BOOK 2: COMMUNITY / CH. 20:INTERNATIONAL RESCUE
MONDAY, 7TH AUGUST, EARLY MORNING
Karen had been right. It was a military transport. George was glad they weren't in the back with the soldiers on the benches but actually had some padding on their seats. Being ahead of the engines probably helped with the noise levels a bit too.
Karen was talking to her mother. “Didn't you want to wear the dress, Mummy?”
“Sarah's told you the history, all of it?”
“Yes, she passed me the document as she left, in case it'd make me change my mind. But...”
“It was a bit too high profile dear. We just had a few guests and I wore my prettiest white dress, but it wasn't a wedding dress. That dress, well it's high profile even without the history. In our line of work we didn't want to attract attention, did we? ”
“I guess not, no. But if you could have worn it, would you?”
“Oh yes. It's a gorgeous dress, and... How much have you told George? I don't want to spoil secrets.”
“I'm rotten at secrets, Mummy, you know that.”
“You can't be, not with that gift of yours, Karen.”
“OK, I'll rephrase that. I'm rotten about secrets I'm going to tell people about soon. George knows about the dress's history. Not about its design.”
“That sounds more like you. You always were impatient to talk. So, yes, the dress has its background history, and its unusual design reflects that, but it was a genuine wedding dress for a genuine love-inspired wedding and a lifelong marriage at that. You know that their marriage was part of the reason that the people chose a return to monarchy? They'd shown the world that high profile didn't need to mean corruption and scandal. I studied it at university. Real social change stuff. Sarah's mother hadn't known much about it at all.”
“So it was your writing on the note with the dress? I thought it looked familiar!”
“Oh, so that's how Sarah found out, from my old notes?”
“Yes.”
“I'm a bit confused,” George admitted. “I've never seen the film. What was the background? I think I remember learning that she married a millionaire who'd thought he was marrying into royalty, and then somehow he lost his fortune and she was instrumental in getting it back, but I don't remember any details at all.”
“Mummy? You're the expert.”
“If you've read my notes, Karen, you're the expert now. I've forgotten most of it.”
“OK, well, her mother was a bit of an exotic dancer and a bit of a con-artist, and managed to persuade a very rich old man that she was his long lost brother's child. Why they didn't do genetic tests I don't remember.”
“They did, basic ones, but she bribed the laboratory assistant to mix up the samples somehow. So her supposed DNA showed a partial match when it shouldn't have,” Maria supplied.
“So, therefore as his brother's supposed heir she got named in the old man's will, and when he died she married her long term associate. They then moved here. Her husband got killed by some muggers, but she claimed to her friends that it was because he had been heir to the throne of somewhere or other, in hiding, and that her one year old daughter was a princess. Mother bought her the excellent education she'd always wanted and the so called ‘Princess Sarah’ got treated as one by everyone. Met a millionaire, fell in love, married him, and then got told her life had been a pack of lies when they got back from the honeymoon. The film makes it sound like she only told him after a few months, but I think she only waited a while to get things straight in her own mind. Anyway, her husband stood by her. Husband's business venture then went badly wrong, and while they weren't totally penniless, they sold pretty much everything but the dress, which her mother had designed. She stood by him and wrote the best-selling book of her own story, made lots of money and put her husband's business back on its feet, and they lived happily in the full glare of publicity until they died, telling people about public duty and civic responsibility.”
“And their youngest son, having grown up in such a home, married a real princess and got elected as the first king of the restored monarchy soon afterwards, which of course is how a city got re-named Restoration.” Maria added.
“So you're related to the royal family?” George asked.
“His only sister is about six generations back, yes. It doesn't really count for much, George, but it is something people can be funny about sometimes. Hence, we don't share the story of the dress around,” Maria warned.
“Thank you for telling me, all the same.”
“You're welcome, George. Mummy, another issue entirely. If I do scan Ahmed.”
“Who's Ahmed?” Maria asked.
“Oh, my mistake. What's the guy from the tunnel called? I've been thinking of him as Ahmed for some reason.”
“He's called Yosuf, Karen. But if I remember correctly, he has a brother called Ahmed.”
“OK, so if I get the name of Yosuf's employer, what happens? Does that guy then get arrested and face torture too? I'm going to be hesitant to tell anyone's name if it'll get them tortured.”
“I understand that, Karen. I've not discussed this with the local authorities at all, obviously. But they're going to have to let him go if we don't press charges. We've said we'd rather that happen than let him be tortured. They replied that in that case their investigation ends, but we'd be permitted to see what we can find without a suspect to interview. They thought it was funny.”
“I was thinking about having a tribal leader there as witness that he didn't break any vows, and his wife to help him think thoughts of freedom, or to give him a motive to let me scan him. Would that be possible?”
“I'm sure, Karen. You'd go veiled?”
“Of course. And I'd talk to the wife first. Do you know which vow of silence he took? I presume he took one. I'd tell the wife that I'm a truth-sayer. And prove it if necessary.”
“I guess that it's true, isn't it? I don't know about the vow.”
“I'm more than that, Mummy. Uncle Roland's power would have classed him being a truth-sayer.”
“That's true. Everyone educated says they're a myth, but that's wrong, isn't it? Just arrogance on the part of educators claiming that there's no such thing. So, you'd speak to the wife, ask about the vow and tell her of your gift? Would she like her husband back?”
“Yes, that sort of thing.”
“And there's always the chance she says, ‘no, because he beats me’.”
“Not a big one though. But maybe we can get him to take a vow not to beat her.”
“OK. And the security guys?”
“Outside the room. I guess we'll brief them about what's going to happen. For decency's sake, George with me as befits my betrothed, and a male relative with her.”
“Your betrothed? Is there something you've not told me, Karen?”
“No, Mummy, but George does want to talk with Daddy, and I'm presuming it'll take a day or two to set all this up.”
This news, though not unexpected, brought tears to Maria's eyes. “Oh my little girl! You've gone and grown up, haven't you!”
“Yes, Mummy, I think I have, anyway.”
Conversation lapsed for a while, then Maria received a message on her wrist unit, looked annoyed and sent back a short message. When she'd finished, George asked, “So the local government have actually given our forces permission to investigate? That's caused wars before, hasn't it?”
“Yes, but they don't think we'll get anywhere. They have said they'll attach someone to us if we do want to interview anyone, so it's not like we've got carte-blanche.”
“Have they said who?”
“Yes, they just have. And it presents us with a slight problem.”
“Yes?”
“They've assigned the president's nephew. Not only is he not much of a policeman, according to reports, but he's also someone who would probably recognise Karen, even behind a veil. The one advantage is he's probably had your disclosure document on his desk.”
“Oh. And he'd be involved right from the start?” Karen asked. “I don't like him. There was something distinctly suspect about him.”
“When was this?”
“There was that banquet we got invited to last time I was home, remember? I got sat next to him and he was asking where I'd been, what I'd been studying, how many people lived in my house with me, not exactly personal stuff, but certainly if I'd answered all his questions it'd have sensitive information security-wise. It was odd. I had to tell him he was asking questions I couldn't answer several times.”
“Did you tell me at the time, dear?”
“I think so. I seem to remember you suggesting that I start firing questions at him in reply if he tried it again.”
“Oh yes, I remember.”
“But Mummy, I wonder, might it be possible that he has the power? In retrospect those questions he was asking seem like they could have been aimed at making me think of the answer.”
“I don't know how you'd tell, dear, until he gave it away. But it might fit some of the rumours I've heard about him. Similar to ones that were around Roland, now I think about it.”
“That's scary. They don't know each other, do they?” enquired George.
“I'll check,” Maria replied.
“And Mummy, it might be good to find out if he's been near our suspect or his family yet. I'm sure that he'll try to, if he does have the power and he thinks it'll be to his advantage.”
“Yes. You're right.”
“George, you and I'd better put our heads together,” Karen declared.
[Any ideas, George? How can we find out if he has the power?]
[Well, Enoch said that we could look for people who were trapped by looking at the skin of a city. We could look for people with the power wherever he is and see if it's him.]
[So, we think we could. Should we?]
[Let's spend some time in prayer.]
As they prayed, George lifted their concerns to God. They didn't want to abuse their gift, but nor did they want to start working with an evil man with the power. They also prayed for Yosuf and Ahmed and their family, who had been caught up in evil plans, but they were both sure were not the planners. George's thoughts on the matter became clear.
[You're suspicious, your mother is suspicious. I don't want to take risks. We should know the truth.]
[Well then, let us find his feet.] Karen focussed on Ibrahim, the president's nephew.
She found him in what she recognised as the presidential palace. It seemed big enough to just scan that for people with the power. George volunteered to do that. Not quite sure why, he first focussed on the peace. For some reason it seemed the right thing to do, maybe the similarity with checking on Roland. Thinking of people with the power, he focussed very briefly on the skin of the palace. He was unsure how long he should look. He saw two spots of light before he broke off. There was no heat. He looked a bit longer. One in the upper part of the building. A young woman, he saw she was cleaning. The other, in the same part of the building as Ibrahim. A man, younger than Ibrahim, perhaps thirty, fit looking. George withdrew. No heat. He returned to the mundane world, relieved. It didn't seem to be very heat inducing.]
[Karen. Do you know this man? {image}]
[That's not him. Oh, I think I recognise him though! Look at the skin of that room, please! And merge, so I get it too.]
Together they looked at the skin of the place. There was the younger man standing guard at the door, and sitting at the desk was Ibrahim.
[I was right,] Karen said. [That man with the power is his bodyguard.]
“Mummy. It's not the nephew with the power, it's his bodyguard.”
“Oh, how very handy. He doesn't even need to touch any victims himself.”
“Would the bodyguard be with him during the investigation?”
“I think that perhaps we could ask very firmly indeed that since we will be doing this investigation in a low key manner, no big scary bodyguards be involved, and if the observer feels that this is not acceptable then perhaps a lower ranking officer with no need of a bodyguard should be assigned instead.”
“So was the bodyguard near enough to you to read you during that banquet, Karen?”
“I'm not sure. Possibly. He did seem to be coming and going a lot. Shall we see what's in my memory?”
“If you're sure.”
“You can do that? Hunt through each other's memories?”
“Yes. Somehow doing it together helps a lot.”
“But you couldn't do it to someone else?”
“No, we need to cooperate. As near as we can work out, my brain will be dishing up the memories, and George's will be helping it to find them somehow. I guess this gift lets us get past the normal thing where you know you know something but need to think about something else before it comes to you.”
“Very handy indeed.”
“It can be. We'll possibly need to rest a while afterwards.”
“You mean you're going to be heating your brains?”
“The gift gives us access to lots of data, Mummy. Processing it needs lots of brain-cells working really hard. And that comes at a price.”
“I understand, I don't like it, but I understand. Just don't over do it dear, you don't have brain scanners down the corridor here.”
“We'll take care.” Karen reassured her.
“You'd better.”
They shut their eyes and their minds reached out to each other. Their thoughts were still individual, but they shared them. It was as though rather than being separate pools of water they'd opened a deep channel between them, so that a ripple in the right direction could pass from one to the other almost unhindered.
[Come, my belovèd George, let's see what we can see.]
[Are you trying to trigger feedback, my love? It shouldn't work here.]
[No, I'm not, why do you think I am?]
[Maybe ‘my belovèd’ is somewhere towards being to me what ‘precious’ is to you.]
[Oh dear. Come then, my George, swim in my thoughts!]
[Maybe it's just when you say ‘my’ about me.]
[Oh George! Should we just take Sarah's advice?]
[What, elope? How about we get your father's permission first?]
[OK. Does it count as eloping if we do that? I thought the whole point was marrying without permission?]
[Oh well, let's not be conventional, we could elope after we have permission.]
[{love} Sounds like a good idea.]
[And just to be really unconventional, let's tell people when and where we'll be getting married when we do elope. That way your parents can be there too.]
[Isn't this getting a bit close to a normal marriage, George?]
[No, it's a really unconventional elopement, Karen.]
[OK. So wedding dress? Invitees? Food?]
[How about we ask people to bring some food? You know, like at a CU lunch?]
[Pot-luck lunch? Why not! Honeymoon?]
[Certainly. Urm. Wedding preparation classes?]
[Yes. They're very useful according to Sarah.]
[Oh no! I've just thought of a big problem.]
[University term starts in under two months?]
[The trial. Can't elope and stay in a safe house.]
[Or be on crutches, not with that dress.]
[Then let's go swimming in your memories, my beloved.]
Karen brought the memory to the front of her mind and they explored it. It was good that emotions were muted. Karen was finding it hard to be detached, witnessing again the way that Ibrahim leered towards her and launched probing questions at her, mostly just as she'd just put some food in her mouth. George was tending towards anger. A side of him Karen hadn't seen before. [Let's seek peace, George! I've remembered enough!]
They felt the deep waters of the peace wash over them and take the edge of the memories away. There was some heat, but it wasn't bad. However, the memory had affected them deeply, and they both sensed the need to heal before they talked. [Karen? Memories change with time, don't they?] George thought.
[Yes. They can fade. Or become exaggerated, like my ball-gown.]
[I hope that one has too.]
[Thank you, George. Good thought. It can't have been that bad, surely?]
[I doubt it. Let's see if we can spot exaggerations. Could he really have been peering down the front of your dress all the time?]
[Probably not. Major breach of diplomatic etiquette to peer down the front of ambassador's daughter's dress. I'd have left.]
[So, you probably caught him looking a couple of times, but not all the time?]
[Agreed.]
[Now, what about the questions while you were eating. Is that real, or just rude?]
[It's incredibly rude, he must have done it at least once, but I expect it was twice. Once should been deeply embarrassing to him. I'd guess it wasn't, or if it was I saw no evidence of him being embarrassed.]
[OK, and his bodyguard kept pouring him drinks?]
[I guess so. It's odd, normally the waiters would. It's not anything offensive, just odd.] [And according to your memories the questions coincided with him being there.]
[Yes.]
[So, for whatever reason, he wants to find out where you live. You also felt like he was after your body. His questions paid no attention to your mouth, only to the closeness of the guy who we now know is a mind reader. Could he have been reading you?]
[The servants were barefoot. Probably him too.]
[And the chairs, was that really metal?]
[Gilded wood.]
[Wood plus electrical contact if he touched your chair with his toes, plus proximity?]
[Yes. He could have, couldn't he? This is scary, George.]
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
[Not as scary as the thought that he might meet you again.]
[Not if I can help it.]
[My feelings exactly.] “Maria, we've reviewed Karen's memory. It's been exaggerated over time, but we've tried to account for that. Have you anything to tell us, or shall we report?”
“Only that we've found out how my brother got out of jail earlier than expected.”
“Oh?”
“A large sum of money ended up in the bank account of the fiancée of a junior civil servant at the parole board. He marked the parole request as approved for immediate release on good behaviour grounds, rather than pass it to the board for consideration. The money paid for a nice house for the young couple to move into, plus their honeymoon.”
“What happens to them now?” George asked.
“Well, assuming they get found guilty, the maximum penalty would be: the house gets confiscated as a proceed of crime, he loses his public servant status and pension rights, and they both spend some time in jail. After that, neither of them ever work in a position of public trust again.”
“Wow. I knew penalties for corruption were tough, but, wow.”
“Oh, it's not just corruption, it also counts as interfering with the proper course of justice, and oath-breaking.”
“Oh. Surely they knew the risks?”
“I guess they really wanted that house, lied when they took their oaths, and thought they'd been too clever to be caught.”
“Oath-breaking? What oaths?” George queried.
“'Service to the people and crown of this country shall guide my every decision. Nothing I do in my service will be motivated by my personal benefit, or the benefit of my friends and family except as part of society as a whole. To this end I stake my life, my wealth and my future,'” Maria quoted.
“I must have learned about that at school, but I really don't remember.” George said.
“You should have, certainly.”
“So a civil servant really has committed themselves to serve.”
“Yes, and the sad thing in the parole guy's case is that in exchange for devotion to public duty, the servant has the right to be properly clothed and housed. If he'd gone through the right channels and said ‘my flat isn't really big enough for a married couple’ then they should have been offered two or three others to choose from. Something went badly wrong over there.”
“Is that something for your department too, Mummy?”
“No, but I'll be chatting to my counterpart. I wonder if someone's been messing with school civics education again, since George doesn't remember learning about the oath and this guy didn't even know about his rights. If so, then this could just be the tip of the ice-berg, and a generation will need educating.”
“Mummy,” Karen thought, “don't get worried by a sample of two. Check with the bored soldiers in the back of the plane too.”
“Good idea. They're going to be assigned to the embassy guard anyway.”
“Maybe George was sick or something when it was covered,” Karen continued.
“When it was covered? Are you saying that even you only covered this stuff once?”
“Should it have been more?” Karen asked.
“Every year, dear, every year, civics week.”
“Oh, we had that, there were trips to all sorts of places. Not many classes though,” George said.
“Oh dear. I think I see what's happened,” Maria sighed. “It was what I thought was my brother's one good idea as a member of parliament. I see I was taken in too.”
“What was it, Mummy?”
“Well, few teachers like teaching civics, or students learning it, so when, oh, 15 years ago, Roland proposed that visits to civic institutions be considered part of civics, it was passed overwhelmingly.”
“And now civics is equated with fun visits to places and we're starting to see the results,” George summarised.
“And either we keep going in this direction and society is back with everyone thinking that the civil service is just a job, like it was under the presidents, or some unpopular classes go back in the timetable.”
“I'd vote for the classes, myself,” Karen replied. “All those trips got boring too.”
“I'll go and confirm it with the squad in the back.”
“See if they know their rights too, and duties,” suggested Karen.
“A quiz, left side vs. right?” George suggested.
“Good idea. I'll talk to their C.O.”
“Mummy, if they're going to be on duty guarding me, I think it would make sense if we told them of my gift.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
----------------------------------------
“Right, boys and girls, you thought you were going to have a nice boring flight, doing nothing but counting each others' zits and watching the clouds go by, didn't you?” their C.O. said, in a jovial tone.
“No, sir! ‘enry's got a pack of cards, sir!” said a happy voice at the back.
“Sorry, Henry, we've got a special guest or three on board today, and not only that but they've come up with an idea to entertain you and see if the country's really going to the dogs or not. Cards away, lad.”
“Can't be going to the dogs, sir, at least, round our way, they sold up to the rats,” said the same joker as before.
Once the laughter had died down, the officer saluted Maria. “All yours, maam.”
“Thank you, captain, I'll try and get them back to you in one piece. Right you lot, you've been briefed. I know you've all been studying your notes really carefully because there's not exactly an in-flight cinema here, and you're going into an unstable nation. No calling out, hands up if you know the answer. Who am I?”
Almost everyone put their hands up. She picked on a woman roughly Karen's age, who didn't. “Your colleagues think they know. That's too easy. See if you can guess.”
“You're dressed like a civilian, maam, but you're on this flight, so I'd guess civil service, or maybe Security.”
“Good answer. You, next to her. What do the notes say?”
“You're the ambassador’s wife, maam.”
“Next, so why aren't I on a pretty little jet with a poodle?”
“Because you're not just the ambassadors wife, you're in civil service or Security too, maam?”
“Getting there. So, is there such a person as an ambassador's wife who isn't in the civil service?”
“Urm, don't think so, maam,” he answered red faced.
“Want to revise your answer then, lad?”
“You're Security too, maam?”
“That's right. So everyone, hands up. Why wouldn't I travel on a private jet?”
The woman who'd guessed first was almost the only one to put her hand up. “So we can keep you safe, Maam! You're travelling in your Security role and it'd be dangerous for you to travel by regular airline. None of our ambassadors use private jets, maam.”
“Did you learn that in school? And what's your name?”
“No, maam, from my Dad, maam. Jane, maam.”
“Your Dad has just won you a prize, Jane. I'll have to work out what with your captain, but failing anything else, you'll at least get an invitation to a banquet. Food's good, company's boring. Did anyone learn at school that our ambassadors don't use private jets?”
No one except the captain had. “You see what I mean, captain?”
“Yes, maam.”
“So, left hand bench vs right hand bench. Quiz time on what you should have learned in civics class. You may confer.
Question one. A civil servant is getting married, the lucky boy. He's been renting half a flat since before he joined the service and can't afford anything bigger. His fiancée is looking for a job but hasn't found one yet. What does he do?”
Jane was looking puzzled, “Why's he renting still, maam?”
“Your dad again, Jane?”
She nodded. “Yes, maam.”
“Your side has just lost you. Come up here and keep score.”
“Yes, maam!”
“So, one point to the side who knows why Jane is up here, another point if you can guess why she asked her question, and a third if you also know the answer to my question. You're answering all three questions at once, and if you get any of them wrong then the other side gets a point, so discuss it.”
There was lots of whispering. Eventually a hand went up, Henry's friend.
“Yes?”
“Because we should know this, and the country's actually going to the dogs except for people like Jane. We're guessing that she asked because he should have had housing provided like we do, and if that's right then he could have applied for married quarters.”
“Well done. Three points. Next question. If his fiancée got a job in a bank, she'd earn twenty five percent more than he does now, and thirty percent more than she would at starting salary if she joined the service. But she should still consider joining up. Why? Do you know, Jane?”
Jane nodded, with a grin.
A hand went up, hesitantly, on the other side of the plane. “Because if she doesn't need housing she gets a raise?”
“Half a point,” Maria decided. “Exact conditions and amount of raise please. What? No one? Captain?”
“I'm guessing it's the same as military rules. Married staff get housing plus full pay for the higher paid staff member, plus double the lower paid spouse's pay, as that is the maximum nominal value of the housing entitlement.”
“Well done, captain. Exactly right.”
“Maam, may I ask something?” Jane queried.
“Of course, Jane.”
“My dad couldn't remember, and I never looked it up. If someone in the military married a civil servant, would the same apply?”
“Yes.”
“'Scuse me, sir?” Henry asked from the back, while, noticed Maria, he was holding the hand of a pretty young woman soldier.
“Yes, Henry?” grinned the captain. “Are you two thinking of making a marriage request, finally?”
“Is it even possible on active duty, sir? I mean, sir, we'd been hoping to save up our pay for the wedding, but...”
“At the discretion of the local representative of the crown, following discussion with the base commander, one of you may be put onto reserve service, with appropriate loss of active service pay, in which case marriage is permitted in any field of duty,” he quoted from memory. That loss of pay would mostly cancel out the advantage of marrying, and Henry's face fell. If they wanted a big wedding then they'd need to wait. But from the previous years, Maria remembered there was a codicil and checked it quickly. “May I read a codicil to that, captain?”
“Of course, maam.”
“I quote: ‘When the active duty is not a war zone, and the representative of the crown and base commander consider that war or significant combat is unlikely, then the removal of one spouse from active duty is not required.’ And I'd like to add that unless something's changed very recently, that should apply. I'd also like to add that a wedding need not be a lavish expensive thing, mine certainly wasn't. So, if it's only the cost that's holding you back from married bliss, then maybe you should think about priorities. Oh, and it just so happens that I know where there's a pleasant ballroom freely available to assigned military personnel for such occasions.”
“Thank you, maam, thank you very much, maam,” Henry said grinning.
“Yes, thank you very much, maam,” said his fiancée.
“I'm going to call you children because you're no older than my little girl up front, and you should have learned this stuff years ago. Children, these are not gifts from me. You have taken an oath of service to the crown, and these are part of the duty that the crown has to you as its servants. You have sworn your oaths to uphold the crown, I have sworn a very similar oath, only without a time limit or quite so many press-ups involved. The crown takes duty very seriously. Your duty, my duty and the crown's duty are all intertwined. If a monarch even should fail in their duty to the country then they would be punished severely, so would you or I, but in return for that duty, that service, the crown (or the country if you prefer) has reciprocal duties. You need to eat, so your country feeds you. You cannot serve if you can't provide for your loved ones, so your country pays you. We're not doing a job, we're servants of our nation. We're not contractors, free to swap jobs every few months. We're servants and we go where we're sent. But we can't serve if we have no homes or our minds are full of worries. So your country houses you and if you've got problems we help solve them. You give a lot to your country, but your country offers a lot to you in exchange. I know it's a big decision to sign away your life like this, but you've made it, I've made it, and now we're part of the family that keep our nation great. I don't know what your family was like back home, but in this family we look after each other.”
Karen and George, who'd heard and come back to hear better, started clapping and the soldiers with rapt expressions joined in.
“You should be in recruitment, Mummy!” Karen shouted.
“Then who'd do my job, eh?” Maria asked, a little embarrassed.
“Pass.”
“Shall I introduce you, dear? And what you're going to be doing?”
“You do the who and why, I'll do the what, OK?”
“OK, dear. Now, soldiers, you do know about official secrets, don't you?”
They all nodded. “I've got high enough clearance to share some with you. But I'll remind you that what I say will not be passed on to anyone by you. Your commanding officer may ask, and do you know what to say? Henry?”
“I need to say, ‘Sorry, sir, I've been told it is an official secret and I must not divulge it, not even to you.’”
“Well done, Henry. Now, Jane, suppose my husband the ambassador asked you, ‘So how much did my wife actually tell you?’ What would you say to him?”
“She told me I'd be invited to a banquet, sir, but beyond that I'm afraid I'm not permitted to tell you without her authorisation.”
“At which point he might say, ‘We're married, for goodness' sake, she doesn't keep any secrets from me!’”
“I'd laugh and say, ‘Surely, sir, a woman must keep some secrets even from her husband?’”
“Very nicely done, good use of humour. As it happens, you are authorised to talk to my husband in this matter, since it is a secret that has become official mostly because of my daughter's involvement. In the next week or so, we hope that we can arrange it that my daughter will interview a number of local people. You're going to be on escort duty, and you'll hear her saying some strange things. I presume you've all had basic instruction in the local language, culture and legal system's peculiarities?”
“Yes, maam!”
“Good. A few weeks ago, we found someone digging us an extra cellar at the embassy. Wasn't that nice of them? They'd tunnelled under the road and were just making an extra room under the reception room when we found them. We don't know who they were working for or who gave them the specially modified drill they were using. All we know is that we caught one of them them red handed, and we'd really like to know who employed them, why, and so on. So would the local government of course, since while the idea of blowing up our embassy might appeal to certain lunatic elements, it would really hurt trade, not to mention their international standing. The local government are keen to use torture, since that way they get an answer, or at least a scapegoat. We'd rather drop charges against the guy than resort to torture, because we're not living in the dark ages or the barbaric world that was so popular in films before people realised what it was doing to their society. By the way, if you do find yourself wanting to torture anyone, we'll put you on medical leave and Karen knows some good people to talk it through with until you're better.
“So, there's a bit of a diplomatic stand off, the guy's in prison awaiting torture and his friends and family are saying let him go. We expect he's taken a vow of silence. This is Karen, my daughter, and she's going to tell you the part of the secret that's about as old as time, and why she thinks she can help.”
Karen stepped forward. “First, let me tell you that I expect you're not going to believe me. Then I'll prove what I say, and then, say, tomorrow you're not going to believe it, and if you like I'll prove it to you again. That's O.K. I didn't believe it either. We don't know, but we expect the digger took a vow of silence that says his employer's name won't pass his lips and he won't write it down either. That's the problem, now the solution is the bit you won't believe.
“A few days before the guy was found in the tunnel, I was down a tunnel myself, with a broken leg, no communication device or anything, and no prospect of rescue. I'd been sent down there by an A.I. with a maliciously corrupted database. It claimed it would cure me of being afraid of the dark. I'm not quite sure how I didn't get kidnapped, we presume that was the plan, but anyway I panicked, got lost and fell. By all rights I ought to be dead. I'm a Christian, though I certainly wasn't being sensible or saintly or I wouldn't have gone past ‘no trespassing’ signs or left my wrist unit at home. So, being in pain and realising what a stupid fool I'd been, I prayed for help, prayed someone would hear my cries for help. Someone did, a nice lady of fiftyish half the city away. She and some friends of hers managed to get a rescue party organised for me, and then told me about the new ability God had given me.”
“You can shout really loudly?” suggested Henry's neighbour.
“Half a city away? From underground?” Maria asked “Try harder!”
“They're not going to guess, Mummy. My friend heard my screams with her mind. She, and now I, can hear thoughts.”
“Surely that's too far...” Henry started to say then he turned bright red and shut his mouth tightly.
[We'll need to talk, Henry.] Karen thought to him, and focussed on his surface thoughts. His eyes opened wide in surprise.
[{shock} How? There's no contact between us.]
[The same way I got rescued, the same way I found the tunnel under the embassy. God's given me an extra gift, not just the human ability that you know.]
[Hi, Henry, I'm George. Karen and I share the gift. Does your fiancée know?]
[We share it.]
[Congratulations on finding each other!]
“I don't know how common the power of hearing thoughts and intentions is, but there will be a paper submitted to the science journal Nature about it in a few months' time. When you hear people gasping in shock at the thought of mind-readers then you can say you've met a couple and they weren't that scary. George here's another, just in case you're wondering. For almost all thought-hearers, physical touch — skin to skin, or skin-metal-skin — is required, which wouldn't have been enough to get me rescued. God gave me the scary version, which as far as we can find out is beyond scientific explanation.
“If I wanted to, I could read every thought going round your brain at a given moment. To do that my brain needs to shift into overdrive, which is part of the gift and dangerous. If I did it for more than a couple of seconds my brain would overheat and I'd be risking death. I'm not that interested in demonstrating that part of the gift God's given me, sorry. I've also signed up to an ethical code that says I'll honour people's mental privacy. I won't go nosing around in people's thoughts without permission, I won't share what I learn, even accidentally, without permission. There's two get-out clauses: if by what I learn I can stop a crime, I will, and if someone's in danger, then I don't need to get them to sign a release form before I pass on relevant information that'll save them. Any questions so far?”
“Assuming that this isn't a complicated security test or something, how does your ability help the guy on torture row if you won't divulge what you learn? That risk clause?”
“I'm hoping that he'll agree, I'm hoping his family members will give me permission to save him.”
“But if you don't then the locals will let him go?”
“I personally expect that unless he cooperates, on the way to being released he'll ‘accidentally trip,’ getting several very improbable bones broken in the process. Or a family member might go missing.”
“They'd do that?” Jane was shocked.
Maria responded, “The accusations have been made, the rumours abound. If we observed it happening in this case, something we're involved in, we'd report it to the UN human rights committee and probably end up cutting off diplomatic ties, just like if they torture him.”
“How are you going to convince us without breaking your ethics code?” asked another soldier.
“I'm going to come along and offer to shake your hand. If you shake my hand and think something to me, I'll tell you what you said. You sit on your hands, I don't read your mind. As I've said, most mind readers would need that touch. There are bad guy mind readers out there, so you might think about wearing gloves.”
“But if you were a bad guy mind reader, that wouldn't help much, would it?”
George spoke up, “The only people we've found with this God-given gift are committed Christians with high ethics. (Karen has good ethics too, when she's not just been conned by a rogue A.I.). The basic ability, we call it the power, is genetic, though it sometimes skips generations. I grew up with the power then God gave me the gift too.”
“Why?” Henry asked.
“Pardon?”
“Why all this? Why tell us this? Why disclose a secret that's been kept for a thousand years or more? Why tell the world now? Why did God give you the divine knowledge version? Why all sorts of things!” Henry expanded.
“We are aware of people with the power using it for evil. We are aware that if we tell people about this then their power over people will be limited. We believe that God has put us where He did in order for us to break the silence. We do not believe there will be witch hunts. The power is so easily blocked, after all,” Karen answered.
“And who is this we? You two and the lady who saved you?” asked his fiancée.
“No, the roughly fifty of us who have the gift, scattered around the world. The ones who are not limited by touch. The ones who will in some ways best fit the fears of of the fearful.”
“OK, convince us,” said Henry's neighbour, who Karen worked out was probably the unofficial spokesman for the group.
“Are you volunteering to go first?” asked their captain.
“Yes, Sir!” Then he looked at Karen. “So I just think something?”
“Yes, reciting a line from a poem, a song, a book to yourself is probably best.”
“OK. I can do that.”
Karen shook his hand and heard, [Bouncing is what tiggers do best.]
“Oooh, a classicist! ‘Bouncing is what tiggers do best.’”
Henry was next. Karen responded, “Henry asked, ‘What if they don't suffer witches to live?’ In answer to that, who can find the mind-reader? Even if there was a machine that could test people, a mind reader can choose to turn off their abilities for a while. It's a good defence against a bad-guy mind-reader.”
Henry's fiancée was next. [Hi, I'm Sam, can you tell me how to do that? Oh, don't report that please!]
“Hi, Sam, in answer to your question, of course!”
“You didn't say what Sam asked!” Jane pointed out.
“She didn't want me to.”
“So what were you answering?”
“Her question, of course. Now leave Sam some mental privacy, Jane!” chided the captain.
Karen thought they looked about the same size and said,
[Sam, if she badgers you about it, say you were asking if you could borrow a dress for your wedding. You may, if any fit you, and it'd be a good cover story!]
[Thanks, Karen!]
Karen answered their questions, repeated their messages, and confirmed her power to everyone until she came to the soldier next to Jane.
“You've claimed you don't need touch. You can prove that on me.”
“I would prefer not to. I don't see the reason to, other than to satisfy your curiosity,” Karen replied.
“Are you afraid to?” he challenged. “Afraid that you might boil your brains?”
“No,” Karen replied with quiet dignity. “I see simply no motive to treat a spiritual gift as if it were a party trick.”
“So if I don't believe you can, then you won't prove it to me?”
“No. I think you've lost sight of the purpose of this. I've shared this secret with you so that you are not dismayed or distracted when I talk about my gift to the suspect and his family. The intention is to avoid the surprise reducing your operational effectiveness. You may be sceptical if you wish, but you will not be surprised by my telling people. Thus you will be fully able to respond if there is some cause for you to.”
“Yes, maam, apologies, maam.”
“Accepted. Do you wish to feel what having your mind read is like?”
“Yes, maam.”
Karen shook his hand and reported, “You were thinking that I had soft hands but you couldn't feel anything else. That is correct. You cannot feel anything. You get no clue that someone is paying attention to your thoughts, any more than you'd know if there was a hidden microphone picking up your speech. If you happen to think about something and hold a piece of metal — iron works best, but even a piece of wet wood can do it sometimes, then a thought reader also in contact with it will have no real option but to hear your top thoughts — your self-talk, if you like, or the mental images you're thinking about. It's not that they're prying, but that even if you don't know it you're broadcasting. I, on the other hand can pry. I can decide to listen to someone as though I'm touching their skin, or shallower, where it's like looking at someone's face and judging their mood, or I can go a lot deeper. I just need a good reason to.”
“What are the range limits of this, Maam?” Sam asked.
“For surface thoughts, anywhere on the planet. I've never had reason to check further.”
The captain was shocked, “So you could eavesdrop on anyone in the world, just with a thought? That'd be so valuable!”
“This is a spiritual gift, captain, something that God has seen fit to entrust us with. We will not use it to help one side or another win military advantage, or to ensure a promise is being kept. However, if there is someone you honestly believe to be lost and injured then we will check on their well being.”
“Please, Maam, I heard yesterday, my big brother's missing in action,” one of the soldiers said.
“George, could you take this soldier and the captain forwards?” Maria asked.
“Of course,” George said, and lead the way. He dreaded the thought of telling the young man his brother was dead and prayed that he wouldn't have to. Once they'd gone forwards he asked “What's his name?”
“Bill, Sir, Bill Hodges.”
George focussed on Bill Hodges’s skin. He got a sort of blankness. Was he unconscious? He focussed on his feet. He was, in a bed there, in a hut there beside the river there on that island there in that part of the world there.
“He's alive, unconscious though, in a bed in a hut. I expect I can find it on a map, Captain. I'll just check to see if I can find out more.”
He focussed on the skin of the hut. There was Bill, in bed, and another man, sitting up in bed, a woman beside Bill, Sister Agatha, taking his pulse. A medical outpost. He focussed on her skin. She was concerned, praying that somehow she'd be able to get a message to someone downriver. No power after the floods of course, and there was no net out here after the rebels had blown up the tower. This man needed a proper hospital. If only she had a generator that worked for the radio. George decided he'd witnessed enough.
“He's being looked after by a nurse at some kind of bush clinic. She was hoping that she'd be able to send a message down river with someone, and thinking that the generator for the radio's packed up and there's no network after the tower was blown up by rebels. She thought that he needs a proper hospital.”
“You got all that from her mind?” the captain asked, amazed.
“She ‘just happened’ to be praying.”
“OK, soldier? Looks like your brother's in the best care available where he is, but we'll obviously need to get a message to his unit.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“Next question is how we'd convince his base to believe us.”
“I'd ask Maria, sir, I have a feeling that she might know how to handle it.”
“Oh, that's easy!” Maria smiled once she'd been asked. “I'll just forward the information as though it came from a field operative. No generator, you say? I think that'd be appropriate thanks.”
----------------------------------------
The young man who'd tried to take the message downstream came back saddened. This tributary was OK, but after the recent rains there'd been so much extra water in the main channel that his canoe had been over-turned twice in the first hundred metres. Maybe tomorrow he'd be able to take the message. Sister Agatha was just telling him to try please, when the helicopter came over the hill. It settled down and two soldiers in UN uniforms got out. With a lot of straining, they got a box out of the helicopter too. “I hope we're in the right place. You're Sister Agatha?”
The stunned nun said that yes, she was.
“We got a message that you needed a new generator and were looking after an injured soldier.”
“That's true, both those things are true. Bill Hodges his tags say, some people found him in the river and brought him to me. He's drifting in and out of consciousness, which is better than he was. But glory be to God! My messenger has just come back saying he couldn't get down the river!”
“Well, I don't know how we're here then. But if you've got Bill Hodges and are called Sister Agatha, and need this generator, then someone heard about you.”
“It's a miracle!”
“I don't know about that. We got a little message from the tight lipped people in our Security service that Bill was here and you could do with a generator and a decent comms set-up. So we'll leave you this box, and be on our way with Bill. We'll just get the stretcher then if you'll lead the way, Maam?”
“Of course, of course.”
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As the helicopter flew away with her semi-conscious patient, Sister Agatha looked at the crate. There was a computer typed note attached to it. She read, “Dear Sister Agatha, in a few months there'll be a paper in a science journal that causes a big sensation, and another in a theological journal from the same authors. Then you will understand how. But the Glory is always God's. Your friend in Christ, M. P.S. I hope you can make the radio work. They tell me it's very easy, but then they like things with wires all over the place.”
She looked in the box. There was a generator, not so different from the old one she'd had. Then there was a grey tube, which had clamps that she guessed went on a pole, a small satellite dish, a big metal box, and praise be to God what looked like an instruction book. It was entitled “Installing the Self-configuring Remote Location Network Node Model 35G.” It didn't look much like a radio. But if network node meant that her wrist unit could connect to the net, then she was going to be a very happy woman indeed. Among other things she wanted to share the news of the miracle with the others in her order.
M.'s suspicion was right. Very easy was a relative term, but her other patient was an electrician, so he helped her get it going. He was delighted. His wrist unit could access the net too. He thought that perhaps the local villagers would be very happy to provide sister Agatha with fuel to keep the generator running several hours a day if she didn't mind them sharing her wonderful box. Of course she didn't.
The efficient little generator didn't need much fuel to keep the wonderful box going, they found. So Sister Agatha was able to stay in much better contact with friends and family than she had been for years. It was a wonderful gift.