Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (49 page)

“Christ! You really tried to kill each other? Two unborn fetuses?”

“I asked Papa about it after hearing Uncle Rogi’s story. It was never really clear what happened. We twins learned to mind-screen in the womb at eight months. Matt was supposed to have been larger and mentally more powerful than me. Maybe he didn’t like competition.”

“Craziest damn thing I ever heard of.” Alex slipped the virtual glove and goggles back on and in a few minutes replaced the chip. The complete reassembly of the helmet took a little longer, after which Alex handed the gleaming black thing back to Marc. “Don’t blame me if it drives you batshit.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Marc headed for the door. “Thanks for the test. See you at dinner.” The door slammed.

“Craziest thing,” Alex repeated to himself.

He pulled the Shoebox closer, called up the
ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
database, and began to search through the more bizarre permutations of sibling rivalry.

Marc went to his own room, a chamber no larger than Alex’s that managed to look twice as spacious because everything was meticulously in order. The teleview had its red light on, and he hit it for the recorded message.

An anonymous male face appeared on the screen. “Mr. Remillard, I’m Elihu Peters from the Office of the Dean of Freshmen. We’re having a good deal of difficulty reconciling your application for a two-year dual-major accelerated honors program with the basic requirements for the bachelor’s degree. Please arrange to see me
in person
no later than Tuesday about this. I want to emphasize that it’s necessary that I confer with you yourself, not with some employee of your family.” The screen went blank.

“Beautiful,” Marc groaned. Aunt Anne had promised to cope with the college bureaucracy, and she’d evidently shoved the job off onto some minion, who had even more evidently blown it—and maybe antagonized the Dean’s Office in the bargain. What the hell was he going to do if the college dug its hoofs in and insisted that he waste his time
studying undergraduate fiddle-faddle instead of the courses he was really interested in? He couldn’t go whining to Anne, and he’d die rather than ask Paul for help, like a spoiled brat expecting his powerful daddy to put in the fix. Grandpère? Maybe. Denis certainly knew the academic jungle inside out. He might have suggestions on which buttons to push. But it might be best to phone rather than farspeak him—

Marc
.

He stood as if paralyzed, one hand poised above the teleview’s keypad.

Marcdear it’s ME!

Mama …? Where—

Jack&Iare
back!!
we’reatthefarm!!withGrandpère&Grandmère!!canyoucome?

Mama is it … 
safe
for you to be here?

Yes!! Please come assoonas you can I realize it’s a dreadful night so you’d better call an eggtaxi the roads are getting very slippery out in the country.

“I’m on my way!”

He snatched up the helmet and raced down the stairs for the back door. Somebody called after him that dinner was almost ready, but he struggled into his things and dashed out into the sleetstorm.

The bike met him on the driveway, turbs hot and headlight blazing. He leapt aboard, coasted down to the street, and was off and roaring. South on steaming Main Street to Wheelock, coercing the walkers and the groundcars out of his way when he couldn’t skid around them, fuzzing his identity creatively so the cops wouldn’t know who to pinch. The street-melting grids stopped at the urban boundary, and Trescott Road was solid ice. The New Hampshire Department of Transportation probably figured no one but a lunatic would take a ground vehicle onto a secondary highway on such a night, so morning was soon enough to send out the sand trucks.

The bike began to skid perilously in spite of Marc’s PK. It was illegal to deploy the wheel spikes, which were strictly for off-road use, but this time the boy had no qualms. The sharp steel fangs extruded from the tires and dug in. Then he really smoked the old Beemer, and only the spoilers kept him from going airborne. The bike guided like a dream. Whatever flaw had haunted the exec circuits earlier was gone with the wind.

For prudence’s sake he upped spikes a few hundred meters before Grandpère’s gate and kept his machine more or less straight and level with PK. There was no sign of any special activity about the place, only a single unfamiliar egg parked at the front of the farmhouse driveway. Sleet pelted him like a fusillade of ball bearings as he ran for the porch. Denis opened the door immediately, and Marc was aware of Uncle Rogi hovering in the background.

Denis exclaimed, “You drove your motorcycle out here in this storm? You young idiot!”

Rogi said, “She and the baby are in the big guest room.”

Marc threw him a grateful glance and ignored Denis’s indignant protests as he pounded up the staircase to the second floor, leaving globs of muddy slush and wet boot-prints in his wake. He flung open the guest room door.

She was there in a chintz-covered rocking chair in front of the fire, with a shawl-wrapped bundle in her arms. Her dark hair was much longer than he remembered it, plaited into braids. She wore a gown and a night robe of blue, smocked and embroidered so elaborately that she looked like some medieval madonna.

Marc entered, keeping his mind opaque. His smile was tentative and quirkily one-sided, and his sodden black leathers gleamed in the firelight. He carried the helmet under his arm.

“Mama.”

“Hello, Marc. You didn’t take a taxi after all.”

“No.”

She nodded serenely. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Are—are you all right?”

“Quite all right. And so is Uncle Rogi … and so is your baby brother. We are technically under house arrest. The family lawyers have surrendered me to the jurisdiction of the Human Magistratum. I’m afraid I didn’t pay too much attention to the legal details, but it seems that after Rogi and I are arraigned tomorrow, we will be granted bail and be free until—until the matter is resolved. We’ll be able to go home.”

“And you’re going to be pardoned?”

“I really don’t know what will happen. But the lawyers seem certain that everything will work out. Your Uncle Rogi told them that he conceived our escape plan serendipitously after the canoe upset, when we two found ourselves
washed up on the riverbank.” She smiled. “You knew nothing about it, of course, since you were carried further downstream.”

Marc nodded and was silent for a time. Then: “The family shanghaied me and sent me to Concilium Orb. I
tried
to return to Earth so I could bring you more food, but—”

“We managed well enough. Uncle Rogi shot an enormous moose.” She laughed softly and laid the baby flat on her lap. “Only Jack’s diet was more monotonous than ours during those last weeks at Ape Lake. But we were never really hungry or ill-nourished. Denis came and took us away two months ago. We’ve stayed secretly at my family’s old beach place on Kauai since then.”

“I’m glad it worked out,” Marc said stiffly. “And the baby … is he really okay?”

“Come closer and see,” she invited him, indicating the small form.

“But I’m all wet.”

“He won’t mind.”

Marc’s black-gloved hands were trembling slightly. Disgusted with the evidence of his own physical weakness and the emotion that had provoked it, the boy steeled himself behind his mental barriers. The thing he had put completely out of his mind now had to be faced, the terrible potentiality in the baby that Marc had shunted aside and denied from the very beginning of the adventure: the lethal genes.

“Go ahead, dear,” his mother urged. “Open the shawl.”

The baby seemed to be asleep. He was very small, with dark hair. Marc reached out a gloved hand, took hold of the wool covering, and then twitched it aside.

The baby lay revealed, unclothed, perfect.

Mama he’s all right!
Papa was wrong the genetic assay was wrong—

Yes dear wrong wrong wrong little Jack’s body is normal and his mind
his mind!
Oh Marc dear his mind just speak to him it’s wonderful don’t be afraid to wake him …

The baby’s delicate eyelids opened. He looked at Marc and smiled, and the bonding of the infant to the older brother was instantaneous. Jack loved.

Marc held back.

Why? Whywhywhy are you shut tight?
Open to me talk to me you helped to save me I love you I want to know you! Open!
Open!

“Hello, baby. Jack.” Don’t be pushy it’s not polite. You don’t order people to open their minds to you. You wait for them to do it in their own sweet time.

Oh.

Are you [image] okay?

?? My body functions properly. My mind craves more challenging stimuli and I would like to discuss certain ideas with a mind more [
complex image
] than that of Mama. Or Uncle Rogi.

Well you’ve got Grandpère Denis to talk to now. He’s more [
complex image
] than anybody short of a Lylmik.

Your mind is more congenial. I would prefer to talk to you. I demand it!

“Oh, you do, do you?” Hands on hips, Marc studied the infant with an expression of bemused consternation on his face. “Mama, this kid is overdue for a course in operant etiquette.”

“Isn’t he marvelous?” Teresa put the naked baby over her shoulder, got up, and took him to a changing table. “Now that you’ve seen that his body is perfectly normal, I’ll dress him again. What did he say to you?”

“He was trying to boss me around.”

Teresa laughed delightedly. “You’ll have to help me civilize him. I know you two will be very close.”

Jack said:
We will Mama
. [COERCION.]

Marc said to the baby, “Not if you keep pushing my face, peewee. Quit trying to probe me!”

“Oh, Jack,” said Teresa reproachfully. “You know that’s not friendly.”

The infant spoke urgently to Marc on his intimate mode: Explain to me what a lethal gene is. Tell me why you worry about this concept and what it has to do with me.
Open your mind further!

Marc said: No.

Jack began to scream.

Teresa picked the baby up to comfort him, but he howled on. “What’s wrong? Whatever were you two talking about?”

“I only refused to let him root around in my mind. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and tried to squirm under my screen, and I had to slam it down. He’s incredibly strong in coercion, Mama.”

“You were every bit as obnoxiously assertive when you were young. I distinctly remember how you used to bully—”

Tell me tell me Marc OR DO YOU WANT ME TO ASK HER?

It would frighten her and she knows almost nothing about it. My own knowledge is incomplete. If you insist on knowing I’ll scrape up all the data I can find and give it to you in a few days. But you lack the emotional resources to deal with the impact this information will have upon your psyche. It’ll scare the shit out of you Baby Brother.

Irrelevant. [Diapers.]
Tell me!

!!Have it your own way!!

Yes.

“There,” said Marc, “he’s finally calmed down. I had a few words with him, man to man.”

Teresa’s smile was uncertain. “I know he’s difficult, Marc. But be gentle with him, won’t you? Be his friend. He needs close contact with another powerful operant if his mind is to develop properly. I won’t be able to cope with his needs by myself, and for some reason he’s suspicious of Lucille and Denis. He can’t bring himself to trust them fully.”

“There’s Papa,” Marc said.

Teresa looked away. “He came to see us before we left Kauai. With the lawyers and Colette Roy. Your father was very kind to me and Jack, but he made it quite clear that—that other, very important matters will take up most of his time for the immediate future.”

“I see.” Marc stood motionless, keeping the abrupt surge of anger and disappointment walled away from her perception. Poor Mama. Even pardoned, Teresa Kendall and the offspring of her crime would always be political liabilities to an ambitious First Magnate of the Concilium.

Teresa was saying, “Lucille has gone to fetch Marie and Maddy and Luc in her egg so that they can meet their baby brother, too. I know they’re going to do their best to help with Jack. But he needs more than a group of loving brothers and sisters, Marc. He needs someone very strong. Like you. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to move out of the fraternity house, but—will you make some time for Jack?”

“All right. I’m up to the eyeballs in college work, but I’ll find a way to be with him. Farspeaking, too, if he can just learn to control himself.”

I will! I will!

No more stupid brat tricks?

I promise.

“Thank you, Marc.” Teresa put Jack into the beautiful old maple cradle that Lucille had used for her seven children. She went with Marc to the door and kissed him. “Try not to judge your father too harshly. He has so many demands on him—and in his way, he’s trying to do the best he can for us.”

Marc said only, “Goodbye, Mama.” Catch you later Jack.

Then he hurried downstairs, where Uncle Rogi waylaid him before he could be out and away.

“How’d it go?” the old man inquired. His gaunt face was tanned from the tropical sun, and he wore a Hawaiian shirt under his old cord jacket with the leather elbow patches.

“She forgives Papa!” Marc was incredulous.

“You better, too, if you know what’s good for you.”

Marc stared coldly at Rogi. “Papa’s not going to just wash his hands of Mama like she was some—some—”

“She won’t thank you for confronting Paul, and she doesn’t need you to be her knight in shining armor. There’s nothing you can do to make your father change his mind about dealing with this matter any way he chooses to. But he won’t subject Teresa to any humiliation. There’ll be no divorce or open separation.”

“That’s considerate of him. And politically expedient as all hell!”

“Now you listen to me,” Rogi said ferociously. “Teresa’s accepted the situation, and you damn well better accept it, too! There’s all kinds of fresh trouble facing your poor mother in the very near future, and you better not let me catch you acting like a vindictive young asshole and being a part of the problem!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You may be interested to know that I’ve already received instructions from a higher authority regarding my filial responsibilities. Although it beats me why the Lylmik have condescended to meddle in our family affairs.”