The Messiah Choice (1985) (6 page)

"If I am, as you say, the boss, even though it will take years to get it all settled through the courts, then you are my employee. You are without power to stop me from going, so are you going to come along to safeguard me or not?"

He sighed. "Well, if you put it that way, I guess so. But let me get a walkie-talkie from one of the security boys first so if we run into trouble or that fancy chair of yours runs out of juice I can call for help."

She permitted him to do that, and they were off down the road and around the antenna array.

"Those things can communicate with just about every place in the world, yes?" she asked him wonderingly.

"Oh, yeah. Actually, they're tied into NATO and a bunch of security telecommunications systems as well as our own home offices."

"They are controlled by the big computer, then?"

"
Everything
is controlled by the big computer—the air conditioning, the lighting, the automatic doors, defense and security systems—you name it. This may look like a nice little resort on a charming tropical island, but it's a high-tech nightmare in some ways."

She nodded. "And—who controls the computer?"

"Theoretically the corporation telecommunications headquarters in Toronto, and that by the corporation's top management in Seattle. They basically tell it what to do and make its priorities."

"You said theoretically."

He nodded, impressed with her line of questioning. If it hadn't been a cruel joke he would have said she had a real head on her shoulders. "Yes, theoretically. The truth is much closer to home.

You see, SAINT isn't your ordinary run-of-the-mill computer. It might well be one of a kind, although it's based partly on Japanese work and they have a similar government controlled operation. It isn't just a collection of data bases and operating interfaces and the like; it actually makes decisions, evaluates information, essentially on its own."

"You mean—it thinks?"

"It thinks. Oh, not like
we
think, and don't get the idea that it's some movie monster computer plotting to take over the world. It thinks about what it's told to think about. It doesn't have an original idea in its head. Human beings tell it what to think about and just how far it can go. Much of its circuitry has to be kept below freezing just to keep it from burning up its billions of parts with its own speed, and while it can talk it's not self-aware like we are. The only man who can be said to understand and really run SAINT is a Brit with the incredible name of Sir Reginald Truscott-Smythe."

She giggled. "You're not serious."

"I'm afraid I am. He looks the part, too, complete with moustache and summer whites and a dreadfully uppah clahss accent. He's the highest paid repairman in the world and commands a crew of forty—second only to the security forces in staff number. He and two other men designed and built the creature. The other two are Japanese who worked long and hard on their project but just couldn't resist the kind of money Magellan could offer for the job. They're both back in good old Nippon now, but old Reggie, who worked in Japan and speaks, reads, and writes that and a lot of other languages, is still here, king of the hill. I'll introduce you, when you want." They came to the split-off trail.
"Whoops!
Here we are at the detour. Are you sure you can make it through there with this contraption?"

"I think so. This is a very remarkable vehicle—one of only two or three in the world like it. It is one of my dreams that we will eventually be able to mass produce it so cheaply that even national health insurance plans will be able to buy it for all who need it."

Actually, the trail proved more than wide enough, and the suspension on the chair proved more than merely adequate so long as Angie was strapped in. He admired her confidence and control and couldn't help saying so.

"Part of the key was that I was still young when the accident happened," she told him seriously.

"Another was the aid of what I now know was Magellan and Uncle—my father. What could I do?

I could lie in some nursing home forever, or I could take advantage of everything that was offered and accept it, knowing what worked would eventually make its way down to everyone in need of it. I have much, and now I will have more. At the Center in Montreal they have voice-activated computers like the one in this chair. It is possible with robot arms to get my dinner and feed myself. I can pick up things and examine them. In special rooms with special equipment sensors can be attached to allow the computers to move my muscles, give me a minimal flexibility. God has been very good to me."

"I don't know if I could be in your place and say that."

"But he has! He has put me here as an example to all those now wasting away or thinking of suicide or going mad in their self-pity! We only got out one step ahead of the newsmen as it was.

Eventually I will leave this island and return, and I will be, like it or not, a public figure. I intend to be an example to everyone. I will be—
Oh!
It is so
beautiful
!"

They had come to the meadow with its strange altar stone.

"We believe it started here," MacDonald told her grimly, breaking her mood. "We believe that your father was lured to this spot by some bait we don't yet know, and waiting here was the mechanism to kill him."

"But—he died on the beach! Is it not so?"

"He did, but it started here."

"
What
was here?"

"I don't know, and 1 don't know if we'll ever find it. Whatever it was, it was made to look as if it appeared at the altar stone—that big rock over there. He saw it, and ran down that trail over there. Even then, they took a big chance, or the ... thing ... or whoever did this, was overconfident, because he almost escaped. I'm sure they didn't think he'd make the beach. The trail forks down there, one going to the beach, the other back to the road. If he'd taken the one to the road they would have had him, and it was the most logical route to take. The beach trail isn't used much and it's not in good condition. Whatever was chasing him had more of a problem with it than a man on foot. It slowed it down and also made it expose itself. It was blind chance that nobody was on that beach or in a boat out past the breakers. Would you like to see the beach?"

"Yes, I would." A thought suddenly struck her. "
Monsieur
MacDonald—
pardon,
Greg—you are quite charming and very light and flip and irreverent, if that is the word for it. I think this masks a very serious man below your surface. You acquiesced far too easily to my foolish trip in the heat. You would not, by any chance, be attempting to discover if this chair of mine can make it to the beach?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Unmasked and exposed to the roaring mobs! "Yes, I
will
admit that the thought had crossed my mind. Don't tell the others, though—they think I'm a half-witted has-been."

She laughed, then grew suddenly serious, almost somber. "You think, then, that some sort of mechanical device was used? A robot or something?"

He was really impressed with her. "You are indeed your father's daughter. You're gonna do just fine, lady. The old boys who run the corporation think they're gonna control and devour you, but I think they've got a real shock coming. Yes, I think it was done that way because it's the only way it
could
be done, and you yourself just told me that the technology's there."

"But that was to
help
people!"

"So was atomic energy, but they made a bomb first. I once investigated a case in which the murder weapon was an egg beater. Old laws of history. First, anything and everything can be misused and perverted. Second, anything that can be misused and perverted someday will be.

Somebody had the thing built, either here or somewhere else and then transported here, and then they ordered the computer to do it. Then they ordered it all erased from the computer's memory, so there's no record, while their device is out there in the sea someplace, although that was probably an afterthought or a contingency. End result: Sir Robert killed by unknown monster, another mystery of the islands. We needn't go on now, you know. It's not really necessary."

"Perhaps it is. It is for me, anyway. Please—lead me onward."

He did so, and when they came to the fork in the trail she
did
hesitate, but then ordered the chair onward. It was a
very
tight fit, and several times he had to assist in getting it and her over an obstacle or exactly on line, but ultimately they made it to the cliff edge and the clear trail down to the beach. She had to stop, however, where the trail started down the cliff in a series of short switchbacks. "There is no way that this chair can be maneuvered down
that
," she said flatly.

"I agree, and it's too dangerous to let you try, but it was also not used by your father's killer. It jumped from this point—you can see here where the brush is broken and a small part of the shelf has fallen down—to the beach below. Made a hell of a cavity you can still make out down there."

"It is out of my possible field of view. Still, it is a long way down there. Nothing human, even inside a machine, would have likely survived it unscathed. I also find a robot walking on legs difficult to accept because it would have to have tremendous balance, yes? You, yourself said that they could not expect to have to chase this far. Would they have built all the little gears and levers and the like to have it right itself so easily after such a leap?"

He frowned, knowing that she had a valid point. "I can't guess as to the nature of the thing without seeing it," he responded a bit lamely. "However, I'm convinced I'm right. It's either my way or we have to accept that a tremendous monster materialized in the meadow, chased Sir Robert down here, did him in, and then vanished once again. Which one is more plausible no matter what the loose ends, eh?"

But she did not answer him. She was staring out at the beach and at the roaring surf. The salt smell seemed particularly nice and the breeze that brought it and that wonderful roar of crashing breakers felt cool and comfortable. She felt a tremendous urge to run down to that beach and dive into the warm waters.

"Something the matter?" he asked her, concerned that actually viewing the site of her father's death had been a little too much for her.

She sighed. "A feeling, one that I have not had or allowed in a long, long time, that is all. You take this beach and this sea for granted, and look down, missing its beauty, seeing only a crime scene. I look at it, and its very beauty beckons to me, and I am reminded exactly of what I have lost."

He undestood it now, at least in abstract terms, and felt both pity and guilt. "I guess I shouldn't have brought you here. Come on—let's go back up the trail and over to the road and I'll call for a car to take us back up."

"No!" she. said sharply. "Not yet! Please! It is very important, this thing I am feeling. The water and the wind are warm, but it blows like ice in my face. In a small town one knows well with few attractions and fewer distractions, it is easy to fool yourself into thinking that everything is still all right, that you go on and do not look back. That is a lie now, I see, born of my ignorance and isolation. This life, this wider world I am now confronting, will always reflect back this thing, this loss. I will always after wish to do what I can not do. I feel, suddenly, the turtle, wishing to withdraw into her shell and remain there, yet I am no turtle. I know that I can not." She paused a moment, noting that he was looking less at her than out at the sea, and she knew his discomfort.

"Tell me about yourself, Greg MacDonald," she said to him. "You have read up on me, I know.

Save me the trouble of reading up on you."

He turned and faced her. "Me? I'm thirty-five, born and raised in Victoria, B.C., My dad was a desk sergeant with the city police, and I never much thought of being anything else, although I envisioned following in my dad's footsteps as a constable. I went over to Vancouver to do it, though, partly because I really wanted to see if I could make it on my own, and I got the job and a rather rough beat and I took courses nights at university. After two years I got a bit bored with the beat and I wanted a degree, and so I applied to the RCMP, mostly on a lark, partly because they would help with grants to finish my degree. They took me on, I got the degree in sociology, and wound up spending another two years in Saskatoon, then two more in Whitehorse, then back to Vancouver where I took more training and then back to the Yukon, only this time certified in homicide work. I worked it in the Yukon, then Calgary, then back in Vancouver again, and I got rather good at it. I finally quit two and a half years ago to take a job as a security consultant with Magellan and, being the closest to the scene with homicide experience, here I am. Did I leave anything out?"

"Only the important details. For instance, are you married?"

"I was once. It didn't work out."

"Oh. Sorry. I did not mean to pry that much."

"No problem. It's all in my dossier anyway. I'm sorry it didn't work out, but it wasn't anything ugly. I have few regrets about the way things have gone for me so far."

"Tell me—why did you leave the RCMP? Whenever you bring it up I can feel your fondness for it. You loved that job and that service. Or is this something too personal I should look it up, too?"

He looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Urn, no, well. . . . It's just difficult, that's all. Difficult to talk about, particularly to you."

Her curiosity was overcoming her sense of propriety, and her mind raced with thoughts of scandal. "If it was something illegal or immoral in their eyes it is all right if you don't tell me."

He mumbled something she couldn't quite catch.
"Pardon?"

"I couldn't learn French!" he snapped irritably and in a very loud tone. He calmed down, looking a bit sheepish. "It's the law. You can't make lieutenant or get any further promotions in government service unless you pass your promotional tests in French, both written and oral. I had the best performance and job rating record in the entire west, but I couldn't get promoted. 1 tried their classes, I tried Berlitz, I tried
everything,
and no matter what happened I couldn't ever get the right case for a verb or stick a sentence together that made any real sense. Oh, I could have cheated my way through—some do—but what if I were posted to Montreal? We had a few
Quebecois
in the office and they knew it and teased me unmercifully, but they were ambitious bastards—pardon the language. I couldn't stay in when I could be so easily exposed or blackmailed."