GeneSys

GeneSys Page 5

by Roger Carter

Twenty

  Donna and Mort were even closer than Dawn had feared. They had obviously thoroughly enjoyed acting out the roles of daughter and father in the hospital, and by unspoken agreement they were relating to each other in just the same way now that they were home. Donna was behaving like a precocious little girl, bossing him about and teasing him and making him laugh, and he responded by playing the part of the doting father, pandering to her every wish. His dreams had come true, and now there was a light in his eyes and a spring in his step that hadn’t been there before. With Donna around, his empty home was suddenly full of life.

  Angela’s body was still very weak and flabby. Although Donna was able to make it walk around a little, she couldn’t stand up for long and most of the time she was sitting on a kitchen chair chatting to Mort and watching him prepare the meal. Dawn had promised that she wouldn’t interfere, and so she remained in the background, sitting on the steps below the stained-glass window in the cathedral of Angela’s mind, observing everything. Donna hadn’t mentioned her presence to Mort, as that would have raised all kinds of awkward questions.

  It was now almost half an hour since Dawn’s arrival, and Dr Paul Gibson of SETI was due to arrive at any moment. Through Angela/Donna’s eyes, she watched Mort tipping a pile of pasta into a saucepan of boiling water. “Lay the table, would you, Donna? The cutlery is over here, in this drawer.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” Donna pushed herself up from her chair, pulled out the drawer, and stared blankly at its contents. Although eating with a knife and fork hadn’t proved to be a problem, for that skill was wired into Angela’s brain, she’d never seen such a range of eating utensils, all neatly arranged in different sizes, and she didn’t know where to begin. Her dolphin education, although very comprehensive, had failed to prepare her for this, and although she had spent a lot of time in Dawn’s mind, none of it had involved preparing meals or, for that matter, eating them. All she knew was that table manners were terribly important to humans, and that it was considered bad form to gobble up everything in sight.

  It dawned on her that entertaining Dr Gibson to dinner tonight was going to be quite an ordeal. She wasn’t even sure if she liked pasta. It didn’t smell at all fishy.

  “Help me, Dawn,” she whispered, hoping that the message would travel through her ears into the cathedral of her mind.

  Mort glanced up from the cooker. “Pardon?”

  But Donna’s mind was elsewhere. Dawn had responded to her plea by taking control of Angela’s body, and now Donna was just a silent observer, watching the drama unfold in that stained-glass window.

  “I said ‘Help me decide’,” Dawn replied. “D’you want the large knives and forks and spoons? And will three serving spoons be enough?”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  Dawn extracted the cutlery and waddled out of the kitchen. Although Angela’s body was able to walk, it couldn’t move fast. She stood in the spacious hallway and glanced around the unfamiliar surroundings. Which way to the dining room? An image of an open door flashed across her mind – Donna understood her quandary and was projecting this imagery to give her directions. It was the first door on the left. She waddled inside, and sure enough there was a large dining table, with a table cloth and placemats already laid out. She arranged the cutlery and waddled back to the kitchen.

  “What next?” she asked Mort.

  “Get the wine from the fridge and those plates over there and carry them in.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Dawn said, repeating Donna’s earlier words. She didn’t want him to suspect that Donna was no longer in charge of Angela’s body.

  He gave her a quizzical look. “You’re being very obedient for a change. What’s got into you?”

  “I’m softening you up for tomorrow. You haven’t spent a bean on your daughter for four years, so you’ve a lot of catching up to do. Women are expensive, you know.”

  “Don’t be daft. Where you come from there isn’t any money. Angels aren’t materialistic, you told me. I thought we might live in poverty for a while.”

  Dawn silently took the wine from the fridge and picked up the plates and waddled out. She wasn’t sure how Donna would have responded to that remark.

  “I suppose I’m a bit of a fallen angel,” she told him when she got back. “Consumed by avarice, greed, the lusts of the flesh, that kind of thing.”

  He laughed. “I know what you mean. There’s nothing like owning loads of houses and hotels and getting stinking rich at everyone else’s expense!”

  The doorbell rang. “That’ll be Dr Gibson,” she said. “Shall I let him in?”

  “Please. Take him through to the lounge and chat to him for a few minutes. And try to behave.”

  “Behaving is what angels do best,” she told him as she waddled out. She was beginning to enjoy acting the part of a teenager again. As she approached the front door she decided that she would show that precocious Donna a trick or two.

  A smartly-dressed man carrying a briefcase was at the doorstep. He looked in his 30’s. He had straight black hair and was wearing thick-rimmed glasses.

  “Dr Gibson, I presume,” she said.

  He peered at her owlishly through his glasses. “You’re Angela Lane?”

  “P’rhaps I am and p’rhaps I ain’t.” She let him into the hall. “Things are a little confused at the moment.”

  “Well, either you are Angela Lane or you aren’t. Which is it?”

  “Difficult to say.” She led him through to the lounge, guided by Donna’s visual prompts. “Part of me is Angela and part of me isn’t. Hopefully all of me will be her before long.”

  “It would certainly simplify things,” he answered stiffly.

  He sat down opposite her in the lounge and stared at her thoughtfully. “When you say that part of you isn’t Angela Lane, do you mean that something … else … has entered you?”

  “Yes. Exactly that.”

  “Something that contacted you during your time in space?”

  “Oh no, it’s not an extra-terrestrial, if that’s what you mean. It’s a guardian angel. At least, that’s what I’ve told my father.”

  He looked startled. “A guardian angel? You think you’ve got a guardian angel?”

  “It’s more that what you’re talking to is Angela’s guardian angel. I’m controlling her body.”

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at her over his glasses. “Like spirit possession, you mean?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I see.” There was a long pause. “Has your father taken you to see a psychiatrist, Angela?”

  “Why? Do they need guardian angels too?”

  He smiled. “I really think you should see a psychiatrist. I suspect you’re suffering from delusions.”

  She glared at him. “Guardian angels are never deluded, Dr Gibson.” She hoped that Donna, who would be listening in to everything, was impressed by her banter.

  Mort walked in and introduced himself. “Call me Paul,” Dr Gibson said, standing up and shaking his hand.

  “I see you’re getting acquainted with my daughter, Paul. She’s doing well, isn’t she?”

  Paul hesitated. “She seems a little uncertain as to her identity. She claims to be Angela’s … guardian angel.”

  “Fascinating, isn’t it? Come through to the dining room. Everything’s ready. I’m sure she’ll have a lot to say over dinner. As a matter of fact, I’ve never met anyone with such a lot to say. She’s not at all like Angela in that respect. In fact, she’s not at all like Angela in any respect.”

  Paul stared at him in his owlish way, but said nothing.

  A few minutes later, when the meal was underway, Paul broached the subject again. “I imagine it’s very reassuring to be a guardian angel,” he said to her. “You must know pretty much everything there is to know about everything.” He was being sarcastic, of course.

  “I’m not omniscient, unfortunately,” Dawn replied equably. “I’m quite shaky on quantum mechanics, for instance, a
nd as for the human genome, well, you need to be a supercomputer to get to grips with that. But on the whole I’m quite knowledgeable. Why?”

  “I was wondering how you were able to square your evident belief in your angelic nature with the facts of the situation. You don’t see any inconsistencies?”

  She stared at him blankly. “No. None at all.”

  “Don’t you think it a little odd that you allowed Angela to remain in a coma for four years – that’s a big chunk out of her life – before deciding to do something about it?”

  “I can’t just drop everything, Dr Gibson. I’ve got more important things than this to attend to. It’s pretty busy up in heaven, what with so many people dying all the time. I just wish you humans would do something to control your population. Things are getting quite out of hand up there.”

  “And when you do get round to saving Angela, you don’t do the job properly,” Paul persisted, ignoring her attempts to change the subject. “She’s not back in her body, you say?”

  “She certainly isn’t. As a matter of fact, I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me find her. Your expert knowledge might give me some clues about her location.”

  He smiled superciliously. “You can’t be much of a guardian angel if you need help from a mere mortal to perform your duties.”

  She glowered at him across the table. “I told you, Dr Gibson, I’m not omniscient. That’s a Latin word, and since you obviously don’t know much Latin, I’ll put it in simple English: I don’t know everything! Look, I know this is difficult for you to accept, but at least try to be open-minded about things. Let’s pretend for a moment that I’m not some half-baked dim-witted girl with a mind that’s been addled because she’s been in a coma for four years. Adopt the scientific approach: make my claims your working hypothesis and see where they lead you!”

  “I agree with her, Paul,” Mort said quietly. “This is Angela’s body, but Angela couldn’t possibly be talking like this. At least answer her questions.”

  Paul shrugged. “OK. I think you’re both mad, but since I’m here anyway and you’re giving me dinner the least I can do is answer a few questions.”

  “Thank you,” Dawn said. “Now perhaps we can get down to business. First of all, I need to explain what’s happened to Angela. Have you heard of the Watchers?”

  “I know about them, yes.”

  “You’re not involved with them, I hope?”

  “Certainly not. Do you think I’m mad too?”

  “Just checking. Anyway, they believe that extra-terrestrials are on a spirit journey to Earth.”

  “I know what they believe.”

  “Well, Angela’s their early-warning system. They’ve attached her to a telescope, to monitor the stars. I thought it might be a space telescope, but I’ve checked those. In case you’re wondering, angels are able to fly in space.”

  “What makes you think she’s on a space telescope?” he asked, ignoring her last comment.

  “I’ve seen into her mind. She’s looking through a telescope, I can tell that, and she’s seeing nothing but black space with faint stars. If it was an earth-based telescope there would be periods of daylight.”

  He looked at her curiously, clearly intrigued. “At SETI’s Australian site there’s a pair of telescopes that work in tandem. They’re about a kilometre apart, but they’re linked by an underground tunnel, and the light from them travels through this tunnel to some optics in the middle where it’s combined to form a single image. The reason for two telescopes is to increase the effective resolution – in other words to allow you to see distant objects more clearly. The thing is, that tunnel is in darkness, both day and night.”

  “What?” Dawn dropped her knife and fork with a clatter on her plate and gaped at him. Mort had obviously realised the implications of his words, for he was gaping at him too. “Where is this telescope?”

  “In the Mount Lofty hills, not far from here, about a 40-minute drive.” He paused, his eyes searching her face, and it occurred to Dawn that he might be wondering if she actually was an angel.

  “Actually, it’s not really SETI’s telescope, though we manage the site. It belongs to the University of Adelaide. Not that that’s important. What’s curious – very curious in view of what you’ve been telling me – is that these Watchers that you’re so worried about are now financing it.”

  “What? That’s it! That must be where they’ve put Angela!” She gave him a huge smile. “Paul, you’re wonderful! In fact you’re absolutely marvellous.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “There’s more. The Watchers got interested in that telescope several years ago. They said they wanted to use it to scan the skies for ET, though they didn’t say anything about planting a captive spirit in it. No one would have paid any attention if they did, of course. Anyway, they poured millions of dollars into the university’s coffers, and in return the university agreed that the telescope could be used to sweep the skies in the way the Watchers wanted – covering the Milky Way, especially the central regions, ‘cos ET’s likely to come from there – and they’re paying SETI to man it. SETI had no objection, of course, because such a search is entirely consistent with its own objectives.”

  “This is amazing, Paul! Everything fits. Angela’s bound to be at that telescope. When I file my report in the great Office in the Sky, I’ll certainly put in a good word for you. And remind me to give you a great big kiss before you leave.”

  He laughed for the first time. “Since you’re not really Angela, you won’t be offended if I refuse that offer, will you?”

  “I understand. She’s not a beauty queen. But a few weeks of exercise and some decent food and a bit of makeup, and she’ll be a real scorcher. Won’t she, Mort?”

  “I’m sure she will, Donna.”

  “Donna?” Paul glanced at him in surprise.

  “That’s her real name. The name of the angel inside her, that is.”

  “Funny name for an angel,” Paul snorted. “Angela’s much more appropriate.”

  “That’s really hurtful,” Dawn protested. “It’s not a funny name.”

  She glared at him and tried to imagine what Donna would have said in response to that. “Angels have all kinds of names,” she continued. “Gabriel, for instance. Imagine having a name like Gabriel! Donna’s a nice name. Very feminine. Why did you have to say something horrid, just when we were getting on so well?”

  “OK, OK,” Paul muttered. He glanced at Mort, and there was something approaching sympathy in his eyes. “Is she always like this?”

  “She never stops. I get the impression that social interactions are rather limited where she comes from. There’s a lot of hymn singing and that kind of thing, but little else in the way of recreational facilities. So she’s making the most of her time down below.” Dawn could tell from the hint of suppressed amusement in his eye that he was trying to wind Donna up.

  “Stop talking about me as though I wasn’t here!” she exploded, pretending to be wound up. “Don’t you realise I’m one of the most powerful beings in the universe? Now let’s quit fooling around and concentrate on saving Angela. You say this telescope is only a short drive from Adelaide, Paul?”

  “You want me to take you there?”

  “I certainly do, and as soon as possible. Tonight, even.”

  He looked at her uncertainly. “We could go tonight. The trouble is, it’s quite awkward to get into that tunnel. There are a fair number of steps down to it, and then there’s quite a walk to the combining optics.”

  “I don’t think you should chance that in your condition,” Mort said to her. “You might damage your heart. Angela’s heart, I mean.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of going there in this body. I would use Paul’s body.”

  “You mean you’d take him over, like you’ve taken over Angela?”

  “You’d be honoured to lend me your body, wouldn’t you Paul?”

  There was a long silence as, very slowly and deliberately, Paul put down his knife a
nd fork on his plate and glowered at her. “You’re going to possess me, is that what you’re saying? I don’t know what you take me for, but I’m not a complete idiot. Do you seriously expect me to believe that sort of nonsense?”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me what you believe, I’ll still do it.”

  He gave a dismissive laugh. “OK, Donna, or whatever it is you like to be called, I’ll let you try. At least it’ll prove once and for all what utter crap you’re talking. And it’ll prove to your father that you ought to get your head examined!”

  “That’s the spirit. I’ll enter you now, while we’re in the mood. It’ll only take a moment. You might find it easier if you lean back in your chair and close your eyes and relax, and when you feel my presence don’t try to resist me.”

  Her intention was to jump across from Angela’s brain to his, leaving Donna in charge of Angela, and then arouse him with some erotic imagery so that she could take over his mind. This wasn’t so that she could control his body – that wouldn’t be necessary for this trip to the telescope – but so that she would have full access to all his memories. She wanted to find out all he knew about the Watchers and their Mount Lofty project.

  Paul gave her a withering look. “And then you’re going to hypnotise me. I wasn’t born yesterday – this is the usual party trick. You’ll use suggestion to make me go to that telescope and believe that there’s some invisible presence inside me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I need to travel in you, I’ve got to rescue Angela. Look, we’ll make it really easy. All you have to do is kiss me, just once, on the lips. A quick kiss will be enough, no more than a couple of seconds.”

  “Oh come on! What do you take me for?”

  “Go on, a quick kiss. It’s worth putting up with that to prove me wrong, isn’t it? Mort won’t mind.”

  “Do as she says,” Mort advised him. “After all, it’s your chance to settle the matter.”

  “All right, I will.” Giving her another of those looks, Paul pushed his chair back and strode round the table.

  She stood up as well. “I suggest you stand by the settee,” she told him. “In case the experience is too much for you. I wouldn’t like you to hurt yourself.”

  “How thoughtful of you,” he muttered sarcastically. “Kissing you is like being struck by a bolt of lightning, I suppose.”

  “It’s exactly like that, actually.” She took a deep breath and tried to imagine that it was Rick, not Paul, who was standing before her. She pictured his hands around her waist, drawing her to him.

  Heat erupted in her belly, and she sensed the chemicals of love surging through her real body, asleep on her bed in Honiara, making her heart race and her breathing quicken.

  “Now close your eyes, Paul,” she murmured. In her imagination Rick’s lips were on her throat and his hands were sliding down her back.

  Paul shrugged and closed his eyes. She put her hands on his shoulders, visualising them as Rick’s shoulders. Fire was now roaring through her body, and it seemed to her that it was not Paul’s lips but Rick’s that hovered over hers. Their lips touched, the fire exploded up her throat and played around her lips, and then it engulfed Paul. It raced through his veins, igniting his passions.

  Dawn felt his startlement as the pleasure centres of his brain went into overdrive and the chemicals of love flooded through him. She felt his legs go weak as all his resistance collapsed, and she knew that the moment to possess him had come. She withdrew her control of Angela and returned to the cathedral of Angela’s mind, to find herself standing before the altar. Donna was standing there too, in her dragon form, and Dawn watched as she instantly leapt onto the altar and was absorbed by it.

  Paul collapsed onto the settee, gasping. Angela’s body, momentarily unconscious, collapsed on top of him, sending his glasses flying. A moment later Donna, back in control of Angela, was struggling to push herself off Paul, but he had his arms round her and was grasping her to him and forcing his lips to hers. Donna yielded to his passion for a few moments, just enough to allow Dawn sufficient time to invade the cathedral of his mind and to leap upon the altar, and then she managed to pull her face away.

  “Just a quick kiss, I said! Stop right now!”

  But her struggles only inflamed him further, and his hands were all over her and he was hungrily kissing her throat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mort rising to his feet. What was Dawn waiting for? By now she must have entered his mind and able to stop him. Unless she did something fast she would have a full-scale fight on her hands.

  Suddenly Paul did stop. His face contorted in horror and his body convulsed, and he pushed himself from her with such force that she was almost thrown to the floor. Mort reacted quickly, grabbing her and holding her upright, while Paul blinked up at her in confusion from the settee.

  “God, that was horrible,” he gasped. “Not you. That dead rat. You were an enormous dead rat, crawling with maggots and everything. God!” He looked sick, and he was brushing at himself with shaking hands as if trying to rid himself of something disgusting.

  “Sorry about that. I had to do something to stop you.” Donna adjusted her top and resumed her seat at the table, and Mort sat down too. Dawn was obviously inside Paul and sharing his mind, though she wasn’t actually controlling him. But she had total control over him, and could at any moment take charge of his body.

  “Finish your dinner, Paul,” Donna commanded. “Then you can go to that telescope.” She grabbed the salt cellar and sprinkled some on the remnants of her meal. Humans never added enough salt. “By the way, what’s it like having me inside you?”

  He rose from the settee and glared at her sourly across the table. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Why? I told you I was going to come into you.”

  “Kissing me like that, I mean.”

  “It’s your own fault. You mocked when I suggested relaxation as a way to allow me in. The only other way is by kissing.”

  He retrieved his glasses and resumed his seat at the table, glowering at her all the while. “What on earth has kissing got to do with you possessing me?”

  “It’s to do with shared neural pathways in the brain,” she explained. “It’s a bit complicated, but it’s something that guardian angels know all about.”

  “Guardian angels!” he scoffed, spearing a roast potato angrily. “You’re no more a guardian angel than I am.” He glanced at Mort, and there was a crafty look in his eye. Donna had the nasty feeling that he was about to get his revenge for the indignities he’d suffered.

  “How come you can feel my presence with you, then, inhabiting your mind?” she persisted. “Though it’s not actually my presence, I have to admit. Guardian angels can’t be in two places at once. It’s a colleague, another guardian angel. She’s here helping me.”

  He managed a supercilious smile. “Whether it’s one or two of you is immaterial. You are not a guardian angel.”

  “What am I then?”

  “Either you’re from another world–”

  “And I’ve assured you I’m not–”

  “Or you’re one of those genetically-modified dolphins!”

  Donna blinked. “What on earth makes you think that?” she quavered, trying to hide her dismay. She was yet to achieve perfect control over Angela’s body, and found it difficult to mask her emotions.

  He detected her hesitation, and his eyes gleamed in triumph. “It’s well known that those dolphins have psychic powers. You’re a GM dolphin, and right now you’re in some kind of trance state. That’s how you’ve taken over Angela’s body, and how you – or your so-called colleague – have got into me.”

  He folded his arms at her in satisfaction. “That’s all you are, a GM dolphin. Or rather, two GM dolphins.”

  “If that’s all we are, how come I was able to give you that miraculous kiss?” she continued doggedly. “No dolphin could do that. And how come I ate all this human food and behaved with impeccable human
manners and all the rest of it? No dolphin could do that either. All the evidence points to us being divine beings.”

  “Well, I don’t believe it. No guardian angel would talk like you. Or behave like you, for that matter.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never met one.”

  “Look,” he said in exasperation, “the whole idea is ridiculous. So cut the crap and admit you’re a dolphin. You’ve been sent here by one of your human masters to sort out this Angela problem.”

  “I won’t admit to anything of the sort. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what you believe, we’re going to rescue Angela’s spirit. Then my colleague will vacate you and I’ll vacate Angela’s body.”

  “I’ve no problem with that. Then perhaps Angela’s father will have a daughter who isn’t a demented dolphin and I’ll be able to get some sense out of her.”

  “I suggest you watch your tongue, Dr Gibson,” Donna muttered frostily, “just in case I really am a guardian angel. And even if I’m not, I and my colleague have complete power over you. That dead rat was pretty mild, as horrors go. On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a two. My colleague is quite capable of taking full control of your body and making you do the most awful things to yourself.”

  He scowled at her, but said nothing.

  “Now, before my colleague accompanies you to that telescope, I’d like a word with her.”

  He shrugged and carried on eating.

  “Dawn, I think it would be a good idea if you went through Paul’s mind and checked his memories, just in case he’s hiding something from us. It occurs to me that he might have some connection with those Watchers.”

  That was exactly what Dawn had intended to do, of course. Observing everything from deep within Paul’s mind, she couldn’t help but marvel, as she had so often marvelled before, at how alike she and Donna were. Not physically, of course, but in their personalities and thought processes. Their shared dragon genes and the many hundreds of hours Donna had spent in her mind had brought that about. Apart from the age difference, they could almost be twins. Mort wouldn’t have had a clue that it was anyone other than Donna who had been inhabiting his daughter’s body for most of the evening.

  Paul was glaring at Angela. “Are you seriously suggesting I’m connected to the Watchers? I’ve got nothing to do with those people. I’m a reputable scientist. And well-respected in my field. Very well-respected, in fact.”

  “It also occurs to me that a small demonstration of our power wouldn’t go amiss,” Donna continued, ignoring the interruption. “It might have a salutary effect. Fire away, Dawn.”

  She sat back and watched Paul’s face, curious to see how he would react to an invading spirit rummaging through his memories. Perhaps he would see his life flashing before his eyes. Something like that must be happening, judging by the alarm that had crept into his eyes.

  “Relax, Paul,” she murmured, “it won’t take long. My colleague’s scanning your subconscious for links to the Watchers.”

  “I’ve told you, I don’t have any links to those people.” He was staring vacantly at her, scarcely seeing her.

  “Let’s hope not. For your sake.”

  “She’s found something!” he gasped. “It’s Clare. She’s put Clare’s face into my mind.”

  “Who’s Clare?”

  “She works for SETI. She joined the Australian department a couple of months ago. It’s because of her that I contacted Angela Lane. She’d read the news reports, and she wanted to find out more.”

  “What? That sounds suspicious. She doesn’t belong to the Watchers, does she?”

  “Of course not. But she’s doing some research on them.”

  “Research on the Watchers? What kind of research?”

  “Analyzing their prophecies. There’s some kind of pattern to them, she says.”

  “Hmm. She’s obviously in contact with them. You should have told us about Clare, Paul, you really should. You’re close to her, are you?”

  “I’m not dating her, if that’s what you mean.” He was gripping the sides of his chair now, and Donna noticed he had started to sweat. Mort was watching silently from across the table, and she wondered what was passing through his mind.

  “But Clare’s obviously important to you,” she continued.

  “I guess I like her. Quite a lot. I’ve asked her out for a meal tomorrow, if you must know. OK, she has met some of these Watchers, and she’s gone to some of their meetings, but she doesn’t belong to them. Like I said, she’s researching them.”

  “What else can you tell me about her?”

  “Look, if you tell this Dawn of yours to let go of my mind, I’ll get out my screen and show you a picture of her. And you can read all about her – I’ve got her CV.”

  “Did you hear him, Dawn?”

  Dawn obviously had, for he gasped with relief, and his eyes focussed. “You people are a menace,” he muttered.

  “The picture, Paul.”

  He glared at her, then retrieved his briefcase from the chair where he’d left it and pulled from it his rolled-up screen. Returning to his place at the table, he pushed his dinner plate aside and unfurled it. It came alight immediately.

  “Clare O’Connor, image,” he said to the device, then pushed it over to her.

  Donna froze. The girl on the screen was the spitting image of Clara, her mysterious new temple assistant. Clara, the girl who kept herself to herself and had never visited the town before, the girl who had never seen any of Dawn’s Passion plays, the girl who was unusually adept with her hands.

  This agent, this researcher or whatever she was, had invaded the Mind!

  Twenty One

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to investigate your Clare,” Donna told Paul. They had finished the main course, and Mort was clearing away the plates.

  “If you mean you want to invade her mind…”

  “That’s exactly what I do mean.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to cooperate.”

  “Oh, I think you should. For your own sake as much as ours. You wouldn’t want to get romantically involved with an undercover agent for the Watchers, would you?”

  “Don’t be so bloody stupid,” he snapped. “She’s a researcher, not a secret agent.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Donna muttered grimly. “But if she isn’t one of them, no harm will come to her. And it’ll do you a great deal of good.”

  “Do me a great deal of good? Ruin my chances with her, more likely! She won’t want anything to do with me if she thinks I’m responsible for letting you worm your way into her.”

  Donna laughed. “Don’t worry about that. She won’t be able to get enough of you by the time we’ve finished with her. You see, to take possession of her mind we’ll need you to kiss her – the same way I kissed you a few minutes ago. We’ll be empowering your kiss, of course, to make sure it sets her on fire. Just imagine it, Paul. She’ll never have experienced a kiss like that before. She’ll be so consumed by passion for you that she’ll hardly notice that anything untoward is going on behind the scenes. Quite a start to your relationship, don’t you think?”

  Mort was leaving the dining room with his pile of plates. He was clearly amused, and at the door he paused and gave Donna a wink. Paul for his part was staring right through her. He was obviously picturing the steamy scene. “I would really get to kiss her like that?”

  “You certainly would, for as long as one of us is possessing you.”

  “But I wouldn’t be able to kiss like that for ever and ever.”

  “I’m afraid not. But just one of those kisses would make her yours – assuming she’s attracted to you in the first place, of course. All those hormones pouring through her body would act like a love potion. They would make her addicted to you.”

  “Addicted to me?” He still had that glazed look.

  “Of course. You know how these hormones work. Attachment is one of their outcomes. You won’t be able to keep her off you.”

  She
paused for a moment, letting her words sink in. “Now, can we count on your cooperation, Paul?”

  He swallowed, and his gaze focussed on her at last. “Yes. You can.”

  “Good. Now, what time are you picking her up for this meal tomorrow?”

  “We arranged to meet at seven.”

  “We’ll need to come into you before you leave home, otherwise we won’t be able to find you. Will 6.30 be OK?”

  “Make it 6.20.”

  “Fine. We won’t actually possess you then, we’ll just hang around inside your skull. You’ll feel our presence, but it won’t be anything more than that. However, to deliver that kiss, one of us will have to completely possess you, and that of course means you’ll have to be sexually aroused in some way.”

  He looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, Clare’s extremely attractive, so I don’t think that should be a problem. Especially if she wears something nice and puts on that perfume of hers.”

  “Let’s hope she does. If all else fails, Dawn will put some erotic imagery into your mind. She’s good at that.”

  “Some guardian angel!” he muttered darkly. “Bloody dolphins!”

  “Dr Gibson! Do you seriously imagine a dolphin would be able to conjure up erotic imagery? Please remember that whatever Dawn and I are or are not, we’re all in this together and we all want the same things. We all want to save Angela, we all want Clare to fall for you, and we all want to get the better of the Watchers. So let’s be nice and friendly, OK?

  “OK, OK.”

  Just then Mort returned, wheeling a small trolley with desserts. “Dawn and I will be accompanying Paul and Clare on their evening out tomorrow,” she told him.

  Mort grinned. “I hope you’ve chosen a nice romantic restaurant, Paul. A place where you can steal a kiss.”

  Paul groaned. “Yes, and I’ve booked a secluded table, so your Donna and her friend Dawn can have a field day.”

  “You’re a hero,” Donna told him brightly. “Now, I just need your address and postcode so we can locate you tomorrow evening.”

  He pulled a card from his briefcase and passed it over to her. “I’m surprised angels need postcodes,” he muttered sarcastically.

  “We need it for our satnavs,” she replied absently, studying the address and trying to memorise it. Paul gave a despairing skywards glance, while Mort looked like he would burst with suppressed laughter.

  “Make sure you leave your car in the driveway,” Donna added, oblivious to their glances, “It’ll help us locate the house. And whatever you do, don’t tell Clare anything about Dawn and me, and don’t mention anything about rescuing Angela. Just tell her that she seems to be doing well at home, but she didn’t have anything to report that might help SETI.”

  Paul was obviously partial to puddings, and as the dessert course progressed his mood visibly lightened. And when Mort told him that Donna had helped to prepare it he gave a sly grin and said that this explained why it tasted so heavenly.

  “Have you got any questions about tomorrow?” Donna asked him when they’d finished. “Or about your mission to rescue Angela tonight?”

  “About tonight – I’ll go to that telescope, and then what?”

  “You won’t be able to tell if Angela’s there or not, of course. But since Dawn’s a spirit, she will be able to see her, and she’ll leave you, release Angela, and bring her back here to her body. You won’t see anything, of course, but after Dawn leaves you your body’s your own. Until tomorrow evening, that is.”

  “I’d like to drive back here, if that’s OK. Just to check what’s happened.” He glanced at Mort.

  “Of course you can,” Mort told him. “If you do manage to rescue Angela, we’ll open a bottle of champagne together.”

  A little later, after Paul had departed and Donna was helping Mort clear away the dishes, Mort asked her the question she knew he must have been itching to put to her.

  “Paul was right, wasn’t he? You are one of those genetically-modified dolphins.”

  Donna gazed at him sadly. She’d really enjoyed pretending to be an angel, and now it was all over. Everything was over, if they found Angela at that telescope. “What makes you think I’m a dolphin?”

  “It makes sense of everything. It certainly explains why all you want to eat is fish.”

  “Jesus ate a lot of fish, everyone knows that, so why shouldn’t angels?”

  “It’s not just your dietary preferences. You adore being in water, in fact you can’t get enough of it.”

  “Jesus was always messing about in boats, he even walked on water. Anyway, what about all those board games we play. I’m brilliant at those. What’s that got to do with being a dolphin?”

  He smiled. “But you are a dolphin, aren’t you.”

  She nodded, and the overwhelming sadness that she felt brought dampness to Angela’s eyes. “I’ve got a near-human brain, though. And Dawn, my human mentor, has brought me up to think like a human. Being here with you, in Angela’s body, has been great. These have been the happiest days of my life, Mort.”

  He took her hand. “It’s been great for me, too, Donna. I’ve really enjoyed having you – even though you slaughtered me at Monopoly. I’m sure you cheated, by the way. You did something to those dice so I kept landing on your houses.”

  “I didn’t! Spirits can’t move physical objects, it’s impossible. Anyway, I’ll really miss those board games. It’s hopeless trying to play them in the sea. The waves mess up everything.”

  He smiled. “I can imagine.” They finished clearing away, then they went into the lounge and sat down on one of the settees.

  “You could visit me in the Solomon Islands,” Donna murmured. “I’ll take you for a ride on my back.”

  “No, I don’t think I will,” Mort replied. “It would spoil my memories of you. I’d like to remember you as my angel. You make a very good angel, you know.”

  Donna nodded miserably, and they lapsed into silence.

  “Perhaps you could visit me sometimes,” Mort suggested after a while. “Take over Angela’s body for an evening, and we’ll play a game or go for a walk. I was thinking of getting a dog for Angela. You’d really enjoy playing with a dog.”

  “Thanks, Mort, but I think it’s best if I didn’t. We’ve got on really well together, but now it’s over. I’ve got to accept that I’m a dolphin, and you’ve got to accept that Angela is your daughter. With her around you’ll soon forget all about me.”

  “I’ll never forget you, Donna.”

  She nodded miserably again, and they drifted into their own thoughts once more.

  “I’m surprised you’re not seeing any one,” Donna ventured a little later. “Romantically, I mean.”

  “It’s only two years since Sally died. I’m only just getting over it.”

  “So d’you think you will? Start seeing someone?”

  “I don’t know. Karen is quite pretty, though she’s a bit young for me. She’s visited me several times since Sally died.”

  “You know why, don’t you? She wanted to keep an eye on you. To make sure you weren’t giving up on Angela. When you did finally decide to give up, she hotfooted it to Dawn in the Solomon Islands, to get her to intervene. The rest you know.”

  “I guess I’ve got Karen to thank for everything.”

  “In a way. But don’t say anything to her about Dawn or me or anything that’s happened tonight. She’s not to be trusted. She knew all along where Angela was hidden. All she wanted was for Angela’s body to be kept alive, she cared nothing for your feelings.”

  “I understand that now. By the way, she phoned me up mid-day, while you were sleeping–”

  “While I was elsewhere, having left Angela’s body in a coma.”

  “Whatever. She asked about Angela, and I told her how brilliantly you were doing. She didn’t seem surprised. Then she asked to visit us. I suggested Thursday evening, to give you a chance to settle in.”

  “She wants to check up on Angela, to make sure everythin
g is going to plan. To the Watchers’ plan, that is. She wants to reassure herself that Dawn is controlling Angela’s body.”

  Mort glanced at her in surprise. “Dawn?”

  “It was Dawn who came into Angela when she emerged from her coma, and Karen assumes that it’s still Dawn controlling her now. Karen knows nothing about me. Make sure you keep it that way, Mort.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell her anything. But what do you think she’ll do when she discovers that Angela’s back in her body – assuming Dawn rescues her tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps Dawn ought to take over Angela when Karen visits, just to keep up the deception. The trouble is, those Watchers are bound to find out sooner or later. One of them will try to invade Angela’s body, to check her latest memories of space, and then the truth will be out.”

  “So what will they do then? Do you think they’ll try to abduct her spirit again?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll discuss it with Dawn. But make sure that spirit detector remains switched on. I left it in Angela’s bedroom, pointing at the bed. If a spirit tries to invade her, an alarm will sound in Dawn’s house, and she can be here in seconds. The detector’s got enough oxygen and nutrient to keep going for several weeks, but after that Dawn will probably want it back. It’s experimental, real cutting-edge stuff.”

  He nodded, and silence returned again.

  A little later, Donna said: “If you do find someone you really like, and you want any help with kissing – like we’re going to help Paul tomorrow – just phone up Dawn. I’m sure she’d be happy to oblige. Her kisses are real scorchers. I can kiss like that too, you know. Well, in theory I can kiss like that. The trouble with being a dolphin is that I don’t get to kiss at all. It’s very frustrating.”

  He laughed. “I’ll struggle along with my own kissing, thanks. Anything else would be cheating.”

  “I guess you’re right. But I’ll give you Dawn’s phone number anyway. Just in case.”

  He got up and found a pad of paper and pen, and she wrote down the details.

  “You’ve got Angela’s handwriting,” he observed.

  “I utilize the automatic functions of her brain. I wouldn’t be able to control this body otherwise. It’s a bit like when you run an application like word processing on a computer. Angela’s body is equivalent to the computer hardware, the automatic functions of her brain are like the systems software, and I’m like the word processing program, able to make use of the systems software so that the hardware does what I want. If Dawn takes over Angela, then she’ll be a different application program, but she’ll be using the same systems software. That means she’ll also have Angela’s voice and Angela’s handwriting.”

  “Remarkable,” he murmured. “And even more remarkable that a dolphin is able to come up with such an extraordinary analogy.”

  “Like I said, we’ve got human brains. And our education has been as good as it gets. We know all about computers. We’ve even got terminals that respond to dolphin whistles. We browse the internet and everything.”

  “Amazing.”

  A picture suddenly flashed into Donna’s mind. It was of Dawn, holding Angela’s hand.

  “Dawn’s here,” she exclaimed. “With Angela! She’s got Angela!”

  Mort jumped to his feet. “Really? What do we do?”

  “Hold me, Mort! I’m going to have to leave now, and Angela will take over. Her body will go unconscious for a moment or two.”

  He sat down beside her and put his arms round her. “I’ll miss you, Donna,” he whispered.

  She didn’t dare look at him, and instead nestled her head against his chest. She felt close to tears. “I’ll miss you too, Mort.”

  Then she was in the cathedral of Angela’s mind, and Dawn was standing beside her and Angela’s spirit was disappearing into the altar. Immediately after that she was outside Angela’s body, with Dawn beside her, sharp and clear, with everything else in the room including Mort and Angela vague and fuzzy.

  She could tell that Mort was still cuddling Angela, and although she couldn’t make out the expression on his face or any other details, she had the distinct impression that he was crying.

  Twenty Two

  “Still at it?” Dawn asked as she walked into Donna’s quarters in Eden the next morning.

  Donna shrugged disconsolately. “It’s something to do.” She was seated at her table, working on the banknotes for her Monopoly set.

  Dawn sat down beside her. “It was bound to happen, Donna. You couldn’t occupy Angela’s body forever.”

  “I know. It’s just that I really enjoyed it. And I got on so well with Mort, playing games and chatting to him and everything. He’s so sweet.”

  “You’ve got Jonah. You really like him, and he likes you.”

  Donna sighed and wrote ‘500’ in red ink on another blank note. “He likes me as a dolphin, not as a human. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that. Tell me what happened at that telescope? You found Angela there, obviously.”

  “It was really weird. She was strapped down to a couch – a neurospace couch, of course, exactly like the ones I saw on that flying saucer – with her head immediately below the telescope optics that Paul told us about.”

  “Inside that underground tunnel.”

  “That’s right. Somehow our COBRA leader must have moved both her and the couch from the burnt-out flying saucer in space to the SETI site in Australia, but I’ve no idea how he would be able to do such a thing.”

  “Well, if we’re able to conjure up flying cars to get around, maybe he can conjure up a removal van.”

  “But we’re dragons, humans wouldn’t be able to do anything like that. I’m wondering if demons are involved. They certainly had a role in that flying saucer.”

  Donna shivered. “Demons? I hope not!”

  “I hope not too. But it makes sense that they would be involved. After all, they would certainly want to know if visitors were coming here from across the galaxy. Especially if those visitors were dragons.”

  “They might be more demons.”

  “That’s the worry. We all want to know what might be heading our way.”

  “And by saving Angela we’ve knocked out their early-warning system. Anyway, having found her I suppose it was easy enough to release her?”

  “I cut through her straps with my claws, then I conjured up my Beetle and took her to Mort’s house. She was in a bit of a daze, but apart from that she seemed OK. I think she’d fallen into a kind of semi-conscious dream state. I’ll have to phone up Mort to check how she’s doing, but it looks like we’ve solved the Angela problem.”

  “Which just leaves the Clare O’Connor problem. I took a close look at Clara during the temple service this morning. Clare and Clara are identical. She’s the same person.”

  “I checked the dolphin project database before coming here,” Dawn told her, “and there’s nothing at all on Clare. She isn’t one of our mentors, and that means she’s a complete outsider. Somehow she’s managed to invade the Mind.”

  Dawn wondered whether to tell Donna that she’d been worried for some time that something pernicious might have wormed its way into the dolphin communal mind, but she decided against it. Anything shared with Donna was automatically shared with the Mind.

  “I bet Clare’s one of those Watchers,” Donna muttered darkly. “There might even be more of them here. Maybe we’re infested with them.”

  “We’ll find out tonight,” Dawn told her. “We’ll also find out why they’re invading us. It could be something to do with my Passion plays.”

  “Your Passion plays? What on earth have they got to do with it?”

  “I forgot to tell you. That white noise telepathy that bombarded Baby on Sunday, well, Angela was bombarded with that as well. It was the Mind, broadcasting my Passion play.”

  “Good grief! Why would the Mind do that?”

  “It’s not intentional, at least I don’t think it is. But it was a really powerful sign
al, and I reckon the earliest episodes will be halfway across the galaxy by now.”

  Donna groaned. “I know what’s coming next. Extra-terrestrials have picked up those transmissions, so they’re coming to Earth. Which means we ought to put Baby where Angela was, beneath that telescope to watch out for them.”

  Dawn glanced at her in surprise. “I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a pretty smart idea!”

  “I told you, fish is good for the brain. Any neurospace ship heading for Earth will set off Baby’s alarm, instantly alerting the SETI staff. They’ll be able to see the ship for themselves on her screen.”

  “Brilliant! It might be worth telling Karen we’re planning something like that.”

  “Good idea. It’ll stop the Watchers trying to hijack Angela’s spirit again. We’ll tell her we’ll share any sightings with them.”

  “I agree. First, though, we need to investigate Clare. If we find those Watchers really have wormed their way into the Mind–”

  “We’ll slaughter the lot of them.” Donna licked her lips in anticipation, and Dawn guessed that some kind of dolphin attack was going through her mind.

  “We will not slaughter the lot of them,” she told her. “Just the ones who have actually invaded us. Like Clara.”

  Donna’s face fell. “Oh. I suppose we will have to get rid of Clara. I’ll miss her though. She’s really good.”

  “Well, let’s see what we dig out of Clare’s mind tonight. This is my plan…”

  The first part of the plan went like clockwork. They flew to within striking distance of Paul’s house in Donna’s James Bond car – she wanted to show it off – and it didn’t take Dawn long to spot his car in the driveway. It was then simply a matter of locating him inside his house and slipping into the cathedral of his mind. To make sure he was aware of their presence, Dawn formed a picture of two angels with feathered wings and projected it onto the stained-glass window. Paul immediately pushed it aside and replaced it with the image of a couple of dolphins.

  “At least he’s got a sense of humour,” Dawn remarked to Donna as they settled down on the steps below the altar. They were both in their human forms, so, unlike dragons, they could sit quite comfortably, though they had to twist their heads to watch what was happening in that stained-glass window above the altar.

  Paul then left the house and drove across Adelaide with his two spirit observers. Donna found the journey very slow and frustrating, not nearly as exciting as zooming through neurospace at a thousand miles a minute, and she was relieved when they finally pulled up outside Clare’s apartment. It was 6.57 according to his car clock, so she supposed they’d made good time.

  Clare must have seen him arrive, for she opened her door before he reached it. Donna knew from the CV she’d seen on Paul’s screen that Claire was 32, a couple of years older than Dawn. As she walked down the steps towards him Donna couldn’t help admiring her, for she was attractive and nicely turned out, and she had a radiant smile. It was difficult to believe that she could be some shadowy agent of an obscure religious sect. Paul certainly seemed to like what he saw, for the altar below the stained-glass window had taken on a reddish glow, and the flame above it was blazing brightly.

  Clare’s perfume wafted into the cathedral of Paul’s mind. It reminded Donna of the perfume Dawn wore when she made love to Rick, and she realised that this must be an olfactory signal used by human females to indicate their readiness to mate. Tonight, it seemed, would be a pushover.

  Paul was obviously completely besotted with Clare, for all that appeared in the stained-glass window of his mind were different views of her as they walked to his car, and even as he drove back into town he kept glancing her way. Donna listened as they chatted about work and their various colleagues, all pretty innocuous stuff, with no mention of Clare’s research on the Watchers. Donna had the impression that Paul was avoiding the subject.

  Clare asked him how he had got on last night with Angela, and he said simply that she seemed very bright, considering what she’d been through, but that she seemed to have picked up no hint of ET during her years in space. Just lots of faint stars, he said, which seemed to satisfy her. After about ten minutes they reached the restaurant and he pulled into its car park.

  Donna had never been to a restaurant before, though she’d seen them in movies, and her first impression of this establishment was that it was too dimly lit. She understood the reason, that humans were averse to mating in public and so low lighting was conducive to romantic meetings. On the other hand, humans regarded eating as a social activity, and since body language was an important part of human social interactions, restaurants should be brightly lit. It occurred to her that the solution was for the lights to start out bright and then to gradually dim as the evening wore on. That would certainly be how she would organize things if she were in charge.

  The restaurant was about a quarter full. The waiter showed them to a small table in the corner of the room, well separated from the other customers. There was a small vase of flowers on the table and a candle as well, and these, together with the dim lighting, reminded Donna of her temple services. The proprietor was obviously aware that religious feelings and romantic love were closely linked in the human brain. The only disappointment was the music wafting through the room: it wasn’t a hymn or even remotely religious.

  Paul and Clare sat down on opposite sides of the small table and nothing much happened for a while. Donna was expecting Paul to produce playing cards or some other game so that they could entertain themselves during the non-eating part of the evening, but he seemed to have prepared nothing. She felt sure that Mort would have brought along his pocket Scrabble or a pack of cards. However, Paul and Clare seemed quite happy to chat about nothing in particular, and all the while the flame above the altar in the cathedral of his mind was blazing away merrily.

  At last the waiter produced the menu. This contained an inordinately large number of choices, mostly, so far as Donna could tell, messed-up food given fancy names. Certainly there was nothing approaching a plain slab of fish. That was another change she would make.

  After much discussion Paul and Clare made their choices and the waiter took their order. Then there was another great discussion over the wine list, Paul being apparently something of a connoisseur and the waiter rambling on about one wine having a full body and another having a piquant bouquet as though that actually meant something, but finally everything was settled. Donna was amazed at how long it all took. If Paul and Clare had been dolphins they would by now have gobbled up their fish, mated, and be somersaulting in the sea with their friends. She could hardly expect humans to somersault in the sea, of course, but there were plenty of other options. They could go to church together, for instance, and sing some hymns.

  The waiter had finally left, and Donna watched as Clare’s features now filled the stained-glass window and the flame above the altar blazed higher.

  “They’re alone at last,” Dawn murmured, rising to her feet. “Time to go.”

  Dawn’s body flickered and twisted and grew longer, and suddenly she was a fearsome red dragon, about twice as high as Donna and with an enormous tail. Donna hurriedly backed away up the nave, and Dawn unfurled her wings, leapt into the air, and flapped her way noisily onto the altar. Glowing brightly, the altar seemed to open up her, and then she was gone..

  The image in the stained-glass window of Paul’s mind wavered, went black, and a moment later reappeared, and at the same moment the flame above the altar died down to just a flicker. Dawn had pushed his consciousness aside and taken charge of his body.

  Clare looked most concerned. “Are you OK, Paul? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’ve just seen a vision. Of you, Clare. It was amazing.” This was Dawn speaking, using Paul’s vocal chords. “You looked like an angel, the most beautiful angel. It must be because you look so lovely in that dress and everything. It’s blown my mind.”

  Clare’s face relaxed into a smile. “Oh P
aul, that’s so romantic. I think it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “You don’t mind me feeling like this, then? All gooey inside, and tingling all over? Like my heart has gone haywire?”

  Clare leaned forward and reached out a hand to touch Paul’s arm. “Of course I don’t mind. I’m feeling romantic too. It’s the atmosphere of the place.”

  “No, it’s more than that,” Dawn murmured. “I’ve never felt like this before. It’s like you’ve cast a spell on me, Clare. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as beautiful as you. It makes me want to write poetry, or paint a picture of a glorious sunset, or perform some mighty deed.”

  She laughed. “Wow! You are a dark horse! I admired you for your intellect, I had no idea you could be so romantic.”

  Dawn was obviously setting the scene for her killer kiss, so it was time for Donna to make her move. By now Clare would be all of a flutter, so she wouldn’t notice an alien presence slipping into her brain. Donna transformed herself into a dragon, then flew out of Paul’s brain and into Clare’s. The cathedral of Clare’s mind coalesced around her, and to Donna’s satisfaction the flame above her altar was burning brightly. Dawn’s claim to be a love goddess was obviously well founded.

  Fascinated, she watched as the scene in the stained-glass window of Clare’s mind played itself out. Paul reached over and clasped her outstretched hand. “You’ve unlocked something in me, Clare,” Dawn said, speaking through him. “I guess it’s been repressed for years. All I’ve been interested in is my work and finding ET, but now all that seems so trivial. You’re like a warm spring breeze blowing through my soul, dispelling the cobwebs and filling me with the scent of your body… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” He looked down, feigning embarrassment, and pulled his hand away from hers.

  Donna thought it was all a bit soppy, but Clare evidently appreciated it, for she reached out and grabbed Paul’s hand again. “It’s wonderful what you’re saying, Paul. You’re a sensitive, caring person, exactly the kind of man I’ve always longed for.

  “Oh. Does that mean … you’d like to see more of me?”

  “Yes, Paul. It does.”

  Paul glanced around. Dawn was obviously checking if any waiters were watching. None were. “Would you mind if I … kissed you? To signal the end of my cobwebby past and the dawn of my perfumed future?”

  “You’re so quaint, Paul! Yes, I’d like that very much.”

  Donna saw Paul take a deep breath, raise himself from his seat, and lean towards her. She knew exactly what was coming. Dawn would be fantasizing about making love to Rick, and back in Honiara the fires in the belly of her sleeping body would be bursting into life.

  The image in the stained-glass window abruptly winked out. Clare must have closed her eyes. There was a sudden roar as the flame in front of it erupted and leapt up so high that it licked the cathedral roof. Without more ado, Donna sprang into the air and hurled herself onto the altar. There was a moment of blackness and feeling of oneness with the whole of creation, and then she was swept up in what for Clare was the most intoxicating and rapturous experience of her life. It was like her spirit was mingled with Clare’s spirit, for they now they were joint owners of her mind. Had she wished, she could have pushed Clare’s spirit and taken complete control of her body, but that wasn’t why she was here.

  “Wow! That was amazing!” Clare sank back in her chair, quite overwhelmed. She blinked at him a few times. “I think you’ve cast a spell on me.” She giggled, slightly embarrassed. “There’s a warm breeze blowing through my mind now.”

  “Like another presence inside you?”

  “Yes. Exactly like that. It feels really strange. What on earth have you done to me, Paul?”

  The waiter approached the table with their starters, and Clare hastily sat up and tried to recover her composure. She’d ordered the salmon, Donna noted with approval.

  Dawn, in control of Paul’s body, leaned back in his chair and surveyed Clare coolly. “This will be hard for you to understand,” she said when the waiter had left. “I’m Dawn Goode of the GM dolphin project, and I’ve temporarily borrowed Paul’s body. The presence inside you is Donna, one of our dolphins. We’ve been forced to do this by your own actions, Clare. You’ve invaded the dolphin communal mind and you’ve got links to the Watchers, and now we need to interrogate you.”

  Donna felt Clare’s elation evaporate, to be replaced by cold anger. “Damn you!” she hissed. “Did you have to do it this way? There was no need to drag Paul into it.”

  “We had to. It was the only way to get into you, to check what you’re up to. Paul has genuine feelings for you, that’s why he agreed to this. We persuaded him that it was in his best interests to have you checked out before embarking on a relationship.”

  “Fat chance of that now! You’ve really messed up our chances of romance with your female slushy talk. God, you’re a bitch!”

  Dawn shrugged. “There’s no point ranting about it. Your chances for anything at all are rapidly running out if you’re what we think you are. An agent of the Watchers infiltrating the mind.”

  “Of course I’m not that!” Clare snapped.

  “No? What are you then? Donna can interrogate your mind and find out, but it’ll be easier all round if you tell us. I should warn you that she’ll know immediately if you’re lying.”

  “I know, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything. You need to know anyway, the way things are turning out. I’m on your side, idiot!”

  “On my side?” Dawn faltered, suddenly on the defensive. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the waiter hovering. She picked up her fork. “We’d better start on our food,” she muttered in a desperate attempt to reassert herself, “or we’ll invite comment from the serving staff.”

  “’Invite comment from the serving staff’!” Clare sneered. “God, what crap you Brits talk. I don’t know why we’re bothering to search space for aliens from another planet. They’re right here among us.”

  “OK, you’ve made your point,” Dawn growled angrily. “You hate me.” Far from being cowed by Donna’s presence, Clare was dominating proceedings. Somehow she had to be brought into line. “It was inevitable that you would hate me, and I don’t care, so stop wasting my time and tell me what you’re up to!”

  “Temper, temper,” Clare murmured. “All you need do is say please. Don’t they teach you Brits any manners?”

  Dawn glared at her. There was nothing for it but to admit defeat. “Please.”

  “That’s better.” Clare picked up her fork and started eating. “Now, let’s get one thing straight. I don’t hate you. You’re too big for your boots, that’s all. You act like you’re God’s gift to this planet, answerable to no one but yourself. That’s why we invaded the Mind. And a good thing we did.”

  “We?”

  “Dr Song’s department at the UN.”

  Dawn gaped at her. “Dr Song’s department? You’re an agent of Dr Song?”

  “Of course, you imbecile! Who do you think dug up all that information about the Watchers that Dr Song passed on to you? I’d guessed it was you who had taken over Angela’s body, that’s why I persuaded Paul to pay her a visit. He knew nothing about my suspicions, of course.”

  “But … but why have you invaded the Mind?”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that we might want to check up on it? The most powerful intellect on the planet? With that as your plaything you could take over the world!”

  “I’ve never wanted that. Have I ever taken advantage of my power?”

  Clare shrugged. “Power corrupts, as they say. Anyway, it’s not you we’re worried about. It’s other people, trying to take over the Mind.”

  “What other people?”

  “You’re so naïve! That’s why we need a presence there, someone with a bit of savvy and a watchful eye.”

  “Clara.”

  “Yes, Clara. You probably think she’s me. Well, she’s not. She’s a GM dolphin. Our agent
at GeneSys Honiara smuggled her out, when she was very young. I’m her mentor. She’s been brought up in the same way as your other dolphins. We even feed her psychoactive fish. That’s how she’s able to participate in the Mind. She reports directly to her handler – the equivalent of your Rick.”

  “Is everything to your liking, sir?” It was the waiter, bringing the wine.

  “Fine, thanks,” Dawn said. “Don’t hover around, though. We want to talk privately.”

  “Of course.” He poured some wine, and Dawn tried it.

  “That’s fine too,” she said. “Everything’s splendid.”

  “Very good, sir,” the waiter said, and then proceeded to pour out a glass for Clare and one for Dawn.

  Clare had accused Dawn of talking crap, but Donna, observing these rituals through Clare’s eyes, thought the entire restaurant experience was crap. The simple process of consuming some prepared food prior to more romantic activities had been transformed into the most elaborate waste of time.

  “You were telling me about Clara,” Dawn murmured when the waiter had left.

  “She’s worked all over Eden, watching people, looking out for anything suspicious. She’s checking for intruders, of course.” Clare threw Dawn a contemptuous glance and added: “Something you have signally failed to do.”

  Dawn was careful to keep her cool. So long as Clare continued spilling out information, that was all that mattered. “So what has Clara unearthed?” she asked calmly.

  “Nothing at all in the countryside. Everyone she’s encountered there appears to be a bone fide GeneSys dolphin. So we’ve moved her to the focus of the invasion. The temple.”

  Dawn stared at her in alarm. “Focus of what invasion?”

  “Didn’t it ever strike you as odd that the centre of worship in a community based on the traditions of Protestant England should be a temple? Something from an eastern culture? It should have been a Christian cathedral!”

  “It was a cathedral originally. Over the years its details have evolved so that now it looks more like an eastern temple. It never occurred to me that there could be anything sinister about that.”

  “You hadn’t notice any similarities between your temple in Eden and the temples you encountered when you visited the COBRA flying saucer?

  “Well, it’s got a similar shape, but lots of temples look like that. And it’s gold.”

  “It’s pentagonal! You don’t find that odd? Most of the details of Eden have come from the mind of Dr Anderson, an expert on English social history. He’s the mentor of one of your dolphins.”

  “So what’s so sinister about that?”

  “For your information, Dr Anderson heads up the Watchers.” Clare paused for effect, and Donna, observing everything through her eyes, saw Paul’s eyes widen. “He’s covered his tracks well,” Clare added, “but we’ve recently discovered that he used to be one of the COBRA leaders.”

  Dawn gasped, and her mind shot back to that moment when she’d surprised that masked spirit intruder checking Angela’s memories of space. There had been something familiar about his eyes, and now she realised what it was. They had the same piercing look that had so unnerved her when she’d first met John Anderson all those years ago, the man who had discovered so much about her when she first went to GeneSys, and who subsequently became Jonah’s mentor.

  “Your temple in Eden has come from Anderson’s mind, and he based the design on the COBRA temples,” Clare told her smugly.

  Dawn stared at her, aghast. “So what does this mean?” she whispered.

  “We don’t know for sure. But in your report on the COBRA spaceship you stated that you thought those temples were portals connecting widely separated points in space.”

  Dawn nodded. “The COBRA congregation was transferred almost instantaneously from that hall in London to the spaceship. A portal seemed the only explanation.”

  “You also stated that the COBRA leaders entered the ship through their temple, which you presumed was also a portal.”

  Dawn suddenly caught the drift of Clare’s argument. “The conclusion being that by modelling the temple in Eden upon the COBRA temples, John Anderson was attempting to construct a portal.”

  “Exactly. A portal allowing him and the Watchers to invade the Mind. Though we’ve no proof that he intended this, and there’s certainly no record of any attempt to use your temple as a portal.”

  “If there had been any attempt to invade Eden and the Mind through the temple, I’m sure Donna would have heard about it. But what’s so special about these temples that allows them to be used as portals? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Clare shrugged. “You’re the neurospace expert, not me. I suspect it’s to do with their pentagonal shape. Pentagons have always been thought to have mystical properties. But as for a rational, scientific explanation, I don’t suppose there is one.” She looked thoughtfully at Dawn. “In the case of your temple, of course, there’s the altar.”

  “The seat of consciousness of the Mind. Any attempt to take control of the Mind has to be via the altar.”

  Clare nodded. “It’s the focus of everything. It’s from there that the Mind broadcasts its telepathic messages into space. You know about those, I take it?”

  “Of course. They occur during my monthly Passion plays.” Dawn was careful not to give any hint that she’d only just found out about that.

  Clare grunted. “At least you know something. The Mind is actually broadcasting telepathy all the time it’s in existence, that is for about two hours each day. But those are only low-level transmissions, so I don’t suppose they would reach the stars.”

  Dawn stared at her wonderingly. “How on earth did you find that out, that the Mind is broadcasting all the time?”

  “In the early days we ran some checks on the Mind. We sent a reconnaissance aircraft over the area where Eden is located with Clara on board. We’d not sent her into a trance that day. She detected the telepathy, and we located its source to the temple.”

  “I don’t suppose any of this telepathy’s deliberate. It’s probably a side-effect of the Mind’s enormous power.”

  “Probably. The important thing is, Dr Anderson and the Watchers are aware that the Mind is broadcasting your Passion plays. That’s one thing they’ve gleaned from Angela Lane. That’s why they’re so confident that extra-terrestrials are on their way to Earth – they’re coming in response to your plays.”

  They were interrupted again by the waiter, bringing the main course. Clare had ordered a vegetarian option, Donna noted with disgust.

  “I’d figured that out for myself,” Dawn told her when the waiter had left. “I’ve been broadcasting to the stars.”

  “The ultimate celebrity evangelist!” Clare scoffed, starting on her food. “You’ll be interested to learn that I’ve been analyzing the prophecies that these Watchers have been spouting. They follow a monthly cycle. First one kind of prophecy, then a couple of days another, and so on, repeating every four weeks or so.”

  “Matching the monthly cycle of my plays!”

  “Exactly. Once a month the mind broadcasts a Passion play episode, and it seems that some time later various species, at different distances from Earth, respond to those broadcasts, each species responding in its own unique way. The Watchers have recorded everything, and one of our agents has managed to hack into their computer system and steal the recordings. Interestingly, some of these messages from the stars manifest themselves as speaking in tongues, and we’ve been able to identify a number of distinct language groups, based on the patterns of speech.”

  “You’ve actually managed to isolate different language groups? That’s amazing! I wish you’d got in touch with me earlier, Clare.”

  “I’ve only recently got hold of these recordings, and my results are quite tentative. The trouble is, everything is filtered through the human brains of the Watchers, and it’s difficult to separate the genuine ET from the human.”

  “But you think there’s enough genuin
e ET to identify a number of distinct groups of alien languages?”

  “That’s my opinion.”

  “So how many different groups are there?”

  “It’s difficult to say, but I reckon there could be a dozen or more different alien species out there beaming telepathy back to us.”

  Dawn, through Paul’s eyes, stared at her thoughtfully. “And how have these different species responded to my plays?”

  “Like I said, everything is filtered through the minds of these Watchers, so it’s coloured by their cultural assumptions. Many of the Watchers have a Christian background, which means they use Christian metaphors – they talk about establishing a kingdom of righteousness on Earth, stuff like that. What I’m trying to do is compare the prophecies coming from those Watchers with Christian backgrounds with those from other backgrounds, to see if I can separate out the genuine ET. I haven’t got very far with that, I’m afraid.”

  “It seems to me you’re doing brilliantly,” Dawn told her with grudging admiration. “From what you’ve found out so far it appears that these aliens, if they really are on their way here, want to set up some kind of kingdom.”

  “Something like that. The Watchers talk in terms of Earth joining a huge galactic empire, but they’ve probably been watching too many science fiction movies. All I’m sure of is that if aliens are coming to Earth, then they’ll head for the temple, as that’s the source of the telepathy.”

  “The Watchers know that, so they’ll want to assemble there too,” Dawn added. “To form a welcome committee and present themselves as the representatives of humanity. That way they get to be the leaders in the new world order.”

  “You’re getting the picture. And to assemble at the temple the Watchers have to invade the Mind, and that’s why Anderson changed the cathedral in Eden to a temple. At least, we think that’s why he changed the cathedral to a temple, to provide him with a portal.”

  Dawn was silent for a moment. And then she said: “The dolphin that Anderson is mentoring is called Jonah. The temple details must have come from his brain. Do you think Anderson’s planted anything else in him? Something that might allow him to take control of the Mind, for instance.”

  “I know about Jonah. Clara says he’s your Donna’s squeeze. Has Donna noticed anything suspicious about him?”

  “Certainly not. Jonah seems entirely innocent.”

  “I think it’s unlikely that Anderson would give Jonah any hint of his ulterior motives, or put anything in him that might arouse your suspicions. He wouldn’t risk that. He’s only planted legitimate information in his brain.”

  Dawn studied her thoughtfully. “Why don’t we eliminate John Anderson? That would solve everything.”

  “Dear me, we are being ruthless, aren’t we?” Clare chided her mildly. “I think we need to keep things in perspective. Anderson and his Watchers aren’t actually threatening anyone. They’re not even threatening your dolphins. All they’re doing is preparing for the arrival of ET, because to them everything else is trivial in comparison. If ET is going to head for your temple, then that’s where they want to be. You can hardly blame them for that. They’ve treated Angela Lane and her father abominably, of course, but apart from that they seem pretty harmless.”

  “Well, Angela’s problems are history now. She’s back in her body.”

  It was Clare’s turn to look startled. “You’ve found her? Where?”

  “At the optical telescope – the double telescope – at SETI’s Mount Lofty site. She was located at the point where the two beams are combined, in the tunnel. Paul gave me the clue last night, and he took me there.”

  Clare nodded slowly. “I wondered if Angela might have been put there.”

  “But you made no attempt to save her!”

  “The fate of Earth is at stake. Angela was the Watchers’ eyes.” Clare continued eating silently for a moment, digesting Dawn’s news. “So what are we going to do now?” she said at last. “The Watchers are convinced that ET’s arrival is imminent, and they could be right, but now they’ve lost their early-warning system.”

  “I’ve developed a device that’ll be far more effective than Angela for monitoring neurospace. A spirit detector.”

  Clare studied Paul’s face closely, and Donna sensed her doubts. Could there be such a device? A smile flitted across Paul’s face: Dawn was scoring at last. “Don’t tell me your agents missed my spirit detector!” she murmured.

  “Our agent in Honiara is monitoring the dolphin project, not you,” Clare shot back defensively. “We knew you were researching something along those lines, but it didn’t seem to have any relevance to the dolphins.”

  “It doesn’t. At least not directly.” Dawn told her about Baby. “I was thinking it might be installed at that telescope, assuming SETI and the University of Adelaide agrees. As a replacement for Angela.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Clare admitted. “The University won’t object, they’ve relinquished all control over the telescope. It’s the Watchers you’ll have to talk to. They’re financing it.”

  “We’ll have to involve them anyway – if only to persuade them not to abduct Angela again. I thought I might get a message to them through Karen Holmes. You know of her, I take it?” Dawn had taken control of the conversation at last, and she intended to keep it that way.

  “I’m Dr Song’s agent here, remember? Of course I know about Karen. She’s a key player in the Watchers. She’s close to Dr Anderson.”

  “That fits. Anyway, she’s coming to see Angela and her father on Thursday, and I’m planning to fly to Adelaide to be there too. Karen doesn’t know I’ve rescued Angela, she thinks I’m still controlling her body, so she’ll have a nasty shock when she sees me. It’ll convince her that Angela’s no further use to the Watchers, and that they’ll have to cooperate with me and with SETI if they want to continue monitoring neurospace.”

  “I’d like to attend that meeting. We’ll tell her I’m representing SETI.”

  “Good idea. I suggest you arrive at least half an hour before Karen’s due, so we can discuss tactics. You’ll need to phone Angela’s father to check the time.” Dawn smiled at her. Now that she’d got the information she wanted she would act magnanimously. “Bring Paul along too, if you like. As a second SETI representative.”

  “How generous!” Clare muttered sarcastically. “I don’t suppose we’ll be on speaking terms, thanks to you.”

  “Don’t be so negative. Point out to him that this little setback is my fault. I’ll be your common enemy.”

  “You’re that all right! You’ve spoilt everything.”

  “Look, Clare, I may not be much good at espionage, but I’m a champion lover. Why not make use of my skills? You have to admit I almost seduced you earlier. You were positively gasping.”

  “Oh good grief!” Clare snarled, flinging her fork down on her plate. “Do you seriously imagine I’d let you kiss me again?”

  “That’s not at all what I had in mind,” Dawn replied calmly. “I’ll remove myself from Paul, and then you’ll deliver that kiss. You’ll have to be empowered, of course, but Donna can do that. I’ve mentored her very thoroughly.”

  “You think being kissed by your dolphin protégé is going to pour oil on troubled waters, do you? What do you think Paul and I are – Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty? Saved by a magical kiss and all that crap?”

  “You know what that kiss did to you,” Dawn persisted. “It won’t just pour on oil, it’ll set it ablaze. Passions will explode everywhere. They’ll probably have to call out the local fire brigade!”

  “Very funny.” She gazed at Paul’s face for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to lose, I suppose, so I may as well take up your offer. However, before you ignite this blazing inferno of yours, I need to check a few details with you. Is Paul aware of everything we’ve said? About Karen, I mean.”

  “He is. So you needn’t bother to update him. I’ll be contacting Angela’s father to let him know what we�
�ve planned. I won’t be contacting Karen, so unless you get in touch with her she won’t be expecting us to be present.”

  “Better to keep it that way. Otherwise she might not come, or else she’ll turn up with a coachload of Watchers.”

  There was a pause. “No other questions?” Dawn asked amiably. “I’ll see you and Paul on Thursday, then. And I do hope you and Paul enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  “Some hopes!”

  “I’m sure you will, I have every confidence in Donna. Now, lean back in your chair and relax. She’s going to take control of your body, and then you can leave everything to her. You’ll feel really hot inside, like there’s a volcanic eruption inside you, but don’t worry about that. I’ll quit Paul the moment she delivers her red-hot kiss.”

  “Spare me the sordid details. Just tell Donna to get on with it.”

  Donna immediately pushed Clare aside and took control of her body. Having never before delivered one of those love-goddess kisses, she was determined to make the most of this unexpected opportunity. She licked her lips – Clare’s lips – in eager anticipation. This would be the kiss to end all kisses, the ultimate superheated X-rated steamy kiss. It would make Dawn’s efforts seem like innocent sisterly pecks.

  First, she had to ignite her dragon fire, and she knew from her visits to Dawn’s mind exactly how to do that. Immediately, as she began fantasizing about Rick making love to her, fire erupted in her belly. At the same moment she felt her hand being stroked by Paul, and she knew that Dawn was doing her bit to help things along.

  Her fantasy grew more erotic, the fire became hotter, and now something like boiling lava was inching up her throat. Suddenly the imagery flickered and changed, and it was no longer Rick who was making love to her. The changed vision solidified, and as she stared into the face of her new lover her borrowed body was flooded with such a rush of hormones that she felt like she was being hurled headlong on some emotional rollercoaster. She hadn’t consciously willed this vision, it had come from her subconscious. Her lover was Mort!

  Donna had no time to wonder what on earth her subconscious was thinking about, for the volcano inside exploded with such violence that the earth didn’t just move, it leapt clean out of its orbit and threw itself into the sun. At least that’s what it felt like, for her body became so hot that it seemed it would burst into flames. Consumed with an overwhelming passion, she staggered to her feet, grabbed Paul’s shoulders, and pressed her burning lips to his.

  The air around them sizzled with suppressed energy as the fire arced across to Paul’s lips and surged through his body. It must have released a deluge of testosterone and heaven knows what else besides, for suddenly his hands were everywhere and he was pushing her down with an urgent passion. It was time to hand over to Clare, and with some reluctance she relinquished her hold on her borrowed body and separated herself from its ecstatic writhing. Moments later she found herself floating above Clare’s fuzzy head.

  Before flying back to Honiara, Donna paused to watch the drama unfold. Unfortunately the light was low and everything was a ghostly blur, but she could make out a writhing tangle of arms and legs on the floor as Clare and Paul grappled with each other in a fit of uncontrolled frenzy. She saw the waiter approach, leading a group of people to a nearby table, and it seemed to her that the evening was about to reach the most satisfactory conclusion.

  For there would be no stopping Clare and Paul now. And even if their red-hot passion failed to set off the fire alarms in this stupid restaurant, it would at least give that stuffy waiter and his customers something more interesting than wine lists to talk about.

  Twenty Three

  “Aren’t you seeing Jonah anymore?” Dawn asked. Her visits to Eden had become an almost daily feature since the start of her mission to save Angela a week ago.

  Donna was sitting at her table, laboriously producing more of those Monopoly banknotes, though with markedly less enthusiasm than before. “There’s no time to see him. I’m too busy seeing you.”

  Dawn touched her arm. “I’m so sorry, Donna. I didn’t realise.”

  Donna meticulously wrote ‘500’ on another of the small pieces of parchment. “That’s not the real reason,” she admitted. “Jonah’s been put off by my efforts to get him to cuddle me. And now Clara’s started chatting him up.”

  “Clara?” Dawn stared at her thoughtfully. “Well, we know why she’s interested in him. She’s wants information. He’s her prime target. He’ll soon lose interest in her when he discovers her dolphin body is nowhere to be found in the Crocodile Bay.”

  “I know. I’m not that bothered, actually. I’ve rather lost interest since being in Angela’s body. Mort was such fun. All those games we played.” She found it difficult to admit to herself, let alone to Dawn, that she’d fallen in love with him, but that was the truth of the matter.

  “That’s over now, Donna, you know it is. If I’d have anticipated that things would turn out like this I would never have attempted to rescue Angela. It’s been a total disaster.”

  “No it hasn’t. It’s been a great success.” Donna brightened and warmed to her theme. “If aliens really are coming to Earth, then it’s a good job you did rescue her. We’ve found out that poor Jonah has been an unwitting accomplice of the Watchers, you’re going to install Baby as Earth’s early-warning system, and you’ve made contact with Clare. And tomorrow night there’s this meeting with Karen. I think it’s really exciting. Better than Monopoly, even.”

  She jumped up and went to her hob to make them some fish tea. “I’ve had this great idea, Dawn. I thought I would make a board game based on what Clare told us last night. The temple with the altar would be in the middle of the board, and the players would be aliens. The winner is the one who gets to the altar first. Now, to reach the altar, they have to get past two dragons, just as the real aliens will have to get past us. Those dragons do the usual kinds of things – chop off their limbs, burn them to cinders, that kind of thing – and to defend themselves the aliens have to accumulate fire-power of their own. They do that by landing on spaces with chance cards as well as stealing fire-power from other aliens–"

  “Why don’t you use your Monopoly banknotes as fire-power cards? That way you’re halfway towards making your new game.” Dawn was pleased that Donna had found this new interest. It might take her mind off Mort.

  “Good idea. Then all I need to do is draw up the board and work out the rules, and then we can test it out.”

  “I can’t wait. However, we’ve got more urgent matters to discuss. What about tomorrow evening? Do you want to come to that meeting with Karen? You could sit in my mind and watch everything.”

  Donna poured out the tea, keeping her eyes fixed on the task. She didn’t want Dawn to notice the delicious sense of anticipation that was sweeping through her.

  “I wouldn’t miss the meeting for anything,” she said, carefully carrying the cups over to the small table. “But if I’m just an observer in your mind I won’t be able to take part in the discussion. It would be much better if I take control of Angela.”

  Dawn pursed her lips. “It’s not a good idea for you to go back into her. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “Please, Dawn. It’ll be much better if we both participate. You know what a handful Clare is, and Karen will need some careful handling as well. It needs the two of us.”

  Dawn gave in with a sigh, as Donna knew she would. “I suppose you’re right. OK, you go into a trance at 6 pm. That’s about the time I’ll arrive at Mort’s house. I’ve spoken to him on the phone, he told me Karen is due to arrive at seven. Clare’s arranged to arrive with Paul about 6.30.”

  Donna burst out laughing, and not just because she was going to be with Mort again. “They’ll be pretty red-faced, those two! You must be really proud of me, delivering that scorcher! The best kiss ever, I reckon. Wasn’t it hilarious? They collapsed on the floor, all over each other and snogging like mad, just as that stuffy waiter turned up with all those people
!”

  “The trouble is, Clare will be really mad at us for that. She’ll want to get her own back. I guarantee she’ll do everything she can to take control of that meeting tomorrow.”

  “She’s a very forceful person,” Donna admitted ruefully. An awful thought had struck her. Clare must have seen that vision of Mort making love to her. She probably had no idea the man in the vision was Mort, but the moment she set eyes on him tomorrow…

  “This is our show, and we’re going to run it,” Dawn declared, interrupting these awful imaginings. “It’s not Clare’s show, and it’s certainly not Karen’s. If aliens really are on their way here, then we hold all the trump cards. We control the mind, we’ve got Baby, and we’ve got the power to confront these invaders from the stars.”

  “None of that’s going to stop Clare. She’s sussed out everything, and she’s made it pretty plain that she doesn’t think much of us. She’ll never let you take charge.”

  Dawn didn’t immediately reply. Glancing at her, Donna guessed from her abstracted expression that she was formulating a plan. A gleam came into her eye.

  “Clare will let me take charge, you’ll see. It’s just a matter of applying elementary psychology and a bit of deception. This is how we’ll play it…”

  And so it was that, at the appointed hour the next evening in Adelaide, the shrill sound of an alarm rang out in Mort Lane’s house. He rushed out of the kitchen to the lounge, where his daughter was resting. The red light on top of the spirit detector was flashing, but it stopped just as he reached the room, and the alarm went silent too.

  “Angela! Are you OK?”

  His daughter gazed up at him dreamily. “I think that angel you told me about has just come into me,” she murmured. “I was half-asleep, and then there was that alarm, and now I can feel her inside me.”

  Mort knelt down in front of her and took her hands and peered anxiously into her eyes. “It might be something evil, my darling. Those Watchers…”

  “She doesn’t feel evil. Wait a minute, I can see some words!” Angela frowned. “Hi … Mort … it’s … me. That’s a funny thing for an angel to say.”

  Dawn had reset the device so that it set off the alarm when any kind of spirit appeared, whether malign or benign, and Mort’s face broke into a relieved grin. “She’s a funny angel, my darling. Hi Donna!”

  “More words, Dad! Can … I … possess … Angela? What does that mean?”

  “She’s asking if she can take control of your body for a little while. To talk to me.”

  “Don’t let her, Dad! She’ll send me back!”

  “Of course she won’t. It’ll only be for a little while, and you’ll be quite safe. You won’t leave your body, you’ll just be sharing it with her for a while.”

  “If you’re sure it’s OK…”

  “It’s OK. Now I think what she wants you to do is to relax. Where’s that magazine you were looking at earlier, with those pictures of pop stars? What’s the name of the one you fancied?”

  “Captain Bogey.”

  “That’s the one. Gaze at a picture of him. It’ll put you in the right frame of mind.”

  Angela giggled. “This Donna must be really cool if that’s what she wants me to do. I thought angels liked Bach and Botticelli and boring stuff like that.”

  “She’s very unusual. Now, you sit back and daydream about Captain Bogey, and I’ll get back to my cooking.”

  A few minutes later Angela’s body waddled into the kitchen. “Anything I can do, boss?”

  “You can peel and chop those carrots if you like,” Mort replied nonchalantly, without so much as a glance. Angels evidently dropped in on him all the time.

  She crept up behind him and jabbed him in the ribs. “You’re still sulking ‘cos I beat you at Monopoly!”

  He laughed, then threw his arms round her, much to her delight. “It’s great to have you back, Donna! Dawn told me to expect her and Paul and Clare. She never mentioned you.”

  “I expect she had her reasons.” Donna was desperately trying to calm her pounding heart. The last thing she wanted was for Angela to get wind of her feelings towards him. “She probably didn’t want you to get too excited. Old people need to take things easy.”

  “I think she thought my phone might be bugged. She didn’t say very much at all, apart from telling me she wanted to talk to Karen.” He glanced at the kitchen clock. “Karen will be here in less than an hour.”

  “I’d better get on with those carrots, then. Our other visitors will be arriving soon.”

  “Dawn phoned. Her plane arrived on time but she’s been held up in traffic.”

  “The usual story. You land mammals are hopeless at moving around.” But Donna knew that this delay wasn’t caused by traffic, it was part of Dawn’s plan.

  “Talking about moving around,” she continued, “it really hurts to walk. Angela’s muscles are aching all over. What’s she been up to?”

  “She must be overdoing those exercises. I’ll tell her to ease up. Look, you’re holding that scraper wrong. Here, let me show you.”

  Donna watched him closely. She had enjoyed the small amount of cooking she’d done here with Mort, and she was toying with the idea of starting cookery classes in Eden. No one there cooked anything, partly because by the time you’d prepared the food and cooked the meal the trance would be over, and partly because it was a waste of time anyway as spirits don’t need food. Like the fish tea, it would just be comfort eating.

  “Angela’s not been traumatized by her experience, then?” Donna asked.

  “Thankfully not. In fact she remembers hardly anything about it. It seems like a dream, she says. She couldn’t believe it when I told her she’d been imprisoned at that telescope for four years.”

  “We’ve found out who imprisoned her, you’ll be pleased to hear. Dr John Anderson, the leader of the Watchers. But don’t tell Karen we know.”

  “I’ve never heard of him. Anyway, Angela seems fine. I’ve arranged for her to have some private tutoring, starting Monday. She’s got an awful lot of catching up to do.”

  “She will be busy,” Donna murmured absently. She was concentrating on trying to use the scraper properly. “I hope she doesn’t give up on her exercises.”

  “She won’t give that up. She’s 22 years old, and I’ve told her that if she wants a boyfriend she’d better trim up.”

  “You’d better get yourself a girlfriend, then. Otherwise you’ll be lonely.” Donna paused in her scraping and threw a glance in his direction. She hated the thought that he might one day find someone and forget about her, but she had to be realistic. Besides, Angela would be listening in to this conversation, and telling him to get a girlfriend would allay any suspicions she might have about her. The last thing she wanted was for Angela to realise she had fallen in love.

  “I’ll think about girlfriends one day,” Mort promised. “When Angela’s sorted out.”

  “Well, let me know if you want any help, girlfriend-wise,” she said, trying to strike a flippant note. “I offer a comprehensive dating package. It includes a full check of their memories, guaranteed to uncover all those guilty secrets, as well as my miracle kissing service, guaranteed to sweep them off their feet. You’ll have them queuing down the street by the time I’ve finished.”

  The doorbell rang. “What did I tell you? There’s one of them now.”

  Mort laughed. “That’ll be your better half: Dawn.”

  “Worse half, you mean! You certainly don’t want her as a girlfriend, Mort. She’s OK in bed, but she’s hopeless in the kitchen. And at your age, it’s the kitchen that counts.”

  He smiled. “Let her in, will you?”

  Donna waddled out and across the spacious hallway to the front door and opened it. As she expected, it was not Dawn who was standing there but Paul and Clare. They were holding hands, she noted with satisfaction. Her love-goddess skills had evidently worked a treat.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “This is Angela,” P
aul told Clare.

  “That’s only half right,” Angela’s body replied. “You’re actually talking to Donna. Your fairy godmother.”

  “God, not you again,” Clare growled. “You’re bloody everywhere!”

  “Now, now,” Donna rebuked her mildly. “You’ve got me to thank for your blossoming relationship. What a kiss that was! The earth moved so much I’m surprised the restaurant didn’t collapse in on you.”

  “I wish it had!” Paul snapped. “It was extremely embarrassing. We were kicked out.”

  “Kicked out? I would have thought they would have been grateful for the entertainment. And you hadn’t even finished your meal. I hope they didn’t make you pay.”

  “They certainly didn’t. They couldn’t get rid of us fast enough.”

  “There you are then. I did you a favour. You had a free meal, and then you went back to Clare’s place for some more fun and games.”

  “Look, are you going to let us in? Clare and I have got more important things to do than stand here chatting to a damn dolphin!”

  Donna glowered at him. “If that’s your attitude to other intelligent species – highly intelligent species – then I suggest you quit your job at SETI. I should hate to think what any extra-terrestrials would do to Earth if you’re their contact. Blast it out of existence, I should think.”

  “OK, I’m sorry. It’s just that you and that Dawn have got up our noses. Messing around in our brains like you’re the lords of the universe.”

  She led them into the hallway. “I’m sorry about that. We had no choice. I’m hoping we can put that little unpleasantness behind us now.”

  “I hope so,” he muttered. “Except you’re now messing around in Angela’s mind.”

  “With her full permission. And her father’s permission.”

  She led them into the lounge. Following Dawn’s instructions, she sat them down on the settee.

  Mort emerged from the kitchen and greeted his visitors. Donna’s heart sank when she saw a look of surprise come into Clare’s eyes followed by a small smirk. She had recognised him as the man in Donna’s erotic fantasy.

  “It’s great you could join us, Clare,” Mort said jovially. “Has Donna introduced herself? She’s full of mischief, I’m afraid, but great fun.”

  “Hey you!” Donna protested, desperate to interject something before Clare had a chance to make some devastating remark. “Don’t talk about me like I’m your pet dog or something! I’m really important, you know. In fact I’m probably the second most important creature on this planet!”

  Mort laughed. “Be a good girl and lay the table.” She sniffed, tossed her head in an exaggerated attempt to register her disgust, and stomped off to the kitchen to collect the cutlery.

  “Can I offer you some champagne?” Mort asked his visitors. “I thought we might toast Angela’s safe return. It’s partly thanks to you two that I’ve got her back.”

  The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Angela called out from the hallway. “It’ll be the most important person on the planet.”

  Dawn always managed to turn heads, but tonight she looked stunning. Her makeup and her hair were immaculate, and she was wearing a smart black outfit. Donna knew the reason: she intended to dominate the evening. Donna also knew that she had been waiting a little way along the street in the car that had brought her from the airport. That was because she wanted to arrive exactly two minutes after Clare and Paul.

  “This is Dawn, everybody,” Donna announced to the lounge. Mort and Paul, who had no idea what Dawn looked like and probably imagined she was a bit of a witch, rose to their feet, visibly impressed. Mort shook her hand and stuttered something about how wonderful it was to meet her. Paul also shook her hand and said something inaudible. Clare remained seated with her arms folded, looking daggers.

  “Hello, Clare,” Dawn said pleasantly. “It’s so nice to meet you properly.”

  Before Clare had a chance to reply, Dawn had pulled what looked like a phone from her handbag. “Just a precaution,” she explained. “To check we’re not bugged.”

  While everyone watched in bemusement, and Mort handed round glasses of champagne, she quickly passed the device over each of them. “We’re clean,” she announced when she’d finished. Then she sat down on the dining chair that Donna had carried into the room for her. Dawn had given her strict instructions about that. It was higher than the other chairs and allowed her to dominate the room. Mort and Paul sat down opposite her.

  Having established herself as the centre of attention, Dawn immediately got down to business. “We haven’t got much time before Karen arrives,” she told them, “and we need to discuss how we’re going to handle her. As I see it, we have two objectives. The first is to impress on her that it’s to the Watchers’ advantage to cooperate with us, because with the spirit detector we can offer them a great way to monitor neurospace. The second is to prise as much information out of her as we can about what the Watchers intend to do if alien ships are sighted. In particular, we want to know how they will make use of the dolphin communal mind. Assuming they do intend that.”

  “They’ll use it,” Clare muttered. “It’s the Mind that’s been broadcasting into space, so it’s the Mind the aliens will head for.”

  Dawn turned to Mort. “She means they’ll land in Eden,” she explained, “That’s the neurospace structure the communal mind generates each day. Has Donna told you about that?” she asked him.

  “She’s told me a little.”

  “Unknown to us, the communal mind has been broadcasting immensely powerful telepathic messages into space. These messages travel at perhaps ten thousand times faster than the speed of light, so they’ve reached deep into the galaxy. The Watchers have been picking up what seem to be replies to those messages, and those replies are telling them that aliens are heading our way.”

  “I’ve told Mort that John Anderson is the leader of the Watchers,” Donna said, “And that he was responsible for imprisoning Angela at that telescope.”

  “He’s also the mentor of one of our dolphins,” Dawn added. “And that’s allowed him to have a significant input into Eden. We think it’s to allow him to invade us when the aliens arrive. That’s why we need to find out as much as we can about the Watchers’ intentions.”

  “We’ve all got different agendas,” she continued swiftly, cutting off any chance of an interruption. “Mort’s main concern is for Angela’s safety – he doesn’t want the Watchers interfering with her; my main concern is to maintain the integrity of the communal mind; Paul is primarily interested in SETI’s objectives, which is to contact extra-terrestrials; and Clare’s main concern is the security of Earth. Placing my spirit detector at that telescope to monitor neurospace satisfies all those agendas, and we all want it. We’ve got a common purpose, so we can present a united front to Karen. We need to emphasize the fact that we’re doing the Watchers a great favour by letting them share in our project, and that we expect something from them in return. We want full information on all their activities.”

  “That’s all pretty obvious,” Clare muttered. “Let’s get down to specifics. What, exactly, are you suggesting we say to Karen? And how are you proposing to check the genuineness of the information you’re hoping to prise out of her?”

  “This is what I propose…”

  Twenty Four

  When the doorbell rang about fifteen minutes later it was Angela who went to answer it. The others remained out of sight in the lounge, sipping their champagne.

  Karen walked into the hallway, smiling brightly. “How are you, dear?”

  “I’m fine thanks. Getting used to being back home with Dad.”

  “I’m so pleased you’re back. It must have been awful being stuck in space all that time.”

  “Don’t remember much about it, actually.”

  “Ah.”

  “The nice lady who rescued me has come to see us.”

  Karen froze. “What nice lady, dear?”

  “She’s c
alled Dawn. She’s waiting in the lounge. She’s brought a couple of friends along.”

  Donna was watching Karen closely as she said this. She always found it a little difficult to read human body language, but the signs were unmistakable. The sharp intake of breath, the widening of the eyes, the sudden freezing of the smile. But by the time they reached the lounge Karen had completely recovered her composure.

  Mort stood up to greet her, then he introduced Clare and Paul, pointed her to a seat, and handed her a glass of champagne. “We’re celebrating Angela’s return,” he explained. Then he took Angela’s hand and led her to the door. “Come along, dear,” he said, “We need to get the meal on the table.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Karen exclaimed valiantly as Mort and Angela left the room. “Angela tells me it was you, Dawn, who managed to rescue her. I have to confess I came to visit you in Honiara because I hoped you might be able to help.”

  Dawn smiled at her. “You made that pretty obvious.”

  “So where did you find her?”

  “She was stuck down a tunnel, at one of SETI’s telescopes. It was Paul who gave me the clue. He’s a SETI scientist. Apparently the Watchers are financing the operation of that telescope. So we checked, and there she was! We think they planted Angela there to monitor neurospace for signs of extra-terrestrials.”

  Karen managed to look unruffled. “Really? What a strange thing to do.”

  “Yes. I can understand them wanting to monitor neurospace, seeing as how they really believe that aliens are coming here on spirit journeys, but to do it like that was really stupid. They’d have to keep entering Angela’s mind to check her memories, and that would be incredibly time-consuming. It would also have meant they’d have to go on a spirit journey themselves to do it. It must have been a real chore.”

  “I suppose it must.”

  “They obviously haven’t got much of a clue about these things. I’m surprised they didn’t get some advice. Well, it’s all over at last, and Angela’s come back to life – thanks largely to Paul. We’ve all played our part in saving Angela – not least you, of course, by drawing my attention to her plight – and Mort thought we would make tonight a bit of celebration. He wants to thank us all.”

  “Oh. How nice.”

  Mort appeared in the doorway. “Come on through. Dinner’s on the table.”

  Dawn led the way, playing the part of de facto host. “I was telling Karen about how the Watchers used Angela,” she told Mort as they took their places around the table.

  “Terrible, isn’t it?” he said to Karen as he pulled out a chair for her, opposite Dawn. “And Dawn tells me it was all quite unnecessary. Such a shame. Now help yourselves, everyone. Angela, sort out the wine, there’s a good girl.”

  Karen was obviously itching to find out how the Watchers could more effectively monitor neurospace, but she waited until the meal was underway before raising the subject. “About those Watchers,” she said. “I don’t understand much about these things, but how else could they monitor neurospace?”

  Dawn shrugged in an offhand kind of way. “They could use a spirit detector.”

  “Oh?” Karen’s face was impassive. “And what’s a spirit detector?”

  “Exactly what it says on the box. I’ve brought one here, to check that none of these Watchers try to invade Angela. It’ll set alarms ringing all over the house.”

  “Really? That’s amazing.”

  “Isn’t it? I’ll show it to you when we’ve finished the meal.”

  “Thank you.” Karen continued eating impassively. “So what are you suggesting?” she asked after a while. “That the Watchers locate one of these devices at that telescope?”

  “Yes, something along those lines.”

  Karen concentrated on her food, though it was obvious that her mind was on other things. “It’s odd that the Watchers have never heard of spirit detectors, don’t you think?” she said after a while.

  “It’s not surprising. They’ve only just been developed.”

  “Ah. But now that they have been developed, they could get hold of one? To replace Angela?”

  “They could borrow the one I’ve got here. Except I don’t trust them. I suspect they plan to take over the dolphin communal mind.”

  “Whatever makes you think that? What would be the point?”

  “It’s telepathy from the Mind that’s attracting extra-terrestrials to Earth. The Watchers know that, and they know that if they are to meet ET then it’s got to be through the Mind. We know that the Watchers have tampered with it. Dr John Anderson, one of their leaders, is also one of our dolphins’ mentors.”

  For the first time Karen let her mask slip, and she gave an audible gasp. She was clearly alarmed at the extent of Dawn’s knowledge.

  “What a coincidence!” she exclaimed, recovering her poise. “I know Dr Anderson! At least, I suppose it’s the same Dr Anderson. The expert in English history?”

  “That is a coincidence. That’s our man.”

  “Would you mind if I told him about your spirit detector?”

  “Feel free. I couldn’t possibly let him have it, of course. We need it to guard Angela.”

  “Well, if it was placed beneath that telescope, and the Watchers had access to it, then they would no longer have any need of Angela.”

  “I suppose not. I still don’t trust them, though.”

  “I’m sure they have no plans take over the Mind. They probably just want to be present when ET finally arrives and makes contact with it.”

  “Only Dr Anderson could tell us that.”

  “Well, I could ask him. I could even phone him tonight.”

  Dawn looked at her doubtfully. “He would have to make a pretty convincing case for me to let him use that spirit detector."

  “Well, there’s no harm trying. I should like to see your detector first, of course. Just to reassure him that such a device actually exists.”

  “Certainly. I’m afraid you won’t see any spirits, unless one comes visiting, but I can show you some past visitations. Everything’s stored in its memory.”

  “Remarkable. So how does it work?”

  “It’s got living brain tissue inside it. The organ in the brain that’s sensitive to telepathy…”

  Later, when the meal was over, Karen joined the others in the lounge. She had been on the phone to John Anderson for about a quarter of an hour, and was looking very pleased with herself.

  “Dr Anderson was most interested in your spirit detector,” she purred as she sat down. “He assured me that the Watchers have no plans whatsoever to take over the Mind. It’s just as I said, they simply want to be present in ‘Eden’ – whatever that means – when ET arrives. He told me that some of the Watchers are being trained in trance-induction techniques and spirit journeys to prepare them for that. He even went so far as to suggest that I could join them in their training programme, as your representative, so to speak. Then I could report back on exactly what they’re up to. That sounds really exciting, doesn’t it?”

  “It sounds like you’ve hit the jackpot,” Dawn agreed. “You wouldn’t need to report back, though, Karen. I’m quite capable of going on spirit journeys myself, so I could come into your mind, and go with you. Then I would see everything for myself. That’s the way to play it, I think.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. Yes, I suppose you could do that.” Karen tried not to look dismayed at the prospect of Dawn invading her mind. “I wouldn’t want you delving around in my memories, though. There’s a lot of stuff in there that’s … private.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t intrude. I’ll just check on what those Watchers are up to.”

  “Well … I guess that’s OK.” She sounded like it was far from OK.

  “Well, that all sounds excellent,” Mort said heartedly. “Cause for another glass of champagne, I’d say.” He stood up and went to the drinks cabinet. “Dawn agrees to let her spirit detector be used at that telescope, and in return the Watchers get to
see its output and Karen agrees to let Dawn go into her mind to monitor what those Watchers are up to.”

  Karen was looking increasingly uncomfortable. “You might as well know now,” she muttered at last, “it’ll save a lot of embarrassment later. I actually belong to the Watchers, and I’m already participating in their spirit journey training programme. I couldn’t tell you before, because … well, it would antagonize you, and you’d know I could have done something to save Angela. I’m sorry about that, Mort, but I thought that the fate of the Earth was more important than her. At least you’ve got her back now, and it seems like she’s OK. In fact she seems to be getting on remarkably well.”

  “Well, thanks for being straight with us, Karen,” Dawn answered quickly, before Mort could say anything. The last thing she wanted was for him or anyone else to let slip that they’d been somewhat deceitful too, and that at this moment Donna was controlling Angela and this whole performance had been a stitch-up designed to make her agree to almost anything.

  “Tell you what,” Dawn continued, “since you’ve been so honest with us, why don’t the four of us – you, me, Paul, and Clare – pop over to that telescope now, and fix Baby in place? I call the spirit detector that, by the way. I think of her as my baby. It’s because she’s got a clone of part of my brain inside her.”

  Karen cheered up a little at that. “John would be delighted. The Watchers really don’t intend to take over the dolphin communal mind, you know. They just want to be there when it all happens.”

  “Well, let’s get going, then,” Dawn said cheerily. “On the way, we’ll arrange for my first trip into your mind. It’s nothing to worry about, I’ll explain exactly what you need to do to let me in. Paul and Clare have both experienced the treatment, and everything worked out splendidly for them. Didn’t it Clare?”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” Clare muttered bleakly.

  A little later, when the others had departed, Mort and Donna returned to the dining room to clear the dishes. “Your better half is quite a girl,” Mort remarked.

  “I’m the better half,” Donna retorted as she gathered up the glasses. “Better in the kitchen, better at Monopoly, better at swimming, better at everything that counts.”

  “Since you’re so incredibly wonderful, you might be able to explain something that’s been puzzling me.”

  “Depends what it is. Even I have my limitations.”

  “It’s about that spirit detector. The images of spirits on its screen are really bright and clear, but everything else looks faint and ghostly.”

  “True. That’s why it won’t have any difficulty picking out a neurospace flying saucer among all those stars.”

  “I understand that. What I don’t understand is why, with a detector like that, the telescope can’t operate during the day as well as at night. The stars will be completely masked by the blueness of the sky, but surely something as bright as a neurospace object would stand out. Wouldn’t it seem like a brilliant point of light to your spirit detector?”

  There was a long silence while Donna digested his words. “You know what, Mort?” she said at last. “You’re pretty smart to think of that. In fact you’re almost as smart as your average dolphin. Phone Dawn on her mobile and tell her to ask Paul to keep that telescope running day and night. He should be delighted – it’ll double our chances of finding ET!”

  “And afterwards,” she added, as he went to the phone, “we’ll play Monopoly. Provided Angela doesn’t mind me borrowing her body for a bit longer, of course.”

  “I’m not sure how she feels, now that she knows you’re a dolphin. Your average dolphin might be smart, but it’s also wet and slimy, and it really stinks of fish…”

  Dawn’s next visit to Eden was three days later, on the Sunday morning. Donna wasn’t expecting her before then, for she had spent most of Friday travelling back to the Solomons from Adelaide, and Saturday was her day off. Donna had in any case seen her later on at Mort’s house on Thursday night, when she returned with Karen and the others after installing the spirit detector at the telescope. Apparently everything had worked perfectly, with a fuzzy view of the stars showing on Baby’s screen, and Karen had pronounced herself well satisfied.

  Karen had also seemed a little more sanguine about the prospect of Dawn making trips into her mind in order to investigate the Watchers. Donna asked Dawn about that when they reached the privacy of her quarters after the temple service.

  “She was more alarmed at the prospect of me prying into her sex life than any worries about the Watchers,” Dawn told her.

  “Huh! You humans are all the same. Why can’t you be open about it like every other species on this planet?”

  “Well, that’s the way we are. We have a very complex culture.”

  “A very crap culture, if you ask me,” Donna muttered morosely as she went over to her stove to make the tea. She’d been feeling down in the dumps ever since she’d said her final farewells to Mort on Thursday evening, for she supposed that she would never see him again.

  “Crap is not a very nice word, dear,” Dawn told her primly. “Clare has had a most unfortunate influence on you.”

  “She’s a bit earthy, that’s all – like all you humans. Anyway, what do you make of Karen’s account of the Watchers? Are they really harmless?”

  “Karen certainly believes they are, or she would never have agreed to let me invade her mind. In fact she was surprisingly open about their activities. She let me find out about their spirit-journey training programme – they use hallucinogens to induce their trances, and they go into trances together, just like you dolphins.”

  “Next you’ll be telling me they can create their own communal mind and their own Eden.”

  “Of course they can’t do that. They’re not telepathic like you, and they don’t have the spare neural capacity that your brains have. However, they have managed to conjure up a temple in neurospace where they can worship, and so far as I can tell from Karen’s description it’s a bit like your temple in Eden.”

  “What?” Donna almost dropped the teapot. “Don’t you realise what that means? It’s a portal! They can use it to transport themselves directly to our temple!”

  “Assuming our temple really is a portal. Just because John Anderson made it look like the COBRA temples doesn’t mean it performs the same function. Those temples weren't devised by human minds. And there’s no record of any one using our temple as a portal. We’ve never been invaded.”

  “Doesn’t mean to say we won’t be.”

  “Look, the Watchers are only interested in making contact with extra-terrestrials, they have no wish to harm the Mind. Clare’s sure of that, and Karen certainly believes that to be the case.”

  “We can’t be sure,” Donna persisted. “We don’t know what else that Dr Anderson planted in Jonah’s brain besides the temple design. There could be all kinds of things going on that we know nothing about. Like those telepathic broadcasts to outer space – maybe they’re the result of something that Anderson planted in Jonah. I think we should do what you suggested to Clare the other evening: wipe Anderson out!”

  “Clare would be really mad at us if we did. If you’re really worried about him, there’s a much better solution. We simply exclude Jonah from the Mind. We stop feeding him the psychoactive fish, so he won’t be able to participate in the dolphin trance. Whatever John Anderson has put in his brain can’t affect us then.”

  Donna nodded slowly as she poured the hot water into the teapot and stirred the brew. “Let’s do it – though poor Jonah will be really gutted. He’ll be a complete outcast, and the others will probably start bullying him. You know what dolphins are like.”

  “OK, we’ll isolate him, and you can tell the others he’s sick. In fact I think I’ll move him to the GeneSys dolphinarium, well out of the way.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise? He’ll be really lonely, all by himself.”

  Dawn regarded Donna thoughtfully. “How do you feel abou
t it, Donna? I imagine you’ll really miss him…”

  “Sure I’ll miss him. But I won’t be heartbroken, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Dawn groaned inwardly. She’d hoped that Donna might have got over her feelings for Mort and set her affections on Jonah again, but this was evidently not the case. Still, it meant that she wouldn’t be too upset by the next bit of news.

  “Clare phoned me yesterday, to say that Clara has asked to be transferred to Honiara. Clare says that since we now know all about her, there’s little point her being separated from the rest of the GM dolphins. She wants to join you all at Crocodile Bay. I told her we’d have to quarantine her first, in the dolphinarium. So you needn’t worry about Jonah being lonely.”

  “Ha! It’s Jonah that little tart’s after!” Donna exclaimed vehemently, almost spilling the tea as she set down the teapot and cups on the small table by her settee. “I saw them wandering off together down to the river after the temple service. That was half-an-hour ago. I hate to think what they’re up to now.”

  “Nothing much, from what you told me. Didn’t you say Jonah thinks human flesh is like medieval parchment?”

  “Except that I was trying to wean him off that idea, and now she’s benefitting from my efforts. The bitch!” Although Donna had cooled towards Jonah, she couldn’t help feeling jealous. She poured out the tea and took a sip. The fishy aroma soothed her ruffled feelings.

  “I’m sure it’s for the best,” she added stoically. “I’m never going to be able to love a dolphin. I’m too human.”

  “You’re much more than human,” Dawn pointed out, trying to cheer her up. “You’re a fire-breathing dragon like me…”

  “So what?” Donna muttered glumly. “I’m never going to get to kiss like you. Not in my dolphin body, that is.” Then an idea hit her, and she brightened. “Though maybe those extra-terrestrials will turn out to be dragons – in which case one of them might fall for me!” She gazed into her tea, trying to imagine what dragon courtship would be like. It was bound to be pretty hot.

  Dawn didn’t reply. This wasn’t the moment to remind Donna that she had only one dragon parent, not two, which meant that dragons reproduced asexually. Romance with one was definitely not a possibility.

  Part 4: Aliens

 

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