you so carefully.”

“If what you say is true they will drop troops to keep me safe and insulated, whether I wish it or not.”

“There’s little real danger of that, I think. You might think of drawing up your own will, too, to go into effect the moment the last probate hurdle is cleared. That will be your best guarantee.”

“I—I will think on it. Merci, Monsieur McGraw. You have been most kind.”

“I’ll not kid you, Miss. We make a ton of money off handling these sort of things, and we only keep accounts like this by doing the best possible job we can. Now—tell me, is there anything we can do for you directly?”

She thought a moment. Probably hundreds of things would come to her later, but now she forced herself to be practical and pragmatic. “First, make certain that my father’s houses and other property is safeguarded and catalogued for me, and that they are maintained.”

“Already being done.”

“Second—for now, it seems, this is the best place for me to stay. I will need attendants. Servants. Whatever they are called. I—”

At that moment, Sister Maria walked in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were all through,” she said apologetically.

“No, no! Come in!” Angelique called to her. “I would like to know your own plans, Sister. How long can you stay with me?”

“Why, as long as you wish. Dr. Byrne informed me just today that they had made arrangements with my order if you so desired. After all, I am one of the few people who knows and understands all this equipment.”

She felt much better. “Oh, yes—please stay on, but as my nurse, not my servant. I was just suggesting to Monsieur McGraw here that he arrange for servants for all the basics. This will leave you free to take care of medication, physical therapy, and equipment maintenance and leave other matters to others. One with your qualifications should not change diapers or clean up my messes.”

McGraw looked startled at the comment. It had never occurred to him that someone paralyzed as she was would have to be in diapers, since she wouldn’t even know when she eliminated. For the first time, he realized how demoralizing such a condition could be beyond the obvious, and it made him uncomfortable.

“Um, a few more matters,” he said a bit uncomfortably. “First, I’ll need a power of attorney from you to handle your affairs. Considering your condition, a fingerprint will suffice for the signature. There are also some other similar documents which I’ll leave for you to read. We’ll have to print every page and have it witnessed, but that should be no problem.”

“Very well. I can sign my name with a pen in my teeth if need be, you know.”

“Whatever you prefer. Servants will have to be arranged through the security people here, I’m afraid, since not everyone can be admitted onto the island. I’m sure there’ll be no problem, though. Mostly you’ll need on-call attendants working shifts—that’s three—a personal maid, I would think, for dressing and general cleaning and the like. The rest can be provided by the Institute staff. I assume you want all women?”

She blushed slightly. “Yes. I think I will be more comfortable that way.”

“All right, then. I won’t be going back until tomorrow evening, so I’ll leave these documents here for you to look over. Feel free to consult with anyone here at the Institute or call me if you don’t understand or like anything, and I’ll go over them before you sign in any event in the presence of witnesses.” He got up to leave, then stopped and turned back to her.

“Are you certain you wish to remain here? Something here, after all, did kill Sir Robert.”

“That is true,” she admitted, “and I have thought of it. But from what you have told me, they had far less reason to keep him alive, did they not? And any who could kill him here, with this amount of protection, could get me anywhere I went. What could I do? Run away? Fight?”

He shrugged. “It had to be said. All right, but be careful. Premeditation for gain is something I believe you are insulated against. But if it is insanity we are dealing with, or espionage, I wouldn’t count on Sir Robert’s protections. There are some unfriendly powers, some not that far from here, who might take great joy in the mess the collapse of Magellan might make.”

“I will remember,” she assured him, and he left.

Sister Maria looked around. “I suppose we ought to make ourselves at home, then. Come—we’ll get you cleaned and looking right. If you ask me, though, he’s right. Parts of this place are positively creepy.”

“I think I know what you mean. But, no, I have another reason for staying right now.”

“Your Mister MacDonald? It’s a pretty open secret around here, so don’t look so shocked. I think everybody knows you’ve got a crush on him except him.” She sighed, but continued to lift Angelique from the chair and put her on the bed. “I’d tread pretty carefully, though. Get to know him a lot better before you get your hopes too high. Remember, with your money now you’ll have your pick, but you’ve got to be realistic about what they might really be after.”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry about that, at least not now. After all, he is a divorced man, so it would be no marriage in God’s eyes anyway. Nor would the Church marry me, since I can not procreate.”

Sister Maria stared at her. “I don’t know who told you that, but it’s not true. The fact that your body won’t listen to your brain’s commands doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It does, and there is still a major neurological connection there. You breathe unaided, you digest and process food normally and eliminate normally. All your organs function normally. All of them. There’s no physiological reason why you couldn’t have a child, or several, if you really wanted to and if you needed to be stimulated down there to get pregnant there wouldn’t be any overpopulation in parts of the world.”

She was shocked at the tone but fascinated by the information. “You mean—I am able to produce heirs?”

“And have the bucks to give them the best, too. Your old man knew that and it’s clearly spelled out in your medical files. That’s why you have to be very careful before committing yourself.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about it for one with your vows.”

Sister Maria chuckled dryly. “I wasn’t always a nun. In fact, I only took my vows seven years ago. It’s a long story, but I’m no virgin.”

She was shocked. This was something that, even if true, nuns never talked about, at least around her.

“Well, I am,” she responded wistfully.

The one thing that always surprised people on their first visit to the library room was that it actually had books in it.

“Oh, yes,” Reggie said, proud to be showing off his area, dressed in a white uniform including white shorts and looking like some cartoon British naval captain without insignia, “there are books here, but they’re really just trophies.”

“Trophies?” Angelique stared at the walls of bound volumes.

“Indeed. One can get the contents of millions of books from SAINT with a simple request, and the fax machines— those things that look like copiers—will print out a deucedly good copy in any size print and type style and format one wishes. These books, however, are special. They are the books, magazines, journals, and papers of our distinguished guests over the past few years which resulted from their work here.”

“But—couldn’t they access the computer from just anywhere?”

“In point of fact they could, but the island is more than merely the home of the heart of the system. It was envisioned by your father as something of a retreat for the finest scientific and technical minds, a place where they would be protected from the outside world, insulated from all the normal human wants and needs, free to think and create and work on any project they wished, not just those their bosses wanted. Writers and artists have had such colonies for a century or two; there were few, if any, such for scientists and mathematicians because of the hardware they need—the computers, the equipment, and the like. Still, there are few and minor laboratories here. This is a place for the theoretician. Most of the work SAINT handles through the worldwide network is pragmatic and very practical; the work done by those who come here for their sabbaticals is pure research, and may or may not even have any real applications. You mustn’t think of this as merely the home of a great computer; actually, its object is to push the human mind, the human genius, to the limit.”

She nodded, although she realy didn’t understand what he was talking about and saw no purpose to research without any objectives in mind. She steered the conversation back to the library. All around there were small cubicles, or carrousels, each with a computer terminal, a built-in high resolution color screen that was so thin it hung on the back of the cubicle like a painting, and a small desk used for note-taking. Hard copy could be had quickly if desired, by simply instructing it to be done, although the actual printing was done elsewhere and delivered to the individual involved. Only two large, rather quiet faxes, sitting against a wall, were available to those in the room, and those were generally used for printing out such things as morning newspapers from around the world and the like.

She guided the chair expertly up to and in one of the cubicles as Sir Reginald directed. He stood behind her but didn’t try and switch anything on. She looked baffled. “What do I do now?”

“Simply tell it to turn itself on. Whatever language you use for the instruction will be the language for all data. It will guide you through the rest if you simply talk to it.”

She looked uncertainly at the console. Finally she said, “Turn on.”

There was no discernible difference, and she wondered if she’d done it right. Then she saw that the screen showed a small word in its center—“READY!” When she didn’t respond for a few seconds, there was a sudden vanishing of the letter, and a voice from the screen said, “Good morning. Miss Montagne. I am SAINT. How may I be of service to you?” The voice was normal, very human, and sounded something like a Shakespearean actor.

“He recognizes you through sensors and has checked you out and decided you are authorized,” Sir Reginald told her. “Let’s say you want to look up something. Just ask him, and he’ll find it and either tell you or put it on the screen or print it out as you instruct. If you’re unsure of whether or not he has something, just ask.”

Her mind was blank. “Uh—do you have a file on me?”

“Of course,” SAINT replied. “There is a biographical sketch of you, lots of subordinate files and evaluations, and a complete profile and medical history, among other things. The total length, printed out in standard typewriter, would be approximately four thousand two hundred and sixty single-spaced pages. Would you like a copy or would you rather obtain more specific information?”

“Um—biographical sketch. On the screen, please, if it’s not too long.”

“Certainly. Just state when you wish to go to the next page.”

And, just like that, up came a neat, formal-looking report on the large screen looking just like a page from a large typeset book.

“I.think you’ve got it now,” Sir Reginald told her. “If you’ll pardon me, there’s a fellow rather insistently attempting to get my attention for some minor emergency or something. When you’re through just tell him so and leave. If I may?”

“Yes, certainly,” she said, happy to have him off her back. She proceeded to read the file and found it uncannily accurate, including some incidents and friends she herself had forgotten. Clearly a lot of people were keeping a close eye on her. It went on and on, but it finally finished with, in fact, her coming to the island and attending her father’s funeral. It was amazingly up-to-date and she wasn’t certain she liked it.

“Uh—SAINT?”

“Yes, Miss?”

“You said my file ran thousands of pages. Is there a table of contents that would let me see the topics in it?”

“Yes. Scrolling on the screen now.”

She read off the amazing specifics, but finally halted it. “Give me the Psychological Profile,” she instructed. “Summary only.”

It made fascinating reading, and somewhat uncomfortable reading as well. It accurately pinpointed her lifelong lack of a sense of roots, of belonging, and suggested she had a strong need for a father or authority figure. Her IQ was above the norm but she was hardly a genius. Reading and language skills far above the norm but mostly within the past three or four years, when they were the only ones available. Able to control or even fool people as to her true feelings. Strong romantic and mystic streaks; emotionally immature… It was strong stuff. It did, however, state that she was highly adaptable, practical about her situation, including her disability, and had a logical and orderly mind about things in which she was not emotionally involved.

Physiologically, she confirmed that Sister Maria had been right. But for the fact that orders from her brain were not transmitted past a certain point in her upper spinal column, her body was perfectly normal. The muscles were weak from disuse, but showed, oddly, no signs of deterioration. All bodily organs and functions were normal. She menstruated normally and was capable of child-bearing, although, with no ability to push, she would require a Caesarean. It concluded, as had the psychological, with the notation that there was nothing that known medical science could find wrong with her, and certainly no signs of dramatic injury anywhere in the spinal area. Both concluded, “Disability almost certainly psychosomatic, but unresponsive to any and all treatment.”

Psychosomatic. She’d heard that many times before, but all she found in these reports was more of that mumbo jumbo on how and why it might have developed, none of which made much sense to her or hit any raw nerves. She was not willing this on herself, no matter what they said.

She abandoned her own file, and looked up Greg’s. She was pleased to discover that he had been honest with her about his past. There was a lot more detail, but nothing he’d told her was false. He was not a Catholic; he was, in fact, a nominal Presbyterian without any real connection to a church at all. His marriage had been a civil one, made in civil court, as was his divorce. Oddly, although the Sisters back at the convent would have been upset, this excited more than depressed her. A civil marriage was no marriage in the eyes of the Church, and while non-Catholics were allegedly the object of pity, there had been so few of them in her life that she found the idea rather exotic. There was a photo of his ex-wife in the file, and she was rather pretty, although not much like Angelique herself. It was interesting to her, none the less.

His psychological profile, however, was far more general and shorter than hers, and she had the strong feeling that much of it simply wasn’t there, almost as if it had either been excised or not put in the system deliberately. Still, it was instructive. He had a fine, analytical mind, and a rather high IQ, as those things went. He was tenacious, stubborn, and seemed to have little regard for his own safety or well-being when in the course of a project or an investigation. One psychologist noted, “Subconsciously, he either thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes or would like to be.” He was attracted to pretty women, and had never shown much interest in the acquisition of wealth and material things. He also had a distaste for the upper class, a disrespect for any authority not based upon merit as he saw it, and a strong streak of insubordination.

She wanted very much to ask the computer whether or not someone like him could ever be really interested in someone like her, but she did not. She wasn’t sure whether she thought it was too personal and revealing a question to ask the computer or whether she didn’t really want to know the answer.

“SAINT, do you have any information on the Dark Man?”

“Which dark man do you mean, Miss Montagne? There are quite a number.”

“No, no. The one recently reported by—superstitious people around the island and elsewhere.”

“Oh, you mean that one. There are no specific files, although Security might have something, which would require their access codes. I wouldn’t know, otherwise. However, it is an old legend in the lower Caribbean, this Dark Man, who inhabits the night and the shadows, has no real substance, but foreshadows disaster. He is connected in legend to obi and voodoo and other dark rites like devil worship. Some such cults have a belief that when the Dark Man ceases being a spirit and becomes real—that is, tangible—he will be the harbinger of the end of the world. Will that do?”

“That is quite enough, thank you. Um, SAINT—this may be a ridiculous question, but do you have any idea who or what killed my father?”

“Logic suggests that he was either killed by a beast of an unknown type or a mechanism simulating it, certainly to induce fear, possibly to attempt to get this island either closed down or opened up to outside authority. It generates insecurity to those corporations and nations who use these facilities because of the tight security. As to who—disallowing the very real but not very probable motive of insanity or personal grievance—the list of suspects, both individual, group, and institutional, is, I’m afraid, far longer than your report.”

“Do you think it—likely—that they will strike again?”

“That will depend on the motives. If the motive was to impair or close down this installation, then the probability is quite high that when this does not happen they will increase their attempts, perhaps in ever greater and more spectacular ways. If it is a stage in a long-range plan or objective, we can expect new developments to proceed. If, on the other hand, it was personal, probably not. Insanity is, by its nature, unpredictable, since while it proceeds from perfect logic, the frame of reference of the insane individual is not based on reality.”

“What would you recommend for me? Should I remain here or go elsewhere for my own safety?”

“I can make no such recommendation. However, logic suggests that if Sir Robert could be killed under those circumstances in a place like this, there is no safe place, merely more vulnerable ones.”

“Am I a likely—target?”

“Unknown, again depending on motivation. If the objective is to destroy Magellan and undermine this installation, you would be the most logical target. However, under any other circumstances, you might be the only really safe person on the island. There is, after all, another motive which is most logical in terms of the actual murder of Sir Robert.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“Someone, for some reason, preferred you to him as the owner of the controlling interest in Magellan.”