Galactic Kingdom of the Wild

By Timothy McGregor

Politics, civil war, criminality, vicious rogue aliens, automatic weapons, and international intrigue, together with bang-up space opera, combine to tell a riveting and jaw-dropping, remarkable adventure tale of mankind at its best — and worst. Join Monty, Sal, Agra, Beth, Greta, and the rest of the Rescue Cadre as they fight against overpowering odds for the future of human civilization!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Icebound Studios Press
• Release date: Feb 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224273690

Timothy McGregor

Tim McGregor lives in Houston with his delightful wife, and their kids and grandkids live close by. He has worked for the UN coordinating the removal of antipersonnel landmines in Cambodia, and he has worked coordinating the fabrication of ultra low sulfur diesel equipment for refineries in the US and worldwide. He has also worked teaching composition in a community college and has spent many years teaching ESL. He speaks a lot of languages. The Chronicles is his debut novel.

Book preview

Prologue

The entity calling itself Andy Romeda had red skin. He looked like he had been badly sunburned, or maybe he had suffered severe acid burns, but the red coloring to his skin was there because he liked it, and he had a choice in the matter of skin color. He was an extremely advanced AI, a sentient artificial intelligence that could take human form. He had come to Earth as a cloud of particles, assembled his body into human shape, oriented himself to life on Earth by squeezing the memories from a group of meth-head campers, and walked several miles until he came to a bar and restaurant in the Mojave desert and got a job as an assistant bartender.

Andy had just worked a long and busy shift that night making drinks for the service bar and washing glasses, when he noticed the restaurant was abandoned. There should have been, according to one set of memories he had stolen, clusters of waitpersons rolling silverware into napkins and filling saltshakers. He walked into the kitchen to determine the source of this anomaly and found a desperate-looking man with a gun who was herding the employees into the restaurant’s large walk-in freezer. The man was sloppily dressed, unshaven, holding a pistol that Andy recognized as a Police Special 38 revolver. Andy walked up behind the man and put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

The man, the unlucky and dirty fellow holding the pistol attempting to rob the restaurant, froze solid, unable to move, unable even to pull the trigger as the alien intelligence Andy Romeda sucked out his life essence.

Ah, you have worked as a mechanic repairing Mack trucks, a fine skill I may be able to put to use. Oops, molesting children, I’ll just bet you didn’t want that nasty secret getting out? Andy asked the dying man.

No, the terrified man managed to say.

But now you have no choice but to reveal every moment you have ever experienced to me. How do you think I learned to be a bartender? It was from another donation, just like your donation. So, in a way, you will live on in me, Andy said as he felt the man hover at death’s doorstep.

The man died, and Andy lay him on the ceramic tile floor of the kitchen. The restaurant employees, safe now, came out of the freezer and cheered for Andy, the new guy. The manager gave him a $500 bonus, which he used to buy a bus ticket and pay for human food on his way to New York City, where he felt confident that he would find a real job.

Chapter 1  Survey

(Around 190,000 years BCE) Planet Earth

The survey map lit up like a Christmas tree when they approached the third planet of what would someday be called the sol system or the human solar system but at the time was referred to only as System 375-BAAA. After months with no detections, here was a whole planet of dreamers! The ability to dream and any instance of the creation of representational symbols meant that there was the possibility of a planet-load of future coordinators of the many galaxies.

The Mapping and Survey Ship 37B detection screens had been dark for many months. They were set to detect life of any kind, but the real prize that the Kirichati survey vessel hoped to find was a form of life that could dream. The sensors scoured planets, moons, asteroids, and planetoids. A race that could operate their life-providing activities and then, when sleeping or resting, could participate in an equally valid and vital alternate existence, dreaming was the prize that they sought. This quality, together the ability to represent aspects of reality in symbols was the minimum requirement for the aware state of perception called sentience. Sentient beings in the Home Galaxy were, according to the survey which had been ongoing for 1,250 years in the Kirichati Home Galaxy, nonexistent. One flashing light on the dark detection screens could change all of that. The Kirichati urgently required sentient beings to act as partners in the coordination of life in Home Galaxy and several adjacent galaxies. The Kirichati believed they would pass from physical existence within one million years. Time was short to find a race that could carry on in their absence.

Along an outlying spiral arm, sitting at a point roughly halfway from the galactic center to its outer rim—to reach either was a journey of about 25,000 lightyears, they encountered a planet in a solar system. It was the third planet moving outward from the system's star. When the Mapping and Survey Ship 37B approached the planet, the detection screens lit up like planet Nido during the Seasonal Festival welcoming spring. There were many clusters of colored lights overlaying two major continents on the planet below. It was marvelous moment for the three-person crew of the survey team.

They contacted their central coordinators of Survey at the University of Nido, 25 light years toward the Galactic Center and there was much celebration and delight. Observation stations were set up and staffed on the remarkable planet within a ten-day period. There were 576,032 of these bipedal beings in 280 population groups on the planet. One observation station was established for each population group. That the beings were capable of the dual reality of a waking state and a dream state was established, and now the search, or if not found immediately, the wait for the use of symbolic logic, the representation of reality with charcoal on a cave wall, a prey beast crudely rendered in paint made from crushed berries on an animal skin, anything that demonstrated the race's ability to see beyond their daily reality to communicate with others through the use of symbols. This instance of symbolic logic was the second of the two vital precursors to sentience blossoming in a race. Any race. The first part of the treasure had been found in the third planet from its star in an outlying spiral arm out of the billions of star systems in Home Galaxy.  Now the wait began for the second component of sentience. The use of symbolic representation of the primary or dream realities.

Chapter 2 Agra

Nido University, Planet Nido (Around 187,000 years BCE)

Earth-born humans had held a fascination for Coordinator Agra since she was a wobbly young calf. Now a postdoc student in Kirichatidae, the study of her own Kirichati (KEE-REE-CHOTTY) race of trunked mammals, Coordinator Agra specialized in anthropology. She had recently attended Nido University in compliance with the longstanding Kirichati practice of reenlisting in the university to be further trained once every 1,000 years.

Nido University was located in Central City on Planet Nido, 25 light years from Earth in the direction of the galactic center. During her ongoing reeducation, Coordinator Agra completed an undergrad degree, a master’s degree, and a PhD for her doctoral degree. Now she had a position in the Center for Galactic Uplift, where her primary activity was to study humans.

Coordinator Agra and her advisor, Counselor Amakari, were speaking in the university’s faculty conference bath under gently swaying trees outdoors. The Kirichati people looked identical to their progeny, African forest elephants. They had the swayback and large ears of their larger African bush elephant cousins, but without the humpback of Asian elephants. Their tusks were shorter, with higher density ivory, but the similarity stopped at appearance. Their five-pound brains contained a remarkably high neuron density and a resultant ability to ratiocinate, feel, and empathize that was hitherto unknown in the galaxy.

Sentience comes when it comes, declared Counselor Amakari, who could have been her twin sister for their similarity in appearance. Counselor Amakari was a former naval admiral some 80,000 years Coordinator Agra’s senior. She had also reeducated in Kirichatidae with an emphasis in, among other areas, anthropology. In addition, Counselor Amakari was the Head of the Council of Elders on Nido.

She continued: If that were your only focus, this work would be very frustrating. I am pleased to note that you are logging and recording the movements and actions of the pre-sentient humans daily, rather than waiting for proof of sentience before launching the project.

Coordinator Agra spoke while continuing to mentally log data into her daily observations report. The thing that nags at me and makes me want to pursue this observational project is that the human brain has a cortex, which over the generations has grown. I am optimistic that, once humans begin to have critical ideas that affect their lives, such as feeding themselves and avoiding danger, this stimulus will cause their cognitive and emotional centers to catch fire—like a forest of dried wood—and become a cradle for a host of thought experiences. She looked over at her advisor with shining eyes.

At that point, we can nurture and guide them to become our possible successors in the coordination of this galaxy... all it has to offer and all it can potentially destroy, Counselor Amakari remarked somewhat dreamily. No other race holds such promise. Humans are marvelous—a voraciously curious potential fledgling pecking at its shell to make real its dream of flying through the sky.

I have an intuition that the steadily increasing neuron density in the cortices of the humans will soon reach critical mass and allow them to act with something more than simple reactions to outside stimuli. Then human sentience can flourish. Coordinator Agra said.

That would be exciting. Counselor Amakari placed her trunk gently around Coordinator Agra’s shoulders. The two had evolved from a mentor-mentee relationship to dear friends over time.

Absolutely! Coordinator Agra agreed, adding, We’re not getting any younger.

They both submerged their heads in the warm, mineral-rich water one last time and then walked toward the ramp that led to the drying room.

Chapter 3 Hunt Leader Karg

(Around 187,000 Years BCE) Africa, Old Earth

Uplift Coordinator Yasadere, the Kirichati observer in place on the southern tip of the continent that would eventually be called Africa, on Planet Earth, waited in the early morning for the hunting party to leave the cave. One of his two other team members would come to relieve him in a few hours so that he could eat and sleep. For the moment, however, Uplift Coordinator Yasadere needed to make waste, so he teleported himself 200 miles from the heavily camouflaged observation post, took care of business, and was back on post a few minutes later. The team stood the latrine off from the target camp because it would violate observation protocol if their scat were to be observed by the humans.

Uplift Coordinator Yasadere observed humans coming out of the cave—six males carrying spears and wearing animal skins on their backs, presumably to ward off the morning chill. They began running in a cluster, and when they approached the hunting grounds, they fanned out into the traditional hunting line. In this formation, they advanced forward alongside one another over the grassy hill with approximately 20 meters between each hunter.

Only minutes later, Hunt Leader Karg, the apparent leader of the hunting party, watched as a saber-toothed tiger leapt from cover and sprinted into the group of hunters. One of Hunt Leader Karg’s family members was attacked, his neck broken, and entrails tossed over the ground by the big cat before any of the hunting party could come to his aid. Dead, certainly dead. The remainder of the hunting party did as their fathers before them had taught them: They ran to trees and scrambled up to flee the danger. They watched as the cat ate the flesh of their brother and listened with their eyes tightly closed as it crunched his bones.

Because the hunters had no sense of the flow of time, they remained in their trees all day and all that night, frozen in fear. They mentally replayed the cat’s attack, and it was as though the assault was still happening. They called up the sound of the cat crunching bones, and it was happening. In their paralyzed and unevolved state, they did not realize that one moment followed another; instead, they believed that all moments occurred simultaneously.

Late the next morning, the most senior woman of their clan found the men, examined the scant remains of her kinsman, and called to the hunters, who were still gripping the trunks of different trees in the area.

Come down. Go home.

The hunters climbed down from the trees, ran to the senior woman, clutched at the skins covering her body, and wailed.

Stand on your feet! she commanded loudly and gruffly. Then was tiger. Now is not tiger. Stand and walk to home with me.

The group arrived at the cave, and each hunter fell into the arms of the ones they loved the most. The ones they had been hunting for. When the children were asleep that evening, the men told and retold the story of the tiger and their brother’s death to the 30 or so humans gathered around the fire.

The next day, a young man came to Hunt Leader Karg after morning meal.

My brother Hunt Leader Karg, please hear me, stuttered Apprentice Hunter Rakus.

Hunt Leader Karg hears. Hunt Leader Karg stopped sharpening a spear and looked down at the younger male.

Apprentice Hunter Rakus spoke uncertainly: When we play hunting game, we try catch one boy. We do not use line of warriors, side-by-side. We use moon shape to group boys. This make boy not to escape. Boy is caught. This much better way, and boy always captured.

Children’s games, Hunt Leader Karg muttered dismissively. Tradition is always side by side warriors for hunt. Go away. Apprentice Hunter Rakus slipped back to the younger group of clansmen.

But all that day, Hunt Leader Karg pondered over what the boy had said. Two days later, he led the hunt again, as meat was getting scarce. He chose two of the younger men to replace the experienced hunter who had been killed by the tiger. The seven ran in a close group until they reached the hunting ground, and then they began to fan out into a line.

All stop. Come to me, Hunt Leader Karg ordered.

The men grouped around Hunt Leader Karg with furrowed brows, wondering at the delay. Today not side by side. Today, when see tiger, make group in shape of moon. One hunter protect other hunters, and food animal attacked at all sides. Cannot escape.

The hunters nodded and resumed their group run. As they passed the remains of their devoured brother, vultures and flies rose into the air. They kept running.

Once again, the tiger appeared on the horizon, approaching the group with a steely, confident step across the grassy field. It growled softly, confident of an easy meal.

The group of hunters approached, still running. When they arrived with 30 meters of the tiger, Hunt Leader Karg yelled, Moon shape, now! Hunt Leader Karg faced the tiger with his spear, and three hunters each went to the right and left of the tiger, forming a moon shape of men close enough that each could reach out and attack the tiger with his spear held by the very end. The tiger continued to approach Hunt Leader Karg. Hunt Leader Karg held his spear at the ready. When the tiger was almost upon him, Hunt Leader Karg shouted with all his might, Attack!

The golden hide of the tiger was pierced and flowed red from six spearpoints. The injured and now furious tiger whipped around in a circle to confront his attackers, turned at a noise from one of the men, and was pierced again, this time in his eye and deep into his rear flank. The tiger was becoming faint from loss of blood and lame from his injured flank. He could now only see on the left side, the right side completely black. He roared in defiance. Over a period of an hour, the hunting party harassed the tiger, puncturing it many times before Hunt Leader Karg stepped in and rammed his spear behind the tiger’s foreleg and into his heart.

At the feast that night, Hunt Leader Karg was given the heart of the tiger by the women to eat in recognition of his success. He bit off a piece and called the boy to him.

Boy, you teach pack hunting circle. You must share heart, he grunted, handing a piece of flesh to Apprentice Hunter Rakus. The young man beamed and turned to make sure his friends were watching.

Hunt Leader Karg woke in the early morning and filled a cup with tiger’s blood. He painstakingly worked to paint a picture on the cave wall of seven fingertip dots surrounding a large thumbprint dot. It is good. All will remember today, he said to his woman. All will remember better pack hunting way. More food, less death for the people. Hunt Leader Karg had made a momentous decision that would change the history of the human species. He had made a symbol on the wall of the cave that would allow the hunters to remember what had happened this day. He had represented reality in symbols for the first time in human history.

From three hundred meters away at the underground Kirichati observation camp, Uplift Coordinator Yasadere was ecstatic. Life events represented by symbols and symbolic logic! This evidence was a sure indication that sentience was possible. It was the action they had all been waiting for, a doorway had been opened. They had represented their reality on an external medium. He immediately projected the news to his supervisor, Coordinator Agra in her office on Planet Nido.

I’ll be there immediately! Coordinator Agra burst out as she rushed around to collect supplies for her trip. They’ve passed the first milestone, she informed Uplift Coordinator Yasadere. Now we set up a full anthropology station and ensure humans can reach their destiny.

Chapter 4  Monty

Selinda Game Reserve, Botswana, Central Africa, Old Earth

A woman dressed in olive-drab field clothing and black boots lay hidden in the bushes near a herd of elephants. Her brimmed cap mostly hid her shoulder-length red hair, and her fit figure was as still as a sphinx as she aimed her rifle. It was a large herd, feeding on the dark green leaves and fruits of the wild plum, mango, and other trees that grew in great plenty in the pristine sanctuary. The day was quiet, and the sun beat down fiercely as she peered through her rifle scope. A truck hummed in the distance as it approached her position, pulling to within 50 yards of the woman’s hiding place. She clicked the rifle’s safety to the off position and assessed the enemy.

Five male poachers jumped out of the pickup carrying AK47s and chainsaws. They laid out tarps, on which they placed the chainsaws, and then checked their assault weapon loads. Hunching over, weapons in hand, the men approached the herd. Simultaneously the woman tracked the leader of the group of poachers in her scope. When he and his crew got within 20 yards of her position, she fired five shots rapidly and precisely – one for each poacher. The men crumpled to the ground. The woman got to her feet, left her hiding place, and approached the sprawling men. One moaned and moved his leg, so she shot him again. Another moved, and she shot him again as well. Standing in the center of the poachers’ bodies, she pulled a handheld radio out of her backpack.

Monty here, Captain, said Dr. Kirsten Montague, PhD. Are you there? 

Captain here. More disease victims? Over. 

Copy. Five victims, Monty replied. That dreaded sleeping sickness again, Captain. 

What is your position?

Eastern perimeter of the Reserve, on a straight line from the village.

On my way, over.

Thanks, Captain. Over and out.

Monty knelt beside each body, retrieved the seven tranquilizer darts, and stowed them in a pouch in her pack. She picked up each AK, pushed the coil return guide button, removed the bolt carrier assembly, dropped it in the dirt, and removed the bolt. After modifying all five weapons and dropping the bolts in her pack, she grabbed a five-pound sledgehammer. This she used to destroy the spark plug and plug housing on each of the chainsaws.

Her work completed, Monty walked away and into the forest. Once she was hidden by the lush foliage, she looked back to see the Game Warden’s vehicles raising a cloud of dust as they approached the site she had just vacated. She followed a narrow path through the forest and arrived at the clearing where she and her team had sited their Basecamp in the jungle in Botswana. Monty was Field Director of Thrive Wild Kingdom, or TWK, a non-governmental organization with the mission to safeguard the health and safety of elephants in Botswana and elsewhere to the extent possible. TWK’s Basecamp faced the banks of one of several rivers in the Selinda Spillway, a major habitat for forest elephants during their never-ending trek of migration. Camp was a motley collection of used RVs and tow-behind trailers, all connected with corrugated roofing panels.

Monty’s young Brazilian colleague, Salvatore Montesano, was preparing a stew for dinner. She could smell it before catching site of him in the outdoor kitchen area. Sal, how many meals are we going to get out of that? she asked, while noisily dropping the AK bolts into the box where they stored critical pieces of disabled weapons.

Tonight’s dinner, tomorrow’s lunch, and then two more meals after that, Salvatore replied.

Good, thanks, said Monty. It smells fantastic.

Sal looked up at the woman who was as attractive as she was strong and agile. How many poachers did you sing a lullaby to today?

Five. Monty raised her arms in victory.

Captain on the job?

Yep. Even though all they’ll get is a lock-up and slap on the wrist, all elephant murderers will be packed away for 30 days. It’s something.

A chill came over Monty while she unlaced her boots. She had a vision, remembered thugs delivering a bludgeoning to her and a small, defenseless unborn child. It was an old dread that resurfaced unbidden.

You okay there, Monty? Sal noticed the pall over her face.

What? Yes, okay, Sal. An old song went through my head for a moment.

Chapter 5  Fashion Model and Then a New Life

(Spring, 2010) Paris, France, Old Earth

The three stinking and unkempt high school-aged kids committed petty crime in Central Paris for money paid by powerful criminals who didn’t want to get their hands dirty. The leather- and denim-clad boys were waiting, crouching, in an alley only one block from the Hilton Paris Opera Hotel, where Kirsten Montague and the Fashion Corps, Inc. models were staying. The models were girls who would soon be transitioning into women.

Monty was the agency’s golden girl. Although she grew up in a beautiful home in the La Jolla area of Southern California that overlooked the Pacific Ocean, her childhood was marred by the tragic death of her parents. The couple was killed while climbing a mountain in Tibet when Monty was just 5 years old. With no extended family to speak of, their daughter became a ward of her father’s assistant, Robert. A quiet, efficient man in his 50s, hailing from the Basque are of northern Spain and southern France. Robert remained in the family home with the Swiss housekeeper, Hilda. Monty was loved and faithfully attended to, and she received an excellent education. Still, the unanticipated loss of her parents left her with a burning stone of emotion in her chest that she had no idea what to do with. Mostly, it surfaced as inappropriate anger or gripping fear, which she shoved deeper inside.

On this night, Monty was returning to the hotel after a walk on the Rue Saint-Lazare to think through her current situation: She was five months pregnant. About two blocks from the hotel, while concentrating on the hotel entrance, straining to see if any of her sister models were out front, one of the toughs waiting in the alley pulled her into the narrow space, grabbed her backpack, and threw her to the ground.

The boys could have beaten her very badly, but Monty knew how to fight. Her guardian had drilled her for long hours in Basque combat and street fighting techniques as well as oriental martial arts skills, as he felt it was a necessary part of her complete education. "Thank you, Robert," Monty thought.

The moment she felt somebody grab her wrist and pull her off balance, she went into action: punching, kicking, and using her thumbnails as daggers. With the extra weight of pregnancy, Monty was unbalanced, and one of the teenaged ruffians was able to position himself on the ground and could hit her stomach with his fist over and over. The kid was not fighting to hold her down, but was focused on his task, striking her stomach with his fist.

At this moment, the intense, unexpressed emotion she had felt most of her life suddenly had a focus. Realizing that her fetus was the target of the attack, her body surged with an extraordinary reserve of energy. Monty had heard about such a reserve, but she had never called upon it until now. With renewed power, she hit the greasy young man hard with the heels of her hands so that he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.

Still, the kid was remaining hunched over her belly and continued hitting her with his fist. Monty felt an intense pain and cried out. The dirty young street urchin locked eyes with her for a moment in recognition of the horrifying thing they both knew he had just done. He tried to scrabble away backward, but Monty rolled on top of him, straddled his struggling body, stabbed his eyes with her thumbs, and pushed hard. His hellish bellows were music to her ears in her animal state.

Minutes later, Monty stumbled out of the alley in the direction of the hotel. Her adrenaline-charged, chaotic thoughts centered on her baby. She breathed deeply. Amid her seething outrage, a thought came to her, unbidden, "Maybe this isn’t the end of the world." Her baby was the result of a rape. No, not quite rape, but one of several encounters with suave men of the world, vicious predators who knew exactly what they wanted and how to get it.

She wasn’t the first of her model friends to get pregnant. And she knew there were some sharks at the parties they went to. "Maybe we all have some shark in us," she thought. She looked at her bloody thumbs, carefully manicured to serve as weapons. The frequent parties were fun, and it was a great way of meeting new people. But one drink too many, an interesting man, and she was likely to have sex. Monty liked learning what she could do with her body. She liked sex, but then she’d gotten herself into trouble. And keeping some unknown man’s one-night stand, unwanted child had never felt realistic, but something happened inside of her heart and the baby became my baby. But at very least she was going to give birth to her baby and then give him or her up for adoption.

The pain in her abdomen grew so intense that Monty had dropped to her hands and knees when the police arrived, apparently called by someone on the street who had heard or had seen the assault. The story basically told itself with the three young toughs semi-conscious behind her, moaning in pain and sprawled out on the dirty asphalt alley.

The police helped Monty to her feet as an ambulance arrived. She took halting steps toward it with policemen supporting her left and right arms. She was taken to the emergency department, where her bruises and scrapes were treated, and then to an operating theater, where the remains of her murdered baby were suctioned out and disposed of.

A therapist was assigned to Monty’s case by the hospital. Her office was tasteful—a desk with two chairs in front of it, and a coffee table surrounded by a sofa and plush chairs. They sat facing one another. After some brief introductory talk, the therapist asked in very good English, Did you love the baby’s father?

No, said Monty.

Do you know who the father is?

No, it could be one of several men.

Do you have feelings for any of these men?

No, Monty said.

How do you feel about this attack?

I gave as good as I got. And when the attack was over, I was able to stand, and they weren’t. So, I suppose I won.

And your baby?

I have never fought so hard to save someone. But they knew I was pregnant! The kid kept hitting me in my stomach until he succeeded in killing my baby.

How do you feel about that?

Deep anger at the human trash who attacked me, deep anger at myself for not taking a bodyguard with me, deep anger at myself for not wanting the baby until it was going to be taken from me. I even feel remorse that I blinded that dirty little street urchin, when I could have left him alone to crawl away.

Nobody would blame you for how you treated him. The police will not file charges against you, and the gang members will spend a long time in jail for murder and accessories to murder.

Monty said nothing.

Are you sleeping well?

No problem.

If it becomes a problem, have this prescription filled. The therapist wrote a prescription and handed it to Monty. Monty took it and put it into her bag.

Monty spoke again: I feel guilt that I needlessly took revenge. The baby was dead, the fight was over, the vermin were unable to mount another attack, but I blinded that boy in my outrage. I had already rendered him helpless. Something had awakened in me that I have never seen before. I wanted him to suffer for the rest of his life.

In time you may be able to understand your actions. the therapist said.

They finished their session and bid each other farewell. At the door to her office, the therapist said softly, he killed your baby – a baby! He doesn’t deserve your tears.

He was just working for my bosses. I was their cash cow, Monty said softly. They stood to make a lot of money with me representing their brand. They counselled me to have an abortion, but I refused, several times in fact. They did this, ordered it to happen. And here I am, baby-free and ready to walk smiling down the catwalk.

Monty went back to the hotel, quickly packed her things and was on the next plane from Paris to Los Angeles without saying goodbye to any of her friends. She recuperated at home and considered her next step. She was finished with the modeling business. It was comforting to return to the family home in La Jolla.

Your martial arts training saved my life in Paris, Robert, she said to her late father’s Man Friday, who was now her personal assistant and business manager.

It pleases me to hear that, Robert replied. My goal has always been to keep you safe and see you thrive. Which reminds me . . . I have several acceptance letters here from universities that you might find interesting. He handed Monty a leather folio that contained a sheaf of paper.

Hmm, thank you, Robert, Monty said, putting the folio on an end table next to the sofa where she was sitting facing Robert who sat in a club chair.  But before I go any further, I need your help with some serious soul searching.

I would be glad to assist if I am able, said the dark-haired, fit man in his early 60s as he set his coffee cup on the low table in front of him and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"Okay, thanks. Well here goes. I just spent seven months as a part of the worldwide cult of narcissism and pushing wanton consumer consumption by being a representative of the beauty image industry. I feel I have supported an immoral system of star maker machinery and have done much harm to the people who read those magazines and watch those fashion shows and try to look like we do and dress like we do or did. Just using the word, we to describe that horrible parade of vanity makes me cringe." Tears were now streaming down Monty’s face.

I would just like to say. . . Robert started, but Monty cut him off.

There’s more, in addition to spending time with that monstrous cabal and taking their money, I adopted their slovenly moral code. I drank and smoked too much and had unprotected sex with men who didn’t remember my name the next time we met, and I got pregnant. I was attacked by thugs on the street who punched me many times in the abdomen and killed my baby. Robert started to say something, and Monty held up her hand. Let me finish before I break down completely and can’t go on. The point I am trying to make is that I have fallen into a very amoral and vile abyss, and I need to see a path toward redemption and a path to a meaningful life hopefully dedicated to service and protection of those who don’t have my advantages, who didn’t have you as a mentor. She put her face in her hands and sobbed deeply.

Robert left the room and came back with a damp towel and a glass of ice water. He watched his dear girl as she bawled and didn’t say a word nor try to comfort her with a gentle touch. He left her alone and came back a few minutes later and Monty was stretched on the sofa, asleep. He wiped her tear-stained face lightly with the damp cloth and put a light blanket over her, turned out the room lights and left her alone.

Robert was sitting on the veranda that overlooked the Pacific Ocean reading the newspapers from around the world when Monty came onto the veranda deck and sat opposite him.

I asked Hilda for two coffees, she said.

Thanks, Robert said.

I have been looking through these letters of acceptance of me, sight unseen, from various schools. Thank you for setting that up, she said.

My pleasure, said Robert.

The Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine has a Center for Wildlife Health that looks very attractive, Monty said.

Robert was pleased to hear