Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (9 page)

The Remillard family includes the most powerful metapsychic practitioners on Earth. Who’s to say in a crazy mixed-up genetic complex like ours what is an
unacceptable
heritage and what isn’t? The genetic assay of Mama’s five dead babies showed nothing about their mental potential.

So what? Physically the poor little things were losers. The genetic engineering attempts on them failed. The stillborn ones never saw the light of day and the aborted ones would have been horribly deformed and dysfunctional and destined to die before reproducing.

But the minds of the aborted babies might have contributed something invaluable to the Earth Mind before their disabilities killed them.

Marc I don’t understand what you’re driving at. Do you mean to say that the brain genes of the babies should have been evaluated along with those for the rest of their bodies? Even I know that it can’t be done! Human genetic science has come a long way under Milieu guidance but it can’t assay the mind from examining brain tissues any more than it can engineer the mind by tinkering with the brain’s DNA. Ordinary evolution is doing just fine transforming our race into metapsychic operants and the Earth Mind is coming
along well enough toward coadunation under the Milieu’s Reproductive Statutes and I can’t see that it matters a hoot whether or not a few poor little crippled babies get to make their contribution—

What does matter is that Mama is pregnant again.

??Impossible!!

I heard her tell Grandmère.

JesusGod. Teresa can’t be pregnant now …

She is.

Practically on eve Earth inauguration Concilium? And with Paul heading list of newly announced human magnates? Quelle catastrophe your father rest of family put in impossible position! Howcouldshehowcouldshe—

Mama extracted the contraceptive implant herself. It was no trick at all for a person with her creative talents. She feels that she has a solemn obligation—an obligation to the entire human race!—to have this child even if it means violating the statutes of the Simbiari Proctorship.

Sacrènomdedieu! We all knew that she was tottering on the brink after the loss of her last baby. But she seemed to have snapped out of it. Now this! Your poor mama. All that talent! All that beauty! And it’s plain what the source of her madness is: she and your father have always had that idiotic dynastic obsession about surpassing Denis and Lucille—

This fetus is five months old. Mama says it speaks to her telepathically in a postinfantile mode.

“Merde de merde!” Rogi exclaimed out loud. “Cette pauvre petite! She’s gone over the edge completely.”

The canoe was now fixed firmly on top of the old Volvo, and all the equipment was stowed. As the two of them got into the car, the boy seemed gripped by an inappropriate excitement.

“Grandmère Lucille scanned the fetal mind with her redactive deepsense. She heard nothing but the usual chaotic psychoembryonic cycling one would expect from such a young fetus. She had a discussion with Mama and then … went away. Of course, she didn’t detect my presence. I went in and spoke to Mama, clarifying the situation, and after that I came immediately to the bookshop to get you.”

“But I still don’t understand—”

“Grandmère has gone to get Uncle Severin. They’ll do an abortion before Papa—or anyone else—finds out. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Et alors? It’s the only sensible course!” Rogi tapped the garage door opener, backed the car out, then closed the overhead door. Slowly they drove up the street.

“No it’s not.”

“You have moral scruples? It’s understandable. You’re young and fresh from the Jebbies at Brebeuf, and they’ve filled your mind with idealistic notions of human dignity and worth. But this is the real world, Marc! Not even the Church opposes the Reproductive Statutes. If a fetus shows intractable lethal genes, it may be aborted. Your poor Mama is deluded, sick. She needs treatment! Marc, you’re thirteen, but you’re a mature person. You know what this illegal pregnancy could mean—not only to the family but also to the whole Human Polity. Your parents aren’t just private citizens. Paul will surely be nominated First Magnate when humanity is admitted to the Concilium in January.
If
it’s admitted! Good God, boy, don’t you understand how serious an offense this is? Not even your mother’s mental lapse can excuse—”

“Mama is quite sane, Uncle Rogi. I heard the fetus, too.”

“You … 
what?”

“It’s a boy. What I heard … I can’t describe it, and I certainly can’t transmit an image of it to a mentality as limited as yours. You’ll have to take my word for it that this baby is something extraordinary. I’ve listened to unborn babies before, but this one is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. God only knows what his metabilities will be.”

“And what about his body?” Rogi was bleak. “If he’s carrying lethals, odds are strong that he’ll be a physical basket case.”

“But not certain. Luc’s disabilities were modifiable. Regen-tank therapy and genetic engineering for humans become more sophisticated every day. My unborn little brother deserves his chance! I’m not the only one who would say so, either. There are hundreds of millions of humans who believe that the Repro Statutes are unjust and should be changed.”

Rogi could think of nothing to say. His deepest, most secret mind-level was saying it all: The law still stood, accepted by Earth as part of the price of the new Golden Age; and in conceiving this child, who might or might not be mentally exceptional, Teresa had committed a Class One felony …

They had driven the short block and a half from the bookshop and now stood in front of the Remillard house at 15 East South Street, just beyond the public database, which everybody still called the library. Rogi turned into the driveway, and the two of them got out.

Marc’s home was a classic New England white clapboard building, with dark shutters, a small porch, and dormers on the third storey. One of the windows of Teresa’s studio was open, and operatic music poured into the humid green shade surrounding the big old place. A soprano accompanied by a full orchestra was singing, in some language other than Standard English, a plaintive song of such thrilling intensity and richness that the old man and the boy were forced to stop at the base of the porch steps and listen, enthralled.

The voice of Teresa Kaulana Kendall always had that effect, even on family members who had heard her recordings countless times. Rogi found that his eyes were filling with tears. That marvelous coloratura, entombed on laser-read record flecks, was preserved forever while the singer herself was silenced, sacrificed along with so many other things for the alleged greater good of the Human Polity of the Galactic Milieu.

And now this new disaster, perhaps presaging a final descent into madness and degradation—if not summary punishment by the Magistratum—had come about because Teresa, like Paul and so many other ambitious human operants, had believed the Lylmik mentors when they said that human beings would someday possess the most powerful mentalities of any race in the universe …

“What can we possibly do to help her?” Rogi whispered.

“Help the baby.” Marc’s correction was chilling. “A mind like that, of such unbelievable potential, must live.”

The aria soared to a crescendo, then ended with a soft question that melted, unanswered, into silence.

Rogi said, “Perhaps—if we could prove to the Simbiari Proctors and the Magistratum—”

“Mama hears the baby, and so do I,” Marc said. “No one else will. Not yet. And no mechanical scanner has the sensitivity to confirm his mental superiority. His mind is completely anomalous.”

“Then there isn’t a chance. The forensic redactors will say Teresa’s crazy, and your testimony will be discounted as unverifiable because of your relationship to her and your
damned superscreening ability that balks mind-reaming. The thing’s hopeless.”

Marc said quietly, “Not if we get Mama away from here. Hide her until the baby is born naturally. He’ll be safe then. A legal entity with full rights to life-sustaining care, no matter
what
his disabilities. The law is clear on that point. Mama will still be culpable, but she can … stay out of sight until after the human magnates take control of Polity affairs. Then there’s bound to be some way to exonerate her.”

“But it’s impossible! There’s no place on Earth where someone like Teresa, with a registered operant metapsychic identity, can hide from the Magistratum enforcers—from the Simbiari and Krondaku.”

“I think there is. A hiding place where no one will think to look for an operant. And even if they do a quick scan of the place, they won’t think to zero in and identify Mama.”

Marc projected a mental image that made the old man gasp. “You’ve been there, Uncle Rogi, with the connivance of that book-buying friend of yours. You told me all about it. And that’s one reason why I need your help now.”

The boy opened the front screen door of his home and looked over his shoulder. “You are going to help. Aren’t you?”

Sweat had broken out on Rogi’s brow. His emotional tone was one of sheer panic, even though the boy was making no attempt to coerce him. “You know what happens if we’re caught?” Rogi asked. “To us and to her? Maybe to the whole damn Human Polity if your father doesn’t denounce his own wife for violating the statutes?”

“The risk is worth it! Papa can do what he has to do to save his precious reputation if the fact of her illegal pregnancy comes out. Distance himself from Mama’s action. Even cooperate fully if there’s a search. But no one will even know she’s
alive
if this plan of mine works! And they won’t be able to prove we’re accessories, either. I can put a block in your mind, and they’ll never be able to probe deep enough into mine to get the truth. Later, Mama’s bound to be vindicated in the court of public opinion for carrying an exceptional metapsychic to term. The Repro Statutes will be modified.”

“You can’t be sure of that!”

“On January sixth the Human Polity will be admitted to the Galactic Concilium, to full voting membership in the
Milieu. The Simbiari Proctorship will finally be over, and the Green Leaky Freakies won’t rule us like children anymore. We humans will finally be able to control our own destiny—our own reproduction as well as everything else. And when we do, we’ll show these exotics what real mindpower is!”

Rogi regarded the thirteen-year-old with consternation. “If this unborn little brother turns out to be anything like you, the exotic races may wish they had never Intervened.”

Marc uttered a short laugh. Then he said softly, “Somehow, Mama’s unconscious mind reached out all the way to Okanagon, to me, the only one who would be able to save her. In the normal course of things, she lacks anything like the mental power needed to span such a distance. But this time … I think she was helped. By a metaconcert with that unborn baby! A mind like that must not be lost to humanity. I’ll do anything to save him. Anything!”

Rogi felt his heart contract. “And what about your mother, for God’s sake?”

“Both of them,” Marc said, smiling. “Of course, both of them.” The smile vanished like a brief ripple in deep water. “There’s not much time. I told Mama to pack some things. We’ve got to get her out of here right away. I ordered a Hertz egg for us. It’ll be here in half an hour. Now I want you to come upstairs and help me reassure Mama.”

Marc opened the screen door and went into the house, leaving Rogi standing on the porch.

The bookseller said to himself: This is lunacy! Marc doesn’t understand the implications. With Paul’s wife a fugitive from justice the Simbiari Proctors might decide to delay the Concilium inauguration. They’d love an excuse! Would Paul even be able to prove he didn’t conspire with Teresa? His mind is almost as reamproof as Marc’s and they’d suspect he was hiding the truth!

 … Jésus Christ what a mess! Operant fetuses! Des bêtises! And all we need is another damned superminded Remillard! Aren’t there enough of them throwing their weight around and making things tough for us poor lamebrains?

 … Both Marc and Teresa could even be
imagining
the baby’s telepathy. It could be some neurotic thing some weird psychic guilt transference between mother and son and me caught in the middle of it!

 … Marc can’t really force me to go along with his plot.
He can’t coerce me from a distance and he certainly can’t coerce me close up indefinitely and even if he tries it the
fact
of his coercion could be dug out of me by any one of the family Grand Masters as easy as cracking peanuts! The kid’ll realize that too.

 … All I have to do is point this out to him calmly and tell him that his loyalty to his mother is commendable but the scheme to hide her is impossible. I could sneak back to the bookshop right now and call Severin—

No
.

Marcdammitlistentoreason—

Rogi listen to
me
. Marc and Teresa are telling the truth.…

You’re not the kid!

No. You know who I am.

Oh no … Oh
shit!

Rogi mon cher fils tu me fais mal aux noix!

Goddammit I don’t feel so chirky myself—

You must help Teresa and her unborn. It is necessary.

Ghost … We’re talking
Class One felony
pourl’amourdedieu!

[Exasperation.] No more vacillating! There is no time to waste. Do exactly as young Marc tells you. The hazards increase for every moment that you delay.

“You Lylmik bastard!” Rogi hissed, shaking his fist at the sultry air. “The Reproductive Statutes are part of your own Galactic Milieu! Why don’t you simply tell your Simbiari minions to make the exception? Why do we have to play these games?”

The screen door opened by itself. Rogi felt a none-too-gentle nudge.

“Merde et contremerde! I’m going! I’m going!” The old man hurried into the house and up the inside staircase to the second floor, continuing to mutter Franco obscenities.

Two flies that had managed to sneak into the house along with Rogi fell out of the air, and their little bodies lay kicking on the rag rug in the entry hall. Then the screen door opened again, the flies were propelled outside, and the door swung slowly shut. The insects crawled groggily about the porch floor for a moment, then spread their wings and flew away.