She took a deep breath. “Let me tell you how my mother died.”
My sarcastic attitude popped like a lighted bulb touched by a wet finger. I said quietly, “All right, Dorothée. If you’d like to.”
Sitting there at my side in the pleasant forest park, taking occasional sips of apple juice when her throat dried, the girl told me her own ghastly and fascinating tale of Fury and Hydra—everything she knew, including official data from the Magistratum investigation. (God only knows how she pried out that information.) She not only described Hydra’s atrocities in the Hebrides, she showed me explicit mental images that turned my stomach. She also told me how Fury had invaded her dreams back on Caledonia, pretending to be her dead mother.
… And she told me how the monster had been appearing to her in her sleep ever since then, at intervals ranging from a few days to months apart, believing that it was slowly converting her to its cause.
When she finished I was in an icy sweat, frightened to death for Dorothée, for myself, and for all the rest of my family. I couldn’t speak for several minutes and simply cowered behind my mental shield, willing that it not be true. But clearly, it was. I had nearly forgotten the monster and its multiheaded minion, having assumed that their threat had passed after the Islay incident. But now Dorothée told me that Fury was apparently more determined than ever to destroy the Galactic Milieu and dominate the planets of the Milky Way—not only with the original Hydra-units, but apparently also with a gang of new recruits!
I paused to glug down more cider, wishing fervently that it was a more bracing kind of drink. “What did you mean when you said you were afraid Marc or Jack would find out what you’re up to? Don’t tell me you suspect one of them is Fury.”
“They’re the only Remillards whom I haven’t been able to probe. Whose metafaculties are powerful enough to insert dreams—or any other kind of psychocreative icons—into minds located lightyears away.” Her face was set in stubborn lines. “When I had that first dream about my mother back on Caledonia, Jack Remillard was in Orb and Marc was on Earth.”
“Dorothée, you’re way off the beam on this. I probably know Fury better than most members of my family. I saw the damn thing born, for God’s sake! It can’t possibly be Jack because he didn’t exist when Fury first appeared. He was born twelve years later.”
I told her about the awful Good Friday epiphany of 2040, which she had obviously failed to retrieve from anyone’s memory bank. (Small wonder it had been repressed. It traumatized the hell out of the whole Remillard clan!) I described my own adventures as potential Hydra prey, and told her how the monster had tried to murder teenaged Marc and baby Jack. I also told her the family’s conclusion that Fury had to be a manifestation of multiple-personality disorder, probably unknown to the core persona whose body it shared, and having a completely different armamentarium of powers.
“It could be any of the people you’ve already probed,” I pointed out. “Did you come across hints of a second persona in any of the Remillard skulls you poked around in?”
“No,” she said, clearly dismayed by this new idea. “I didn’t. I never considered the idea of multiple personalities at all! Inside the host mind, a second persona would—would be disguised. It might not even exist except when it was in control of the body! … Oh, shit, Uncle Rogi. This could change everything!”
“Exactement,” said I.
“Perhaps Jack isn’t a viable suspect after all,” she conceded grudgingly.
“Damn tootin’ he ain’t.”
Her indignation boiled over. “But he did try to coerce me into revealing my operancy, which was hateful of him! At the time, I was doing everything I could to conceal my powers so that I wouldn’t be forced to leave my father’s farm, and here was this fool trying to start an interstellar mind-pal exchange! He obviously knew about me—perhaps from my … from the Lylmik. They know everything, damn them, even if they don’t always admit it. And then along came Fury, who was also very eager for me to develop my metafaculties and become part of the Milieu operant community. I was no good to it half-latent, working on a colonial farm. Can’t you see why I thought Jack might be Fury? The thing began bespeaking me out of the blue just as he’d done.”
“I’m sure Jack didn’t mean you any harm. It’s only natural that he’d be curious about another person with a mind approaching the caliber of his own. He’d like to be your friend—”
“He had no right to meddle with me on Caledonia and he has even less right to bother me now! I’ve made that very clear. But I know for a fact that he continues to snoop into my progress at the Institute. I’ve overheard Luc Remillard discussing it with Doctor Cat.”
“I’ll just bet you have,” I said. “But you’re wrong in thinking Jack’s your enemy. My Lord, girl—I’ve known Jack since before he was born! He’s a good boy. Not a malicious bone in his—uh—body.”
She glowered at me, unpersuaded. In the middle distance I heard an authoritative tunk-a-tunk-tunk-tak-tak that could only be the work of the rare feathered pile driver that backwoodsmen call the Good God Woodpecker, an amazing bird nearly half a meter in length with black and yellowish-white plumage and a jaunty red crest.
I couldn’t help perking up and opened my pack in search of my camera. But Dorothée was not about to be distracted from the main chance.
“Never mind the bloody bird,” she said. “There’s other game afoot. What about Marc?” There she had me. What about him? He had always been the top Fury suspect, even though his cousin Gordo, a proven Hydra, had run him down with a spike-wheeled motorcycle, killing himself in an attempt to murder Marc when both of them were teenagers.
In maturity, Marc Remillard was prodigiously intelligent, blessed with devastating good looks, and the acknowledged leader of a growing clique of exceptional young grandmasterclass operants. His research in metacreative CE had spawned a whole adjunct industry—geophysical engineering through mindpower. Lately he had turned his talents to the design of complex metaconcert programs based on the work of his grandfather Denis and his brother Jack. At that very moment, Marc and Jack were on the planet Satsuma attempting to fend off potentially devastating crustal movements using the latest-model CE equipment in dual metaconcert. It was a much trickier piece of work than the Okanagon operation.
“Marc’s a genius,” I asserted stoutly. “He has his flaws, but I’d stake my life that he’s not Fury. If he intended to conquer the galaxy, he’d just do it—not whomp up some psychopathic alter ego to go about the job underhandedly.”
With withering expertise, Dorothée pointed out, “One doesn’t choose to develop multiple-personality disorder, so that argument won’t wash.” I waved one hand in disgust, but she continued. “I’ve used the material I got from your mind and from the others to calculate the probability that each member of the Remillard Dynasty is Fury. Even if a multiple personality is involved, I think my research may still be valid. Are you interested?”
“Oh, why not? I suppose you’ve got the odds calculated for me, too.”
“Of course. I won’t bore you with the details of my equations, but they include objective as well as subjective criteria. Marc checks in at a probability of 74 percent, the most likely suspect.”
“Poppycock!”
She went on relentlessly. “For the others, Philip’s probability is 23 percent, Maurice 26, Severin 51, Anne 68, Catherine 22, Adrien 49, and Paul 64.”
“Paul?” I croaked. “Anne? The First Magnate and the Jesuit priest? Those are your other top suspects? Child, you’re two bubbles shy of plumb—and I don’t care if you’re an apprentice paramount or not! Sevvie and Adrien I could understand. Both of them have had their doubts about the Galactic Milieu from Day One. But Paul and Anne have been its greatest champions in the family and in the Concilium.”
“True,” Dorothée said. “Both are nearly fanatical in their support of the Milieu and their advocacy of eventual Unity for the Human Polity. But, don’t you see, Uncle Rogi? This is the very reason
why they’re the likeliest to have a shadow persona insanely opposed to the Milieu! That’s basic psychiatry.”
“Basic bollocks,” I growled.
She ignored me. “Paul and Anne also have metapsychic complexi that assay much higher than those of their siblings, which also weights their plausibility as Fury candidates. What’s more, both of them—if your deep thoughts concerning them and the professional opinions of Catherine Remillard are valid—have significant emotional warpage. Anne, especially. Not nearly as serious as Marc’s, but definitely sufficient to generate an abnormal persona.”
“You must have really done a job on poor Cat to root out that kind of sensitive data.”
“And Luc Remillard as well,” she admitted. “He furnished most of my psychological profile on Marc, although he had nothing much of value on Jack. Both Catherine and Luc acted as preceptor-therapists to my brother and me, opening their own minds as they sought to open and integrate ours. With Kenny, as with the other partially latent clients at the Institute, there was no danger of coercive-redactive backlash.”
“But not with you …”
I regarded the girl with a well-churned mix of awe and stark fear. It was not an unfamiliar sensation. I’d felt the same way at certain periods in the lives of Marc and Ti-Jean.
“I have no animus against Catherine,” Dorothée said warmly. “She’s a kind, sweet-natured woman and a brilliant psychiatrist. If I do achieve paramount status, it will be largely because of her. But I would have been a fool not to make use of her insights into the minds of her brothers and sister. Essentially, she has come to the same conclusions as I have regarding the Fury probabilities.”
“Has she told other members of the Dynasty?”
“No. Only her mother and father, Denis and Lucille. They advised her that nothing is to be gained at the present time by revealing the information. They’re right, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” I began collecting the remnants of our lunch and stuffing them into my daypack. “How likely am I to have a secret Evil Twin?”
“Your probability of harboring Fury is 52 percent. Denis Remillard and Lucille Cartier have a probability roughly the same. As you know, they’ve never intruded upon me at the Institute. I’ll need more data from their minds before completing their analyses. You’ll be glad to know that the probability of Luc Remillard or his older sister Marie being Fury is vanishingly small. Their talents are intellectual, not metapsychic.”
I sighed. “What now? Do you plan to blow the Dynasty out of the water by revealing your statistics in your maiden address at the Concilium next session? Or will you just send on your bit of homework to Davy MacGregor or Chief Evaluator Throma’eloo Lek and watch Remillards tumble like bowling pins?”
“Probabilities aren’t proof. I have no intention of making trouble for your family at the present time. That would be counterproductive to my own plan to track down the persons who killed my mother.”
I felt a sudden infusion of ice water in my veins. “Your plan to what?”
“I intend to keep all this data secret for the time being. Meanwhile, with your help, I hope to collect additional information that will refine my focus. Not on Fury, but on Hydra.”
“Hydra?” I reiterated hollowly. “My help? Don’t tell me reaming my brains out wasn’t sufficient—”
“I’ve told you more of my secrets than I’ve told any other human being. Not even Ken knows what you know. I was afraid … that Fury might also have approached my brother in an effort to get at me.”
“It’s possible.”
“Now that you know the truth, you’ve got to help me! There’s important information about Hydra that I’ve been forced to keep on hold because I couldn’t act on it. A solid clue to the new identity of one of the fugitive units—and its whereabouts. If you help me, I can finally follow through on my investigation. Please, Uncle Rogi!”
The intent hazel eyes brimmed with appeal and she took hold of my hand in a pleading gesture. But I wasn’t fooled. Maybe she didn’t want to coerce me, but she would if I balked. Tonnerre de chien! I was cornered again.
“What’s this clue?” I asked gruffly.
“My grandmother, Professor Mary MacGregor-Gawrys, came upon some very curious information that she’s kept to herself because she doesn’t realize its implications. I’ve been probing her just as I’ve probed the Remillards, but I only found this clue in her memories last week.”
I opened my mouth to make another snide comment, but she silenced me with a brief coercive jab.
“Just listen to me! … Are you familiar with the political situation on Okanagon?”
I shrugged. “Supposed to have lots of Rebel sympathizers in high places, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Do you remember how the former Dirigent of that world, Rebecca Perlmutter, died under suspicious circumstances? She was on her way to tour one of the orbiting Twelfth Fleet installations when a miniature fusion generator in the new courier ship carrying her inexplicably malfunctioned. The ship and everyone in it were vaporized.”
“I remember. There was talk of sabotage. Leaders of the Rebel faction on Okanagon were interrogated with the Cambridge machine.”
“There was no proof Dirigent Perlmutter was murdered, but she had been one of the most implacable foes of the anti-Unity movement. Along with Anne Remillard and Paul and a few others, she was a cosponsor of the Concilium bill to silence the Rebels.”
“Stupid move,” I observed. “Humans were fed up with thought-control after the Simbiari Proctorship. As I recall, Okanagon’s new Dirigent makes no secret of her own Rebel sympathies.”
“That’s correct. And Patricia Castellane has surrounded herself with like-minded officials, although the fact isn’t trumpeted about. Now here’s where Gran Masha comes in: At a meeting on Caledonia back in 2068, she met a man from Okanagon, one of Castellane’s top aides. My grandmother is a highly skilled clinical metapsychologist and she can pick up clues from a person’s aura that most operants would never notice. She noticed that this man was an extraordinarily powerful meta. Perhaps even a High Five! And yet he wasn’t a magnate, only an administrative assistant. She was curious about him and did some quiet investigation of his background. She discovered that some of the data were inconsistent. His metapsychic assay, for instance, was pegged much lower than it should have been. That made her worry that he might be a Magistratum spy, infiltrating the Rebel movement on one of its strongest planets.”
I had been listening doggedly to her recitation, but now I did an incredulous double take. “Are you saying that Masha is a closet Rebel?”
“Of course,” Dorothée snapped. “She told the Rebel leaders here on Earth her suspicions about this chap, and they checked him out. They have their own spies in the Human Magistratum, you know. But apparently Castellane’s aide vetted clean. A fair number of operants have been inaccurately calibrated; and while the possibly bungled mental assay of a High Five is outrageous, it poses no threat at all to the Rebel movement. Castellane had her aide get his marbles recounted, and it supposedly turned out that he wasn’t a High Five at all, only a masterclass fiver with a quirky aura. That was the end of it as far as the Rebel investigation went. The matter rested for over three years—until I probed Gran Masha’s mind and found the story and learned that she still has doubts about the man. She met him again a year or so after his second calibration, and his aura was entirely different from what Gran had perceived at their first meeting. Now Gran’s afraid he might be a Lylmik spy!”
“Et alors?” This spy stuff didn’t seem very relevant, and I wished Dorothée would get to the point.
“Suppose,” she said softly, “that this overly modest High Five who can tune his aura at will is an infiltrator, all right—but not for the Lylmik. Suppose he’s one of Fury’s Hydra-units, manipulating the Okanagon Dirigent and the Rebels on her planet for Fury’s purposes. Up to a point, the Rebels are Fury’s allies, you know. Both want humanity out of the Milieu.”
I had t
o agree. “But how the devil could you prove your spy is a Hydra?”
“By going to Okanagon and checking out this character’s mind myself,” she replied, cool as you please.
“A Hydra on Okanagon—and you want to check him out? Ne dis pas de conneries!”
“Don’t worry, it won’t be dangerous. This person will never know I’ve touched his mind. No more than you or the other Remillards did. I can even do an MP assay without a trace. I’m a top-gun redactor, Uncle Rogi.”
I lifted my eyes to heaven at this piece of offhanded conceit, but the cherubim with the fiery swords were out to lunch.
“There are a few little problems connected with the Okanagon trip,” the little idiot admitted. “I can easily get away for a couple of weeks without my grandparents or the Institute preceptors knowing it, but I’m still a minor and I have no legitimate excuse to leave Earth. I need an adult traveling companion to stave off suspicion during the starship voyage and the port formalities at takeoff and landing—to say nothing of help getting into Dirigent House once we’re on the planet. My father, the only other person I trust absolutely, can’t go with me. It’s harvesttime on Caledonia, and after that’s over he’ll have to attend Assembly sessions. He’s an IA now.”
I gave a horrified squawk, finally seeing where all of this was leading. “Absolutely not! I refuse categorically—”
She sailed on. “Dad will be happy to pay for the starship tickets, though. He’s as determined as I am to apprehend my mother’s murderers. You and I can travel to Okanagon on a Poltroyan ship with a very high df and be there and back inside of six days. I can redact any pain you might suffer during the tight-leash hops.”
“Why don’t you just go to the goddam planet invisible? Or fuzz your identity psychocreatively!”
“Neither would work. Sensors on the ship would detect my mass. And I wouldn’t be able to conduct the probe and mentally conceal myself at the same time. I’ll have to get reasonably close to the guy wearing an ordinary wig-and-makeup disguise. You could stay at a safe distance, of course.”