Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 83

She started, then laughed. "Yes. You have, haven't you? You Tanu live so long. How long do you live, Kuhal?"

"It's been said that we seldom see three millennia out, the perils of the battle-company being what they are, and the shortage of Skin pract.i.tioners. I was most fortunate to have you as my redactor."

"You began to love me even then," she accused him. "That's what made your healing so effective. Boduragol said so."

"It was mutual."

"It wasn't! We simply have mental affinity. We're very close, but that's not the same as love."

"It's a beginning," he suggested.

"You'll always be my dearest friend. But-"

"You don't wish me to follow you through the time-gate? My presence would be an embarra.s.sment to you? .. Very well. I will stay here."

"No!" she cried. For the first time she let her barriers down.

"I don't really love you-but what would I do without you?"

His mind responded with a formless outcry, human in its joy born of desolation. He held both her hands and she felt the electric warmth of his life-force flow through their clasped fingers and set every nerve ending in her body ablaze. Joined in a single aura, the stately robed figure and the small white-clad one filled the dark corner of the garden with rosy gold light. It lasted only an instant. Then they walked hand in hand through the gate.

"But it solves everything, darling-don't you see?" Diane Manion was desperately eager. "This way, there'd be no worry about the Milieu treating us as criminals, no fear of being punished or possibly ostracized because of who we are ... You say Marc lied to you. But only about inconsequential things! The really important matter-that all of us children should share in the creation of a grand new race of ultrametapsychics-was true! It's what Marc has said all along. What we learned from Falemoana and Dr. Curtis and Trudi when we were little children. But now your father's dream isn't far off in the future, or dependent upon some altruistic race coming to fetch us off this G.o.dforsaken planet. It's now!

We can leave here and begin the work! You and I can have an army of super-Cubs of our own, Hagen! I wouldn't mind the other. I mean, it would be all test tubes and artificial nurture, just like the nonborns in the Milieu colonies, so I couldn't possibly be jealous. I'd be proud!

Darlingyou are the key to this whole glorious idea-not Cloud! If what you say is true, then your sister has only a single ovary. Perhaps one hundred thousand gametes if they all proved viable, which they wouldn't. But you-"

"Lucky me." Hagen laughed softly. "I'm a male, and I could sire millions and millions. With banked sperm and a little tissue culture, Mental Man could propagate for aeons even if I should die. Accidentally."

He was standing at the sh.o.r.e of the garden pond, not looking at her. The night-blooming water lilies gave off a pineapple fragrance. Diane had been almost totally unaware of his mood, so thick had been his mental screening. He had simply confirmed the report that Aiken had given Diane about the meeting with Marc, then asked her for her reaction. Now he had it.

"It's not as though we wouldn't have children of our own," she protested.

"And how will you feel when it comes time to take the babies' bodies away?"

"Bodies ... away?"

Hagen whirled about, seizing her by the arms, crus.h.i.+ng them through the light fabric of her Tanu gown. "That's pan of it, you little fool! Not just for the artificially engendered children-for all of them! They're to be bodiless, like my sainted Uncle Jack, to force them to utilize their full mental potential.

Naked brains that conjure up psychocreative disguises to hide their inhumanity! But better than Jack-oh, I'll hand Marc that!

They'll be immortal, and able to hook themselves into cerebroenergetic enhancers whenever they please, without being inconvenienced by primitive appendages such as arms or legs or hearts or guts. Brains without faces! Without lips to kiss or hands to touch each other. Neat, efficient brains with needle-electrodes in them, glowing white-hot with great thoughts! What will they think about, Diane? Will they dream? Will they find things to laugh at? Will they love each other? Will they love us and thank us for making them that way? Will they, Diane?"

His mind opened, showing a black thing roughly humanoid in shape, self-contained, armoured against the world, divorced from its unnecessary body, its ultrasenses prowling the galaxy on a never-ending search for other minds like itself-and finding none, resolving to make such minds.

Don't cry, Hagen. Don't be afraid. It's only Papa ...

Hagen said, "He's got a second suit of armour there in Kyllikki, ready for me."

Diane screamed.

He folded his arms around her then and held her to his breast.

The white antelope skin of the storm-suit was soft, warmed by the living flesh inside, faintly redolent of wax and tanning compound and human sweat. The face that looked down at her was haggard, wet with tears, in need of a shave, the jaw trembling with tension and still scarred on the left side with the psychosomatic stigma of the hook. A face that was almost Marc's.

"He won't let us go," Diane whispered in terror.

"With Aiken Drum on our side, we can give him a d.a.m.n good run for his money," Hagen said. "And if the old wolf starts getting too close to the fleeing sleigh - well, I can always make Marc a present of the other nut. Then he'd have his Mental Man and we'd be free of him for ever."

She burst into tears, and then she was laughing with him, and then the laughter was smothered in their kisses. He said, "Come on, babe," and led her to the starproof shadow of a flowering daphne. After they had coupled they lay on their sides, face to face and body to body, clinging to one another. The turf was dewy and none too soft and a chill breeze stole over the pond, but still they lay together sharing warmth and breath.

"I wish we could have made Mental Man tonight," he said.

"d.a.m.n that implant."

"I'll ask Becky Kramer to take it out tomorrow."

"The kid will be born in the Milieu," Hagen said, "or we'll just fly away, babe. The three of us. Okay?"

"Yes."

They held each other more tightly and let the mental images drift from one mind to the other. Fears. Elizabeth's rea.s.surance.

Dangers. The possible failure of the Guderian Project. Alexis Manion's persistent rea.s.surance last winter in Ocala that they would only find fulfilment in the Unity ... as would their child.

"And it'll be immortal, like you," Diane whispered tremulously.

"Self-rejuvenating," Hagen corrected her. "And in case you're fearful of losing your endearing young charms, let me remind you that some of the time-travellers in our lab went through four refit jobs in tanks back in the Milieu, and would likely have kept up the good work indefinitely if they hadn't hankered for the primitive life here in the Pliocene."

Diane giggled. "Can't you imagine the consternation among all those sensible stay-at-home Milieu folks when we pop through the time-gate and tell them we have the grandson of Mental Man in embryo?"

Hagen made an indelicate noise. "That'll be the first shock.

If this thing works out, we'll be lucky if the whole exile population doesn't come along with us. Cloud and her faerie prince aren't the half of it."

Diane was quiet for a long moment. "Hagen-she wouldn't stay, would she? She says she doesn't love Kuhal. She wouldn't be tempted to sacrifice herself for the rest of us, would she?"

"For Papa's sake, you mean? Don't kid yourself! In the first place, you were all too right when you noted that in the Mental Man game, the male of the species has natural advantages over the female. Papa wants me. Why do you think he let Cloud go to Europe with Elaby and the others, but kept me there in Ocala? I'm to take his place."

"Cloud has the genes," Diane insisted. "Marc could use her."

"She wants Unity more than any of us! Cloud and Elaby were the first ones to be convinced by Alex that rebellion was the better part."

"But Elaby's dead, Hagen, and Cloud says she'll never fall in love with anyone again and risk the pain-"

"My cerebral sister wouldn't know love if it bit her on the ankle. No matter what she says, she and Kuhal will follow right along with the rest of us ... and if you think our offspring will rock the Milieu, what about a Tanu-Remillard cross?"

"We Manions have our hidden marvels, too. Let me show you one."