Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (49 page)

They went into the pub, which was redolent of hot butter and savory cooking smells. Each table had a tiny brazier in its center, sitting in a dish of sand, and a cone-shaped smoke hood with a built-in lamp. Many of the patrons were cooking tidbits over the glowing artificial coals, wielding tiny sauté pans, or dipping morsels into bubbling pots of cheese fondue.

“Do it yourself, eh?” Paul Remillard observed. “Looks like fun.”

“The fun,” Davy MacGregor said, “is in watching your dinner grow.”

The proprietor, a spade-jawed nonoperant with sandy hair, pretended not to recognize the celebrities he had just viewed on the big Tri-D hanging over the bar. “Table for five?” he inquired offhandedly. “I hope ye don’t mind a dark comer.” He led them to a perfect spot, partially shielded from the eyes of curious customers by a latticed partition.

“We’d like an assortment of ’shrooms,” Davy told the innkeeper, “whatever interesting is on tonight, and especially the sulfurs if they’re available.” He winked at Fred the Poltroyan. “You’ll love those. Taste like sauerkraut.”

They ordered drinks—club soda for Jack and Dorothea, double drams of Highland Park for Davy and Paul, a stein of crème de cacao for Fred—and settled down. Surrounding the brazier and inset into the thick wood of the table were shallow ceramic culture dishes. “You grow the ’shrooms in there,” Davy said. “They mature quick as a wink. Never saw anything like it.”

“Our fungoids are never exported,” Dorothea said, “because of the potential ecohazard. But they’re one of our most popular local delicacies, and lately, mycophiles from other worlds have actually organized mushroom-tasting tours of Callie’s subcontinents. Our travel ministry is ecstatic.”

The proprietor returned, bearing a huge tray. He unloaded the drinks and unceremoniously put down piles of plates, tableware, and napkins, which the diners distributed to one another. Long broiling-skewers were provided, together with two of the small sauté pans, wooden spatulas, a pot of sheep-cheese fondue, a crock of orange Callie butter, shakers of salt and pepper, garlic cloves, little dishes of chopped shallots, parsley, and thyme, and a cruet of lemon juice. There was also a big bowl of tossed salad with rainbow-hued leafage, a flute of crisp-crusted bread over a meter long, and a big carafe of water. The main course of the meal came in a dozen little plass pill bottles with handwritten labels.

“Eat hearty,” said the pub owner, and went away.

Inside the bottles were dry dark nodules like large poppy seeds. Davy began sorting the containers and passing them around to the others. “Here’s the sulfurs for Fred, and some green morchellitos and cuddies and earth-oysters to fry up, and—um—golfballs, microtams, yellabrellas, and porkies that they say are for toasting, and pinkhorns and bagels for the fondue dip, and popstars and clachan to eat raw with a dash of salt! A fine assortment, and half of ’em new to me. Shall we begin?”

“I’ve got a tummy ready and waiting,” Jack said, licking his lips.

“Wait a moment,” said Dorothea. “I think I deserve a treat tonight, too. I haven’t had ’shrooms since I was eleven.” She pulled her diamond mask away from the studs embedded in the sides of her skull and tucked the appliance away in a belt pouch.

Paul, Davy, and Fred uttered startled exclamations.

“But your face is perfectly normal!” the First Magnate whispered. “I thought—”

“Only on very special occasions,” the Dirigent said. “Among friends.” She smiled and gestured at the waiting pill bottles. “Never mind me. It’s ’shroom time!” She held up a pill bottle
labeled
YELLABRELLA
. “Even though it’s been a long time, I know what we have to do. Every Callie child plays games with our weird, fast-growing mushrooms, and some of the games are a wee bit gruesome!… Now, each of these containers has macrospores of a different variety, with suggestions on how to cook them. You simply shake a few spores into one of the culture dishes, add mineral water, and watch your supper grow.”

She demonstrated. Within twenty seconds, the small dish in front of her was full of golden ribbed caps with stiff narrow stems and thready mycelia. “You bum up the rootie things and any parts that are hard,” she said, breaking off and tossing the discards into the brazier. Then she threaded the succulent caps onto one of the skewers, spread on butter and a bit of garlic, and began broiling the exotic fungi.

Jack, Paul, and Davy pitched in; but the Poltroyan, who sat next to Dorothea, held back. He had not taken his eyes from Dorothea’s unexpectedly revealed face.

“So that is why the Lylmik call you Illusio.” Fred spoke to her in a low, awed voice. “The creation is quite substantial, and yet if one exerts deepsight—” The little man broke off, blushing a deep aubergine. “I most humbly beg your pardon. I should never have mentioned it.”

She touched his arm, smiling. “Dear Fred. Think nothing of it. Most humans aren’t psychosensitive enough to see through me—although I did have a tricky moment with a group of coadunating operant schoolchildren on our Nessie subcontinent last month. All kids try to see what’s behind the mask.”

“Coadunating?” Davy cried, nearly dropping his pan full of sizzling earth-oysters and shallots. “Lassie, are you joking?”

“No,” she said, sliding cooked yellabrellas onto her plate and beginning to eat.

Davy wagged his great head in astonishment. “We’ve had a few spontaneous outbreaks of mental coadunation on Earth, but I never dreamt it was going on elsewhere.”

“It’s happening all over the colonies,” Paul said. “But we’re keeping it sub rosa on the advice of the Panpolity Directorate for Unity.”

Jack said, “It was only logical that the operant children would be the first to experience the phase change. In some cases, there seems to be not only coadunation but also momentary episodes of actual Unity—linkage with the Mind of the Galaxy. We haven’t publicized it because of the potential for misunderstanding. We don’t want a repeat of the old Sons of Earth anti-operant hysteria.
The coadunate children themselves are mostly unaware of what’s happening. They only feel a kind of profound peace and a sense of warm fellowship with other minds. Sometimes there’s an unconscious metaconcert effect and inadvertent mental focusing. That’s how the Caledonian kids saw through Diamond’s illusory flesh. Preceptors had to redact away the memory.”

“I’ve beefed up the impenetrability of the illusion,” Dorothea said matter-of-factly. “From now on, anyone who peeks will see a face they think is beautiful. No more nightmares for unsuspecting little coadunates. The real face is mine alone.” And
his …

“My God,” said Davy. Jubilation spread across the craggy features of Earth’s Dirigent. “Unifying children! Perhaps we’ve a chance to lick Marc and his Rebels after all—with a grand protective metaconcert of coadúnate human minds.”

“But we’ve no idea how to focus such a novel construct,” Jack said. “It would be so diffuse, with the participants on widely scattered worlds. Some of the exotic scholars I’ve consulted say that the Lylmik know how to do it—but the Supervisors have thus far declined to discuss the matter with me.”

“Dear friends,” Fred said gravely, “you must not get your hopes up too high. The coadunation of the Simbiari took several galactic millenaries to accomplish, and they are still not fully enfolded in Unity. Who knows how long it will take for all of the human operants to experience coadunation? As yet, there have been no reliable reports of adults experiencing the phenomenon.”

“Two people may have,” Dorothea said. And Jack nodded.

The others sat for a moment in stunned silence, somehow knowing that they must forbear any question. Finally, the First Magnate said:

“The current human population is ten thousand six million. In theory at least, we’ve reached our coadúnate number. But the magical figure of ten billion is only a rough approximation of the number of sapient individuals required to initiate the true phase change. As Fred pointed out, the effectuation of Unity in a racial Mind can take a long time.”

“Or,” the Poltroyan said in a tone of suppressed excitement, “it can happen in an instant—as it did with our own Poltroyan Mind! Our legends say that a single brilliant individual perceived the way in a flash of insight. There was a fulminating confluence, a flowing together, a momentary unanimity. It did not last, but it laid the groundwork for the true Unanimization that took place some two galactic years later.”

“I’ve done my best to analyze the phenomenon,” Jack said, “but
there are almost no precedents except in mystical experience. Diamond and I are doing the best we can, but we have to be cautious. Whatever it is that the two of us have experienced … is new. It’s distinct from the coadunation of the children but it’s also incomplete and impermanent. Please say nothing about this to anyone.”

Davy and Paul murmured their acquiescence. Little Fred stood and took the hands of Jack and Dorothea. His ruby eyes brimmed with tears but he was careful not to inflict his emotions on any of the humans.

“I pray that the Prime Entelechy will grant you the power to persevere. Of course I shall respect your confidence! But I also thank you from the depths of my heart for having shared this glimpse of hope with me. In recent years …” His voice trailed off and he shook his head, applying himself to his bowl of sulfur mushrooms.

“We’ve all had our moments of despair,” Dorothea said. “Humankind is a perverse ilk.”

“If we only had more time,” Paul said. He speared a big golfball fungus and began roasting it like a marshmallow. “If only Marc hadn’t taken over the Rebel leadership! There must still be conservatives in the party, reasonable people who’d understand the appalling danger inherent in the arms buildup. But they’d never listen to me if I appealed to them. Nor Jack, nor any of the other Unity proponents.”

A sudden pensive gleam came into the dark eyes of Davy MacGregor, Dirigent of Earth. “I wonder if they’d listen to
me.”

The others froze in wild surmise.

Fred said eagerly, “It might work! Unlike the rest of us, Davy is not identified in the public eye as an adamant opponent of the Rebel view. Even his participation in tonight’s panel surprised many.”

“Losh, I just did it for Scotland,” Davy rumbled, looking at his plate. The others laughed.

“The next meeting of the Concilium is in February, Earth reckoning,” Paul said briskly to Davy. “Between now and then you’d have to lobby the top Rebel magnates—and probably also appeal to those who are still straddling the fence. It would take you away from your Dirigent duties—”

“I’ve a fine deputy in Esi Damatura, now that she’s seen through Marc’s self-serving persiflage. I’ll do it, provided there’s no interference from you, First Magnate.” Davy’s gaze flicked to Jack the Bodiless. “Or other members of your illustrious family.”

“Go forth,” said Paul with heavy irony. “Wheedle those Rebel
idiots back into the Milieu with your honeyed Scots tongue. But keep in mind that there’s one Remillard I can’t control for the life of me—so watch your back.”

When the supper was over, the First Magnate and his Poltroyan friend decided to walk to the shuttle terminal. They said goodbye to Jack and Dorothea and to Davy, who was going back to his hotel, and walked through Hellfire Lane, a narrow and twisting pedestrian way lined with darkened small shops.

“I hope that Davy MacGregor will be successful in his new undertaking,” Fred remarked, “but he may already be too late. If only he had assumed leadership of the Unity Directorate when you asked him to, four orbits ago! I do not wish to denigrate the heroic efforts of Anne Remillard as leader of that body—but she has perhaps been overly concerned with discrediting the enemies of Unity rather than wooing them.”

“That’s my sister Annie,” the First Magnate conceded with a gloomy chuckle. “Smite the foe hip and thigh, and damn the appeasers … Davy told me a few months ago that Cordelia Warshaw urged him to head the Unity Directorate, too. She thought he had Rebellious inclinations and hoped he’d be a mole for their side. Of course Davy sent her off with a flea in her ear. He’s no Rebel—just a man who had honest doubts about the potential effect of Unity on the Human Mind. Fortunately, he resolved his doubts rather quickly when Marc took over the Rebel Party helm. My oldest son has that effect on people: You either fall for him hook, line, and sinker or decide he’s very bad news indeed. I meant it when I told Davy to keep his guard up around him.”

The ruby eyes looked up anxiously. “Surely you don’t think Marc would actually threaten Davy’s life!”

“Perhaps I’m exaggerating. A physical attack would certainly backfire. The Earth Dirigent’s prestige is too high—even among my son’s most fanatical followers. God knows, Davy’s more popular than I am! The fact that he had serious doubts about Unity and resolved them counts heavily in his favor. It insures that people will at least give him a sympathetic hearing when he presents the Milieu’s case. But I don’t think he can stem the tide of Rebellion—much less talk the militant Rebel faction into surrendering its illicit armament. Davy will also have a devil of a time justifying the Milieu’s termination of Mental Man. When the Galactic Magistratum shut down the project, it was the last straw for a lot of previously uncommitted people. Marc made you
exotics seem like jealous xenophobes, determined to keep humanity mentally subordinate.”

“But that was not our intention,” Fred protested. “There are deep ethical objections to the Mental Man concept that few members of your race seem to have considered.”

“Tell that to the low-level operant parents who were hoping to adopt a paramount baby! It’s a good thing nobody knows where the Krondaku stashed those confiscated embryos. They’d probably be highjacked and implanted into surrogate mothers before the Magistratum knew what hit it. And under the revised Repro Statutes, the Milieu would have no choice but to let the babies grow to term.
Damn
Marc! How did he dream up such a lunatic scheme in the first place?”

The First Magnate had been striding along heedlessly, walking faster and faster through the dark lane, and the little Poltroyan was hard pressed to keep up with him. Finally, Fred fell back, panting. “My friend, you will have to go on without me or give me a chance to catch my breath.”