The Messiah Choice

by Jack L. Chalker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Well, I am,” she responded wistfully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Uh—SAINT?”

  “Yes, Miss?”

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

  “Yes. Scrolling on the screen now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Am I a likely—target?”

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

  “Oh? What is that?”

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

  6. A BRISK WALK IN THE WOODS

  She was in the deep forest, the moon showing only slightly through the dense growth, yet she could see well enough. She was naked, and unadorned in any way, yet she did not realize this or think upon it. She did not, in the human sense, think at all; rather, she felt things, basic things, with an intensity she had never known before. There was caution, and fear as well of potential enemies, but there was, too, a sense of exhilaration, of being alive and one with the forest.

  Sight, sound, and smell told her that the way was safe, and she got up and moved swiftly and expertly down the forest trail until it opened into a broad meadow with a big dark rock in its center. Once here, she knew, felt, that she was safe and protected.

  One by one the others came as well, to run, and jump, and touch, and play with one another in the meadow that was brightly lit by the moon’s glow. They were of her own kind and she knew and loved them all, these sisters of the moonlight. They were wild beasts, sometimes on two legs, sometimes down on all fours, yet they were shaped like the others, Those Who Must Be Hidden From and Feared.

  Sometimes they would scamper through the forest and reach the places where fruit trees grew. Then one or more would climb the trees as if it were an easy walk and not straight up and knock the fruit down for others to scramble for and stuff into their mouths. She always ate with them, yet no matter how much she ate it was never enough, never right. There was a hollow, empty hunger she did not understand, a craving left unfulfilled, but she lacked the reasoning ability to even guess what it could be.

  And then, as the mists began to build up and the false dawn crept into the eastern sky, they scampered back into the woods, back to the safety of their own territorial places before the sun came up.

  Angelique awoke to see bright sunlig
ht creeping around the edges of the curtains, and she frowned, looked over at the clock, and saw that it was nearly time to get up. She did not feel like it, though; instead, she felt very tired, as if the dream had been real, and she quickly settled back into a deep, seemingly dreamless sleep.

  In the following weeks, around the world, several small countries went to war with each other, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had two tense confrontations, the stock markets mostly were down, although not dramatically, and hordes of people in various major cities protested one thing or another. The business of the world went on, and even Sir Robert’s murder, its grisly and mysterious details rather well suppressed, faded from the public’s memory. There was still a bounty on the first new pictures and interview with Angelique, now one of the richest women in the world if not the richest, and there were the usual messages from the top network interviewers in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and France—as well as a host of hustlers and entrepreneurs—coming in, but on Allenby Island things seemed to lapse into calm and insulated peace.

  A small squad of expert workmen and technicians managed, in a very short time, to combine the VIP quarters with Sir Robert’s old suite and remodel and remake it into a complex designed to deal with Angelique’s physical problems, and to house the new staff while also redecorating to the new owner’s tastes. Such things as lights, full or individual, as well as a satellite-fed television receiver, radio, and stereo gear, could be controlled by her voice in much the same way as she controlled her chair. Any dark corners could be instantly flooded with light at a single command. As with her chair, she kept the commands basically to one or two words in basic French, since English was the usual language of the Institute. It kept her from inadvertently giving orders when having a general conversation.

  The staff brought in by the Institute was excellent, at least so far. The shift work, or on-call maid and orderly services, was performed by two Haitian sisters, identical twins, actually, named Marie and Margarete, both seventeen and both illiterate, with virtually no schooling. They were, however, friendly, attentive girls who didn’t mind the really dirty work and loved the luxury. The third shift was given to eighteen year old Juanita Hernandez, a half-Indian beauty from Venezuela, who was barely literate but made do in English. The twins also made do in English; their native French was such an odd amalgam of dialects and new and old tongues that it was virtually unintelligible to her.