Paul’s cook was a laconic Yankee named Asahel Fitch, whose culinary specialties were New England boiled dinners, lobster salad, coq au vin, and pot roast. Fitch’s wife Elsie did desserts and flower-arranging and also supervised the wine cellar, the only area of the cottage where the vast Remillard family fortune proclaimed itself. It was a repository of the Galaxy’s rarest and most costly vintages and ardent spirits—plus a case or two of good old Wild Turkey for the times that Uncle Rogi came to visit. When the First Magnate entertained semiofficially, he hired the best caterers in Old Concord, or flew them in from other Earth cities as far away as Kuala Lumpur. If a more intimate supper for two was appropriate—as it often was—the Fitches got the night off and Paul whipped up crêpes or a fancy omelet himself.
About 100 meters from the First Magnate’s cottage, at the margin of the surrounding woodland, stood a frivolous wooden summerhouse furnished with white-painted wicker chairs and settees and a number of discreet high-tech appurtenances. Paul indicated this structure to his brothers and sisters as they walked across the darkening lawn.
“We’ll wait for Papa there. The place has a dumbwaiter to keep us supplied with drinks, and a state-of-the-art sigma-field installation we can activate for complete privacy during the family council. We might see some luna moths while we wait if we’re lucky.” He led the way among the irregularly shaped rose beds.
“A sigma?” Adrien was taken aback. “You really think someone might eavesdrop? What the hell is this confab about, anyhow?”
Paul glanced back over his shoulder, smiling without mirth. “There are a number of matters we need to discuss. One particularly involves you and Sevvy.”
“Is that so?” Adrien spoke lightly, but there was a hint of defiance in his mien. He resembled a less polished version of Paul with a small mustache and no beard; but his immortality genes had climaxed at a much earlier age, giving him a boyish air almost as incongruous as that of his father, Denis.
“So we’re going to get political,” groaned Severin. “I was half afraid of something like that when you summoned all six of us to Concord like a gang of wayward prep-schoolers.”
“Paul did nothing of the sort.” Catherine’s defense was prompt and wholehearted. “What in the world’s got into you two?”
Maurice said, “Perhaps the loyal opposition to Unity is feeling just a trifle bumptious after its boost in the last constituent poll.”
“A disgrace,” Anne said. “You lot never would have got that high a vote percentage if you hadn’t stooped to disinformation.”
“Disinformation—?” Severin exploded. “Look who’s talking. What well-known petticoat-Jebbie legal scholar tried to twist the Pope’s arm so he’d issue an encyclical saying that Unity doesn’t pose a threat to human free will?”
“It doesn’t,” said Anne.
“Que tu dis,” sneered Adrien. “We’ve got tame theologians on our side who’ll match your guys jot for tittle swearing it does. Psychologists, too! Anytime you Jesuits and swamis want a real debate on the Interstellar Tri-D Forum instead of an eye-glaze contest on the Philosophical Channel, we’ll bring on Rabbi Morgenstern and Cardinal Fujinaga and Doctor Aziza Khoury to clean your clocks.”
Briefly, Anne’s composure slipped. “Unity is a serious subject for debate. You and your Rebels won’t be allowed to trivialize it by treating it like some game show!”
“No,” Severin said. “But the matter’s not going to be decided behind closed doors by your clique of operant mystics, either.”
Paul had thus far ignored the bickering, but now he broke in to thank his siblings for coming to this emergency family conference.
Anne’s tone was cynical. “There was a choice? I had to egg in from a meeting of theologians in Constantinople. My paper will have to be delivered by Athanasius Wang, and he’ll drone on and put everyone to sleep.”
“Surely not,” Catherine said. “What’s the subject?”
“ ‘The Unanimisation Concept of St. Teilhard de Chardin as a Prefiguring of Unity.’ ”
“Ye gods and little fishes,” croaked Adrien.
Anne shrugged. “Unity’s going to happen, no matter how much you latter-day Sons of Earth piss and moan. Full participation in the Milieu by humanity demands that we embrace a consonant mental relationship with the Galactic Mind.”
Severin’s chuckle was ominous. “Think again, little sister. There are alternatives to the lockstep mentality of Unity, and you can be damned sure they’re going to be discussed openly and exhaustively. Humanity has a right to choose whether or not to risk its racial individuality in a permanent mind-meld with exotics.”
“Of course it does,” Anne retorted. “But if your faction continues to spew distortions and half-truths instead of helping to clarify the issue, how in the world will people be able to make an informed choice? The tirade that Annushka Gawrys spouted before the Concilium last session was full of calculated misstatements—”
“You mean,” Adrien broke in, “she raised points that hit too close to the mark for comfort! You ought to come down from your ivory tower once in a while and listen to what the normals and the metas opposed to Unity are saying. It’s not operancy that worries the ordinary folks, it’s the notion of being controlled by inhuman humans!”
“Please.” The First Magnate held up an admonitory hand. “There are good reasons why we should wait until we’re behind the sigma before discussing this any further.” As Paul spoke aloud, his formidable coercion gently touched their minds. They were all Grand Masters, all Magnates of the Concilium, all among the most powerful human minds in the Galaxy. But at that moment, their youngest brother’s will was irresistible.
For a time they continued walking in silence.
Finally, Philip ventured to say: “You made some changes in the rose garden, didn’t you, Paul?”
“I had the gardeners rip out all the trendy new varieties the landscapers stuck in. The sky-blue ones, and the blacks and purples and lime greens, and the ones with fringed petals and polka dots and stripes.”
“Once again … you surprise me. I never realized you were such a traditionalist at heart.” The firstborn of the Dynasty had a pleasant homely face with a receding hairline, and he tended slightly to portliness. Philip Remillard was sixty-five years old but seemed to be in his late forties. The only one of the family who was not physically impressive, he had long ago decided that none of his bodily flaws was serious enough to warrant wasting time having them corrected in a regen-tank.
“Traditionalist?” Paul seemed surprised at the accusation. “Hardly! But a rose is a rose is a rose, dammit. It should look like one and smell like one. Now the only varieties growing here are pre-Intervention.”
“Good for you,” said Catherine. “The plant engineers for the big nurseries seem to think that the more outlandish the flowers are, the better. There were roses in the catalog last fall that were the size of dinner plates, with more colors in each flower than a stained-glass window. They call them Chartres hybrids. Ridiculous.”
“Just part of the general trend toward the baroque and outré,” Maurice remarked. “Flowers, clothing, vehicles, music … all kinds of things getting more and more intricate and fussy. Some popular-culture theorists think it’s a reaction against the austerity of the Simbiari Proctorship years.”
Catherine nodded. She was tall and blonde like Maurice, Severin, and Anne, but without the studied judiciousness of the first, the panache of the second, or the cool intellectuality of the third. She often seemed to be the most vulnerable of the Dynasty, passionate in her opinions and imperious in manner, but paradoxically chilled by melancholy, never able to forget that her late son Gordon McAllister had been exposed as one unit of the Hydra who had killed her beloved husband, the boy’s own father. When the Human Magnates of the Concilium were finally able to assume a lighter administrative work load, Catherine Remillard had once again taken up her original profession of clinical metapsychology, the work she had once shared with Brett McAll
ister. She was now acknowledged to be one of the principal latency research scholars in the Polity.
“I rather like the new Regency look in men’s clothing,” she said. “Those buckskin breeches and hussar boots are very dashing on you, Sevvy.”
“Oh, well,” muttered Severin, a trifle sheepishly. But he kicked at an imaginary pebble in the grass to make the boot-tassels swing.
“Better watch out, Paul.” Adrien’s sardonic smile was almost phosphorescent in the deepening dusk. “You’ll find yourself displaced as First Fashion Plate of the Polity if Sevvy gets any more gorgeous.”
“Quel dommage,” Paul drawled.
Severin sketched a mock bow in Paul’s direction. “No, you’ll always have the edge with the ladies. Won’t you, little bro? Nothing’s quite as sexy as unlimited political power.”
“Did you say there were luna moths hereabouts?” Philip interposed quickly. They had finally reached the summerhouse.
“I’d love to see one.” Anne relaxed on one of the chintz-cushioned settees and picked up the dumbwaiter zapper. Her lemonade glass was empty. Anne’s aging had halted in her early forties and her features were as austere and precisely chiseled as those of a Greek statue. Except on the most formal occasions, she eschewed the clerical collar and black rabat of more conventional priests. Tonight she wore a fashionable royal-blue linen trouser suit with a silk blouse the color of caramel, making Catherine in her simple beige cotton shirtwaist dress look almost mousy.
“Perhaps the First Magnate will order a command performance of his little creatures of the night,” Adrien suggested archly.
Not in the least put out, Paul dropped into a wicker chair, set his beaker of iced tea on the low table, and assumed an intent expression.
Severin nudged Adrien. The pair of them sat side by side on a second settee. “The regal coercive summons! Or is he cooking bug pheromones, do you suppose? And if he is, where is he getting the raw apocrine components from?”
“You’re the ex-doctor,” Adrien said. “Elucidate the disgusting possibilities—starting at his armpits and moving south.”
Paul grinned. “Sorry to disappoint you two filthy minds, but coercion’s a lot easier than creativity when you’re dealing with sex-crazed males … and here they come.”
“Oh!” Catherine’s face brightened with delight. She instinctively held out both her hands.
Full night had now descended and the only illumination came from the windows of the distant residence and from the starry sky; but all of the grandmasterclass operants of the Dynasty could see as well in darkness as they could in broad daylight if they chose to exert their visual ultrasense. What they now perceived was a fluttering squadron of large pale-green moths emerging from the canopy of trees nearby. The insects were about the size of a human hand and delicate as moonbeams. Their wings had long tails, narrow purplish margins, and four transparent eyespots. Prominent feathery antennae confirmed that the moths were indeed males. They flew into the summerhouse and orbited Catherine with exquisite precision. Then, released from Paul’s mental control, they flapped about uncertainly and began to scatter.
“How marvelous!” she said. “Thank you, Paul.”
“It was actually young Jack who decided that my new place needed some special pets. He salted the forest with cocoons last fall.” The First Magnate chuckled. “I’m glad his tastes run to Lepidoptera rather than fruit bats.”
“How’s your little boy doing?” Maurice inquired. “Settling in at Dartmouth? I don’t think Cecilia and I have seen him since Marc’s birthday party in February. Amazing, the way the two of them seem to relate almost like colleagues rather than big brother and kid brother.”
“One of the matters we’re going to discuss involves Jack’s collaboration with Marc,” Paul said.
“Oh-oh. That’ll be the new CE rig,” Philip guessed shrewdly. “Marc told me he’d had flak from the Concilium Science Directorate already, and the news of the proposed design modification isn’t a week old.”
Paul cocked his head, listening to something inaudible, then let out a sigh. “Papa’s finally here. Elsie Fitch is aiming him in our direction. Now we can get on with this bloody damned conference.”
Maurice said, “Are things really as serious as all that, Paul? I realize that Marc’s mind-booster research is ethically problematical, and Sevvy and Adrien’s anti-Unity faction has embarrassed you before the media. But surely—”
“There’s more,” the First Magnate broke in. “And it’s as serious as it gets … Anne, if you’re sending in drink orders, make mine a Scotch rocks. Double. Somehow I don’t think plain iced tea is going to do me much good this evening.”
DENIS: Hello, children.
PHILIP+MAURICE+SEVERIN+ANNE+CATHERINE+ADRIEN: [Murmurs of greeting.]
PAUL: Good evening, Papa. I’m glad you could join us. Can I offer you a drink? A Hawkeye? Certainly. Excuse me for a moment while I turn on this sigma … There. Now we’re ready to begin our family conference.
DENIS: You’re shielding us, Paul? For heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?
PAUL: What we’re going to discuss concerns the family and the innermost circle of the Concilium. It’s vital that no one else hears about it—most particularly not the Planetary Dirigent of Earth.
DENIS: Davy MacGregor? But—
PAUL: Please, Papa. I’ll explain. I’ve just returned from Scotland. Three unusual murders were committed there a week ago. I have positive proof that the killer was Hydra.
VARIOUS: [Expletives and gasps.]
ANNE: The four missing Remillard children? …
PAUL: My own investigators, a forensic evaluation team from the Galactic Magistratum under Throma’eloo Lek, and the local police have gathered a fair amount of information about the perpetrators—although Lek and his Krondak associates in Orb are the only ones aside from the Lylmik Supervisors who know their true identity. Quentin, Parnell, Celine, and my own daughter Madeleine have been living on Islay in the Inner Hebrides ever since they disappeared eight years ago on the night Uncle Rogi and Jack were attacked.
SEVERIN: Son of a bitch.
PAUL: The Hydra-children fabricated new identities with the help of some unknown adult who has access to nearly unlimited, untraceable funds. Since the planet-scan done at the time of their disappearance failed to pinpoint them, we have also assumed … that they were able to change their mental signatures.
CATHERINE: Impossible!
PAUL: According to current Milieu technology, yes. But it was done. We’re virtually certain that the children themselves lacked the expertise to manage the alteration. It must have been done by Fury, Hydra’s adult controller. It was probably also Fury in an illusionary aspect who posed as the guardian of the four children during their stay on Islay. And no one but Fury could have helped them escape again after these latest killings without leaving a single clue to their whereabouts.
MAURICE: And the Galactic Magistratum has the whole story?
PAUL: Evaluator Throma’eloo Lek was practically a material witness.
SEVERIN: Oh, shit.
PAUL: The Evaluator was vacationing on the island when it happened. He recognized Hydra’s modus operandi from his investigations of the earlier deaths and immediately called me. Here’s a précis of the findings.
[Data.]
As you can see, Lek’s bureau of the Magistratum knows almost everything except Fury’s identity and a plausible motive for the murders—
CATHERINE: And where the fugitive Hydra-children have gone.
PAUL: [Nods.]
MAURICE: This opens the old can of worms all over again. Any one of us could be Fury—or none of us! What does the Galactic Magistratum intend to do about the Dynasty?
PAUL: In this matter, as in the earlier crimes, Lek and his people ceded authority to the Lylmik Supervisors. I offered them our joint resignation from the Concilium and suggested that we all accept voluntary preventive incarceration.
[Stunned silence.]
My prop
osal was turned down. The Lylmik were adamant that we retain our official positions, and they intend to keep the continuing investigation as confidential as possible so that we won’t be tainted by scandal. But their protection will cease if the truth somehow leaks out. If Davy MacGregor or some other hostile magnate finds out about this matter and formally demands our impeachment, we’ll have to put it to a special vote of the plenary Concilium.
SEVERIN: And end up fucked to a fare-thee-well.
MAURICE: Is there a chance of keeping it under wraps?
PAUL: The Hydra-children were living in Scotland under assumed names. They’ll keep those names as far as lower-level law-enforcement bodies are concerned. The manhunt will go on—but not for young Remillards. Their DNA assays have been transferred to the fictitious identities along with all of the other forensic material.
ANNE: [troubled] It’s the same kind of cover-up that we had eight years ago. At the time I thought the deception was despicable. I don’t like it any better now!
PHILIP: Disclose the fact that the Hydra has killed again and Davy MacGregor will surely make the entire affair public—including the fact of Fury’s existence and its probable relation to us. At the very least, we’ll all be forced to resign from the Concilium. And to what end?
ANNE: Truth. Honesty. The prevention of further killings! … Oh, God, Phil, I don’t know. Why are the Lylmik so determined to protect our family—to the point of letting five homicidal maniacs remain at large?
PAUL: Annie, it’s useless to agonize about this unless you’re prepared to defy the authority of the Supervisors and condemn the lot of us to disgrace and probably to imprisonment as well. All for the sake of a morad abstraction! No matter what we may suspect, there’s no more evidence now that one of us is Fury than there was eight years ago. Of course, we’ll all be interrogated again by Lek—but it’s largely pro forma. The Galactic Magistratum doesn’t expect to learn anything new.
PHILIP: What about Marc?