Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (25 page)

I was instructed to take it easy for the next couple of months until my violated memory bank’s NMDA receptors got back up to
snuff. They ordered me to lay off alcohol entirely, because booze would further “insult” the little wounded brain-cell thingies. A mild postcoercive suggestion, planted in me by Ti-Jean, would subtly prompt me to shut up in case I was inclined to say anything imprudent about the upcoming exorcism. Jack and Dorothée were particularly emphatic about me not spilling the beans to Marc.

That reminded me of the puzzling thing that had happened during my grilling by Marc and Boom-Boom. I asked Jack if either he or Dorothée had meddled with my mindscreen, making it impossible for Marc to ream me. They said they hadn’t.

“Then why,” I asked, “couldn’t he break into my head? He’s done it before.”

Jack thought for a moment. “Marc was very close to you during his early childhood, wasn’t he, Uncle Rogi?”

“Well, I suppose so. He was always hanging around the bookshop when he was real small. Not saying much—except now and then coming up with a zinger of a question that’d rock me back on my heels. He was proud as the devil even then, pretending that he didn’t really care when Teresa didn’t have time for him. He and Paul never did get along, so I guess he kinda latched on to me by default. It was easy, with the family house on South Street just around the corner from my shop.”

“That might explain Marc’s inability to probe you,” Dorothée said. “He could have an inhibition based upon his view of you as a quasi-parental figure. Similar to the one Denis must have.”

“But Marc’s drilled my brain in the past,” I reiterated.

“The inhibition could come and go, influenced by any number of psychological factors,” Jack said, “such as the continuing integration of Marc’s deep unconscious with his conscious mind, the current state of his metapsychic complexus, and particularly his changing emotional orientation in relation to you.”

“Emotional orientation?”

“How he feels about you,” Dorothée said gently. “The intensity and tenor of one’s feelings toward an authority figure can and often do change as a person gets older. Marc may not consciously realize that he loves you more in his maturity than he did as a young man distracted by the struggle to master his paramount mindpowers. When you nearly drowned, his repressed feeling for you might have been shocked into full realization.”

“Oh,” I said.

Marc, the quintessential cold fish, capable of love? Pas de danger!

“Emotional factors like these will also complicate the Dynasty’s
attempt to heal Denis,” said Jack. “It won’t be easy for them to get into their father’s head. The data that we gleaned from you provided useful details of Fury’s mindset—but we hope the information will also help us to analyze the parent-child coercive relationship as it appertains to Denis and the Dynasty.”

“Anne talked about that, too.” I hesitated, then asked, “When are you going to do it? The exorcism?”

“We should have the metaconcert design finished some time in September,” Jack said. “We’ll work on it during our spare time at the Concilium session. I’ll also be able to complete most of the brainboard design for the new CE helmets while we’re in Orb. Once I get back to Earth and build the hats, we come to the really dicey part: practicing the energized metaconcert with the Dynasty.”

“Do they know yet?” I asked.

“We informed the First Magnate,” Dorothée told me. “It’s up to him to break the news to his brothers and sister.”

“We’ll require at least a solid month of metaconcert practice, for safety’s sake,” Jack said. “In order to keep the operation secure, we’ll do the prep work at my place on Kauai. The Dynasty should have no trouble coming there incognito. I’ve asked Papa to arrange it.”

“Will you … do it to Denis on the island?” I asked.

“No. He almost never leaves home these days, and we can’t afford to arouse his suspicions by insisting that he come to Kauai. Diamond and I have already decided on an ideal place for the procedure: my sister Marie’s farm just outside Hanover. She’ll be taken into our confidence when everything is ready. We can set up the equipment out there without attracting any attention.”

“Marie’s farm?” I repeated numbly. “Where Denis and Lucille used to live?”

“The place is perfect for another reason,” Jack said. “This year, Marie will be hosting the réveillon after midnight mass for the first time. We’ll do the coercive-redactive procedure then, when Denis—and his Fury alter ego—will be least likely to suspect that anything unusual is in the air.”

They were going to do it on Christmas.

R
ORY
M
ULDOWNEY
, D
IRIGENT OF THE “IRISH” ETHNIC PLANET
of Hibernia, shifted uncomfortably in his seat in Manion’s antiquated old beater of a rhocraft and thought black rebellious thoughts about the Rebellion. The others on the Executive Council of the movement, God blast them, had committed themselves firmly to this new, disturbing course. Now, barring a miracle, they were stuck with it. His own opposition had been halfhearted because it was irrational and he knew it—just as he knew why most of the others were so enthusiastically in favor. He hadn’t dared to tell them the real reason why he opposed their choice for a new leader. They were determined to have one, and all that remained was to see if the candidate was willing to accept.

Muldowney’s florid face twisted in a bitter little smile. And if Marc did accept, he thought, then wouldn’t I give my soul to see the look on the face of Paul Remillard—may the devil roast the prick off him!—when he finds out what his darling son has done.

The egg said, “ETA five minutes CEREM NAVCON,” and began the descent from the ionosphere. It was nearly midnight.

“Display CU terrain proper CEREM plant,” Alexis Manion commanded.

“Proper CU option unavailable,” said the rhocraft. “Shall I show three-kay overview analog?”

“Go,” said Alex. His passengers were leaning forward to study the chart that had come up on the navigation unit display. “Sorry, folks. No real-world picture of Marc’s bailiwick. It seems that he’s beefed up security since I was here a couple of years ago.”

“How intriguing,” said Hiroshi Kodama. His gaze was unfocused as he exerted his ultrasenses. “It is also quite impossible to perceive CEREM with farsight, although the surrounding region
is quite clear. I conjecture that some device such as an S-450 fuzzer is in operation.”

“Here’s a how-dee-doo,” Alex sang softly. He posed a rhetorical question: “Now what do you suppose Marc is hiding down there?”

“Something valuable?” Cordelia Warshaw suggested.

“Something illegal,” said Rory Muldowney, who knew all about such things.

The screen showed a labeled chart of an industrial park at least 120 hectares in extent. The South Fork of the Snoqualmie River ran through it, and more than a dozen sizable buildings were scattered among groves of evergreen trees.

“That is CEREM?” Professor Anna Gawrys exclaimed. “All that? Why, it’s enormous—bigger than IDFS! I never dreamt that Marc Remillard had such resources at his command.”

“I suppose this is just one more branch of the Dynasty’s far-flung commercial empire,” Patricia Castellane remarked.

Alex Manion shook his head. “Not by a long shot. Marc might have had a bit of help from the family trust back in 2072, setting the thing up, but he’s been independent of the Remco conglomerate structure for over five years. CEREM is Marc’s private fief. It turns a tidy profit manufacturing conventional mental interface systems—besides providing him with almost unlimited facilities for his more unorthodox enterprises.”

“I’ll bet there are some lovely fish in that little river down there,” Rory said.

“Rainbow trout,” Alex confirmed. “Marc bought this particular site for CEREM so he could go flyfishing right outside the back door of his lab when he needed a break.”

Rory gave a snort.

Professor Gawrys seemed bemused by the huge establishment shown on the display. “I had not realized that commercial CE was so … lucrative.”

“Better say expensive and be done with it, Annushka,” Patricia Castellane said. “It would be splendid to have Marc Remillard lending his paramount metafaculties and charismatic presence to our Rebellion—but even better to have his lovely El8 hats and brainboard components for free if it turns out that we have to fight our way out of the Milieu.”

Hiroshi Kodama said, “Good point, Pat. Satsuma’s Geophysical Modification Unit has already coughed up more than four hundred and fifty million dollars for CEREM equipment. I dare say Okanagon has spent even more.”

“Six hundred mil thus far,” Castellane admitted. “And we’ve budgeted another hundred megabux for the next fiscal year. Poor old Oky is just coming apart at the seams. Nothing as spectacular as the Caledonian diatreme, thank God, but enough all-around crustal instability to keep us hopping. I don’t know how we find enough spare time and money to foment Rebellion on the side.”

“At least,” Hiroshi said, “you don’t have yakuza gangsters to cope with in addition to the earthquakes.”

“Rope your local rascals into our grand cause!” Rory Muldowney said, tipping his colleague a wink. “You might just find them to be very helpful in the procurement of certain vital commodities.”

Hiroshi received the suggestion in cold silence.

“Now there’s a real Irish proposal for you,” Patricia drawled.

Rory’s face purpled with indignation. “And what’s
that
supposed to mean, Madam Dirigent?”

“Read my mind, Mister Dirigent. And recall your ethnic history—to say nothing of certain major suppliers of the toys in your basement.”

“And why shouldn’t I get the stuff wherever I can if it helps the cause in the long run? Rebellion’s not for the squeamish!”

“Children, children,” said Cordelia Warshaw. “Let’s save our energies for the conversion of Marc Remillard.”

“We must still decide who will be our spokesman tonight,” Professor Gawrys said.

The five other minds immediately responded: YOU Annushka.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “I am not at all suitable. I’ve been thinking how unfortunate it is that Adrien declined to accompany us on this mission. He would have been the ideal one to approach his nephew. I still recall his prophetic comment about Marc and our Rebel movement, made so many years ago.”

“You are the appropriate spokesman,” Hiroshi Kodama said. “It’s fitting that the present head of our cause should offer the leadership to the chosen successor.”

“But what if he declines? Coercion is my weakest metafaculty!”

“There’s not a head in the galaxy who could coerce Marc,” Alex said. “We’ll persuade him to join us by demonstrating that it’s in his best interest—or we won’t persuade him at all.”

Rory Muldowney said, “Never fear, Annushka. If we’re bound and determined to have the man, he’s ripe for the plucking. After his narrow squeak with the Polity Science Directorate at the last Concilium session, the only way he’ll be able to continue his
research is with the backing of the Rebel bloc. The vote defeating the moratorium this time was a fiamin’ fluke. It won’t happen again unless the party lends a helping hand. Marc’s only chance lies in keeping opposition to his work bottled up in committee, and we can deliver the votes to insure that. So just put it to him plainly. The bastard’s a natural Rebel anyway. He belongs on our side.”

Unspoken was Rory’s additional thought: But not as our leader.

The professor appealed to Alexis Manion. “But surely you would be the better choice to make the proposal to Marc. You have known him since you were schoolboys.”

“No one really knows Marc Remillard,” said Alex starkly.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Hiroshi Kodama said, “Even so, Alex, do you think he would have bothered to meet with us at all if he were
not
sympathetically inclined to the Rebel viewpoint?”

“Beats me,” said Manion. “I was surprised all to hell when he invited us to come and make our pitch—and to CEREM, at that.”

The egg continued its descent through the clear night sky. At lower altitudes the lights of Seattle Metro delineated every island and coastal feature of Puget Sound, spreading short glittering tentacles of habitation westward into the Olympic Peninsula and longer shining arms up the river valleys toward the eastern Cascade foothills.

“I must tell you,” said Professor Gawrys in a quiet but firm voice, “that I still have deep misgivings about this mission.”

“You agreed with the rest of the Executive Council that the movement needed more forceful leadership,” Cordelia said sharply, “and that Marc Remillard was the one who could give it to us.”

“Yes. That’s true. Nevertheless, I am obliged to tell you what I feel in my heart. This man that we will meet tonight has the potential to transform our Rebel cause … for better or for worse. I will admit that he seems sympathetic to the principles of human freedom that we have dedicated our lives to. But as I listened to his brilliant rebuttal during the Concilium session, staving off the attempt to stifle his research, I was deeply disturbed. In the Concilium, all minds are supposed to be transparent and free of any trace of artifice or duplicity. But we humans, being ununified, still veil the innermost secrets of our hearts from each other and from the exotic magnates—”

“We do it,” Patricia Castellane said, “because we must.”

“Yes, because we Rebels have sincere doubts about humanity’s role in the Galactic Milieu,” the professor agreed. “But it seems to
me that Marc Remillard’s mental reservations differ from our own in an important respect. I fear that his primary concern is not humanity’s right to mental freedom, but rather the defense of his own sovereign ego.”

“The two things aren’t incompatible,” Alex said mildly.

“Perhaps not,” the professor conceded. “You know Marc much better than I. Nevertheless, I wish that we had not come here. At least, not yet.”

Cordelia Warshaw rolled her eyes in exasperation. “The timing is perfect, Annushka. We’ve needed the man on our team for years—and now we finally have an opportunity to offer him quid pro quo by forestalling any future moratorium on creative CE.”