“It finally caught up with her and she was taken to her room—V.I.P. One, ground floor. You know the one. It also connects to Sir Robert’s suite, so if they want to go in and poke around they can. I assume you were down there doing the run-down on her?”
He nodded. “Yeah, although there’s not much even unsealed. I keep feeling that there’s a lot more we don’t know about her, and maybe some she doesn’t know, either. She’s definitely his real daughter, though?’’
Ross nodded. “Oh, yeah. There are all sorts of documents on it—now. Stuff hidden away for years even from us, although we suspected it before. The old man knew what he was doing, I’ll tell you that.”
“You knew about her? How? If that’s not violating anything.”
Ross shrugged. “Nothing special, and before my time, but there was a tremendous investigation of her accident after they found no injuries in the tests to sustain it. She’s in a dozen medical books, though. The old boy pulled out all the stops on her. The therapy center she was at was nothing until she got there, then it became a big corporate priority. Bet it gets even more, now. You see how her body looks so normal?”
“Yeah, I noticed it.”
“It’s a series of drugs they developed at fantastic cost. The stuff can’t really be synthesized in bulk—costs a few grand a gram or more—but it works. Even if they could get the costs down, though, they don’t think it’d be very commercial unless they can figure a way to get those parts to work again on most people.
The detective nodded. “That explains a little bit, anyway. Even after working for this company for several years, I still can’t get used to the very rich and what they can do and get. I guess one day they’ll come up with some kind of robot, just stick her inside, and she’ll be able to walk and drive a car or whatever.’’
“They’re workin’ on it, brother, believe me. We can practically do it now.”
MacDonald’s mind went off again, as it did whenever new information was added. Sir Robert’s daughter was a quadriplegic. Because of that, Magellan had devoted tremendous resources first to curing her, and, when that failed, to doing the next best thing. A robot body for a human…
What would it weigh with an adequate power pack? Could you screw on legs that, perhaps, had three long clawed toes and reptilian features? Even if it were waterproof, you wouldn’t want to go into a heavy surf with it. If you toppled over, you’d drown when it filled before you could get it right again. But if you could get out, and get it to walk by itself into that ocean, you’d dispose of it and the tracks would be wiped away by the rising tide. It might even be computer remote controlled, then disposed of by just having it march into the sea… A machine perhaps hidden or sheltered in the area near the meadow, waiting for its quarry to come near, perhaps even baiting the trap.
Sir Robert had received some written notice of which there was no trace now with his morning papers. He’d read it, then gone out, rejected a cart, and walked to the glen.
It was a wild, impossible hypothesis, but it fit all the facts as he had them. In fact, the only thing he really didn’t have now was who did it and exactly why, and why the method chosen was actually selected. In other words, he had reduced it to a common premeditated murder with suspects limited to the few dozen on the island capable of carrying it out—or, of course, the several thousand executives and nations with stakes in the corporation who could have it all planned out elsewhere and carried out by any paid employee in any position as an accomplice. Or the few thousand who’d passed through here in the past two years with computer access who could simply command SAINT from any telephone jack in the world.
Angelique lay on the big bed and sighed. Sister Maria, who was checking out the luggage and trying to decide where its contents should go, heard and came over to the bed. “I thought you were going to sleep,” the nurse chided gently.
“Oh, I was, but I can not. This has simply been too much too quick! Just a week ago it was so simple. I thought I knew God’s will and my own origins and destiny. Then, suddenly, poof! It is now all so complicated. Good Uncle Robert is really my father and he has left me more money than there is in the world. Everyone and everything is at my beck and call. A big company of which I know almost nothing is scared I will fire them all or something. You saw how they all looked and acted here.”
The nurse nodded sympathetically. “I saw.”
“And, the worst is, I am already corrupted by it myself. God forgive me, but I actually had a thrill at the power they feared that has been invested in me. I liked the corporate jets, the suites like this one, all the attention.”
“And you are enjoying it.”
“God help me, but I am! On the plane, even now, I have fantasies. I have had no fantasies in years. No, don’t look that way—not those kind. That, in fact, just gets in the way. I saw them taking my inventory with their eyes. Sometimes I wish they would invent a way to take that away, just leave my head, my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, brain. Powered like that wheelchair or my little mechanical gadgets. Don’t look so shocked! There is nothing to me below the neck. Nothing. It does not exist. I no longer even dream of it, not since coming back from the Center. Even if they give me one day a contrivance so I can walk, I will not feel it. Enjoying good food and drink is the only pleasure of the flesh I will ever know. I have my mind and nothing else, so I must use my mind. Now I have a great fortune, and the power to direct some of it to good.”
“And those are your fantasies?”
She nodded. “Somewhat. But there is also the opportunity to enjoy life as much as I can. Have a gang of servants to literally do everything for me, be my body. See the whole of the world and meet the important movers and shakers of it.”
“All this is true,” the nurse agreed. “Why do you hesitate?”
“Would you? In my circumstances?”
Sister Maria shrugged. “I don’t know. I could never conceive of it.”
“But that’s just the trouble! Neither can I! Even now. I feel like a very un-godlike Jesus who upon the mount in the wilderness was offered the entire world by Satan as an alternative to dying on the cross. I was headed towards becoming a bride of Christ and doing His work, aiding the sick and handicapped. Now I am offered the world, and I am a poor sinner and not the Son of God! Will God be better served by my giving it all away, refusing it, or by my taking it and influencing what I can. Who knows what cures are possible with enough money and drive behind it? And what poverty might be cured? And all this while letting those who know what they are doing continue to run the businesses as always!”
“I can pray with you,” said Sister Maria, “but I can not guide you.”
“All this is for some purpose, some grand design,” said the woman on the bed. “My disability prevents much corruption and forever reminds me through my dependency of my own small self. It gives—humility, and, perhaps, perspective.” She was suddenly wide awake and excited. “Fix me a cup of coffee, will you? I would like to get started in this.”
After the coffee, Sister Maria dressed Angelique once more and strapped her into the chair. They had three fully charged battery packs and a fourth charging, so there was almost no limit to her range. After, they went next door, and looked over Sir Robert’s tropical getaway.
It was a suite much like theirs, although appointed differently, giving it less the look and feel of a luxury hotel suite than of a millionaire’s rustic hunting lodge, complete with a bear rug on the floor and stuffed animal heads on the walls.
They found his desk, an old, roll-top affair of weathered oak, and the nun set up an easel in front of Angelique, who took an unsharpened pencil in her mouth. She could now read through a stack of papers placed on the easel and, using the eraser, slide one sheet over to read the next. It was quite an art and had taken a great deal of practice, but it worked.