Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (24 page)

PAUL
: Annie, I think it would be for the best.

LUCILLE
: Undoubtedly. Please, dear.

ANNE
: Trapped like a rat.

ADRIEN
: Well, thank God that’s settled.
[Image of agenda.]
On to the next item of business.

CATHERINE
: [Screenslam.]

PAUL
: Cat, don’t. You knew when you agreed to come here that we would have to work this out.

PHILIP
: [gently] The project you and Brett worked on is sidelined for complete restructuring. It may take months to replace Brett—if he can be replaced. You must face it, my dear: you’re no longer indispensable to that particular operation. You belong where the exotic nominators said you belonged—on the Galactic Concilium.

MAURICE + SEVERIN + ANNE + ADRIEN + PAUL + DENIS:
Yes
.

LUCILLE
: You know in your heart that we’re right, darling.

CATHERINE
: You were
all
right … from the beginning. If I hadn’t balked, Brett might still be alive.

VARIOUS
: [Indignant horror.]

PAUL
: Cat, for God’s sake …!

CATHERINE
: All right! All
right!
You win! The damned Dynasty always wins! I’ll stop my puerile mourning for Brett, and admit that my project no longer needs me, and accept my responsibility to the Human Polity! Are you all satisfied?

PAUL
: Thank you, Cat.

CATHERINE
: And now for the love of Christ get on with the next order of business—the one all of you have been afraid to face from the start!

MAURICE
: [uneasily] Um … can I get us all drinks first?

LUCILLE
: Come and help me bring in tea and coffee, Maury. We need something to warm us on a night like this.

SEVERIN
: Cognac in my tea, garçon, s’il vous plaît. The good stuff.

MAURICE
: [following Lucille] Canuck Philistine!…

DENIS
: [to Catherine] I understand why you did it, but I’m sorry about your hair.

CATHERINE
: [smiling absently] No big thing. Brett liked it long, but it was always a bit of a nuisance to care for.

DENIS
: I’m a little disappointed that you haven’t noticed the blue orchid. I brought it in just for you.

CATHERINE
: Papa, it’s exquisite … And three blooms at once this time.

DENIS
: You’ll take one home with you.

CSATHERINE
: I couldn’t—

DENIS
: Certainly you will. I insist. [Cuts a flower with his penknife and places it in her hands.] There. I’ll have Maury bring you a plass bubble to carry it in.

CATHERINE
: I—all right, Papa. [Kisses him.] Thank you for—for trying to cheer me up.

ANNE
: All of us loved Brett. But we can’t afford the luxury of mourning. The only meaningful way to honor his memory is to bring his killer to justice.

SEVERIN
: The damned Magistratum has been doing nothing but spinning its wheels since it put the family through their brain-grinder and came up empty.

ADRIEN:
D
O
you know what the latest scuttlebutt theory is? That the murderer is a nonhuman! One of my colleagues in Exotic Affairs told me that the Proctors now suspect a
metaconcert of disaffected Simbiari, since their own race is the only other besides humanity that’s so poorly attuned to Unity as to be capable of murder. They postulate a metaconcert because no individual Simb has the mental wattage to have extracted the summa totalis of Brett’s psychocreative energy in that crazy complex fashion.

PHILIP + ANNE +
SEVERIN +
CATHERINE
: [Incredulity.]

PAUL
: The theory is perfectly plausible.

SEVERIN
: Bullshit. The murder was the work of a psychopathic human operant with a tantric lotus-ladder fixation.

ANNE
: Thank you, Dr. Jung.

SEVERIN
: [doggedly] The seven ashen chakras found on the body can have no other meaning. The police ought to be looking for some Oriental colleague of Brett’s with a professional grudge.

PAUL
: They did. No such person exists. Neither Brett nor Cat has any associates who could be classified as genuine enemies. And among those who are less than warm chums, none possesses high metafunction.

SEVERIN
: Then the perpetrator was a random killer. The idea of a Simbiari metaconcert is absurd. What
rational
motive could our worthy Green Brethren—or anyone else, for that matter—have for killing Brett?

ANNE
: The Magistratum was willing to believe that all of us had a rational motive … until they probed us.

CATHERINE
: Only exotic imbeciles would think that my own brothers and sister would conspire to kill my husband just because I had refused the magnateship!

PHILIP
: [quietly] But now you have agreed.

CATHERINE
: Yes …

PAUL
: The Magistratum still questions whether the forensic redactive probing of the seven of us—and Marc—gave any valid data at all! They suspect that we may be powerful enough to thwart the mind-ream technique.

ADRIEN
: That’s ridiculous. No human Grand Master is that good—

PAUL
: Frankly, I wonder whether this Simbiari villain metaconcert theory might be only a smoke screen.

SEVERIN
: While they continue to suspect us?

PAUL
: Or Marc.

CATHERINE
: My God.

PAUL
: If any human being is capable of resisting Krondak-Simbiari mind-probing, it’s Marc. God knows none of us
can get through his deep screens. Not that I actually suspect him of having anything to do with killing Brett—

ANNE
: We must mount our own investigation of Brett’s death. Use every resource. It’s the only way to clear the family name. Accepting pardons for helping Teresa have her baby is one thing—but an allegation of murder is something else.

ADRIEN:
You know, Annie’s hit the nail on the head. As usual! It’s no secret that the new probation period for humanity was a direct consequent of the murder investigation. Krondak and Simbiari members of the Magistratum even tried to rescind our family’s nominations because of Brett’s death and Teresa’s disappearance. All that saved us was the Lylmik veto.

PHILIP
: Now, there was a curious thing … It might lend credence to the notion of a nonhuman faction attempting to discredit us. The Lylmik would put a stop to that, but they might be willing to let the Magistratum plod on and ferret out the Simbiari cabal on its own.

MAURICE
: [reentering with Lucille] The Lylmik want the Proctorship ended. They want the Human Polity to take its place in the Concilium, and they want the most powerful operants of our race—that’s us!—working
for
the Milieu rather than against it. This is why they’ve decided to ignore the scandals and push on with our inauguration.

ADRIEN
: [ruminatively] Paul, you reported Teresa’s illicit pregnancy to the Magistratum before Brett’s death, didn’t you?

PAUL
: I notified Malatarsiss right after Mama called me. At 1346 hours on Thursday the twenty-fourth. Brett was killed at least fourteen hours later, in the wee hours of the twenty-fifth.

ANNE:
S
O
the exotic metaconcert theory is remotely plausible. Given a conspiracy in the Magistratum itself. We should also keep in mind that Cat’s decision to decline the magnateship was the talk of Concord that afternoon.

CATHERINE
: But … that the exotics should kill, just to impeach us and keep us from taking our Concilium seats.
Why?

MAURICE
: They might be looking ahead. Afraid that what the Lylmik say about humanity’s mental superiority is true. Resenting it.

CATHERINE
: The Galactic Milieu is supposed to be above dirty politics! That’s what the concept of Unity is all about.

PAUL
: The Simbiari are an imperfectly Unified race. Just as we will be someday. The fact that this theory is being taken seriously should indicate to us that a Simbiari conspiracy
is
within the realm of possibility.

ADRIEN
: There’s no way this family can initiate any private investigation of exotics. Not before the end of the probation.

PAUL
: True … Shall we be content to leave matters in the hands of the Magistratum until then?

PHILIP + MAURICE + SEVERIN + ANNE + ADRIEN:
Aye.

CATHERINE
: What if the killer is someone else entirely?

MAURICE
: You mean, some psychopathic Kundalini Yoga adept who murdered Brett with or without a motive?

CATHERINE
: It
could
have happened …

PHILIP
: All the more reason for us to postpone action. The Magistratum is aware of that possibility. Its enforcers can do a better job searching for such a person than we ever could.

PAUL
: So we’re agreed: we wait.

PHILIP + MAURICE + SEVERIN + ANNE + CATHERINE + ADRIEN:
Yes.

CATHERINE
: Then that winds everything up … Mama, Papa, I know you’ll understand if I leave now. Adrien, can we go?

ADRIEN
: Sure, Sis. My egg is your egg.

ANNE
: Let me remind you all of one thing! Tomorrow you will be part of an honor guard escorting me and young Marc to the Kourou Starport in Guiana.

VARIOUS
: [Moans and catcalls.]

ANNE
: Cheer up. You can all have Cayenne chicken and mango daiquiris at the Devil’s Island Rendezvous after the dear lad and I pop into hyperspace. [To Paul] You’ll have him ready? I checked the Orb flight on my wrist-com. We’ll all have to take the shuttle from Burlington at 0635. Keep Marc in the dark until we’re safe at the Kourou boarding gate, won’t you, Paul? Just to be on the safe side. Tell him you’re just seeing me off, and pack a bag for him on the sly. We wouldn’t want him to disappear, or get sick at the last minute, or think up some extremely logical reason why he has to stay here on Earth.