Diamond Mask (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (36 page)

“We Poltroyans faced rather a similar situation when we were initiated,” Minnie said. “Like you humans, we have a predatory past which we overcame only with great mental effort. This is doubtless why we feel such sympathy for you.”

Patricia Castellane, the recently appointed Dirigent of Okanagon, spoke up sharply. “But your friendship doesn’t extend to the point of being able to show us exactly what Unity entails!”

Fred and Minnie’s distress was obvious. The Poltroyan female said, “Unity cannot be demonstrated, Patricia. It can only be experienced. It can be compared somewhat to the way sexual beings fall in love. No description can adequately portray its reality. Persons may yearn for it, be indifferent to it, or even fear it. But when it happens, its effects are inexplicably transfiguring.”

“That,” said Alan Sakhvadze, an admitted member of the Rebel faction, “is what we’re afraid of: being transfigured to the point of losing our identity.”

“One’s ego remains intact,” Fred said, “but egocentricity becomes impossible within Unity, as does the potential for hostile action toward one’s fellow beings. One is not coerced into abandoning these attitudes, you understand. They simply become inconceivable.”

“And what,” Tamara inquired, “might a Unified operant human do if confronted by a life-threatening
unUnified
human?”

“Resolve the situation peacefully,” said Paul Remillard.

“Or die?”

The First Magnate inclined his head. “The ethic is not unfamiliar to the human race.”

The old lady’s hands, clasped in her lap, were trembling slightly, but her shuttered mind and immobile face betrayed nothing of her emotions. “Long years ago, when human operants were forced to conceal their mindpowers for fear of hostile normals, my dear late husband Yuri and I were lectured on that very point by a Tibetan lama. He told us that aggression—especially the aggressive use of metapsychic faculties—is never morally acceptable. To the day that he died, Yuri refused to accept this teaching. He had seen too much evil that could not be conquered except by extirpation. I
did
believe in the philosophy of nonviolence for a while—until we operants of the Soviet Union were given the choice of fighting for our lives or bowing to martyrdom.” She shrugged. “We fought. We lived. Was it wrong?”

Paul searched her fathomless dark eyes. There was no coercion in Tamara Sakhvadze, no defiance, only stone-hard endurance.

“Tamara, our world has changed. The horrors you faced have vanished forever. The Galactic Milieu is far from perfect, but most forms of injustice, oppression, and want are extinct. Human beings—operant and non—are free to fulfill their potential, to live happy and productive lives—”

“So long as their choice falls within the parameters of Milieu Statutes!” said Alan Sakhvadze, interrupting without apology. “But human reproduction is still licensed, certain religions and certain traditional lifestyles are banned, and migration to the colonial planets is hedged with onerous restrictions. Operant human beings have their liberty even more severely restricted. We’re required to develop our mindpowers to the fullest extent whether we want to or not. We can also be compelled to pursue an occupation or profession that’s deemed most beneficial to the
Milieu—even if we have strong personal inclinations in other directions.”

“Humans have always been willing to accept limitations on freedom for good and sufficient reason,” Paul said. “The more complex the society, the more often the individual human ego must bow to the requirements of the common welfare. Ethics and morality must evolve along with society.”

“
And you know all about ethics and morality, don’t you, boyo.
”

For the first time since Paul had joined the group, Rory Muldowney spoke. The voice of the “Irish” planet’s Dirigent was mild and lilting for all that his features were deeply flushed and his eyes ablaze with some well-muffled passion. He lifted his glass high.

“Then here’s to you, First Magnate! Paul Remillard—leader of the polity … guardian of humanity’s best interests … font of swift justice … troubleshooter extraordinaire. Slainté to you, Number One! You’ll see the lot of us safely wrapped in Unity whether we want it or not, won’t you, you darlin’ noble man! All the human planets and good old Earth to boot.” He emptied the half-full glass in a single heroic belt, set it carefully at the feet of St. Patrick, and stood there swaying in his green formal wear with his head lowered between his shoulders like a befuddled bull. His bloodshot gaze never left the First Magnate.

Paul chuckled uneasily. “Rory, you’re pissed as a newt. Let me give you a shot of redaction so you can carry on with your guest-of-honor duties in proper style.”

Wagging his head in firm refusal, Muldowney surveyed the group with an expression of lugubrious rue. “Yes, by God, I am by drink taken! How else can I find the balls to speak the
truth
about humanity’s distinguished First Magnate?” He raised his voice to a ringing shout. “Listen, everyone! Let me tell you about Paul Remillard’s great devotion to our race … especially to the sweet females of the species.”

Patricia Castellane took a step toward him, her face gone pale with alarm. She seemed to collide with an invisible barrier surrounding the Irishman and staggered back in pained dismay. Davy MacGregor steadied her but made no attempt to intervene. A tiny sardonic smile quirked the corners of the Scotsman’s mouth. Tamara Sakhvadze uttered a feeble sound of protest. A few of the others also halfheartedly voiced disapproval at the same time that they strengthened their mind-screens to the maximum so their own thoughts would remain imperceptible.

Rory Muldowney ignored them, flinging his arms wide in a grandiose tragic gesture. He continued his oration at the top of his lungs and with all the might of his declamatory farspeech. Around him, the noisy throngs of revelers were falling into dismayed silence.

“Let me tell you,” Rory said, “about the way our First Magnate enticed a good woman away from her man and her children with his fine coercive ways! Bewitching her and then breaking her heart so all she could do was long to die. She was a Grand Master Creator, was my poor wife Laura Tremblay. So when Paul Remillard cast her away she went to a high green hill on our Hibernian world and bade every drop of blood within her to turn to solid ice.”

He projected a hideous image into the minds of his audience. The luckless Laura had not caused her body to freeze instantaneously; her body fluids had congealed more slowly once she had irrevocably commanded the fatal process to begin, expanding as they solidified. There were cries of horror and revulsion and many of the hypersensitive Gi uttered faint wails and fell unconscious.

“And thus I found her,” Rory said, canceling the ghastly vision, “deformed and lifeless, all beauty fled along with her tormented soul. Our First Magnate said he was so very sorry. He sent lovely flowers.”

Slow tears trickled down the Dirigent’s florid face. “No one was to blame at all. That’s what they said. The storms of love come and go among us human beings, and nary a one can command them—not me, not my Laura, and certainly not the grand First Magnate of the Human Polity. Still, I want you all to know what happened. Remember it when Paul Remillard speaks of ethics and morals and the greater good. I will, and so will the children Laura gave me. And now I’ve said what I had to say. Beannachtaì na Fèile Pàdraig daoibh! A happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you all.”

After a beat of utter stillness the party guests began to murmur. Some were frankly weeping. Paul, his face gone livid, took a step toward the Irishman.

“Rory, for the sweet love of God—”

Paul never finished. The Dirigent of Hibernia cocked his right arm and delivered a short uppercut to the jaw with blinding swiftness, knocking the First Magnate of the Human Polity of the Galactic Milieu out cold.

* * *

“I presume that was it,” said Asymptotic Essence.

“Indubitably,” said Homologous Trend.

“One will have to spend some time appreciating the nuances of the event,” sighed Eupathic Impulse. “A nodality exists, as Atoning Unifex implied; but one is justifiably suspicious of jumping to the most obvious conclusion.”

H
E WAS THERE ALONE, JUST AS THE
H
YDRA HAD PLANNED IT, SITTING
by the fire with a cup of hot buttered rum and a magazine-plaque programmed with back issues of some flyfishing publication. His four friends were long gone. The units of the multiplex monster watched him from a darkened snowmobile parked in a lane of Alpenland Enclave a hundred meters or so from the little A-frame hut. The snowdrifts were silvered by a small, chill, illusory moon. Most of the nearby dwellings were dark.

She felt his seekersense flick over her as soon as she stepped onto the walk leading to his hut, but the convenances governing polite behavior between nonintimate operants forbade that he take any notice of her arrival until she actually tapped on the door of the A-frame.

There was an Escheresque snowman in Marc’s front yard, a fantastic Strange Loop creation of dizzying entwined spiral limbs and multiple faces. No hands could have carved it: it had been fashioned by an operant mind. Marc’s?

The area around the sculpture’s base had been trampled by small feet. The Great Enemy had been here, visiting his elder brother. She repressed a shudder.

Making certain that her mental shield was strengthened to the utmost, she forced a smile and reached for the brass knocker.

Marc opened the door. His expression was cordial and his aura benign. “Hello, Lynelle. Not celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with our little purple friends?”

“The party’s over. And not with a whimper, but with a considerable bang! I think I’d better let your family tell you about the paddywhacking, though … The real reason I came by was to wish you bon voyage. Meeting you was one of the more memorable events of my first trip to Orb.”

Marc’s asymmetrical smile broadened. “Come in—if you’re sure you’re not afraid of being compromised by associating with a scandalous character.”

Her laughter bubbled richly. “That’s ridiculous. No one was scandalized by your speech except a few dreary archconservatives. And they’re just envious because the Lylmik named a brand-new magnate to be the one and only Paramount Grand Master of the Human Polity.”

He lifted a dismissive shoulder. “The honor and two bux will buy me a tall latte at an Alpenland deli. It isn’t as though a paramount has any real political status.”

As he helped her off with her black velvet evening cape, she looked at him mischievously over her shoulder. “Oh, but he does, you know. When the most powerful metapsychic mind in the human race expresses an opinion strongly, people listen. When you spoke against the outlawing of the Rebel faction, it tipped the balance in the Concilium and helped defeat the First Magnate’s bill of attainder. Dirigent Castellane told us staffers
that the gag bill might have squeaked through if it hadn’t been for you.”