She turned about, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek. “We’ll carry on in the Rebellion, too. No matter what. And win.”
They began walking back toward the big house. He spoke to her on intimate mode:
Catherine Remillard and her associate Quinn Fitzpatrick have given us valuable advice on the tutoring of Mental Man. We’re ahead of schedule in the preceptive sequence. And Jeff Steinbrenner and the CE team have nearly finished a working model of the tiny 600X enhancer we’ll use to outfit the young brains.
But they have to … come out of the womb first, don’t they?
There are indications that some of them are nearly ready for independent survival. The Keoghs are using algetic conditioning, making the artificial life support more and more uncomfortable so the children have an incentive to leave it. They’re also showing them a Tri-D of my brother Jack, au naturel, as a more positive inducement So far as I know, it’s the only recording of him ever made in the bodiless state. It was done without his being aware of it, by the cockpit black box in the deep-driller that he used during the Caledonian diatreme event. Mental Man has found the Tri-D of Jack to be very inspiring.
I still find it hard to believe that those—those babies can actually tip the balance of mindpower in our favor.
Wait until they zap Molakar to a cinder. I guarantee you’ll be impressed. And so will the Milieu.
Is that going to be the demonstration?
Marc nodded somberly. He said: I considered nonlethal options, but none would have concentrated exotic attention quite so thoroughly. We have only one opportunity to show the Milieu exactly how steadfast our resolution is—before committing ourselves to a prolonged conflict that we might not be able to win. After the first strike, the exotics will be forewarned and able to barricade their worlds mentally against our attacks. Their vessels can emerge from hyperspace at any point, without warning, and engage in combat with ours. The Lylmik could do God knows what … unless our initial demonstration persuades them to capitulate.
She said: Molakar has a population nearly equal to Okanagon’s. Two billion.
His thought-tone was cold: And the Krondaku are already assembling starships there in preparation for the lockdown of Earth. I’ve seen them myself, excursing with the CE rig in farsense mode. The Krondaku are the enforcers, the Milieu bullyboys. It’s appropriate that Molakar be sacrificed for human freedom.
Do you have any estimate of when?
“It all depends,” Marc said aloud, “on Mental Man.”
As they approached the terrace of the residence, someone came out of the shadows to meet them. It was Ruslan Terekev, the Intendant General of Astrakhan.
“Good evening, Patricia. Marc. An unforgettable party!”
“Thank you.” Castellane inclined her head with a wry little smile. “Next time, I’ll try to lay on somewhat less exciting entertainment.”
“I wonder.” The Russian lifted his hands in nervous apology. “Might I have a few minutes with Marc?”
The Dirigent was brisk. “Certainly. It’s time for me to see how things are going inside. Thank you both for coming tonight.” She went off through the French doors.
Marc looked down at the Russian. His exceptionally dense mindscreen was even more impregnable than usual and he seemed highly agitated. “What is it?”
“Please.” Terekev took him by the arm and led him back into the garden. “It is important that we are not interrupted.” Or farsensed!
Would you like me to erect a metacreative thought-barrier?
That would be ideal. Can we sit here in this gazebo? I am somewhat under the weather at the moment a small knock on the head during the earthquake it was so unexpected I was unable to erect a mental defense.
I’m sorry. Do you require redactive assistance?
No no it’s quite all right just sit here with me and listen. I have crucial information for you. Devastating information … Your Mental Man children have been subverted and turned into Hydras. This was done by your sister Madeleine the sole surviving original Hydra.
“Impossible!” White-faced, Marc surged to his feet.
I’m telling you the truth I swear it on my soul!
“The hell you are. What’s your game, Terekev?”
No game you must believe me! This new hundred-headed Hydra that is Mental Man will enable you to win the Metapsychic Rebellion but afterward the multiplex mind will turn against you, and your sister will use its power to found a Second Milieu. She’ll continue as master for a while until the new Hydra matures and decides to destroy her. Then it will rule—and force you to create more minds like itself.
“It’s a lie.” Fists clenched, Marc stood before the older man, massive in the dusk. “This is some lunatic scheme of yours to undermine my leadership of the Rebellion—”
“You must believe me,” Ruslan Terekev pleaded. He reverted to mental speech:
Madeleine is the woman known as Lyudmila Arsanova—my own Chief of Staff—I discovered the truth about her only by accident when we were engaged in sexual intercourse and her mind opened inadvertently at the moment of climax. Before she was Lyudmila she posed as Castellane’s aide Lynelle Rogers who engineered the crash of Anne Remillard’s starship. She has also used the identity of Saskia Apeldoorn the technician in charge of the developing Mental fetuses. That’s when she subverted the babies. Those who refused to accept her were killed.
Is there any way you can prove this incredible assertion?
Terekev hesitated. “I’m not sure.” If you try to ream your sister she’ll kill herself Fury inserted the compulsion into all of the original Hydras to prevent their betraying him. Perhaps a coercive-redactive probe of the Mental Man brains would do it. There’d be a certain consonance to the armamentaria a Hydra signature common to all of them.
Marc said: They’re paramounts. Probably even stronger than I. Their shielding powers are superlative and they join spontaneously in metaconcert now to support one another. I doubt I could ream them unless I used CE and that would put them at risk. A risk I find unacceptable.
Don’t you want to learn the truth? You know what the Hydras are capable of!
Yes. But I wonder how it is that you do.
Your great family secret has been common knowledge among the higher echelon of the Rebel Party for years surely you are aware of this. If I had not known how would I have been able to recognize the importance of what I saw in Arsanova’s mind? She opened to me for only an instant. Even so it took me some weeks to comprehend the import of the revelation. I came to you as soon as it was possible to do so. I implore you to probe the Mental children!
“No,” Marc said. “The danger to their fragile minds is too great. Your scheme won’t work.” The celebrated one-sided smile glimmered as Marc came forward and seized the Russian’s shoulders. “I’ll check out Lyudmila Arsanova. Very cautiously. If she is my wayward sister Maddy, I may have a use for her. As for you—” His coercion was poised to slam home the mind-ream.
“You arrogant fool,” Ruslan Terekev whispered. “I might have known it was useless to appeal to you. Fortunately, I have another option.”
He vanished.
At first, more enraged than alarmed, Marc assumed the disappearance was nothing but a metacreative effect rendering the Astrakhanian IG invisible. Five full minutes passed before he cut short his fruitless ultrasensory search of the gardens and residence of the Okanagon Dirigent. When it was already too late, stricken with a sudden sense of dread, Marc beamed a frantic telepathic warning to Jeff Steinbrenner at the secret Mental Man laboratory.
But even as he farspoke he felt the ground of Okanagon shudder beneath his feet in a seismic aftershock. The groan of the planetary crust echoed in his ultrasenses, rolling like mental thunder, nearly drowning out the metaconcerted cry at the quietus of Mental Man.
He knew then, and ran from the Dirigent’s residence to his rhocraft.
In the aftermath, before Marc arrived, Cyndia Muldowney came down to the lab to view
the disaster. All but one of the infant brains floated lifeless in their transparent capsules. The exception, who had been named Trevor, had achieved the goal of independent survival a microsecond too late. He managed to leap free of the imprisoning tank with his psychokinesis, tearing loose from all of the preceptor-monitor electrodes except one.
But that single input lead had been sufficient to carry the ferocious charge of electricity into his fragile protoplasm. Trevor fell to the floor, shattered. The Keoghs had been unable to revive him.
Cyndia walked among the ranks of the dead, her thoughts adamantly barricaded, tears flowing down her cheeks.
Tears of relief.
They were gone, those fearsome, pathetic, bodiless babies. She had been too weak, too cowardly, too much in love with their father to give the children their release. But somehow it had been done. Mysteriously. Fortuitously. The nightmare was over.
But it’s not, you know.
She nearly screamed when the man stepped out from behind a tall equipment rack, would have cried out telepathically if he had not checked her with his coercion.
Please! I’m not here to harm you. Do you recognize me? I’m Denis, Marc’s grandfather. Bespeak me on intimode.
You’re dead—
That was a hoax. I’m alive. I’m the one who killed them, Cyndia. I had no other choice.
A Dhia dhílis! I’m hallucinating.
You’re not. I am Denis. Memorize this MP ident sequence [image] and when you can, ask Catherine Remillard whom it belongs to. She’ll confirm that I really am her father.
I … very well. But—
Listen carefully, Cyndia. This is vitally important. Marc will attempt to sire another generation of Mental Man. You must prevent it. He has no idea of the immense danger these minds pose.
Danger? What are you talking about? The Milieu—
Not only to the Milieu but to every mind in the galaxy—exotic as well as human. Cyndia, these dead children were Hydras. Do you know what that means? [Image.] Ask any member of the Dynasty about their terrible family secret. Ask Catherine or Adrien or Severin. All of them had children who were Hydras—sociopathic killers who feed on lifeforce like vampires. Megalomaniacs whose ambition is to enslave the Galactic Mind. The only first-generation Hydra left alive now is Madeleine, Marc’s sister. She’s the strongest of the lot, the one who turned the Mental Man babies into monsters like herself. She’ll continue to make new Hydras unless you prevent it.
I’ve never … this is … Máthair Dé! Does Marc know?
I tried to tell him tonight. He thought I was lying—trying to destroy the Rebellion by maligning Mental Man. You’re my only hope now, Cyndia. You must not tell Marc I’ve talked to you. He’d never trust you again. And he must continue trusting you until you’re able to put a stop to Mental Man forever. It won’t be easy. There are two sources of sperm and four sources of ova to be neutralized [image].
Marc … Hagen … Marie … Madeleine … Cloud … I myself? But that’s impossible! I can’t be—Oh, sweet Jesus. No. Ní hea in aon chor!
I’m sorry. Your true father is Paul Remillard.
I don’t believe you. Bréagach thú! Liar! All of this is a lie!
Cyndia, I have no time to argue. I can only tell you what must be done. If you insist on it, your actual paternity can be proved by a simple test. But the fact that both Hagen and Cloud are latent paramounts confirms the truth of what I say [genetic diagram].
I see … an Daidí bocht! Poor Rory.
The two most critical progenitors of Mental Man are Madeleine and Marc himself. It may be impossible for you to cope with Madeleine. I can’t neutralize her myself because … another criminal entity would prevent it. At the moment Madeleine is calling herself Lyudmila Arsanova. She’s Chief of Staff in the office of the Astrakhanian IG and she’s here on Okanagon. She could assume a new identity at any time. In the past, she’s been Saskia Apeldoorn—
Dia linn! The chief technician at our Orcas Island gestatorium?
That’s how she was able to subvert the fetuses. Madeleine’s not a paramount, but she is formidably dangerous. Your best hope of putting a stop to Mental Man lies with Marc. The DNA in his sperm must be modified, either by hard radiation or by sonic disruption. The latter is preferable, since it would certainly sterilize him while producing relatively unobtrusive damage to his seminiferous tubules—
Are you mad? I can’t hurt my husband. I can’t!
It’s impossible for me to deal with Marc myself. I’m paramount in creativity, but so is he. His mental and physical shields are nearly impregnable. In any direct confrontation, we’d reach a stalemate. There’s only one person who can reach him when his safeguards are completely down. You. His wife.
Mo léan, is uafásach an scéal é … I can’t hurt him!
Then he’ll sire more Mental children. Madeleine will turn the babies into a fresh generation of Hydras and the obscenity will begin all over again.
Millions. He said there’d be millions …
Cyndia, I can’t stay here any longer.
Millions. But I can’t, Denis! I can’t talk to any of the Rebel Dynasty. They’d be sure to tell Marc! Ah, faoi Dhia cad é a dhéan-faimid! What on earth are we to do?
There’s only one other thing I can suggest that might convince you that I’m telling the truth. The day after tomorrow—not before—call Uncle Rogi on the subspace communicator. The new teleview patch option will connect you directly to his bookshop, but remember that you’re speaking on an open beam. Be circumspect. Ask him … if he’s seen a certain paradoxical relative recently. Tell him that you and this relative had a worrying conversation. Ask Rogi if the relative is trustworthy. Will you do that?
But I still can’t—
Someday when you meet with Rogi in person, he might be able to explain everything to you in detail. Goodbye, my dear. God give you strength.
“Denis?” she whispered, staring at the empty space where he had stood. Then she heard Marc’s voice in a distant part of the laboratory, roaring with grief and rage at the first sight of his dead children.
She hurried to be with him.
When he was certain, absolutely certain that life was extinct, he left the terrible place and flew to the new CEREM complex. His own personal 600X rig was ready in the observatory chamber, fully responsive to his commands in its operation and fitted out with the farsensory brainboard he had been using for surveillance of the Rebellion’s enemies. He donned the pressure-envelope coverall in the dressing room and came out into the observatory.
It was waiting for him. Reasonably compact in its production design, the full-body CE device was 230 centimeters in height and roughly the size and shape of a black coffin. It weighed three tons. He stepped into the body-molding metal-and-ceramic casing, which was held fast in the trunnion cradle of a hydraulic ascensor. His voice, reduplicated by the CE rig’s computer, began the sequence:
CLOSE CASING.
The double lid came together, imprisoning him in armor.
ENHELM OPERATOR.
A hoist brought the opaque helmet over his head and lowered it, mating it to the body casing. His farsight watched the display on the computer as fourteen photonic beams pierced his skull. The cerebrum was insensitive to pain but not the scalp and delicate outer membranes of the brain, and he experienced a brief, blinding headache. Needle-electrodes of the crown-of-thorns apparatus, finer than hairs, penetrated his gray matter, reached the hollow ventricles at the center, and grew synorganic intraventricular enhancer units. Electrodes linked to the refrigeration and pressurization systems penetrated his cerebellum and brainstem.
INITIATE METABOLIC REPROGRAMMING.
Cryogenic fluid began to fill the casing. He winced as his carotid and femoral arteries were punctured and catheterized for the circulatory shunt.
ENGAGE AUXILIARY CE.
He became one with the machine. All pain ceased. His heart and lungs slowed and stopped. The freezing took only a moment and he was divested of his limi
ting body at last.
ENGAGE PRIMARY CE. OPEN OBSERVATORY DOME. ACTIVATE ASCENSOR. KILL SIGMA-SHIELD OB-3.
The world opened to his mental vision. As the hydraulic lift carried his armored form upward into the starry night, his enhanced ultrasenses surveyed the planet Okanagon as though it were a grain of sand magnified infinitely beneath an electron microscope. Each of its two billion individual living entities was perceptible as a tiny pulsating point of light. He sifted them, sorted, studied their metapsychic signatures.
Ruslan Terekev—the murderer—was nowhere to be found. Was he dead? It seemed impossible for him to have escaped in a starship so quickly.
The beacon of his seekersense whirled at lightspeed around the planet. He found two vessels with superluminal capability, still rhopowered, en route to the c-zone where they would go superluminal. Neither of them carried the killer of Mental Man. If Terekev had left on a starship he was already in the gray limbo, where not even 600X augmentation could search him out.
Very well. Tune to the childhood memory of her aura: his damned sister Madeleine, who had allegedly subverted Mental Man and turned Him into her creature …
With the infant brains dead, he would never know for certain unless he captured her and reamed the truth out of her. If she died in the process it was unimportant—
There!
He swooped in, using excorporeal-excursion mode, and found her. Unbelievably, she was only nine kilometers away, just leaving the 1-102 expressway in her open convertible Mustang groundcar. Driving very slowly under manual control, she turned onto the road leading directly to CEREM. Her eyes were red and swollen and her face was streaked with dried tears. She clutched the steering wheel in a nerveless grip. He could hear her muttering.