“Must happen a lot,” Anson said and felt a little guilty at the joke, weak as it was. This was no place for humour. He had a wife to avenge.
Tse half smiled. “So. Pre-cogs on Earth got organised around three thousand years ago. We learned not to stand out in a crowd. No more public divination. No more trusted advisor to a monarch.”
Anson wondered if there really was a secret Council of Five, as beloved by conspiracy theorists, who secretly ruled the world. He was only half joking.
Tse smiled wearily and explained.
Not all pre-cogs were good guys. Many of history’s murderous bastards had a pre-cog alongside, helping them to destroy millions of lives. How else had a failure called Hitler got to cause World War II? No coincidence that Nazi Germany was such a disciplined state. Hitler’s pre-cog daemon was one who loathed the freedom, the creativity of the human world. Same with Pol Pot. On the other hand, pre-cogs had been there to work alongside people like Da Vinci and Einstein.
Another thing: aliens had been dealing with humans for millennia. But with enough sense or experience to keep it secret. And here pre-cogs were also useful: they could see, sometimes, how a good trade could be made without knowing why.
Then the Gliese went public when they painted the moon and everything changed. The Gliese were the emissaries, the servants of a pre-cog empire in the galaxy that, like many of their human equivalents, hated randomness, disorder and creativity. And they wanted to either destroy or absorb Earth. Which would, in time, lead to the humans fighting each other, most unaware they were mere ignorant foot soldiers, even those who believed they were leaders.
The alien pre-cogs would win.
Unless.
A slim hope, at present barely formulated. It seems that there are certain individuals alive who somehow can help defeat the enemy.
Here’s the thing: Anson Greenaway’s daughter is one of them.
There is a strong possibility that one day she will be instrumental in destroying the pre-cog galactic empire.
Some of Earth’s own pre-cogs have been in regular contact with various pre-cog aliens for centuries... and have built family fortunes as a result. Many would welcome Earth being subsumed into the greater pre-cog empire.
Others loathe the idea, but are often torn between loyalty to their own kind and loyalty to the human race.
Tse is one of them. Untorn.
Order-loving human pre-cogs, aware of the danger that Greenaway’s daughter probably would become, arranged the killing. It went wrong, with only Sara murdered. The rape was part cover-up, part anger. Better for people to believe an arrogant city state youth than an attempted assassination.
“You’re asking me to believe one hell of a lot,” Anson said. He wondered why he felt so calm, then understood he still only had room for hate. And yet with that a sense almost of relief, as he began to understand why his wife had been murdered. Never knowing why would lessen the satisfaction of revenge.
“I know exactly who murdered my wife. A twenty-four-year-old kid from here, wealthy parents, who came into the Wild looking to cause hell.”
Tse merely looked at him.
Anson knew a moment’s unease. What if he was wrong? No. The young man had been the only stranger in the area. All Wilders accounted for. “How is my daughter so important?”
“We don’t know,” Tse said. “Only that she is and must survive if we’re to defeat the alien pre-cogs. This means giving her a new identity. I’m sorry, but she has to leave the Wild. You may never see her again.”
“Sara would never forgive me... and she’s my daughter!”
“Sara knew. She was pre-cog.”
Anson felt strangely light-headed. “I know. She told me.”
“What?”
“Years ago. Except she didn’t call it pre-cog, just a sense of the future. She had a rough idea of some of what you just said. Sara was from Seattle City, know that? She came to the Wild because she sensed danger to herself and her yet-to-be-born child. Knew that our daughter would be special. She told me before we married. Later on she got some idea of this conflict you talk about. We felt part of it without knowing how, other than our daughter.” He still couldn’t bring himself to say her name.
“You believed her?”
“We’re open-minded in the Wild. Besides, she proved it a few times.” He stopped for a moment. “If we’d known... why didn’t you warn us?”
“We didn’t know the probabilities had changed,” Tse said. “Before, your daughter wouldn’t be in danger until she was grown up. And we did keep an eye on you all.”
“So you didn’t know Sara would be killed?” A test question to which he already knew the obvious answer.
“I knew she might be, but not for years.” He paused, then: “The markers we see, the events that lead to an outcome often change. Sara’s death was never as certain as your daughter’s importance.”
“She dies so our daughter lives?”
“You too.”
“Why not tell us?”
“We learned long ago that if someone knows their possible timeline, it very often changes. Your daughter wouldn’t be a saviour. Earth gets taken over.”
“The Wild can protect her.”
“Only by changing the probability line. And the alien pre-cogs win.”
Anson shook his head. “That’s a fantasy fact too far.” Tse nodded. “Of course. But there’s someone who you might believe.”
“I doubt it.” And was aware of someone coming onto the terrace, turned round and could only stare in shock.
“Sad to meet like this,” said the woman known throughout the Wild as Cleo. “You have our sympathies. We share your anger and sorrow.”
Anson had grown up knowing the Exchange ran commerce throughout the Wild. Some said it regulated the Wild itself. Cleo had been the Exchange’s local representative for as long as Anson could remember. A tall woman, austere, who always looked to be in her fifties. People
