Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (27 page)

Marc felt like puking.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you and I declared a truce?” Anne asked him.

He raised his eyes. “A truce?”

“You know very well why we wanted you off-Earth.”

“Yes,” he snapped.

At the embarkation, when Paul had abruptly handed Marc his carry-on bag and credentials, and the entire family had focused their coercion on him, the boy had offered no resistance at all. Helpless in the multiple grip of the Grand Master adults, he had simply looked his father in the eye and said, “You may regret this.” Then he had turned away and followed Anne onto the starship without another word.

Now she said, “You’re going to stay here in Orb at least until January, until after the inauguration. You can continue to brood and sulk like a silly child if you wish, but I had hoped you would accept the family’s decision and be of some help to me while you’re here. There’s a great deal to be done in our offices before the others arrive in December.”

He stared at her and she stared back at him, yielding not a mental micron, until he finally lowered his eyes. Like her younger sister Catherine, Anne was tall and blonde; but where Cat was as impetuous and passionate as Lucille, Anne embodied the icy intellectualism of Denis and had always been her father’s favorite. There had been sibling jokes about her springing fully armed from Denis’s brow rather than being born normally like her five brothers and her sister. Anne had taken the jests to heart while still a young girl, obtaining a small statue of Pallas Athene, which she made her mascot and still kept on her desk in Concord. Marc had asked her once what the goddess symbolized, and she had replied, “The victorious mind.”

Marc was not particularly close to his uncles and aunts. But early on he had recognized a certain affinity between himself and this calm, efficient woman who had always spurned any kind of emotional involvement. For some reason it was to Aunt Anne, rather than his own parents or Uncle Rogi, that he had turned as a nine-year-old boy puzzling over the mystery of human sex. She had explained it with brisk clarity, putting it into perspective for the nuisance it was to those who were dedicated to a higher life of the mind. Sex distracted you from important matters, she explained. It was only biochemistry, a mere animal drive; nevertheless it had the potential for devastating a person’s
reason, and so it was never to be trusted. (Marc had not understood how this could possibly happen; but Aunt Anne had only laughed grimly and said, “Wait!”) She told him that she had chosen not to marry or have children or seek any other kind of close relationship with another person because her work for the Milieu and operant humanity must take precedence in her life over mere private gratification. At the time, Marc had thought her example noble and admirable and well worth emulating; but he had been very careful not to let
her
know how he felt.

Anne had been the first Remillard to be appointed by the exotic Proctors to the North American Intendancy and to the Assembly of Intendant Associates, the Human Polity’s quasi-independent legislature. She had also been the principal political mentor of her younger brother Paul from the very beginning, guiding and advising him in his swift ascent to Intendant Associate, encouraging him to aspire to the First Magnate chair when the Human Polity was accepted into full voting membership in the Galactic Concilium. After Anne herself achieved the rank of Intendant Associate, she dared to speak of her own secret ambition to the rest of the family: she wanted to be no less than Planetary Diligent—the chief operant executive—of Earth, after the Simbiari Proctorship ended.

His aunt’s dream had further overawed Marc, and he had continued to admire her uncritically … until this enforced trip from Earth to Orb. Furious at being shanghaied and fearful about what would happen to his mother and Rogi, the boy had shut himself up inside his inviolable mental fortress, hardly speaking to Anne during the voyage and even distancing himself from her physically, insofar as that was possible on a rather small starship. There was plenty of time to think during his self-imposed isolation, and one of the things he brooded over was the murder of his Uncle Brett McAllister. Using much the same logic as Denis had, Marc deduced that Anne—together with her sister Cat and her brother Adrien—was a principal suspect.

And so was his father.

In his solitude, thinking about unnatural death and trying to suppress the very genuine fear that had taken root within him, Marc also puzzled over something that had mystified and disturbed him for nearly eleven years: the passing of Victor Remillard. His recollection of the events on that
Good Friday in 2040 had the vivid accuracy of perfect memorecall. As a precocious toddler, he had been curious about the family ritual he had been excluded from, and so he had extended his ultrasenses into the adjacent bedroom and experienced the deathbed scene almost as fully as the adult witnesses had. What young Marc had seen and felt had been quite incomprehensible to a baby’s understanding. Even now it defied complete analysis. But things were becoming clearer to him as he grew more closely acquainted with the shadowy aspects of his own mind and the minds of other superior metas.

However, there was still no answer to the principal question: Could a dying mentality, energized by evil ambition, find sanctuary in the mind and body of another? Everything Marc knew of psychology and theology denied that such a thing was possible. But
something
had happened at Victor’s deathbed; and whatever the dying man had done was done with the conscious or unconscious assent of the mind—or minds—invaded. The notion that Victor, or some agent of his, must be involved in Brett’s strange death had come upon Marc in a synchronicitous flash, having nothing to do with logic, and all the more distressing because of that …

Aunt Anne was looking at him now with those pale, cold eyes of hers that also held a surprising intimation of foreboding.

“Will
you work with me, Marc?”

His gaze slid away. As subtly as he could, he projected grudging resignation, a slight cracking of the mental shell that she had perceived as completely indomitable. He projected adolescent uncertainty, and a desperate need to trust in some reliable adult. He projected the merest hint of his old admiration for her.

“I’ll—I’ll do my best, Aunt Anne.”

She reached out one hand and touched his own, smiling a little. “Good. And I’ll try to help you, too, Marc.”

Then the food arrived, and the French waitron was very maternal and jolly when Marc apologized for insulting the restaurant’s cuisine. He confided wryly to her that he was only a
Franco-American
and a poor excuse for a gourmet, but he hoped to visit all of the ethnic enclaves of humanity while he was in Orb and educate his taste buds.

She laughed pleasantly. “And you must try exotic food,
too! Except for the Krondak kind, of course, which contains too many petrochemicals and unhealthy alkaloids. The cuisine of the Gi is really delightful—like feasting upon the most subtly perfumed desserts and salads—while Poltroyans do wonders with seafood and strange meat dishes, and the Simbiari devise the most delicious candies imaginable. The Green Ones are only partially photosynthetic, you know, and do amazing things with sugars. Then there are the Lylmik. Just think! You may actually
meet
one of the rare beings here. Those who have done so say the experience is unforgettable. One realizes that they do not eat. Some say they subsist upon the music of the spheres, but I suspect that is nonsense.”

Marc said, “I’m looking forward to my stay here very much. I’ve heard that visiting the exotic enclaves of Concilium Orb is like taking a quick tour of the inhabited Galaxy. I’ll be the envy of my college classmates when I get back to Earth. Everybody’s heard the fabulous stories about Orb and wants to come here, but of course it’s off-limits to tourists—even operant ones.”

“How long do service personnel contract for?” Anne asked the woman curiously.

The server sighed. “Only three hundred days for most jobs. I hope they change that eventually. I would love to re-up when this tour is finished, even though my husband can hardly wait to get back to Paris. But life is so much more exciting here, especially now that humanity will be taking its place in the Concilium.” She lowered her voice. “And salaries in Orb are triple those of the Human Polity worlds, and of course we normals have the same shopping privileges that operant bureaucrats do. We can also use the same artistic and cultural and recreational facilities as the magnates and their operant assistants—if we want to.”

“
Do
you want to?” Marc asked.

The woman eyed him shrewdly. “Not always, no. And we are very glad to be able to live in our own nonoperant neighborhoods within the ethnic enclaves. One is always most comfortable amongst one’s own kind, n’est-ce pas?”

Marc said, “Mais naturellement, madame. Vous m’en direz tant.”

She uttered a happy cry. “You
do
know French after all, young Franco-American! Épatant!”

“Only a little. My great-granduncle taught me.”

“And is he here with you?” the smiling woman inquired.

“No.” Marc looked away, his face now expressionless.

The waitron tucked her big tray under her arm and began to move away from their table. “Eh bien. Bon appétit, and have a nice day.”

For many minutes, Marc and Anne ate in silence. When she had finished the second of her croissants, she said, “If there was a very good reason for it, you could call your grandfather on the subspace communicator and arrange for a head-sked on intimate mode. His farspeech would have no difficulty reaching the four thousand lightyears from here to Earth.”

“Why would I want to talk to Grandpère?” Marc finished the last of the hot chocolate and licked the foam from his lips. It had been served in an incongruous large cup of thin china, but it was whisked perfectly, with honey and vanilla and a hint of cinnamon.

“I know you’re not that close to Denis. But if there was any … serious family business you had to discuss with someone on Earth, any matters you had to arrange, he would be the one to call on.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Marc pushed the empty cup away and laid his knife and fork parallel across his plate. “Will we have to begin work right away?”

Anne smiled. “Not really, although I do want to drop in at our offices today. What did you have in mind? Sightseeing?”

“I’d like to check the place out. Just prowl around. Twenty-three days in the gray limbo didn’t do my nerves any good.”

“I can certainly vouch for that!” Anne consulted her wrist-com. “We’ve been invited to dinner tonight at 1930 hours by Kyle Macdonald and his wife Mary Gawrys, over in Lomond Enclave. You remember them, don’t you?”

Marc nodded. “He’s the science fiction writer, she’s the European IA. Uncle Rogi told me that he introduced them. I tried some of Macdonald’s plaques, but the stuff was pretty wild and implausible.”

“I hope you’ll keep your literary criticism to yourself at dinner. Now: If I let you run loose today, will you promise to work on the Paliuli housing tomorrow? It’s going to be very difficult to get anything decent on the beach. I’ve heard the Russians have tried to hog all the best places.”

Marc’s gray eyes were alight. “Just let me have some time to myself today, and tomorrow you can ask me anything!”

Anne laughed. “Off with you, then. Just don’t get into anything you can’t get out of.”

He flung his napkin onto the table and almost upset the wrought-iron chair as he sprang to his feet and hurried off across the terrace. There was a tube entrance a hundred meters away from the restaurant, next to the boulangerie, and he forced himself to slow down and walk to it, turning once to wave over his shoulder to Anne, who was drinking another cup of coffee and watching him with an expression that betrayed considerable anxiety. Then he plunged down the steps into a glowing glassy gut that was a shocking departure from the folksy charm of the French enclave. He caught an inertialess capsule almost immediately and headed for the outermost level of the colossal cerametal planetoid—and the Orb Spaceport.

For over four hours, Marc sat quietly on a bench in the Human Terminal, letting his farsight and other ultrasenses roam, absorbing all of the formalities of departure to be certain that he would make no mistakes. He studied the ticketing procedure, the quarantine setup, the rather casual way the smaller private superluminal craft were boarded, even the way the exotic ground crews serviced the ships of the Human Polity in the docking bays.

This time he was ready to break whatever laws it took to get him back to Earth. But how to do it?

He could easily coerce his way on board a big passenger ship and brainwipe the coercees—provided none of them was masterclass. But when he disappeared, Anne would be bound to send out a subspace squawk on him, so that was out. He could use his creativity to disguise himself or go invisible, then stow away; but she’d still have the Magistratum waiting Earthside to check out arriving ships from Orb, and a Grand Master exotic cop would see through any attempted mental camouflage of his like a plate-glass window.

Okay, what was left?

Use his coercion to hijack a very small ship. One of those executive hoppers with a crew of three. There was a Caledonian jobbie over in Bay 638 that checked out as a likely prospect. Disable its communications and beacons. Mindfuck
the crew just short of imbecility once they put the ship on course, popping in and out of hyperspace. Sleep only while the ship was traveling its catenary in the gray limbo. And none of your bunny-hopping 180 df this trip; push the displacement factor to 250 or even higher.
He’d
have no trouble taking the pain of tight-leash translations through the upsilon-field. If the crew wonked out from overload, they’d be that much easier to handle. With luck, he could get home in two weeks, long before they’d expect him. He’d load up with food and get gone to B.C., and hide out with Mama and Uncle Rogi until it was safe to resurface.

If he pulled the trick off artfully, the family would probably even continue to cover up for him. Buying off the owner of the hijacked exec hopper and the crew would cost a bundle, but that was no big deal for the family corporation. Provided he didn’t kill anybody.