Why did Nicole keep watching for so long? Why didn’t she just switch off the controls and leave the room? Later she would ask herself the same questions. Nicole concluded, when she thought about it later, that after the first few hours of watching she began, at least subconsciously, to search for the existence of some signs of hope in Katie’s life. It was not in her nature to accept without argument that her daughter was fundamentally corrupt. Nicole longed desperately to see something in the videos that would suggest to her that Katie’s future might be different.
Nicole eventually found two elements in Katie’s unhappy life that Nicole somehow convinced herself were signs that her daughter might someday break out of her self-destructive pattern. During Katie’s terrible bouts of depression, which occurred most often when her supply of drugs was low, Katie would often fly into a frenzy, smashing everything she could find in her apartment. Except for her framed photographs of Richard and Patrick. Toward the end of these frenetic tantrums, when her energy was exhausted, Katie would always take those two pictures off her dresser and lay them gently on her bed. She would then lie beside the photographs and sob for twenty to thirty minutes. To Nicole, this recurrent behavior indicated that Katie still retained some love for her family.
The other hopeful element, in Nicole’s mind, was Franz Bauer, the police captain who was Katie’s regular consort. Nicole did not pretend to understand their bizarre relationship-one night the pair would have a terrible, obscene fight, and the next Franz would read Katie the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke as a prelude to several hours of endless, energetic sex-but she thought she could tell from the videos both that Franz loved Katie in his own strange way and that he did not approve of her drug addiction. During one of their fights, in fact, Franz picked up Katie’s drug supply and threatened to flush it down the toilet. Katie went completely berserk and attacked Franz wildly with a hairbrush.
Hour after hour, Nicole continued to watch in an attempt to comprehend her daughter’s tragic life. As the long day progressed and Nicole scanned through the earlier videos, some as early as the first days of Katie’s drug addiction, Nicole discovered that Katie had even had a sordid affair with Nakamura himself and that the New Eden tyrant had regularly provided Katie with drugs during the time they were sexual partners.
By this time Nicole was numb. She was also so emotionally drained that she did not have the strength to move. When Nicole finally switched off the controls, she put her head down on the desk, cried for a few more minutes, and then fell asleep. Archie woke her four hours later and told her it was time to return home.
It was dark. The transport had been parked at the plaza for ten minutes, but Nicole had still not disembarked. Archie was standing beside her.
“There is no way that I can tell Richard about what I have seen today,” she said, glancing up at the octospider. “He will be absolutely destroyed.”
“I understand,” Archie said sympathetically. “Now you see why I suggested that you not watch the videos.”
“You were right,” Nicole said, slowly releasing her grasp on the vertical bar and resignedly extending one leg out of the car, “but it’s too late now. I can’t erase the horrible pictures that are in my mind.”
“You told me earlier,” Archie said as soon as they were outside the transport, “that it was obvious from me videos that Patrick had known something about the life Katie was leading before his escape. He elected not to tell you and Richard the worst details. Is it a violation of your personal principles to do something similar?”
“Thanks, Archie,” Nicole said, patting the octospider on the shoulder and almost smiling, “for reading my mind. You’re beginning to know us too well.”
“We have a difficult time with truth in our society also,” Archie commented. “One of our fundamental guidelines for new optimizers is to tell the truth at all times. It is acceptable to withhold information, the policy says, but not to pass falsehoods. The youngest optimizers are very zealous about telling the truth, without regard for the consequences. Sometimes truth and compassion are not compatible.”
“I agree with you, my wise alien friend,” Nicole said with a heavy sigh. “And now, after what I can definitely say was one of the worst days of my life, I face not one, but two very difficult tasks. I must tell Max that he will not be able to leave the Emerald City, and I must inform my husband, Richard, that his favorite daughter is a dope addict and a manager of whores. I hope that somewhere in this old and exhausted human is the strength necessary to handle those two duties properly.”
10
Richard was asleep when b, Nicole arrived at home. She was thankful that she did not need to explain anything right away. Nicole slipped into her nightgown and climbed gently into bed. But she could not fall asleep. Her mind kept jumping back and forth between the horrible images she had seen during the day and thoughts about what she was going to tell Richard and the others.
In her twilight state Nicole suddenly saw herself sitting in the bleachers in Rouen beside her father, in the square where Joan of Arc had been burned to death eight hundred years earlier. Nicole was a teenager again, as she had been when her father had actually taken her to Rouen to see the conclusion of the Joan of Arc pageant. The oxcart carrying Joan was coming into the square and the people were shouting.
“Daddy,” the teenage Nicole said, yelling to be heard above the din, “what can I do to help Katie?”
Her father had not heard the question. His attention was completely focused on the Maid of Orleans, or rather the French girl who was playing Joan. Nicole watched as the girt, who had the same clear and piercing eyes attributed to Joan, was tied to the stake. The girl began to pray softly as one of the bishops read her death sentence.
“What about Katie?” Nicole said again. There was no response. The audience around her in the bleachers gasped as the piles of wood surrounding Joan were set on fire. Nicole stood up with the crowd as the flames spread quickly around the base of the huge wooden stake. She could clearly hear the prayers of St. Joan, invoking the blessing of Jesus.
The flames moved closer to the girl. Nicole looked at the face of the teenager who had changed history and a cold shudder ran down her back. “Katie,” she screamed. “No! No!”
Nicole tried desperately to find some way out of the bleachers, but she was blocked on all sides. There was no way she could save her burning daughter. “Katie! Katie!” Nicole screamed again, flailing wildly at the people around her.
She felt arms around her chest. It took a few seconds for Nicole to realize that she had been dreaming. Richard was staring at her with alarm. Before Nicole could speak, Ellie walked into the bedroom in her robe.
“Are you all right. Mother?” she asked. “I was up checking on Nikki and I heard you scream Katie’s name.”
Nicole glanced first at Robert, then at Ellie. She closed her eyes. She could still see Katie’s anguished face, contorted in pain, just above the flames. Nicole opened her eyes again and looked at her husband and daughter. “Katie is very unhappy,” she said, and then she burst into tears.
Nicole could not be consoled. Each time she would start to tell Richard and Ellie the details about what she had seen, she would start crying again. “I feel so frustrated, so helpless,” Nicole said when she could finally control herself. “Katie is in dire straits and there is absolutely nothing any of us can do to help her.”
Summarizing Katie’s life without omitting anything except some of the more kinky sexual escapades, Nicole abandoned her tentative plan to soften her report. Both Richard and Ellie were stunned and saddened by the news.
“I don’t know how you managed to sit there and watch for all those hours,” Richard said at one point. “I would have been out of there in a few minutes.”
“Katie’s so lost, so utterly lost,” said Ellie, shaking her head. A few minutes later little Nikki wandered into the bedroom looking for her mother. Ellie embraced Nicole and took Nikki back to their room.
“I’m sorry I was so distraught, Richard,” Nicole said a few minutes later, just before they went back to sleep.
“It’s understandable,” Richard said. “The day must have been absolutely horrible.”
Nicole wiped her eyes for the umpteenth time. “I can only remember one other time in my life when I cried like this,” she said, managing a tiny smile. “Back when I was fifteen. My father told me one day that he was
