The Adversary - 4 (34 page)

She took it from him and tucked it carefully into the breast pocket of her jumpsuit so that the fuzzy asterism formed a decoration. "My award for valour," she remarked. "If we succeed tonight, I may cherish it for ever."

He lifted his glass to her and drank.

"In the Milieu," she said after a time, "the edelweiss plant grew wild only in high mountains. In the Alps."

"It's the same in the Pliocene." He drained his glass and poured another. "And a somewhat perilous memento, as it turned out. Fortunately for me, young Jasmin Wylie is a wretched shot with a Matsu carbine."

"You found the Monte Rosa expedition!"

"It wasn't difficult. I tried to be circumspect in my observations, but it's obvious that I was expected-and unwelcome. I confess that I decamped without attempting to probe the markswoman's motivation. Did the shoot-to-kill order come from Aiken Drum?"

"I-I'm afraid it was Hagen's decision. The King concurred, however. He's determined to have the aircraft."

"Let him have them."

She was surprised. "Don't you intend to oppose the salvage operation?"

"Why should I? You must reassure Hagen and the King, tell them that I don't intend to revisit Monte Rosa in the foreseeable future." His shadowed eyes held an enigmatic glint. "Nevertheless, I'm glad to have been able to bring you the flower."

The realization was upon her with spine-chilling suddenness.

"You brought it back with you on the d-jump."

"My first effort. Completely enclosed in my gloved hand, of course, which is almost cheating. But one must begin somewhere. Perhaps you'll pass the information along to my son."

Harderharderharder MORE thrust MORE energy Odamn/ DAMN ...

Elizabethlinkcreative/coerciveafferentQUICKLY!

IseeyesNOW ... okaythankGodalmostlosthim ... Bring up the brainstem input again. He's all right for moment with bypass.

(Sleepbabysleep).

JesusGod let's get out ...

They looked down at the small body, pale now against the white white coverlet, the chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. "There's no more pain," Elizabeth whispered. "But he almost slipped away from us, Marc. We went too far, pushed too hard."

"But it worked."

"Yes," she said dully. They rested for a long time, not speaking.

He said, "There's still the torc-circuitry cutoff-the moment of truth. And then the boost to operancy."

She covered her face with her hands, deep in self-redaction.

When she lifted her head the lines of strain about her mouth and brow were erased but desolation looked from her eyes. Her voice was calm. "Marc, I can handle the abscission-but not the boost. Your energies exceed my capacity in this conformation.

I'm too finely tuned in the redactive mode, and Brendan needs brute thrust to break free of the latency."

"Let me take the executive, and we can do it."

Stark terror blended with rage fountained from her mind. "I knew it! This is what you've been waiting for all along, isn't it?

The chance to take control of me!" Youwon'tyoucan'tdamnyou neveragaincontrolGrandMastersprogrammedterminateultimate violationprevented"No, Elizabeth. I would not take advantage of you. Please trust me."

Her control reasserted itself. "I can't risk it. Brendan will be a normal person without the torc, even though he remains latent.

We must settle for that."

Marc leaned over the basket. The long, perfect fingers of his right hand caressed the top of the child's skull, palpating the anterior fontanelle where the brain was protected only by fragile skin, the bones not yet fully knit together. "He could have so much more if you could only bring yourself to trust me."

"Aiken trusted you," she said. "You gave him a metaconcert program to use against Felice, intending that it should kill both of them."

"Nonsense."

"Do you know what frustrated your scheme? Let me show you!" She projected the events that climaxed the fight at the Rio Genii. "It was Felice herself who saved Aiken, in spite of the cost to herself, so that her beloved Culluket wouldn't be annihilated together with the King. When it was all over and Aiken had recovered, he analysed your metaconcert program and removed the mental booby trap. He can use it against you now without danger to himself-and he will, if you try to stop the reopening of the time-gate."

"My children must not pass into the Milieu. They don't realize what they're doing."

"If you're concerned about your personal safety and that of the other ex-rebels, we can give assurance that if you behave peaceably-"

"There can be no assurance if my son leaves here-but that's beside the point."

Elizabeth cried out, "All this is beside the point! The only thing that matters here and now is this child. Will you work with me in the coercer-inferior conformation to complete the redaction, or won't you?"

He inclined his head slowly. One side of his mouth lifted in that smile of peculiar sweetness. Compelling trust, offering to light and rule.

"Follow me," she said, and they began again.

ComebabycomeBrendan. Let go. Come this way not that.

AFRAID.

Let go baby. Try the new way steep but better leading to good things soon to be easy very easy.

NO. AFRAID.

(Now Marc push.) NO [anguish] NO!

(HarderMarcharder burn behind him so he must use the NewWay.) Seebabysee yes O yes come along now Brendan.

(Almost ready ... ) Just try baby try once only then (CUT OFF!) yes.

[ W O N D E R . ] I told you it would be good.

[WONDER.] Yes baby yes.

[Joy. Release. Growth.] Yes. (Wrap up the premotor cortex Marc while I hold. Ah.

Then it's done God done. He's latent but safe. Remove torc ... whatareyouDOINGMarcwhatareNO!! STOP STOP ABADDON STOP DEVILBASTARD STOPSTOPSTOPLet me lead. You need not die. And so ...

[E C S T A S Y.] ... it is done. And so easily.

You-you let us go?

Poor Elizabeth. Of course.

Later, he said, "I'm profoundly sorry that I had to use force.

But it never again would have come so easily for him as it did at that moment. He was ripe, ready; and I felt the end justified the means. I knew you wouldn't suicide. Your unconscious realized that I was no threat, even if your panicky conscious tried to tell you otherwise."

"You devil," she said, nearly paralysed with revulsion.

"I'm only a man, as you are only a woman." His tone was level, almost scolding. "And one, au fond, more comfortable in the subordinate mode, as your late husband Lawrence undoubtedly realized. You might keep that in mind as you ponder your personal predicament."

"No wonder your children hate you! And the Milieu ... "

Wearily, he turned away, moving toward the window.

"Neither you nor the baby was harmed. And he's operant."

A syntactical probe gave her confirmation of the diagnosis.

The infant lay sleeping, his mind cycling in bright dreamlessness.

His skin was a normal rose-ivory colour; the only traces of the fierce blistering were tiny bits of dry crust about the torcless small throat.

Elizabeth sank back into her chair and let her eyes close, fatigued to the uttermost depths of her soul. She heard Marc say:"Children ... You and Lawrence thought your work was more important, and learned your mistake too late. I never intended to have natural children, either. Not after genetic engineering of the normally sited human brain was proved impracticable. Not with my heritage! The vicissitudes overcome by the saintly Jack must have their place in the history texts of your post-Rebellion Milieu. But I doubt whether you know the truth about me and the others-Luc and Marie and poor damned Madeleine, and the stillborn ones and the teratoid abortions, and Matthieu, who would have killed me before birth if I hadn't anticipated him and struck first. Oh, we were a little less than the angels, we Remillards, if the truth be told. One saint and a myriad of sinners! And all except the lucky one, chained to our weak flesh, distracted by its needs, afflicted by the chemical reactions we call emotion. And doomed like all the rest of humankind to evolve only through endless, slow, pain-filled generations-until I thought I had found the way to force evolution's hand. I foresaw a billion human minds released, free and immortal: all of them my children. Engendering Mental Man would have been fatherhood enough for me ... "

There was silence. She saw him standing in front of her, dressed again in the familiar black, but with a golden circlet fastened about one wrist. Brother Anatoly's brocade robe was like a puddle of blood on the floor at his feet.

She said, "But you did father Hagen and Cloud."

"Cyndia wanted children, and I loved her."

"But you couldn't love them?"

"Of course I did. And do. I brought them to this place, knowing they would grow up flawed, less than I, because it was impossible to abandon all that I had left of my dreams. My children still have the potential within them-and not only Hagen and Cloud, but all the others as well. If they'll only follow me."

"You don't understand at all why they want to escape you!"

Her voice was tense with loathing.

"Their vision is limited, like their minds."

"Marc-they simply want to be free!"

He said patiently, "When they were younger, they accepted their destiny willingly. But there were problems on Ocala, attrition among the weaker-minded of my old associates, and I was away on the star-search too much of the time. The children were seduced from the ideal, primarily by a man named Alexis Manion, who had once been my closest friend."

"He's in the history texts, too. The one who attempted to disprove the Unity concept."

Marc uttered a brief laugh. "You'll be interested to know that he changed his mind."

"He discovered the truth, you mean! The Unity is the only way humanity can continue to evolve naturally. You and your followers were mistaken in thinking that it threatened individuality. Evolution toward a Galactic Mind is an inevitable consequent of intelligent life. Coadunation doesn't shackle our minds, it sets them free! It's our nature to need others, to move toward universal love. All the races of thinking entities realize this, even those that are premetapsychic. That's why your children seem to have instinctively perceived the truth of what Manion told them. Why they reject your plan that seems such a logical shortcut to perfection."

"It would work."

"It's too draconian, too devoid of any semblance of love. It would have resulted in an isolation of humankind from the rest of the Galactic Mind. Your scheme has a certain objective grandeur, but its artificiality is just as much of a dead end as the golden torcs of the Tanu."

"We could transcend the human condition," he insisted, "giving every human mind what Jack had!"

What Jack had. Finally, Elizabeth understood.

For the first time, she reached out and took Marc's gloved hand. "Don't you see? With Jack it was the other way around.

Your brother never embraced his inhumanity. Even though his terrible mutation set him irrevocably apart, he insisted on belonging with all the rest of us. You saw Mental Man as the ideal human-but he was too wise to make that mistake. That's why he had to oppose you, even though he loved you. Why he and his wife laid down their lives to end your Rebellion."

"Leaving me widowed, immortal, and damned." He spoke lightly, and his fingers transmitted a faint pressure to underline the jest. Then their hands fell apart. The baby was awake and cooing. "It's time I left, and time you took Brendan to his mother."

He went to open the door for her. At the slight sound, Dedra and the priest, who had been sleeping propped up against each other on the bench, sprang to their feet. The mother burst into tears, and Brother Anatoly prayed a thunderous blessing that roused the entire household. As the corridor filled and jubilant bedlam prevailed, Marc slipped back into the nursery.

A towering robed form waited for him. "My name is Creyn.

I am Elizabeth's friend and guardian. So the work with the child is complete?"

"You saw," said Marc shortly. "And no harm was done to Elizabeth. Stand away from that window so that I can go."

"You have raised Brendan to operancy. Now do the same for me."

"God-you can't be serious!" The man in black levitated and hovered, silhouetted against the dawnlit sky. A nimbus of spectral machinery formed about his body. His hair stirred like water-borne tendrils and he winced as a line of tiny dots stitched across his shining brow.

"If the little one could survive the procedure, so could I,"

Creyn said. "I entreat you."

The transfixed head regarded him with blind eyes.

You fool.

Do you know who I am?

"You are the Adversary, fated from all time to provoke our people. I know what you did in your future world and I know what you did here for the child. I also know what you must do during the aeons between. Help me and I will help you."

I need no help.

"You do. I know where you are to go, and what the work is.

You do not. And my Guild is the custodian of the mitigator, which not even the science of your Milieu possesses. Transform my mind. Raise me to her level and I will give it to you, along with the truth."

The new-risen sun glanced off the small golden torc clasped about Marc Remillard's wrist. The molecules of his body were attenuating into the upsilon-field and he had become as transparent as water. He seemed about to speak but transmitted only a wisp of perplexity, then disbelief.

Creyn said, "I do not lie. Perhaps we will talk next time."

The shadow shrugged and extinguished itself.

When his experience warned him that Elizabeth was on the brink of some explosive reaction, Brother Anatoly took her away from the celebration to the chalet's kitchen, all dim and warm from the night baking and quite deserted.

"The child's healing is a great excuse for a party," the friar said, "but you need peace and quiet now."

He made her sit down at the big trestle table while he prepared a quick breakfast-scrambled eggs and duck's livers and new bread with strawberry jam. As she ate, he encouraged her to talk about the mental feat that she and Marc had accomplished, even though her detailed explanation was all but incomprehensible to him. Nevertheless, Anatoly was able to infer that Brendan's cure was both gratifying and unprecedented. He also strongly suspected that Elizabeth's own life had somehow been at risk during the procedure, even though she refused to confirm this.