She willed it.
At the instant, she could not help visualizing the device. He farsaw it within their conjunction and knew what it was for.
Knew what she did, for love of him, killing Him.
There was no physical pain, only devastation of the soul. Marc convulsed. His scream shattered their rapport, froze the warm, liquid light to a heart-slashing blade of black ice.
WHATHAVEYOUDONEOGODWHATHAVEYOUDONE!
She said: Loved you. Always. I did it for love of you as well as for humanity.
His attack was reflexive, an involuntary striking back against an injury perceived as mortal. Paramount vital energies surged from his root to his crown, obliterating his ultrasenses. Psychokinesis failed and he fell from the air, a meteorite drowning in an arctic sea, hearing her repeat at the last: I do love you.
Then the abyss claimed him.
He woke at dawn. It had not been a dream.
Her body was there beside him, cold as his knowledge of betrayal, inert as disbelief, quite beautiful still. Her long hair spread in a perfect silken halo of pale gold. The sea-colored eyes were half-open, lusterless behind dark lashes. Her soft lips, parted, almost seemed to be smiling.
How could she? What was she thinking? Had the love always been a lie?
Of course not.
Then why? Why?
No overt genital trauma was perceptible to his ultrasensory deepscan. But he was not a physician and the structures were minute and mysterious. A detailed diagnosis of what the sonic disruptor had done to him—and his healing—would have to wait.
Will I heal?
Certainly. Why not?
Ask her! Why did she do it? She’s gone God gone HOWCOULDSHEDOIT? She said for me and for humanity was she insane God no yes I did it gone gone dead all love all life dead you bitch you dearestlove you did it why why why?
In a daze, he drew the white satin sheet over her.
So easily gone the love the life the question WHY? What shall I do? There must be no inconvenient inquiry an accident a psychocreative accident an immense loving too intense to bear a tragic consummation Pat will see to it Pat will take care of everything.
He would send the children and the two servants back to the Old World at once. In a few days, all of the Rebel magnates—including he himself—would be leaving for Orb. If events at the Concilium session went as he expected, Okanagon would become the command center for the Rebellion. No one would have time to think about her.
No one but me. Oh Cyndia WHY?…
He looked down at his own body. He smelled her perfume, her sweet sexual musk. Her molecular vestiges clinging to his nakedness.
WHY?
An unfamiliar stinging pained his eyes as he left the bedroom and trudged to the shower. Surprised, he found that he was weeping and helpless to stop. Tears for himself, betrayed and humiliated. Tears for Mental Man.
Never tears for her.
He stood in the cleansing jets of water for over an hour, lathering himself over and over again. He removed the Claddagh wedding ring she had given him, stared briefly at its clasped hands and crowned heart, and then threw it into the recycler.
After dressing he flew his egg to CEREM, where he installed a farsensory brainboard in his 600X CE rig and shut himself into the black coffin. When his useless body was gone and his brain incandescent with power, he sent his mind ranging in excorporeal excursion to the uttermost limits of his enhanced ultrasenses, to the starless night beyond the Local Group of Galaxies.
He rested there in emptiness and silence.
30
SECTOR 15: STAR 15-000-001 [TELONIS]
PLANET 1 [CONCILIUM ORB]
GALACTIC YEAR: LA-PRIME 1-392-658
[7 FEBRUARY 2083]
DAVID SOMERLED MACGREGOR, THE NEWLY ELECTED FIRST Magnate of the Human Polity, was astounded when Marc Remillard came up to him following the opening meeting of the Concilium and made the compromise proposal. After cornering the Scotsman in a quiet cul-de-sac of Orb’s great Central Promenade, Marc spoke with swift intensity. At the same time his mind deliberately revealed a terrifying hint of how far the Rebellion was prepared to go to enforce its declaration of secession.
“Great God, man—this isn’t something you should be discussing with me,” Davy protested, his face gone white with shock. “Introduce it on the Concilium floor tomorrow or take it to the Panpolity Directorate for Human Affairs—”
“You’re the First Magnate,” Marc said, “the closest thing to a chief executive that the Human Polity has. Even before you were elected, you set yourself up as the prime apologist for Unity. So do your duty. If you believe in the Milieu and hope to save it, then transmit my compromise proposal to the Lylmik Supervisory Body immediately.”
“Dammit, why don’t you go to them yourself?”
“No. I’m through talking to the exotics.” Marc’s voice was portentously calm. “I’ll make no more speeches in the Concilium and I certainly won’t make a personal appeal to the Supervisors. The only reason I’m asking you to act as eleventh-hour intermediary is to fulfill a promise I made to Cyndia.”
Davy’s anger melted away in a sudden rush of pity for his antagonist. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said quietly. “Very sorry.”
But Marc only nodded, refusing the other widower’s unvoiced empathetic comfort. “Tell the Lylmik there’ll be no more talk,” he repeated. Then he walked away into the crowd of the Central Promenade.
Davy had never visited the Lylmik enclave before, although Paul Remillard had told him about his own experiences there. Emerging from the inertialess tube station into Syrel, the First Magnate found the misty garden of pallid crystalline growths discomforting. It was too tentative, too bloodless and vague—an overly apt metaphor for the ancient Galactic Overlords themselves, who had confessed to Paul that their race was moribund and that they looked to humanity to eventually take their place as the guiding force of the Milieu they had founded.
Alongside the path of rose-quartz flagstones that led to the audience building were beds of translucent flowerlike lifeforms and that seemed made of spun glass or even clouded diamonds. Vitreous groundcover sparkled with rainbow drops of dew. Fragile, opalescent trees swayed overhead in a languid breeze, their leaves chiming softly. But Davy MacGregor was in no mood to appreciate the scene of wan beauty. Recalling Paul’s experiences in the enclave, he strode up to the large, featureless golden nugget that approximated a Lylmik house and declaimed: “I’m here!”
An oaken door with wrought iron hardware appeared miraculously in the blank wall. Davy opened it and stepped inside—but then stopped short in astonishment. Paul had led him to expect an unearthly interior within the nugget. Instead he found a room that was eerie in its familiarity, for all the world seeming an exact duplicate of the sitting room of his old fellow’s chambers at the University of Edinburgh, where he had in auld lang syne been a Professor of Xenopsychology.
The place was dark-paneled, slightly shabby, and had a tiny fire burning in the grate. There were windows looking out on a night view of fog-fuzzed city lights, a cracked leather settee and two old frieze armchairs, a coffee table rather the worse for wear, an antique computer on a kneehole desk, shelves of plaques and paged books—even a ceramic umbrella stand holding two decrepit black brollies, a blackthorn cromach, and a bent toasting fork.
Sitting on the couch and in one of the chairs were two men and two women attired in Earth-style clothing sixty years out of date. Davy knew who they were. He’d met them at the Human Polity Inaugural Ball in 2052, when the race was finally admitted to conditional membership in the Galactic Milieu. Davy had actually danced with the one who wore the disguise of a lovely Oriental woman.
He took her outstretched hand as the Supervisors rose to greet him. “So nice to see you again after all these years, Miss Asymptotic Essence. I did follow your advice about reading the works of Teilhard de Chardin—and it helped me resolve my doubts about Unity.” He nodded to the others—an African woman and
two males of Caucasoid and Amerind appearance. “Noetic Concordance, Eupathic Impulse, Homologous Trend, how d’ye do. I presume you’ve pulled this nostalgic stage set from my memory bank to make me feel at ease. Thank you. I haven’t thought of my days at university for years.”
Trend nodded. “We are gratified. Please be seated, Davy. It’s good that you have come to see us.”
“But you’re not surprised,” the Scotsman said.
“Of course not,” said Asymptotic Essence, “although one might have thought you would come to us earlier—following the deaths of Fury and the last Hydra.”
Davy glowered. “You were right about that happening, too. It did me good to know Margaret’s killers were brought to justice. Even if—” He broke off, shaking his head in disbelief. “Och, it’s over and done, and God be thankit.”
“May I offer you some sherry?” Concordance poured and handed him a small glass with a chipped rim. Davy had always meant to replace the dinged-up one of the original set that had belonged to his father, but he kept forgetting; and then he had been drafted into the contentious feery-fary of the European Intendancy and left the university forever.
“Under the circumstances,” Impulse said, “we will not offer felicitations upon your election as First Magnate. Nevertheless, we are confident that you will fulfill the duties of the office nobly during the difficult days that are to come.”
“So you know we’re in for a tough haul, do you?” Davy drank a bit of wine and eyed the four Lylmik bleakly.
“We do,” Impulse admitted. His mind projected: [Situational image] + [probability analysis].
“Exactly. I presume you also know about the ultimatum delivered to me by Marc Remillard after today’s opening meeting of the Concilium. He called it a compromise proposal.”
“Please tell us in your own way,” Trend requested.
Davy put down the sherry with a heavy sigh. “I’d really prefer a dram of whisky to be gettin’ on with, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Certainly,” said Noetic Concordance. The decanter and its appurtenances vanished and a stone crock of Bowmore 25 materialized, together with a carafe of water and five thistle-glasses. The Africaine poet served the spirits to everyone.
Davy held out for a double before summarizing what Marc had said to him. “Then he let me take a look into that fearsome mind of his—just for a nanosec, so I’d know he wasn’t lying. And I found out that the damned widdifow has weaponry! Conventional sorts and metaconcerted CE, too. He warned me that he’ll fight us if the Milieu won’t allow at least the Rebel faction of humanity to carry on unUnified. It was his final offer and he said he’d brook no further discussion. In fact, he told me he’d not say another word in the Concilium.”
“Did you perceive details of his munitions?” Impulse asked.
“No. But I believe he could do a monstrous mischief unless we cut him off at the knees instanter—or accede to his proposal.”
“Your analysis is cogent,” Essence said.
“What’s to be done, then? Do we capitulate or stand up to his challenge?”
“The Quincunx is taking the matter under advisement,” said Homologous Trend. His copper face seemed almost embarrassed.
Davy swept the Supervisory Body with an incredulous glare. His well-articulated Standard English transmogrified into a prickly Scots burr. “What! Do ye mean t’ tell me ye’d let Marc piss in the Milieu’s eye whilst you lot just sit here thinkin’ serene and ineffable thoughts?”
“No,” said Eupathic Impulse uncomfortably, “but you must understand that interfretting proleptic nodalities exist that must be pondered—”
“Ballocks!” Davy bellowed. “Is the fewkin’ Milieu ready to cave in to Marc’s threats or isn’t it?”
“No,” said Homologous Trend. “It isn’t.”
“Then give me leave to nab him and the other Reb magnates right here on Orb,” Davy demanded. “I’ll have the Magistratum toss ’em in maximum nick and throw away the soddin’ key!”
Trend said, “That is not an option, although we four have pointedly recommended it. Unfortunately our leader, Atoning Unifex, has exercised summary veto, as is Its prerogative.”
“Get your chief in here,” Davy snapped insubordinately. “I’ll give him a right piece o’ my mind!”
“Unifex is on Earth,” said Asymptotic Essence.
Eupathic Impulse gritted his big white teeth and his face turned choleric. “Shopping.”
Speechless with outrage, Davy gaped at the Four.
Noetic Concordance hastened to say, “But an appeal would do you no good. In accordance with the Percruciate Progressive Principle set forth by Unifex Itself, Marc Remillard will be allowed to remain free, at least for the immediate future.”
Davy leapt to his feet. “But why, for the love O’ God? Don’t you realize that the bastard won’t scruple at destroying the Milieu? He could attack Orb itself!”
“We know,” Noetic Concordance said. The poet’s ebony countenance was suffused with melancholy.
“But he is unlikely to do so, given its inconvenient distance from his power base,” Asymptotic Essence added.
“At least,” Eupathic Impulse concluded grimly, “not this early in the game.”
“So it’s a game.” Davy’s black eyes glittered. “That’s how you Lylmik think of it. Perhaps it’s been that from the very start—from the Intervention!”
“No,” said Noetic Concordance. “We love you. For sixty thousand Earth orbits the Milieu watched and waited, praying that your race would mature before destroying itself. Even now, as we are faced with impending catastrophe, we continue to hope and trust that the Cosmic All intends a great felicitous phase change, coadunating the Mind of Humanity through pain since you have resisted a more tranquil path to Unanimization.”
“Your population has attained its coadunate number,” said Homologous Trend, “and the first steps of the process have begun among your operant children. Two fortunate adult humans have also experienced Unity’s inchoation, and from them the mental symmetry might spread exponentially—given appropriate affirmation by benevolent minds.”
“Or coadunation could abort if conflict spreads throughout the Milieu,” said Asymptotic Essence. “Even the other four races might find their steadfastness threatened. Unifex has said that Its prolepsis fails to perceive the dénouement of this situation, except to recognize its criticality.”
“Great God!” Davy shouted. “Will ye stop your switherin’ and tell me in plain words what I should do?”
“You must decide for yourself,” said Eupathic Impulse. “You are the First Magnate of the Human Polity.”
“Shall I arm the loyalist humans to defend the Milieu? Paul was considering it.”
“What is your opinion?” Concordance asked.
Davy scowled. “My gut instinct is to do it—and for that reason I won’t. My late father, Jamie MacGregor, faced the same kind of dilemma before the Intervention, at the Oslo Metapsychic Congress of 2012. The delegates debated whether it was ever justified for operant minds to defend their countries or themselves with mental and physical force. Jamie and Denis and many of their colleagues concluded that it was not, and vowed to adhere to the nonviolent principles espoused by Saint Urgyen Bhotia. They believed that there can be no lasting mental harmony if the racial mindset includes aggression—and so do I. They also believed that the Intervention came precisely because we did eschew a violent solution. I don’t see how operant humanity can repudiate nonviolence now. You undoubtedly know that a majority of the human Magnates of the Concilium share my belief.”
“We know,” said the Four, smiling.
“What I will do is alert the Galactic Magistratum to the possibility of trouble during the Concilium session,” Davy went on. He had regained his usual magisterial calmness. “Krondak agents will do their utmost to keep the Rebel leadership under invisible surveillance, but you know the limitations: The bulky bodies of the Krondaku restrict their activities, and any
Grand Master farsensor who suspects their presence can easily spy them out. Scrutator Losa’emoo Dok assures me that no bombs or other military equipment have been smuggled into Orb.”
“That is reassuring,” the Four said.
Davy said carefully, “It was my plan to call for a loyalty oath amongst human magnates tomorrow and expel from the Concilium those who decline. Shall I proceed?”
“Yes,” said the Four.
“Shall I permit floor debate of the issue?”
“No.”
“You know what the consequences may be?”
“Yes.”
“Right.” Davy swallowed the last of his Scotch and got up. “I’ll be going, then, to tell Marc his compromise proposal is a no-hoper.”
He went out, closing the oaken door behind him.
After a period of meditation, Asymptotic Essence said, “Shopping. In France! Sometimes, one despairs of ever understanding Unifex.”
“It did hint that Jack and Illusio might skew the direful probability lattices,” Trend noted.
“We could check the two entities out,” Eupathic Impulse suggested.
But the poet disagreed. “Snooping would do nothing to hasten bifurcation. It would be more elegant to continue to put one’s trust in Unifex and in the Prime Entelechy.”
“This one concurs,” said Homologous Trend.
“And this one also,” said Asymptotic Essence.
“Oh, what the hell,” muttered Eupathic Impulse. “I do, too. Let’s go walk the dogs.”
31
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD
THE LOYALTY-OATH REQUIREMENT WAS RATIFIED BY THE FULL Galactic Concilium. All of the exotic polities were unanimously in favor, while the Human Polity was split along party lines with a handful of conscientious abstentions. There was no Lylmik veto. Davy MacGregor immediately called for the oath in farsensory metaconcert and 68 percent of the human magnates declared themselves to be faithful adherents to the Milieu, willing (if not necessarily eager) to accept Unification of the racial Mind.