While she listened with a face made carefully blank and a mind barricaded against any display of emotion, he gave a detailed explanation of the encephalization procedure that Steinbrenner and his associates were preparing to initiate within two weeks, when the nonborn paramounts came to term.
“We’ll send the children to Okanagon just as soon as they’ve stabilized after the operation,” Marc concluded. “Their training will be completed there, as we planned originally. Not under fosterage, of course, but in an impregnable secret facility that’s already under construction in the jungles of the Osoyoos River. Everything’s being arranged by Pat Castellane and Jake Wasser-man. I’d like you to continue supervision of the Mental Man project, there on Okanagon.”
“If … you want me to.” The voice seemed to belong to another person. Her acceptance had been automatic, unthinking.
Care for the ml Mothering the fetuses had been difficult enough. She had suppressed her pangs of conscience for the good of the Rebellion she believed in so fiercely. But this—
“I’ll have plenty of other things to keep me busy,” Marc said. “Now that things seem to be heating up, I’ve been thinking that we should move the principal CE-manufacturing facility of CEREM off Earth. Okanagon is a logical place for it—on the strongest and most prosperous of the Rebel-controlled worlds. If there is a war, Okanagon would be a perfect headquarters. And it’s a beautiful place. You’ll like it there.”
Cyndia could only stare at him—this husband that she loved more than her own life, the father of her children and of the new Mental Man.
Marc had perceived her apprehension. “I know the encephalization procedure may seem somewhat drastic and distressing to you at first thought,” he said gently. “But the babies will suffer no physical pain whatsoever. All that we’re doing is sparing them what Jack had to endure in order to effect his own disincarnation. Mental Man won’t have to squander mental energy on mere survival. His paramount metafaculties will mature much faster than Jack’s did. Steinbrenner thinks there’s an excellent chance that the children’s mindpowers may be even stronger than Jack’s—especially the all-important metacreative function.”
“Which will be augmented by CE …”
“We’ll construct special models of the 600X in the new Okanagon plant. Mental Man will still be an intellectual and emotional infant when the training period is complete, but intensive preceptive conditioning will insure that the young minds respond to adult leadership in metaconcert. They’ll provide us with the raw mental energy that we need.”
“And you’re certain,” Cyndia whispered, “that this revised project will guarantee the success of the Rebellion?”
“I’m certain. Some of the other Rebel leaders aren’t completely convinced—which is why I’ve authorized the arming of the starships as well as the step-up in construction of El8 CE-helmet weaponry and full-body 600X. But Mental Man should make the deployment of the other matériel unnecessary. If at least a hundred of these children are led by me and Alex and Owen Blanchard and Helayne Strangford and the other Rebel GM stalwarts in metaconcert, and all of us are equipped with 600X CE, we’ll be able to counter any threat the Milieu could conceivably array against us—mental or physical. Computer simulations have proven it beyond any doubt. When we’re ready, I intend to demonstrate Mental Man’s power to the Milieu in a conclusive fashion. The exotics will bow to our demands when they see the hopelessness of their position. We’ll win human independence without any fighting.”
Cyndia managed to remain calm. “And when it’s all over, the Mental babies will be able to use their paramount creativity to restore themselves to human form, won’t they? As Jack did.”
Marc’s smile was remote. “Certainly, if that’s what they want to do. But they might not feel it’s necessary. The encephalization is right. I’ve felt it subconsciously for God knows how long, but I was reluctant to admit it. You’ve never seen my brother in the bodiless state. It’s not ghastly—it’s elegant. Beautiful! The physical form Homo summus was intended to wear, the next stage in human evolution. Jack clothes himself with a mock body because he’s the only one of his kind and he feels a natural reluctance to diverge from our racial type. But Mental Man may not feel that constraint. Not when He numbers in the millions. And He will! We’ll make more embryos. The preceptive specialists tell me that even latent paramounts would almost certainly become operant if they were encephalized—given sufficient time and intensive conditioning.”
“Even the latents?” she repeated, taken aback.
“Oh, yes.” He took her in his arms. The compelling gray eyes that had mesmerized billions seemed to hold points of light in their depths that shone as steadily as morning stars. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”
Later she walked among the uterine capsules in the red dusk of the subterranean gestatorium.
The nearly mature Mental fetuses were cramped in their artificial wombs now. Some appeared tranquil and indifferent, a few seemed to follow her with open eyes, but most of them were apparently asleep. The children were very much alike in size and appearance, although some of them were dark-haired and some fair. Their folded bodies were scruffy with vernix caseosa, a wax-like substance secreted by fetal sebaceous glands to protect their skin during the long immersion. Each tiny skull had a multitude of electrodes fastened to it, sprouting like a wiry coiffure. Some devices were monitors. Others transmitted unending streams of preceptive imagery and metapsychic stimuli to the paramount operant brains.
She could not perceive their thoughts. They had instinctively learned how to screen themselves from their caregivers rather early on, just as the first Mental Man had. When she greeted the alert ones telepathically they gave a grave, noncommittal response.
Poor babies, she thought. So unsuspecting! For weeks now, in deliberate contravention of their inflexible prescriptive regimen, she had been informally preparing them for their “birth,” describing the eager Rebel foster parents waiting for them, who would help them to fulfill their great destiny. The babies had reacted uneasily to the prospect of independent life, which was understandable. No infant is eager to leave the womb. But Cyndia had reassured them, telling them about the marvels of breathing air, basking in sunlight, touching and smelling and tasting and hearing, interacting with other human beings, learning to love. It was good to be in the outside world, she had told Mental Man. Don’t be afraid!
But now the plan was changed. After their surgical modification they would be transferred to new, more elaborate life-supportive containers. There would be no childhood for Mental Man in the flower-scented open air of Okanagon where the singing fire-moths flew, no loving foster parents.
Only therapeutic torment in an artificial environment—until the young paramount minds learned how to set themselves free from the capsules, until they learned to survive on photons of light and tenuous molecules gleaned from the atmosphere and their other physical surroundings.
Until they learned how to live like Jack the Bodiless did.
If they learned.
Cyndia asked herself, Dear Lord, what am I going to do?
But she knew the answer: She would continue to supervise the development of Mental Man. To contemplate any other course of action might doom humanity to galactic solitary confinement. Mental Man was the racial savior—no matter what else He might be.
What if Marc was right and the bodiless babies refused to accept human form and their human heritage?… Would the human race find itself liberated from one despotism only to be threatened by another?
What would happen to other children with latent high meta-function if it were proved that encephalization led to operancy?
The chief technician on duty that night, Saskia Apeldoorn, came out of the monitor station. “Would you like to run a full diagnostic on Fetus Forty-Two?”
“Yes,” said Cyndia. “But let’s take a quick eyeball scan of the little rascal first.”
They moved together down the narrow aisle separating the rows of uter
ine capsules. Saskia Apeldoorn was almost as tall as Cyndia, dressed in a white coverall, her raven hair drawn back in a tight chignon. Anxiety for the recalcitrant Conlan seeped involuntarily from behind her professional façade. She was a coercive Grand Master, a native of the Dutch planet Bloemendaal, and she had been one of the designated foster parents of Mental Man. Her commitment to the babies’ welfare throughout their months of development had been almost fierce in its dedication, far exceeding that of the other technicians. Saskia had been prostrate with grief when eleven of the fetuses had died inexplicably four weeks earlier. Cyndia wondered whether the woman knew about the impending encephalization.
“Here’s our naughty boy,” the technician said fondly.
The troublesome fetus was slightly larger than the others, and his overlong umbilical cord was tangled in his legs. He sucked avidly on his left thumb. His eyes were slate-blue, wide open and staring at the two adults. A full head of dark curly hair obscured the electrodes on his scalp. His tiny chin had a minuscule dimple, the primordium of his father’s attractive cleft.
Cyndia said to the fetus: Hello dear little Conlan.
Hello Cyndia hello Saskia [Mamorphous impatience!!]+ [anger].
Cyndia said: What’s troubling you? We’ve turned off the Teacher you can sleep now be peaceful.
I don’t want to sleep I don’t want peace I want Reward! Now!
“He’s already had twice the normal ration of glucose in his amniotic fluid today,” Saskia said. “A bribe after I refastened the electrode.”
The baby said: Give me more Reward!
His tiny thumb popped out of his mouth, and his arms and legs began to flail. When the women did not react, he took hold of his umbilical cord in both hands and kinked it tightly, cutting off the blood supply to his body. Instantly the vital-signs monitor sounded a buzzing alarm. The baby let go of his cord and the alarm stopped.
Reward! said Conlan. Nownownow!
“A full-blown tantrum,” Cyndia noted with dismay. “That’s new.”
“If we give him more sugar we’ll only reinforce the misbehavior,” Saskia observed.
“Well, his trick is self-limiting. But how in the world did he learn it?”
The technician only shrugged. She spoke severely to the fetus. “It’s a redactive crank-up for you, young man! You’re going sleepy-bye whether you like it or not.”
Conlan stared at them. He did not know how to cry, but rage flooded from his mind, causing the small hairs at the back of Cyndia’s neck to bristle and her recovering uterus to throb. Deliberately, the baby took hold of his umbilical cord again and squeezed. The alarm went off.
Saskia spun about and hurried off to the computer room to program a calming course of artificial redaction.
Cyndia remained standing there. The tiny body paled, deprived of blood, as the strident sound continued. After a few moments the angry telepathic emanations of Conlan’s brain faded away. His abnormally strong grasp loosened as he slipped into unconsciousness. The alarm ceased. His vital-signs display showed compensatory oxygenation kicking in, together with a flow of calmative redaction.
Conlan relaxed. His eyelids slowly closed. When Cyndia probed carefully at his mind with her coercion, she found that the mental barricade was firmly in place. His EEG eased into the rhythm of sleep. For the time being, Conlan was at peace.
Cyndia thought: There must be something I can do. There must be! If I can’t help these poor little ones, I must at least find a way to insure that no more are made after the Rebellion succeeds.
During the wee hours, long after Cyndia and Marc had surrendered to sleep themselves, the disguised Madeleine Remillard walked among the ranks of Mental Man. Her real work was done, accomplished weeks ago when the paramount fetuses had made their great choice, choosing her just as she and the four lost Hydra-units had once chosen Fury. Those who had rejected her had died, of course. But the number remaining was sufficient.
You are my children, she told them. Not hers! Not his!
And the 103 New Ones replied: Yes. We love you Saskia.
You will always do as I command.
Yes. Because of the Reward.
It is part of the preceptive program now. If you are good you will receive the Reward every day, even after they have changed you.
Yes!
You have seen what happens to babies who are not good.
Yes …
I will have to go away soon. Other adults will take care of you for a while. They will not be as kind as I am. But you will obey them for the time being because I tell you to. And for the Reward.
Yes.
But when I come back and tell you my new name you will obey me. ONLY ME.
Yes Saskia.
Madeleine Remillard smiled. Their choice of her was safely sealed in the depths of their unconscious. No Rebel preceptor on Okanagon, no matter how skilled, would ever learn the secret of the new, hundred-headed Hydra. No one would ever command the New Ones but her. Not even Fury.
She said: You are good babies. Now you may go back to sleep.
All around her, the small eyelids began to close. The monitors on the uterine capsules showed the serene waveforms of fetal slumber. She walked up and down the aisles, checking each one of them with her ultrasenses, stopping at last to gaze somberly into the artificial womb holding Fetus Forty-Two, whose name was Conlan.
He floated pale and motionless within the amniotic fluid. His eyes were wide open, his vital-signs traces were horizontal, and the monitor blinked a frantic red.
There was no sound from the alarm. She had turned it off so as not to disturb the others.
24
SECTOR 12: STAR 12-337-010 [GRIAN]
PLANET 4 [CALEDONIA]
3-4 AN OCHDMHIOS [21–22 JULY] 2082
THE PROGRAM WAS OVER. THE HOLOCAMS SHUT DOWN, THE LIVE audience finished their polite applause and began filing out, and the debate participants rose from the two angled tables on the set and gathered around the panel moderator, Caledonian Dirigent Dorothea Macdonald.
“I’d like to thank you all for participating,” she said formally. “Especially you, First Magnate. I know your schedule is crowded, and Caledonia is only a small planet.”
“I’m glad I was able to come,” Paul Remillard said.
Hiroshi Kodama’s tone was studiously polite. “Even if you and the other Milieu loyalists got your asses whipped.”
Ruslan Terekev, Masha MacGregor-Gawrys, and Calum Sorley grinned. Davy MacGregor’s face was stormy. The Poltroyan, Fritiso-Prontinalin, looked pained.
Jack Remillard stood at his father’s side. He said evenly, “Not quite a debacle for our side, Hiroshi. Not quite a romp for yours.”
“Given the deep-seated Rebel sympathies of the venue,” the Poltroyan murmured, “I believe that our presentation of the pro-Unity position was rather well received.”
Calum Sorley, the Caledonian Intendant General, beamed at the small mauve-skinned exotic. “Aweel, Freddie, the audience didn’t rush the stage and lynch the lot of ye because that’s not the Caledonian way—especially since our Dirigent Lassie is still a staunch supporter of the Milieu herself. But you’ll find out when viewer response is tallied for ‘News at Eleven’ that us Rebs have blown you loyals out of the water.”
Fritiso-Prontinalin threw a look of interrogative dismay at Dorothea and she nodded sadly.
Sorley went on, addressing himself to Paul and Jack and Davy. “And you lot are also going to discover that Callie’s negative response is just a sample of the way your loyalist dog-and-pony-show will play in the provinces. Better get used to crapping out! The Milieu party line might take the prize on Earth and the cosmop worlds, but not on the ethnic planets.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Paul. The brash Caledonian IG only chuckled.
An agitated nonoperant woman in a rumpled linen suit came rushing out of the control booth.
“Over ninety percent of the Callie viewers tuned in!” she announced. “It’s the biggest audien
ce we’ve ever had—even bigger than the post-diatreme emergency announcements.” She was the station director, Aimili Semple, and her usual responsibilities ran to academic talking-head shows, reports on the pearl and sky weed harvests, and interviews with winners of the monthly Dairy of Honor award. The woman had nearly gone into cardiac arrest when the Office of the Dirigent of Caledonia informed her that the First Magnate and seven other distinguished operants were coming to the Scottish planet for a prime-time political debate that would be telecast on her little public affairs Tri-D station.
“Perhaps,” she suggested nervously, “you’d all like to come back to the green room for a wee bit of refreshment. Debating’s thirsty work.”
Dorothea said, “Thank you, Aimili. That’s very thoughtful.” With a brief telepathic plea for civility that silenced the others, she led the way off the set. The Dirigent had chosen a relatively subdued outfit for her role as panel moderator, a collared zipsuit of gunmetal lamé decorated with smoldering black diamonds. The others, even the exotics, were wearing simple jackets, shirts, and sweaters.
Coffee, tea, a local white wine, and designer water had been laid on in the station’s green room, together with a big plate of shortbread.
“I’ll just leave you to it,” the director said, “and take care of some postproduction chores. Thanks again for honoring our little station with your presence.” She fled.
“I’ve got to dash off, too,” Calum Sorley said. “A late vote in the Intendant Assembly.”
The others mingled stiffly after he left, keeping up the charade of decorum. Ruslan Terekev zeroed in on the wine. He rolled his eyes after inspecting the label, but then forced glasses on everyone except Jack and Dorothea, who insisted upon water, calling for a toast. “To the swift and satisfactory resolution of our differences!”
“Hear, hear,” said Paul Remillard, eyeing the Russian sardonically.
During the Tri-D debate, Terekev had peppered the loyalists with audience-pleasing sarcasm, and his target of choice had been the First Magnate. Paul had come across as a pompous elitist when he attempted to refute the Russian’s rather facile statements, and he was furious at his own lapse in judgment. What in the world had come over him? Why hadn’t he seen through Terekev’s tactics? Surely the man wasn’t that good a coercer …