Terry Pratchett - The Long Mars

‘Call me Nelson. I’m freelance these days.’

She smiled, pushed back a lock of greying blonde hair, and shook his hand. ‘I’m Louise Irwin. Lieutenant. I’m in operational control of the treatment of the patients here. We’ve corresponded, of course, but it’s good to meet you in person.’ She led him out of the room, nodding to the receptionist, and used a swipe card to guide him through a doorway. They walked down a narrow corridor with low polystyrene ceiling tiles, very mid-twentieth century. ‘How was your flight? Those military transports can be a little rough. The room we’ve assigned you is in a neighbouring block. If you need some time to freshen up—’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’d rather go straight to see our charges, wouldn’t you? It’s a very understandable reaction. There really isn’t any substitute for encountering them in person. That’s true of most psychiatric patients, of course. You’re going to need full security clearance but I can swipe you through for now.’

They came to an elevator that opened for Irwin’s card. It descended smoothly, if slowly.

Nelson asked, ‘Is that how you think of them? As patients? Not as prisoners?’

‘Well, that is my background. I trained as a psychiatrist, and found I needed a little more excitement in my life, and I joined the Navy. Now I’m a psychiatrist who travels.’ She smiled again.

‘I guess we’re all chameleons. We chop and change during our lives.’

‘As you have,’ she said, studying him with an evident insight that felt faintly disturbing to Nelson. ‘I read your file, of course. Anybody allowed in a facility like this has to have a biography as long as my arm – and you came with top personal recommendations, to serve as our inmates’ personal chaplain. A kid from the South African townships who got his chance through a Black Corporation scholarship; a respected archaeologist; a Church of England vicar . . . You’ve adopted many roles.’

Nelson knew all about the ‘personal recommendations’. His credentials for being allowed in had essentially been engineered by the Quizmasters, along with Lobsang, through a web of behind-the-scenes contacts – including a little help from Roberta Golding, he’d been surprised to discover, the rather glamorous, in-the-news White House staffer who’d taken some kind of personal interest in the inmates of this place since they’d been brought here, though for now Nelson had no idea what her connection was to all this. On the other hand the substance of his record as seen by the US Navy had mostly been genuine. When lying, it was always best to tell as much truth as possible. And he really did intend to serve as a chaplain for these imprisoned children, to the best of his ability, until the time came for his deeper purpose to be revealed.

The elevator slid to a halt. The doors opened smoothly to reveal a metal-grille walkway, suspended over a kind of compartmented pit.

Irwin led him along this pathway, and Nelson found himself looking down into a series of rooms: into , for these rooms all had transparent ceilings, even the bathrooms, though Nelson imagined that some visual trickery ensured the ceilings looked opaque from underneath. The rooms individually didn’t seem all that impressive, or unusual. They were like small hotel suites, each a bedroom-cum-study equipped with TV and computer terminal and other gear, a small bathroom. The rooms had been personalized, with posters and souvenirs, clothing in the cupboards (all of which lacked doors) or heaped on the floor. Nelson felt as if he was looking down into something like an upmarket campus dorm. But heavily armed and body-armoured marines patrolled this high walkway, pointing their weapons down into the rooms below.

In most of the rooms there was a single person, alone – all young, aged maybe five years old to early twenties, both sexes, varying ethnicity – some fat, some thin, some tall, some short. Ordinary-looking, at first glance. Some had company, an adult or two, generally talking quietly. There was a lounge where a few of these inmates gathered, and a small crèche where infants played amid a litter of toys. Both crèche and lounge were supervised by adults, men and women in civilian clothes. One room was more like a small clinic, where a girl was having samples taken, blood, a cheek swab for DNA.

And Nelson soon spotted Paul Spencer Wagoner, the friend of Joshua Valienté, alone in a room, reading on a tablet.

Through Lobsang and Sister Agnes, Nelson had at last got to meet Valienté properly, and to know him. Joshua was a man whose Long Earth exploits Nelson had studied for many years – and, Nelson suspected, another ally of Lobsang’s in whatever long-term game that mysterious entity was playing. Joshua had asked Nelson to look out especially for this Wagoner kid, who had wound up in the same kids’ home, Sister Agnes’s Home, as Joshua himself a few decades earlier . . . And now here was Wagoner in this military cage.

Lieutenant Irwin was saying, ‘A few hundred of these individuals are known in the American Aegis, though the sweeps continue. This is the largest single group we’re holding. Of course there must be others of foreign nationalities. So. What’s your first impression?’

‘It’s a prison. An impressive facility. But it is a prison.’ She nodded. ‘We’re wary of them. We don’t know what they’re capable of—’

‘They’re in glass boxes, like lab rats. With armed guards twenty-four seven. You have young teenagers in there. Can you really give them no privacy?’

‘These were the security protocols mandated. We try to normalize their environment as much as possible. You may baulk at this confinement, Nelson. They look like ordinary kids, don’t they? Ordinary young Americans. But they’re not. Any contact with them and you’ll find that out for yourself. In fact they distinguish themselves from us, you know. They do call themselves the Next . Of course they’re only youngsters. But they have quite a lot of money behind them, actually, or some do. Also some of their parents have the resources to fight this. The Navy is having to dig deep fending off petitions from some fancy lawyers.’

‘Hmm. Fancy lawyers who are arguing about such irrelevancies as these kids’ constitutional rights, I imagine. US citizens swept up and imprisoned without any semblance of due process. A few foreign nationals too?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m going to enjoy debating such issues with you, Nelson. But I suspect you are rushing to judgement. We had to do something . And remember, I am a naval officer. The purpose of this place is to maintain national security.’

‘They don’t seem such a terrible threat to national security to me.’

She nodded. ‘Well, that’s one of the things we are here to ascertain. Generally they are no trouble, from a disciplinary and control point of view. Most of them quickly adapted to confinement, actually, which is because so many of them have been through processes of care, fostering, even prison at the juvenile or adult levels. They are institutionalized, used to confinement. Says something about how well our society has been able to handle these individuals, right? And if they do play up they are removed from this part of the facility.’

‘To where? A punishment block?’

‘A special therapy facility.’ She studied him. ‘You do use judgemental language. You need to keep an open mind, Nelson. Until you get to know them. They are extraordinarily acute – perceptive, controlling, manipulative. In person they can be very difficult to deal with, one to one. But it’s when they get together that – well, they take off. Their talk is incredible, rooted in English but superfast and dense. We have linguists analysing their talk, as best they can. Whatever they are discussing, we can at least measure the sheer complexity of the talk. And that itself is far beyond the norm. I was shown a transcript, of a kind of argument being developed by a girl called Indra; there was a single sentence that went on for four pages. That is one of the simpler examples. Often we don’t even know what they are talking about—’