And creeping over the jagged artificial eastern peaks of the enclave came the constellation Hydra.
It was a measure of the thing’s hold on his unconscious mind that the name of the stellar sea serpent evoked only a lengthy pattern of stars. He never thought of the living Hydra during his waking hours, nor did any consideration of Fury enter his mind. He had forgotten Parnell, forgotten Uncle Rogi’s ordeal. The family had never told him any details about the terrible episode of the previous Christmas and he had accepted the death of Denis with brief, sincere regret. He and his grandfather had never been especially close.
Marc lay there, reviewing the events of the day, smiling his one-sided smile at the stars. This Concilium session had been a triumph. As the new leader of the Rebels, he had given the movement fresh impetus at the same time that he had soothed exotic apprehensions about its ultimate goal. His own CE research was safe for the time being. The objections voiced by its exotic and human opponents (the latter including both Philip and Maurice Remillard) were too abstract to prevail in the face of CE’s demonstrable usefulness—and the votes of the Rebel members of the Science Directorate. His new full-body rig was still secret and he intended it to stay that way until he was certain that exotic opposition could be quelled once and for all.
After strategy discussions with Cordelia Warshaw, Adrien Remillard, Helayne Strangford, and Annushka Gawrys, he had decided against a direct attack on Unity anytime in the immediate future. That could wait until Alex Manion’s research was complete and he exploded his bombshell in the next session. The Rebel Party line would, for the time being, emphasize the prudent necessity of not alienating the human race’s nonoperant majority by “premature” imposition of a new mental order. He had also quietly pointed out the speed with which human technology had overtaken that of the Milieu, implying that any attempt at expulsion and quarantine of humanity was bound to fail.
Loyalist humans hadn’t been taken in by the moderate tone of his Concilium disquisitions, but the exotics had apparently swallowed them whole. They liked Marc. His easy yet compelling manner was a welcome respite from Annushka’s dour inflexibility and the wrangling of Rory Muldowney and the other Rebel firebrands. Until his own accession to the leadership, the escalating anti-Milieu controversy within the Human Polity had increasingly dismayed and scandalized the Krondaku, the Poltroyans, the Gi, and the Simbiari. Some of them had begun to openly challenge the guiding wisdom of the Lylmik, who had insisted upon inducting humanity into the Milieu in advance of its sociopolitical maturation.
However, now that the Rebel Party had taken Marc as their new chief—an eminently coolheaded mind of paramount metafunction—even the most conservative exotics expressed cautious hope that the discord could be resolved through compromise.
They were in for a shock.
But the timing of the Great Divorce was still problematical. If humanity was to prevail against overwhelming exotic numbers, it would need not only sophisticated weaponry but also large numbers of more powerful operant minds. Paramount minds like Marc’s own.
He needed Mental Man.
Marc dearest.
Go away.
You know you don’t mean that. You’ve done a brilliant job during your first public appearance as Rebel spokesman. I don’t believe you made a single misstep. The effort must have been difficult and nervewracking even for you.
You know it was.
Then let me comfort you my darling.
NO! No … ah damn you damn you …
You’re magnificent. A splendid male animal body harboring a splendid brain. You deserve the body’s solace. Why must you continue this perverse rejection of human nature? Even your brother whom you envy so desperately knows the joy the healing the release the enhancement of creativity SEE. Voilà mon ange je t’aime je t’aime. Voilà!
No … yes oh yes.
I have shown you how to bring about the birth of Mental Man. But He must be conceived with passion as well as with cold reason. This is necessary. Otherwise He will be flawed. Do you understand [image]?
No … oh please yes yes.
You must take a mate and share the engendering with her not just any woman but the most suitable the mating must be consanguineous in order to increase the homozygosity do you understand [image]?
Yes. You have ravished my heart my sister my bride you have pierced my soul with a single glance how beautiful are your breasts honey and milk are beneath your tongue what magic lies in your love my sister my bride I am come into my garden my sister my bride I gather myrrh and balsam and drink sweet wine how beautiful you are how beautiful how beautiful … but where is she where is she where …?
You will find her. Within a year you will find your perfect spouse and love her and make her co-author of the Second Milieu. This mating must happen if your will is to prevail if He is to prevail the race of Mental Man who will condignly rule the stars.
I do understand yes yes my sister my bride yes … NOW I UNDERSTAND.
Then be devoured in ecstasy dear bridegroom. You will recognize her when she comes.
Yes. I will.
18
SECTOR 12: STAR 12-370-992 [RETLA] PLANET 3 [HIBERNIA] 6 EANAIR [14 FEBRUARY] 2080
“YES, I’M QUITE CERTAIN WE WANT TO DRIVE,” SAID THE Russian. “We won’t be able to stay long on Hibernia, but it would be a pity if we didn’t see some of your lovely scenery during our visit. Dirigent Muldowney has said that this section of the Loch Mór coast is one of the most dramatic regions of the planet.”
“Well, it’s that, all right.” Jane Cloherty, the VIP-minder and public-relations dogsbody for the Intendancy of Connemara, produced a meaningful smile as she led the visiting officials out of the sky port lobby. A gravomag Mercedes from the government motor pool was waiting in the portico, coachwork sparkling in the rain. “The only thing is,” Jane continued, “it’s winter now and the Boireann is rather lonely out of season. This isn’t really the best time of year for driving along our inland sea. All of the holiday facilities are shut down and the villages are rather few and far between.”
“But we are from Astrakhan, my dear Citizen Cloherty.” The female tourist spoke with forced heartiness. “The moody landscape will remind us of our own home world. And if there should be a nice storm, then that would put the icing on the cake.”
“Well, the forecast calls for a full gale, so you’ll likely get your wish,” said Jane. “Are you sure you don’t want a chauffeur, Intendant General? I could have one here in ten minutes.”
“Thank you, but no.” The Russian doffed his karakul shapka, opened the car’s passenger door, and carefully climbed into the front seat.
Ruslan Vakhavich Terekev, chief elected official of the planet Astrakhan, appeared vaguely unwell. His prominent features were drawn, his skin was unhealthily sallow, and his hooded eyes were darkly ringed. Jane Cloherty decided that he was either masking some strong emotional upheaval or possibly suffering pain, and she had been relieved when Terekev’s much younger Chief of Staff, a handsome woman wearing a teal-and-black leather tunic and leggings, announced that she would be doing all of the driving.
Jane said to her, “I think you’ll find the vehicle quite comfortable, Citizen Arsanova. We’ve stocked the refrigerator with food and drink, and the computer has a wide selection of music and a detailed guide to the features of the region. The doors will lock and unlock on your verbal command once you’ve given it your input.”
“Thank you,” Lyudmila Arsanova said. Her smile was detached. “How is the road to Dumha Sí? We have booked rooms for the night at an inn called Granuaile House, where Dirigent Muldowney will come to collect us tomorrow.”
“The highway’s narrow in places but decent enough. I wouldn’t trust the car’s autopilot in the twistier bits where the mountains might block the NAVSAT signal. There are some rather amazing cliffs and offshore rock formations just beyond Baile Ui Fhiacháin, and an ollpheist sanctuary you might want to stop and visit. You should reach Dumha Sí eas
ily before dark. Granuaile House is a lovely accommodation with super food. I’d not be surprised if you had the entire place to yourselves.”
“Excellent,” Lyudmila Arsanova said. “The Intendant General will relish the peace and quiet. He is in need of rest after our rather strenuous voyage on a high-df starship.”
“I should caution you to be wary of our Hibernian wildlife. Some creatures like the fiadheamhantai and the giorria diocasach will come right up to a parked car looking tame and adorable like deer or hares, begging for food. But they’d as soon take off your fingers as eat the treat you offer.”
“We shall be prudent,” Lyudmila said.
Jane Cloherty gave the open-palmed operant salute to the visitors. “Do give the Taoiseach—I mean Dirigent Muldowney—my best wishes when you see him, then, and tell him that Con-nemara’s always willing to oblige ODH. Have a fine trip.”
Lyudmila settled behind the wheel and programmed the groundcar to take them out of Gaillimh (unaccountably called Galway by the locals) via the most expeditious route. When they were well away from the terminal and out of Jane Cloherty’s farsense range, Lyudmila spoke to the man beside her, using the Russian language.
“How are you feeling, my dear?”
“Tired. But at least there are no further signs of disjunction.”
“It might have been wiser to deal with the problem back in Tara Nua after all.”
“No. The capital city was too crowded with operant bureaucrats and other metapsychic busybodies. This region better suits my requirements—it is wild and isolated, with accidents presumably more commonplace. And the sea will provide a perfect disposal for the bodies.”
“If we only can be certain that this will work!”
“It will. Please do not be troubled, my little one. Before long I’ll be fully restored.” Ruslan Terekev sat back with a long sigh and closed his eyes. “A nap now will do me good. For safety’s sake, we should be at least four hundred kilometers away from this city before beginning to troll. There is a tiny fishing village called An Leacht on the coast just west of the sea-beast reserve. We can start the hunt there.”
“As you wish.” She called up a display on the console and studied it as the car sped along the abbreviated length of dual carriageway leading out of Gaillimh Metro to the narrower road skirting the coast of the great landlocked sea. The Loch Mór chart was deceptively sprinkled with impossible-to-pronounce names for every creek, headland, bay, and island; but aside from the tiny hamlets of Baile Ui Fhiacháin, An Leacht, and their destination, Dumha Sí, there seemed to be no settlements of any kind beyond the Metro hinterlands.
That was ideal for their purposes, however. All they required was a single cottage in an isolated spot with a sturdy young family in residence.
Brimming with lifeforce.
He had broken the bad news during the long starship voyage from Astrakhan:
I have noticed your/your distress following the daily hyperspatial translations. Do you/you wish to confide in me?
!!! Are you/you certain of the diagnosis?
He would surely betray us!
Yes! So logical&right dearest you/you must FEED as I do it is the solution it must be!
?…
I agree that there is a certain risk. But I doubt very much that Marc would take a chance of alienating the vitally important Ruslan Terekev in such a gratuitous way—especially since Alan Sakhvadze, Arkady Petrovich O’Malley, and the other Rebel spies that he sent to Astrakhan think that they have already vetted your/your mind. For years the Intendant General was notorious throughout the 14th Sector for his blatant devotion to the Rebel cause. Why should Marc doubt Terekev’s loyalty now?
He also needs your/your cooperation in the starship modification scheme. I know this man better than you! He would never antagonize either of us with a mind-ream.
Too long! I’m tired of waiting I am determined that he must accept me soon and if the opportunity arises during our stay on the island I intend to take advantage—
No. Never.
It is out of the question that we should seek a victim here on the starship. But there should be ample opportunities once we reach Hibernia.
[!!!] Gladly. There are also tactical considerations that must be kept in mind in order to preclude detection but they are usually quite simple.
Yes my dearest Fury. I understand everything.
Another false alarm.
“Yob tvoyu dushu mat’!” He covered his eyes with a trembling hand. “I’m sorry, Mila. My seekersense is completely shot.”
“It’s all right. Just breathe deeply. Concentrate your creativity and self-redaction. Let me help with the hunting for a while.”
She pulled the groundcar off the verge and drove back onto the road. There had been life down on the beach, but it was not human—a flock of winged exotic furbearers huddled in the rocks waiting for the gale to abate. They were highly intelligent aerial predators that must have weighed 20 or 30 kilos, members of a dominant order of Hibernian animals that would no doubt evolve into sapience within another two or three million orbits. Today, however, they were useless to the sick man in the car.
“The aura was so intense, even damped by the surrounding rock,” Ruslan said wretchedly. “I was so sure that this time we had found suitable subjects.”
“There’s plenty of time yet,” Lyudmila reassured him, soothing him with her redaction. It would never do to let him know how concerned she was. If he began to despair and his level of coercive power dropped much lower, he might become incapable of performing the neural drain.
He had already called out two other false alarms and she was beginning to wonder if they had seriously miscalculated, thinking there would be easy pickings in this desolate corner of the Irish planet. Here the locals seemed always to build their dwellings in clusters, probably needing all the social support they co
uld get. Outside the villages Ruslan and Lyudmila had found only boarded-up summerhouses, and now and then an occasional agcrete boat shed used by commercial fishers, deserted now during the season of storms.
Inland, densely forested natural terraces rose to a serrated range of misty green mountains, but down near the shore-road the vegetation was sparse, mostly exotic ground-hugging succulents and groves of needletrees and naturalized terrestrial pines, stunted and gnarled by the strong winds. Where the horizontal limestone strata met the salt water, countless miniature potholes had been formed by erosion, giving the terrain the look of gray Emmentaler cheese. Exposed stretches of beach were piled high with waterweed, colorful shells, the air-filled skeletons of marine theropterids, and other flotsam carried in by the breakers and the high tides generated by Hibernia’s three large moons.
The groundcar had passed the last tiny village, An Leacht, nearly an hour earlier, and since then there had been no occupied houses. In the last hundred kilometers, a single hop-lorry and three private cars had passed them going in the opposite direction; but they had agreed that taking the occupants would have been too dangerous. A vehicle would have to be disposed of, along with the bodies, and where the road skirted the steep cliffs there were sturdy barriers guarding the drop-off. With him in such a weakened condition, there was no assurance that the feeding would be successful. If it failed to restore his strength they might not be able to lift even a small car with concerted PK and throw it far out into deep water; and leaving a vehicle abandoned on the roadside might have posed an unacceptable risk. The region was surely patrolled, even though they had seen no police cars.
They drove in tense silence for some time. Finally, he said, “If the Denis persona should ever regain control of this body, you will have to try your utmost to kill me, Mila.”
A frisson of fear ran through her. “No! Don’t say that!”
“There would be no alternative. The Last Great Enemy would reveal our identities to the Dynasty or the Magistratum, even if it meant his death. By killing this body you would at least save your own life.”