"Minanonn—" She hesitated, then laid a hand on his enormous forearm. "We'd better wait a while longer. Three days."
His blond brows shot up, and then his eyes brightened in alarm and comprehension. "That bad, eh?"
She nodded. "It's not your fault. You're one of the finest coercers I know. But the job is fiendishly difficult. The concentrated small-scale thrusting—"
Minanonn said to the baby, "Oh, you tough little beggar. More than a match for a worn-out warrior like me." He moved toward the door and asked Elizabeth, "Shall I tell Mary-Dedra to come?"
"Not yet. I want to reexamine the redacted regions of the child's brain first, while he's still quiet. Goodnight, Minanonn. And thank you."
When he had gone she resumed her seat beside the little bed and studied the commissures with her deep-seeing eye. The baby's pain was temporarily in abeyance; but was he really improved? His fever was still high and there were new blisters forming in the neck area. Tough, Brendan might be—nevertheless, he was still very likely doomed. The bludgeon technique of mind alteration had been effective, but it was much too slow.
If only Minanonn were stronger, Elizabeth lamented. She was sure that the redactor-coercer configuration was the correct one in this case. Strength. That was the key...
The baby slept. Strong little Brendan, whose unfolding mind had fought the tore instead of adapting. Were the children who succumbed always the fighters, always the ones hovering closest to natural operancy? Aiken Drum in the fullness of young adulthood had resisted his tore and conquered it. How? But Aiken would not know, being, as he was, a natural talent, inexperienced in metapsychic analysis. And even though he was by far the greatest coercer in Europe, she did not dare ask him to assist her in the child's redaction. Aiken was too badly damaged himself, too near dissolution.
She slumped back in the chair, brooding, and felt a welcome cool breeze brush her bare shoulders. If only the wretched hot weather would break and an honest thunderstorm recharge the atmosphere with negative ions. Then she might be able to make sense of it. Not only solve the problem of the black-torc babies but the greater question as well, her own mountain of challenge, erected by Brede.
The wind intensified and she let herself luxuriate in it, reaching back to lift her hair. "Oh, that's wonderful," she murmured.
"I'm glad you like it. I wish I could manage the storm for you, but the range is too extreme."
She whirled about, galvanized by astonishment, then froze to see Marc Remillard watching her from just outside the open window. This time, the cross-sectional halo effect of the mind-enhancing equipment was reduced to an indistinct shimmer and his body, suspended in midair, seemed completely material. She could see the play of muscle beneath the tight black pressure-suit as he lifted his right hand, palm forward, in the familiar Milieu metapsychic greeting that invited physical as well as mental touch.
No! she cried in instinctive revulsion, leaping from the chair and backing away.
A fresh wave of chill air emanated from him. He smiled sadly, one side of his mouth lifted slightly higher than the other. The hand dropped slowly to his side.
"You're really here," she stated, rather than asked.
"As you see, Grand Master."
"It's a genuine hyperspatial translation? By mind-power alone?"
"The cerebroenergetic enhancer assists me in generating the upsilon-field, but I do the actual d-jump—and the return, of course—under my own steam."
"I presume you learned the program from Felice. Did she injure you seriously in the process?"
Instead of replying, he demanded, "Where is she? I've been unable to farsense her aura, even with the CE rig augmenting my search faculties to the maximum."
Elizabeth showed him the site of the girl's tomb alongside the Rio Genii, the impervious globe of the room without doors buried deep in the rockfall. "Felice is beyond your reach, Marc. You'll have to look for another partner."
The shadowed eyes seemed to twinkle. "You've left yourself vulnerable, Grand Master."
She stood straight. "Why don't you come inside and do your worst? We've learned a few things in the Milieu since your damned Rebellion! All metas learn self-defensive maneuvers to forestall the kind of coercive manipulation you and your confederates used. And for Grand Masters, there's a last recourse against mind-violation that I'd almost welcome using at this point."
"Perhaps I'd better stay where I am. For both our sakes. The CE rig persists in following me through hyperspace like Mary's little lamb. Unless your chalet has reinforced floors, I might prove a perilous guest in more ways than one."
Fascinated in spite of herself, she asked, "Do you mean that the machine will stay behind, once the translation program is properly edited?"
"Oh, yes. And the coverall, too, if I wished." He made a Gallic gesture. "However, I'll retain it to spare you the sight of my scars."
"What do you want?" she asked, tiring of the verbal fencing.
He nodded at the sleeping baby. "His problem interests me. It's not unlike certain matters that once occupied me ... au temps perdu."
"I'm sure Brother Anatoly would agree."
He laughed. "You feel a certain affinity?"
"For another member of the Frankenstein Club? Oh, yes. But I'm a comparative amateur in meddling with the course of human evolution. I lack your self-assurance as well as your paramount qualifications. Take this black-torc business—I'm bungling it and the baby will likely die, but I can't help feeling that it would be for the best. If I save Brendan and the others like him, what future would they have in this poor damned land? I don't need Brede's clairvoyance to foresee what's going to happen when you get to Europe. There will be a war over the time-gate site."
"Not if Aiken cooperates with me instead of with my son. You could show Aiken where his best interests lie."
She laughed bitterly. "You're a fool if you think I can exert that kind of influence. Aiken does as he pleases. If he's decided to help your children escape from you, nothing I say or do will deter him."
The hovering dark shape drifted nearer, sending a wash of chill air ahead. Hastily, Elizabeth covered the baby.
"Your protestations of helplessness lack conviction," Marc said. "Perhaps you have your own reasons for encouraging the building of a Pliocene time-gate."
"And what about your motive for preventing it?" she retorted. "Are you really so afraid that the Magistratum will come after you? Or is it that you would prefer to see your children dead rather than lose them to the Unity you couldn't accept?"
"You misjudge me," he said. "I love them. Everything I've done has been for them. For all human children. For Mental Man crying to be born—"
"Let it be, Marc!" she cried. "It's over—it has been, for more than twenty-seven years! Humanity chose the other way, not yours!" A great weariness oppressed her and she felt her eyes sting. The strong mental walls she had erected against the commanding presence of the Milieu's challenger wavered, weakened. She was vulnerable and he knew it—but he forbore. She whispered, "Let your children go. The Milieu will welcome them. Turn your ship around and return to North America. I'll do my utmost to insure that the Pliocene side of the time-gate is permanently closed, so that you and the other Rebels will be left unmolested."
"How will you do that?" he asked. "By going back to the Milieu yourself?"
She turned her head away. "Leave us alone, Marc. Don't destroy our little world."
"Poor Grand Master. It's a difficult role you've chosen. Almost as lonely as mine." The sound of his voice intensified and she looked up, startled, to see that he was actually standing on the broad sill of the window. There was no longer any trace of ghostly machinery surrounding him. As in a dream, Elizabeth watched him step down and walk slowly to the infant's wicker bed, leaving wet footprints on the parquet floor. The exudation of cold air was no longer apparent. He was fully materialized, divorced from the mind-enhancing equipment. One gloved hand gripped the rim of the baby basket and she heard the fibers crea
k. His gray eyes beneath their heavy winged brows held hers.
"Show me the program you're using in the child's redaction. Quickly! I can't sustain this stasis for more than a few minutes."
Her mind had gone numb, beyond fear. She summoned the program and displayed it.
"Very ingenious. Is it entirely your own construct?"
"No. Great chunks of it come from the preceptive courses I used when teaching children at the Metapsychic Institute on Denali."
"Redactive science has come a long way since my day ... I would judge that this program of yours is fully capable of effecting a cure."
"It's too slow." Her admission was starkly clinical. "At the rate I was going with Minanonn, the procedure would take more than twelve hundred hours. The baby would almost certainly die before we could finish."
"All you need do is magnify the coercive loading. At that minute focus, the child's mind can endure ten times the pressure Minanonn delivers." He had gone into the small brain, scrutinizing, testing. The baby stirred and exhaled a soft cooing sound, smiling in his sleep.
Elizabeth said, "I can only utilize a single auxiliary mind in this configuration. Phasing in a coercive metaconcert is out of the question."
"I was thinking of something quite different." Marc withdrew his redactive faculty and took two steps backward. "We would have to wait until Manion and Kramer and I solve the problem of maintaining my translation in stasis—holding off the rubberband effect that tends to pull me back to the takeoff point of the jump. We couldn't risk that happening in mid-redaction. Even with a maximum feed of coercion, it will still take more than a hundred hours to finish the little chap off."
"Finish him?" Elizabeth's voice was a faltering whisper.
Marc's mind engaged hers on the intimate mode: Together we could heal him completely. With certain emendations of your program we might even raise him to permanent operancy.
"Work with you? But I could never—"
"You could never trust me?" The asymmetrical smile was self-mocking. He tapped the side of his head and greenish drops flew from his dripping hair to splatter the window frame. "I'm harebrained at this end of the d-jump, Elizabeth. There would be no danger to you if we use the program exactly as formulated—coercer-inferior, with you retaining executive function. You'd be quite safe from ... diabolical influence."
He seemed to step outside into the night. The semitransparent cerebroenergetic equipment reformed about his levitant body and he began to recede rapidly; but his mental voice was distinct:
I want to do this. Let me help you.
She asked, "How long do you think it will take you to solve ¿he stasis problem?" And thought: Am I mad? Am I actually taking his proposal seriously—willing to trust him?
He said: I'll need at least a week. Perhaps a bit longer. Can you keep the child alive that long?
"Minanonn and I can continue the procedure. If no complications turn up, the baby should survive. I think..."
And a fading ironic comment: Perhaps Brother Anatoly can storm heaven.
Then the starry sky was empty and the infant wailed—hungry, cold, and in need of changing.
10
THE FORMER Mr. Justice Burke, stripped to breechclout and moccasins, knelt spraddle-legged in the canoe hidden in the reeds and waited for the waterbuck to slosh a meter or so nearer, within positive dub-shot range. This time he couldn't miss.
The sun above the marshland of the Upper Moselle valley was a brass porthole into hell. Sweat trickled from beneath Burke's headband into his eyes, blurring the approaching antelope. He blinked slowly, breathed in shallow pants, held the taut bowstring against his cheek. His kishkas were contorted in a frightful ache; his skull pounded; his cramped hamstrings added their pangs to the hangover's anguish. Then he saw that the buckthorn arrowshaft was warped—and this final evidence of incompetence wrung an unvoiced "Gevalt!" from his rebuking aboriginal conscience. He shifted aim in a futile attempt to compensate, and let fly.
The arrow nicked the waterbuck across the withers. The animal leaped, floundering in hock-deep water. Partially chewed plants drooled from its mouth. Peopeo Moxmox Burke of the Wallawalla whipped another arrow into position and shot again, wide of the mark. The antelope bounded off in a series of great splashes. Frightened mallards took to the air ahead of it and a pied swan, hooting, exploded up from a patch of sawgrass. Then it was quiet except for Burke's muttered curses.
He lowered the bow and let it drop onto the canoe bottom. Taking up the paddle, he dug in deeply and sent the boat shooting out of the natural blind into open water, heading for the thin shade of taxodium cypress. After he had moored to one of the half-submerged knee-roots, he took a long drink from his skin bota. Something seemed to twang behind his eyeballs. He drank again and his sight cleared. Grunting, he worked himself into a comfortable position and began to examine the rest of the arrows.
Almost all of them were off true.
He picked up the bow. The laminations of yew wood were separating as the cement succumbed to decay. The twisted sinew of the bowstring was frayed and weak. Even the buckskin quiver was spotted with mildew and gaping at the seams. Small wonder that he hadn't managed to take a single antelope! The bow and arrows, like the rest of his Native American paraphernalia, had lain neglected on the shelf of his wigwam for long months during his southern adventures. Since his return to Hidden Springs, he had been too busy planning countermeasures against the encroaching Firvulag to take time to hunt.
What in the world had been in his mind this morning, prompting this primitivist folly?
He had flung himself out of Marialena Torrejon's bed, abruptly awake, with the ringing declaration that there would take place that night a great feast—an official celebration of the great news!—and he, freeleader of the Lowlives, would provide game for the entrée.
"You want another party?" Marialena asked blearily, disentangling her plump limbs from the linen sheets. "Hombre, que te jodas! I've got a head like an exploding volcano after last night—"
He only grinned owlishly. The village had gone into a frenzy of jubilation when he announced that Nodonn's coup had failed and Basil and the Bastards were safe. "But I didn't tell you all of Elizabeth's news, bubeleh. I wanted to save it! We'll have a really big feast—a monster barbecue, you hear me? I'll bring you six antelope to roast. Afterwards I'll tell you and the rest of the people the biggest news since the Flood!"
"Loco indio," she mumbled fondly. "No me importa dos cojones." She came squirming toward him. "Look, it's nice and cool now. You don't really want to go hunting. Lucien and the kids can get game for your feast. Vamos a pichar, mi corazón, mi porra de azúcar—"
She made a grab for him, but he was already out the door of her hut, buck-naked in the dawn (and still well shickered, if the truth be told), aflame with atavistic masculine instincts that were, at least for now, more imperative than sex. He stumbled to his wigwam and got dressed—not in the chino cargo pants and sturdy boots that had been his customary garb ever since the exodus from Muriah, but in his old breechclout and moccasins. When he rummaged about for hunting equipment he shoved aside the modern plass-and-metal compound bow, deadly and dependable, and the iron-tipped vitredur arrows that had slain so many exotic antagonists. He took up instead the gear he had chosen to carry through the time-gate many years earlier, when he still cherished a dream of returning to tribal ways.
Peopeo Moxmox, noble savage and late Justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, sat in his canoe and laughed. The craft was not made of bark but of decamole, that marvel of Milieu technology, and he would deflate it and tuck it into a waist-pouch when the day's comedy ended. He suddenly remembered the tag good old Saul Mermelstein used to tease him with when he was a fledgling lawyer in Salt Lake City: "Lo, the poor Indian, whose soul proud science never taught to stray..." But he had, he had! And nowhere more than in the primeval Pliocene.
He fingered the warped shaft of an arrow, turning it so that the carefully chipped obsidian point g
littered in the sun. Somewhere back in the wigwam was a shaft straightener, a simple gadget no primitive huntsman would be without. But on the other hand, vitredur arrows were indestructible, with self-fletching and a wide assortment of interchangeable heads. Some of them even had built-in transponders for tracking wounded game and easy retrieval.
Apple Injun!
"So why did I come out here today?" he inquired of the world at large. "Why ask, Burke? You hopeless shmegeggeh!"
An unseen crocodilian choofed and a warbler sang. Two blue butterflies twirled in a mating dance above the gleaming water. He caught a whiff of vanilla essence in the still, hot air and looked up to see a spray of exquisite tiny orchids growing from a cleft in the bark of the cypress. Burke reached out and touched it. He was very glad he had come, glad he had killed nothing.
After a while he consulted his wrist chronograph, a thing as handsome (and nonaboriginal) as his golden tore. The time was coming up on 1600 hours, and he had left a note for Denny Johnson, asking to be met at the river trail with chalikos and plenty of game bags for the antelopes...
Grinning, he untied the painter and stroked out into the lagoon toward the mainstream of the Moselle. The swan reappeared, majestic in black-and-white plumage, and glided tamely after the canoe. As Burke left it behind and the ripples of his wake subsided, the bird seemed poised in the center of a peat-dark mirror, superimposed upon a reflection of itself. Clumps of emerald grasses topped by feathery plumes framed it against the deeper green of the jungle. Staring back over his shoulder, Burke caught his breath. He would remember this—and so much more.
Then the canoe grounded on a mudbar. Setting aside the paddle, he boosted the craft over into the river backwater, stood up, and began to pole stoutly upstream. He hoped that Denny himself would be waiting. There would be salutary jibes to endure, but as they rode back to Hidden Springs he could break the news about the time-gate. And they could discuss ways and means for a Lowlife capture of Castle Gateway.
***
Lowlife prisoners from Iron Maiden and Haut Fourneauville numbering sixty or seventy were armed and ready in their big wooden cage. Their position was one of strength, partially sheltered behind granite outcroppings at the crest of the small ridge. There was no way they could be surprised or outflanked, no chance that the Firvulag might overwhelm them by resorting to the traditional massed assault or bogeyman tactics. The Lowlife miners, veterans of many a skirmish in the beleaguered Iron Villages, would only be bested by mind-power.