Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (14 page)

Parmentier also hinted that he’d seen the creatures himself. Fairly often. Fairly recently. It wasn’t tough to manage if you were a local, he said, and knew the ropes.

I let him have the collection of books at a bargain price. And one dull rainy September Sunday after I’d indulged in a few too many highballs, I called him (old-fashioned phone system up there—no teleview) and talked to him in
French
. (Hey! Us Canucks have to stick together, hein?) I begged him to let me see the wonderful living-fossil monsters, too.

He said, “Hell, why not? Work season for the wardens is over the last of August. Been thinking of going in myself to fish.”

A week later, I was up there, peeking out the broken window of the abandoned forester’s cabin on Ape Lake that he’d stashed me in, trying not to wet my pants as a Bigfoot family eyeballed me from less than five meters away. The father and mother looked like King and Queen Kong dressed in odoriferous auburn fur. Junior was about my height, 185 cents. They ate the fresh peaches I’d set out for bait according to Parmentier’s instructions, and then when I indicated mentally that the fruit was all gone, they threw the pits at me and took off.

I tell you, it was an experience!

Then one day years later, I told a certain weird kid about
my adventure. I also mentioned that the mental aura of the telepathic Gigantopithecus was spookily similar to that of operant humankind. Marc figured out by himself that the steep mountains surrounding little Ape Lake would tend to foil all but a close-up farscan scrutiny, even when the object of the search had a registered mental signature.

There were a few fishermen having supper at the Nimpo Lake resort when we arrived. In the manner of their kind, they paid absolutely no attention to us when we came into the lobby cum dining room of the quaintly rustic main building, looking for Parmentier. The proprietor remembered me well, whacking me on the back and greeting me in effusive Canuckois. He offered sotto-voce congratulations on my having acquired a lovely new young wife and a strapping stepson.

Briefed by Marc, I had the story all ready. First, we would all have a quick meal. Rare steaks would be just dandy. Then we wanted good old Bill to take us to one of the fishing camps he managed on isolated Kidney Lake in Tweedsmuir Park, just east of the Reserve boundary. We realized it was a little late in the day and kind of short notice …

Pas de problème! All I had to do was fly that fancy egg of mine over to the dock pad and dump out the gear. Bill would get the Beav loaded, cranked up, and ready to go while we ate.

Later, when the steaks and delicious garden salad and baked potatoes with sour cream and chives and the blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream were only a memory, the three of us strolled down to the dock. Teresa took one look at our upcoming mode of transport and gave a terrified squeal.

“We’re not going in … that?”

“Of course we are,” said I, heartily.

“But does it really
fly
?” Teresa asked.

Parmentier was just a tad miffed. “Madame, she’s flown for sixty years and may well go another sixty. The De Havilland Beaver is the workhorse of the North! She’s reliable and cheap and goddam indestructible, and I wouldn’t have one of them finicky rhocraft eggs in trade if you paid me.”

The twentieth-century aeroplane rode on the glassy water atop two floats. It was vaguely dented and patched, and the
windscreen plass was age-yellowed and etched with a patina of fine scratches. But the Beaver’s saucy orange-and-white paint job was fresh, and the single propeller was a truly beautiful artifact of varnished laminated wood, without a nick or chip. The aircraft looked elderly but businesslike, and so did its pilot.

Our bags and boxes of supplies and equipment filled the entire open tail compartment and most of the area behind the pilot and copilot seats, leaving a minimal amount of space on the bare metal floor.

“Rogi, you and your boy just crawl in there and squat,” Bill directed. “Your lady can ride first-class up beside me.”

“No seat belts for us?” Marc was aghast. “But this aircraft has an inertial propulsion system!”

Parmentier guffawed merrily. “Don’t hardly need seat belts when you got no seats! Just hang on to that side strap if you feel scared, sonny.”

We all climbed aboard, our pilot began throwing switches, and a minute or so later the big radial engine burst noisily into life. Bill warmed her up. Then he advanced the throttle, and the Beaver roared across the lake toward the setting sun, climbing rapidly and making a deafening noise. Teresa was terrified and gripped the edge of her tattered seat. I was aware of Marc flooding her mind with calming redactive impulses, and I could have used a few myself. The aeroplane circled steeply to give us a nice view of the idyllic resort scene below, tumbling Marc on top of me, then came around to a southwesterly heading.

“Next stop, Kidney Lake!” Parmentier shouted.

But it wouldn’t be. At an appropriate moment, Marc would seize the pilot’s mind with his coercion and compel a course change to another destination, 30 kilometers deeper into the precipitous, glacier-draped mountains. After Teresa and I were dropped off, Marc and Parmentier would fly back to Nimpo Lake. A posthypnotic suggestion would convince Bill that the Remillard family had decided not to fish at Kidney Lake after all. Marc would fly away in the red egg, privacy screens up, and return to New Hampshire by another circuitous route. He would return the Hertz egg to Burlington International Airport in Vermont and take a bus home, fuzzing his identity psychocreatively.

And then the charade would begin.

Marc said to me on the intimate mode: You’re certain that this aircraft can fly through the rho-trap barrier?

Sure as hell did before. That’s an internal combustion engine. Runs on j-fuel. No dynamic-field technology at all. As I understand it all of the Reserve personnel use antiques like these or old-time helicopters when they fly in to their work sites. But they only go to work during June July and August. Rest of the year the place is officially closed. Deep snow.

And the alarm systems?

Parmentier’s got a black box stashed in the Beaver’s instrumentation that cancels the alarms. A lot of the locals do. Some of them work in the Reserve part time or ferry in supplies. They also fly into the Reserve during the off-season when they get a hankering for some really spectacular fishing. The wardens wink at it so long as it doesn’t happen very often. You saw that rainbow trout lunker mounted above the fireplace back at the lodge? Bill caught that years ago in one of the Reserve lakes.

Gosh! LUST.

But fishermen never go to Ape Lake. It’s all milky with glacial silt. No fish. Bill told me there are critters though. Grizzlies and wolves and cats and lots of mountain sheep and goats. A few moose down in the lower end of Ape Creek Valley. And of course the Bigfeet themselves. It’s really a gorgeous spot. Very dramatic that remote basin with Mount Jacobsen hanging right over the cabin site and the glaciers calving into the far end of the little lake … Of course I wasn’t there in winter.

Marc said: You’ll manage Uncle Rogi.

I mind-nattered on: Teresa and I will have to lie low for another week until September and then we won’t have to worry about having our chimney smoke spotted by anything human. Say! Remind me to steal Bill’s map of the area so I have a better idea of the lay of the land. I didn’t bother to get a compass because Jacobsen is such a blatant landmark. Only an imbecile could get lost … Christ de Tabernacle! I forgot snowshoes! Well I suppose I can make some. I wonder what
else
I forgot … Why don’t we set up a head-sked and if I think up anything important you can bring it.

Marc said: I won’t try to farspeak you from home. It
would be too dangerous even on intimate mode when the investigation is on and I’m under suspicion. I’m bound to be under surveillance for a while. But I’ll be back sometime between the first and the fifteenth of November with plenty of food and I’ll try to think of other stuff you might also need to last you until the baby is born.

I said: We’ll be watching for you.
Very
eagerly.

He said: Thank you … for everything Uncle Rogi.

Then his coercion reached out and took control of Bill Parmentier’s mind, and the last leg of our strange journey really began.

T
HE
H
YDRA HUNG HIGH IN THE SKY AND LOOKED INTO
flames.

They flashed yellow from the sea salt on the burning driftwood and blue around the crackling chewed-over sparerib bones that Adrienne had made them toss in. Silly Adrienne, prancing busily around among the kids and adults, checking to make sure everybody threw napkins and paper plates and potato skins and other barbecue leftovers into the fire. Bossy Adrienne. She was even worse than her mother, Cheri! Always hassling the family with Mickey-Mousery when all a person wanted to do was relax on the beach and go switch-off.

The Hydra considered the tyrannical eldest daughter of Cheri Losier-Drake and Adrien Remillard through the flames’ leaping and decided that one day it would certainly take care of her.

 … God! It’s
Fury!
Christalmighty Fury I’m SOglad it’s been SOlongSOlong I began tothink you WitchoftheWestmelted! Lately allthis MilieumindLOVEshit crowding out goodstuff.

[Chuckle.] And here you are at last. Does it mean—

[Yearningeagernessexcitement … fear.]

cosmic.>

Better than the nervebomb?

Cunning old Fury … WHO?

!!!…?

are
afraid—>

Goddamfuckshit NO! Just show me how! (He really does deserve it you know. What a prick! So does she the silly superior bitch but I understand why he’s the one and it’s going to be allright it really is I’LL DO IT.)

Right. [Thrill!]

Nervebomb! NERVEBOMB! Please GodGodGod nervebomb nervebomb give it to me give it—
aaaaaah!
 … Oh Fury how I love you.

The little white trawler rocked, making concentric vermilion rings on the black bonfire-painted Atlantic. Then after a time the boat floated level and quiet again, and the water smoothed. They lay flat on their backs on the deck, hands joined, coming back, watching motionless stars and speeding satellites and listening to the faint laughing and shrieking from the rest of the family on the beach. His wrist-com, which was all he wore, tapped twice on his carpal tendons.

“Midnight, my lovely Cat. Happy birthday.”

She uttered a mock moan. “Brett, you beast. Did you really have to remind me? Forty-two!”

“Immortal hypocrite. You know very well that you look like a twenty-year-old.” You’re glorious and irresistible and I’m mad for you and tonight I need you once again my comfort my love my joy my wife we need each other come banish the last doubts this time rise to me reassure us both …

He levitated slightly, turned over, and drifted open-armed above her. She raised her own arms to him and whispered, “I wouldn’t abandon you and our work for the world, Brett. Not for the whole Milieu. No one can make me. No one.”

Her long blonde hair lay in shining coils on the deck matting and all over her nude body, veiling it from throat to knees. She framed his face with her hands while he kissed her mouth and eyelids and pressed his lips to her warm palms before guiding them to his already awakened sex.

His mind said: They’re going to insist. Tempt you with the power. Appeal to your family pride. [Jocosity.] Urge you not to break up the Set!

[Laughter.] You and the children are my family. My pride is in our work, and it will continue as our love continues.

Cat mydearestdarlingsteadfast Cat.

He parted the thick tresses above her breasts and tongued the nipples, increasing the feedback of psychocreative energy that had begun once again to flow between them. She caressed him, deepening the erotic current, intensifying its neural rhythm through the magic that only operant minds possessed. Their bodies closed slowly. Tendrils of her hair rippled and wafted into the air, undulating and questing, stroking his shoulders and flanks, twining with soft strength about his arms and between his legs, drawing her up to him, enfolding both of them in a silken fluid medium that shimmered in the starlight.

They floated, coupled but now motionless, and let the metapsychic tension build, then held themselves on the brink until neither could resist letting their minds ignite the discharge. The wave crested, broke, subsided slowly into a tide of warmth and peace. Its ebb carried away the last vestiges of irrational anger and guilt from his heart and the lingering temptation from hers.

“Together,” he whispered. “We’ll live and work together. Always.”

 … Even though the Galactic Milieu had demanded otherwise.

The exotic legislators in the Orb World, acting within the mystery they called Coadunate Unity, had weighed the merits of every adult human operant. By means of unfathomable criteria, they had selected only one hundred—out of hundreds of thousands—to be inaugurated as the first human Magnates of the Concilium. No one was surprised that all seven members of the so-called Remillard Dynasty were included on the roster. But Catherine Remillard, alone of the family, had not sought the honor, had made her disinterest emphatic. As a member of the Milieu’s governing body, she would be required to give up the Child Latency Project, the work in the Polity Education Ministry that she and her husband, Brett Doyle McAllister, had devoted the past seventeen years of their lives to. The program had borne prodigious fruit—more than fifty thousand latent children between the ages of five and nine raised to operancy by means of the subtle creative-redactive regimen that Cat and Brett had developed together, working in painstaking metaconcert. But their work was not finished. The program was still too primary-oriented to help the majority of latent youngsters, those over the age of nine; but lately there had been hints of a potential breakthrough.