There was a cryptic silence. Then:
Come with me.
The front door opened and I was firmly impelled out onto the pavement. I heard the locks click. A couple of coeds sitting at a sidewalk table in front of the little restaurant next door eyed me curiously. I let the Ghost shepherd me around the corner. It said:
Walk east on South Street.
All right all right! I said rebelliously. For Godsake don't make a public spectacle out of me!
I — or perhaps I should say we — walked along the quiet side street. It was only two blocks long, and near Main Street were a few commercial structures and widely separated old homes converted into offices and apartments. There was very little traffic and only sporadic bits of sidewalk, so I strolled along the edge of the street, past landscaped parking lots and mellow frame residences, and crossed Currier Place. There stood the Hanover public library, a modernistic pile of red brick, concrete, and glass-wall framed in enough greenery to allow it to blend unobtrusively with the more classic buildings around it. Immediately east of the library was a large white clapboard house with dark green shutters, a modest portico, and third-floor dormers, set well forward on a thickly wooded lot that sloped toward a deep ravine in the rear. On a weedy and unkempt lawn lay an abandoned tricycle. A football and a yellow Tonka Toy bulldozer decorated the porch, along with a sleeping Maine Coon cat that resembled a rummage-sale fur piece. Two hydrangea bushes flanking the steps still carried pink papery blooms. No people were in evidence.
I stood under a scraggly diseased elm and stared at the house that would one day be famed throughout the galaxy as the Old Remillard Home. The Ghost said: You will note its convenient proximity to the bookshop.
I didn't say anything.
The Ghost went on: Six years from now, Denis will buy this house for his family. Many years later it will be Paul's home —
"Paul?" I said out loud. "Who the devil is Paul?"
Denis and Lucille's youngest son. Marc and Jon's father. The Man Who Sold New Hampshire. The first human to serve on the Galactic Concilium.
Starlings were yammering up in the elm and the golden autumn sun heated the asphalt pavement and gave a faint pungency to the air. The pleasant old house — as solid and homely a piece of New Hampshire architecture as one could imagine — seemed to be drowsing in the late-afternoon calm of this little college town. I looked at it stupidly while my mind took hold of what the Ghost had said and tried to digest its import. The "galactic" bit was too bizarre to penetrate at first, so I seized on a more down-to-earth improbability.
"Lucille? Marry Denis? You've got to be kidding. "
It will happen.
"Admitted, she's one of his most talented psychic subjects. But the two of them are hopelessly incompatible — fire and ice. Besides, I happen to know that she's in love with Bill Sampson, a clinical psychiatrist at Hitchcock. It's an open secret that they'll marry as soon as her analysis is complete and there's no ethical conflict. "
The Ghost said: Lucille and Denis must marry and produce offspring. Both of them carry supravital alleles for high metafunction.
"Tu paries d'une idée à la con! They don't even like each other. And what about poor old Sampson?"
An unavoidable casualty of Earth's mental evolution. His wounded heart will recover. The deflation of the Cartier-Sampson liaison will be one of your most critical tasks in the months ahead. When Lucille is free, she will naturally gravitate to Denis, her metapsychic peer, and the genetic advantage of their union will become self-evident to her. If it is not, you can discreetly press the point.
"Me? Me?" I was sandbagged by the casual arrogance of the Ghost. "You think this girl's some kind of computer I can reprogram?"
You'll find a way to work things out. You must. Sampson is hopelessly latent, an unsuitable mate for this young woman who is so highly endowed with the creative metafunction. It is unfortunately true that she and Denis have clashing temperaments, but this is not an insuperable barrier to a fruitful marriage. Lucille will be an ideal professional partner for Denis as well. Her drive and indomitable common sense will counter his tendency to brood and vacillate. There will be continuing tension between them, especially in the later years. It is then that your own supportive role — and your fortuitous proximity — will be most advantageous.
"I'm your mole, you mean! Put into position for continuous meddling with people who aren't even born yet — isn't that it?" I pulled myself together. Although the street seemed to be deserted, it would hardly do for local residents to look out of their windows and discover a middle-aged loufoque haranguing an elm tree. I walked on to the east, where the street curved into Sanborn Road and the wooded precincts of the Catholic church.
Sternly, I addressed the Ghost in mental speech: I see very well the role you intend for me. I am to be your agent provocateur, interfering with upcoming generations of Remillards like some evil genius in a goddam Russian novel!
Nonsense. Your influence will be entirely beneficial. You will be needed. Your qualms are understandable, but they will fade as the importance of your mental nurturing manifests itself.
If I refuse the commission — ?
I cannot coerce you. If your compensatory influence is to be effective, it must be freely given. The unborn Remillards needing your help are not ordinary human beings, however, and your sacrifices on their behalf will have far-ranging consequences.
How... far?
Rogi, vieux pote, I have already said it — but you refused to accept the implication. And so I will be explicit, so that you will know exactly what is at stake. You are a member of a remarkable family: one that will one day be the most important on Earth. Denis and Lucille's children and grandchildren are destined to become magnates — leaders, that is — of the Human Polity of the Concilium of the Galactic Milieu.
"C'est du tonnerre!" I cried, aghast, and my mind asked the halting question: Are you telling me that we... the planet Earth... will become part of a galactic organization within my lifetime?
There was a furious honking and a sarcastic voice that called, "Howsabout it, Charley? You gonna stand in the street till you grow roots?"
I snapped out of my daze to see a laundry van two feet away from me in the middle of Sanborn Road. There must have been something in my face that turned the young driver's impatience to concern. "Hey — you feeling all right?"
I lifted one hand and hastened onto the sidewalk. "I'm okay. Sorry about that. "
The driver eyed me uncertainly, then shrugged and drove on.
The Ghost said: My dear blockhead.
You, the entity who reads this, will doubtless think the same of me. Had not the Ghost told me long ago that it was a being from another star, that its intentions were benevolent and our family was of crucial importance? A man possessed of the least modicum of imagination might have deduced some design behind these uncanny maneuverings — always supposing that the spectral puppet-master was real and not the perverted manifestation of my own unconscious.
I made an attempt to gather my scattered wits. "When will this... invasion of extraterrestrials happen?"
Never! Rogi, you are a prize idiot! Le roi des cons! Why should we invade your silly little world? The starry universe is our domain and our cherished responsibility, and we come to a world only when we are called.
"Elaine and her people called you, " I muttered bitterly. I reverted to mental speech when I noticed a workman cutting the lawn of the church across the street: Why didn't you respond to Elaine's appeal, mon fantôme? All her people asked was that you bring us the blessings of your galactic civilization before we're destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. Wasn't that a good enough reason for you to bestow your cosmic CARE packages on Earth?
The Milieu does not dare to contact a developing world until the planetary Mind attains a certain maturity. Premature intervention would be hazardous.
To whom?
To the planet... and to the Milieu.
Well, don'
t cut it too fine! Détente's on a fast track to hell again and every other tin-pot nation in the Third World seems to have an atomic bomb ready to defend its honor. You wait too long and your flying saucers might land in a radioactive slag heap!
The likelihood of a small nation detonating a nuclear weapon is unfortunately high. But the prospect of full-scale nuclear war between the great powers is infinitesimal at the present time. The danger seems destined to escalate with the passage of time, but my prolepsis indicates that the Great Intervention will almost certainly take place before your civilization destroys itself.
Well — when do you land, for chrissake?
When there is worldwide recognition of the higher faculties of the mind, and when those faculties are used harmoniously by a certain minimal number of humans.
Are you talking about the kind of thing Denis is working on?
Denis and many others. Metapsychic operancy is the key to lasting peace and goodwill among disparate entities — human and nonhuman. To know the mind of another intimately is to understand, to respect, and ultimately to love.
Then all of the citizens of your Galactic Milieu have the higher mental powers — telepathy and psychokinesis and all that?
The spectrum varies from race to race and from individual to individual. But all Milieu minds share telepathic communication and our leadership enjoys formidable insight. In matters of gravity there can be no duplicity among us, no misunderstanding, no irrational fear or suspicion.
No wars?
We have never experienced interplanetary aggression. Our Milieu is far from perfect, but its citizens are secure from exploitation and institutionalized injustice. No individual or faction may flout the will of the Concilium. Every citizen-entity works toward universal betterment at the same time that it is encouraged to fulfill its personal potential. Ultimately, the goal of our people is to obtain that mental Unity toward which all finite life aims.
"Grand dieu, " I whispered. "Ça, c'est la meillure!" Without thinking, I had turned left onto Lebanon, a major thoroughfare. My heart soared like that of a six-year-old on Christmas morning. I had thrust aside all my doubts as to the authenticity of the Ghost. If it was a figment, its delusions were comforting ones. I asked:
How many planets belong to this Milieu?
Thousands. Our present coadunate population includes some two hundred thousand million entities — but only five races. This is a very young galaxy. Eventually, all thinking beings within it who survive the perilous ascent of technology's ladder will find Unity with us. My own race, which was the first to attain coadunation (the mental state leading to Unity) has the honor and the duty of guiding other peoples into our grand fellowship of the Mind. Nearly a quarter of a million juvenile races are currently under observation, and six thousand of those have a high civilization... but you humans are the only candidates approaching induction.
Jesus Christ! When I tell Denis —
You will tell no one, least of all Denis. These revelations are for your own encouragement, given because you demanded of me good reasons for your continuing cooperation.
Denis deserves to know!
He would be distracted from his great work. He must go on his own way for now, assisted by you in secret. His trials — and there will be many — will be his incentive.
God, you're a cold-blooded bastard! Suppose I tell him in spite of you?
Denis would not believe you. You are being very silly, Rogi. Your obtuseness wearies me.
"Sometimes, " I whispered with a certain malicious satisfaction, "I get pretty sick of me, too! Poor Ghost. You picked a weak reed for your galactic shuffleboard game. "
There was a spectral chuckle: I myself have had my own ups and downs... but here we are in front of the real-estate office. Mrs. Mallory awaits your decision on the bookshop rental.
I felt in my hip pocket for the two keys she had given me, one for the Gates House store and one for the apartment upstairs. The two pieces of brass were cool in my hand. God knew what they would unlock in my future.
The Ghost said: I have a small token for you. Look in the gutter.
I did, and there among the leaves and pebbles and gum wrappers was a gleam of red. I picked up a dusty little key ring. At the end of its short silvery chain was a novelty fob, a red glass marble of the type we kids used to call "clearies, " enclosed in a wire cage.
Well? asked the Ghost.
Don't rush me, dammit! I said. Then I opened the office door and went in to sign the lease on my haunted bookshop.
14
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE, EARTH
22 DECEMBER 1990
THE TEST CHAMBER was heavily insulated against sound, temperature change, and extraneous electromagnetic radiation. Its air was filtered and its lighting dim and blue, which latter turned the ruddy color of the kitten's fur to grizzled gray and its amber eyes to smoky topaz. In the ceiling were video and cine cameras, radiation detectors, and other environmental monitors, focused on the cat and on Lucille Cartier. The young woman, wired with body-function electrodes, sat in a chair at one end of a heavy marble balance table. The kitten perched opposite her on the table top; the twin EEG transmitters mounted near the inner base of its ears were only two millimeters in diameter and almost completely concealed by the fur. On the table between Lucille and the cat was the ceramic platform of a hermetically sealed, ultrasensitive recording electro-balance. It looked rather like a medium-sized cheeseboard with a glass dome cover.
Vigdis Skaugstad's telepathic voice said: Ready Lucille?
Lucille said: Steady&ready. Minou too.
The kitten said: [Play?]
Lucille said: Soon now wait be good.
Vigdis said: Systems running scale hot GO.
A white baby spot flashed on, illuminating the glass-covered balance plate. Simultaneously the blue lighting faded away, leaving most of the room in darkness. Lucille began to hum monotonously. She was still only imperfectly operant in creativity and the music helped to suppress her insistent left brain and induce the necessary lowering of the intercerebral gradient. She stared at the dazzling balance plate, trying not to "will" too forcefully, urging the primal power that resided in her unconscious mind to flow toward the controlling conscious. In this way primitive humanity had summoned its gods, worked its magic, achieved transcendence, even compelled reality: by bridging unconscious and conscious, right brain and left, in this subtle, quasi-instinctual way that had been all but lost with the advent of the conquering word. Verbalization, a left-brain function, had given birth to human civilization — but at a price. The ancient creative powers were repressed, and lived on mainly in the archetypal guise of muses, those flashes of artistic inspiration or illuminating insight that welled up from the soul's depths almost without volition. And the old magical aspects of creativity, the ability to direct not only the "mental" dynamic fields but also the fields generating space, time, matter, and energy, were relegated to the dreamworld in most individuals.
It had been so for Lucille Cartier until four months earlier. Then, bowing at last to the counsel of her analyst, she had agreed to undertake training at the Dartmouth Metapsychology Laboratory that would raise her latent mind-powers to operancy. "The faculties are part of you, " Dr. Bill Sampson had told her, "and you'll have to accept the fact. And learn to control them — or they'll control you. "
So she had come at last to the gray saltbox building. To her great relief, Denis Remillard had assigned her a congenial and nonthreatening mentor. Vigdis Skaugstad was a visiting research fellow from the University of Oslo, a specialist in psychocreativity. She was thirty-six, pug-nosed and rosy, with very long flaxen hair that she braided and wound about her head in a coronet. Vigdis's own psychic talents were unexceptional, but she was a gifted teacher; and her tact and empathy had led Lucille to overcome most of her deep-seated repugnance toward the research program — if not her dislike of its young director. Working with Vigdis, Lucille had learned telepathy very easily. This mo
st verbal of the higher powers quickly assumes a "hard-wired" status in the brain of a talented person, as do most of the related ultrasenses. But Lucille's other significant faculty, creativity, had required a tedious, almost Zenlike regimen to raise it to the operant level. It was still far from reliable. Lucille took training exercises almost every day from Vigdis, and at the same time worked toward her doctorate in psychology. Thus far she had sedulously avoided socializing with other operants, except for an occasional lunch with Vigdis.
The laboratory cats, on the other hand, were her dear friends.
The animals were used in many different experiments, especially those involving telepathy, a feline long suit. Lucille's special affinity with the cats had at first provoked jokes among the staff about witches and their familiars; but the joshing had cut off in short order when Lucille seemed to establish a genuine mental linkage with one particular kitten, leading to an apparent creativity manifestation that was having its first controlled test today.
"Ooh, Minou, " Lucille crooned aloud. And to the cat: Let's do it baby you and me let's do it together again... together Minou!
The kitten's large ears swiveled and its pupils widened as it stared fixedly at the shielded balance platform. It saw the image in Lucille's mind and it knew what she was trying to accomplish.
So it helped.
"Minou, Minou, ooh-ooh, " sang Lucille.
The little animal's whiskers cocked forward in anticipation. It uttered a barely audible trilling sound, the hunting call of the Abyssinian breed, and its black-tipped tail twitched. Except for its relatively large ears and eyes, its conformation and color were almost exactly those of a miniature puma.
"Ooh-ooh-ooh. " Here it comes kitty here it comes...