"You've had twenty-seven years," muttered Van Wyk recklessly.
But Marc was far away. "If we find that we can't turn the children back, we can certainly deflect them away from Europe. If they're driven onto the African coast, we'll have a chance to mind-zap the equipment and still spare their lives. Neutralize their threat until we can mount our own action. Yes ..."
He came back to himself, to touch each mind with a split second's coercive force, then the more hypnotic persuasion.
"The star-search! If it had succeeded, it would have been our salvation: an acceptable substitute for our old dream that failed. My dream—my failure that drew you along with me. You and the other faithful ones chose to follow me here to the Pliocene and try again. And again, I've failed. Our children cling to their own dream, and I've been forced to consider the implications of their choice. I have done that for twenty days as I ranged the stars—and here again tonight while we looked for solutions to this dilemma. The final decision will be mine. But tell me how you would vote. Now."
"Kill them," said Cordelia Warshaw.
Patricia agreed. "It's the only safe course."
There was a moment of hesitation; but only Gerrit Van Wyk joined the two women in the death pronouncement. The others chose the more dangerous course.
Marc spread the new construct before them, the revision that might insure their own safety while granting their offspring's wish to return to the Milieu. There was an equal probability that the plan would spell the doom of all of them—and the unsuspecting inhabitants of the Many-Colored Land as well.
"This is what I shall do," Marc said. "Will you follow me?"
In a single telepathic acquiescence, the former members of the Galactic Concilium reaffirmed his leadership.
"Very well. I'll contact Owen tonight. Tomorrow we begin modification of my star-search equipment and construction of a new vehicle. We will maroon the defecting children in Africa, and see that they remain there until we're ready for them. If no unforeseen screwups develop, we should be ready to go to Europe about the end of August."
3
FELICE MOVED restlessly about the balcony of Black Crag Lodge, a farouche woodland sprite in a white leather kilt, doe eyes flicking and nervous farsenses sweeping the mountain forest like a beacon.
"You're safe here," Elizabeth insisted. She stood in the doorway, dressed in the old red denim jumpsuit that the girl would remember from the auberge: a friend, an anchor to the past. Every day for more than two weeks now the raven had flown up to the chalet, perched on the upper balcony, and turned into a frightened young girl. And every day, in spite of Elizabeth's expert persuasion, the raven had refused to stay, flying away after an ever-lengthening interval of conversation. Today, Felice had dared to remain for more than two hours.
"There were bad nightmares last night, Elizabeth."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm going to scream out loud soon. If I do that, I'd die. I'd drown in gold and shit."
"Unless you let me help you," Elizabeth agreed.
The mad eyes seemed to swell enormously. Talons sank into Elizabeth's brain—but before they could do harm the Grand Master redactor slipped an adamant barrier into place. The mind-grip slipped, clenched impotently against unyielding slickness, then withdrew.
"I—I didn't mean to do that," said Felice.
"You did." The redactor's voice was sad. "You'd kill anything that threatened to love you."
"No!"
"Yes. Your brain is short-circuited. The pleasure-pain pathways are anomalously fused. Shall I show you the difference between your mental structure and one I would call normal?"
"All right."
The images, of awesome complexity but bristling with labels that even this untaught child could comprehend, formed in the vestibulum of Felice's mind. She studied the two brains for nearly fifteen minutes, hiding behind her own screen. And then a crack opened and a shy thing peeped out.
"Elizabeth—? This brain is mine?"
"As close an approximation as I can produce, without actually entering you."
"Whose is the other?"
"Sister Amerie's."
The girl shuddered. She came away from the balcony railing and approached Elizabeth, a pale and tiny figure, utterly forlorn. "I'm a monster. I'm not human at all, am I?"
"You can be. All of this is in your unconscious—and since your opening of the Straits of Gibraltar, it has profoundly affected your conscious mind as well. But you can be healed. There's still time."
"But not ... much time?"
"No, child. Before long, you'll be incapable of the volition necessary to permit redaction. You must freely let me in, you see. You're much too strong for me to overpower. And even if you do freely submit, your healing is going to be a very hazardous undertaking for me. Until you came here, until I was able to scan you at close range, I didn't realize how hazardous."
"I could kill you?"
"Easily."
"But you'd still try to help me?"
"Yes."
The elfin face with its pointed chin tilted up. The dark eyes swam with unshed tears. "Why? To save the world from me?"
"Partly," Elizabeth admitted. "But also to save you."
Felice's eyes shifted. An odd little smile appeared. "You're as bad as Amerie. She was after my soul. You're a Catholic, too, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"What good is it—here, in the Pliocene?"
"Not much, sometimes. But the basic lifeway remains, and I must try to adhere to it."
The girl laughed. "Even when you doubt?"
"Especially then," said Elizabeth. "You're very clever, Felice." She drew back from the doorway, turned, and went across the room to where two chairs stood before a large window. "Come in and sit down."
Felice hesitated. The redactor felt the swirl of conflicting emotion agitating the girl, stark fear fighting against the genuine love-need that still abided, nearly crushed beneath the burden of guilt and perversion.
Keeping her own eyes on the view beyond the window, the rolling hills of the Montagne Noire, the distant gleam of Lac Provençal, Elizabeth slipped into one of the chairs. The raven still had not flown. Felice watched, and then a sinuous little probe tried to slip past the redactor's defenses: curious, desperately hopeful.
Elizabeth covered her face with her hands and prayed. She lowered her barrier completely and said, "Look into my mind if you wish, Felice. Be gentle, child. See that I've told you the truth—that I desire only to help you."
The thing entered ... tempted ... came closer ... inadvertently revealed a glimpse of itself. O God see the pathetic betrayal of the poor infant girl by her wretched parents. Had it made her incapable of responding to any parent figure?
"You love me?" Incredulity ... the fury held in abeyance ...
"I had no children of my own, but I loved many of them. And healed them, and taught them. It was my life in the Milieu."
"But none of them ... were as bad as me."
"None needed me as much as you do, Felice."
The girl was sitting in the other chair, leaning toward the figure in the red jumpsuit with the hidden face. It was only Elizabeth! She who had been kind back at the auberge, convincing the officials to relinquish chaining her to the chair after the attack on Counselor Shonkwiler. Elizabeth who had bungled the elk-hunting, then showed such gratitude when Felice took over the distasteful skinning and gutting task. Elizabeth who had been so sad about losing her husband. Who had learned to pilot a balloon so that she could fly free and at peace in the Pliocene ... only to give up that freedom and peace so that Felice might escape Culluket.
"I believe you," said a small voice. The monster receded into the far distance.
Elizabeth lowered her hands, straightened, smiled. "Shad I tell you how it would be done?"
Felice nodded. Her cloud of platinum hair was electric with excitement.
"First, we'll need to work in a safe place, where the discharges from your mind won't be a danger to
others. Have you ever heard of Brede's room without doors?"
Felice shook her head.
"It's a mechanical mind-screening device of great power. Brede used it as a refuge, when the pressure from other mentalities became too great to bear. When she was within it, she could see out by means of her farsight—but no other mind could reach her. Brede let me share this refuge for a time. Before she died in the Flood, she gave the device to my friends so that I might have it here. The room without doors isn't a prison. Those inside can leave it at will. But if I am to undertake your heating, you must agree to stay inside the room with me for the duration of the treatment. Perhaps several weeks."
"I agree."
"There is another condition. Now that I know how strong you really are, I would like to use helpers in certain phases of your healing. I'm not as strong as I was in the Milieu. You remember that I had lost my metapsychic powers and only regained them with the shock of passing through the time-gate."
"I remember. Who would be the helpers?"
"Creyn and Dionket."
The girl frowned. "Creyn is all right. I'm not afraid of him. But the Lord Healer ... he's stronger than my Culluket, and yet he didn't stop the torture. He was too cowardly. And now he hides away in the Pyrénées with Minanonn and the stupid Peace Faction most of the time, instead of helping his people fight the Firvulag. I think that's despicable!"
"You don't understand Dionket. Nevertheless, you must accept my need of his assistance."
"How would you use the two exotics? They could never hold me, you know."
"Not using their own powers. But I would program a number of specialized mental restraints that they would operate while I was occupied with more complex healing functions. Think of a surgeon going deep into the body, using retractors and hemozaps and other devices to allow a clear field of work. Dionket and Creyn will free me from having constantly to monitor your defense mechanisms while I perform the catharsis."
Felice was silent. The great brown eyes were abstracted, seeming to watch a fire-backed eagle that wheeled slowly in the cloudless May sky. At last she said, "And when it was all finished, would I be good?"
"You'd be sane, child. Only God knows the other."
The monster peered out, mocking Elizabeth. "Amerie couldn't prove to me that there was a God. Or if there was, that he cared about us. Can you prove it?"
"There are rational proofs for a First Cause and an Omega, for the Father and Son. Empirical proofs for the Love that we call the Holy Spirit But I never knew a single being who attained faith through the proofs. Mostly, they seem to be used after the fact of conversion ... as reassurances."
"To plaster over your doubts, you mean!"
"To shore up our weakness. But the need has to come first, I think. That seems to be the only real proof. The need for love."
"Amerie said something like that to me once. I wanted to believe in a God then. I needed his help. Perhaps he existed then, for me. Now he doesn't. There is no God and there are no devils and you are nothing but a dream of mine! There! Now you know what I think."
"Felice—"
"Does it make a difference? That I don't believe any of you exist? Can you still heal me?"
"I'm confident that I can."
The monster's grin bloomed hke a poisonous flower. "I wonder if your God would approve of your great confidence! If you bite off more than you can chew, you'd pay the price. And a lot of other people might, too."
Elizabeth stood up, her mind still open. "Make your choice now, Felice. Agree to the healing—or leave and never come back."
The diabolical smile faded. There came the old fear, and the still older need that had never been fulfilled. Poor tormented infant, accepting hurt in place of love, filth as substitute beauty, death's oblivion rather than agonized life.
"Well?" said Elizabeth.
"I'll stay with you," the girl whispered.
Her wad tumbled down. A naked thing looked at Elizabeth and waited.
4
SOMETIMES, Aiken decided, being a king was a crock of shit.
He was wide-awake at three in the morning, glumly watching the tawny owls chase mice around the ramparts and balconies of the Castle of Glass. The house lights were off. He'd had to decree a blackout once a week in order to give the feathered hunters a clear field in their war on the rodents, who throve as a result of his courtiers' penchant for alfresco dining.
It had been a frustrating day. Celadeyr of Afaliah had taken great exception to Aiken's master plan for the raid on Felice's lair. He objected to having to supply ad the chalikos for the campaign, and he wanted the rendezvous to be in his own city rather than at the Gulf of Guadalquivir. He had given in with very bad grace when Aiken asserted his royal authority.
Then Yosh Watanabe told him that the new shipment of bamboo was hopeless for fighting-kite bones. The stuff was too weak for use in the big man-carrying o-dako, and too brittle for the smaller rokkaku. It was back to the drawing board (and the swamp) if they hoped to have a kite-fighting event in the Grand Tourney this fall.
Then came news that the damn barenecks had mutinied in the main candy factory down in Rocilan. Aiken sent Alberonn to check it out and it was discovered that a cadre of Aiken's jumped-up gold-torcs (the ones without any significant latencies) had been running a scam, forcing production to unnaturally high levels by overworking the bares and ramas, then selling surplus goodies on the Lowlife black market. The golds had been promptly snuffed and the harried workers given a revised quota. But Aiken brooded over how much more ripping off his dubious recruits might be into, and he finally decided to recall the entire elite guard back to Goriah where he could keep it under his coercive thumb, rather than spreading it out It would leave some city garrisons dangerously undermanned, but that would happen anyway once he got the Spanish campaign off the ground.
Then there was Bardelask. The Famorel Little People were closing in, polishing off the outlying Valentinois plantations one by one. Lady Armida was running scared (with good reason), demanding that the sovereign lead a relief force to put the fear of Tana into old Mimee and his gang.
Aiken couldn't do it of course. Not with all his big guns mobilizing for the move into Koneyn. Poor Bardelask was expendable, even though he didn't dare admit it to Armida. The principal strategic objective was the photonic Spear and the cache of golden tores that Felice had squirreled away. Any day now, Elizabeth would wind up her redact job and turn the monster loose. (Aiken's spy in Black Crag estimated that the brain overhaul would take another two weeks—but who could risk it?) He had to raid the treasure-cave before Felice emerged from the room without doors and then, following Culluket's plan, ambush her before she added it all up.
Then a newly arrived Lowlife from the Vosges region reported that some kind of Free Human expedition was in the offing. There were also rumors that the outlaws would soon have other weapons besides the iron.
And Sullivan-Tonn "respectfully requested" that he and Olone be allowed to move to Afaliah, and Olone defied her husband right to his face, calling him a jealous old cheese-pecker all the while giving Aiken the eye. (The request was taken under advisement.)
As a result of all the demands made on him during the day, Aiken had been late to supper. The roast swan dried out and the soufflé fell.
And for the fifth night in a row, Mercy had merely submitted, unaroused, and blamed it on "fey influences" abroad in the May night.
This last unaccountably, had troubled Aiken most of all. He himself had felt the presence of some uncanny mental substratum; but inexperienced as he was in the nuances of farsensing, he could not even confirm its existence, much less identify it or trace its source. He had appealed to Culluket, but the Interrogator detected nothing. Whatever the emanation was, it seemed closely directed along the uniquely human mode.
After Mercy fed asleep, when he was coldly alert and unsexed, he finally worked up the nerve to check out one of his most insidious suspicions: that she herself was the source of the metap
sychic disturbance. While she lay there among the satin sheets, he carefully fashioned a soft mind-probe, supposedly indetectable, that could be merged with his great coercive faculty and used to winkle out secrets. The Interrogator had been training him in its operation over the past several months, and he had used it successfully on other humans—notably the potentiady traitorous Sullivan. But Aiken had never yet dared to use it on his wife. Redaction was his shakiest power, and if she caught him ...
In her sleep, Mercy smiled. A pang of fury shot through him. It had to be! There was no other explanation. No other way to explain why she was no longer afraid of him—and thus, no longer responsive.
The probe had slid easily into her, oblique and wheedling:
Are you happy Mercy my love?
So happy.
And why are you happy?
I have my child and I have my sweet acushla.
And who is he?
Who else but my own true lover?
(But no image, damn her!) Look upon your lover dear Mercy and tell me what you see.
I see the new sun rising beyond the inland sea.
(Sun!) Do you hear his voice?
I hear it now.
(But she could be talking about Me!) What is his name Mercy my love?
His name is Joy. Brightness. Culmination.
Where is he woman where is he WHO is he?
Oh ... oh ... halfway betwixt Var-Mesk and hell alas don't go Love don't risk the Monster wait for me to help wait ...
Jesus!
He whisked his coercive effort from her cortex to the stem reticulum until her frenzied movements calmed and her breath became slow and regular and there was no risk that she might awaken. But something at her deepest mental level was now aware. It had not recognized him as the intruder; but it knew that there was danger. Aiken waited, but the crystal of cognizance continued to glow. Finally he had to withdraw with the utmost caution. He waited awhile, then climbed out of bed, put on a robe, and retired to the balcony to think.
Every one of those replies Mercy had given could be applied to himself, as well as to the other. Only the fleeting reference to Var-Mesk was puzzling. (Unless you classed the entire bloody Q&A as an enigmatic totality.) Mindprobes! What a rotten, cowardly thing to do—grubbing around inside the brain of the woman he loved, looking for an excuse to set her up.