Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (20 page)

The Krondaku’s mind was reassuring in response to her anxiety-laden use of the second-person familiar. “The Lylmik, who selected the seven Remillard siblings to be magnates of the Concilium, would hardly nominate persons of dubious integrity. Marc is, I admit, a knottier problem. He is certainly an egocentrist, imperfectly adherent to Milieu ethics, and capable of almost anything. But I hardly think that a human stripling—even one as mentally talented as this one—has the metapsychic wattage to hoodwink a couple of old pros like thee and me, my dear Moti Ala.”

“Thou hast not struggled amongst these barbarous folk for thirty-eight orbits as I have, Lek! It’s been one nasty surprise after another … The Galactic Milieu laid a heavy burden of trust upon the Simbiari race when it gave us Humanity as our first Proctorship. All through these difficult years, I have often in the desolate hours of night fought back the growing conviction that we are inadequate to the task.”

“Balderdash, Moti Ala.” A tentacle patted her silvery shoulder, and she felt suffused by a cheering psychocreative boost to her chlorophyll.

“No, seriously, Lek. I must still ask myself why Paul was afraid that his wife was alive. And why I was unable to look deeper into this fear or find any explanatory data for it in the mind of Paul’s son. It’s
impossible
that humans should be able to resist our metaconcerted coercive-redactive probing! Yet …”

“It is impossible. As thou sayest. Only our Lylmik mentors surpass us in the deep-probe function. Art thou suggesting that we refer this affair to them—express our misgivings and petition for delay of inauguration of the seven Remillard
magnates?… Or wouldst thou go further and request an extension of the Proctorship?”

The two of them, by unspoken consent, reentered the parlor. The Chief squared her shoulders and made her decision.

“No,” she said evenly. “I would not go so far as that, Evaluator.” She returned to the formal vocal mode. “You will notify the Select Committee on Orb that the Earth Proctorship Magistratum issues a pro tempore acquittal of both Paul Remillard and his son Marc, who have been adjudged not proven of contriving the deaths of Teresa Kendall and Rogatien Remillard. Paul is also adjudged not proven of conspiring to conceive an illicit child. You will notify the Committee that the investigation into the disappearance of Teresa Kendall and Rogatien Remillard will continue. We will maintain covert surveillance of the boy, who may have a synchronicitous relation to the crimes.”

“I will transmit the decisions, Enforcer Chief. Meanwhile, we will expect to receive ongoing updates concerning the other case—the bizarre murder of Intendant Associate Brett Doyle McAllister. I confess I am both intrigued and mystified by the apparent draining of life force through intricate and symmetrical psychocreative wounds. The killing technique is curiously reminiscent of that of the so-called Vampires of Shigoomith-4, a preemergent race that most fortunately extirpated itself before attaining interstellar travel some forty-two Galactic millenaries ago.”

“Chaos take your extinct vampires!” the Chief exclaimed with asperity. “We have no useful data whatsoever in the McAllister case. No suspects once the seven Remillards and Marc were acquitted, no motive, no clues, not even a confirmed mode of death. Nothing except the fact that the victim was married to one of the Remillard Dynasty—just as Teresa Kendall was.”

“You still intuit that there might be a connection between the cases?”

“We shall keep open minds concerning the possibility.”

“These enigmatic Remillards!” Throma’eloo uttered a great sigh. “So talented. So controversial. So … important. One can hardly forget that in one hundred and thirty-one days, this same remarkable family will be among the first humans to become voting members of our Concilium. The fact cannot help but color one’s investigative judgment. If it
were possible that members of the Remillard family had managed to conceal evidence during coercive-redactive interrogation, the very jurisprudence of the Milieu would require restructuring—taking for granted, as it now does, that the truth is always obtained through mental probing …”

Moti Ala Malatarsiss felt the finally admitted uncertainty hit her like a blow in the chops. “Thou
dost
think we ought to put it up to the Lylmik! Thou hesitateth to say so flatly out of a delicate regard for my ego, not wishing to undermine what thou perceivest to be my teetering self-esteem!”

“Poppycock, Moti Ala,” said Throma’eloo. “Thou art valiant as ever—only perplexed by this admittedly discrepant situation.”

“Right.” The Chief’s face began to glisten again. “So I’ve changed my mind. I want you to report the whole kit and caboodle to the Lylmik Supervisors. Let
them
decide whether to put their Remillard pets—or perhaps even the whole human race!—on hold until we find out what’s going on here. At the least, I would recommend that the Human Polity be put on probationary status in the Concilium for one Galactic year—a thousand Earth days.”

“I will do as you request, Enforcer Chief Malatarsiss.”

Throma’eloo Lek opened the door to the examination room. The disruptions of the aether had completely subsided. The boy was still lying on the couch, sleeping, and in his sleep he smiled. The Krondaku flowed closer, placed one of his minor prehensorial appendages upon the lad’s forehead, and tried to read the dream.

Marc’s eyes opened. His obdurate conscious barrier was already in place. He stared at the hideous Krondak visage with perfect composure. “Am I innocent?”

“ ‘Not proven guilty’ is the verdict we will submit,” said Throma’eloo Lek. “You have been acquitted. Do you feel able to walk?”

“Certainly.” The boy was smiling again, and he got up off the couch easily. “It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had been led to expect. Bad enough, though.” The smile vanished and the gray eyes were suddenly cold.

The Krondaku let his redactive probe slide lightly over the boy’s mental shield. It was perfect, an artifact worthy of his own race of metapsychic titans. Oh, yes—a conference with the Lylmik was indeed called for! He said aloud, “Do you resent what was done to you?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Marc’s voice was neutral. “I suppose I do concede the Magistratum’s right to probe me. But not … the vehemence of the operation. You slipped a block into my memory, but I know that you caused me great pain and forced me to expose my innermost thoughts to you. I think this was wrong. Most humans still believe that the will of the individual should be inviolable, that no one but God has a right to know a person’s most secret thoughts. But this is contrary to your Unity, isn’t it?”

“No. You misunderstand. I suggest that you study the principle of Unity more carefully, even though you are still far too immature to fully apprehend this most sublime concept, which is the very operational basis of the entire Galactic Milieu … A mind immersed in Unity is at once sovereign and coadunate. And incapable of committing the kinds of offenses you were suspected of. Since your race is still of client status, noncoadunate and unUnified, we do not hold your will to be sovereign and untouchable. We are thus justified in having taken the most strenuous interrogatory actions in cases as serious as these.”

Marc nodded coolly. “Thank you for explaining, Evaluator.”

“You are welcome.”

Marc turned to the Simbiari official. “May I go now?”

“Please wait in the lift area for your escort to North America Tower.” Chief Malatarsiss was distant. “He will bring along your notice of acquittal.”

“Thank you,” said Marc. He left the room without haste.

The two exotics bade each other a perfunctory mental farewell, after which Evaluator Throma’eloo went out by another exit. The Chief went back into the parlor for more Kleenex to refill her platinum sabretache. For some reason, her face and palms had begun to sweat heavily again, and the next examinee was almost due.

F
OUR ENTITIES OF THE
L
YLMIK
S
UPERVISORY
B
ODY WERE IN A
slightly edgy mood, having spent a considerable time deliberating over the disturbing data transmitted by the Krondak Judicial Evaluator, Throma’eloo Lek. Since no conclusion could be drawn without the input of Unifex (and It was absent on one of Its extraGalactic mystery excursions), they decided a distraction was in order.

So they translated themselves to the chamber where the bodies were kept, and debated actually trying them on. It was a daunting prospect.

“One realizes,” Homologous Trend remarked with a touch of grumpiness, “that Unifex wishes to impress upon the entire Concilium the important status of the group of newly installed Human Polity magnates. But one might also question whether Unifex carries honorific condescension too far in requiring us Supervisors to assume the
actual material aspect
of humanity at the inauguration ceremony.”

“One would have thought astral bodies would suffice,” said Asymptotic Essence, viewing the four upright forms askance. They were displayed in transparent cases extruded from the softly glowing green walls of the room: two male and two female bodies, alarmingly substantial.

“By the Prime Entelechy, but they’re ugly things!” said Eupathic Impulse. “Especially the males. And wouldn’t one
know that Unifex—doubtless exerting Its famous sense of humor—would assign
this
entity to
that
sex!”

Noetic Concordance, the poet, said: “This entity agrees with its feminine designation, having once acted as creative matrix in the generation of a new Lylmik person, the dearly loved Resolute Mandament. This event took place in Fa-Time, and the coercive instigator was none other than Homologous Trend.”

“One admits having forgotten this fact,” Eupathic Impulse said.

“Well, so did this entity,” said Homologous Trend.

They all laughed.

Lylmik reproduction had ceased in Ti-Time, more than eight Galactic revolutions ago. It was generally agreed by the absentminded historians of the race that the tragedy had nevertheless had the happy consequent of initiating the Outreach from the Lylmik Twenty-one Worlds, which eventually led to the establishment of the Galactic Milieu and the beginning of coadunate mental evolution in the Milky Way.

“The long-ago reproductive event explains why Trend was assigned male and Concordance assigned female sex,” said the logician, Asymptotic Essence. “But why is
this
entity, which has never acted as creative matrix, designated female? And why is Impulse, similarly innocent of coercive generation, called male?”

Concordance said, “Unifex contemplated our personalities when making Its sexual determinations. One presumes that Its selection is in some way justified.”

“Oh, indubitably justified,” Impulse said, displaying a tinge of exasperation. “It has certainly worn the human material form often enough on Its own Earthside perambulations—to the scandal of the entities here present. One might wonder whether honoring magnified Earthlings at the Concilium inauguration constitutes Its sole motivation in foisting these fleshy envelopes upon us.”

The other three entities scoffed merrily at their colleague’s misgivings. But then they resumed examination of the bodies themselves, and felt their confidence waver. The things were so dismayingly
solid
. Omega knew what would happen when one actually put a body on …

The individual Lylmik mind was normally invested upon the most diaphanous material substance, all but imperceptible to the physical sensing organs of Krondaku, Poltroyans,
Simbiari, and Humanity. Only members of the hyperkeen Gi could readily differentiate the wispy molecules hosting the Lylmik psyche from those of the inanimate atmosphere. On occasions when, for courtesy’s sake, a visible presence was called for, Lylmik were accustomed to assume illusory astral bodies of varying form. What Unifex was now asking of the Supervisors was something far more radical.

“Regard the lumpish, sinewy feet,” Impulse declaimed. “The unsightly blemish of the umbilical scar. The vestigial pelt, with its inconvenient facial lushness in the male and the odd little patches here and there on the torsos of both sexes. Some of those ridiculous hirsute regions have associated apocrine glands, with secretions that will surely stink once the atmospheric bacteria get to work on them.”

The other three entities cringed.

Impulse was taking a melancholy relish in its catalog of infelicities. “Note especially the inelegant design of the male reproductive organs—tacked on almost as an afterthought without regard to the artistic composition as a whole, vulnerable to injury, kinetically awkward—”

“One wears garments,” Trend said. “We shall certainly do so at the inauguration, since this is the human custom.”

Asymptotic Essence noted gently, “We are procrastinating. Shall we pluck up our courage and perform the experiment?”

“Yes,” said the others.

And in an instant, the transparent cases dissolved and the bodies lived and breathed as the four Lylmik Supervisors became incarnate as moderately youthful men and women who were neither excessively beautiful nor noticeably plain. They were of differing racial stock, and the only indication of their exotic nature was the inhumanly brilliant aquamarine color of their eyes.

High thoughts to you, colleagues—and congratulations! You all look splendid
.

“Unifex!”

Uneasy giggles filled the chamber. Eupathic Impulse discovered, to his horror, that an involuntary vasodilation had turned his pinkish face and countenance bright red.

The Lylmik overlord said, “The phenomenon is harmless, even susceptible to mental override. Let me pass on to you all certain physiological information that will assist adaptation.” [Data.]

Impulse’s blush faded as he applied the program that Unifex had transmitted. “One is thankful for that knowledge. And might one inquire which human form
you
will assume for the inauguration?”