PHILIP: If you do it, Marc will be devastated—and you’ll also deprive the Milieu of a technology that could be extraordinarily beneficial. I won’t bore you with the details, but the Commerce Directorate that I chair has estimated that the gains in geophysical modification alone would be stupendous. We could double the number of habitable worlds for all races except the Lylmik through the utilization of CE creativity in crustal-plate adjustment alone.
MAURICE: Marc is destined to be more than a scientist, Paul. He’s going to be a leader. Perhaps even more formidable than you! If you quash his research high-handedly you’ll alienate one of the greatest minds in the galaxy—
PAUL: I’ll do what has to be done to protect the Milieu! And I’ll make certain that Marc understands my motivation.
CATHERINE: You’d do Marc a terrible injustice and he’d never understand. Surely you can see that, Paul! Marc lives for his work and he’s convinced it will benefit the Milieu. I know him better than all the rest of you do, and I’d stake my life that he’s not Fury. For the love of God, Fury tried twice to kill him!
PAUL: [stubbornly] There’s also the matter of Marc’s Rebel tendencies—
CATHERINE: He’s no Rebel, either … Sevvy, tell us the plain truth without bullshitting: Do you have any good reason to believe that Marc is sympathetic to the Rebel faction?
SEVERIN: Maybe Paul should take time out from his power-politicking and just ask him.
PAUL: [wearily] I’m asking you.
SEVERIN: All right, I’ll give it to you straight: We’ve approached Marc several times. He listens, he seems to agree that human mental autonomy is necessary—but thus far he’s declined to join our group. He’s a damned cold fish, if you ask me. No passionate commitment to anything or anybody except himself.
MAURICE: Marc deserves to be treated justly, whatever his political views or emotional shortcomings. We may have our suspicions about him, but they’re only that. We have no proof that Marc is Fury. Any action we vote upon here tonight must be predicated on that.
DENIS: [sighs] You’re absolutely right, Maurie.
PHILIP: NO, Papa. He errs in one important matter. We can’t simply take a family vote on this matter. Paul alone will have to decide. He’s the First Magnate, and he reports to the Lylmik Supervisors. [Mutual affirmation.]
PAUL: [after a long pause] Very well … One: Marc will be allowed to continue his research without hindrance. The full Concilium will debate the applications of CE creativity when and if the E15 equipment is perfected. Two: Subject to Lylmik approval, I summarily condemn Fury and the four Hydra-units to death. Three: Each one of us, insofar as he or she is able, will devote significant time to some aspect of the hunt for these creatures. I’ll draw up a schedule of your individual roles, based upon personal expertise. You’ll coordinate all significant action with me, reporting progress or lack of it at times and places that are prudent. I’ll see that you all receive unedited data from the Galactic Magistratum pertaining to the case.
PHILIP: And if one of us should locate Hydra?
PAUL: We’ll all have to deal with the creature, working in metaconcert with Marc if it’s at all possible. Under no circumstances should any of us attempt to act alone.
CATHERINE: What if we turn up a significant clue to Fury’s identity?
PAUL: Report it only in a meeting where all except the suspect are present. Remember that the core personality of Fury is probably innocent. The Lylmik Supervisors will have to advise us on how to deal with this entity if we ferret it out. God knows, I haven’t the faintest idea. It may be possible to excise the malignant Fury persona without harming the core personality.
DENIS: And what if that’s impossible? Will we ask the Enforcement Arm of the Galactic Magistratum to put the innocent persona to death along with the guilty one?
PAUL: I don’t know. I simply don’t know.
[An interval of silence.]
Thank you for coming tonight, Papa, sisters and brothers. Evaluator Throma’eloo and his people will be interrogating us—and Marc also—tomorrow afternoon in the Magistratum offices of Concilium House at thirteen hundred hours. I’ll leave you now. Excuse me if I don’t see you out. I want to prepare our Fury-Hydra search plan and have it ready for discussion tomorrow evening—if our reamed-out brains are still compos mentis after the interrogation. Good night.
DENIS+PHILIP+MAURICE+SEVERIN+ANNE+CATHERINE+ADRIEN:
Good night.
[Paul turns off the sigma-field and exits into the darkness. A single male luna moth blunders into the summerhouse and flaps about the heads of the silent occupants until Catherine gently sends it on its way.]
CSS DRUMADOON BAY [Hu 12-201]
GALACTIC YEAR: LA PRIME 1-382-401/422 [6–20 JUNE 2062]
DEE WAS VERY NERVOUS ABOUT THE STARSHIP VOYAGE … BUT NOT for the reason her grandmother supposed.
As the children settled down in their stateroom before lift-off, the professor did her best to reassure them.
“Most of our journey to Caledonia will be no more uncomfortable than a trip on a rhocraft bus. We fly out beyond the Moon under subluminal power, just as though the starship were a gigantic egg, and then jump into the gray limbo for the first time. But you needn’t worry about feeling pain when we go through the superficies. There’s a new minidose for nonoperant children that completely eliminates the discomfort of passing from the real world into hyperspace. Isn’t that nice?”
“Great!” Ken was all enthusiasm, but Dee said nothing.
Gran Masha showed them a package of little green dosers, explaining that the medication would put them into a deep sleep during the few moments the ship took to cross over, then leave them pleasantly drowsy for a half hour or so afterward.
“Can I do it to myself?” Ken asked. “Please, Gran?”
The professor thought about it for a moment. “Very well, I’ll let you try administering the dose yourself the first time. If it works out you can continue … Now I must speak to the purser about something. I’ll only be gone a short time. You two stay here and watch our preparations for takeoff on the cabin monitor.” She went out of the stateroom and closed the door behind her.
Ken sat on the edge of his recliner-bunk, zapping from channel to channel on the monitor. The big screen on the stateroom bulkhead provided views of the command bridge, the cargo loading bay, the passenger boarding area, and several other regions of the starship’s interior, as well as a long exterior view of the ship patched in from a remote groundside transmitter. In a few minutes, those aboard the Drumadoon Bay would be able to watch themselves take off. Now the remote showed the huge vessel held fast in its complicated cradledock, looking something like a shackled skyscraper lying on its side. Tiny tenders and inspection vehicles buzzed around it.
“I’ll bet Gran’s going to try another subspace shout to Dad,” Ken said. “He never did get back to her when she sent him the message saying she was going to bring us to Caledonia herself.”
“Kenny,” Dee ventured uneasily, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
But her brother swept on. “You know what? Gran’s worried. I think she’s afraid Dad’s place might not be—you know—safe for little kids to live in. His farm’s in a part of Caledonia that was opened up to settlers only ten years ago. It’s still a hairy wilderness.” He grinned. “Erupting volcanoes! Maybe man-eating exotic critters, too!”
“Kenny, I’m scared.”
“Aaah, I’m only bullshitting you, midgelet. Dad won’t let anything happen to us. He never would’ve told us to come to Caledonia if it was really dangerous.”
“That’s not what I’m scared about.”
“Well, what then? Gran told you that it won’t hurt when we pass into the limberlost—”
“The minidoser medicine. I don’t want to be knocked out! It—it turns off my mind-screen.”
“So what?”
“Gran will look inside my head. I know she will. She thinks I might have some clues about—about Mummie and Uncle Robbi
e and Aunt Rowan hidden in my mind. So did the First Magnate and the Krondak policeman. That’s why they wanted to probe me. If Gran pokes around, she’s sure to find out my secret mindpowers.”
“Don’t be a thickie. Self-redacting is just a dumb little power. It doesn’t mean you’re operant. Masses of normals have the healing thing.”
Dee was beginning to cry. “No—not that! I’ve got another new mindpower. I didn’t tell you. It came all of a sudden, when I didn’t even want it.”
“What, for chrissake?”
“I—I can farsense now. Hear people’s thoughts. It happened right after Mummie died.”
“Oh, shit,” whispered Ken. His breezy condescension gave way to real concern. “You’re sure?”
Dee nodded miserably. “And I think Gran suspects something. Maybe my aura’s different. A couple of times, she tried to ream me while I was asleep. Drilling really hard. She couldn’t get in, because a long time ago I learned to wake up whenever anyone poked at my screen while I was sleeping and not able to keep it strong. But if this minidoser medicine knocks me out, I won’t be able to wake up.”
Ken scowled, thinking hard. “Probably not … Damn! You know, if you really can farsense, even a little, then the law says you’re a head.”
“I know,” Dee wailed. “What am I going to do?”
Ken pondered the matter for a few moments more, and then a wily grin brightened his pale features. “You could try this,” he said, and told her his idea.
She was dubious. “What if Gran finds out that I tricked her?”
“Then you’ve given away one secret. But you said yourself that the other one was the most important.”
Dee sighed. “All right. I’ll try it. It might work …”
The new power had come upon Dee quite unexpectedly ten days earlier. Ever since then she had tried with all her strength to force it back into its mind-box—but she had failed.
Occasional flashes of this perilous metability had happened before, especially with Ken, but it had never lasted long. The permanent change had occurred on Islay, as she lay in bed in the hotel on the night after Mummie and the others were killed. By then, the awful events of the afternoon seemed more and more unreal, like a Tri-D horror show that was over and done with. She had cried a little when she said her prayers and was tucked in, since Gran had seemed to expect it. But lying there in the dark by herself, Dee didn’t feel terrified or ill anymore—only very tired and plagued with worrying thoughts.
Dead. Mummie was dead. She would never come back.
Dee had never known anyone to die before—not even a pet, since Mummie would never allow her to have one. Gran Masha had told the children that their mother’s mind had not simply vanished like a blown-out flame when her body died. Mummie’s mind was still alive. She had gone to join the great Mind of the Universe, Gran said, together with all the creatures who had ever lived, in the special and very mysterious way that God had planned. Gran assured Dee that Mummie was very happy now.
The girl found that hard to understand, but she did not express her doubts to Gran Masha. Why was Mummie happy to have gone away from her and Kenny? Was it because they were not the sort of children she had really wanted? Had Mummie really not loved them at all, even though she said she did?
If Dee had not been so proud and stubborn, if she had done what the latency therapists had wanted—what her mother had wanted—would everything have happened differently?
“Would it, Mummie?” she whispered. Real tears scalded her eyes as she felt for the first time a pang of piercing loss. Was it somehow her own fault that the Kilnave Fiend had killed her mother and her uncle and aunt?
Dee listened with all her might, hoping for a reassuring answer.
And heard something.
The world inside her head was no longer silent.
At first there were only weird hisses and howling noises, seeming to become louder and louder, that did not sound human at all. Dee was terrified, thinking that it might be the Fiend itself. What if it had followed her and was lurking somewhere in the darkened hotel room? She lay frozen in her bed, too scared even to cry out. Then little by little the mental jumble softened and clarified into muttered words. Only words. Like many people talking all at once over a communicator.
Could it be Mummie after all, trying to speak to her from inside the crowded Mind of the Universe?
As the mental sounds became more distinct, Dee realized that someone was talking about Mummie … and about her … and about Ken … and about the police looking for the killer … and about being responsible for two motherless children while still doing her work at the University unless she let Dee and Ken live with Ian … and about Ian (who was Daddy) being hopelessly unsuitable …
Gran!
Dee was overhearing Gran’s thoughts as she lay sleepless in the next room.
It was farspeech—telepathy—and Dee hadn’t even opened any box!
She concentrated harder. The other peculiar noises became bits of thinking from other people in the hotel who were still awake. Some thoughts were faint but exquisitely precise and clear, while others were blurry or twisted or rambling or an incomprehensible hodgepodge. Some of the hotel guests whose thoughts Dee could understand were worrying about things, like Gran was. Others were giving off wild and chaotic mental sounds and seemed to be very happy. A few were praying. One person was planning to sneak away without paying his bill.
When Dee got tired of listening she shut off the strands of farspeech one by one until her mind was quiet again. Then, awed and fascinated (but not yet frightened) by this new ultrasense, she brought the thoughts all back in a great snarl and practiced focusing on them individually. It was fun, and she quickly became adept.
Did operant people hear things like this all the time? And why had the new power come upon her so suddenly, without her wanting it?
Unfortunately, the angel remained silent as ever, although she did have the feeling that he was smiling triumphantly at her as she finally fell asleep.
The next day, before she and Gran and Ken went to the Bowmore police station to be formally questioned, Dee crept into the little hotel snuggery and called up a reference on farsensory latency from the data unit. The plaque she obtained from the dispenser turned out to be an article written for grownups, but she understood enough of it to realize that the shock and fear she had suffered had probably caused the telepathy box in her mind to open all by itself. Neither the therapists nor Gran Masha had ever hinted to her that this sort of thing might happen.
From the article she also learned that there were different kinds of mental speech with differing degrees of “loudness” or perceptibility. Blatant subvocal speech, farspoken shouts in the imperative mode, and casual declamatory mode conversation were so intense that even nonoperants might sometimes perceive them. The hardest to pick up were private narrow-beam thoughts precisely directed along another operant person’s intimate mental pathway. She had obviously been hearing the loudest kind of telepathy.
Then she had read the words that made her heart sink: Farsensing is the major indicator of metapsychic operancy.
She knew what that meant. She was no longer a deadhead, no longer a normal, even though most of her powers were still safely imprisoned in their boxes. If Gran or any other operant adult ever found out that she was telepathic, she would surely be sent back to the therapists. And even worse—
Ken might be allowed to go live with Daddy on Caledonia; but unless she kept this new power of hers a secret, she would be forced to stay on Earth.
By acting dazed with grief (which wasn’t really very hard to do), Dee managed to fool everyone at the police station. She hid behind her blue mind-screen almost all of the time and only came “out” to answer direct questions. Not even the handsome, grandly dressed First Magnate or the Krondak Magistratum official realized that she could read their minds when they made casual declamatory telepathic comments to each other about the case.
Dee found out that the
terrible black dream-monster she’d called the Kilnave Fiend was really a thing named Hydra, somehow made of the put-together minds of four wicked adults—including John Quentin and Magdala MacKendal. The Hydra had lived in the spooky big farmhouse at Sanaigmore, just as she had suspected. Dee learned the names of the other two people who made up the Hydra, and she discovered that it had killed many other people, not just Mummie and Aunt Rowan and Uncle Robbie.
All the while that she eavesdropped on the others’ thoughts, she kept perfect control of her features and her actions so no one would realize that she was listening. It had been hardest of all for her to keep a straight face when the Krondaku told the First Magnate that the Hydra had escaped and was no longer on Earth.
Now she didn’t have to worry about it getting her!
When the questioning was finally over, Dee and Ken and Gran had been allowed to go back home to Edinburgh. Two days later, they all dressed up and went to church, even though it wasn’t Sunday. The place was full of people from the University, and up front, on a stand in the sanctuary, were three small boxes that Gran said held the ashes of Mummie, Uncle Robbie, and Aunt Rowan.
After the Requiem Mass they got into groundcars and went to the cemetery, where the boxes were put into little holes in the ground, surrounded by bouquets of flowers. The priest said in his last prayer that the chemical elements that Mummie and Uncle Robbie and Aunt Rowan had borrowed for a while to use in their bodies now had to be returned to the Earth to be used again by other living things. He reminded everybody that those same elements had been made billions of years ago, long before there was even a solar system, when an ancient star exploded in a supernova and scattered its ashes into space. All living things, the priest said, had bodies made from the recycled dust of dead stars; but the minds that bloomed spontaneously into the vital-mental lattices when elements from the matter-energy lattices combined in space-time to make a living thing were completely unique and immortal.