Mute

  Then the chamber door opened and other CC psi-mutes entered. Damner the controller strode toward Knot and Piebald, closely followed by a mature woman.

  Knot’s will left him. He released the lobo and stood up. Piebald did the same. They were in the power of two psi-controllers.

  Drem the futurist was carried up. “Yes, we are interfering, when we had agreed not to,” he said without preamble. “Did either of you actually think we would stand idly by and watch our employer be pointlessly destroyed? We agreed to serve the winner, but there is not to be any winner, just two losers, and we all will perish, your way. We did not agree to that. So we are taking necessary action to break the deadlock. Now we shall release your bodies—but whoever makes an untoward move will be subjected to will-control again. Understood?”

  Knot, released, nodded. So did Piebald. This was a new aspect of the situation; neither of them knew what it meant.

  Behind Drem, other psi-mutants were reviving the healer and Harlan, and attending to Finesse. “How did you get in?” Knot asked. “We had most psi blocked out.”

  “It took a concentrated effort to neutralize the psi of the baby, Drem said. “We had to use our psi to neutralize the neutralizer, as it were. Once we accomplished that, we were able to act, and we have done so, before it was too late. It was no easy chore, but it had to be done.”

  “So you psis are taking over CC?” Piebald asked.

  “Not so. Our compromise stands,” Drem continued. “We shall serve the victor. But to ensure that there be a victor, we are now requiring that this matter be settled by arbitration rather than physical combat. Each of you will select an arbiter, and these arbiters will review the facts of the case, discuss the issue, and come to an agreement, perhaps a compromise. Do you agree to abide by their decision?”

  “No!” Knot said.

  Piebald, after a moment, said, “Yes.”

  “Why do you decline?” Drem asked Knot. “Do you feel the procedure is unfair?”

  “I fear it is a trick to give the lobos control,” Knot said. “Or if not, that the lobos will violate the terms of the settlement and usurp control.”

  “Rest assured: we shall not serve any usurper. Neither you nor the lobos will be able to penetrate CC’s defenses again, after this. Winner and loser will be protected from each other.”

  Still Knot did not accede. He knew Finesse would not agree to anything less than complete restoration of the original program, regardless what any arbiter might decide.

  “Do you fear an objective review of your case would defeat it?” Piebald asked.

  That stung; that was exactly what Knot feared. How could anyone who had not experienced the horrors of the lobo villa understand how superficial Piebald’s logic was? Incalculable harm could be done in the name of objectivity—as the entire history of CC demonstrated. But how could he explain that—to these employees of CC?

  “We prefer to have your agreement on this,” Drem said. “But we shall have a decision, which we shall enforce, regardless. If you will not choose an arbiter, we shall select one for you.”

  Knot saw he had no choice. He would have to accede to this superficially reasonable disaster. “It is duress, but I will participate.”

  “That suffices,” Drem said. He looked tired. The futures psi was physically weak anyway, and this event had not strengthened him. Knot could sympathize. “We have all made decisions under duress—the duress of events.” He turned to Piebald. “The arbiter for the lobos?”

  “My wife,” Piebald said promptly. “The lady Hulda the Prophetess.”

  A group of CC psis assembled and concentrated, reminding Knot fleetingly of the psi chickens. Suddenly a projection of the lady lobo formed.

  Hulda looked about, startled. “You are here as our arbiter,” Piebald said. “The issue is at impasse; you must speak for the lobos.”

  She nodded, grasping the situation with astonishing rapidity. “I always have.”

  “Your arbiter,” Drem asked Knot.

  Whom should he choose? So few understood the situation, or were in any position to argue the case if they did. Whom would Finesse trust? Hermine the weasel? But Hermine drew her intelligence from the one she communicated with, and might be unduly influenced by Piebald, whose mind was devious and unscrupulous. And Hermine—how could he have forgotten!—had been bitten by a poisonous viper. She could be dead by now.

  It needed to be a human being. “I prefer to argue my own case,” Knot said.

  “No. You attempted to forward your own case, and failed. It must be another party, one not involved in this present action.”

  That reduced the options still more. So few had any inkling—

  The child, a thought came. It was the bee, Pyridoxine. She knows.

  She would have to do. Knot had joined the hive, and partaken of its benefit in the form of the precognitive chart of CCC; he had to respect the judgment of the representative of the hive. “Klisty, on Planet Chicken Itza,” he said.

  There was no argument. In a moment the girl also appeared in image, as startled as Hulda had been. These CC psis could do marvelous things!

  “Klisty,” Knot said quickly. “We fought to a draw, here on CCC. Now we are in arbitration. That’s when representatives of the parties get together and work it out. You must talk with the lobo lady here, and decide who shall govern the Coordination Computer and what the policy of CC shall be henceforth.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t!” she cried, abashed.

  “If you do not, we lose by default. The bees believe you are suitable, and I daresay the chickens do. You must discuss it, and whatever the two of you agree on, that will be done.”

  “Oh—I see. I guess. All right. But suppose we can’t agree?”

  “There will be a third arbiter, to eliminate the chance of a tie vote,” Drem said. “This must be from the number of the CC psis, agreed upon by the two of you.”

  “The healer,” Piebald said immediately.

  The quickness of the lobo’s mind! Knot tried to find some reason to oppose the choice, and could not; Auler the healer seemed ideal. If he leaned at all, it should be in Knot’s direction. “Agreed.”

  But Auler objected. He had just been brought out of stun and was working on Finesse. “I have a patient here.”

  “We do have other healers,” Drem reminded him. A young woman came forward.

  Auler spread his hands. “So it must be. I’m sure Jan can manage.”

  All three arbiters vanished, the two images and Auler. “What?” Knot asked, nonplused.

  “The arbitration is private, free of coercive influences,” Drem said. “They can affect each other only by reason. They will reappear to announce the decision.”

  “But I haven’t finished acquainting Klisty with the facts!”

  “Our telepaths will acquaint her with everything she wishes to know.”

  “But she’s only a child! She doesn’t know what to ask!”

  Drem did not answer. Knot knew why: he had selected his arbiter; now he had to let her function. He had serious misgivings, but the decision was now out of his hands. Auler the healer and Harlan had been brought out of stun together. The baby was now fully alert, being held by one of the psis. Three other psis stood watching: evidently these were the ones suppressing Harlan’s psi. A tricky business.

  Jan, the lady healer, was now working on Finesse. She looked grave. “If there is brain damage, my psi won’t reverse it,” she warned.

  Knot knelt beside Finesse. All this time he had been debating the fine points of arbitration, while she lay here bleeding! “She is alive?”

  “Yes. And will survive, physically.” The psi glanced across at him. She looked disturbingly like Finesse herself; perhaps his fatigued mind was manufacturing similarities where none existed. Of course the two did not resemble each other; Finesse was leaking blood from her smashed nose, and though her face had been wiped clean, it was nervously pale. “But she may suffer mentally or psychically, depending.”

&nbs
p; “Psychically?”

  “She has been injured in the head, the site of psi.”

  “Like a lobotomy?” Knot demanded, horrified.

  Jan nodded. Now she looked less like Finesse. She was not as pretty, for one thing, and her eyes were brown. “Very crudely, yes. It’s not a good analogy.”

  “Oh, Finesse!” Knot whispered, stroking her damp hair. The healer’s psi had started the tissues and cartilage along their restoration, but her face was still a ruin. What of the mind behind it?

  Knot looked up at Piebald, and saw the lobo watching, unconcerned. Damn the man!

  “I would give up the galaxy for you,” Knot said to the still figure, taking Finesse’s limp hand. “Don’t leave me now!” But he knew that was not enough. She could not hear him.

  “It might help if you could reach her mind,” Drem said. “We can relay your message telepathically.”

  “No. She would not listen.” Knot paused, not liking any of this. “The only person who could reach her would be Hermine, the weasel. But Hermine—” Was that the last nail in this coffin?

  The psis checked. They located Hermine and brought her to him. Knot took the little furry body in his hands, cradling it, feeling its warmth. She lived! Hermine, he thought. How glad I am you made it!

  Then he spied the set of punctures on her tiny shoulder. So it was true, he thought, horrified. You were bitten.

  That viper is dead now, she thought with satisfaction. She was physically exhausted, her fur ruffled and specked with blood, but otherwise seemed sound. I broke her neck.

  But the poison—

  I exchanged some fleas with Rondl, she admitted. Just in case. I thought they might be useful.

  The psi-fleas—counteraction the snake’s poison! Smart weasel! She had been in far less danger than Piebald had imagined. I know you are tired, but I must ask of you one more effort. All is not well here; we may lose our mission. But Finesse—you must think to her, try to give her will to recover even if—

  I know, Hermine agreed. Finesse is my friend too. She focused on the unconscious woman.

  After a moment, the weasel reported. She is there, but does not wish to return. She fears the war is lost.

  Tell her it is being arbitrated! Knot thought urgently. We have an even chance.

  There was another pause. She will fight. She is coming back to help.

  Hulda and Klisty and Auler reappeared. “We—we decided,” Klisty said, while the others stood soberly beside her. “It didn’t take long at all. We discussed it all, about the enclaves and the animals and lopsi, and—and the animals get autonomy, each with its own planet, and—”

  So the hive would have its desire, and the chickens, and the rats and the roaches, who would be protected in their egg stage by having a planet free of roach-predators. Knot was glad for them. But— “CC!” he cried. “Who controls CC?”

  “The lobos,” Klisty said. “I’m sorry, but that’s what’s right. They’ll stop the mutations. Their research—lopsi—they really need CC real bad, and—”

  Do I tell Finesse? Hermine asked.

  “And this is really what’s right,” Klisty concluded. “We all agreed. It’ll stop the mutiny.”

  Knot made a futile gesture. I will not lie to her, though I lose her. Tell her the lobos and the animals won. It is no bad thing, really— He hesitated. No, that won’t do. Put me in direct touch—can you link our minds, as you did with you and me against the rats?

  I can try. Will yourself to me, as hard as you can, and I will relay.

  He willed, and she tried. Suddenly Knot was with Hermine, seeing Finesse through weasel eyes, sniffing her through a weasel nose. Then that faded and they were plunging through nebulosity toward Finesse’s hidden mind.

  Finesse was a vortex of awareness, deep in the chaos of her own unconscious: a buried dream; Knot was another, and Hermine a third. He could not exactly talk to either of them now; there was no voice. But he could signal.

  He intersected his vortex with Finesse’s, impinging on her sense of identity. FINESSE, he communicated in diffuse mental squeeze.

  Knot! she replied with a swirl of gladness. You live? How goes it in the conscious world?

  Badly. The lobos have CC, the animals have autonomy. There will be chaos in the human realm.

  Then you and I are dead. She seemed relieved that it was over.

  No. We live. There was arbitration, and Klisty decided. The lobos had the stronger case, objectively.

  Then I prefer to die, she thought, and plunged downward through roiling clouds of emotion.

  Knot plunged after her. If you go, I go with you.

  No! She shot down faster. He did not know what might lie in the nethermost reaches of her mind, but it seemed to be growing hotter, and the clouds were coming to resemble smoke.

  I love you! he thought despairingly, trying to retain his perception of her despite the obscuring mists and currents. There can be life for us, among the animals and peoples of the new order. Mankind is not lost, only set on a new path, like the Europeans after the Romans.

  Never! I am at heart a Roman! She shot away so swiftly she was only a blur.

  Knot followed again, knowing they were both flirting with death or insanity, inverting their own minds and Hermine’s toward schizophrenia. Like the mammals after the dinosaurs.

  I am a dinosaur! She passed through grotesque streamers of semi-substance, foul-smelling.

  Knot followed determinedly, though he did not like this region at all. You are a mammal, no question of it! He ought to know.

  Suddenly a monstrous flux of sinister power loomed, dark and evil. A malignant storm, part fire and part acid, it extended toward them, sending out flanking tendrils.

  Finesse halted, appalled. No—hell is too awful! she thought.

  That is not hell, Hermine thought. I have seen it before, in the minds of the lobos. It is lopsi.

  Knot understood. Because we are lobotomizing ourselves! Retreating from our living bodies, following our psi to limbo. We are joining the disembodied lobo psi, becoming part of its pool.

  No! Finesse thought with sheerest horror. That is worst of all! I would rather live in chaos.

  So would the lobos, Knot thought. They serve this devil force, and wish to be free, for they believe it will destroy mankind, as it has destroyed other civilizations before ours. They mean to use CC to abolish it.

  A nova at you! Finesse thought furiously. You are trying to persuade me to go back. It won’t work!

  Then I suppose we’ll have to let Klisty raise baby Harlan among the chickens.

  The baby! she thought, shocked. Klisty’s only a child! She can’t possibly—

  Naughty man! Hermine agreed gleefully.

  You’re no better, weasel! Finesse thought furiously. I’ll make you both sorry! Yet beyond her anger was a certain humor and relief.

  And Knot, knowing she would return now with him and Hermine to fight it out among the living, to abate chaos and live life and love love with vigor and dispatch, was mute.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I wrote Mute in 1979, after selling it to AVON BOOKS on the basis of a summary. It was published in 1981, and went out of print in 1994 after something like eight printings. It was my psi-powers novel, and at the time I wondered whether it was not too close in nature to Xanth, with each person having a psi talent instead of a magic talent. But it really is a different kind of fiction, far more brutal, with serious constraints on the psi. I consider it to be science fantasy, with space ships, galactic colonization by mankind, and a planet-sized computer, but the psi aspect so wild as not to be seriously believable. I enjoyed writing it, and enjoyed editing it for this republication. Psi is fun, and is indeed much like magic.

  The publisher liked the novel, but wanted 20,000 to 25,000 words cut. This sort of thing is common in publishing, where length is more important than content, and there is little the average writer can do about it. If he balks, he may lose publication entirely. The early adult novels of Ro
bert H Heinlein, arguably the finest write the science fiction genre has seen, were cut; decades later his wife had them republished, restored. Thus I got to reread novels like Stranger in a Strange Land and The Puppet Masters in their original versions, and I feel that they should never have been cut. But until he got famous, and thus had the clout to stop it, Heinlein was subject to editorial dictates too. I understand that Jack Vance’s big novel Big Planet was severely cut, but I don’t think that one ever got restored. I’m sure there are many others. I call it Procrustean Publishing, from the Greek legend of Procrustus, who made travelers fit his bed the hard way, by either stretching them out or by cutting off the excess. Seldom does either person or novel really benefit from such treatment, regardless what Procrustus might think.

  So I had to cut Mute, to my regret, lest the publisher do it for me, such as by lopping off the last 25,000 words. I took out 20,000 words, reducing it to 170,000, by removing Knot’s return to his enclave at the beginning of Part II, up to where he hid in the closet in the Solar Power station on Planet Macho. Also part of his escape from the lobos, including one of my favorite passing scenes, that of the machine that dug and set fence posts in one stage, and the false lead in the mod-mute enclave where the breeding prospect for Thea Mermaid turned out to be gay. All this was painful, because I felt it was better to have a proper introduction to the society of Planet Macho before running afoul of it, and the fence-post machine was part of my best single day of writing, when I managed to write 6,000 words in pencil. Later with the computer I managed a bigger day on a Xanth novel, but since a normal day is 3,000 words, this was quite a feat of penciling. We had been setting posts, you see, for fences to contain our daughters’ horses, so this was big in my mind at the time, and I would have loved to have the service of such a machine. So the published novel was more jammed than it should have been, and of course a reviewer tagged it for that, blaming the author instead of the publisher. Caught between dictatorial editors and heartless reviewers, neither of which necessarily know or care much about effective story telling, writers get stuck for a lot that isn’t their fault.