Gentry Lee - 01 - Bright Messengers

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BRIGHT
MESSENGERS
BY.
GENTRY LEE
A Novel Set In The Rama Universe
To Stacey,
My wife and best friend.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank all those people who offered me support and encouragement during the
writing of this novel, especially my wife, Stacey, and my editor, Jennifer Hershey, both of whom listened
patiently to me on hundreds of occasions. I would also like to thank Stacey and my seven sons— Cooper,
Austin, Robert, Patrick, Michael, Travis, and Hunter—for filling my life with love, joy, and richness,
thereby making it easier for me to find the self-discipline necessary to immerse myself in the world of my
imagination.
Jennifer Hershey has played a major role in shaping this novel. Her outstanding insights have
undoubtedly improved the quality of the book. Also, her unwavering belief in Bright Messengers has
helped me over more than one tough hurdle.
Thanks also go to Janis Dworkis, an enthusiastic friend whose comments on drafts of the novel
were very much appreciated, and to Arlene Jacobs, with whom I discussed some of the medical issues
associated with the birth of Mana.
My final thanks go to my mentor and friend, Arthur C. Clarke, whose generosity made it possible
for me to begin a writing career rather late in my life.
INTRODUCTION
When I finished reading Bright Messengers, I felt like an aviation instructor who had just sent a
pupil up into the sky on his first solo flight, and then watched, openmouthed, as he performed a series of
dazzling aerobatics. Congratulations, Gentry: I find it hard to believe that it’s less than a decade since we
started exploring space together.
Could it really only be eigbt years ago that my agent, the late Scott Meredith, insisted that I meet
Gentry Lee? With a full roster of projects, I was hardly eager to be introduced to a new potential
collaborator. But then Scott began reeling off credentials: Gentry worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
and he was the chief engineer on Project Galileo. Before that, he was director of science analysis and
mission planning for the Mars Viking landers. Because he was so passionate to educate the public about
what was going on in space, he formed a television production company with Carl Sagan, and the result
was Cosmos.
This was a man I had to meet. Gentry boarded a plane for Sri Lanka, and the rest is history. The
fruits of our collaboration are the three sequels to Rendezvous with Rama:Rama II, The Garden of Rama,
and Rama Revealed.
During the writing of the final volume, Rama Revealed, published in 1994, Gentry created so
many fascinating characters and situations that it became clear that we had a whole new universe on our
hands that begged further exploration. But I had neither the time nor the energy to help Gentry explore it.
So I was more than happy to say “It’s all yours.” Herewith the result, which I assure you is 99.999 percent
Gentry. (I was able to pick a few minor nits.)
Even those unfamiliar with the Rama Quartet can fully enjoy Bright Messengers, though reading
the earlier books will certainly give an added dimension. Perhaps Gentry’s most remarkable feat has been
to achieve what Somerset Maugham once said was the hardest task in literature—creating a person who is
almost wholly good. He has even succeeded in making so devout an agnostic as myself slightly more
tolerant of such unalloyed sanctity.
And I hope you will be as anxious as I am to discover what happens in the next volume, Double
Full Moon Night.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Colombo, Sri Lanka
October 20, 1994
THE GREAT CHAOS
chapter 1
The barely audible sound of the watch alarm woke Beatrice instantly. She rose in the predawn
dark, slipping quietly Out of her sleeping bag on the cot in the back corner of the large tent. Beatrice
exhaled, saw her breath in the cold air, and shivered slightly. She rubbed her hands together and pressed
them against the soft cotton of the long underwear that doubled as her pajamas.
Beatrice reached under the cot and retrieved the blue robe of her order, as well as the blue
headpiece with the small white stripe. A brush and a hairpin were wrapped inside the folded robe. After
pulling the brush through her long blond hair several times, Beatrice wrapped her hair in a bun and pinned
it tightly against her head. She finished dressing in less than a minute and tiptoed past her sleeping
colleagues.
Once outside, Sister Beatrice walked quickly toward the Outdoor chapel forty meters away, at the
far end of the small island. Across the water was Hyde Park and the large tent city operated by Beatrice and
the other priests and priest esses of the Order of St. Michael. The little island in the Serpentine was their
private haven.
Beatrice knelt to pray in front of a crucifix and a smaller, wooden carving of a young man being
consumed by a great fire both behind and above him. “Dear God,” she said as she did each morning, “help
me today to do Thy work, to share with others Thy unconditional and everlasting love. In the name of St.
Michael, who gave us the insight to understand Thy plan.”
She crossed herself and moved a few meters to the right of the chapel. On a patch of worn grass Sister
Beatrice sat down in the lotus position. In front of her, in the distance, she could see some light reflecting
off the tops of a few of the buildings of the city of London. Her breathing became deep and regular. She
closed her eyes. As her meditation began Beatrice had a momentary vision of snow piled high in front of
her childhood home in Minnesota.
At 0440 the tiny watch alarm sounded again, reminding Sister Beatrice that it was time to end her
meditation. She stood up, stretched, and pressed one of the many buttons that encircled her computer
watch. Her schedule for the day, February 22, 2141, appeared on the face of the watch. George Birthington
‘s washday, she thought with a smile, recalling a humorous junior-high-school incident. She scanned her
activities for the next seventeen hours. There was a meeting with London city officials on the Kensington
Gardens expansion at 0830, a fund-raiser at 1400 in Esher, a talk at the Wimbledon training site before
dinner.
Beatrice noticed the blinking light in the lower right corner of the display. It indicated that she had
received a Priority B message during the night. At least it wasn ‘t Priority A, she said to herself,
remembering two weeks previous when she had been awakened at midnight to deal with a woman resident
who had tried to kill her husband.
Beatrice activated the message display on her watch. The Priority B was terse. “Physical conflict
between two young men, one Pakistani and one Irish, the Dell sector, 2225 last night. Both injured, one
seriously. Hearing scheduled 1100. Sister Beatrice presiding.”
I hope this wasn ‘t another racial incident, Beatrice thought with a sigh. She walked across the pontoon
bridge that connected the Serpentine to the rest of the park. She wondered why suffering never seemed to
increase people’s tolerance, as she thought it should. Beatrice remembered one of St. Michael’s sermons
about fear and prejudice. “Being afraid brings out our worst instincts,” he had said. “It’s then we should
remind ourselves that we’re little better than the monkeys, not little lower than the angels.”
Each morning, after her meditation, Sister Beatrice walked briskly around the fenced domain in Hyde
Park that now housed seven thousand homeless people. The tent community in the center of London had
first been established in a small portion of the park almost two years previously. Granting a religious order
the right to operate such a community had been an act of desperation by the city. By the late winter of
2139, London, like many of the great cities of the world, had become completely overwhelmed by the con-
sequences of the worldwide depression known as the Great Chaos. Thousands of homeless and unemployed
were wandering the streets, creating social instability, spreading communicable diseases, and wreaking
havoc on what remained of the economic structure. The cost of providing food, clothing, and shelter to
these multitudes was beyond the capability of a city whose tax base had been severely reduced by the
economic crisis.
At that time the Order of St. Michael of Siena, a splinter Catholic sect loosely connected .with the
church in Rome, whose adherents followed the tenets of the young prophet martyred in late June of 2138,
approached the officials of London with a proposal to manage a community for the homeless at virtually no
cost to the city. All that the Michaelites asked was that the city provide a reasonable location and protection
from the bureaucratic inertia of local government. At first the city had laughed at the plan. Eventually,
however, under pressure from the city’s economic leaders to do something about the alarming number of
peopie loitering on the streets every day and night, the officials reluctantly permitted the Michaeiites to
establish a small, tent city in the center of Hyde Park.
What was initially viewed by the city as both a daring and dangerous experiment was successful
beyond everyone’s expectations. The sect members, whose ordination vows pledged their lives to the
service of their fellow humans, demonstrated both an unbounded energy and an uncommon sense of
commitment. After some initial difficulties, the community became organized and produced outstanding
results. Not only were many of the formerly homeless fed, clothed, sheltered, and kept off the streets of
London, but also the positive attitude of the Michaelites, all working without any pay, fostered a spirit of
hope in the homeless city that helped to dispel the miasma of desperation.
In the early months of the endeavor the Michaelites created an on-site employment agency to find
work for the residents. Although at first most of the positions were menial and temporary, the jobs restored
the self-esteem of many of the individuals living in Hyde Park. The employment agency soon expanded its
efforts, cajoling nearby retailers into offering full-time positions to those residents with outstanding
temporary work portfolios.
Sister Beatrice had been one of the half-dozen wide-eyed Michaelites who had had the temerity to
propose the tent community to the city of London two years earlier. She had subsequently thrown all her
energies into its organization, development, and management. It had been Beatrice who had originally
suggested the idea for the Children’s Sector, as well as many of the other innovations that had been
instrumental in the tent city’s success. When money had been needed for facilities and expansion, Beatrice
had spearheaded the effort to obtain revenue by organizing support groups among the women of the
London metropolitan
Now, in the cold darkness of the February morning, as she took her daily walk around the perimeter of
the tent community, the twenty-four-year-old, blue-eyed Beatrice was acutely aware of the challenges still
facing their endeavor. At a knoll on Buck Hill Walk, which bisected the Children’s Sector on the western
side of the park, Beatrice stopped and looked across an array of a dozen large tents that stretched across a
broad field next to the water. We have over a thousand children on the waiting list, Beatrice reminded
herself, and nowhere to put them. Most of them are still wandering the streets, sleeping on cardboard in the
cold. She gazed across the pond into Kensington Gardens. Sister Beatrice could clearly envision the
alterations necessary to change the region into the new Children’s Village. All we need is the space, she
thought.
When she reached the northeast corner of Hyde Park, near Marble Arch, Beatrice bounded down a
long set of steps into a lighted area below the surface. Before this part of the park had been turned over to
the Michaelites, what was now their community infirmary had been an underground parking garage.
“Good morning, Sister Beatrice,” a~ doctor in a blue robe said as she walked into the reception room
of the facility. He glanced at his watch. “Right on time, as always,” he said with a smile.
“How’s it going, Brother Bryan?” Beatrice said.
“Not too bad,” he replied. “We had a quiet night after the fracas.”
He handed her two sheets of computer output. “The Pakistani youth is in stable condition,” he said.
“The knife cut deeply into his intestines. We transferred him to London Hospital after we stopped the
bleeding.”
“And the other man?” Beatrice asked.
“Nothing serious,” Brother Bryan replied. “The usual lacerations and contusions.” He laughed at his
own medical jargon. “Cuts and bruises,” he said. “We kept him overnight for observation.”
Sister Beatrice read the two sheets quickly before looking again at the doctor. “No new cases of
tuberculosis?” she asked.
“Nope,” Brother Bryan replied. “That’s nine days in a row. . . . We’re keeping our fingers crossed. It
looks as if that intensive screening you ordered is finally paying off.”
At the cost of discharging over a hundred and fifty residents, Beatrice recalled grimly. Most of whom
had not yet shown any overt symptoms of the disease.
“The epidemic in the city shows no sign of abatement,” Beatrice now said. “We talked with the
London Medical Council again just two days ago. This particular stmin is resistant to all the normal
medications. The damp and cold only make it worse. We must continue to quarantine all the new residents
until their test results are complete and certified.”
Beatrice said good-bye to the doctor and walked down a long hallway toward the children’s ward. She
opened the door quietly. The large room was dark. A dozen beds were on either side of the central aisle.
Beatrice smiled when she heard the girl’s voice call her soffiy in the dark. “You’re awake early again
today, Elise,” she said, taking the nine-year-old’s hand.
The little girl smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you. Sister Beatrice,” she said. “There’s something I want
to ask you.”
“What is it?” Beatrice said.
“Are you sure that my face will be okay after the chicken pox goes away?”
“Of course, Elise,” Beatrice said. “I had a terrible case of chicken pox when I was five. I had sores all
over my face.
• . .
Now look,” she said. She shone the small flashlight from her pocket directly on her face.
“All right,” Elise said eventually, “I guess I’ll believe you.” She reached up and gave Sister Beatrice a
hug.
“One more thing,” the girl asked a moment later as Beatrice started to leave. “Will you be singing at
vespers tonight?”
“Yes,” Beatrice answered after a moment’s thought.
“Darn,” Elise said, shaking her head. “I won’t get to hear you, then. They aren’t letting me out of here
until tomorrow.”
After leaving the infirmary, Sister Beatrice walked in a southeasterly direction, along the fence beside
Broad Walk. On the other side of the tall fence, in the area of the park nearest to Mayfair, some early risers
were exercising on the path known as Lovers’ Walk. It was one of the few sections of the park still open to
all residents of London.
When she reached Serpentine Road, Beatrice checked her watch and began to walk more quickly. She
entered a small fog bank that was hanging close to the ground. Beatrice loved the way the eerie, quiet
whiteness of the early-morning fog transformed Hyde Park into an alien place, where trees and statues
loomed and disappeared, like ghosts, as she moved along the path.
Ahead of her, on the right, hugging the lower branches of a large tree, Sister Beatrice noticed a strange
geometrical pattern in the fog. From a distance, this ring of light looked like a giant doughnut. Its empty
center hole was the size of a large person.
Curious, Beatrice slowed her pace, her eyes remaining glued to the peculiar pattern. When she drew
closer, and one of the park lights was directly behind the large tree, each of the two thick concentric rings
of the doughnut of light be-came clearly visible. The rings consisted of thousands of remarkable tiny white
particles, like droplets, each of which appeared to be sparkling with its own light as it danced slowly about
within the confines of the inner and outer rings.
So what can this be? the puzzled Beatrice thought. The unusual bright torus in the fog began to drift in her
direction. She took two steps off the pathway, toward the particles dancing and shimmering in the morning
fog. The motion of the ring of light abruptly ceased, and for a few moments hung suspended in the air in
front of her. Beatrice, temporarily mesmerized by the dancing particles inside the pattern, gathered her
courage and stepped closer. Instantly there was a burst of light so bright that she was forced to close her
eyes for a fraction of a second.
When Sister Beatrice reopened her eyes, the fog around her was completely normal. She
could see no bright patches, and nothing that even remotely resembled a doughnut of sparkling, dancing
particles. In her mind’s eye Beatrice could still picture the instant she had closed her eyes. It had seemed as
if each of the thousands of individual particles in the strange torus had suddenly exploded with light.
Sister Beatrice cast a sweeping glance around the park. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. After a
few seconds she resumed her brisk walk toward the pontoon bridge that led to the Michaelite living
quarters. Long before she reached the large bathhouse that was adjacent to their sleeping tent, Beatrice
was already wondering if perhaps her active imagination had, by itself, conjured up the bright pattern
in the fog.
chapter 2
“Every night, just before I go to from the next shower stall, “I tell myself that I am going to set
my alarm and make the early walk with you. I know it would be healthy for me. But the same thing always
happens. I snuggle into my warm bag and think about how cold and dark it will be at four-forty in the
morning.
“Don’t worry about it,” Beatrice said above the sound
of the running water. “As I’ve told you many times since we
started working together, you really aren’t expected to accompany me until after six o’clock. And
given your nature, even that represents considerable sacrifice.”
“It sure as hell does,” Vivien replied, stepping out of her stall and grabbing a pair of towels from
the stack. She dried her short hair vigorously. The two women were temporarily alone in the bathhouse.
“You know,” Vivien said a few seconds later, “in my old life there were times when I didn’t even go to bed
until after six in the morning. . . . At least not to sleep.”
“Don’t remind me,” Sister Beatrice said, accepting with thanks the towel Vivien extended to her.
She smiled warmly at her assistant. “Sometimes I find it incomprehensible that you ever decided to join our
order.”
Sister Vivien laughed. “To me, it’s still absolutely mind-boggling. Each morning, when I put on my
blue robe and that funny little headpiece, I ask myself, ‘Is this really me? Or some other person, not
connected in any way to the Victoria Edgeworth raised at Woodrich Manor in Essex?’”
Vivien walked over to the only mirror in the bathroom, just outside the shower area. Beatrice was still
drying her hair with the towel when her reflection appeared in the mirror beside Vivien’s. Beatrice’s pale
white body contrasted sharply with the rich copper tone of Vivien’s skin. “Hey,” Vivien said teasingly,
“you look great. If you ever tire of this religious crap, you could do fine.”
Sister Beatrice blushed slightly and moved away from the mirror. She was about to say something to
Vivien about the bright formation in the fog when the outside door opened and two other Michaelite
priestesses came into the bathroom. Beatrice decided to wait for another opportunity.
Vivien picked up a clean pair of long underwear from the bin marked MEDIUM, and a fresh blue robe
from an adjacent bin. “I hope I didn’t offend you, B,” Vivien said as she rejoined her friend. “Sometimes I
just can’t stand being so damn reverent all the time.”
“You’re not expected to be perfect,” Beatrice said, pulling her own clean robe over her head. She
turned and looked seriously at Vivien. “But you are expected to remember who and what you are . . . and to
set an example for others.”
“Uh-oh,” Sister Vivien replied, trying to defuse the reproach with humor. “I guess being a priestess of
the Order of St. Michael means I can no longer admire the natural beauty of God’s creations.”
Despite herself, Beatrice smiled and shook her head. “Sometimes, my friend, you are incorrigible.”
“Then you’ve forgiven me?” Vivien asked. Without waiting for a reply, she skipped back over to the
mirror to adjust her headpiece. “I wonder,” she said out loud, “how my Jamaican mother would wear this
hat. The last time I saw her, at Christmas, she said that the robe was fine, but that the hat would have to go.
The two women walked together across the pontoon bridge into the main park. They were headed for the
tent city headquarters located in what had formerly been a police station before the park was turned over to
the Michaelites.
“There was a brawl last night over by the Dell,” Beatrice said, her mind now completely focused on
her duties for the day. “I’m in charge of the hearing, which is set for eleven o’clock this morning m
going to stop by the imaging lab now. Why don’t you check with Brother Timothy and make sure my
presentation for the Kensington Gardens expansion has been properly prepared. . . . I’ll meet you at breakfast
in fifteen minutes.”
Sister Beatrice approached a drab building set back off the pathway. She pulled a tiny, square
identification card from its pocket on the back of her computer watch and inserted it into the reader just
above the doorknob. The door opened and she entered a large room filled with computers, video monitors,
and other electronic equipment. Sister Melissa greeted her and led Beatrice to a small viewing booth.
“Portions of the incident took place within the view of cameras number 407 and 408,” Melissa said.
“I’ve queued up the edited sequence for you. . . . Brother Thomas, from security, has studied it carefully and
will narrate.”
An older man, with a Scottish accent, joined Beatrice in the booth. “The first pictures,” he said, pointing at
the video monitor, “were taken at 2205. At that time Mr. Bhutto was sitting beside the waterfall at the Dell,
talking to Miss Macmillan. You can see the two of them on the screen now. Bhutto is twenty-three and
lives in Family Tent B- 19 south of the Reservoir. He has been a model resident for six months, with an
exceptional volunteer record and some solid Work credits. Macmillan, twenty-one, occupies a cot in Tent
F-6, restricted to maiden ladies, just north of the Bandstand. She is a recent arrival.”
Although there was no audio track, Sister Beatrice could tell from the body language of the two young
people that their conversation was friendly. The couple did not touch in the initial segment; however, a few
of Miss Macmillan’s gestures and expressions were definitely flirtatious.
“There was no significant change in their behavior,” Brother Thomas said, “until ten minutes later,
when they began to kiss.”
The images for the second segment were fuzzy and indistinct. Nevertheless, once she was accustomed
to the poorer quality of the picture, Beatrice had no difficulty following the action. When Mr. Bhutto
leaned over and tentatively brushed his lips against Miss Macmillan’s, the young lady reached up, put her
right hand behind Mr. Bhutto’s head, and pulled him toward her. They were kissing passionately when the
videotape ended.
“One of the imaging components was failing,” Sister Melissa explained. “By the time of the next
segment, the system had automatically switched to the backup element.”
The images that now appeared on the screen were indeed much sharper. The segment, which began
three minutes later, showed the couple first kissing while standing up, and then walking into a secluded
area a few meters away from the waterfall. When the segment was completed, the final frame was left
frozen on the video monitor.
“This will be our last good picture of Mr. Bhutto and Miss Macmillan together,” Brother Thomas said.
“By the time the camera scans this particular region again, they will be mostly out of sight, over behind that
group of trees. -
Is there anything that you would like to see again?”
“No, not yet,” Beatrice answered. “Please continue.”
“The sequence will now switch to the other camera. We will see Mr. Malone and his friends, who are
just beyond the grove north of the Dell. The time is six minutes later.
By the way, Sister Melissa has searched the complete video database with Malone’s identification number
and has found two additional segments, both last week, that show him conversing briefly with Miss
Macmillan m the cafeteria. In the interests of time, we have not included those segments in this edited
sequence.”
A burly Irish youth, wearing a jacket as red as his cheeks, could be seen on the monitor. He was
approaching the pool of water below the waterfall along a wooded pathway. Malone and his two
companions, one on either side, were laughing heartily.
“The light in that area is not good,” Brother Thomas’s narration continued, “so we have enhanced
these frames considerably. . . . Notice the dark object sticking out of the pocket of Malone’s trousers. That is
the handle of the knife that will later be used as a weapon in the fight between the two men.”
The monitor was momentarily blank. “Allan Malone is nineteen, originally from Londonderry,”
Brother Thomas said. “He was arrested once as a juvenile for assault. He and his mother and two younger
sisters live in one of the new family tents along Rotten Row, just north of the football pitch.”
There was a cough beside her. Beatrice glanced over at Brother Thomas. From his red eyes she
guessed that the man had been up all night preparing for this briefing. “Now watch what happens when
Malone first sees Bhutto and Macmillan,” he said.
As the three young men rounded a corner in the path, their attention was drawn to a scene off to their
left. The cocky smile on Malone’s face quickly vanished. A moment later his features tightened and his
eyes narrowed. Then, again, the screen went blank.
“Unfortunately,” Brother Thomas said, “we do not have any more video until a minute and twenty
seconds later.
• Because so much is happening, Sister Melissa has prepared the entire final segment in slow motion.”
On the left side of the video picture, Bhutto and Malone were engaged in a furious fistfight. The Irishman’s
two companions were standing nearby, shouting encouragement to their friend. On the right, a disheveled
Miss Macmillan, her skirt and blouse awry, was hastily slipping on her coat. When she was mostly dressed,
she ran out of the picture.
The fight continued for another thirty seconds. Each man swung often and wildly, hitting his adversary
only occasionally. Neither man had a definite advantage. After Bhutto landed a solid punch on Malone’s
left temple, the Irish youth pulled the knife out of his pocket and slashed at his opponent’s stomach.
The camera recorded the burst of blood from the wound. Mr. Bhutto grabbed his stomach, now
swimming in red, and collapsed on the ground. Allan Malone and his two friends hesitated a moment, then
turned and ran away.
When the video sequence was finished, Sister Beatrice sat silently in the booth for several seconds. “Is
there anything else you need?” Sister Melissa asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Beatrice replied, taking the videocube Melissa extended to her. “You both have
done your usual thorough job. Thanks very much.”
She stood up to leave with a heavy heart. While making a quick mental list of everything she still
needed to do before the hearing, Beatrice wondered if it would ever be possible for human beings to live
with one another in harmony. Not for a moment did she think again about the unusual experience she had
had during her walk in the predawn fog.
Even though it was not yet six-thirty, a queue had already developed in the cafeteria. Because of the cold
weather, the residents waited inside, standing in winding ranks like those found in large amusement parks.
The blue-robed Michaelites had their own separate line, which was much shorter, but the two lines merged
at the entrance to the huge food service area.
Vivien handed Beatrice a tray when they entered the serving line. A large black woman was
immediately behind Vivien. She and her two sons, both teenagers, were joking with each other as they
made their juice selections. “You see,” the woman said to her older boy in a lilting West Indies accent
several seconds later, “you can be black and be one of the Michael folks. Look at this lady.”
Sister Vivien turned on cue and smiled. The older boy stared at her with some surprise. “You’re even
pretty,” he said abruptly. “Why would you want to be some kind of nun?”
The woman lightly cuffed her son. -Vivien’s eyes sparkled as she tossed her head sideways in her
characteristic manner. “Young man,” she said with a flourish, “it is a great honor for me to serve God and
all of mankind.”
The boy looked embarrassed. “Umm, umm,” the black woman now said, changing the subject, “look
at all the breads.”
Spread out on a rectangular table across from them, each variety carefully marked and explained, were
eight different kinds of bread. Bread was the primary element of all the meals in the tent city. The wheat
from which it was made was raised in the bioengineering greenhouses in Kent that were managed by the
order. Each kind of wheat was genetically engineered to provide specific amounts of critical vitamins and
bulk fiber.
Two young Michaelites, a man and a woman, were on the other side of the table, slicing new loaves of
bread and helping to serve the residents. The black woman and her two Sons hesitated in front of the
profusion of choices.
“You’re new here?” Sister Vivien inquired of the black woman after she and her family had filled their
plates.
“Yes,” the woman answered. “We were staying in an abandoned warehouse, down by the river, when
the notices Went out last week about the openings. . . . We’d been on the waiting list for almost two months
and I was just about ready to give up. It’s a shame you had to discharge all those sick folks, but it surely
was lucky for us.”
Beatrice leaned forward and looked down the line at the Woman. “How long did your processing
take?” she asked.
“Better part of three days,” the woman replied. “The boys ached and moaned about being cooped up in
those two tents down beside the water, but I told them it would be worth it... . When the docs finally told us
that we had been cleared to become residents, I let out a whoop of joy.”
The final serving area, after the juices, the breads, and the somewhat meager selection of fresh fruits
and vegetables, contained all the cereals, both hot and cold. Pitchers of coffee and tea were always set on
the long wooden tables where everyone ate. Beatrice took a bowl of boiled rice, into which she blended a
mixture of exotic spices. Vivien eventually chose some oatmeal.
“What I would really like this morning,” she said quietly to Beatrice, “are a couple of boiled eggs and
a piece of sausage.”
“Eating meat is not necessary for your health,” Sister Beatrice lectured, “and represents an inefficient
allocation of global resources. Twelve hundred people can be fed with the amount of grain necessary to
sustain and fatten a pig that can only feed one hundred.”
“But sausage tastes so good. . . .“ Vivien said, her voice trailing off as Beatrice’s stern eyes met hers.
Beatrice sat down and began to eat her breakfast in great gulps. Vivien, meanwhile, poured herself a
cup of coffee and watched her companion. “What’s the matter, B?” she asked after a few seconds. “You
seem tense and preoccupied. . .
“The presentation needs more work before the meeting,” Beatrice said grumpily. “We only have an
hour to fix it. Then we have that damn hearing at 1100, so your personal training will be interrupted again.
Brother Hugo only assigned the hearing to me because he hates making unpopular decisions. . . . This
afternoon I must suck up to all those rich ladies in Esher. . . . There’s never enough time to do everything. . .
The touch of Vivien’s hand on hers stopped Beatrice. “Hey,” Vivien said. “Lighten up. Aren’t you the
one who told me that we can’t really do God’s work unless we’re free from stress?”
Beatrice stopped chewing and looked at her friend. “I guess I am pushing too hard again,” she said.
“This morning, near the end of my walk, I even had a hallucination. For a moment I thought—”
Sister Beatrice interrupted herself, took a deep breath, and counted slowly to ten. “Thanks, Vivien,” she
said, squeezing the hands wrapped around hers in the middle of the table.
chapter 3
Half an hour after breakfast, Sister Vivien slid her identification card into the reader, retrieved it a
moment later, and joined Beatrice in the kiosk beside the entrance gate on Exhibition Road. Brother Martin
handed them their cards and returned the small presentation cylinder to Beatrice.
The two women, wearing blue shawls over their shoulders, passed through the security area on the
Serpentine Bridge. As they were walking Beatrice slipped the cylinder into one of the pockets of her robe.
“I thought you sent the revised presentation over by televideo,” Vivien commented.
“I did,” Bea~ce said. “This is my backup—in case anything went wrong.”
They passed a line of cold, mostly bedraggled people waiting to apply for admission to the tent city.
Several Michaelites were scattered up and down the line, talking to the people and giving them
encouragement. Sister Beatrice stopped briefly to discuss something with one of the priests.
A few minutes later Beatrice and Vivien crossed Ken-
sington Road into Knightsbridge. A shivering beggar boy, no more than ten years old, approached them on
the sidewalk with both his hands outstretched. Beatrice bent down to his level. “What’s your name?” she
asked softly.
“Wills,” the boy answered at length.
“That’s a lovely name,” Sister Beatrice said. “Now, Wills, if you’ll come with us down the road a
little, to that café on the corner of Prince Consort Road, we’ll see to it that you have some breakfast. But we
have no money to give you."
The lad looked nervously around him. “Just a little spare change, mum, if you please?” he said.
Beatrice shook her head firmly, patted the boy on the head, and proceeded down the sidewalk. “It
infuriates me the way some people use their children,” she said to Vivien. “I bet that boy’s father or mother
or some other adult relative is lurking in an alcove nearby. . . . The boy won’t get to keep anything he
manages to scrounge. . . . Just another reminder of why our Children’s Village is so important.”
They turned left before they reached the Victoria and Albert Museum and walked past a row of
apartments. “To Let” and “Drastically Reduced” signs were everywhere. There was very little traffic.
On Brompton Road there were a few cars. It was light now, but the heavy overcast gave a gray tinge to
the morning. Half of the stores and shops along the street were empty, victims of the relentless economic
depression. In some of the entrances to the abandoned shops, street people had built elaborate cardboard
homes. Shopping carts and large trash bags containing their belongings leaned against the empty shop
windows.
“We have seven thousand people in Hyde Park,” Beatrice said to Vivien. “Another ten thousand are housed
in shelters scattered around the city. But the Times estimates the total num~ of homeless in London alone is
more than a hundred and twenty thousand. And the number continues to grow—”
“Where are we going?” Vivien asked suddenly when Beatrice turned right onto Beauchamp Place.
“To the new administration building on Walton Street,” Sister Beatrice answered. “The meeting was
moved there because of the press attendance—” Beatrice stopped. Vivien was no longer beside her.
Vivien was standing several meters behind Beatrice. “This is too weird,” she said, shaking her head.
Vivien crossed herself and looked up at the heavy clouds above her. “Are you doing this, God,” she asked,
“to help me make my decision? Or is the wily Sister Beatrice responsible for returning me to the scene of
my crimes?”
Beatrice looked at her assistant with a furrowed brow. ‘‘It was just over a year ago that we met for the
first time,’’ Vivien reminded her, “not fifty meters from this spot.
One of my johns was walking me back to the escort bureau. You and Brother Madison were on your knees
on this very sidewalk, wrapping blankets around some poor unfortunate wino who had passed out and was
freezing to death.”
“That was here?” Beatrice asked, glancing around her. ‘‘I don’t seem to remember the exact place.
“We crossed the street to avoid you,” Vivien continued, becoming more animated. “I pulled my mink
jacket closer around my shoulders. My john, one of those heartless Arabs with lots of money but no other
redeeming virtues, actually laughed out loud when the wino slipped out of your arms and fell back to the
sidewalk. . . . I watched you bend down and strain to pick the man up again. For just an instant our eyes met. . .
. I’ll never forget it. I remember feeling absolutely worthless.”
Beatrice retraced her steps to stand beside her friend. “I cried that night when I returned to my fancy
apartment in Mayfair,” Vivien said reflectively. “I didn’t know why I was crying, but I couldn’t stop.” She
shook her head. “It was almost four months later when I approached you after your speech at the
Marlborough School.”
“I’m glad you did,” Beatrice said after a short silence.
The two women hugged in the middle of the sidewalk, turning the heads of the passersby. “Come on,”
Beatrice then said. “We have a presentation to make.”
“You were terrific,” Vivien said as soon as Beatrice and she had reached Beauchainp Place on their return
to Hyde Park. “I can’t believe how well you handled everything, including the press. You never cease to
amaze me.”
“Thanks, Vivien,” Sister Beatrice said. “I thought it went very well. But I’m upset with myself for
being curt with Ms. Shields near the end of the meeting. That was totally unnecessary.”
“But she deserved it,” Vivien protested, nearly running to keep up with Beatrice. “The woman’s a
摘要：

[scannedatMyhouse01-03-04ver1.0][TryTextaloud-mp3toturnanybookintoanaudiobookitissocool-www.nextup.com]BRIGHTMESSENGERSBY.GENTRYLEEANovelSetInTheRamaUniverseToStacey,Mywifeandbestfriend.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSIwouldliketothankallthosepeoplewhoofferedmesupportandencouragementduringthewritingofthisnovel,espe...

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