by Hammond, Ray
When the HR director for Hope Island executive staff had first interviewed her in Chicago, before she had signed the heavyweight non-disclosure contract and media-silence agreement, he had made it clear that she would not be required to join the staff at any of the island’s hospitals and clinics. She could use their facilities as she chose and, as she had qualified as an MD before she began her training as a paediatric psychiatrist, she would be on standby in case of any major emergency. But it was Tommy who was to be her main concern, he explained.
Calypso had initially wondered what on earth could be wrong with the boy and had voiced her question. But her interviewer had assured her that Tommy was healthy in all respects. It was merely that Mr Tye’s heir was growing up in an extremely unusual and privileged position in life – ‘something you might find hard to imagine,’ he said condescendingly – but accurately, as Calypso later realized. It was also explained that the boy was showing considerable intellectual promise and his father wanted a child psychologist on hand at all times to protect his son’s mental as well as physical health.
‘A permanent therapist?’ queried Calypso, eyebrows raised.
‘More of a qualified companion,’ was the response.
‘Where’s his mother?’ asked Calypso. ‘Surely she’ll want to talk to me first?’
‘There is no mother,’ said her interviewer abruptly. ‘You’ll have access to his files on your arrival.’
Considering her own mother’s growing dependency, this job with the Tye Corporation had been the best opportunity Calypso could have possibly hoped for. It provided the necessary funds and the physical proximity that would allow her to ensure that the old lady received the best possible care in her final years.
Calypso had accepted the post with alacrity, leaving behind Chicago, the snow, the psychiatric wards and Larry Sumner all at the same time. She realized that she was using her mother’s deteriorating health and this new job as an excuse to end the relationship with Larry. But she had recently been fighting to hide her irritation with the radiologist’s addiction to on-line gambling and she guessed that he was probably feeling much the same about some of her own domestic habits. Their relationship had simply gone stale, although Calypso realized that it was she who was initiating the break.
Given the unusually exclusive conditions of her new job, Calypso had offered to run a weekly clinic for all the other children on the island and the HR department had welcomed her suggestion.
As soon as she met Tommy, saw Hope Island and realized what a sanctuary of wealth and privilege it was, how utterly different to life a few miles away on her home island of Mayaguana, Calypso had started to feel guilty about her career move, despite her offer to provide her services as a general physician. She decided to use her free time to study tropical medicine.
Then she had scared herself. She was learning a great deal about the human immune system and she started to wonder what could happen to the population of a completely new and very sanitized island state. She broke off from her study of schistosomiasis, did some calculations and v-mailed the HR director to request a personal meeting.
‘I’m worried that we may be heading for a disaster,’ she had begun hesitantly, aware that she was very new to the corporation. ‘We’re not getting sufficient population throughput to maintain antibody templates.’
The HR director had taken her worries seriously and Calypso had quickly been asked to make a presentation on the subject to the Hope Island management board. That had been the first time she had met Tom. Despite the fact that she had been to the house almost every day for three weeks, his life was so frantically peripatetic that she had never glimpsed her employer, the father of her charge. Nothing further was said of the mother and she had been offered no files and had not yet found the right opportunity to enquire further.
She was doubly shocked when she first saw Tom in person. The first surprise was that he entered the room wearing what seemed to be an antibacterial face mask. Nobody else paid any attention to this, however.
Then he removed it to spray his mouth and Calypso experienced a sense of unreality, of double exposure, a meeting with a person whose face she had seen all her life on television, in the press. She felt public and private, inner and outer, blur, grow confused. He was smaller than she had imagined, but he looked younger and more handsome – well, more beautiful, she realized – than any of his media images, even the most iconic, had suggested. The doctor in her ran a check of his visible indicators: he looked very fit and youthful. His features were almost perfectly symmetrical, his hair dark and shining. When he looked up at her from behind the conference table she saw a strong, straight nose and a full mouth. But dominating his face was a pair of the most startling, lively violet eyes. She already knew those eyes well – they were Tommy’s eyes.
In her ‘fun years’, when she had competed in beauty pageants to earn enough money to continue her education, Calypso had worked with other beautiful women – models in magazine photo shoots, television commercials and product launches – and she had had many opportunities to observe the impact of female beauty on others.
‘Looks are merely an accident, but truly beautiful people do live in a different world,’ she had admitted when Larry had first asked her what it was like to have to live with her stunning looks.
She recalled some lines on the subject from a novel she had read at university. ‘“Beautiful people are exempt from life’s difficult tests. They can sit there and judge life, instead of being judged by it. Beauty is its own morality.”’
Larry had nodded his understanding, but she was sure he couldn’t know what it felt like to be wanted or hated by everybody simply for your looks. Few men could.
But Thomas Tye could, Calypso realized.
She had worn her maroon two-piece suit with its knee-length hem and had gathered her wavy black hair into a thick plait that reached to the middle of her back. She wanted to make a good impression but as she took the management board through the dangers of immune-system decay as a by-product of communal isolation she had realized that Thomas Tye wasn’t looking at her like most men did. She could see that the HR director and his male assistant were watching her movements in a typically masculine manner, practically licking their lips. Connie Law was clearly amused at the sight. Calypso was used to such behaviour and almost expected it, but Thomas Tye’s gaze seemed to be everywhere but on her. Once again, like the rest of the world, she had wondered about his sexuality.
Her presentation was a success. She had allowed herself a small amusement at the end when she had wrapped up by describing Hope Island as ‘this scept’red isle, this demi-paradise, this fortress built by nature for herself against infection’.
Tom had laughed. ‘Does that make me Richard the Second or Bolingbroke?’ he asked, surprising her and the others.
As a result of her warnings, the frequency of the rotation cycle of staff between Hope Island and the Tye Corporation’s overseas offices was increased sharply. On TT’s instructions the management board had gone so far as to lease two additional wide-bodied jets to ferry employees and their families for extra subsidized vacations in the United States, Europe and the Americas. Calypso had entered these new population movements into her model of Hope Island’s immune-system development pattern and she had been able to report to the head of Human Resources that the likelihood of immune-system deterioration in the community was now much reduced.
A month after her presentation, when the HR department had conferred with consultants, completed their own calculations and had started to increase population flow to and from the island, her viewpers had notified her of an incoming message. It arrived during her siesta. Calypso had strung a hammock between two palm trees on her private section of the beach and she was dozing in the shade when Connie Law’s ident appeared in her Ray Ban Electros. As she accepted the call, the PA’s face filled her gaze.
‘I’ve got Tom for you, Doctor. Hold on.’ Then Calypso was staring at those eyes.
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‘Great work, Doctor. You’ve made an excellent start. You may have saved Hope Island from a real health problem.’
‘Thanks, Tom.’ She didn’t know exactly where he was since his system wasn’t transmitting the usual GPS reference or map graphic. She could see that he was in an aircraft, however.
‘Our appreciation will be evident in your next pay transfer. Oh, and Tommy really likes you, he says. But not as much as he likes Jed.’
Then he’d gone.
When the notification of a large bonus and a mass of stock options arrived in Calypso’s e-mail a few days later she had been very touched. But not as pleased as she had been to hear about Tommy’s growing affection for her. Already her vulnerable charge had become very important to her – and she was delighted to be nearly as important to him as his favourite Furry.
Now she stood in her surgery reception area and looked at her LifeWatch again. She could spend an hour absorbing more of Manson’s Tropical Diseases, the seminal introductory work on the topic, before going up to the house to see Tommy after school.
Calypso had only recently intervened in what had become the first serious contest of wills between Tommy and his father that she had witnessed. Tommy had been begging his father to allow him to attend the little elementary school in Port Hope. It was run exclusively for the children of senior company executives and Calypso knew how desperately Tommy needed to feel normal – or as normal as possible, under the circumstances. At first, Tye had refused flatly, without giving any reasons. But Tommy was also strong-willed and after Calypso had endured a number of his tantrums, she had asked to see Thomas Tye in person to discuss the matter.
She had then explained how damaging isolation from other children could become for the boy. That, she had asserted, was the main reason why Tommy seemed emotionally immature whilst exhibiting enormous intellectual potential. After a lot of initial extreme and protracted reluctance, his father had finally agreed that Tommy could attend the school for three afternoons a week. Until then, all his various tutors had visited the house for up to eight hours a day.
Her VideoMate trilled, and Calypso answered it as she walked back into her consulting room. The wall screen came on automatically and showed Heather Garland, the principal of the school.
‘Doctor Browne. Could you come over here now? There’s been an . . . well, Tommy’s hurt.’
Calypso was already finding her keys and bag.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I think he’s OK, Doctor. He’s . . . Well, I’m afraid some of the boys . . . He’s been involved in a fight, Doctor.’
*
Ron Deakin snapped off his VideoMate and picked up the printouts he had downloaded from the Stargazer, Scientific American, New Scientist and Amateur Astronomer archives. The information was all in the public domain. He hadn’t even needed to consult UNISA’s own archive of scientific briefing reports. He sat down behind his desk on the twenty-third floor of the UN Secretariat building on Manhattan’s East Side and laid out the articles in chronological order. Behind him stretched the vast urban wilderness of Queens and Flushing Meadow.
Amateur Astronomer, April 3rd 1999
Cosmonauts Ready Kirlian
By Robert Strauss
On April 4th, 1999, cosmonauts inside the Mir space station (at left) will command a circular, 25-meter (80-foot) catopric to be unfurled from Progress M-40 spacecraft (at right). They will then use the recycling system to provide energy for Mir and, potentially, for delivery to the Earth. (Click on image for larger view)
Update to story (4/5/99):
Kirlian Deployment Fails
When commanded to unfurl on the morning of April 4th, the Kirlian 25-meter heliostat became snared by an antenna on its carrier spacecraft, Progress M-40. Despite frantic attempts by cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Avdeyev, the thin sheet refused to deploy fully. After engineers on the ground debated possible fixes, the cosmonauts tried to unfurl the catoptric again on April 5th, but its deployment mechanism jammed. The experiment was abandoned, and the control center near Moscow commanded the Progress and its partially-unfurled heliostat should re-enter Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. It was destroyed immediately.
Deakin skimmed through the rest of the article and realized that bad timing had doomed the ambitious Russian experiment from the outset. They had been trying to launch their orbiting solar-energy system while their nation had been collapsing around their ears. Within weeks the companies behind the energy satellites had been closed down for lack of funds and the technology had been mothballed.
‘Search Space Energy Consortium and Energate and the Tye Corporation,’ Deakin told his VideoMate. ‘Search Kutúzov.’
He spelled the name out for the system as he knew his pronunciation would be wrong.
And there it was.
Wall Street Journal, April 3rd, 2002.
Tye Corporation Buys Space Oddity.
Tye Corporation Europe gmbh today announced the purchase of a cluster of semi-dormant Russian space technology companies which includes the Space Energy Consortium, a coalition-corporation headed by veteran space engineer Nicholas Kutúzov. The group had once tried unsuccessfully to place a heliostat in orbit around the Earth. The purchase price for the Consortium and the other companies involved was not disclosed.
Mr Kutúzov will join Tye Aerospace, Inc., Miami, as director of space-energy research.
Suddenly Deakin cursed out loud. How could he have forgotten? How could he be so stupid! The intelligence officer crossed to the power cord in the wall and pulled the wall display’s plug from its socket. He picked up the VideoMate from his desk, found the master power button under its concealed sliding cover and turned the system off He took his radio earpiece from his left ear and his viewpers from the top pocket of his jacket that was hung over the back of his chair.
Deakin threw the dead communications technology together in a heap in the middle of his desk. This operation was going to prove difficult, he realized.
*
The boy was sitting on a low bench in the small schoolyard. Heather Garland had her arm around his shoulders. Stella, one of Jack’s team, was standing a little distance away, conferring via her VideoMate. She would have been alerted automatically as the network’s keyword-recognition system monitored the head teacher’s call to the doctor.
Calypso negotiated the safety gate and ran up the slight incline of the play area.
‘Tommy? What’s happened?’
He looked up and held out his arms to her. Calypso eased herself down on the low bench and allowed him to put his arms around her neck and press his face into the doctor’s coat she was wearing. She hadn’t even paused to take it off before driving up to the school. Heather Garland removed her own arm from between them. ‘He’s OK, I think, Doctor. I think it’s been more of a scare than anything else.’
Tommy lifted his head up. ‘I wasn’t cheating, I wasn’t.’
Calypso stroked the back of his head and looked at Heather for explanation.
The head teacher shrugged. ‘It was a chess game. That’s all. Tommy was playing our school champion.’
Tommy looked up at Calypso again. ‘You won’t tell my father, will you? Will you?’
He swivelled his gaze from one to the other. ‘You won’t, will you?’
Calypso stared down at his face. She could see a trickle of dried blood below his nose and a graze on his right cheek. His huge violet eyes were filled with tears. She wanted to kiss him so much it hurt.
‘Don’t worry about that now. Let’s just go back to my office and get you cleaned up.’
‘You mustn’t tell him, you mustn’t!’ Tommy screamed and he pulled away from them both, jumped up and started to run towards the school gate.
Calypso was off the bench and at the gate in front of him before she was even aware of it. She put her hands on his shoulders and held him square in front of her.
‘I said, don’t worry about that now, Tommy. I just wan
t to make sure you’re OK.’
The boy glowered up at her defiantly, his eyes blazing. He had inherited his father’s temper.
She squatted so that her eyes were on the same level as his. ‘Tommy, I’m your friend. Let’s go check this out, OK?’
He stared back directly into her eyes, petulant and defiant.
‘I’ll let you come over to my place afterwards.’ She knew that would get to him. He lived in the world’s most luxurious modern mansion, with every possible amusement and facility, but he still loved to visit her tiny bungalow. He would pick up her small trinkets and examine each one with care, asking where she’d got it. Then he would usually ask to play her electronic keyboard.
He hung his head. ‘I’m OK. Please don’t tell my father.’
Calypso guessed that Tom was probably aware of the incident already. The security systems on the island were so all-embracing that hardly a square inch of it was not covered by cameras.
‘I won’t tell him,’ she said, truthfully.
*
Morgenstein held the report in his left hand. He made Joe Tinkler stand, waiting in front of his desk, while he reread it. Like being back in grade school, thought Joe. But there was no doubt Morgenstein was angry.
‘So Tye cleared out roughly a trillion dollars of his holdings and you did nothing
Joe nodded.
‘Where’s he put all this money?’ demanded Morgenstein.
This was the hard part.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been tracking all IPOs and filings on private investments. I can’t trace any of it.’
Joe didn’t mention that he had just re-dispatched his software robots with fresh instructions. He was determined to find where it had gone.
‘What are Tye Corporate Relations saying?’
‘Nothing, sir. They have no comment. They say it was a private matter.’
Morgenstein’s right hand moved over the keys of a large electronic calculator on his desk. He looked at the result and then back to the fund manager.