Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (34 page)

They began strolling back toward the tube station.

“Do you actually intend to accuse the Rebels of plotting violence?” Anne’s question betrayed her skepticism.

“That bootleg CE factory found on Caledonia worries me more than I like to admit.” Jack said somberly. “Operant mobsters from the Russian and Japanese worlds and a few other planets with organized crime have used mind-boosters in starship piracy and other spectacular capers. But the Scottish planet has no mafia in its cultural tradition, and no big-time operant outlaws have ever flourished there. Diamond is afraid that the mental lasers might have been intended for a militant faction of the Rebel movement. But there’s never been any proof of such activity anywhere in the Polity … yet.”

“But you think a Rebel connection is plausible?”

“Ian’s politics are no secret. And there have been rumors of such things before, on Okanagon and Satsuma and even on the Old World. If it’s true it will be very hard to prove. The exotic races have such a guileless view of the Rebel movement! And of
course they control the Galactic Magistratum. So far as I know, there has never been any investigation of potential Rebel militancy. Loyalist humans have hesitated to press the issue because it would increase the polarization of our Polity, and things are bad enough as it is. The early years of the Simbiari Proctorship when the rights of free speech and assembly were temporarily abrogated haven’t been forgotten. Humanity won’t sit still for a militant-Rebel witch hunt unless the evidence is overwhelming.”

Anne agreed.

They had come to the station entrance. Jack said, “I’m afraid things will just have to get worse before they can get better.”

Anne’s smile was melancholy. “It seems to me I’ve heard that tag line before, and fairly recently at that.” She kissed him lightly. “Blessings, Jack. Let me know what you find out about Ian.”

He said goodbye and went off into the underground. Anne stood for a moment watching, then sighed. Her still-healing body ached in spite of the continual low-level self-redaction generated automatically by her mind. If she had been on Earth, she would have suspected that a change in the weather was forthcoming; but no rain was programmed for Rive Gauche until the day after tomorrow.

Curious, she said to herself.

She deliberately banished the pain, then went off to see what was on the menu at La Closerie des Lilas. She had decided that she did not care to dine alone in her apartment tonight after all.

Dorothea Macdonald and David Somerled MacGregor had departed from the final Conference of Dirigents separately, but by chance they arrived in Ponte di Rialto at the same time. It was only natural that she should invite him to share her gondola. A steam-powered vaporetto water-bus would have taken them more quickly to their apartments further up the Grand Canal, but it had been a long day, and both of them welcomed the chance to wind down in companionable silence riding in the slower boat. It was powered in the traditional way by a nonoperant human gondoliere who rowed it along with a single long oar.

The simulated night was full of fog and sea-smells. The lamps and lighted windows of the palaces and other monumental constructions along the Grand Canal—almost all containing residential flats in Orb’s Venetian re-creation—made blurred patterns of radiance on either bank. The canopy of their gondola was open on three sides, and after they had traveled only a short way the gold lamé of Dorothea’s hooded jumpsuit was dotted with microscopic
beads of moisture and Davy’s tweed jacket smelled of soggy sheep. Their stolid boatman wore an enviroponcho and hummed along obliviously to pop music, inaudible to the passengers, playing on his auditory implant.

“I enjoy nights like this,” Dorothea said. “The fog reminds me of my childhood in Edinburgh, when the haar would steal in from the sea and the house seemed wrapped in cotton wool. Jack and I chose to live in Rialto because it was completely different from Caledonia or Hawaii or New Hampshire in America.”

“Aye, it’s beautiful,” the Dirigent of Earth agreed. “Not twee or Disneyesque like some of the other Orb enclaves. That was why my Maggie liked it—and why I’ve kept our flat here, even though she was able to live in it only a few brief hours before she was killed. She adored the real Venice, y’see, where we’d honeymooned. But I’ve found that I can’t go back there now. It’s turned into an immersive pageant for holidaymakers, all tarted up and sterile. This place makes no bones about being artificial, but to me it has more of the original Venetian ambiance than the real thing. Here I can remember Maggie and our happiness together, and when I sleep I can dream of her peacefully, without vengeful nightmares poisoning me the way they do back in Concord, among your toplofty in-laws.”

She took his hard cold hand and pressed it. “I’m so sorry about your wife, Davy. And you must believe that Jack is, too.”

He put a damp arm around her. “It’s not Jack who’s tainted my heart but the older Remillards. The ones who’ve guarded the secret all these years with the connivance of the damned Lylmik.”

“But Fury is dead now,” she said, willing herself to believe it behind her impenetrable mindscreen. “There’s only Madeleine, a single Hydra, left alive. And she’s not that strong alone. We’ll find her and bring her to justice, and that’ll be an end of it at last.”

“We can hope so.” Davy MacGregor shook his head slowly, and misty droplets gleamed in his Dundreary side whiskers. “I’d never have picked poor Denis as Fury, that’s for sure. But it was a rash thing the lot of you did, trying to integrate the monster secretly and with a small metaconcert, even though the First Magnate did technically have the authority to act. You could have all been killed and Fury might have escaped.”

“You know very well why it had to be done that way. Denis himself was a blameless man. If the Magistratum had taken him into custody and attempted a redaction, there would have been a public scandal—and no assurance that a big team of forensic redactors would have done any better than our smaller
metaconcert. It’s a terrible tragedy that we weren’t able to extirpate the Fury persona and save Denis, but right and proper that his good name remains intact—”

“Along with that of the First Magnate and the rest of the Remillard clan,” Davy MacGregor growled. “Oh, aye, I know why the Lylmik let you get away with it. All the same, the thought still strikes fire in me. The reputation of the almighty Dynasty must be preserved at all costs! And now we have a new Remillard prancing into the public arena, throwing his weight around and flirting with sedition. What d’ye say to that, eh?”

“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted. “I know almost nothing about Marc Remillard as a person. He helped save my life in the diatreme. I was shocked beyond measure when he became the Rebel spokesman. And I think I’m afraid of him.”

“For good reason, I’m thinking.”

“Jack loves Marc, but I know he also has deep misgivings about him. He says his brother will take the Rebel movement in a new direction, and we may have to deal with a serious crisis within just a few years.”

Davy harrumphed. “Perhaps your Jack isn’t quite the innocent young Milquetoast he often seems!”

The pseudovoice seeming to come from behind the mask of canary diamonds was sweetly humorous. “Only a mean-spirited old fart would make the mistake of thinking so.”

Davy MacGregor chuckled wickedly.

The gondola prow sliced a low-hanging blanket of mist and glided in to a lantern-lit landing stage. Beyond it rose a replica of the most magnificent Gothic façade in all Venice.

“Ca’ d’Oro,” the gondoliere said in a bored voice.

Dorothea rose from her seat. “My stop. Good night, Davy.”

“I hope it is for you and your Jack as well, dear lass … And take good care of our wee Scottish planet when you get home, won’t you?”

Her reply was brisk. “I intend to. See that you do the same for poor old Earth.”

She hurried down the tiny tree-girt Calle della Ca’ d’Oro to the entry of the Palazzo Sagredo. The foyer inside was done in simple wood paneling and tinted plaster, with a polished marble floor. She and Jack and the other tenants of this “palace” had no interest in the opulent furnishings or the gilded stucco and elaborate decorative carvings featured in certain other dwellings of Ponte di Rialto.

“Buona sera, Dirigent,” said the portinaio, looking up from his lair amidst the potted palms. “It’s getting late.”

“Good evening, Paolo. The last meeting of the Planetary Dirigents ran overtime. I’m glad you’re still here. We’re leaving very early tomorrow and I wanted to say goodbye.”

“It has been a pleasure having you with us, Dirigent. I hope you’ll return next session.”

“Oh, yes. We wouldn’t dream of stopping anywhere else.” She had used PK to banish the dampness from her clothing and boots. “Che bella nebbia! I think we’ll have a nice fire on our last night in residence. But this time, I’ll be certain to open the damper properly.”

“An open fire would be pleasant,” the portinaio agreed. Observing her empty arms, which bore not even a loaf of new bread nor the makings of a fresh salad, items that were not easily available from Orb’s central provisioning depot, he screwed up his face in an artless grin. “I would not like to spoil a surprise, but you should know that Direttore Zan Degola just arrived with flowers and wine to help celebrate your first wedding anniversary.”

The eyes above the diamond mask widened in dismay. “Oh, damn! I can’t believe it slipped my mind—”

“Piano, piano, don’t be distressed that you forgot to bring your dear husband a special supper.”

She had done nothing of the kind. Jack drank but he seldom ate conventional food while he was at home, and her own sustenance was usually liquefied high-calorie pabulum. But she should have remembered to bring some sort of an anniversary gift. She was nothing but an ill-bred, inconsiderate workaholic …

Paolo was all smiles as he took out a large flat carton from beneath his desk and handed it to her with a flourish. “The lad from the osteria just delivered this huge takeout to me, and I insist that you accept it with my compliments. It would be a tragedy for young lovers not to have a nice meal on their last night in the enclave. The restaurant will send me another in twenty minutes. Please convey my felicitations to the Direttore.”

Dear old Paolo. Like most of the nonoperant service personnel in Rialto, he believed that Jack—in spite of the Venetian nickname she had slyly bestowed upon him, derived from that of the decapitated Baptist—was a normally embodied human being, and that a perfectly utilitarian face lay beneath her own diamond mask. There was no way she could refuse the food, so she thanked the concierge warmly and insisted on paying for a fine wine to go with
his own replacement dinner. Then she bade him a last farewell and took the archaic clanking cage-lift to the top floor of the palazzo.

Jack opened the apartment door for her. His mind formed a question as he spotted what she was carrying.

“A feast for our special occasion,” she explained with a shrug, “courtesy of Paolo, with compliments to Zan Degola.”

Jack grinned as his deepsight inspected the contents of the carton. “Well, why not? I thought we’d just sit by the fire and drink champagne—but this is much better.” He took the food from her and headed for the kitchen. “You change into something comfortable. I’ll put away your flask of algiprote purée and set the table and grow a digestive tract.”

When she returned, wearing a white silk gown and robe edged with maribou, the dining table in the simply furnished room was candlelit, covered with damask, and gleaming with china, crystal, and silver. The roses in a cut-glass bowl made a colorful centerpiece.

He embraced her and gently kissed her lips. “It’s wonderful to see your face outside of bed. Remind me to leave Paolo a colossal tip.”

“Don’t think I’m going to make a habit of breaking my vow, Santo Giovanni Decollato. But I must admit the food smells fabulous.”

He held the chair for her and she sat down. There was an appetizer of carpaccio—finely sliced aged raw beef drizzled with oil and lemon, a shrimp pâté and toast, pasta with porcini mushrooms and chicken livers in cream sauce, and a salad of radicchio and pine nuts. He poured champagne and then they prayed a blessing and ate quietly, enjoying the simple human activity that they experienced so seldom.

“When I was young, I wouldn’t eat meat or seafood.” She speared a morsel of chicken liver, wound spaghetti around it with her PK, and devoured the result. “I couldn’t bear the thought of sustaining my life through the death of other sentient creatures who shared in the Mind of the Universe.”

“A valid enough personal credo. Why did you give it up?”

“I was horribly self-righteous, so certain that my brother and the adults who didn’t accept vegetarianism were immoral. But then, as I grew older, I found out that plants have their share of Mind, too, and so does inorganic matter. I learned that the human race had evolved as omnivores and our bodies operate most efficiently when we consume both animal flesh and plant food—so how did I dare to insist that eating meat was immoral when it was
manifestly part of human nature? What had seemed so clear-cut to me was actually murky and slippery. Finally, I had to admit to myself that my idealistic behavior had been based upon squeamishness and an empathetic fallacy, not a genuine ethical commitment on my part. It was very disheartening.”

He sipped his champagne, then lifted it to the candlelight and made the bubbles dance in eccentric spirals and whirls. Her mind’s vestibulum was open, inviting his survey. “And now you’re beginning to have doubts about something entirely different. Wondering if your faith in Unity is also fallacy-based.”

She nibbled a bit of the salad. “The worst thing is, I think I might never have had any belief in cosmic consciousness in the first place. I’m not as comfortable with mysticism as you are, darling. I’m a Scot and we’re a down-to-earth ilk. We take up hard jobs and get them done and survive and leave the magic to others.”

He smiled. “But some of you are also fey, and your race has had its share of philosophers.”

“Then the doubt is all my own. I admit that I cherish human independence. I don’t want us to lose it—not even if it brings about galactic peace and harmony. And I don’t want other minds looking behind my mask. It’s different with you. You’re my husband. But I couldn’t bear sharing any part of my inner self with vast numbers of people.”