Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (51 page)

“We’ll probably have to use Krondak teams, metacreatively disguised. Not too much of a problem where Professor Masha is concerned—but devilish tricky with a couple of high planetary executives like Kodama and Terekev … Fury would have killed the original individual and taken on his or her identity, of course. I’ll have human agents look into the background of all three suspects and see if there was any significant personality change or alteration of behavior around the time that Denis disappeared.”

“You must be careful not to tip Fury off,” she warned. “If he suspects we’re on to him he’ll simply take on a new disguise. We’ll be back to square one.”

Jack sighed. “I’ll deal with it. Along with everything else.”

“My poor love.” She left her chair and drew him to his feet. They held each other tightly.

“Oh, Diamond. I wish you could come with me. Work with me.”

“You know I can’t. My place is here on Callie. I won’t abandon
it to Calum Sorley and the others. I’ve made up my mind to work up a new pro-Unity education campaign. There must be some way we can use those coadunating children to demonstrate to the citizenry that Unity is beneficial—that it expands human potential rather than stultifies it.”

“That’s an interesting idea. I’ll introduce it to the Directorate when I return to Orb.”

They rested in each other’s arms. The rain streamed silently down the window-wall. He kissed her hair. “You know, there’s no one in the offices on this floor.”

“Niall Abercrombie doesn’t come in until seven-thirty and the rest of my top staffers don’t arrive until eight.” Her pseudovoice was soft with insinuation.

“Then I guess it’s up to you and me to get some work done, Dirigent Lassie.”

“Useful work,” she agreed. “The like of which this office of mine has never seen.”

At a gesture of her hand the gray mist beyond the window-wall was transformed into a view of a colorful plaidie forest glade, lit with soft shafts of sunlight. The austere office furnishings, the Great Seal of Caledonia, the data-com wall, all of it melted away. They stood together inside the solarium of the small vacation home they had built on Beinn Bhiorach. The vaulted ceiling had beams of honey-oak and the walls were paneled in amber and purple daragwood, hung with paintings and tapestries and fantastic pearlie-whimsey artwork done by Caledonian crafters. There was a huge fireplace, unused in summertime and filled with masses of flowers. Shafts of sunlight came through the ceiling ports and pooled on a floor covered with handwoven woolen rugs and heaps of soft cushions. Around the room’s perimeter were stoneware pots with living plants from Hawaii—green on green on green.

They knelt face-to-face in the sunbeams and undressed each other. He still wore the sports jacket, sweater-vest, and open shirt deemed suitably folksy for the great Tri-D debate by ODC’s public-relations boffins. She still had on the formfitting, intricately pieced zipsuit of darkly shimmering lamé, encrusted with black diamonds at the collar and cuffs. Arabesque designs picked out in tiny stones swirled over her breasts and thighs and down the out-sides of her legs.

He kissed her neck and shoulders, peeling her clothing away as though she were some exotic, sparkling fruit. She still wore the
diamond mask, and when he was naked she used the cool gemstones to caress his arms, his pectorals, his taut belly, his igniting sex. They sank together onto the cushions.

But before he could mount her, her eyes crinkled in mirth and the pseudovoice whispered, “Do you know what I’d like?”

He smiled down at her. “What?”

“Something completely different. Let’s do it the way the simple folk imagine that we do: Jack the Bodiless and his weird wife, Diamond Mask. I want … the brain.”

He roared with laughter. “Why not?” His disincarnation was instant and the cerebral embellishments ingenious.

In bizarre congress the two of them reached a hilarious, dizzying climax, with her focusing her creativity directly upon his limbic system. The ecstatic brain, throwing off dazzling prismatic flares as though it were a living jewel, illuminated and pleasured her in every orifice, carrying her at last into blissful unconsciousness.

When she woke they were both dressed again. The office was as usual. She lay on one of the settees and Jack stood looking out at the rain. “Oh, my,” she said, stretching luxuriously. “That’s much better.”

He turned, his smile full of mischief. “You may be somewhat piqued to know that I was completely distracted at the burning moment.”

“Oh?” She simulated hauteur. “May I inquire why?”

His playfulness vanished and he came and sat on the edge of the couch. “I was thinking,” he said, “of the Great Carbuncle.”

She was aghast. “Uncle Rogi’s
watch fob?
Don’t tell me that mad love has finally driven you bonkers.”

“Not at all. Let me tell you my great idea.”

T
HE CRUSTAL FAULT BENEATH THE OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE
Dirigent of Okanagon was not one that had attracted the particular attention of local seismologists. It was deep-seated, over 110 kilometers below the surface of the capital city, and had remained quiescent for over thirty thousand orbits. That it should have ruptured on this particular night, during the reception for the Rebel leadership, might have been only a meaningful coincidence.

Or perhaps not.

The earthquake was a moderate intraplate event, intensity VII on the Modified Mercalli scale and 5.9 on Richter’s. The average peak velocity of the wave motion was 11.2 centimeters per second. Dirigent Patricia Castellane’s house, designed to withstand much greater shocks, merely swayed on its terrain-shift compensators when the temblor hit. Most of the furnishings were well secured. Draperies billowed, chandeliers clanged, a few loose pieces of glassware fell to the floor and smashed, and dishes of hors d’oeuvres slithered to the edges of tables, where they were restrained by low ornamental railings.

Almost immediately Patricia bespoke her party guests on the declamatory mode of farspeech, reassuring them that the quake had caused no important damage in Chelan Metro. The attendees in turn hastened to tell her that they had not been hurt or inconvenienced in the slightest by the momentary jolt. There were a few spilled drinks and dropped plates of food, that was all. No one wanted to go home. All of them, even the offworlders, knew that earthquakes were just one of those things on Okanagon.

After a few minutes, the party was back in full swing, as though nothing had happened.

But something had.

In a corner of the broad terrace outside the reception room, Ruslan Terekev smiled dismissively and wiped a smear of blood from his brow. The earthquake had caught him unawares as he and Lyudmila Arsanova were conferring with three top officers of the Twelfth Fleet. Ruslan had fallen heavily against the vine-clad stone façade of the building, receiving a sharp blow to the head. His companions looked at him anxiously.

“Are you certain you’re all right, glavâ?” Lyudmila asked. Are you still
yourselflyourself?
Yob tvoyu mat’! I knew we should not have come with the Krondak mind-fuckers so suspicious of you—

“Perhaps you should let a redactor check you out, Intendant General,” Ragnar Gathen suggested. He was the Fleet’s Chief of Operations, second in command to Owen Blanchard. “Severin Remillard’s just inside—”

“No,” the Russian said hastily. “I am—I am perfectly well … And as I was saying, before the world turned upside down”—the three officers laughed dutifully—“you may count upon our full cooperation when the skeleton crews arrive on Astrakhan to take charge of my flotilla of dreadnoughts. The armaments are—they are installed. Yes! All is in perfect readiness. Of—of course we have not been able to test the weaponry in actual maneuvers.” He muttered something in Russian and then shook his head as if to clear it. Lyudmila Arsanova looked at him with concern but did not speak.

“You can leave all that to us, Intendant General,” Owen Blanchard said. He mentally indicated the officer who had stood by in silence during the brief exchange with his two superiors. “The Deputy Chief of Operations, Walter Saastamoinen, will see that the ships are made combat-ready. They are his responsibility.”

“May—may I know where you intend to hide my dreadnoughts?” Terekev inquired.

“In a sparsely inhabited region of space,” Saastamoinen said, “where it’s highly unlikely that any Milieu snoopers will ever find them.”

“But you will not tell me where.”

The Deputy Chief only smiled.

“It’s quite possible,” Owen Blanchard said, “that these colonization vessels won’t ever be used in combat. In our current strategic overview, we’ve classified them as tactical backup, in case the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Fleets are armed by the Milieu and threaten our actions closer to the Old World. So far there’s been no sign of that. But we’re keeping a close eye on Elysium and Assawompsett.”

“I see.” Ruslan Terekev once again touched the abrasion on his forehead with his handkerchief. His self-redaction had nearly healed the surface of the small injury but he looked ashen and distracted. “Then your own Twelfth Fleet, armed with CE operators and conventional X-lasers, will be the Rebellion’s primary line of offense?”

Owen Blanchard’s tone was respectful. “I can’t discuss it, Intendant General. Not yet. Marc will brief you himself when he feels that the time is appropriate. All you need do now is arrange for the covert departure of the ships from your dry docks.”

“Yes, yes,” Terekev said in some irritation. “It has all been taken care of.”

Lyudmila Arsanova spoke up quickly. “When the dreadnoughts are ready to lift, a flare of what appears to be solar radiation will throw our Astrakhanian orbital monitoring systems into a state of temporary malfunction. By the time the scanners are repaired, the starships should be safely escaped into the gray limbo. I have already taken steps to program the so-called flare into the monitor computers. The subterfuge can be activated at a moment’s notice from our command post at Nizniye Torgai, adjacent to the dry docks.”

Owen said, “Then we’re all set. Walter and his skeleton crews should arrive on Astrakhan within twenty days.”

Lyudmila smiled politely at Walter Saastamoinen. “I am sorry that we will not be able to show you much of our beloved Russian planet, Deputy Chief. But you and your personnel will be given as warm a welcome as we can manage, under the circumstances … And now, gentlemen, I must ask your indulgence. The Intendant General needs a brief period of quiet in order to restore himself completely.”

There were solicitous remarks and farewells, and then Arsanova took Terekev by the arm and led him off the terrace and into the jungle-gardens that surrounded Patricia Castellane’s residence.

“She seems to be screening for both of them,” Owen Blanchard noted, following the pair with his ultrasenses. “The old boy must have been more severely hurt by the fall than he let on.”

“He’s a queer fish,” Ragnar Gathen said. “I hope we can trust him. Arky O’Malley confirms that the dry-docked ships are fitted and ready, but I still have a funny feeling about this whole Astrakhan business.”

“So does Marc,” the Commander-in-Chief said quietly. “That’s
why Terekev’s not going to know where we stash his precious dreadnoughts. Not till our war is won.”

You should have fed! I
told
you to feed before we came!

I am well enough. The injury is nearly redacted away. Feeding is unnecessary for now. It … sometimes distracts me from appropriate lines of thinking.

You don’t seem yourself. I’m concerned—

Be silent!

Apprehension. Oh my beloved Fury let me take you away from here immediately. Let me help you to feed—

Not yet. It’s true that I’m still somewhat shaken but I will not leave this party until I have discussed certain strategic matters with Marc. Those damned Krondak surveillance agents are inescapable on Astrakahn but they didn’t dare follow me onto Castellane’s planet. And … I want my meeting with Marc to be unexpected on his part. So he’s less inclined to attempt a probe.

Are you afraid he might recognize you? Is that it? Is your metacreative disguise faltering? Be frank with me Fury! You know how desperately worried I’ve been about you. About your integration.

I am as wholeminded as I ever was.

If you say so.

See to your own vitally important affairs my dearest little one. See that the New Hydra thrives and grows strong. Coerce Strangford and her metaconcert group into designing the proper configuration for the 600X team of Mental Man.

You know I’ll follow your instructions precisely. [Reproach.]

I feel much better now. It’s time for me to speak to Marc. And time for you to begin work on Helayne Strangford and her colleagues.

Very well. But when we leave here I will help you to feed. You
must
feed.

Later. Later.

The music of the fire-moths, temporarily interrupted by the earthquake, had resumed. Marc walked in the garden with Patricia Castellane on pathways lit by stone lanterns and thick with fragrant fallen flowers. Overhead the glow of the insectile singers waxed and waned in eerie unison as they chimed their four-note summer melody. The numbers of party guests were beginning to dwindle and Marc and the Dirigent met no other strollers. Inside, Shig Morita was playing a jazz piano version of Bill Evans’s
“Turn out the Stars” for the diehards. The melancholy tune sketched a counterpoint to the fire-moths’ song.

“A fine mess for the groundskeepers to clean up tomorrow.” Patricia kicked at the drifts of blossoms with a silver slipper. “But we got off lightly on our first Big One. The orchid trees will bud again, and inside of a month they’ll be as lovely as ever.” Her long gown of peacock lumasheen was bias-cut in the style of the 1930s and worn with several ropes of blue pearls. Marc had on a white dinner jacket and black silk turtleneck.

“You’ve never had a severe quake here in Chelan Metro before?”

“Never. But when I was a little girl my family lived in Loup Loup near the Methow coast. We had a Richter 7.5 that flattened the town and sent a gigantic tsunami over the inhabited islands offshore. Thirty-one killed by the quake, almost six thousand drowned by the wave. Of course in those days the seismic forecasts were still unreliable and the authorities hadn’t yet cracked down on flimsy construction.”