Montaro Caine A Novel - By Sidney Poitier Page 0,112

industrial and scientific expertise and his years of leading the company, Davis’s extensive experience in management and finance would be indispensable when it came to exploiting the properties of the coins. But midway through that thought, Hargrove noticed that everyone had stopped listening to him. All eyes were focused on the conference room’s revolving door.

Hargrove turned to see Howard Mozelle and Matthew Perch reentering the room. Mozelle, dressed in the suit that he had worn under his scrubs, seemed deep in thought.

“Well, Doctor?” Hargrove asked simply, “How did it go?”

Mozelle stood silent for a moment, then approached Hargrove at the podium. “Exactly as I had hoped,” he said, speaking specifically to Hargrove but loudly enough so that the people gathered at the tables could hear. “Mother and child are doing well. Anna’s taking care of them.”

Hargrove proceeded to interrogate the doctor as Matthew Perch looked on impassively. “Can you tell us if there was anything surprising or unusual about the extremities of the baby—its arms, its legs, its hands?”

“What, in your view, would be surprising or unusual?” asked Mozelle.

“An object in one of the child’s hands, for instance, perhaps a coin,” said Hargrove.

“Well,” replied Mozelle, “then I would say that there was something surprising but nothing unusual.”

“What was in the baby’s hands?” Hargrove asked.

“Nothing at all,” said Mozelle.

Murmurs of disbelief were heard throughout the conference room. Fritzbrauner and Gabler looked at each other, the former puzzled, the latter suspicious. Richard Davis loudly cleared his throat. Colette Beekman appeared to tremble. Several men at one of Hargrove’s tables stood up. Surprise registered on just about everyone’s face, save for those of Tom Lund, Luther John Doe, and Montaro Caine, who had endured so much in these last months that little could surprise him anymore.

“The baby opened his eyes,” said Mozelle. “Then he opened his little hands. I thought one or two coins would fall out, but nothing did.”

“Then what in the world was he doing when he opened his hands?” asked Hargrove.

Matthew Perch stepped forward. “He was reaching out to his mother and father,” he said. “As any newborn child would.”

“It was all filmed as we agreed,” said Mozelle. “You’ll be able to see for yourself.”

“No coins?” Hargrove asked.

“None,” said Perch.

“Nothing unusual, you say?”

“Miraculous, yes. But no, nothing unusual.”

Hargrove now seemed more curious than combative; even he could not resist the commanding, hypnotic presence of Matthew Perch. “But do you have any idea why?” he asked. “We all assumed … Everybody here, we had all been told …”

“Because there is no need for coins anymore,” Perch said, interrupting. “The first coins already did the work they were needed for.”

“What work was that?” asked Hargrove.

“They brought Whitney Carson and Franklyn Walker together, and then they brought all of you together,” said Perch. “The child is always the miracle, not any object it was or wasn’t holding. The first coins were brought here by the remnants of a dying civilization, one many light-years away from this one. The coins could have appeared in the hands of any of a number of human beings, but they appeared to Franklyn and Whitney, who, as they have grown up, have proven why they were chosen—for their honesty, their decency, their openness, their ability to believe. These are among the qualities that allow a species to survive. These coins were given to Whitney and Franklyn to show all of you the way forward. All of you have been waiting for something physical to happen, something you can see with your own eyes, but perhaps the most important thing that the coins have brought is something that’s inside of you. The knowledge contained within the coins, if it is used properly, can save this planet’s inhabitants from dying out one day too, can keep it from suffering the same fate that the travelers on the Seventh Ship journeyed all this distance to escape.”

Silence ensued. Hargrove considered what Perch said, weighing its improbability against the certainty with which it had been said. Now, when Hargrove spoke, his tone was noticeably softer. “What happened to the other coins? The ones Whitney and Franklyn were born holding? The ones my clients purchased?” he asked.

“I believe Montaro Caine can help you answer that question as well as I can,” said Perch.

Montaro looked back at Perch, at first uncertain of the man’s meaning. When Montaro had first met Tom Lund, he had asked him about Perch. He now remembered Lund’s response. Lund had said that he didn’t know Perch, but, he added, when