Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 84

There followed a good deal of laughter and other pleasantry.

But all too soon the stars dimmed and disappeared behind an overcast. As the first drops of rain from the next storm fell upon them, they helped each other to dress and had a last kiss. Then Hagen spun a small psychocreative umbrella and they walked under it back to the Castle of Gla.s.s, intending to give their decision to the King.

Aiken was not at home.

Neither was the Guderian Project laboratory, its personnel, the giant sigma-generator, or the twenty-one aircraft that had been parked in the castle courtyard.

There was pain of translation and then he hung in the grey limbo, not for a subjective instant as during his former d-jumps, but for an excruciating quarter of an hour, since he was experimentally transporting three tons of inert matter in addition to his regular armour. He endured while the stubborn fabric of s.p.a.ce bent to his mind's command and the hyperspatial catenary was executed: a nonline drawn through a nondimensional region by a nonforce.

Imprisoned inside the refrigerated and ultrapressurized CE rig, the supercharged brain was deprived of all normal and all metasensory input. Hypers.p.a.ce was without form and void. He was fully conscious and self-possessed within its matrix, as though he rode a superluminal stars.h.i.+p; but there the a.n.a.log ended. If he had been on a s.h.i.+p he might have slept or read or taken light exercise or eaten or amused himself in any number of ways, trusting to the s.h.i.+p's crew and machinery to translate him across more than 14,000 light-years of interstellar s.p.a.ce.

Instead, he was the s.h.i.+p.

He had no artificial guidance system, no computerized routefinder such as a stars.h.i.+p captain had, no engine powered by fusing nuclei to energize his pa.s.sage. The equipment worn by his brain served only to a.s.sist in puncturing the superficies. It let him enter hypers.p.a.ce via an upsilon-field gateway: but once inside the grey limbo, there was only the mental program to provide direction and impetus. It was a wondrous program, purchased at great price, and its use was not for the fainthearted.

Seeming to move along an invisible cable hung between two worlds, the d-jumper did not dare to relax his concentration for an instant. His attention must not falter, must not be distracted from the goal by a single vagrant thought. The goal alone was life. If his mind relinquished it for the millionth part of a second, he would be lost.

He held fast through the endless and horrific minutes, knowing only the goal. It was a star: G3-1668 in his catalogue, a sun he had never bothered to name. He fa.r.s.ensed it more than seven years ago and rejected it because the people were premetapsychic and apparently useless for his purposes. Now, however, of the three star systems that were potential cradles for Mental Man, he judged this one to be the most promising.

So he named the sun Goal, and filled his mind with it in order to forget the events that must be taking place back on Earth In time he reached the terminal superficies. His brain flared, drawing heavily upon the cortical augmentation reserves to suck in more energy. He spun the upsilon-field, thrust the three tons of ballast rock through it, and then followed himself. He knew hideous agony and uttered a cosmic groan. Then he hung in s.p.a.ce, surveying the scene with his mind's eye.

A yellow star lit half of a white-swirled blue marble. It was the fourth planet of the Goal system, home of the indigenous race. He studied it with his fa.r.s.ense for several hours, savouring the respite from pain, then wished himself and his cargo to the surface. This time the d-jump took less time than an eye-blink and caused less discomfort than a plucked lash. The teleported rocks, for whose sake he had risked his life, lay in an undistinguished heap. Some of them were still crusted with frozen mud from the Seine estuary.

Marc forgot them. He emerged from his armour, rendered himself invisible, and walked among the unsuspecting exotic people for two days.

They were bipeds, approximately humanoid in form and approximately saurischian in derivation. They were intelligent, peaceable, and had a birthrate that was probably too low ever to admit of their attaining the "magic number" of ten thousand million living minds, the normal minimum required for coadunation. The planet had an advanced technoeconomy that kept its people prosperous and healthy. Its biomedical establishment was sophisticated enough to support the Mental Man breeding program. It was an attractive world, with an ecology as congruous to human life as any colonial planet of the Milieu.

The people were a hardworking and worthy lot, with a psychosocial index that would suggest rapid adaptation to a benevolent despotism.

It was a world, he thought, that would do nicely. Here, under his aegis, Mental Man would burgeon and flourish and expand His bright dominion from star to star through the aeons to come, the all-conquering and immortal Mind.

And in six million years, there would remain not a trace of Him.He could not pray for the desired outcome. It did not exist and would hot. He wondered: Can I will it?

After two days of observation in the Goal star system, depressed to the depths of his being, Marc d-jumped back to Kyllikki. He farspoke Elizabeth on Black Crag and said: Tell me.

She said: The children gave me their response and asked me to relay it to you.

Very well.

[Image: Daughter and son stand before hilltop stone castle rain lush gra.s.s path bordered white stones flat rock surface with Square.] Hagen: This is Castle Gateway Papa. We're standing on the site of the time-gate leading from the Milieu to the Pliocene.

The gate we all came through. We've thought about your proposition. Both of us. We've spoken to all the other children as well and conferred with the King but the decision was ours.

We've decided to go back to the Galactic Milieu. Back to the world that we were born in back to the mind-family that can help us find peace. We'd never have that with you. Mental Man could never be happy in the form you envision. Not unless each mind was a saint like Uncle Jack was. And saints aren't that common Papa! You aren't one and neither are Cloud and I.

We'll need a lot of help from our friends to make a success of life and so will our children. That's who Mental Man really is Papa ... our children. They're going to be human beings like their parents with bodies as well as minds. Not angels. They'll be frightened by their immortality just as you are ... and we are. But they'll be linked to billions of other minds who'll offer love and support and good counsel. We think that will suffice.

Cloud: We can't go your way Papa. Your vision is flawed.

Deep in your heart I think you know it. There were so many times you could have stopped us compelled us to submit to you even killed us and taken the genes. And yet you didn't. Find out why and perhaps you'll be able to resign yourself to letting us go. Look far back into your past Papa! Understand why you cast Mental Man in this inhuman mould and tried to force yourself and your children to conform to it. I think we are beginning to see the reasons why. Eventually we'll be able to forgive you and you must do the same for us. We'll take good care of your dream and see that it's nurtured in the Unity where it belongs. It will all be for the best. Trust us Papa ...

[Image: Son and daughter gesture walk up path rain falls on louring stone castle barbican gate opens glimpse inner courtyard people machinery weapons SILVER HEMISPHERE FLASHES INTO BEING enveloping entire castle Golden Manikin appears.] Aiken: I've moved the entire Guderian Project from Goriah to Castle Gateway. One of my loyal subjects has hooked up the big SR-35 sigma generator to a pair of SR-15s that I happened to have stashed away-and now Cloud and Hagen are safe inside the sigma-field with all the others. The psychoenergetic equivalent of the stacked screens is over 900 now. You don't have enough watts to break through even if you push your creativity to the limit with the enhancer and mesh all your old cronies into the metaconcert. There isn't a weapon in the Pliocene that can puncture that silver bubble Marc. Not even my photon Spear. Not even Felice could crack it! And the only one who can activate its airlock now is Me ... You're checkmated Marc. Your children told me they'd rather die than go your way. But they aren't going to die. I've taken them under my protection. They're going to finish the Guderian device and go through the time-gate into the Milieu. Right there inside Castle Gateway under the sigma-umbrella if need be. The device will work in there. Ask Alexis Manion if you don't believe me ... I don't want to fight you Marc. I want to resolve this mess peacefully if I can and tend to some other urgent business.

But if you insist on attacking the Guderian Project be a.s.sured that I'll defend it-and so will the minds that work in metaconcert with me. Thousands of them all meshed nicely now under my command in the program you gave me down at the Rio Genii ... I know that the schooner carrying your CE-rig power supply is somewhere in the Gulf of Armorica or the Seine Delta.

You've got her camouflaged with some kind of farsight buzzer.

But if you try to fight me I'll find Kyllikki one way or another and I'll nail her and nail you ... But wouldn't that be a tawdry way to end it now? Wouldn't it be more your style-and mine-to let the Truce prevail? Sail Kyllikki right up the Seine all the way to the Field of Gold-white flag up and screens off.

You and your Rebels are invited to be my guests at the Grand Tourney! Watch the games then kiss your kids goodbye and sail on back to Florida ... Think about it Marc. You have a lot of things to think about.

[Fading image.] Elizabeth said: That's the entire message. Aiken's told you the truth about Castle Gateway. He did move the Guderian Project there-in a single evening. He's regained his strength and integrated the powers of Nodonn and Mercy as well. Don't challenge him Marc. You'll only destroy the Many-Coloured Land to no purpose. Yield. Please!

Marc said: They've made their decision. Now I'll make mine.

It may take some time.

The farspoken voice died away, and all that was left in the aether were reverberations from faraway lightning bolts and a faint rustle of mental static.

Elizabeth sent her tightest farsight beam arrowing along the path of Marc's communication. But at the extremity there was only wind-riffled water where a great river met the sea, and starless night.

In the stern hold of Kyllikki, Jordan Kramer and Gerrit Van Wyk lifted the heavy casque from Marc's head, then helped him from the body armour. The other surviving magnates were there waiting: Cordelia Warshaw and Ragnar Gathen and Jeff Steinbrenner and Patricia Castellane. Off in a corner on a stool, with eyes strangely lucid in spite of the docilator, sat Alexis Manion.

They waited.

Marc said, "The children have declined my offer. As you know now, there can be no Mental Man without them. Cloud and Hagen and the others are at the time-gate site on the Rhone River. Aiken Drum transferred the entire Guderian Project there, and s.h.i.+elded it with a nine hundred power sigma. My son and daughter have said they would prefer death to cooperation with me in the engendering of Mental Man. They intend for Him to be subordinated to the Milieu."

Alexis Manion smiled.

Patricia cried, "You can take their genes!"

"I don't know whether I can or not." He stood there in the black pressure suit, soaked with the amniotic fluid of the enhancer, blood from the electrode wounds flowing thinly down his brow and cheeks. "At the moment, I can't think of any way to break through their defences. I'm not even convinced I should try." One side of his mouth lifted gently. "I find myself precariously tempted to virtue."

"But, if you give it up-it's the end!" Patricia exclaimed.

Alexis Manion said distinctly: Mon front est rouge encore du baiser de la reine.

J'ai reve dans la grotte ou nage la sirene ...

Marc nodded in agreement. "And the siren still sings and holds out the promise, and I'm addicted to the kiss of the vampire-queen."

Patricia said, "You're exhausted. You should sleep. Later you can consider what might be done."

The other magnates added a murmur of half-voiced thoughts.

All of them hid behind thick mental walls.

Marc said to Ragnar Gathen, "We'll sail up the river. I've been told that it's navigable for several hundred kilometres.