Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (20 page)

And they will, their minds conceded. As the pressures of our work distract us, as the Rebellion intensifies, and as the deadly paradox of Fury is forced toward a final resolution.

“Damn that Rogi,” Jack said in a low voice. “Why did he have to pick our wedding day to spring his nasty surprise?… Did you notice that I redacted you to keep you from becoming too upset?”

She uttered a sly laugh. “No more than
you
noticed that I redacted you for the same reason! Poor old Uncle Rogi. He didn’t set out deliberately to spoil things. It was really the first chance he had to talk to us privately.” Her tone became somber. “Do you think his mind was recalling actual events in the case of the Hydra attacks?”

Jack hesitated. “He believed in the murderous fish just as he believed in Anne’s story about Denis being Fury. There’s no easy way that you and I can determine whether or not Rogi psychozapped Parnell in the hotel bar as he said he did, but I’ve told Paul about it and left it to him to investigate the matter or ignore it.”

“And the Denis/Fury theory?”

“It could very well be true. I’m afraid we’ll have to proceed as though it
is
true.”

“Rogi could be suffering from delusions.”

“No. He’s a strange old duck, but he’s far from delusional. He
does
possess extremely strong latent creativity, so it’s perfectly plausible that he might have zorched Parnell. And there’s something else about Rogi that you should know: He believes he has some sort of peculiar relationship with the Lylmik. Both Marc and Denis have commented on it in passing—disbelievingly, of course—but I think Rogi may be telling the truth. There’s the Great Carbuncle, for instance. For years he’s joked that the Lylmik gave it to him. Did you deepscan the thing when he lent it to you for good luck during the diatreme event?”

“Why, no …”

“I did. And right at the center of the red diamond sphere is a sizable molecular anomaly that could be an infinitesimal natural flaw—but is more likely an artifact. The Carbuncle is some kind of machine: maybe a subspace transmitter, maybe much more. No conventional Milieu science I know anything about could have produced it. But the Lylmik could have.”

“Jack, this all seems incredible. I’ve rooted around in Rogi’s mind myself, you know. He’s a borderline neurotic, uncomfortable with his operancy. His habitual overindulgence in alcohol is certainly a symptom of personality imbalance—”

“Rogi’s not a true alcoholic. He abuses the booze when it suits him and lets it alone when he’s of a mind to. The man is an atavism, Diamond. An old-fangled type we don’t see very often in the Galactic Age.”

“He’s a gormless auld whaup!” But her Scots insult was overlaid with grudging fondness. “And I don’t see how we can commit ourselves to this Fury integration project solely on his unsupported mnemonic data. I really think we should wait until Anne comes out of the tank. Then you and I can deep-probe her in metaconcert. We’d not only corroborate or refute Rogi’s picture of the situation, but we might even be able to determine whether or not Anne herself is Fury.”

“It would mean waiting at least a year,” Jack said, shaking his head.

“Could we complete the preliminaries for Denis’s healing operation in less time? I’ve got to ream the Fury sig out of Rogi without damaging his dilapidated psyche, you’ve got to design a brand-new kind of CE brainboard and a self-contained power supply for the El8 helmet, and both of us have to work out a unique and untried metaconcert involving both coercion and redaction.”

“We could do all that in less than six months. The only tricky
part is roping the Dynasty into the project and training them to use the CE hats.”

Her eyes, fixed on the fading sunset glow, were full of misgiving. “The procedure with Denis will be extremely dangerous. Some of the metaconcert participants could be killed unless we build special safeguards into the program.”

“All the more reason for dealing with this thing as soon as possible. Before the other troubles the Milieu is facing come to a head—and are aggravated by Fury. Weren’t you the one who told me that the monster might exploit the Rebels, or foment God knows what other kind of mischief?”

“Jack, we’re proposing to endanger the lives of nine important Magnates of the Concilium—including the First Magnate himself—all on the say-so of a bibulous old gaffer!”

“I’ve known Rogi since I was in the womb. I still can’t predict when he’ll play the fuddleheaded eccentric and when he’ll do something noble and unselfish, but I do know that he’s dead honest. He loves me and I love him. Marc feels nearly the same way about Uncle Rogi as I do—and I suspect that Denis does, too.”

“So do I,” she admitted, turning away from him, “most of the time.”

They sat side by side in silence. Dusk was falling with tropical suddenness and both Venus and Jupiter were visible as evening stars. It was going to be a clear, moonless night.

“We must go ahead on this, sweetheart,” Jack said quietly.

“I suppose you’re right.” Her pseudovoice took on a resigned tone. “And Rogi’s probably right, too. About all of it. Except … what do you think about his notion that Denis saving his life proves he’s not Fury?”

“A complete non sequitur. Denis’s legitimate core persona would have no knowledge of its homicidal alter ego.”

She sighed. “That’s what I thought, too.” She paused. “An interesting thing, the theory that Uncle Rogi might be immune to Denis/Fury’s coercion because he’s Denis’s foster father. The flip side—that Denis/Fury might be immune to coercive redaction by his own children—could pose a serious problem in any healing metaconcert design.”

“We’ll have to try to work around it. Your probe of Rogi might help us to understand and counter the parent-child coercive constraint. We might also find a useful clue studying the love that sometimes must condone pain in the beloved … The Dynasty
does
love Denis, thank God, and I doubt that that love would be
diminished if they knew their father harbored the Fury persona within him.”

“No. Their prime concern would be to heal him.”

“The only one of Denis’s children who would definitely be unsuited to the metaconcert is Anne. If she’s Fury, her dyscrasic persona could conceivably emerge during the operation and kill all the rest of the concert participants through the CE helmets. But with luck, we’ll have everything taken care of long before Anne gets out of regeneration.”

“And if Denis turns out
not
to be Fury?” she said.

“We can redact Anne when her body has healed, while she’s still in the tank and her mindpowers are below par.”

“Denis or Anne …” Dorothea spoke the names softly. “Which one do you think is the monster?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve never tried to deep-probe either of them—unlike a certain nervy female with a titanic redactive faculty whom I could mention.”

She was visibly troubled. “When I did my mind-sifting investigation of the Dynasty six years ago, my methods were pretty crude. And I didn’t obtain irrefutable data, only a probability analysis based on temperament and overall metapsychic potential. Based upon my limited criteria, Marc was the one most likely to be Fury: a probability of 74 percent.”

“Darling, that’s utter codswallop!”

“He has the most alien mindset of the lot,” she insisted, “and the strongest metapsychic complexus.”

“Well, I won’t disagree with that …”

“Anne was the second most plausible Fury at 68 percent. Then came Paul at 64. The others were all much lower in probability. I was able to obtain only incomplete data on Denis and Lucille. The only time that I really got into Denis’s mind was at Marc’s Halloween party, when Denis and I danced.”

“And?” Jack prompted her.

“Of all the Remillards I examined, Denis was the most complex—and surprising. I couldn’t begin to analyze him in the brief time I was inside. His mind was vast! Do you know he’s a sub-functional paramount in every metafaculty?”

“I was afraid he might be.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t realize it himself. He seems to be a fully integrated personality—without any of the obvious quirks and defects of Paul, Anne, and Marc. But the intricacies of Denis’s mind are so profound that they actually terrified me. When I tried to dig deeper to illuminate them—
pow!”

“Denis found you out?”

She nodded. “He was very kind and forgiving of my intrusion … and very firm in booting me out and slamming the screen door behind me. So my analysis was inconclusive. I had no impression of a resident second persona, however.”

“You haven’t tried to probe any Remillards since then?”

“Marc knew what I’d been up to at the Halloween party, just as Denis did. Rogi also found out that I had probed his mind. I presume one of those three told the others about my prying. At any rate, Marc and the Dynasty all set up alarm barriers specifically designed to counter my brand of imperceptible redaction. I was never able to sneak inside any of them unawares again.”

The little starship free-flew toward the southern Kauai shore, coming in only a few dozen meters above the calm, darkening water. Dorothea watched the approach with interest. She had never seen Jack’s house. Their decision to marry had been sudden, a notable shock to their relatives and associates, arrived at back on Caledonia in the aftermath of the diatreme eruption.

He had stayed with her for several weeks after the blowout, not only helping to heal her injuries but also assisting her as she personally inspected the disaster sites, coordinated relief efforts, and supervised plans for rebuilding. Their relationship had been warm but not overintimate. The fervent moments in the deep-driller following her injury, when he had declared his love, were never mentioned.

Finally, when he told her that he was overdue in Orb, where the Unity Directorate was in session, she simply agreed to his going, apparently still distracted by her planet’s troubles.

They had gone to Killiecrankie Starport together. And it was there, in the entry way of the departure concourse, that she seemed to realize at last that he was actually leaving her. An inexplicable panic seized her, an emotion totally alien to her normal grave competence.

“But what am I going to do without you?” her pseudovoice had cried. She was wearing the diamond-encrusted flying suit without its helmet. Her brown hair flew wild in the blustery wind and her eyes above the jeweled mask were suddenly wide, fearful, and unbelieving. “I need you. I don’t know why. It’s not the disaster or anything to do with my injuries. It’s me. It’s you. Oh, Jack, I don’t understand what’s happening to me—”

“I do. It happened to me a long time ago.” He took her hands, standing close to her to shelter her slight figure from the rain that
had begun to pelt down. Other travelers entering the building recognized the illustrious couple and with typical Scots reticence and courtesy gave them a wide berth.

“But what are we going to
do?”
she asked him desperately.

On that amazing day, he had laughed and told her.

The burdens of her duties as Dirigent had prevented her from visiting Earth before the wedding. Jack said that he was having his house on Kauai prepared for their honeymoon, and she had looked forward to being surprised …

“There’s Lawai Kai, between those two headlands.” He pointed ahead to a small bay. A beautiful crescent beach lay inside, bordered by coconut, pandanus, and umbrella-shaped tahinu trees. Further inland they flew slowly over a lush little river valley encompassing a string of picturesque lagoons and extensive groves of tall palms and flowering tropical trees.

“Two hundred years ago,” Jack said, “Lawai Kai belonged to Queen Emma, the wife of Kamehameha IV. Later on, it became a private estate and a botanical preserve, until Hurricane Palapala devastated it early in the twenty-first century. The valley reverted to jungle after the population exodus to the colonial planets. The Remillard Family Trust bought the place in 2073 and deeded it to me when I decided I wanted to have my permanent Earth residence on Kauai. I built a house and started restoring the ornamental plantings and the Lawai River pools. You’ll find that the place is quite modest, except for a rather snazzy lab in the basement that I use for special projects.”

“Is that where you intend to work on the special CE equipment?”

“Yes. Here and in Orb. The prototype for the coercive-redactive brainboard will be easy enough to carry around with me, but I’ll keep the modified CE helmets here. After we break the news to the Dynasty, this will be a convenient and secure place for the practice sessions.”

He landed the ship on a small pad near one of the lagoons and they climbed out. Stars were beginning to spangle the deep blue sky. A mass of waterlilies floated in the black waters, including an enormous species with pads over a meter in diameter and fragrant flowers nearly half as wide. Along the banks were plantings of bamboo and wide-leaved shrubs with curiously shaped blooms.

“How lovely,” she said. “Everything looks so natural—but I suppose you had to work very hard to make it that way.”

“Well, yes. I have more spectacular things to show you in the
gardens than this, but it’s part of my big surprise. First let’s go up to the house.”

Their bags, sustained by his PK, floated along after them as they followed a stone walk. On either hand grew gorgeous heliconias, anthuriums, red ginger, bird-of-paradise plants, and proteas, mingled with many varieties of ferns. The house, framed in flowering poinciana trees, crepe myrtles, and silk oaks, at first seemed to be little more than a quaint old wooden plantation residence with a screened porch and a couple of rambling extra wings. It stood on rising ground overlooking the lagoons.

“Why, Jack!” she exclaimed as the realization struck her. “You’re a romantic! I never would have suspected it.”

“Few people do,” he admitted, making a wry face. “And imagine
my
surprise when I finally figured out the awful truth.”

The porch was full of potted orchid plants. “Those are mostly gifts from Denis,” he said, keying the state-of-the-art thoughtlock and opening the front door. “Would you like to be carried over the threshold? I don’t want to spoil my surprise, but you might care to postpone the tradition for just a bit.”