She took his hard cold hand and pressed it. “I’m so sorry about your wife, Davy. And you must believe that Jack is, too.”
He put a damp arm around her. “It’s not Jack who’s tainted my heart but the older Remillards. The ones who’ve guarded the secret all these years with the connivance of the damned Lylmik.”
“But Fury is dead now,” she said, willing herself to believe it behind her impenetrable mindscreen. “There’s only Madeleine, a single Hydra, left alive. And she’s not that strong alone. We’ll find her and bring her to justice, and that’ll be an end of it at last.”
“We can hope so.” Davy MacGregor shook his head slowly, and misty droplets gleamed in his Dundreary side whiskers. “I’d never have picked poor Denis as Fury, that’s for sure. But it was a rash thing the lot of you did, trying to integrate the monster secretly and with a small metaconcert, even though the First Magnate did technically have the authority to act. You could have all been killed and Fury might have escaped.”
“You know very well why it had to be done that way. Denis himself was a blameless man. If the Magistratum had taken him into custody and attempted a redaction, there would have been a public scandal—and no assurance that a big team of forensic redactors would have done any better than our smaller metaconcert. It’s a terrible tragedy that we weren’t able to extirpate the Fury persona and save Denis, but right and proper that his good name remains intact—”
“Along with that of the First Magnate and the rest of the Remillard clan,” Davy MacGregor growled. “Oh, aye, I know why the Lylmik let you get away with it. All the same, the thought still strikes fire in me. The reputation of the almighty Dynasty must be preserved at all costs! And now we have a new Remillard prancing into the public arena, throwing his weight around and flirting with sedition. What d’ye say to that, eh?”
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “I know almost nothing about Marc Remillard as a person. He helped save my life in the diatreme. I was shocked beyond measure when he became the Rebel spokesman. And I think I’m afraid of him.”
“For good reason, I’m thinking.”
“Jack loves Marc, but I know he also has deep misgivings about him. He says his brother will take the Rebel movement in a new direction, and we may have to deal with a serious crisis within just a few years.”
Davy harrumphed. “Perhaps your Jack isn’t quite the innocent young Milquetoast he often seems!”
The pseudovoice seeming to come from behind the mask of canary diamonds was sweetly humorous. “Only a mean-spirited old fart would make the mistake of thinking so.”
Davy MacGregor chuckled wickedly.
The gondola prow sliced a low-hanging blanket of mist and glided in to a lantern-lit landing stage. Beyond it rose a replica of the most magnificent Gothic façade in all Venice.
“Ca’ d’Oro,” the gondoliere said in a bored voice.
Dorothea rose from her seat. “My stop. Good night, Davy.”
“I hope it is for you and your Jack as well, dear lass … And take good care of our wee Scottish planet when you get home, won’t you?”
Her reply was brisk. “I intend to. See that you do the same for poor old Earth.”
She hurried down the tiny tree-girt Calle della Ca’ d’Oro to the entry of the Palazzo Sagredo. The foyer inside was done in simple wood paneling and tinted plaster, with a polished marble floor. She and Jack and the other tenants of this “palace” had no interest in the opulent furnishings or the gilded stucco and elaborate decorative carvings featured in certain other dwellings of Ponte di Rialto.
“Buona sera, Dirigent,” said the portinaio, looking up from his lair amidst the potted palms. “It’s getting late.”
“Good evening, Paolo. The last meeting of the Planetary Dirigents ran overtime. I’m glad you’re still here. We’re leaving very early tomorrow and I wanted to say goodbye.”
“It has been a pleasure having you with us, Dirigent. I hope you’ll return next session.”
“Oh, yes. We wouldn’t dream of stopping anywhere else.” She had used PK to banish the dampness from her clothing and boots. “Che bella nebbia! I think we’ll have a nice fire on our last night in residence. But this time, I’ll be certain to open the damper properly.”
“An open fire would be pleasant,” the portinaio agreed. Observing her empty arms, which bore not even a loaf of new bread nor the makings of a fresh salad, items that were not easily available from Orb’s central provisioning depot, he screwed up his face in an artless grin. “I would not like to spoil a surprise, but you should know that Direttore Zan Degola just arrived with flowers and wine to help celebrate your first wedding anniversary.”
The eyes above the diamond mask widened in dismay. “Oh, damn! I can’t believe it slipped my mind—”
“Piano, piano, don’t be distressed that you forgot to bring your dear husband a special supper.”
She had done nothing of the kind. Jack drank but he seldom ate conventional food while he was at home, and her own sustenance was usually liquefied high-calorie pabulum. But she should have remembered to bring some sort of an anniversary gift. She was nothing but an ill-bred, inconsiderate workaholic …
Paolo was all smiles as he took out a large flat carton from beneath his desk and handed it to her with a flourish. “The lad from the osteria just delivered this huge takeout to me, and I insist that you accept it with my compliments. It would be a tragedy for young lovers not to have a nice meal on their last night in the enclave. The restaurant will send me another in twenty minutes. Please convey my felicitations to the Direttore.”
Dear old Paolo. Like most of the nonoperant service personnel in Rialto, he believed that Jack—in spite of the Venetian nickname she had slyly bestowed upon him, derived from that of the decapitated Baptist—was a normally embodied human being, and that a perfectly utilitarian face lay beneath her own diamond mask. There was no way she could refuse the food, so she thanked the concierge warmly and insisted on paying for a fine wine to go with his own replacement dinner. Then she bade him a last farewell and took the archaic clanking cage-lift to the top floor of the palazzo.
Jack opened the apartment door for her. His mind formed a question as he spotted what she was carrying.
“A feast for our special occasion,” she explained with a shrug, “courtesy of Paolo, with compliments to Zan Degola.”
Jack grinned as his deepsight inspected the contents of the carton. “Well, why not? I thought we’d just sit by the fire and drink champagne—but this is much better.” He took the food from her and headed for the kitchen. “You change into something comfortable. I’ll put away your flask of algiprote purée and set the table and grow a digestive tract.”
When she returned, wearing a white silk gown and robe edged with maribou, the dining table in the simply furnished room was candlelit, covered with damask, and gleaming with china, crystal, and silver. The roses in a cut-glass bowl made a colorful centerpiece.
He embraced her and gently kissed her lips. “It’s wonderful to see your face outside of bed. Remind me to leave Paolo a colossal tip.”
“Don’t think I’m going to make a habit of breaking my vow, Santo Giovanni Decollato. But I must admit the food smells fabulous.”
He held the chair for her and she sat down. There was an appetizer of carpaccio—finely sliced aged raw beef drizzled with oil and lemon, a shrimp pâté and toast, pasta with porcini mushrooms and chicken livers in cream sauce, and a salad of radicchio and pine nuts. He poured champagne and then they prayed a blessing and ate quietly, enjoying the simple human activity that they experienced so seldom.
“When I was young, I wouldn’t eat meat or seafood.” She speared a morsel of chicken liver, wound spaghetti around it with her PK, and devoured the result. “I couldn’t bear the thought of sustaining my life through the death of other sentient creatures who shared in the Mind of the Universe.”
“A valid enough personal credo. Why did you give it up?”
&
nbsp; “I was horribly self-righteous, so certain that my brother and the adults who didn’t accept vegetarianism were immoral. But then, as I grew older, I found out that plants have their share of Mind, too, and so does inorganic matter. I learned that the human race had evolved as omnivores and our bodies operate most efficiently when we consume both animal flesh and plant food—so how did I dare to insist that eating meat was immoral when it was manifestly part of human nature? What had seemed so clear-cut to me was actually murky and slippery. Finally, I had to admit to myself that my idealistic behavior had been based upon squeamishness and an empathetic fallacy, not a genuine ethical commitment on my part. It was very disheartening.”
He sipped his champagne, then lifted it to the candlelight and made the bubbles dance in eccentric spirals and whirls. Her mind’s vestibulum was open, inviting his survey. “And now you’re beginning to have doubts about something entirely different. Wondering if your faith in Unity is also fallacy-based.”
She nibbled a bit of the salad. “The worst thing is, I think I might never have had any belief in cosmic consciousness in the first place. I’m not as comfortable with mysticism as you are, darling. I’m a Scot and we’re a down-to-earth ilk. We take up hard jobs and get them done and survive and leave the magic to others.”
He smiled. “But some of you are also fey, and your race has had its share of philosophers.”
“Then the doubt is all my own. I admit that I cherish human independence. I don’t want us to lose it—not even if it brings about galactic peace and harmony. And I don’t want other minds looking behind my mask. It’s different with you. You’re my husband. But I couldn’t bear sharing any part of my inner self with vast numbers of people.”
“I don’t believe Unity is like that—a passive exposure, a spilling of secrets. I think it must be dynamic, on the order of a grand metaconcert, as Denis said in his last book. According to his theory, Unity is an enormous freewheeling construct with a common vector in the overarching matrix lattices [image], the realm of the Cosmic All. In some mysterious way, Unity conjugates Mind while maintaining the integrity of the partner mentalities. It may be that its oneness reflects the unique bond of the Trinity. ‘That all may be one, as you, Father, in me and I in thee; that they may also be one in us.’ The oneness in God is the Holy Spirit, a third unique person. Who can say what Unity would produce in our own racial Mind?”
“Oh, Jack.” She put down her fork and sighed in irritation. “That’s all very beautiful and profound, but it doesn’t tell me what Unity’s going to do to me. And besides, Christ was talking about something quite different: a community of religious belief.”
“Was he? That’s certainly what his first followers thought, and it was a useful and valid concept for two thousand years. But if we consider that our Catholic faith has evolved just as the human race has, then perhaps that particular message has a special meaning in our metapsychic age. It might describe a universal truth acceptable to minds who follow religions and ethical systems other than Christianity. It seems to me that both Christ’s Unity and that of the Milieu can best be defined as transcendent love—and if that’s true, then we have nothing to fear from it, just as the exotic races have maintained all along. In true love, individuality is never compromised or diminished. What’s missing is antagonism.”
“I don’t want to love other people the way I love you,” she said obstinately.
“Nor do I. Common sense tells us there are different kinds of love. The Unity of the Galactic Milieu could be a supreme friendship. A magnanimity and unanimity. A great trusting. The exotic races have their quirks and crotchets, but they do live and work together in a spirit of good will and mutuality. They certainly aren’t sinless—but by and large they have a civilization without malice.”
“But if Unity is so simple,” she cried, “why have we so persistently misunderstood and feared it?”
“Because it’s going to be imposed on us, willy-nilly, if we want to remain within the Milieu. Like the Great Intervention, only more so … And Unity is not simple, any more than maturity is simple, or the altruistic imperative, or falling in love. If it were simple, then the exotics would be able to explain it to us: A B C. They can’t seem to do that. We’re going to have to discover it and accept it for ourselves.”
She looked at him anxiously. “But how are we to manage it? The Unity education campaigns don’t seem to be working—except amongst those who don’t really need to be convinced.”
“I think,” Jack said slowly, “there will have to be a concentration of attention.” And he showed her another mental image.
“Oh, no!” She pushed her chair back and sprang to her feet. “That’s—that’s appalling.”
“So is crucifixion. Another great attention-getter.”
“There must be another way!”
“But events seem to be leading toward this one. If the mental laser factory found near your father’s farm isn’t just an isolated piece of villainy, if the Rebels do take a more forceful position now that they’ve got an effective leader, if Fury isn’t dead—”
“No!”
She pushed away her chair and whirled about, tears dimming her vision, then went to stand by the partially opened casement windows. The Grand Canal was completely engulfed in fog. Music came faintly from one of the caffés in the Fish Market across the water.
“Perhaps I’m wrong.” He came behind her, taking her in his arms, and kissed her neck. She felt his sex and welcomed it with her body, taking comfort and giving it as he came erect. His fingers touched the tears on her cheeks. He moved his hands slowly down her face, caressing her lips. She shivered and he held her tightly against him.
“Do you want to be wrong, Jack?” Her voice had a hint of fear.
“Listen to me, my darling: If exotic theorists in the Unity Directorate are correct, our race should coadunate more or less spontaneously when our population reaches ten thousand million. The coadunation process seems to involve the opening up of a new avenue of intermind communication on the unconscious level. An actual enhancement of the collective unconscious. Unity is supposed to supervene eventually—but in the case of humanity, the eventuality might encompass an unacceptably long period of time.”
“Whereas the—the other would mean an evolutionary leap?”
“And not the first time humanity has been kicked up the staircase of socialization by catastrophe. Consider the Ice Age, the Black Death, World War II, the devastation of the Holy Land: another fine mess, another hard lesson learned.”
“We’re speaking of a species of love, Jack!” she exclaimed. “How in the world could a galactic catastrophe engender that?”
His embrace softened. She felt his hands stroke and stimulate her breasts like a musician playing twin instruments, coaxing trills and arpeggios of sensation. “It’s happened many times before, on a much lesser scale. Think of your own world in the aftermath of the diatreme disaster, with unexpected acts of bravery and compassion commonplace among the people. I’m sure the same thing happened in old Pompeii.”
“An ignition of love … a falling in love?”
“I think so. Unity can probably be born in an instant, but it will have to ripen more slowly. Once the first great leap of trust is taken and the affirmation made, Unity would be there, in place, consoling and strengthening and encouraging selflessness and a sense of inner peace, especially in minds strong in creativity. It would expand and flower naturally, like maturity of mind. Denis believed that we would be incapable of losing it once we had it. Exotic scholars say he’s right.”
“People fall out of love.”
“But they never fall out of maturity unless the mind becomes diseased. Unity is supposed to be analogous to that: by no means the Beatific Vision, but a higher niveau d’esprit than what most of us ever experience now.”
She looked at him over her shoulder, finally smiling through her tears. “We do have other joys, though. For which we should be duly grateful.”
S
he stilled his gentling hands. Electric warmth poured from her own fingers into his, sending lightning up the nerves of his arms and into his spine and brain, reinforcing his swelling passion. She turned to him with a soft, throaty laugh. Her eyes were like stars reflected in the sea. “Unity’s consolation is a long way off, Zan Degola, my love. Tonight I’ll settle for something primal.”
He impaled her and their two bodies melted together, the limbs fusing, the faces haloed by radiant neural coronae that conjoined their brains. Their minds sang together in a duet of mental intercourse more ecstatic than that of the body. He opened his uttermost depths to her. She did not hesitate to reciprocate, and in the aftermath of the ringing consummation they caught a brief glimpse of what they had been searching for.
They contemplated it, awestruck, not believing it could be so simple.
It was not clear how it could be incorporated into their minds on a permanent basis.
He said, “I think more research is required.”
She said, “Oh, good.”
In Alpenland Enclave, Marc Remillard climbed to the sleeping loft of his small A-frame hut, peeled off his clothes, and arranged the duvet and pillows to make a comfortable nest that his creativity instantly adjusted to the perfect temperature. It was cold in the hut, the way he liked it at bedtime. Outside the window glimmered facsimile star patterns of Earth’s northern-hemisphere winter: Orion, Canis Major and Minor, the gorgeous flow of the Milky Way.