Galactic Milieu - Diamond Mask Part 3

"What happened?"

"I saw my body heave this big sigh and stop flopping about. Then all of a sudden there was a kind of no-noise explosion and I was back in bed. Sucking in air. The asthma was gone. And it never came back. Mum and Gran said I cured it with self-redaction." He poked her midsection with one finger. "You can do the same thing, Sis. You really can. Try!"

Dee squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head wildly. She was afraid to do as Ken asked. The grownups were always trying to make her use her latent higher mindpowers-trying to push their way into her mind, too, so they could force her to be operant. But even though she was a precocious and obedient child who tried very hard not to be troublesome and inconvenient, she had always resisted giving in to the adults in this very personal matter. What was hidden in her mind belonged to her, even if it was scary. The only way she could keep herself safe was to make sure that no one else ever got inside and messed about with what was there.

She thought of the innermost part of her head as a dark and secret cellar full of strange boxes with special locks on them, the kind that wouldn't open until you spoke a code word to their tiny internal computers. Inside the boxes, which were gla.s.sy but not quite transparent, were all the awful mindpowers that Mummie and the meta therapists had tried in vain to coerce out of her during the painful therapy sessions. The imprisoned powers shone dimly in different colors-blue, yellow, green, violet, rose-and moved about within their boxes like ghostly and dangerous sea creatures trapped in murky containers, darting at her in treacherous appeal, squirming and scrabbling against the walls of their traps like blobby, glowing starfish or demonic hands.

The angel kept her safe from them. This friendly guardian was invisible even to her mind's eye and quite mute; but Dee was certain that he was the custodian of the dangerous boxes. They were hers and there was no getting rid of them, but the angel was the one who prevented the things inside from escaping and harming her.

Only once, long before she had found out about guardian angels, when she was still a toddling baby terrified by the adult minds trying to batter their way in and control her, had she dared to open one of those mysterious containers. Someone (it was a while before she realized who!) had told her the secret word enabling her to free the cool, midnight-blue s.h.i.+elding faculty. The power had seemed to flow out and enclose her entire mind and body like an impervious, completely transparent sh.e.l.l, protecting her from mental attackers.

By now the faculty-which the frustrated preceptor-therapists told her was called the self-defensive aspect of metacoercion-was so much a part of her that she hardly noticed it. She had overheard Mummie and the other adults talking about her mental screen once, saying how different it was from Ken's puny one, marveling at how wonderfully strong it was, and how it must be guarding other metafaculties of hers that were probably even more amazing ... if they could just discover how to pry them out of her.

But she knew her latent powers were more than amazing. They were terrible, and they must never be allowed to escape. No matter how the therapists and Mummie tried, hurting her for what they said was "her own good," Dee resisted their attempts to invade her and open the other boxes. The things inside were hers, not theirs, and so was the angel who guarded them. She didn't want to be an operant like Mummie. n.o.body could make her do what she didn't want to do.

Especially not Mummie.

Ken said softly, "You stupid pillock-she doesn't even have to know. None of 'em have to know! Just do it for yourself. Open the self-redaction box and keep the power ... inside."

Dee almost screamed out loud from shock and terror. Ken had heard her thoughts!

"Well, I could hardly help it, could I, the way you were howling at me."

She opened her eyes. He sat on the edge of a seat facing her, and his eyes were wide and black. He knew about the boxes, knew she had deliberately shut the adults out when they tried to force her into operancy. What else did he know?

She cried: Stop looking and listening! I just want you to leave me alone! I want everybody to leave me alone!

He backed away from her, as shocked as she was by the unexpected telepathic transmissions on his intimate mode. "Okay, okay! You let your screen crack while you were thinking about those things. I couldn't help hearing. Then your mind almost knocked my socks off shrieking at me."

"Can you read my mind now?" she whispered suspiciously. She was back in control.

"No. No more than you can read mine. We're not True People, Sis. We're deadheads. The farspeak and the other stuff only works when it feels like it-not when we want it to." He got up and moved away, taking his drink. "But I'm not like the others, you know."

She watched him go. He had told the truth. He was a terrible tease, but unlike the grownups, he never pushed her to do things that hurt or frightened her. He was just Big Brother Ken- sometimes rude, very often snotty and superior. But never a threat.

Cautiously (for she was still buffeted by the whirlpool of motion sickness) she descended into the mental cellar. She greeted the angel and contemplated the boxes.

Yes, Ken was right. If she opened only the smallest rosy-glowing box, the one that now throbbed so eagerly, the redactive power she set free would behave as the friendly blue mind-screen had, remaining safe within her head. No one would ever notice if she redacted only herself-except maybe the grockly old Gi, and there were never too many of them around to worry about. Most Big Birds were too daft and giggly to teach or study at Edinburgh University, unlike the Green Leakie Freakies and the Wee Purple p.o.o.pers and the horrible Krondak monsters, who seemed to be all over the place. But those other kinds of exotics couldn't see past her mind's blue mask any more than True People could, so she would be safe most of the time.

... I will be safe, won't I, angel?

But he did not reply. He never did, even though she was quite convinced of his existence. The angel was mute. She would have to decide all by herself.

She took a deep breath. She said to the angel: Yes. I'll do it! No more seasickness, no more painful latency therapy, no more colds, no more hurting when I stub my toe or fall down and skin my knees because you forgot to look after me! My new power will be able to fix all kinds of things like that. And no one but you and I and Ken will ever know.

How stupid she had been not to think of this before! But when you were five years old, you couldn't help doing a lot of stupid things, even though the grownups said you were a mental prodigy.

She reached for the imaginary box with the s.h.i.+ning red thing inside and touched it with a trembling, imaginary finger. The secret code word revealed itself to her in an instant. It was not a word a person said. You have to think it.

She did. And the rosy squirming thing slipped joyously from its prison and swelled and grew, becoming as beautiful as a gigantic flower with s.h.i.+ning petals. The rose enfolded her, turned to liquid light, to a calm lake glowing in the sunset that washed away all her sickness. She floated on it, completely at peace, and closed her eyes. Through closed lids, she was aware of the redness brightening, becoming dazzling white, becoming part of her. She felt no more fear, no more discomfort, no more helplessness. The new power belonged to her and filled her with its healing warmth. It was good.

She opened her eyes, lowered her feet to the carpeted deck, and got up. She stood there easily, letting her body sway and compensate for the motion of the ferry. Her self-redactive metafunction let her take complete command.

Ears, listen to me! I'm not off balance and I'm not going to fall. I'm just fine. Do you hear that, brain? You can stop telling my stomach it has to throw up. Nothing is wrong. I'm going to Islay on holiday, and I'm not going to be sick or even afraid anymore.

Do you understand me, brain? I will tell you what to do.

You will not tell me.

Every trace of the seasickness was gone.

Dee looked at Ken and nodded solemnly. Smiling, he gave her the thumbs-up sign. On the far side of the saloon, the three outlandish Gi were yoo-hooing and fluting incomprehensible things at her. They probably knew! But Mummie and Gran Masha had blank faces, as they always did whenever Dee or Ken made any sort of a scene, while Uncle Robbie and Aunt Rowan and the other human operants among the pa.s.sengers looked puzzled. Dee was certain that they had no idea what had happened. She would never tell and she would make certain that Ken didn't tell either, or she would hate him as long as he lived!

Dee went to the nearest door leading to the ferry's outer deck, slid it open, and quickly went outside.

The rain had stopped. There were six or seven bundled-up adults standing at the s.h.i.+p's rail. Herring gulls and blackbacks soared overhead calling, and sunlight was beginning to pierce the ragged clouds. Ahead, two large islands loomed above the choppy sea. The one on the right was stark, rocky, and dramatic, with two glistening conical mountains humping up from the interior. The one on the left was gently rolling and its slopes were a brilliant green. Oddly, there were peaceful vibes coming from the place with the weird mountains, while the prettier island seemed to have a faint aura of menace.

Which one, Dee wondered, activating her plaque-book, was Islay?

Hydra's laying of the groundwork for the fateful trip had been flawless.

When Professor Masha MacGregor-Gawrys returned home to Edinburgh after six months of bodily rejuvenation, her mental screen was understandably a bit woolly at first, easily penetrated by the subtle coercive-redactive ream that the Hydra knew how to use so well. The idea for taking a brief holiday that came stealing into her mind through the tiny aperture was both gratifying and pleasant, and Masha accepted it as her own without demur.

Hydra withdrew from the professor's unconscious and patiently orchestrated the next step in its plan.

A few days later, Masha held a small tea party in her town-house in the Willowbrae district of Edinburgh and invited those who were closest to her-her daughter-in-law Viola Strachan, Viola's gifted children Dorothea and Kenneth Macdonald, Viola's brother Robert Strachan, and Robbie's wife Rowan Grant.

Also attending, but unnoticed by the professor and her guests, was the Hydra.

Masha served little crustless sandwiches, homemade spongecake and sweet whipped cream, and scones with b.u.t.ter and raspberry jam. She and the others sat round a cheery fire eating and drinking while rain rattled on the new leaves of the plane trees outside the sitting room window ... and on the roof of the Bentley groundcar parked across the square, where the Hydra lurked and watched with its farsight.

It took some time for the two children to get over their surprise at the remarkable change in their grandmother's appearance. When they had last seen her half a year ago she was very old-fifty-two!-but now she seemed to be younger than Mummie. She no longer looked tired and wrinkled, and her tall frame was straight and slender instead of slumping and slightly too large for her clothes. Her hair, in the familiar coronet of braids, now shone like polished copper. Only her dry voice and her vivid emerald eyes, glowing with metapsychic power, seemed the same.

Dutifully, Dee and Ken told Gran Masha what they had been doing in school during the months she had floated switch-off in the regen-tank. Ken had won a prize for a story he had written, and he produced this and read it aloud to judicious appreciation. Then, prompted by Viola, Dee admitted that she had begun taking lessons on the scrollo keyboard. When Viola insisted, she unrolled the instrument, pecked out "Loch Lomond," and then fled to the bathroom, overcome by shyness as the adults clapped.

Masha sighed. "I hoped Dorothea would have grown out of that tiresome habit by now." She frowned a little as she poured more tea for her daughter-in-law. "How is her latency therapy coming along?"

"Not very well. Dr. Crawford found no progress after the latest round of tests. We'll continue the preceptive exercises, of course, but Crawford thinks it unlikely that Dody will ever attain operancy. Her superior intellect certainly understands what the therapists are trying to do, but apparently she lacks the strength of will that would enable her to break the bonds of latency and finally become one of us."

"Now, Vi," her brother said. "It's not completely hopeless." Robert Strachan was a natty man of small stature, only slightly taller than Viola. His dark eyes glittered and his hair was combed back, making him look sleek as an otter. He exuded the self-confidence of a highly adept metacreative operant. He was an a.s.sociate Professor of Psychophysics at the University of Edinburgh, director of the CE Operator Safety Research Project that also involved his wife and sister.

Viola rounded upon him with surprising bitterness. "You're right, as usual, Robbie. Occasionally, children with Dody's form of latency have broken through after suffering some great mental or physical trauma. So we can always hope the child will be in a car smash or some such thing-and become a True Person in spite of herself."

"Vi!" said Masha sharply, and her eyes flicked to young Kenneth, who was listening openmouthed. Both women fell silent, but it was plain that the acrimonious exchange continued telepathically.

The boy toyed with his sandwich, now completely expressionless. Rowan Grant tried to distract him with a lecture on the wonderful things rejuvenation technology had done for his grandmother. "Someday your Mum and Uncle Robbie and I will also have ourselves made young again through genetic engineering," she concluded brightly. "So will you! And if any of us should have an accident and be badly hurt, the regen-tank would make us well again."

"But it's no good for us," Ken muttered. "Not for little kids. I learned about it in school. A person can't go into the tank until he's at least twelve or thirteen, because up until then kids don't have all the special body chemicals that make the regen thing work ... And even if Dee and I wait until then, the tank can't make our normal brains meta."

"Well-no," Rowan admitted. "Thus far, regeneration technology has been unable to benefit those with latent metafunctions. The human brain is so complex that we don't yet understand all of the genes involved in its operation. But you musn't fret about it, dear. Things will surely change in the future. Someday, we'll have the means to make every human being an operant. Why, even if it takes another hundred years, you can be rejuvenated over and over again until-until it happens."

Ken said calmly: "But meanwhile, we'll be deadheads."

"Of course not!" Rowan Grant's plain, kindly face was horrified. "Wherever did you hear that awful term? You must never call yourself that, Ken-or let anybody else do it, either. We all belong to the World Mind and we're all important to the Galactic Milieu-operants and nonoperants alike. And you know that we love you and your sister very much, whether you're full metas or not."

Ken's gaze fell. Making no reply, he abandoned his sandwich, took a piece of spongecake, and began to pile on honeyed cream until it dripped from the side of the plate onto the carpet. Viola noticed what was happening and uttered a sharp exclamation of annoyance, but a warning thought from Masha brought her up short. She pressed her lips together and rose from her chair.

"I'd better see what's happened to Dody. And you, Kenneth- take a serviette and wipe up that disgusting mess at once." She left the room.

"Hurry back," Masha called. "I have an important announcement to make. My great surprise!"

When Viola finally returned with her daughter, Masha addressed them all with determined good humor. "Now, my darlings, I'm very happy to have my strong new body, but I'm not quite ready to go back to work. First, I need to spend some time with all of you to catch up on what's been going on in the world while I was growing young again. So I'd like you to join me on a whirlwind holiday. Let's fly away tomorrow and spend the whole weekend together at some interesting place getting to know one another all over again. Please say that you'll come!"

The other adults, after a brief startled pause, made encouraging noises.

"But where will we go?" Dee asked, bewildered.

"Anywhere you like," Masha said. "Dorothea, you're the youngest. You may choose the place. Just a moment while I get something out of the credenza."

The four components of the Hydra sitting tense in the Bentley let out their collective breath in relief. The scheme of coercive manipulation they had hatched in response to Fury's orders hovered on the brink of bearing fruit. The professor was following the unconscious compulsion they had implanted. Now there was only the child to deal with.

Masha produced a large durofilm map of the British Isles, which she spread on the rug in front of the fire. She handed a silver CAD stylus to her granddaughter. "Stand up, Dorothea. Now close your eyes and I'll spin you round. Then you must kneel down and point to the map while still keeping your eyes shut, picking our destination."

"But what if Dee picks someplace awful?" Ken wailed. "Like Dundee or Wolverhampton?"

"Then those of us who have creative ingenuity will use it to make the holiday rewarding," Viola retorted. Poor Ken flinched.

Dee took the stylus and closed her eyes, trying not to let her nervousness show. Very often she "saw" things when her optic nerves no longer received photon stimuli-not ultrasensory images, as a True Person might perceive, but pictures drawn by her own imagination. As she was turned round and round she had quick little visions of English castles and Irish horse farms and Parisian toy stores. She caught glimpses of the Elizabethan Immersive Pageant at New Kenilworth that Ken had enjoyed so much, and Disney Cosmos, and Buckingham Palace, and Elfinholm, and the great zoo at Glentrool with its strange animals from the colonial planets. She saw place after place that she and Mummie and Ken had visited on holiday. Places she would love to see again- She stopped spinning.

"Now point with the stylus," ordered Gran Masha.

Hydra acted in full metaconcert.

Into the mind of the little girl flashed a different kind of mental picture, like a Tri-D suddenly turned on in a dark room. She drew in a startled breath and almost exclaimed out loud because the scene was so real, so unlike any inner vision she had ever experienced before.

It was a place. A beautiful place with fields of bright wild-flowers, green hillsides above a seash.o.r.e, and a palace on an islet in the midst of a sparkling loch. She knew at once that she had never been there in her life, and she also knew that the place was real.

"Choose, Dorothea!" Gran Masha urged gaily.

Choose that place! something else commanded.

Slowly, Dee knelt with her eyes still tightly shut, reached out with the stylus, then let it gently descend, still seeing the same picture in her mind.

"Well, I'll be gormed!" said Uncle Robbie.

"Oh!" Mummie's voice was full of dismay.

Aunt Rowan said, "It must be synchronicity-or something."

Dee opened her eyes. Both Mummie and Gran Masha looked fl.u.s.tered and none too pleased. The silver stylus rested squarely on a sizable island off the Scottish coast, almost directly west of their home in Edinburgh.

Masha sighed. "Well, it's my own fault for letting the child decide."

Viola's face tightened. "Dody can pick another place."

"No." Masha was firm. "We'll go there. The children should see the lands that their clan once ruled, and the places where their great-great-grandfather and grandfather were born."

"Izz-lay?" Ken was peering closely at the map in puzzlement. "Dee picked out an island named Izz-lay where ... who ruled?"

"You p.r.o.nounce it EE-luh," Gran said briskly. "Islay was the place where the Lords of the Western Isles had their seat of government in the fourteenth century. From there they held sway over all the Hebrides for two hundred years. Your ancestors- Clan Donald."

"Oh." Ken spoke very softly and looked at his little sister out of the corner of his eye. "Dad's people."

Their father Ian Macdonald was a shadowy figure who was seldom spoken of by Gran or Mummie. From his home on the faraway "Scottish" ethnic planet, he ordered presents that were sent to Dee and Ken from a big Edinburgh store on their birthdays and at Christmas. The gifts had brief notes attached, handwritten by some anonymous personal shopper according to Ian's transmitted instructions and signed "Love, Dad."

Ken, who had been three when his parents were divorced on Caledonia, had only the most distant memory of his father, while Dee had none at all. There were no holopix or Tri-D recordings of him in Viola's house; but Ken had discovered a single durofilm photo with I.M.-2055 written on the back, buried in a drawer full of miscellanea in his mother's desk. He had stolen the picture and hidden it, and from time to time he would take it out and look at it, and sometimes show it to Dee. The picture was badly scuffed and faded, and showed a das.h.i.+ng young man in a s.h.i.+ny environmental suit with the mask and helmet doffed, standing beside some kind of odd aircraft. The scenery was unearthly and the children had decided that the picture must have been taken on the Scottish planet.

"Islay is a lovely place for our holiday," Aunt Rowan was saying with an encouraging smile. "Wild and strange, with a beautiful reconstruction of the medieval palace of the Lords of the Isles that serves as a museum. Your great-great-grandfather Jamie MacGregor, who was a pioneer metapsychic, was born there, and so was your grandad, Kyle. The island is a bird sanctuary as well. I think it's an excellent place for us to visit."

Dee was dubious. "But if Mummie doesn't want to go there-"

"Of course we'll go," Viola snapped. "Why on earth not?"

Masha arose and began to gather together the tea things. "You children help me clear up. Then we'll order some flecks about Islay that you can take home to read tonight."

When the professor and her grandchildren had left the room, Viola Strachan said to her brother: "That was a very eerie performance by Dody. Enough to make one wonder whether Crawford's diagnosis is entirely correct. I wonder if the child could be crypto-operant."

Robert Strachan left his chair and began to poke up the fire. "What makes you think that?"

"Robbie ... I was thinking of Kyle Macdonald's birthplace when Dody made her choice."

"She couldn't have read your mind, Vi. You're a mastercla.s.s adult, as Rowan and I are. Even if the child were crypto-operant she'd be unable to penetrate your social mind-screen-much less the inner defensive barrier."

"But-"

"I was thinking of Islay, too," Rowan interrupted, her eyes wide with astonishment. "Only I thought of it as the place Jamie MacGregor came from. Now what do you make of that?"

Robbie frowned. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it all, I believe I might have had a flicker about the place myself! But for no reason that I recall." He pondered the puzzle for a minute, then his brow cleared. "Masha! Of course-it has to be Masha who did it. She's fresh from the regen-tank and her brain hasn't quite settled yet. She must have had some stray thoughts of Islay. A Grand Master Creator-Redactor like her could inadvertently zap all our minds with an imaginative icon that just popped into her head. She could even penetrate a latent youngster if the erratic was heavily energized."

Rowan nodded. "And anything that Masha's unconscious mind a.s.sociated with that b.l.o.o.d.y fool husband of hers would carry a considerable emotional charge. Her superego would have tried to reject any thoughts of Kyle Macdonald as fast as they formed, and-pow!"

"I suppose you're right," Viola said. "It's the only logical explanation. But ... I still wish we weren't going to Islay."

But you are, the Hydra observed, and the game is afoot!

The Bentley groundcar that had been parked outside Professor MacGregor-Gawrys's townhouse then drove away briskly through the rain, heading for the George Hotel. Fury had insisted that the Hydra travel first cla.s.s on its initial foray away from its place of exile, and the quadruplex mind had been delighted to comply.