“That scunnersome swine! Twas all I could do not to fetch him a guid belt in the gob, hearin’ him snash ye like that.” Niall was a holdover from the administration of the late Graeme Hamilton, as invaluable as he was overfamiliar. In spite of this, and his incorrigible addiction to trite Scots dialect, the Dirigent was extremely fond of him.
She took the papers without commenting on his indignant outburst and swiftly read the first one. “I’m denying this descent-and-distribution appeal from the Cairngorm probate court. Even if the man died intestate, the inheritance rights of nonborn second-degree kin clearly supersede those of the state.” She scribbled a few words and added her initials. “When are those Cairnies going to concede that nonborns have exactly the same rights in law as biological offspring? This is the Galactic Milieu, for heaven’s sake—not nineteenth-century Aberdeen.”
“They’re a dour and conservative ilk out there in Cairngorm,” Niall observed with a shrug.
She frowned as she read the next document. “What’s this? An import quota extension request for two hundred C240 mind-interface units? What in the world are these people building that requires premium brainboards like that? Who owns this company—this Muckle Skerry Bionics—anyway? I’ve never heard of them.”
“I can find oot. Could be they’re some adult amusement outfit with a hot new line in expensive erotic perjinkities.”
She set the document aside. “With boards like this in their tickle-suits, the customers would risk gonad meltdown … Have an ODC interstellar commerce agent go to Beinn Bhiorach and do a quiet investigation. This is the second shipment of sophisticated glom components somebody’s tried to import ex-quota within the past three months. It may be perfectly innocent. But I’ve heard a rumor about offensive metacreative CE equipment—mental lasers—being built on Satsuma. I want to be certain it’s not happening here.”
Niall nodded. “Will do, and I’ll bid our lad gang warily. By the bye, there was a subspace call from Director Jon Remillard, came in whilst ye were dealing with sweet Geordie. He’ll be giving ye a farshout in ten minutes or so.”
“I should be finished with these soon. Check with the Sergeant-at-Arms at the Assembly, will you? See if there’s any likelihood of a vote delaying Dad.”
“Aye, that I’ll do.” Abercrombie left the room, closing the door.
All of the other documents were routine, and she initialed those that were ratified and zapped them with the small laser seal. When the work was done she rose from the desk and went to look out the window at the capital city. There was a fine view of the Firth of Clyde from her office on the three-hundredth floor of the Dirigent House stratotower. Vessels crowded the waters—container ships bringing goods from the outlying small continents, tugboats hauling barges filled with grain, produce, and forest products from upriver, skim-ferries zipping between the suburban islands, smaller watercraft of every description. It was too overcast to see the Vee-ways overhead, but her ultrasenses perceived the intricate computer-controlled streams of commercial and private rhocraft moving in dozens of different vectors above New Glasgow.
For a moment she concentrated, savoring the deeper aura of Caledonia itself. It was a world having precious little dry land, with jagged mountains, strings of volcanic islands, and forests that were as bravely multicolored as the tartans of old Scotland. Its population was only just over a million, even though it was one of the earliest settled of the ethnic planets. An Earthling didn’t earn a living easily on Callie, but the stubborn colonists had persevered in their “safe haven.” The Scottish world had been both self-sufficient and prosperous until the blowout of the diatreme.
New Glasgow was heavily damaged by earthquakes and fires following the eruption, as were many other cities and towns on the populous Clyde Subcontinent. The stratotowers housing the government, the university, and the principal business offices were buttressed by inertialess fields and had gone unscathed. But the older parts of the capital, the twisting lanes and closes along the waterfront that were crowded with quaint jerry-built structures dating back over fifty years, had been hard hit. Most of the devastated areas were lower-working-class neighborhoods, long overdue for urban renewal for all that they were picturesque and evoked memories of the earliest days of Callie’s colonization.
Dorothea’s late predecessor, Dirigent Graeme Hamilton, had always had a soft spot in his heart for the rickety waterfront with its flourishing grog-shops, flea markets, resorts of dubious amusement, and ever-useful junkyards, and he’d balked at renovation. (It would also have cost a lot of money, which the colony couldn’t spare.) Now, thanks to the diatreme and a subsequent influx of no-strings Milieu disaster relief funding, New Glasgow could be tidied up without depleting the planetary treasury or raising taxes. There’d be a difficult interim, but reconstruction was well under way. The most serious problem involved the nearly forty thousand displaced residents who had been housed by the Human Polity Red Cross in temporary towns set up in the Clyde hinterlands. Despite the government’s best efforts, most of these settlements were little more than collections of cheerless barracks, decent enough shelter from the weather but sadly lacking in privacy. There was already grumbling that the Milieu and the Old World weren’t doing enough to help the diatreme refugees, and politicians were exploiting the situation both on Caledonia and in the European Intendancy back on Earth.
Musing over her planet’s problems, the Dirigent wondered if it was really possible that criminal elements were manufacturing potentially lethal CE equipment somewhere on Callie. The Japanese ethnic world of Satsuma, located in a star system not far away, had a persistent problem with operant yakuza mobsters, but there had never been organized crime on the Scottish planet. On the other hand, Beinn Bhiorach, where the suspicious components were to be shipped, was the most remote and thinly populated of Caledonia’s continental landmasses. BB had been her own childhood home, and she knew well enough that its steep glens and abandoned mine workings were capable of concealing any number of crooked enterprises.
But a Scots mafia in embryo? What a stone daft notion!
There was a more chilling possibility—one that the lofty-minded, altruistic exotic races of the Milieu had scarcely yet begun to address. What if the illicit cerebroenergetic equipment wasn’t intended for criminals at all? What if the faction of anti-Unity humans, the so-called Rebels, were arming themselves in order to secede from the galactic confederation by force?
It was a far-fetched idea that had come into her mind out of nowhere—perhaps because of the upcoming lunch with her father, about which she was feeling qualmish—and she gave it small credence. Callie wasn’t yet a hotbed of anti-Milieu sentiment as cosmop Okanagon and some of the “planets of color” were; but its Celtic-heritage denizens were prickly and antiestablishment by nature, and hardship caused by the diatreme eruption had exacerbated the groundswell of political discontent that had long flourished among the plaidie hills.
One of the most vocal of Caledonia’s Rebel stalwarts was Ian Macdonald, Beinn Bhiorach’s sole Intendant Associate and the Dirigent’s own father …
Diamond.
Jack!
Her troubled mood vanished as she responded to his telepathic hail. For a few minutes they shared special thoughts on the intimate mode of farspeech. Persons other than young lovers would doubtless have found their mental conversation cloying and sentimental, to say nothing of hackneyed; but to Jack and Dorothea the ideas were new and precious and important, dealing as they did with the wonder of each other.
At last, however, his mental nuances reluctantly revealed that he had another reason for bespeaking her:
There’s bad news, sweetheart. I’m on Okanagon. My Aunt Anne was involved in a serious accident here. Her starship crashed.
Oh, no! How is she?
Anne’s alive but badly hurt. Unfortunately, her three exotic companions and the human pilot died.
I’m so sorry, Jack.
The worst part is, we think the crash was no accident.
O
h, God. And it happened on Okanagon?
Yes. Anne and some of her associates from the Panpolity Directorate for Unity had come from Orb to confer with the Commander-in-Chief of the Twelfth Fleet, Owen Blanchard. There have been recent allegations by loyalist Magnates of the Concilium that the Twelfth is top-heavy with officers belonging to the Rebel party.
Yes, I know. And the allegations are true.
Anne and her colleagues were going to look into it. No big thing. She didn’t want to get the spacers all torqued and testy. It was to be a discreet sampling of sentiment, to find out how the anti-Unity misunderstandings that seem to be so prevalent in this Sector might be corrected. In the case of the Fleet, Anne had considered revising the curriculum at Chelan Academy, plus instituting mandatory reeducation of the commissioned officers. The Directorate discussed all this months ago.
What did Blanchard think of that idea? I’ve heard that he’s one of the top Rebel leaders. He and Annushka Gawrys were once lovers, you know. Some people say that the concept of an anti-Milieu political party originated with the two of them.
Anne never talked to Blanchard. Her courier ship went down the very morning that the first conference was scheduled. There’s no doubt that the pilot deliberately caused the disaster. He might have been a suicidal anti-Unity fanatic—but there’s another possibility. The ship was an express courier, and the pilot was a low-ranked adept-class operant, wearing a conventional CE control helmet. The hat could have been sneetched, coercing him to fly the ship into the ground. The passengers had no inkling that anything was wrong until it was too late to do anything about it. Anne only survived because she spun a crude metacreative cocoon around herself at the last minute. It didn’t protect her completely, but it did the job. She’ll be in a regen-tank for at least a year.
The poor woman … What will happen to the Unity Directorate? Anne was its prime mover. It won’t be the same without her. Who will take over the chair? You?
I don’t think I’m right for the job, sweetheart. But never mind that. There’s one last bit of info I haven’t told you. Before Anne went switch-off, she made a last heroic effort and managed to bespeak a single intelligible word: Hydra.
!!! OhdearGod.
The Okanagon authorities notified the First Magnate. When Papa found out about the Hydra thing he told me, and I came zorching to Oky like a bat out of hell. Dirigent Castellane bent over backwards to cooperate with us and the Magistratum investigators.
Small wonder. Nobody’s forgotten that earlier mystery accident on Okanagon that conveniently wiped out Pat’s predecessor … And now the First Magnate’s pro-Unity sister is nearly killed and talks about Hydra! A very suggestive coincidence. Especially when one recalls the Alvarez flap six years ago.
How could I forget? It happened the very night we first met—more or less face-to-face—at Marc’s Halloween party.
Yes … you wore that adorable clown suit, and I picked your giant brain like an overripe muskmelon.
And you conceived the idiotic notion of going to Okanagon with Uncle Rogi to interrogate Alvarez.
It wasn’t idiotic! I had good evidence that the man was a Hydra.
Your idea was shit-for-brains stupid … even though you were right about the Hydra. Fortunately, I found out about your scheme and had Alvarez framed with a felony hit-and-run charge to put him temporarily out of circulation—and beyond your reach.
You what?
Diamond, you were only fifteen years old then! I couldn’t let you endanger your life by playing clumsy detective games with a potential Hydra.
… Uncle Rogi! That damned old stool pigeon—he told you!
He did what he thought was best. What if the other Hydra-units had been there, backing up Alvarez when you tried to interrogate him? They would have nailed you to the wall.
Well, they weren’t on Okanagon. They were on Earth, stalking me in Hawaii!
Yes. [Chilling recollection.]
I presume that the Remillard Dynasty snuffed Alvarez.
They had nothing whatsoever to do with his death. Actually, it was a very nasty surprise. I had hoped to mind-ream him for information about the identities of the other Hydra-units and Fury. After Alvarez died so mysteriously in his cell, Krondak evaluators from the Galactic Magistratum took over the phony hit-and-run investigation at the First Magnate’s request—allegedly because Alvarez held such a high position on the Okanagon Dirigent’s staff. The exotics managed to do superficial redactive examination of Patricia Castellane and her top people without their knowing it, but the lightweight probes failed to find proof that she or any of the others at Dirigent House on Okanagon were aware of the Hydra’s real identity. They didn’t find any other Hydras living on the planet, either. The Lylmik Supervisors and the First Magnate eventually put a lid on the entire Alvarez affair.
I’m not surprised. But now it seems that there is at least one other Hydra hiding on Okanagon. After all this time.
We really don’t have the foggiest notion why the pilot crashed the starship, or what Anne meant when she said “Hydra.” There’s no way of questioning her until she comes out of the tank—and thank God for that. The last thing the Dynasty needs now is public speculation about a new Hydra attack.
Jack, you can’t simply ignore the possibility.
Of course not. But Paul intends to keep the Hydra angle of the case sub rosa. Only the inner circle of Castellane’s bureaucracy and the Fleet Commander himself knew about Anne’s upcoming visit. If one or more of them is a Hydra-unit in disguise, we’ll have the devil’s own time proving it. There isn’t enough evidence to justify an official inquiry of the planetary bigwigs—much less their full-scale mind-ream—and the law won’t let us mount a fishing expedition. The Galactic Magistratum will continue to investigate the crash, but there’ll be no Hydra hunt.
I see. Another cover-up.
For the good of the Milieu, darling.
Indubitably …
The real question is, why did the Hydra want to kill Anne?
She heads the Unity Directorate—and I told you that Fury has this daft notion of founding a Second Milieu with its own evil substitute for Unity.
Diamond, dear Diamond! Don’t let your own terrible experiences with that monster color your right reason. Fury is only a single warped individual. It has just two Hydra-units left to act as its agents. The Concilium would know if any larger Fury-led cabal existed. The Lylmik would know! There is no such group.
There are the Rebels.
Their agenda bears no resemblance to Fury’s—except that both want humanity out of the Milieu.
I’ve had the damned monster inside my mind and I know how seductive it can be. Fury doesn’t have to coerce large numbers of people or lead them openly. All it has to do is secretly exploit human weakness and perversity. And eliminate persons who threaten its scheme.
Yes.
Jack, everybody acknowledges that humanity is still far below the Unified races in sociopolitical maturity. Compared to the exotics, Earthlings are still at the level of Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde. We still commit crimes, cheat, lie, connive, and try to better ourselves at the expense of the other guy. Believe me, I see it all from behind this desk! The Dirigent is a combination ombudsman, judicial despot, and glorified nanny—
And I love you.
Don’t be facetious. And don’t patronize me!
Never. I love you and I also respect your judgment and your intuition. You’re right about Fury being a potential menace to the Milieu, and you’re right about it being capable of manipulating humanity to its own ends. You do know the monster better than I do. And the human condition as well.
Don’t say that, Jack.
It’s true. It’s so easy for me to forget what being human is. My knowledge is all academic. What does Jack the Bodiless know about human weakness, human feeling, the emotions that sway the human heart? I try to understand but I don’t always succeed. You should know that better than anyone, darling.
Don’t b
e silly.
Did I tell you that Marc thought it was absurd that a—a thing like me should fall in love and want to marry?
He would! If anyone in your family is inhuman, it’s Marc, not you.
You’d better hope not, babe. I modeled my wedding tackle on his three-piece set.
Jack, it’s not funny. You know as well as I do that human nature is ultimately mental, not physical. You have the mind of a dear, genuine human being. I could never have loved you otherwise. And I do love you.
Diamond …
I want to be with you. I want to put all of these problems aside, just for a little while, and think only about us. It’s selfish—
It’s not.
[Interval of mutual consolation.]
Jack, what will become of Anne? Will she be transported to Earth?
Paul will arrange it.
It seems heartless for us to go ahead with a big wedding.
Nonsense. Anne would be the last one to want to put a damper on the festivities. Now listen to me. I’m coming to Caledonia immediately. In two days we’ll fly to Earth in Scurra II—slowly.
Yes. Oh, yes. It would be marvelous to have some quiet time with you. Some learning time.
Some teaching time! I’ll be with you before you know it. Goodbye, my dearest Diamond, a nighean mo ghaoil.
Goodbye, Jack, a churaidh gun ghiamh!
Intendant Associate Ian Macdonald picked at his poached salmon and champit tatties, his dark brow furrowed in an obstinate scowl. “I still think I should stay home. There’s not only Assembly business, but the harvest is on back at the airfarm and Gavin and Hugh have their hands full and call me every other day with this crisis or that. There are equipment problems, and two new flitter pilots who aren’t up to snuff, and the wee plants are driftin’ far to the north this season, beyond the Goblin Isles.”
“I want you to give me away at the wedding, Dad.”
He snorted. “As if you ever belonged to anybody but your own self, Dorrie Macdonald!”
Her eyes softened. “You know what I mean. I want you there beside me affirming my marriage. And playing those bloody pipes of yours for the sword dance after.”