Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (2 page)

The old man settled deeper into the steaming water, smiling.

Poor Uncle Rogi! Unifex had other plans for him. But Rogi had had a good enough holiday, ski-touring more than 200 kilometers throughout the beautiful park during an unusual three-week spell of calm bright days. Now the weather pattern had changed, and whether Rogi was willing to admit it or not, he was adequately refreshed and recreated after his first stint of journalistic labors. It was time for both of them to get back to work.

Unifex descended toward the planetary surface. The negligible physical substance of the Lylmik mind-receptacle deflected only the tiniest of the hard-driven snowflakes and easily penetrated the three-meter-thick crust of ice and snow above the grotto where Rogi had elected to camp. The place was typical of the subnivean hollows that gave the Denali planetary park its name: an irregular cave as big as a good-sized room, melted from the permanent icefield by the heat
of a small geothermal spring. The walls and ceiling were ice, but the rocky floor was cushioned with a dense lichenoid carpet of tough gray and lavender saprophytes. Close to the shallow burbling pool grew larger and more fragile exotic lifeforms, sessile animals that resembled scarlet onions with peculiar flowers that gave off a pungent sulfurous scent if they were bruised. As the mildly carnivorous blossoms of the onion creatures bent toward Rogi’s exposed shoulders, he flicked hot water at them by way of discouragement.

The walls of the grotto were cupped and dripping near the ground and glittering with crystals of hoarfrost in the cold upper reaches. There thin tendrils of vapor coiled golden in the light of Rogi’s antiquated electric lantern before disappearing into a natural flue. Touring skis were propped against one wall, and a backpack lay near the little tent. On the far side of the chamber was the closed entry door, fashioned of harmonious translucent plass, that led to the enclosed surface-access tunnel and modern latrine. (Park visitors were strictly forbidden to dig down into the snow grottoes directly, or to camp in undesignated “virgin” caves except in emergency situations.)

Here and there on the nacreous walls were circular openings, not quite large enough to admit a human hand. From several of these, and from a larger hole at ground level where runoff water from the spring exited, came a glitter of tiny eyes and an occasional peevish hiss. The natural inhabitants of the grotto, hotblooded eight-centimeter “ice crabs” temporarily displaced by the human who had come to spend the night, were keeping a close watch on developments. The crabs considered these alien invaders to be a great nuisance, in spite of the fact that they usually brought along something worth stealing.

A determined onion flower began to nibble experimentally on Rogi’s wet shoulder blade. He reached for his backpack, unzipped a compartment, and brought out a battered leatherbound flask. A stiff tot of Armagnac and a guided puff of alcoholic breath caused the lifeform to shrink back from the poisonous exhalation, blanch to a muddy mauve color, and broadcast its disgust on a primitive telepathic mode. The entire plantation of scarlet carnivores desisted from snack attacks forthwith.

Rogi nodded in satisfaction, took another snort, and sank more deeply into the hot spring. Up on the planetary surface
the hurricane wind roared in the darkness, and there was a distant rumble as an avalanche let loose somewhere. The grotto trembled slightly. Ice spicules sifted down toward the bather, glittering until they melted just above his head. Rogi began to sing softly:

Unifex joined in:

The old man in the pool leapt like a speared sturgeon. “Bordel de merde!”

It’s only me, Uncle Rogi.

“Dammit! One of these days you’re going to give me cardiac arrest doing that!”

[Laughter.] I apologize. It was the old college song. I had been thinking of it myself just as I arrived. It brought back all kinds of memories.

“Now look what you made me do.” Rogi was accusing. His eruption had splashed hot water over the onion animals and they were flailing in wild distress, the tiny teeth of the flowers chattering like elfin castanets. “You know the park rules about disturbing the native lifeforms! These little chompers are sensitive. If any of ’em decide to croak, I could be blamed and end up paying a helluva fine—”

Calm yourself. Look. I’ve restored them.

“Damn good thing,” Rogi muttered, climbing out onto the not-quite-lichens. The clumps of red onions were swaying luxuriously now, and a delicate humming sound filled the grotto. “Don’t often hear
that
. It’s their full-tummy serenade.”

It was the least I could do.

Rogi chuckled. Naked and steaming, he retrieved the brandy flask, which fortunately hadn’t spilled, and tucked it into a safe place. “I’m feeling pretty hungry myself. Want to share some chili cagado with me, mon fantôme?”

Thank you. But no.

“Too substantial for your Lylmik guts, eh? You used to love it.”

Unifex’s thought was wistful: I don’t suppose you brought along any Habitant pea soup …?

“Ate the last of it two days ago.”

The Lylmik’s mind sighed.

Rogi squatted and set up a small microwave campstove. He dipped a pot of water from the spring, peered into it, and extracted a black gelatinous blob and a glass-shrimp that were swimming languidly about the container’s bottom. The invertebrates were returned to the pool and the pot set inside the stove to boil. Rogi had tossed in two Aqua Pura tablets for seasoning, since Denali bred tough microorganisms as well as tough colonials.

“So you couldn’t resist coming after me.” The old man dried himself with a diminutive towel and put his long johns and socks back on.

Unifex said: It was a species of sentimental journey. I had felt compelled to avoid Denali during her first-cycle sojourn here.

Rogi hesitated. “You want to tell me about the two of you? All I know is the little bit Cloudie and Hagen told me—and they didn’t know all that much.”

Not now. Perhaps later.

“M’mm.” Rogi took the seething pot out of the stove and filled two bowls and a large cup, adding a different-colored cube to each container of water. After four seconds of effervescence, the highly compressed food reconstituted and the pungent aroma of chili rose from the first bowl, and the smell of cinnamon-apple cobbler from the second. The cup was full of black coffee. Rogi added five lumps of sugar and a shot of Armagnac to the latter, and sprinkled almost 200 grams of grated natural-state Tillamook cheddar onto the chili.

A sibilant, yearning chorus came from the crab holes, and there was a frantic blinking of eyes. Rogi chuckled wickedly. “Cheeky little bastards. Remember how they used to eat Adidas if you left ’em outside the tent in these snow caves?”

Unifex laughed. It said: I note that you wear inedible Salomon ski boots now. Very comfortable-looking. I like the new Rossi boards, too. But isn’t it rather imprudent of you not to wear an environmental suit?

“For sissies! I been skiing my brains out for a hundred fifty years in this outfit and I haven’t froze my bizoune off yet. You’ll notice that my wrist-com’s modern enough.
Keeps me alerted to weather changes. And if I get snowed in or come a cropper or even run outa coffee or munchies, the Ski Patrol or a robot monitor’ll home in on its transponder-locator and take care of me. I knew this storm was on the way. I figure to spend the night here, then call for a shuttlebug to fly me back to the park lodge tomorrow if she don’t blow out as per forecast. Wouldn’t mind at all spending the last week of my vacation lolling around in style—”

I’m sorry, Uncle Rogi. I’ve come to collect you.

“I’m booked for seven more days, dammit!”

You are well rested and quite able to begin work on your Memoirs again—as am I. Take your time finishing your meal, but tonight you’ll sleep in your own bed back home in New Hampshire.

“Back to Earth
tonight
—
?
That’ll mean hopping the hype at maximum displacement factor. I’ll be a nervous wreck!”

I’ll take you myself … more gently.

Rogi’s eyes narrowed and he squinted at the portion of air from which his invisible companion’s thoughts appeared to emanate. “So! You Lylmik
do
have a mitigator for the pain of hyperspatial translation—just like Ti-Jean always said you did.”

Yes. Jack was perceptive as always. But the device is not yet appropriate for general use among our client races in the Galactic Milieu. You will make no mention of it.

Rogi spooned down chili and drank coffee. “I wouldn’t dream of violating the glorious Lylmik master scheme … But what’s the damn rush to get me humping again on the Memoirs?”

One has one’s reasons.

Rogi rolled his eyes hopelessly. Then for some time he ate in silence, his mind idly recapitulating the things he had already written and shuffling through what would come next, in the period following the Great Intervention. “Gonna take another book, big as the last one, to cover the thirty-eight years of the Simbiari Proctorship. Be a pain in the ass for me to get all those family shenanigans sorted out, too.”

Unifex said: I want you to skip over most of that and begin immediately on Jack’s early life and disincarnation, and the growing threat of human opposition to Galactic citizenship. Then you will describe Dorothea’s part in the
earlier drama, and finish up with your view of the Metapsychic Rebellion, making a Milieu Trilogy. The events of the painful Proctorship years, the time before the Human Polity was admitted to the Galactic Concilium, have been covered well enough by Philip and Lucille in their own autobiographies. But they never knew Jack’s full story, or Diamond’s—

“Or yours, mon cher fantôme.”

Or mine.

“I’ll have to backtrack some to make it hang together, you know. Start out with a kind of retrospective digression. And I’ll still need a lot of fill-in help from you to give a proper overall picture.”

I realize that.

“Is that why—” Rogi paused. He swallowed hard, banishing a certain thought before it could be formulated, even subvocally. “Eh bien, mon fils. I reckon you know what you’re doing by now.”

Beyond a doubt. To paraphrase one of your favorite fantasy writers, even the most modest intellect can hardly help learning a thing or two after six million years.

The old man grinned with forced cheerfulness at the vaporous air. “Six million … Ah, those self-rejuvenating Remillard genes! A real drag, immortality, eh? Not that I’m ready to knock it myself yet, you understand. Um … do you know … can you foresee when I’m …”

Not really. Moi, je ne suis pas le bon dieu, j’t’assure! But I do intend to see to it that you survive at least long enough to finish the family chronicle.

“Well, thanks all to hell for small favors.”

Rogi licked the last of the apple cobbler from his spoon and drank the dregs of the coffee. Then he switched the stove to the dishwashing mode and thrust the tableware inside. A moment later, he began to pack everything away, singing the chorus of Dartmouth College’s “Winter Song” under his breath.

At length the Remillard Family Ghost said: Are you ready, Uncle Rogi? The trip home will take only a moment. There will be none of the usual discomfort of hyperspatial translation experienced in a starship.

“Not in my underwear, dammit!”

The old man began to throw his clothes back on. He
managed his pants and shirt before he disappeared abruptly from the snow grotto, and all his gear with him.

The lichenoid cast a faint phosphorescent glow about the newly darkened chamber. There was a rustling sound, then a medley of plops as the crablike exotic animals came rushing from their burrows to scavenge leftover bits of Earth cheese. Outside the snow grotto, the Denali blizzard wind howled.

I
STILL HAVE THE NIGHTMARE SOMETIMES
. I
HAD IT ON THE
night that I was unceremoniously translated from the planet Denali to Earth at the truncated end of my skiing holiday and commanded to resume writing these Memoirs.

As always, the dream played itself out in a weird, accelerating time-lapse mode. There is nothing terrifying about the scene at first. A beautiful mother holds an infant, completely wrapped in a blanket, and she looks up from the baby as a fourteen-year-old boy approaches. This older child of hers has a strangely ominous aura about him. He has come hurriedly home from his classes at Dartmouth College on a blustery day, and he wears black turbocycle leathers and carries a much-modified visored helmet tucked under his arm. His eyes are gray and his mind opaque, and his smile is tentative and quirkily one-sided as he accepts his mother’s invitation to open the blanket and see his new little brother for the first time … in the flesh.

The black-gloved hands are trembling slightly with an emotion that the older boy despises and tries vainly to check. And then the baby lies revealed, unclothed, perfect. And the minds of Marc and Teresa mingle in joy:

The baby’s delicate eyelids open.

And in my dream, there are no eyes.

I hear laughter, and I recognize the voice of Victor. But it can’t be Victor because he died twelve years before Jack was born; and for nearly twenty-seven years before that he was helpless, disembodied as Jack would be but unlike Jack deprived of all metafunction, all physical and mental contact with the world outside himself. In my dream, the devilish laughter fades in a smell of pine and a cataract of pain. Tears pour down Marc’s face for the first time in his austere young life. The eyeless infant smiles at us—