We have seen the beast of Revelation, she said silently. The Bugger, the Formic monster bringing destruction to the Earth, just as prophesied. We have seen the beast, and long ago Mazer Rackham and the human fleet, on the brink of defeat, slew that great dragon. But it will come again, and St. John the Revelator said that when it did, there would be a prophet who came with him.
No, no. Bean is good, a good-hearted boy. He is not any kind of devil, not the servant of the beast, just a boy of great gifts that God may have raised up to bless this world in the hour of its greatest peril. I know him as a mother knows her child. I am not wrong.
Yet when she got back to her room, she set her computer to work, searching now for something new. For reports from or about scientists who had been working, at least five years ago, on projects involving alterations in human DNA.
And while the search program was querying all the great indexes on the nets and sorting their replies into useful categories, Sister Carlotta went to the neat little pile of folded clothing waiting to be washed. She would not wash it after all. She put it in a plastic bag along with Bean's sheets and pillowcase, and sealed the bag. Bean had worn this clothing, slept on this bedding. His skin was in it, small bits of it. A few hairs. Maybe enough DNA for a serious analysis.
He was a miracle, yes, but she would find out just what the dimensions of this miracle might be. For her ministry had not been to save the children of the cruel streets of the cities of the world. Her ministry had been to help save the one species made in the image of God. That was still her ministry. And if there was something wrong with the child she had taken into her heart as a beloved son, she would find out about it, and give warning.
CHAPTER 7 - EXPLORATION
"So this launch group was slow getting back to their barracks."
"There is a twenty-one-minute discrepancy."
"Is that a lot? I didn't even know this sort of thing was tracked."
"For safety. And to have an idea, in the event of emergency, where everyone is. Tracking the uniforms that departed from the mess hall and the uniforms that entered the barracks, we come up with an aggregate of twenty-one minutes. That could be twenty-one children loitering for exactly one minute, or one child for twenty-one minutes."
"That's very helpful. Am I supposed to ask them?"
"No! They aren't supposed to know that we track them by their uniforms. It isn't good for them to know how much we know about them."
"And how little."
"Little?"
"If it was one student, it wouldn't be good for him to know that our tracking methods don't tell us who it was."
"Ah. Good point. And ... actually, I came to you because I believe that it was one student only."
"Even though your data aren't clear?"
"Because of the arrival pattern. Spaced out in groups of two or three, a few solos. Just the way they left the mess hall. A little bit of clumping - three solos become a threesome, two twos arrive as four - but if there had been some kind of major distraction in the corridor, it would have caused major coalescing, a much larger group arriving at once after the disturbance ended."
"So. One student with twenty-one minutes unaccounted for."
"I thought you should at least be aware."
"What would he do with twenty-one minutes?"
"You know who it was?"
"I will, soon enough. Are the toilets tracked? Are we sure it wasn't somebody so nervous he went in to throw up his lunch?"
"Toilet entry and exit patterns were normal. In and out."
"Yes, I'll find out who it was. And keep watching the data for this launch group."
"So I was right to bring this to your attention?"
"Did you have any doubt of it?"
***
Bean slept lightly, listening, as he always did, waking twice that he remembered. He didn't get up, just lay there listening to the breathing of the others. Both times, there was a little whispering somewhere in the room. Always children's voices, no urgency about them, but the sound was enough to rouse Bean and kindle his attention, just for a moment till he was sure there was no danger.
He woke the third time when Dimak entered the room. Even before