Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (63 page)

“What will ye do, Dorrie? Is there no way to put an end to it? We know that loyalist human starships of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Fleets are zipping from hell to breakfast touching down on every colonial world, but they certainly aren’t being deployed militarily. Our best intelligence guess is that the ships are just carrying bloody messages. But about
what?”

Dorothea said, “You’ve guessed correctly, Dad. We haven’t wanted to use subspace communication or ordinary long-range farspeech because of the possibility of interception, so our communiqués are being sent via courier. We can’t risk misunderstandings at this point.”

Ian’s eyes lit up with hope. “So ye
do
have some nonviolent counterploy in the works!”

Jack said, “Loyalist humans are trying to find a way to resolve the matter, yes. But you can hardly expect us to discuss our strategy with you. I’ll tell you this much: Every human member of the Concilium still faithful to the Milieu has returned to his or her own planet. I myself am the only temporary exception. We don’t intend to negotiate with you Rebels and we don’t intend to fight you. What we do intend is to end the Rebellion by a means that we hope will be nonviolent. Davy MacGregor will be sending a message to Marc five days from now—but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t know about it and tell him to expect it. The gist of the response is this: The exotic races have agreed that the defense of the Milieu against the Metapsychic Rebellion is to be directed solely by loyal human magnates. Whichever side is victorious in … a certain upcoming confrontation will be granted primacy. If you Rebels win, humanity will be cut loose from the Milieu. If the loyalists win, those operants refusing Unity will be sequestered. Nonoperant Rebels will have their personal liberties restricted more drastically than they were during the Simbiari Proctorship.”

“Who are the magnates directing the Milieu’s defense?” Ian demanded bluntly.

Jack and Dorothea only looked at him without speaking.

Ian rose from his seat, his face agitated by conflicting emotions. “It’s you two—isn’t it! The only loyalist paramounts! You’re going to take on Marc. But how? Do you have a CE metaconcert of your own?”

Dorothea got up, went to her father, and took his hand. “We’re leaving Caledonia tomorrow morning. You’ll soon know the answer to your questions. All of them.” The diamond mask dissolved, revealing a plain, heart-shaped face. She kissed her father on one rugged cheek. “Goodbye, Dad. I do love you. When the time comes, make a true choice with your own heart. Don’t let Marc Remillard choose for you.”

The hard, sharp-edged gemstones masked her again. She and Jack left the study.

“Wait!” Ian cried. “What choice? What do you mean?”

But neither of them answered. They hurried to the front door with him following after, made a brief apology to a bewildered Janet, and went away into the rain.

Ian Macdonald stared dumbly at the closed door.

“What in blue blazes is going on?” Thrawn Janet asked him.

“They’re leading the counterassault. Against the Rebellion. Dorrie and Jack.”

“Hellfire and double damnation,” muttered Janet. Hesitantly, she added, “Wouldn’t you call that sorta valuable intelligence? I mean, shouldn’t we notify Calum Sorley? So’s he can maybe stop the two of ’em taking off in that little Scurra starship of Jack’s? If they’re the leaders—”

“No!” said Ian Macdonald. He whirled about, seized her by the shoulders, and shouted, “You won’t say a word about them and neither will I! Do you understand me, woman?”

“Reckon so,” said Janet. Exerting herself minimally, she pried her husband’s hands loose, took out a handkerchief and wiped the tears from his face, and then led him into the library where strong coffee and soggy scones with raspberry jam waited.

J
ACK AND
D
OROTHÉE RETURNED TO
E
ARTH
. T
HEY CAME
together to my bookshop on a gorgeous late spring day and gave the Great Carbuncle back to me with their thanks.

I asked them if they knew what the Milieu was going to do, now that Marc’s deadline had come and gone ten days ago.

“We’re going to try to stop him, Uncle Rogi,” said Ti-Jean.

He squatted on the floor of the shop, stroking old Marcel. We were in the little customer lounge up front. Tulips and hyacinths were blooming around the base of the trees along Main Street and students ambled by in shirtsleeves and light dresses. Ordinary Old World people, operant and non, had managed to put Molakar out of their minds. After all, it was far away and the victims had been nonhuman.

Dorothée was wearing an oversized red T-shirt and white shorts that looked exceptionally bizarre with her diamond mask. She said, “We returned to Earth for a brief visit to Hawaii, and to pick up Paul. In an hour or so we’ll be taking off again in Jack’s starship.”

“Where to this time?” I asked.

“Davy MacGregor will give Marc the Milieu’s response to the Metapsychic Rebellion on Monday, May twentieth. He’s notifying the Rebel Council that we’re coming to the c-space of their headquarters world, Okanagon, so they’ll be able to get their armada emplaced.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, awestruck. “Will it be a space battle?”

“Every operant person will know what happens,” she replied. “We’ll try to arrange it so that the nonoperants will as well. But this confrontation won’t be a Tri-D spectacle like Molakar. The
battle will be for the Human Mind—but it will be very different from what you might expect.”

“Or Marc,” Ti-Jean appended. He tugged Marcel’s soft ears one final time and then stood up. “We can’t stay any longer, Uncle Rogi. Thank you for all you’ve done for Diamond and me. Be sure to hang on to the Great Carbuncle.”

Before I knew what was happening he folded me in an embrace. Then Dorothée took off her diamond mask and kissed me goodbye. Her face was very beautiful.

The events I will relate to you now have come partly from my own memories and partly from information received.

The long trip to and from the Concilium session on Orb had taken a severe physical toll on Paul, and he was recuperating in the old Remillard house around the corner and down the block from my bookshop, where Lucille still lived. Jack and Dorothea found him in the sundappled back yard, relaxing in a lawn chair with a plaque of
War and Peace
. When they expressed surprise at his choice of reading matter he only laughed.

“I never got around to reading this and I’ve always regretted it. I’m about halfway through, and I figure to finish it off during the voyage to Okanagon. If there’s time, I’ll also try to read Milton’s
Paradise Lost
. I’ve heard that the villain steals the show.” He started to get up. “I’ll be ready to go in a jiffy. I’m already packed.”

Jack restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait for just a moment, Papa. I’m sorry, but Diamond must do a redactive scan of your faculties. To be sure.”

Paul gave a martyred snort. “Go ahead.”

She placed both hands on his head. He tensed, then cried out softly and subsided into the chair, momentarily insensible.

Jack said, “How does it look?”

“He’s deeply fatigued and the psychic energy level is very low. But the neural structures are fully regenerated.”

Paul stirred and snapped back to full alertness. “Well? Was I all right? All systems back on line and ready for action?”

Dorothea nodded. “Your vitality is still below par, but your armamentarium is structurally adequate for the confrontation.”

“Good. I’ll get my stuff and we’ll be on our way.” He got up and headed for the house.

“Papa, you don’t have to do this,” Jack called after him. “We may not even need a telergic transfer monitor.”

Paul looked back over his shoulder. His face was sober. “But if you do need one, you’ll need him very badly. I may not be good for much, but that’s one job I still can do. Wait here.” He went in through the kitchen door.

“You mustn’t try to dissuade him, Jack,” Dorothea said. “He loves the Milieu with all his heart and soul and he has a right to participate.”

“But he looks so tired and ill, Diamond. His aura’s even more diminished than it was in Orb.”

“He’s strong enough and it’s what he wants to do.”

Jack sighed. “Yes.”

The back door opened and Lucille Cartier came out into the yard and greeted them.

“Everyone is ready,” she said quietly. “I don’t think there’s a loyal soul in Hanover who isn’t preparing for Saint Augustine’s Day.”

“Is that what they’re calling it?” Jack said, his expression bemused. “How very Shakespearean! Let me see, how will it go?
‘This story shall the good man teach his son; / And Saint Augustine’s Day shall ne’er go by, / From this day to the ending of the world, / But we in it shall be remembered—/ We few, we happy few, we band of brothers …’ ”

“Don’t be concerned about us here on Earth,” Lucille said. “Your instructions will be followed scrupulously—even if we don’t understand them.”

“The other worlds are ready, too,” Dorothea said, “hoping and praying for victory. The whole thing’s a prayer, in a way.”

Lucille smiled. “Denis thought so, when we were together on top of the mountain just before the Intervention. I like to think he’ll be with us on Saint Augustine’s Day, too.”

They said their farewells. Then Lucille went off, dry-eyed, and Paul emerged from the house with a small carry-on bag, ready to go.

On 27 May 2083, Earth time, a very small starship broke through the upsilon-field superficies into the c-space of the planet Okanagon, which hung in the sky like a brilliant clouded azure lantern some 400,000 kilometers distant. The colonial world had only a tiny natural moon, Chopaka, but more than two hundred artificial satellites orbited it in a sparkling swarm.

When the vessel had achieved a synchronous orbit above the planet’s equator, it disgorged a tiny shuttlecraft, which moved off until it was 50 kilometers closer to the planet.

Paul’s farspeech said: Shuttle in position.

Jack said: Very well. We’re deploying the Kauai gem.

The airlock of Scurra opened and a tractor-beam thrust forth a transparent red sphere slightly less than a meter in diameter. Although the thing had no obvious orbital-correction machinery, it took up and maintained a position 2.9979 kilometers off the bow of the little ship, on a beeline between Scurra and Paul’s shuttlecraft.

Dorothea said: Gem deployed.

The com display on the bridge lit up with the planetary Great Seal overlaid with a flashing
WARNING
notification. It said: “XSS Scurra-Two, this is Okanagon ISTC. Your vessel and its auxiliaries now occupy c-space interdicted by the Metapsychic Rebellion. Please state your intention immediately or risk a hostile engagement.”

The young woman in the flying suit encrusted with diamonds sat in a command seat before the starship’s navigation console. Beside her was a pedestal topped by a crystal bowl holding a disembodied brain. Her pseudovoice said softly, “Okanagon Interstellar Traffic Control, Scurra-Two requests communication with Marc Remillard, Chairman of the Rebel Party.”

“Scurra-Two, say who would communicate with the Chairman.”

She said, “Jon Remillard of the Panpolity Directorate for Unity and Dorothea Macdonald, Dirigent of Caledonia—designated advocates of the Human Polity of the Galactic Milieu. We are here for the final confrontation.”

The traffic control computer said, “Please wait.” The icon disappeared. In a moment the com screen showed Jack and Dorothea their own starship, Paul’s shuttle, and a gleaming blood-red speck.

“They’re not scoping us from groundside or from Chopaka Moonbase,” Jack said. “The scan originates from behind us.” His PK touched the pad activating their own external survey system. He commanded: “Survey, Tri-D mode, three-sixty-degree, star-ship analytical graphic.”

The larger display above the console came to life, showing a swarm of 670 representational starship images almost entirely ensphering their own spacecraft at a distance of less than a hundred kilometers. Peripheral displays began a swift presentation of vessel classification and ID. There were 191 Vulpecula-class cruisers, 50 huge Bering-class dreadnaughts, and 429 miscellaneous ships attached to the Twelfth Sector Fleet.

The Rebel armada had exited hyperspace.

*  *  *

In spite of Alex Manion’s deep misgivings, Marc had pushed himself to the limit in order to reconfigure the offensive metaconcert after the Molakar demonstration. He completely reorganized the executive focusing structure and also managed to modify the original monolithic generator into a more versatile tripartite design. By incorporating CE trainees, he had increased the number of 600X operators to 1900, divided into two groups that could be mobilized with great speed and agility. The third group of energizers was more cumbersome and would be held in reserve for critical situations. It comprised 5110 operators equipped with El8 helmets—virtually every Grand Master in the Rebel Party healthy enough to participate. Less than half of them were top-certified in creativity, but they did possess that metafaculty at least at the masterclass level. Marc’s new design had incorporated their minds in positions where they would significantly augment the output of the GM creators in their group for very brief periods without seriously impeding the flexibility of the metaconcert as a whole.

In addition to the mental weaponry, the Rebel fleet was armed with a wide assortment of photonic projectors. Twelve of the midsized cruisers also carried a single robot shuttlecraft bearing an antimatter explosive device that Rory Muldowney’s underworld associates had stolen years ago from the Krondak Planetary Modification Group.

On the bridge of his flagship, Marc and the members of his new prime focus team viewed the exterior scan display with unconcealed incredulity. They were all dressed in CE coveralls, ready to be conveyed to the bay where the 600X rigs waited. The operators on the other ships were already fully invested.

Marc gave a bark of cynical laughter as he studied the screen.
“This
is the Milieu’s answer to our Molakar demonstration? My little brother’s toy starship?”