“But the real kicker comes further on,” he told her. “It says—ah, here. ‘If any contest should succeed against my daughter and heir named above, said contestor should be warned that they will win nothing. Should such a contest be upheld through every available court and means, at that very moment Magellan will become worthless. Also, should my daughter die, by any means, natural or unnatural, within five years of assuming her inheritance free and clear, this will also be true. It will be automatic, absolute, and irrevocable. The means of this I keep to myself and take with me to whatever place I go, but I ask one question of anyone who does not believe this, and provide no answer: what would happen if every single data bank in the entire Magellan network suddenly erased itself?”
She shook her head in wonder. “But—what does it mean?”
“I think it means that he arranged, totally outside Magellan, for something to be built in, something that automatically would trigger such an erasure. The computers, all of them, even the big one here, would suddenly be blank again, all information lost.”
“And this would do what?”
“World panic, I should imagine. The banking and financial records alone would be nearly impossible to track down and claim, let alone use. The value of stock in all publicly held corporations either owned by, controlled by, or doing a lot of business with Magellan, would sink. Years of brilliant research would go down the drain. Some nations’ economies would collapse, while others would find things from routine imports and exports to defense simply falling apart.”
“Then they will duplicate and move this quickly, yes?”
“Well, because of the sheer volume and the computer’s dominance of international telecommunications it’d be damned near impossible. They will save some of the important stuff, the vital stuff, but hardly all. So, you see what he’s done? The international financial community and the governments of many nations will scramble, but also hedge their bets by devoting all their time and resources to getting you clear title to it all as quickly as possible. That’s why I say it will be months, not years, and why everyone is treating you so carefully.”
“If what you say is true they will drop troops to keep me safe and insulated, whether I wish it or not.”
“There’s little real danger of that, I think. You might think of drawing up your own will, too, to go into effect the moment the last probate hurdle is cleared. That will be your best guarantee.”
“I—I will think on it. Merci, Monsieur McGraw. You have been most kind.”
“I’ll not kid you, Miss. We make a ton of money off handling these sort of things, and we only keep accounts like this by doing the best possible job we can. Now—tell me, is there anything we can do for you directly?”
She thought a moment. Probably hundreds of things would come to her later, but now she forced herself to be practical and pragmatic. “First, make certain that my father’s houses and other property is safeguarded and catalogued for me, and that they are maintained.”
“Already being done.”
“Second—for now, it seems, this is the best place for me to stay. I will need attendants. Servants. Whatever they are called. I—”
At that moment, Sister Maria walked in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were all through,” she said apologetically.
“No, no! Come in!” Angelique called to her. “I would like to know your own plans, Sister. How long can you stay with me?”
“Why, as long as you wish. Dr. Byrne informed me just today that they had made arrangements with my order if you so desired. After all, I am one of the few people who knows and understands all this equipment.”
She felt much better. “Oh, yes—please stay on, but as my nurse, not my servant. I was just suggesting to Monsieur McGraw here that he arrange for servants for all the basics. This will leave you free to take care of medication, physical therapy, and equipment maintenance and leave other matters to others. One with your qualifications should not change diapers or clean up my messes.”
McGraw looked startled at the comment. It had never occurred to him that someone paralyzed as she was would have to be in diapers, since she wouldn’t even know when she eliminated. For the first time, he realized how demoralizing such a condition could be beyond the obvious, and it made him uncomfortable.
“Um, a few more matters,” he said a bit uncomfortably. “First, I’ll need a power of attorney from you to handle your affairs. Considering your condition, a fingerprint will suffice for the signature. There are also some other similar documents which I’ll leave for you to read. We’ll have to print every page and have it witnessed, but that should be no problem.”
“Very well. I can sign my name with a pen in my teeth if need be, you know.”
“Whatever you prefer. Servants will have to be arranged through the security people here, I’m afraid, since not everyone can be admitted onto the island. I’m sure there’ll be no problem, though. Mostly you’ll need on-call attendants working shifts—that’s three—a personal maid, I would think, for dressing and general cleaning and the like. The rest can be provided by the Institute staff. I assume you want all women?”
She blushed slightly. “Yes. I think I will be more comfortable that way.”
“All right, then. I won’t be going back until tomorrow evening, so I’ll leave these documents here for you to look over. Feel free to consult with anyone here at the Institute or call me if you don’t understand or like anything, and I’ll go over them before you sign in any event in the presence of witnesses.” He got up to leave, then stopped and turned back to her.
“Are you certain you wish to remain here? Something here, after all, did kill Sir Robert.”
“That is true,” she admitted, “and I have thought of it. But from what you have told me, they had far less reason to keep him alive, did they not? And any who could kill him here, with this amount of protection, could get me anywhere I went. What could I do? Run away? Fight?”
He shrugged. “It had to be said. All right, but be careful. Premeditation for gain is something I believe you are insulated against. But if it is insanity we are dealing with, or espionage, I wouldn’t count on Sir Robert’s protections. There are some unfriendly powers, some not that far from here, who might take great joy in the mess the collapse of Magellan might make.”
“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?”