by Roger Carter
Nineteen
Dawn visited Eden again the next morning and went straight to Donna’s quarters. Donna was sitting at her table cutting up a scroll of blank parchment into rectangular pieces almost ten centimetres wide. She had a quill pen and a bottle of red ink that she’d picked up in a craft shop in town, and she was writing large numbers on the pieces and placing them in neat piles. There was a pile of pieces numbered ‘10’, another pile of 20s, and a third of 50s.
Mystified, Dawn stood watching for a few moments. “It’s money,” Donna explained. “I’m making money.”
Dawn stared at her, totally bemused. “Money? But this is Eden. Everything’s free!”
“It’s not for buying things, Silly! I’m making a Monopoly set. I want to play Monopoly with Jonah. You can join us if you like.”
One might have thought that Donna could have persuaded the Mind to conjure up a Monopoly set out of thin air. The Mind knew all about Monopoly, for it had access to both Donna’s memory and Dawn’s, and it would have had no difficulty at all in creating a quality product with tiny houses made of wood instead of cheap plastic and a golden goblet for throwing dice as well as dollar bills that were practically indistinguishable from the real thing.
Unfortunately things weren’t that easy. The Mind would have needed some pretty forceful persuading to create something like that, for it knew perfectly well that Monopoly was unknown in Elizabethan England. Donna would have had to spend several hours on her knees in prayer and fasting before the altar in the temple, and even then the Mind might not have acquiesced, especially if it had doubts about the morality of the game. It had picked up from Dawn some quite rigid views on things like gambling with dice. Quite apart from that, Donna liked making things for herself.
“Monopoly? You want to play Monopoly?” Dawn was staggered that a dolphin could be interested in such a game. “But it’s all about capitalism and greed and bankrupting everyone.”
“That’s what’s so good about it! I totally wiped out Mort yesterday – I had hotels everywhere, and all the stations as well. It’s ever so educational, you learn about buying houses and collecting rent and getting out of jail and managing your money…”
“I know perfectly well what it’s about. Look, I’m not interested in Monopoly, I want to know what you discovered about Angela’s spirit invader. Was there any sign of him when you arrived in Angela’s body. Did you check what Baby recorded?”
Donna continued cutting out her banknotes. “I think I should write the numbers on the parchment before I cut them out,” she murmured to herself. Then she caught Dawn’s eye and added hurriedly: “No, there was no sign of him, and yes, I did check Baby. Somehow he’d managed to scramble the recording.”
“Scramble the recording? You mean he tampered with Baby?”
“I don’t know what he did. According to the time-stamp on the recording his visit lasted about 20 minutes, and all that Baby picked up during that time was a whole load of interference. It was like someone had shone a bright light into her lens, blinding her. The screen showed nothing but white noise for the whole time.”
“How weird! Perhaps she’s not working properly.”
“I checked, and she’s fine. She recorded my arrival perfectly.”
Dawn was silent for a moment, digesting this information. “How on earth do you think he managed to dazzle her?”
“It probably wasn’t deliberate,” Donna murmured as she methodically continued working on her money. “You’ve kept Baby a secret, so he shouldn’t know anything about her.”
“Let’s hope not. Look, can’t you stop making banknotes for a moment and concentrate? I want to know what’s been happening in Adelaide.”
“I told you. I beat Mort at Monopoly.”
“That was yesterday,” Dawn growled. “What about today? Today’s half over in Adelaide. What happened this morning?”
Donna laughed and stood up. “I’ll make you some fish tea. It soothes the nerves, and fish is good for the brain too. That’s why dolphins are so bright.”
Dawn sighed. “You’re being very difficult, Donna. I don’t know what’s got into you recently. Yes I do – it’s being able to boss those nurses around, it’s gone to your head. Now sit down and answer my question: WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING?”
Donna sat down hastily. “Everything’s great, absolutely great. I’m doing so well that the hospital told Mort I can go home. He’s even taken a week off work so he can look after me. He picked me up at 10 o’clock in his car – it’s really flash, almost as flash as my James Bond car – and we drove to his house. It’s a great big place, much bigger than yours, with a swimming pool and everything, and I’ve got a huge bedroom with pink curtains. The kitchen’s great too, ‘cos he likes cooking, and I told him that I really, really wanted to learn to cook. He looked ever so pleased when I said that, and he promised I can start this afternoon.”
“He’s going to teach you how to cook?” Dawn asked faintly.
“Isn’t it great? That’s something I could never do as a dolphin. The only way I’d be able to could cook fish in the sea would be to dive down to those thermal vents, and they’re right in the middle of the ocean and much too deep.”
“I wish we’d never got caught up in this Angela business,” Dawn muttered despairingly. “Things are getting impossible. We’re going to have to abandon her body pretty soon and let her die. Mort will be heartbroken, and you’re going to be even more difficult than you are now, but we’ve got no choice.”
“Her spirit’s out there somewhere,” Donna retorted, “So we’re bound to find her eventually. Perhaps next time that COBRA man invades her we’ll be able to catch him, and then we’ll be able to make him talk. I’ll hold him down while you burn off his fingers and toes, one at time. You’re good at that sort of thing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And then there’s that guy from SETI I told you about. He’s coming to see me tonight. Perhaps he’ll come up with something.”
Dawn looked at her thoughtfully. “I’d forgotten about him. He might well be able to help. In fact that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.”
“That’s not fair! I’ve said lots of very sensible things to Mort. If fact we talked about religion in the car, and you can’t get more sensible than that. He seems to think I’m an expert on religion, what with me being a guardian angel and raising Angela from the dead and everything.”
“This gets worse by the minute,” Dawn muttered wearily. “I hate to think what you told him.”
“I told him the truth. I said that Paradise is rubbish for playing board games and watching television, ‘cos its really low-tech and there aren’t any of those things, but I pointed out that it’s great if you don’t have any money ‘cos there isn’t any of that either. I said that’s why rich people like him aren’t always welcome and why poor people get on really well.”
“Well, I guess that more or less sums up the 4,000 years of accumulated wisdom on the subject.”
“The trouble is, after I said that he started talking about selling his house and giving everything away so that we can live a life of simple poverty.”
“That would seem to be the logical thing to do.”
“I told him not to. I said his first priority was Angela – that’s me, of course – and she needs a pool ‘cos she has to do lots of swimming to tone up her body. She also needs plenty of rest, so a nice bedroom with a good bed is essential.”
“And then there are all those board games she has to play and television she needs to watch and cars she needs to go out in.”
“That’s what I told him. Angela’s been cut off from the world for four years, I said, so she’ll need all the help she can get.”
“And help costs money, of course. Lots of it.”
“Exactly. So I assured him that it would quite in order for him to hold on to his loot, provided he keeps up his church attendance and puts something in the collection box each week. I told him I definitely want to
go to church on Sunday.”
“At least that won’t cost him anything.”
“Well, that’s not entirely true. Angela will need some new clothes as she’s been in all the papers and loads of people will want to shake her hand and everything. She also needs some new shoes and plenty of makeup, of course. But after that initial outlay it should work out pretty cheap.”
Dawn closed her eyes and contemplated the growing mess in Adelaide. It was nice that Donna and Mort Lane got on so well together, but this was getting completely out of hand. Yesterday it was board games, today it was cooking, and tomorrow no doubt would see them touring the shops and Mort buying her presents and clothes and all the while she would be giggling and making him laugh, and probably in the evening they would go to the theatre – it didn’t bear thinking about. If that SETI man came up with nothing this evening she would insist that Donna abandoned Angela’s body to its fate.
“I think I’ll join you in Adelaide tonight, when your visitor comes. I want to talk to him myself.”
“You want me to get Mort to pick you up at the airport?”
“I can’t join you physically, the journey takes too long. I’ll come in spirit. I’ll share Angela’s body with you.”
“Oh. I see. You won’t come till this evening, will you?”
Dawn eyed her suspiciously. “Why? What’s going on this afternoon?”
“Cooking, of course. You know how hopeless you are at that. You’ll ruin everything.”
Dawn smiled. “OK, the afternoon’s yours. What time is this SETI man coming?”
“His name’s Paul. Dr Paul Gibson. He lives in Adelaide, apparently. He’s coming at 6.30 – Mort’s invited him to dinner.”
“You’re going to cook dinner?”
“Mort is. He likes cooking. I’m going to watch and do some peeling, and he said I can make the sauce."
“Wow. OK, you’ll feel my presence in Angela’s brain around six. I promise I won’t interfere with your cooking, though I might need to take control of Angela’s body later, to question this Paul.”
Donna nodded. “I understand. You’ll want to ask him about telescopes and space and stuff like that.”
“That’s right. If he doesn’t come up with anything…”
“I know.” Donna stood up abruptly and turned away. “It’s quits for Angela.”
“I’m sorry, Donna, I really am. But we’ve got no choice.”
“I’ll make that tea.” Donna went over to the kettle, steaming gently on the hob. “You’ll have some, won’t you?” she called over her shoulder.
“I’d love a cup, my darling.” Dawn didn’t have the heart to refuse as Donna was so clearly upset.
“By the way,” she asked, changing the subject, “Who was that girl on your balcony yesterday, watching the show?”
Donna glanced back at her in surprise. “I didn’t know you could see the audience during your show.”
“I’m sort of aware of everything. If I’d had the time, I could have found out about her from the Mind.”
“Really? She’s Clara, my new assistant.”
“I don’t recall the name.”
Donna poured the boiling water into the teapot and stirred it several times. The fishy aroma had a calming effect. “She’s worked on farms and in castles up till now. She’s never seen any of your shows, and she thought it was brilliant. She couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards.”
“That’s very gratifying. I’m surprised that she’s not managed to get to any of my shows, though.”
“Clara’s ever so shy. I don’t think she’s been around much. But she’s great around the temple, the best helper I’ve had.”
“Interesting. I’d like to meet her sometime. You don’t know who her human mentor is, I suppose?”
“I’ve never asked. We don’t talk much about humans here. Except about you, of course.”
Donna poured out the tea and took a sip from her own cup. In spite of her sadness, she couldn’t resist teasing Dawn a little. “You ought to do a show about you and Rick, you know. Everyone would attend that. You would have to include all the spicy bits, of course, like how you made love on the beach the first time and had to roll under that bush. It would go down a treat…”
Dawn let Donna prattle on, relieved that she seemed to have come to terms with the near-inevitability of having to abandon Angela. Her mind drifted to what Donna had told her about that spirit visitor interfering with Baby’s vision, so that all she saw was wall-to-wall whiteness. Something very peculiar was going on, and she was tempted to share her fears that perhaps the Mind was being corrupted by some outside influence. Unfortunately the Mind was aware of everything that was said here, and even of Donna’s thoughts, so she would have to keep her suspicions to herself.
Many hours later Dawn found herself hovering above Mort’s house in Adelaide. It was 6 pm local time, which was when she’d said she’d arrive. She’d had no difficulty locating the house, as Donna had had the sense to memorise the address, and she’d passed this on to Dawn, and she’d also told her that Mort’s car, which was large and metallic gold, would be parked in the drive. Dawn’s satnav had depositing her just a few hundred metres away, and she’d quickly spotted the car.
Once inside the house, Dawn found the kitchen almost immediately, and there was Angela, helping Mort with his cooking. Without more ado she flew straight into Angela’s head, and moments later she found herself in the cathedral of her mind. The last time she’d been here, when Angela’s body was in a coma, it had been a dark, mournful place. Now, with Donna in charge, the stained-glass window was alight with colour as her eyes flicked this way and that, the smell of cooking was everywhere, and she could hear Mort laughing about something that Donna had just said.
Dawn ignored all these sensations. She was on a mission to try to save Angela’s spirit, and she went directly to the room at the end of the cathedral nave with the open door, the one she’d visited before which held Angela’s memories of space. It was a remote hope, but perhaps Angela’s most recent memories might yield some clue as to her whereabouts.
Dawn wandered slowly around the darkened room, taking in the images that bombarded her mind. As before, they consisted entirely of faint splodges of light against a black background – Angela’s view of the stars. There were no sharp, clearly-defined points of light which would have signalled the arrival of invaders travelling through neurospace, though Dawn had not been expecting that. What she was hoping for was another glimpse of the telescope mechanism or anything else that might help her identify Angela’s hiding place.
Suddenly a blinding white light burst upon her vision. Startled, she jumped back, and blackness returned. She moved her head cautiously forward again to sample the memory, and again her vision was filled with a brilliant whiteness. Very slowly she moved her head sideways, first in one direction and then another, and as her vision adjusted to the brightness she realised that there were shapes and patches of colour mixed in with the white, and that these were moving. She continued twisting her head, very slowly, peering into the intense light in an attempt to make some sense of the imagery. There was some kind of structure or building, and people moving around it, but it was all too glaringly bright and the people were too small and distant to tell what was happening.
There was something vaguely familiar about the structure, though. She held her head steady, so that the imagery stopped moving, and tried to distinguish its white outline from the rest of the whiteness. It was like a castle, with a tall tower. Suddenly she recognised it. This was Sleeping Beauty’s castle!
Unable to believe her eyes, Dawn moved her head a little this way and that. Each small movement changed the dazzling imagery, and it was difficult to make out the details, but she was certain it was all from yesterday’s Passion play. Her fairy-tale enactment had somehow found its way into Angela’s mind!
Her enactment must also have found its way into Baby’s mind, Dawn suddenly realised. The white interference that Donna
had reported was no invading spirit scrambling Baby’s perceptions, instead it was an immensely powerful burst of telepathy broadcast by the Mind!
Dawn withdrew her head from the brightness and tried to think through the implications of this astonishing discovery. Her initial feeling was of relief, because her fears that the COBRA leader might have a dolphin spy or some other link to the Mind were clearly groundless. Then she wondered what had prompted the mind to broadcast her Passion play. Probably it wasn’t deliberate, she decided. Something like this was bound to happen when the most awesome mental force on the planet was empowered with her almighty fire.
But how had Angela managed to pick up this telepathy? She could understand that Baby would, for that ability had been built into her, but not a human mind like Angela’s. Even the inhabitants of Eden, who were dolphins in real life, hadn’t detected it – or if they had, it had been completely masked by the excitement of watching the performance taking place before their eyes. It must have something to do with the fact that Angela was cut off from her body and had been marooned in neurospace for four long years. Devoid of all normal sensory input, her mind must somehow have developed this ability, just as the dolphins had.
Dawn was about to retreat from the room containing this part of Angela’s memories when the full implications of what she had discovered here suddenly hit home. That intensely powerful burst of telepathy, which had practically blinded both Baby and Angela, must have travelled far out into space. There was evidence that telepathy travelled many times faster than the speed of light, possibly as much as ten thousand times faster, and the telepathy from her earliest Passion plays must by now have reached deep into the galaxy. For 20 minutes or so on the first Sunday of each month, the earth would shine like a supernova in neurospace, attracting the attention of telepathic intelligences on other worlds!
So what would those intelligences make of the imagery of her extraordinary fairy-tale Passion plays? They would probably find it incomprehensible. Certainly they would be intrigued, and maybe some of them had replied with telepathic broadcasts of their own. If so, the Watchers’ claims should be taken very seriously indeed.
Dawn’s mind was awhirl as she stood staring at the hazy splodges of light bombarding her in the darkness of this part of Angela’s memories. Those were stars, some of which were surrounded by planets, and on a few of those planets intelligent life had evolved. And now those alien intelligences were on their way to Earth, drawn here by her Passion plays!
