Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 30

He slipped into true operant metafunction."

The Heretic was sitting on the edge of the couch now, and as he listened his fingers went to the gold at his own throat. "The baby's mind functioned metapsychically without the torc? As yours does, and that of the King?"

She nodded. "When I designed this salvage program, I naturally based it upon human paradigms-metapsychic patterns similar to those imposed upon the young children I taught back in the Milieu. A certain percentage of human offspring are potentially operant-but metafaculties almost never develop optimally unless the young mind is trained. The process is rather like learning to talk. Oral communication is an immensely complicated business that we tend to take for granted, but a child won't learn it unless his brain receives the proper input, preferably at a very early age when volition is very strong.

Gaining full access to one's spectrum of metafunctions also depends largely upon education-although under special circ.u.mstances the process can become virtually instinctive. There's a lot we still don't know-especially about repressive factors that tend to keep a person nonoperant in spite of strong latencies."

"As happened with Felice."

"And Aiken," she agreed. "The two of them eventually did attain operancy, but by very different routes. Felice's painful breakthrough was similar to the procedure I used on Brede s.h.i.+pspouse. But Aiken's ... As I said, there are things we don't know. It seems that, occasionally, persons with exceptionally great latencies can raise themselves by mental bootstraps to the higher level. Certainly the pre-Intervention human metas were almost all self-taught. But once our race was inducted into the Milieu, we depended upon preceptive techniques taught to us by the exotics. For example, we laid the groundwork for childhood metapsychic education by telepathic interaction between mother and fetus."

Minanonn uttered a weak laugh. "With our torcs, things are much simpler!"

"Simplest doesn't equate with best." Her tone was sharp.

"Babies wouldn't need to learn to walk if you cut off their legs and grafted their bodies to efficient motorized carts!"

His head dropped. "You're right, of course. I'm not thinking too clearly." He scrubbed the sweat from his brow with the back of one great hand. "G.o.ddess, but I'm tired. Toward the last, I was afraid I'd let you down. We finished that segment just in time."

"You did very well," she rea.s.sured him. But even as she spoke she slid an adroit lancet-probe into his mind, and was shocked at the profundity of his fatigue. She herself was drained, but the Tanu hero, unused to husbanding his strength during prolonged and concentrated actions, seemed to have strained his coercive faculty almost to the breaking point. The digital clock on the nursery wall showed that they had been working for nearly eight hours. It was past two in the morning. "You're going to have to rest now," she told him. "What we did was very hard work."

"You don't have to tell me that!" He rose shakily from the couch and looked down on the child, who had drifted off to sleep. "I feel as though I'd just fought a Grand Combat singlehanded. But he was the only antagonist."

"The minds of children are far less fragile than those of adults.

It's a survival thing."

He sighed, and managed a rueful smile. "Well, I'm game to work him over again tomorrow night if you are."

"Minanonn-" She hesitated, then laid a hand on his enormous forearm. "We'd better wait a while longer. Three days."

His blond brows shot up, and then his eyes brightened in alarm and comprehension. "That bad, eh?"

She nodded. "It's not your fault. You're one of the finest coercers I know. But the job is fiendishly difficult. The concentrated small-scale thrusting-"

Minanonn said to the baby, "Oh, you tough little beggar.

More than a match for a worn-out warrior like me." He moved toward the door and asked Elizabeth, "Shall I tell Mary-Dedra to come?"

"Not yet. I want to reexamine the redacted regions of the child's brain first, while he's still quiet. Goodnight, Minanonn.

And thank you."

When he had gone she resumed her seat beside the little bed and studied the commissures with her deep-seeing eye. The baby's pain was temporarily in abeyance; but was he really improved? His fever was still high and there were new blisters forming in the neck area. Tough, Brendan might be-nevertheless, he was still very likely doomed. The bludgeon technique of mind alteration had been effective, but it was much too slow.

If only Minanonn were stronger, Elizabeth lamented. She was sure that the redactor-coercer configuration was the correct one in this case. Strength. That was the key ...

The baby slept. Strong little Brendan, whose unfolding mind had fought the torc instead of adapting. Were the children who succ.u.mbed always the fighters, always the ones hovering closest to natural operancy? Aiken Drum in the fullness of young adulthood had resisted his torc and conquered it.

How?

But Aiken would not know, being, as he was, a natural talent, inexperienced in metapsychic a.n.a.lysis. And even though he was by far the greatest coercer in Europe, she did not dare ask him to a.s.sist her in the child's redaction. Aiken was too badly damaged himself, too near dissolution.

She slumped back in the chair, brooding, and felt a welcome cool breeze brush her bare shoulders. If only the wretched hot weather would break and an honest thunderstorm recharge the atmosphere with negative ions. Then she might be able to make sense of it. Not only solve the problem of the black-torc babies but the greater question as well, her own mountain of challenge, erected by Brede.

The wind intensified and she let herself luxuriate in it, reaching back to lift her hair. "Oh, that's wonderful," she murmured.

"I'm glad you like it. I wish I could manage the storm for you, but the range is too extreme."

She whirled about, galvanized by astonishment, then froze to see Marc Remillard watching her from just outside the open window. This time, the cross-sectional halo effect of the mindenhancing equipment was reduced to an indistinct s.h.i.+mmer and his body, suspended in midair, seemed completely material. She could see the play of muscle beneath the tight black pressuresuit as he lifted his right hand, palm forward, in the familiar Milieu metapsychic greeting that invited physical as well as mental touch.

No! she cried in instinctive revulsion, leaping from the chair and backing away.

A fresh wave of chill air emanated from him. He smiled sadly, one side of his mouth lifted slightly higher than the other. The hand dropped slowly to his side.

"You're really here," she stated, rather than asked.

"As you see, Grand Master."

"It's a genuine hyperspatial translation? By mind-power alone?"

"The cerebroenergetic enhancer a.s.sists me in generating the upsilon field, but I do the actual d-jump-and the return, of course-under my own steam."

"I presume you learned the program from Felice. Did she injure you seriously in the process?"

Instead of replying, he demanded, "Where is she? I've been unable to fa.r.s.ense her aura, even with the CE rig augmenting my search faculties to the maximum."

Elizabeth showed him the site of the girl's tomb alongside the Rio Genii, the impervious globe of the room without doors buried deep in the rockfall. "Felice is beyond your reach, Marc.

You'll have to look for another partner."

The shadowed eyes seemed to twinkle. "You've left yourself vulnerable, Grand Master."

She stood straight. "Why don't you come inside and do your worst? We've learned a few things in the Milieu since your d.a.m.ned Rebellion! All metas learn self-defensive manoeuvres to forestall the kind of coercive manipulation you and your confederates used. And for Grand Masters, there's a last recourse against mind violation that I'd almost welcome using at this point."

"Perhaps I'd better stay where I am. For both our sakes. The CE rig persists in following me through hypers.p.a.ce like Mary's little lamb. Unless your chalet has reinforced floors, I might prove a perilous guest in more ways than one."

Fascinated in spite of herself, she asked, "Do you mean that the machine will stay behind, once the translation program is properly edited?"

"Oh, yes. And the coverall, too, if I wished." He made a Gallic gesture. "However, I'll retain it to spare you the sight of my scars."

"What do you want?" she asked, tiring of the verbal fencing.

He nodded at the sleeping baby. "His problem interests me.

It's not unlike certain matters that once occupied me ... au temps perdu."

"I'm sure Brother Anatoly would agree."