One of the Zap-Star battle-mirrors was plucked from orbit and taken to the ON-1 habitat for examination. A problematic chip was indeed found, one that was unauthorized in the original specifications. However, engineers of the O'Connor satellite consortium maintained that the component was entirely innocuous, designed to improve guidance system response to groundside commands. If the chip did contain an override, the thing had been hidden with surpassing cleverness and would probably display its true colors only when activated by a coded signal.
One could, of course, haul in each and every one of the 130 non-Chinese battle-mirrors and — using exquisite care — remove the dubious chip. The fix would take approximately four years and cost $7.2 billion, and in the meantime the independently operated Chinese units would remain fully operational.
The allegation of conspiracy was based thus far only upon the unsupported word of Shannon O'Connor Tremblay. Denis's mind-ream of her husband had yielded only tenuous confirmation — and that legally inadmissible. Subsequent investigations of the O'Connor empire had turned up no evidence whatsoever of any Zap-Star conspiracy — and precious little else that was even remotely actionable. The only taint was a distant one: back in the 1980s certain O'Connor subsidiaries had been strongly suspected of laundering Mafia funds. But this had never been proved and the Mob was dead and gone, while these days the O'Connor organization seemed guilty only of the immoderate gobbling of smaller corporate fry...
At least that had been the status of the government's investigation up until 20 September 2013.
On that day, an alert bureaucrat in the Securities and Exchange Commission took note of a routine notification of a transfer of assets from an American conglomerate to an obscure Canadian holding company. The SEC woman was struck by the enormous size of the transaction, and even more interested when she recognized the conglomerate to be a key-stone of the intricate O'Connor organization. A fast check with Montreal (Canada having less of a penchant for financial confidentiality than the U. S. at that time) yielded up the name of the man behind the dummy corporation. The SEC woman informed the Attorney General and he informed the President of the United States — who in turn called up Denis to inquire why his younger brother Victor was being handed control of virtually everything that Kieran O'Connor owned.
"I told him I was just as flabbergasted as he was, " Denis told me. We had met at the conclusion of MacGregor's lecture, and now he and I and Lucille stood in the back of the nearly deserted hall talking the thing over. Naturally the President had asked his people to brief him on Victor; and he had been dismayed to discover that the Nobel laureate's family harbored a sheep who, if not exactly black, looked decidedly grubby around the edges.
And was a familiar of Kieran O'Connor's daughter.
"I'll give Baumgartner credit, " Denis said. "He called me himself and he was straightforward about Victor. He told me that the government had a file on him dating way back to when Vic and Dad first started Remco. Tax fiddling, and later on some quashed indictments for interstate transportation of stolen property. The feds have never been able to get the goods on Vic, primarily because no one would testify against him. Lately, he's seemed to be clean — but the feds looked him up again after Shannon sprang her blockbuster. Naturally she was investigated with her father, and her relationship with Vic muddied the waters considerably. I was approached last spring and asked to mind-ream both Victor and Shannon. Of course I refused. "
Lucille and I said nothing and kept our thoughts to ourselves.
"Now the President has personally appealed to me to interrogate them mentally — especially Shannon — to find out whether the threat to Zap-Star is real. If I can get confirmation from Victor, it will preclude the possibility that Shannon is suffering some delusion. "
"But why do the feds think Vic would know anything about it?" I asked.
Denis said, "Because Kieran O'Connor has terminal testicular cancer. If he's passing his empire to Vic, as the Canadian connection seems to prove, he's probably passing the clout along with the assets. "
"Christ!" I said. "Vic with a handle on Zap-Star?"
Denis said, "O'Connor evaded both EE and normal government surveillance and has disappeared. As far as the feds can tell, Vic is innocently at home in Berlin. Shannon Tremblay was traced to this Congress. The agents are certain she's here in the hotel. "
"And the President wants you to find her, " Lucille said, "and turn her inside out?"
"That's about it, " said Denis.
"It's monstrous!" she exclaimed indignantly. "The whole thing is incredible! That wretched woman corrupted Gerry for some squalid motive of her own, and then when he was caught in the Coercer Flap she invented this other thing —"
Denis silenced her. "All I know is what was in Gerry's mind. He doesn't believe she's deluded. His impression — the impression of a trained psychiatrist — is that she is eminently sane in spite of a neurotic love-hate relationship with her father. Deep in his mental core, Gerry recognized that Kieran O'Connor was a paramount metapsychic manipulator, a man who had used his powers for self-aggrandizement all his life. The Zap-Star net wasn't Gerry's province. He knew O'Connor's consortium built the guidance systems for the net and he had a kind of instinct that it figured in some scheme that the old man was cooking up. That was the only verification I could give the President after my ream of Gerry. It was sufficient to launch the full-scale investigation, which yielded nothing... up until now. "
"So where do you go from here?" I asked.
"I did a quick farscan of the place, " Denis said. "I have Shannon's mental signature — in a rough approximation, I'm afraid — from my mind-ream of Gerry. I swept the hotel from top to bottom and found no trace of her. For what it's worth, I found no trace of Vic either! But that doesn't mean they're not here. Vic's a devil of a screener and Shannon's probably no slouch either. I'm going to go very quietly to the top scanners attending the Congress and ask their help in watching out for both Shannon and Vic. They may let their guard down. "
"You're not thinking of confronting your brother—!" Lucille was aghast.
"I'd rather not, " Denis replied dryly, "but there seems to be little choice. If he shows up, I'll play it by ear. But I don't think he will show. " He looked at his watch. "By now, he's the new owner of O'Connor's billions, with more profitable ways to occupy his time. "
"And Shannon Tremblay, " I said archly, "is probably helping him get in the mood to romp through the money-bin. "
Lucille said, "If the government agents tracked Shannon today, they can track her another day and take her into custody for your interrogation. Denis, you will have fulfilled your promise to the President when you notify the other scanners to watch out for her. "
I could see that my conscientious nephew was mulling this over, trying to decide whether to remain in the hotel on farscan alert rather than join his colleagues at the banquet, where he was certain to be distracted by his own speechmaking — to say nothing of the emotion-charged atmosphere.
Impetuously, I said, "Look. My farscan hasn't much range, but I know every nook and cranny of this old place. Pass me Shannon Tremblay's mental signature and I'll spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening combing the hotel from cellar to rafters. Hell — I'll get a passkey from Jasper Delacourt and search the place physically when the delegates are out. I'd rather do that than go to the banquet anyhow. Farewell speeches depress me and thunderstorms rattling around mountain peaks make me nervous. Any old backpacker will tell you the same. "
Denis eyed me doubtfully. "Uncle Rogi, if you should find Shannon — or, God forbid, Vic! — you are to do nothing except notify me telepathically. "
"I swear!" said I, rooting in my hip pocket. I dangled the talisman and clapped my right hand over my heart. "I swear by the Great Carbuncle."
All day long the Sons of Earth pickets, a couple of hundred strong, marched up and down Highway 302, in front of the resort entrance. They chanted and flourished their pla
cards and banners, and now and then numbers of the more dedicated lay down on the driveway when shuttle buses brought in delegates who were lodged at other hotels in the area. The police didn't bother to arrest the lie-ins; they just toted them out of the way and deposited them very gently in a handy culvert flowing with storm run-off. Along about dusk, when the big X-wing transports came in from their base at Berlin, a band of more determined activists tried to infiltrate the resort grounds by moving through the forest that lay between the hotel and the cog's Base Station Road. Police detection equipment sniffed the invaders out before they had penetrated two hundred meters. A SWAT team of State Police rounded up the antioperant commandos, who were armed with nothing more lethal than paint-pistols, and removed them to the hospitality of the county jail over at Lancaster.
By the time the delegates were ready to depart for the Summit Chalet, the heavy rain had discouraged all but a handful of diehard demonstrators out on the highway. I had completed my search of the hotel's lower reaches and was just coming up to the main floor when Denis transmitted a mental hail:
Uncle Rogi... We're almost ready to leave for the banquet I presume and pray you've found nothing.
In the boiler-room was a poker game that I was strongly tempted to sit in on and in one of the empty salons a delegate from Sri Lanka and one from Greece were interrupted in the midst of researches into comparative metanooky. There is no sign of Mrs. Tremblay and no sign of Vic dieumercibeau'.
None of us has sensed their presence either. Lucille's probably right when she says they cleared out long ago if they were ever even here I've notified the President he gave me a goodwill message to read at the banquet one could almost believe he was sincere...
Buck up mon fils. Go have your feast my only regret is not getting to see the boys tricked out in black tie.
[Image: Interior X-wing skybus. Dim flashes of lightning through rain-streaked small windows. Multiethnic delegates in formal dress settling into seats. Whispers and apprehensive giggling. Lucille smiling white-faced TWO GAWKY PENGUINS STRAPPED IN ON EITHER SIDE OF A SMALL CHUNKY ONE.] There. I'm sorry they don't look more cheery.
Mille merde Denis what a glum and qualmish crew all you need is a band playing "Nearer My God to Thee" Go! Go! It will be all right! Follow your damned gleam my son Follow the Great Carbuncle to the uttermost height!
Au revoir Uncle Rogi.
Standing there at the head of the stairs in the fast-emptying lobby, I heard the first of the X-wings take off for the mountain summit. It was full dark outside and the rain was only moderate, with faint growlings of thunder. On top of Mount Washington the weather was bound to be worse; but the transports were so reliable and sturdy that they could have made the trip safely in a hurricane. The storm would provide a piquant contrast to the luxurious surroundings and the good food. After the banquet they could all gather around the four fireplaces in the chalet's main lounge and promise to mend their battered ideals. With a little bit of luck even Tamara Sakhvadze far away in Moscow would soul-travel to the festivities and take heart...
Well, it was time for me to renew my futile quest. I checked my watch and noted that it was nearly seven. The business offices of the hotel would be nearly empty now, as would the delegates' rooms. The only dense collections of people would be in the hotel kitchens, where the cleaners were still at work, and in the two bars where a few media types and other nondelegate hangers-on had gravitated. The hotel's Security Chief, Art Gregoire, came in the main entrance shaking raindrops from his jacket and spotted me.
"Hey, Art. What d'ya say?"
"Is that you, Roj? Thought you'd be up at the big feed. "
"Got business to take care of. Things looking okay?"
Gregoire shrugged. "Once we get the folks up the hill, we figure it's pret' near all over. Only a handful of half-drowned pickets left. Me and my gang'll keep an eye on the X-wing pad and cruise the hotel to make sure no loony-tune tries to torch 'er. The county mounties and the rent-a-cops went into town to grab a bite and dry their socks. We need 'em, we know how to get 'em. "
"Any action over on the other side of the mountain — by the Carriage Road?"
"State fuzz says there ain't diddly. Nope, the Sons've given you heads a free pass tonight. You lucked out with the rain. "
He went off to scrounge supper in the kitchen and I headed toward the executive offices to get on with my search. As if Shannon Tremblay would be hiding among the file cabinets...
I stood outside the manager's office with my eyes closed and let my scanning ultrasense rove into the nearest rooms. There was no trace of any mental emanation on the operant "band" and no clearly farsensed vision of normal people lurking about, which I would have perceived had any operant been deliberately suppressing his aura.
But there was something.
I unlocked the computer center with my passkey and turned the lights on in the windowless rooms, and at that moment I heard a noise — a faint scraping sound — and realized that it came from the storeroom on the far side of computer operations.
I tried to farscan through the storeroom door. I couldn't.
Rooted to the spot, I probed the mysterious obstacle. Behind the wood and plaster lay psychic energy of an appalling absorptive kind. It was not a barrier — the little room was filled with it, and it was opaque and magnetic and colder than death.
I think I knew at once that he was inside. I tried to give telepathic warning to Denis — to anybody. But as I uttered the mind-shout I knew it had gone no farther than the boundary of my skull. I walked without volition down the neat rows of desks with their VDTs and data cabinets and posture chairs and stood before the closet, waiting for the door to open. In there was insanity and a lust that had no relation to any natural human appetite. In there, something had hungered and fed and still hungered. Even though it wore the shape of a man it had metamorphosed into something altogether different — and done it by its own will.
A barely heard click. The knob turned and a long shadowed streak grew as the door swung inward. Not a single beam of light from the computer room penetrated that palpable blackness — but nevertheless, I saw Victor holding her. Both of their bodies were lit with a flickering blue-violet halo. Only his lips were bright, drinking the final dying scarlet radiance from the four-petaled energy-flower that seemed to be imprinted at the base of her spine.
Then it was finished.
The devouring darkness vanished. Room light shone on Victor, who regarded me without surprise and beckoned me to come closer and admire what he'd done. It was as if he knew I would recognize the pattern as the evil opposite of Ume's fulfillment of me. He was fully clothed in a gray suit, but every stitch had been burned from the corpse of the woman who lay at his feet. The body was charred and crackling, and up the spine and on the head were seven stigmata of white ash, marking where he had fed from each psychic energy-font in turn — beginning with the most rarefied and continuing to the root. I had no doubt that in place of Ume's joy there had been excruciating pain.
"There'll be more, " he told me calmly. "Only I won't have to exert myself in the burning. It's interesting that you understand. I want — I want to know more about what it is. I think you may be able to tell me. Am I right?"
"Yes." No no no no...
Victor laughed. "Come along with me and watch. "
In my nightmare, I followed him docilely out of the hotel. We went without being challenged to one of the hotel parking lots at the north end of the grounds, where a highway department van stood in the shadows. The rain had nearly stopped but there was still a good deal of lightning flashing in the east, in the direction of the mountain.
I was dimly aware of another man sitting behind the wheel of the van. It was old Pete Laplace, who had worked at the cog during my years at the hotel. I got into the back of the van and we drove off.
Vic said, "The boys ready to take off on sked?"
"Ready as they'll ever be, " said a dour Yankee voice. "Poor stupid bastards.
" He cackled, then swore as the van hit a pothole and lurched. We turned to the right and I knew we were on the back road leading to the cog base station.
"We're going to take my Uncle Rogi along with O'Connor, " Vic said. "You three old gaffers ought to enjoy the fireworks together. You get steam up okay?"
"I know what I'm doin', " the oldster snapped. "Just hope t'hell you do, Vic. Still say you shoulda gone in the airyplane. "
"Not on your life, Pete. That mob of heads claim to be pacifists, but you don't catch me betting my ass on it... Slow down, dammit. We're almost to the Upper Falls turnoff. "
My personality seemed to have fragmented. One portion was howling in panic-stricken horror, while another quite calmly submitted to Victor's continuing coercive hold, acknowledging him as my master whom I would serve without question. And then there was a third psychic chunk. This was the smallest and shakiest of all, stomped to a frazzle and nearly buried in the mental cataclysm that had overwhelmed me. This part of my mind told me to hang in there and wait for my chance. It was the damn fool part of my personality, so of course it won out. I've often wondered whether other heroes were made that way, too.
The van made a sharp turn and screeched to a halt. Vic and the poisonous old party climbed out. When they returned they were supporting a tottering form. Far be it from the richest man in the world to ride in the back of a muddy van, so they strapped him securely into Vic's seat, and my nephew came back to sit silently with me while we traveled the last few kilometers to the cog railway base station.