Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (17 page)

Hiroshi wore the sober dark blue suit he had arrived in, a fresh shirt and a bow tie, and the crisply starched white apron his hostess had insisted he don to protect his clothes.

“There! That looks very nice, I think. Thank you for helping me, Citizen Kodama. Now I shall check the oven, and perhaps you will see if the others are ready for dinner.”

The Intendant bowed and hurried off down a hallway past the kitchen, a place of intriguing smells and considerable clutter, to the sitting room. Its floor and walls were of varnished light wood. Sitting in one corner on a stone slab was an ornate black cast-iron stove with a brass finial on top. Ragnar, Owen Blanchard, Will MacGregor, Alan
Sakhvadze and his wife Oljanna Gathen, and Jordan Kramer had been out fishing together. They had changed into clean casual clothing and now lounged about, discussing the day’s sport, on the settee and easy chairs, which were covered with well-worn chintz. Cordelia Warszawska, a tiny, sweet-faced woman notorious in the European Intendancy for not suffering fools gladly, was standing at a carved pine table in front of the open window, arranging a large bouquet of wildflowers she had picked.

Anna Gawrys-Sakhvadze had remained in the sitting room most of the day, catching up on the flood of physics literature that sometimes seemed to overwhelm dynamic-field studies. She had finally put the plaque-reader aside when her fellow conspirators joined her, and was now examining Fru Johansen’s collection of antique wooden tankards, which stood on a wall shelf. She was seventy-one years old, of medium height and sturdily built. Rejuvenation had restored her thick red-gold hair, which she wore in a severe chignon at the nape of her neck, but it had not completely obliterated the web of tiny lines around her green eyes or refined her typically Slavic snubbed nose.

When Hiroshi entered the room radiating thoughts of their impending meal, Anna projected a mischievous thought at him on the conversational mode:

You must forgive me my friend for being amazed that a Japanese gentleman of exalted political rank would help in the preparation of dinner. But the apron looks very nice on you.

Hiroshi removed it with perfect aplomb as the others chuckled. He replied:

For a person of an older generation such a thing would have been unthinkable. We younger men are more flexible. Our women have worked with great zeal to raise our consciousness in such matters. [Image of his wife’s dauntless face.] And besides Fru Johansen is a treasure trove of local lore. Do you know that these Arctic islands retain a moderate climate all year round because of the warming Gulf Stream? The Lofotens have been inhabited since immediate preglacial times. They were once reputed to be the home of supernatural beings. And the fabulous Maelstrom the deadly whirlpool celebrated by Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe is located off the tip of the island just south of here.

Cordelia Warszawska said: It doesn’t surprise me one bit. The scenery is positively uncanny! Crags and mist on the one hand and on the other the sun lighting up the sea until it glows like some fabulous liquid gemstone. I half expected to be jumped by trolls as I hiked among the rocks picking these flowers.

Will MacGregor spoke out loud.
“Our
Troll stayed in bed all morning with a migraine, poor little sod. Do you suppose he’s getting an attack of cold feet as well? And if so, won’t it leave the rest of us in a fine bloody mess?”

Owen Blanchard said:
Will. Bag it
.

The younger members of the company laughed uneasily.

Alan said: Will was only joking.

Will said: Bedamned if I was.

“I think,” Oljanna Gathen said aloud, “that we’d better up-screens and stick with an old-fashioned tongue-wag. Some of the heads around here could give colanders lessons, leaking their latent hostility. And we wouldn’t want to hurt
anyone’s
feelings and have them withdraw in a fit of pique, now, would we?”

“Oljanna’s right,” said Alan. Several others agreed with him.

Jordan Kramer kept his own mind clammed up, so the very serious doubts he had begun to entertain wouldn’t leak out. It was the earnest young American Magnate-Designate’s first meeting with the others. Jordy was the youngest of the group. The ideal of human freedom from exotic repression burned as strongly within him as it ever had; but some of his companions had begun to inspire qualms. Not Owen and Anna, of course; both of them were respected leaders in their fields, richly deserving of their nomination to the Concilium. Hiroshi and Cordelia also struck Jordy as being rock-solid, fully committed to human liberty, and psychologically mature. On the day’s fishing trip, he had also decided that both Ragnar Gathen and his sister Oljanna were the kind of people he’d be willing to risk his neck with in a treasonous enterprise. But Alan Sakhvadze and Will MacGregor, who were in their early thirties, like the Gathens, were another kettle of fish altogether. Jordy wondered why they had been recruited. Both were undoubtedly excellent scientists who had done good work under Anna at the IDFS. But they had not been nominated magnates, and both were bitter at being passed over, so their motivation
might not be completely free of taint. Alan was a quiet, almost colorless man who usually deferred to his outspoken wife, while Will was flamboyant and often tactless.

And then there was the most dubious member of the cabal—ironically, the one Jordy knew best—his own professional colleague Gerrit Van Wyk. Like all the rest of them, Gerrit had submitted to the secret new psychoassay device, which gave a much more accurate mental analysis than redactive probing by human operants. At the time of the testing he was proved loyal to the group. But would he stay that way when the going got tough? Will MacGregor evidently had his doubts. And so did Jordy himself …

“If our enterprise is to succeed,” Oljanna was saying, “we’ll need all the heads we can get. Especially the magnified kind! I move that we refrain from uncharitable cracks about any member of the group, even those of us that richly deserve being sneered at, unless said member is present and ready to defend his or her honor. Do I have a second?”

Ragnar Gathen said, quietly, “Second.”

Will MacGregor uttered an impenitent snort. His hair was a fiery auburn in the sunlight streaming through the window, and his black eyes snapped from beneath thick tangled brows. “Think you’ve put me in my place, do you? I’ll say and think what I please, and the devil with being
nice
, for I’m only saying aloud what the rest of ye think!”

He hoisted his rangy frame out from the depths of the overstuffed settee and pretended to examine the mica windows on the old iron stove in the ensuing silence. Then he looked around and grinned. “Ah, well. No harm done, and the atmosphere needs defrosting! So here’s some news I was going to save for dessert: My dad’s decided to run against Paul Remillard for First Magnate after all.”

There were whistles and exclamations.

Cordelia asked, bluntly: “Why? It’s a one-eighty-degree flip. Davy MacGregor knows Paul has a greater metapsychic armamentarium than he does, to say nothing of charisma enough to blast himself into a solar orbit. Davy is also Denis Remillard’s bosom chum, isn’t he? I thought you told us your father was determined to let Paul take the First Magnate chair by acclamation.”

“Ah, but that was before the murder,” Will said.

Jordy Kramer blinked. “I’ve been busy with a brainbooster
project on Okanagon. But there was something about a killing in the Remillard family on the Tri-D …”

“It was an atrocity, and it was undoubtedly committed by a Grand Master operant.” Will opened the fire door of the old stove and peered inside. It was full of kindling and ready to light. “When the news broke about the entire Dynasty and young Marc being suspects, my dad farspoke Denis immediately. You know: ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe.’ Denis pooh-poohed the idea of any of his spawn being responsible for the crime. Said he knew their minds inside out. But yesterday Dad got word from a source inside the Magistratum that the exotic investigators are pretty well convinced that only a Remillard could have done the killing. There’s really no solid evidence to back that conclusion, but it was enough to get Dad’s knickers all in a twist. Three of Paul’s siblings are now supposed to have been completely exonerated; but the other four and Marc are still very much under suspicion.”

“Which four?” Owen Blanchard’s voice was tense.

“Catherine, the wife of the murdered man, her older sister Anne, Adrien … and Paul. That’s the main reason Dad has decided to run against him.”

“Holy shit,” whispered Alan Sakhvadze.

“Does he have a chance?” Oljanna Gathen asked. “Will the suspicions of the Magistratum be made public, so the other Magnate-Designates will know?”

Ragnar said to his sister, “That’s very unlikely. The exotics
want
Paul for First Magnate.”

“He’s a gonzo champion of the Galactic Milieu, and he favors coadunation of our racial Mind,” Hiroshi Kodama said in clipped tones. “Ask anyone who has heard his speeches in the Intendant Assembly in Concord. The Unity is like a Holy Grail to him.”

Cordelia Warszawska turned away from her flowers to face the others. “Hiroshi is absolutely right.”

“Right about what?” inquired a querulous voice. Gerrit Van Wyk, alias the Troll, came slouching into the room. His sparse blond hair was disheveled, and there were deep furrows between his eyes and angling beside his wide mouth. His mind-tone was that of a man with a skull spun of the most fragile glass filigree.

“Gerrit, dear.” Anna was solicitous. “I see your migraine
is better. It would have been such a pity for you to miss Fru Johansen’s fine dinner.”

“I might manage a bite,” Van Wyk said ungraciously. He assimilated the news that Anna broadcast to him and blinked his slightly protuberant blue eyes. “Well well well! So the great Paul Remillard’s a viable suspect in the murder, is he? And his son, too!” He uttered a cynical laugh. “I’d say it was to our advantage to make sure that as many Magnate-Designates as possible know about that. If Paul wins, we’ll have to unveil the psychoassay device whether we want to or not and reopen the inquiry into the crime. Can’t have a homicidal First Magnate, can we? Or even a First Magnate with a killer besmirching the family escutcheon. On the other hand, if Davy MacGregor wins First, our noble cause gets two significant boosts. We can keep our mechanical mind-probe secret for a while longer, ensuring that it doesn’t get used on
us
. And with Davy leading the Polity, we can actually have open debate on humanity’s subjection by the Milieu.”

“That’s our best hope,” Owen said. “As the Human Polity becomes autonomous, those magnates who hold to our point of view might stand up and be counted under the leadership of a man like Davy MacGregor. Under Paul, the political climate would be much less favorable.”

“There are probably plenty of other M-Ds who think that humanity belongs outside the Milieu,” Gerrit sniffed. “And even more who think the Remillard gang is a pretentious collection of superior assholes. ‘First Family of Metapsychology’! What a laugh. If those exotic nominators considered
nobility of character
rather than the mere size of the metaquotient, hardly a one of the Remillards would qualify for a Concilium seat.”

There was an uncomfortable pause, in which all mind-screens of those around Van Wyk were tightly shut, while at the same time everybody had the identical, reprehensible thought.

Finally Anna sighed. “We will have to use every weapon at our command to help bring about Davy MacGregor’s victory over Paul Remillard. Gerrit is right about the family being resented. When the seven of us who are Magnate-Designates go to Orb, we must be prepared for action. We will decide upon our strategy here tonight.”

There were murmurs of agreement. Then Ragnar’s urgent thought silenced them:

She’s coming!

Fru Inga Johansen came into the sitting room, smiling shyly, her hands clasped in front of her apron. She said, “Vær så god! Dinner is now ready.” And they all followed her out onto the balcony and for the next hour and a half forgot completely about the Galactic Milieu.

First there were toasts in aquavit—to a venture carefully left undescribed, to absent colleagues and well-wishers known and unknown, and to David Somerled MacGregor, Intendant Associate for Europe. After the “Skål” came beer chasers, and appetizers in the form of Lofotkaviar—preserved cod’s roe—and smoked salmon shaved so thin as to be translucent, and succulent corned trout, all accompanied by rye rounds and local butter. As they wolfed these down, Fru Johansen carried in a tureen of steaming ølsuppe, ale soup, which was served garnished with tiny salt twists.

“Superb!” Gerrit Van Wyk beamed upon Ragnar’s grandmother, demanding a second helping of the soup. He had hogged most of the corned trout, too. “And what will be our pièce de résistance, madame?”

“More fish, of course!” Ragnar cried, and he leapt from his seat. “The pride of the islands! I will help Bestemor Inga bring it in.”

The entrée was a deceptively simple dish of breaded baked cod with grated goat cheese called Reine-torsk, served with a sauce of thick sour cream. Gerrit went into raptures over it, and all three of the large serving dishes were eventually scraped clean. Then came a råkostsalat of lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, and cauliflower lightly tossed with mayonnaise and sprinkled with chopped dill.

Ragnar refilled the beer pitcher and Oljanna helped serve the fjelldessert, homemade macaroons sprinkled with multer—rare orange cloudberries, something like small raspberries, that grew wild in the cold bogs of the islands. Each serving was decorated with whipped cream.

As the dessert was devoured, the old lady rose and regarded them all with a smile that mingled fondness and the faintest tinge of reproach. “And now I will leave you to your discussions. There will be coffee and cookies in the sitting
room, and the cognac and liqueurs. I am going down the road now to visit an old friend, and I will be gone for quite a long time. Forget about the dishes. I have one of the new ionic cleaners that will make short work of them when I return late this evening.”