What exactly did the Athene figure mean by a Second Milieu? At first, I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew it was wonderful and I knew it was right—as the galactic confederation we now live in is not.
Gradually the goddess revealed its details: The Human Polity would have to free itself from the present governmental structure, which was dominated by exotics. Above all, we would have to avoid the diabolical snare of Unity. The goddess assured me that Unity would destroy not only human individualism but even our very human nature.
Under a new leader—c’est moi, naturellement!—the Human Polity would sever its connection with the First Milieu and go its own way, peaceful, prosperous, and free.
I liked the concept very much. I had chafed bitterly during the Proctorship at the indignities and hardships our race suffered under those humorless green Simbiari nannies. It was all for our own good, they said to us, and only temporary. Stalin told his oppressed people the same thing.
Then Pallas Athene revealed the ultimate mystery, the means by which I was to lead humanity into the Second Milieu. As she described it, I would become a new Blessed Virgin—except that Divinity would be implanted within my brain rather than my womb. In my dream, I was overjoyed. The goddess smiled at me and withdrew.
I awoke from that dream screaming.
And aware of who Athene really was.
What had I done? How could I have been such a blind, arrogant fool? Athene was Fury, and for over three years I had permitted it to range freely in my unconscious mind, instilling its poison! I had let my pride lead me to the verge of becoming another Hydra—or perhaps a new host for the Fury parasite itself. If I had submitted to it, I would have given the monster a foothold within the highest levels of galactic government. I really had been willing to destroy the Milieu! I would have broken and cast aside the confederation of benevolent minds that has done so much for Earth and replaced it with … God knew what.
I was in my home in Hanover at the time that I finally came to my senses. But you can hardly call it that! All day long I alternated between fits of hysterical weeping and demented rage. I almost destroyed the inside of the house and I nearly committed suicide in my despair and self-hatred. Fury had chosen well when it picked me out of the Dynasty to become its new acolyte. I would have been ideal.
I still don’t know why I didn’t succumb.
After two days without sleep, unable to kill myself as I knew I should and loathing myself even more for my cowardice, I called our parents.
Denis and Lucille came at once. They seemed to know immediately that my demon was real, not a product of insanity. They took me to the old house on South Street where they were living and put me to bed in my old room, the one I had slept in as a child. They sat beside me, redacting me and comforting me, for four days. Denis assured me that I would be able to banish the Fury-goddess from my mind now by a conscious effort of will. Unless I wanted her to return, she would vanish forever. Finally I was able to believe him and I slept, exorcised.
It took me another two weeks to pull myself back together emotionally and physically. Fortunately, it was high summer and your children, who usually lived in the house, were all at the shore. Denis and Lucille never told any other members of the family about my breakdown.
When I was fully recovered I knew what I would have to do. Our parents, poor darlings, thought I was still deranged and tried to talk me out of it—but I finally convinced them I was sincere. My work as a magnate and Milieu legal scholar could continue at the same time that I began my new career.
I went down to Concord and spoke to the Jesuits who run Brebeuf Academy. They sent me to their seminary in New York and in due season I presented myself to the world as Anne Remillard, S.J.
“I still don’t understand the penance and fasting you’re putting yourself through now,” Paul said. “What’s it in aid of? Surely you—uh—worked off your sin of pride and suchlike long ago. Nothing did happen, after all. You have no reason to continue feeling guilty.”
“The penance and prayer aren’t for myself,” she said. “I’m storming heaven on behalf of someone else.”
His eyes narrowed as he understood, and then his coercive-redactive probe came at her like a bolt from a crossbow. But she was ready. The First Magnate could not penetrate his sister’s mental shield. She was as good a coercer as he was.
“Annie, tell me what you know!” he cried, seizing her by the shoulders. “Tell me who Fury is!”
“There have been quite a few clues, to say nothing of the insights obtainable from psychological deduction.” Her voice was level. “But I’m not absolutely certain and so I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you. As Papa said, the core persona is innocent. If I share my suspicions, you would feel obligated to act on them in some way or another. I believe this would eventually cause more objective evil than if we permit Fury to remain at large. It may even be true that Fury’s evil is destined to bring about an even greater good.”
“You have no right to make that judgment,” he told her coldly. “As First Magnate, I overrule you and demand your evidence.”
She gave a little humorless chuckle. “I know Milieu law better than you, Paul. You do not have the right to force me to reveal unconfirmed raw data. When … the prevailing conditions change and my conscience tells me it’s time to talk, I will. To the entire family, including the suspect.”
“Fury’s after a little girl,” Paul said, turning away from her. “Dorothea Macdonald, the fifteen-year-old metapsychic prodigy. Jack told me that a pair of Hydras almost got her in Hawaii. Are you willing to leave the child at risk?”
“Yes. At fifteen, she’s a moral adult, not a little girl. If what Jack has told me is true, she’s deliberately called Hydra down on herself in hopes of trapping it. She’s a near-paramount and ready to take the chance. I have no obligation to interfere.”
Paul’s lips twitched in spite of himself and he turned back to her. “Sometimes, Annie, you’re positively … Jesuitical. Give us a kiss goodnight.”
They embraced, and then Paul Remillard left his sister and clumped down the three flights of stairs, brooding.
A greater good. What greater good?
He himself continuing in office as First Magnate?
Marc’s machinations with metaconcerted CE?
Safeguarding the Milieu’s laissez-faire policy for the Rebels?
Keeping the Unity Directorate unsmirched by scandal? …
“Jesus,” Paul said to himself, suddenly stricken. He stopped for a moment beneath a lamppost and looked up at the building’s top floor. Even from the street he could see the tiny red LED in her window, a pinprick of light that symbolized the Divine Presence in Anne Remillard’s apartment.
Had she really said no to Pallas Athene?
21
ISLAY, INNER HEBRIDES, SCOTLAND, EARTH, 17 DECEMBER 2072
DOROTHEA MACDONALD STOOD ABOVE THE DEEP ROCKY CLEFT called Geodh Ghille Mhóire and sampled the aetheric vibrations.
Are you here Fury? Are you here Hydra? …
The late-rising winter sun shone from a cloudless sky. Islay’s landaura was placid and the gray-green ocean waters were unaccountably calm. Even with the sea breeze blowing, Dee was almost too warm in the cotton crew-neck sweater and Eddie Bauer mountain parka she had brought with her from New Hampshire. She had expected the Hebrides to be cold at this time of year—after all, they were at the latitude of Labrador—but the egg-bus driver who had brought her from the Scottish mainland told her that Islay rarely had snow or even frost because of the moderating effect of the Gulf Stream. The bright sunny weather was a wee bit unusual, he admitted, but not freakish. It was expected to hold for several days until the next gale blew in.
Dee hoped the fine weather was a lucky portent.
She had finished her doctoral dissertation and now only her orals remained to be dealt with after the New Year. When time came for her to embark for Orb, where she was to be inaugurated into the Concilium in February, she would have completed h
er formal education at Dartmouth College. What remained for her to learn she would have to learn by herself.
Hence the journey to Islay.
Malama Johnson had done all she could, but a stubborn residue of latency still remained in Dee’s mind. It would prevent her from utilizing her full spectrum of metafaculties, prevent her from becoming a paramount, unless it was neutralized.
“But you hafta take care da kine pilikia you self, Makana Larri,” the Hawaiian woman had told Dee earnestly. “No kahuna, no mainland shrink going do dat, eh? Ass’ your kuleana.”
“But how am I going to heal myself, Tutu? Through self-redaction? I’ve tried to get at the really deep inhibitions many times, but I just can’t reach them.”
“Nevvamine redact, li’ dat. Mo bettah you go moku hikina!”
Dee shook her head, refusing to understand.
Malama rolled her eyes in exasperation and abandoned the Pidgin dialect that even the most educated Hawaiians loved to use among their closest friends. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Dorothea. You must return to Islay in the Hebrides, to the place where your mother was murdered, and resolve the traumatic event in your mind. Live it again and purge the horror, the useless guilt, the rage that continues to fester in the deepest core of your being.”
“I healed myself of all that years ago. The latentizing factor must be something else.”
“Mebbe so, mebbe no! Go anyhow and do the healing journey. But this time begin at the end and go back to the beginning …”
Masha and Kyle had been very dubious when Dee told them about her plan to visit Islay. First they tried to dissuade her. Then, after she explained the reason for the trip and its potential therapeutic nature, her grandparents wanted to go along and lend her their emotional support. They had no idea of the danger she might face, nor were they worried that she was too young to make the journey by herself. Their only motive was to be available if she should need comfort.
“That’s kind of you and very sweet,” she had said. “But if Malama Johnson is right, then I have to do this alone.”
And also face the Hydra alone.
She checked into a hotel in Bowmore village on the island and dealt with some preliminaries she felt were important. Taking advantage of her new status as a magnate-designate, she visited not only the police station where she had been interrogated, but also the farmhouse at Sanaigmore. The local police inspector, Bhaltair Chaimbeul, furnished her with interesting data she had never heard before, including the fact that the remains of only a few of Hydra’s earlier victims had ever been found.
Her visit with the inspector to the farm where the Hydras had lived was disappointing. Because of its evil reputation no one had wanted to live in the place and it had been partially destroyed by a fire seven years earlier. The thrifty islanders had voted to raze it if funds could be pried from the Zone Council, but money had not been forthcoming and so the ruins remained.
On her second day on Islay Dee began the journey of healing. After sending her rented groundcar off to meet her at the end of the trail, she hiked up a rolling expanse of moor to Geodh Ghille Mhóire, the deep cut in the northwestern sea-cliffs where the remains of her mother, her uncle, and her aunt had been found.
She stood now just above the scene of the murders, a well-equipped daypack on her shoulders and a metal-tipped walking stick in her hand. At Gran Masha’s insistence she wore a wrist-communicator. The rough region around Gilmour’s Chasm was deserted except for a hen harrier scouting a late breakfast.
Nothing had responded to her farspoken call to Fury and Hydra. The aetheric ambiance was tranquil.
Gripping her stick and keeping her mind resolutely blank of memories for the time being, she began the tricky descent into the cleft. Tumbled rocks along one side served almost as giant steps. Her PK helped waft her down the steepest parts, an acceptable fiddle provided that no normals were there to witness it. It was low tide, and with the sea almost dead calm the flat rocks where the victims had fallen and the Kilnave Fiend had come scuttling after them were completely above water. The way into the narrow cave was unimpeded.
At the bottom she negotiated areas of slimy wrack and stood finally at the cavern entrance, probing the darkness with her farsight. What had seemed eerie and otherworldly in her dream had a more prosaic aspect in fact The chamber was typical of Hebridean sea-caves, a simple excavation in Precambrian gritstone accomplished by wave action, having no stalactites or other picturesque features. Its damp walls were streaked with the white excrement of birds that had nested in the crevices. On the level floor were a few pools of water, areas of rippled sand between smooth, flattened slabs, piles of seaweed, and a few bits of driftwood and other flotsam. The smell of marine growth was strong.
Still keeping her imagination reined in, she went deeper into the cave, finally reaching the place where she had “seen” the three smoking mounds and the hideous creature standing over them. No trace of the atrocity remained. The rocks where her mother and her uncle and aunt had died were long since washed clean by the tides. Half a dozen meters beyond them the cave walls met in a dead end.
Dee closed her eyes then, and let the memories flood back into her mind. This time they would be complete, without any merciful hiatus or deletion. She would relive exactly what had happened in her terrible experience of ten years ago.
She saw the white gyrfalcon that symbolized her own spirit in excorporeal excursion come flying down the chasm to defy the Hydra. The bird pursued the monster into the cave’s green shadows, then confronted it as it prepared for its appalling feast.
Who are you? WHAT are you?
I am Hydra the servant of Fury.
What are you doing?
Watch.
She saw the great black body with its grasping limbs, the four heads with eyes like evil stars, the red mouths opening, ready to feed on the lifeforce of the first helpless victim.
The discordant shriek of Hydra’s metaconcert reverberated in Dee’s mind, that obscene mental symphony that enabled four human beings to metamorphose into a single devouring entity with more power than the sum of its participants.
Held fast in multiple arms, Robert Strachan looked at Hydra.
Not Uncle Robbie! No …
Yes. Watch and learn.
From the four gaping mouths came shining golden tongues that braided together into a single probe that affixed itself to the crown of Robert Strachan’s head. His body was suddenly enveloped in purple radiance. He underwent a galvanic spasm and uttered a hopeless cry as the beast began to drink from the first vital source. Deprived of all willpower but still hideously aware, he could only convulse and suffer as Hydra moved to the second source at the rear of his skull, to the third at the back of his neck, and on down his spine. As the feeding progressed the writhing body’s aura changed in color and the skin darkened, as though the flesh and bone within were burning in astral fire. Each emptied chakra point was imprinted with a different, intricately detailed pattern having radial symmetry.
Dorothea Macdonald watched, helpless to interfere; but this time she inhabited the vision with full sentience, experiencing the pain of her dying uncle through redactive empathy.
Finally, when the lifeforce was drained from the seventh chakra at the base of his spine, Robert Strachan died. So did the agony Dee had shared with him. Hydra dropped the seared husk, which lay steaming on the damp floor of the cave.
That was well done, Girl! Now for the next one. Watch! Learn!
It turned to Uncle Robbie’s wife Rowan Grant and consumed her vitality in the same way. Again, Dee shared the pain, not knowing why.
It was easier that time, wasn’t it?
Last of all, Hydra took Dee’s mother.
Not my Mummie no no please …
Her most especially. Ready? Begin.
For the third time Dee knew that incredible pain, inflicted deliberately by the Hydra to enhance its own pleasure and for another reason as well.
Why did you k
ill them that way WHY you filthy misbegotten thing?
But the monster only said: Find your own food!
Find your own anger. Find your own pain.
Oh Mum no. I did love you. I’m sorry I was so angry. You thought the therapy would do me good. You thought the pain would be worthwhile if it made me operant. I didn’t understand then. I really would have saved you if I could. But I was too young too weak too selfish too unaware—
Pain unending. Not for the three victims but for her.
It wasn’t my fault that you suffered! It was Hydra’s fault and Fury’s. I couldn’t stop them!
Liar.
Pain.
Hydra laughed at her and her tardy pilgrimage, and as it laughed its monstrous form changed and divided and it became four human beings. One woman was a dark-haired, scarlet-lipped beauty, the other a frail-looking blonde with the glint of madness in her eyes. The taller of the two men smiled like a satisfied cat that had consumed its prey. His brawny companion was the young “father” who had besought Dee’s help at the Spouting Horn.
I know who you are! Dee cried. I know you’re here on this island hoping for a chance to destroy me. BUT I’M NOT A HELPLESS CHILD ANYMORE. Go ahead! Try to feed. See what will happen!
She showed them. And in the dream-vision, pain turned against the paingivers.
The Hydra faces screamed soundlessly, together with Dorothea Macdonald. She saw them squirming, dying, and was filled with joy.
Abruptly the four Hydra-units became motionless, like holoforms in a frozen Tri-D display. “John Quentin” lost his solidity, turned to a wraith, and faded to nothingness. Yes, of course. He was already dead. Safe from her, damn him! But not the others …
COME AFTER ME HYDRA COME SO I CAN KILL YOU EVEN MORE PAINFULLY THAN YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!
The Hydra survivors in her dream returned to life. Linking hands, they howled at her in a metaconcert of pure hate. Too late! You should have done it the first time. Coward! Hypocrite!