Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (36 page)

“But we are from Astrakhan, my dear Citizen Cloherty.” The female tourist spoke with forced heartiness. “The moody landscape will remind us of our own home world. And if there should be a nice storm, then that would put the icing on the cake.”

“Well, the forecast calls for a full gale, so you’ll likely get your wish,” said Jane. “Are you sure you don’t want a chauffeur, Intendant General? I could have one here in ten minutes.”

“Thank you, but no.” The Russian doffed his karakul shapka, opened the car’s passenger door, and carefully climbed into the front seat.

Ruslan Vakhavich Terekev, chief elected official of the planet Astrakhan, appeared vaguely unwell. His prominent features were drawn, his skin was unhealthily sallow, and his hooded eyes were darkly ringed. Jane Cloherty decided that he was either masking some strong emotional upheaval or possibly suffering pain, and
she had been relieved when Terekev’s much younger Chief of Staff, a handsome woman wearing a teal-and-black leather tunic and leggings, announced that she would be doing all of the driving.

Jane said to her, “I think you’ll find the vehicle quite comfortable, Citizen Arsanova. We’ve stocked the refrigerator with food and drink, and the computer has a wide selection of music and a detailed guide to the features of the region. The doors will lock and unlock on your verbal command once you’ve given it your input.”

“Thank you,” Lyudmila Arsanova said. Her smile was detached. “How is the road to Dumha Sí? We have booked rooms for the night at an inn called Granuaile House, where Dirigent Muldowney will come to collect us tomorrow.”

“The highway’s narrow in places but decent enough. I wouldn’t trust the car’s autopilot in the twistier bits where the mountains might block the NAVSAT signal. There are some rather amazing cliffs and offshore rock formations just beyond Baile Ui Fhiacháin, and an ollpheist sanctuary you might want to stop and visit. You should reach Dumha Sí easily before dark. Granuaile House is a lovely accommodation with super food. I’d not be surprised if you had the entire place to yourselves.”

“Excellent,” Lyudmila Arsanova said. “The Intendant General will relish the peace and quiet. He is in need of rest after our rather strenuous voyage on a high-df starship.”

“I should caution you to be wary of our Hibernian wildlife. Some creatures like the fiadheamhantai and the giorria diocasach will come right up to a parked car looking tame and adorable like deer or hares, begging for food. But they’d as soon take off your fingers as eat the treat you offer.”

“We shall be prudent,” Lyudmila said.

Jane Cloherty gave the open-palmed operant salute to the visitors. “Do give the Taoiseach—I mean Dirigent Muldowney—my best wishes when you see him, then, and tell him that Con-nemara’s always willing to oblige ODH. Have a fine trip.”

Lyudmila settled behind the wheel and programmed the groundcar to take them out of Gaillimh (unaccountably called Galway by the locals) via the most expeditious route. When they were well away from the terminal and out of Jane Cloherty’s farsense range, Lyudmila spoke to the man beside her, using the Russian language.

“How are you feeling, my dear?”

“Tired. But at least there are no further signs of disjunction.”

“It might have been wiser to deal with the problem back in Tara Nua after all.”

“No. The capital city was too crowded with operant bureaucrats and other metapsychic busybodies. This region better suits my requirements—it is wild and isolated, with accidents presumably more commonplace. And the sea will provide a perfect disposal for the bodies.”

“If we only can be certain that this will work!”

“It will. Please do not be troubled, my little one. Before long I’ll be fully restored.” Ruslan Terekev sat back with a long sigh and closed his eyes. “A nap now will do me good. For safety’s sake, we should be at least four hundred kilometers away from this city before beginning to troll. There is a tiny fishing village called An Leacht on the coast just west of the sea-beast reserve. We can start the hunt there.”

“As you wish.” She called up a display on the console and studied it as the car sped along the abbreviated length of dual carriageway leading out of Gaillimh Metro to the narrower road skirting the coast of the great landlocked sea. The Loch Mór chart was deceptively sprinkled with impossible-to-pronounce names for every creek, headland, bay, and island; but aside from the tiny hamlets of Baile Ui Fhiacháin, An Leacht, and their destination, Dumha Sí, there seemed to be no settlements of any kind beyond the Metro hinterlands.

That was ideal for their purposes, however. All they required was a single cottage in an isolated spot with a sturdy young family in residence.

Brimming with lifeforce.

He had broken the bad news during the long starship voyage from Astrakhan:

I
/I am greatly perturbed. Something grave and unexpected has happened.>

I have noticed
your
/your distress following the daily hyperspatial translations. Do
you/you
wish to confide in me?

I
/l have experienced certain worrying symptoms. These have intensified during this voyage perhaps worsened by the stress attending passage through the upsilon-field.
I
/I greatly fear that the fusion of
my
/my disparate personae might not have been permanent.>

!!! Are
you
/you certain of the diagnosis?

I
/I must take precautions. It would be a consummate disaster if the core persona should once again take
charge of this body. Denis Remillard is now … the Last Great Enemy.>

He would surely betray us!

<
I
/I have considered it. And also considered a possible remedy:
I
/I believe that a fresh infusion of lifeforce would very likely halt any disjunctive tendency—at least for the time being.>

Yes! So logical&right dearest
you
/you must
FEED
as I do it is the solution it must be!

I
/I am convinced that the vis-à-vis meeting with Marc and the other Rebels on Hibernia must not take place if
I
/I am unable to restore the vigor of
my
/my integrated complexus. Aside from the danger of actual fission there is also the possibility that I/
I
might be recognized.>

?…

I
was newborn and Marc was a tiny child he saw
me
and was afraid. Later
I
spoke to him in dreams and he may have come to know
me
. Even if
I
/I were fully potentiated there is a considerable risk dealing with this formidable man in person. He is bound to be curious about a new player in his carefully orchestrated game and
I
/I fear that he might attempt an aggressive probe without warning in order to reassure himself of
my
/my fidelity to the Rebel cause.>

I agree that there is a certain risk. But I doubt very much that Marc would take a chance of alienating the vitally important Ruslan Terekev in such a gratuitous way—especially since Alan Sakhvadze, Arkady Petrovich O’Malley, and the other Rebel spies that he sent to Astrakhan think that they have already vetted
your
/your mind. For years the Intendant General was notorious throughout the 14th Sector for his blatant devotion to the Rebel cause. Why should Marc doubt Terekev’s loyalty now?

He also needs
your
/your cooperation in the starship modification scheme. I know this man better than you! He would never antagonize either of us with a mind-ream.

Too
long! I’m tired of waiting I am determined that he must accept me soon and if the opportunity arises during our stay on the island I intend to take advantage—

My
/my needs take precedence over yours! Do you question that?>

No. Never.

me
/me to obtain the necessary lifeforce!
I
/I shall NOT proceed with this perilous conference unless the integration is fortified.>

It is out of the question that we should seek a victim here on the starship. But there should be ample opportunities once we reach Hibernia.

me
/me how the feeding is done.>

[!!!] Gladly. There are also tactical considerations that must be kept in mind in order to preclude detection but they are usually quite simple.

must
be soon. Do you understand?>

Yes my dearest Fury. I understand everything.

Another false alarm.

“Yob tvoyu dushu mat’!” He covered his eyes with a trembling hand. “I’m sorry, Mila. My seekersense is completely shot.”

“It’s all right. Just breathe deeply. Concentrate your creativity and self-redaction. Let me help with the hunting for a while.”

She pulled the groundcar off the verge and drove back onto the road. There had been life down on the beach, but it was not human—a flock of winged exotic furbearers huddled in the rocks waiting for the gale to abate. They were highly intelligent aerial predators that must have weighed 20 or 30 kilos, members of a dominant order of Hibernian animals that would no doubt evolve into sapience within another two or three million orbits. Today, however, they were useless to the sick man in the car.

“The aura was so intense, even damped by the surrounding rock,” Ruslan said wretchedly. “I was so sure that this time we had found suitable subjects.”

“There’s plenty of time yet,” Lyudmila reassured him, soothing him with her redaction. It would never do to let him know how concerned she was. If he began to despair and his level of coercive power dropped much lower, he might become incapable of performing the neural drain.

He had already called out two other false alarms and she was beginning to wonder if they had seriously miscalculated, thinking there would be easy pickings in this desolate corner of the Irish planet. Here the locals seemed always to build their dwellings in clusters, probably needing all the social support they could get. Outside the villages Ruslan and Lyudmila had found only boarded-up summerhouses, and now and then an occasional
agcrete boat shed used by commercial fishers, deserted now during the season of storms.

Inland, densely forested natural terraces rose to a serrated range of misty green mountains, but down near the shore-road the vegetation was sparse, mostly exotic ground-hugging succulents and groves of needletrees and naturalized terrestrial pines, stunted and gnarled by the strong winds. Where the horizontal limestone strata met the salt water, countless miniature potholes had been formed by erosion, giving the terrain the look of gray Emmentaler cheese. Exposed stretches of beach were piled high with waterweed, colorful shells, the air-filled skeletons of marine theropterids, and other flotsam carried in by the breakers and the high tides generated by Hibernia’s three large moons.

The groundcar had passed the last tiny village, An Leacht, nearly an hour earlier, and since then there had been no occupied houses. In the last hundred kilometers, a single hop-lorry and three private cars had passed them going in the opposite direction; but they had agreed that taking the occupants would have been too dangerous. A vehicle would have to be disposed of, along with the bodies, and where the road skirted the steep cliffs there were sturdy barriers guarding the drop-off. With him in such a weakened condition, there was no assurance that the feeding would be successful. If it failed to restore his strength they might not be able to lift even a small car with concerted PK and throw it far out into deep water; and leaving a vehicle abandoned on the roadside might have posed an unacceptable risk. The region was surely patrolled, even though they had seen no police cars.

They drove in tense silence for some time. Finally, he said, “If the Denis persona should ever regain control of this body, you will have to try your utmost to kill me, Mila.”

A frisson of fear ran through her. “No! Don’t say that!”

“There would be no alternative. The Last Great Enemy would reveal our identities to the Dynasty or the Magistratum, even if it meant his death. By killing this body you would at least save your own life.”

“I could never bring myself to do it. Never!”

He gave an ironic laugh. “No, I suppose not. After so many years of inhibition, my cancelling of the engram might be ineffective.”

“Your … what?”

“My poor little one! Do you think I don’t know how you toyed with the notion of doing away with me when you were young? You and the other Hydra-units—indulging in tantrums against a
repressive parent, wishing me dead as you reveled in fantasies of independence.”

“We were silly adolescents,” she whispered, opening her mind wide to show her sincerity and remorse, “slow to mature. It was only your insistence upon bringing other minds into the alliance that drove us into a jealous rage. We didn’t understand …”

“Never mind, lubymetsa. I forgive you.” A tinge of frost hardened his smile. “But I will tell you now that your childish scheme never could have succeeded. As you were born to my service, I implanted a mental safeguard deep in your unconscious. You need me, just as I need you.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

On the starship, confronted with hard evidence of her master’s mortality, Hydra had finally realized with frightening clarity that if Fury became impotent or died, she was finished. She had been a deluded fool to think that she could control a paramount mind like Marc’s and simultaneously plot the strategy of the upcoming Rebellion all by herself. The other Hydra-units who might have assisted her were dead. Alone, she would never be able to command the direction of an interstellar war, insuring the victory of the Second Milieu. Not even Mental Man would tip the scales in her favor, for the swift-ripening conflict might not wait upon His coming.