Pliocene Exile - The Adversary Part 36

"Half that of our Milieu," Elizabeth mused, "and yet more than adequate for coadunation of the Galactic Mind, if you had not followed the dead end of the golden torcs."

"So you say."

Minanonn addressed Elizabeth with a certain bluff impatience. "My mind is a simple one, suited to porter duties and other tasks requiring more brawn than subtlety. Nevertheless, I hope that someday you will explain to me exactly what this 'coadunation' might be-and why we Tanu are so deprived not to have it! In our Peace Faction, we enjoy a fellows.h.i.+p that is both consoling and stimulating. Can your Unity be so much greater?"

"Perhaps you'll find out for yourselves," Elizabeth said faintly. An image formed in her mind that made the three exotic men gasp.

"A time-gate to the Milieu?"

Dionket's question was incredulous.

"And we might be permitted to pa.s.s through?" cried Minanonn.

Elizabeth said, "If the device can be built-and operated without danger to the Milieu itself-then all persons of goodwill in the Many-Coloured Land will have the option of pa.s.sing through. You know how sceptical I have been about Brede's calling me the 'most important woman in the world.' Well ... lately I've wondered whether she might have seen me in the role of time-gate shepherdess. Certainly it would make more sense than my merely serving as dirigent to a continent full of barbarian hordes and exiled Milieu malcontents."

"You would go back?" Creyn asked. "Leading us?"

"If it seems right that I should." But the old uncertainty was plain beneath the ambiguity.

"How will you know?"

Creyn asked.

She said, "It's premature to think too deeply about it now.

Too many things could go wrong. The gate may never reopen-we may find ourselves in the Nightfall War at last!-if we can't help Aiken regain his mental strength."

Minanonn said, "We approach the caravan camp. Render us invisible to casual surveillance, Lord Healer."

"It is done," said Dionket.

They flew over an area of prairie between two streams. Scattered about were open groves of silverleaf poplar and ash. The all-terrain vehicles of the North Americans were parked in a tidy circle, surrounded by a more casual collection of Tanu pavilions and tethered chalikos.

"I see Bleyn's forces have arrived," Minanonn remarked. He asked Elizabeth, "Can you fa.r.s.ense the King's presence below?"

She exerted her metafaculty. "He's safely gone. Would you like a closeup view of the newcomers?"

When the three a.s.sented she showed them a group gathered beneath a large dining pavilion. Supper was being served. Two long tables were separated from the others by a distinct psychic veil. At the head of one sat a burly young man in his late twenties who scowled as he listened to a slighter, foxy-faced companion. "Hagen Remillard," Elizabeth noted. "Except for the dark blond hair and a somewhat shorter stature, he bears a rather strong physical resemblance to his father. The mental resemblance is not so strong." She showed them Cloud, who headed the second table, then panned the other twenty-seven adults and the five little children.

"All of them are so young," Creyn said. "Are their minds exceptional?"

Elizabeth said, "I know very little about them as yet, except for what Aiken has told me about the Remillards. As to their metafaculties-they're all fully operant, but only imperfectly trained by their parents and the other ex-Rebels. Considering their heritage, they probably represent a wide spectrum of talent and strength. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority were quite formidable. Let's not forget that they helped Felice to blast open Gibraltar."

"And drown thousands of people," Minanonn added tonelessly.

The exotics studied the innocent-appearing diners. A young black man at Cloud's table was regaling his companions with a funny story. Parents wiped the messy chins of children and admonished breaches of etiquette. A plumpish brunette was teased by her tablemates for taking two pieces of Calamosk torte.

Dionket said, "And the Unity of your Milieu is a goal so precious to them, that even such a terrible means seemed justified?"

"Their nurture," Elizabeth said, "can hardly have been ideal, from an ethical standpoint."

"If we are barbarians," Minanonn murmured, "what are they?"

"Children," Elizabeth replied. "Adult children."

"And your Milieu," Dionket said. "Would it welcome these youthful ma.s.s murderers?"

"It will accept any mind prepared to seek maturity-which is always a very painful process with ample opportunity for atonement. And the Milieu will know who strives sincerely and who does not. There is no deceiving the Unity ... not anymore."

The campsite was falling behind them. They flew now over foothills thickly clad with climax forest. To the west, the sky had become wholly dark except for the lightning. Thunder had swelled from a growl to a full tympanic rumble punctuated with heavier booming peals. Irregular gusts of wind rippled the treetops.

Minanonn pointed ahead and magnified the view for the others. "The cave lies there, on the side of that hill. The entrance is well concealed."

They descended into the wildly swaying jungle and landed on a slope where a rill flowed over mossy rocks and tangled lianas hung from huge sweetgum trees. The cleft in the rock was un.o.btrusive. As they came to it on foot, they saw that the web of a handsome black-and-yellow spider stretched across the cave entrance like some gossamer gate. The Heretic lifted the creature with his PK and sent it scurrying into the undergrowth.

"The royal sentinel," he suggested with a wintry smile. "And you will note that we have arrived before the rain."

They stepped into what seemed to be a blind-ended chamber, clogged with rubble and dried leaves. But Minanonn led them confidently into it, and at the rear they turned sharply into darkness. Their guide raised two fingers and kindled a steady yellow flame, lighting the way into a tortuous pa.s.sage so low and narrow that the Tanu men had to move at an awkward crouch. As they descended, the tunnel widened and its walls glistened with seepage. The air washed back and forth in sinister rhythm and carried a metallic-oniony odour.

Finally they reached a cul-de-sac where the dark rock was richly veined with red and orange minerals. Set into the wall was a door of rotting wood. Faded Firvulag ideographs were barely visible on a tarnished plaque mounted low, where gnomish eyes might have conveniently read it.

Minanonn had to stoop. "Quicksilver Cave," he translated.

"This is the place." He c.o.c.ked his ma.s.sive head alertly.

"Listen!"

They strained their metafaculties, but it seemed that a psychic void lay behind the crumbling planks. The only audible sounds were water dripping and stones crunching underfoot.

Minanonn put his hand to the latch and slowly extinguished his metapsychic torch. A flickering illumination shone through cracks in the door.

"Keep up your guard, Coercive Brother," Dionket cautioned.

The door swung wide without a sound. They looked down a shallow flight of steps into a pillared chamber hewn in living rock. At its centre was a sunken area that seemed to be floored with a mirror at least five metres square. Light streamed obliquely out of an alcove on the right, throwing a shadow onto an otherwise featureless grey wall.

The shadow of a monster.

It swayed back and forth so that its dimensions were constantly changing and its true size was impossible to estimate.

The shadow was enormous. The body was humanoid but grotesquely thick, with a bloated belly, protruding b.u.t.tocks, and incongruously slender legs. It had immense b.r.e.a.s.t.s with pointed nipples, which it seemed to be supporting with pipestem arms.

From the broad shoulders sprang three elongate necks that intertwined like the bodies of pythons. The heads were less easily distinguished. One seemed to be birdlike, a second leonine, and the third reptilian, with multiple fangs and a forked tongue.

"Great G.o.ddess!" Creyn whispered. "What can it be? It's not a Firvulag or a Howler throwing that shadow. We'd sense their aura. What ... what's it doing?

Tana-is it growing some monstrous tail?"

"No," said Dionket. "It's not a tail."