It wasn't a real choice at all.

Kenny.

Two ma.s.ses of colored light erupted in a dazzling flare and faded, giving way to an eerie seascape. The fuselage with Ken inside was close by Dee's flitter, utterly motionless. Scattered drifts of airplants halted in the gelid air and the waves of the sea less than a hundred meters below seemed frozen. Only Dee's mind was able to move.

With her PK she untangled the parafoil's lines, and then spread its fabric so the giant kite could fill properly. Time resumed and the world came to life once more. The waves leapt, the airplants swirled, and rushing atmospheric molecules filled the huge candy-striped parafoil. Dee held it and its suspended fuselage quite still until she was certain that the discarded superstructure frame with its rags of fabric had crashed into the sea. Then she made the wind blow. The parafoil carried Ken toward a flat little islet covered with gra.s.s.

The fuselage landed softly, rolling at an awkward angle because its landing struts were still folded inside their compartments. Dee reached out with her mind, collapsed the kite, and unlatched the canopy. The figure strapped inside lifted its visored head and stared up at The Big Cheese, which was slowly descending. Ian Macdonald's aerostat was a few hundred meters offsh.o.r.e, hovering just above the waves. He had seen everything.

Ken's unsteady voice in her helmet said, "Sis?"

You're fine. Just relax. It's all right.

"You did it, didn't you! You used your powers ..."

She didn't reply. Moments later her own aircraft landed. She extended the boarding ladder. Two white sea mews that had flown off in alarm circled above, calling. Waves crashed on the rocks surrounding the little island. There were yellow flowers growing in the gra.s.s.

Dee pulled off her gloves and unfastened her mask. She climbed out of her aircraft and went slowly down the ladder, her muscles aching with stress. Ken was scrambling out of his fuselage, waving, as the black flitter approached the island and landed on the gra.s.s. Other aerostats were converging from the north.

There would be no way to hide what had happened. The flight recorder in Ken's c.o.c.kpit would have logged every word, every maneuver performed by the disabled flitter.

Even its uncanny halt in the middle of the air.

For the first time she thought to ask herself how the miracle had happened. How in the world had she actually done that?

Her mental feats had been virtually instinctive, performed in a desperate response to her brother's peril. Could she do it again if she simply willed it?

She turned to The Big Cheese, stared at it intently, and ordered it with all her might to rise a short distance into the air.

Rise! she told the flitter. RISE!

It remained where it had landed, not budging a millimeter.

She tried again, this time focusing her volition on a rock near her feet. It was slightly larger than a potato. As she continued to stare at it and strain, it stirred slightly in its bed of soil, then fell back inert.

Dee sighed. She obviously had a lot to learn about metapsychic operancy. But she'd catch on eventually.

She sat down on the bottom rung of the aircraft ladder and waited for her father.

15.

SECTOR 12: STAR 12-337-010 [GRIAN].

PLANET 4 [CALEDONIA].

35 MIOS MEADHONACH A' GHEAMHRAIDH.

[28 AUGUST] 2068.

New Glasgow, the rowdydowdy capital of Caledonia, had no robot taxis, and all of the manned groundcabs lined up in front of the modest hotel where Professor Masha MacGregor-Gawrys was staying looked deplorably clapped out and dingy. She considered calling for a chauffeured egg; but that would be costly, and on a cold, rainy night like this it would probably take forever to arrive, and she was already half an hour late for her meeting. It had been stupid of her not to insist on being picked up at the hotel.

Clutching the hood of her raincoat, she entered the first taxi in the rank. Two scarlet furry dice and a miniature sporran hung from the rearview mirror, and the windscreen ionizer was barely functional in the downpour. The cab was suffocatingly hot. Both safety harnesses in the pa.s.senger compartment were broken, nameless grunge littered the floor, and a pervasive odor combining fried fish with the driver's bodily effluvia a.s.saulted her nostrils. Quad speakers that were unfortunately in excellent working order poured out a flood of raucous music.

The professor sighed. "Take me to the Granny Kempock Tavern. It's somewhere in the university district."

The scruffy old driver set aside the packet that held his fish and chips supper, chewed up and swallowed a handful of potatoes, and wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve. "Ye're sure ye wanna go to Granny's, luvvie? It's a wee bit raunchy for a fine lady like yerself."

"Carry on," said Masha crisply, and let him have a brief sting of coercion. She had no difficulty compelling him to shut off the blaring stereo, but nothing could be done about the heater. Its control was broken. And that smell! Her nanocreativity was inadequate to obliterate stink-molecules, and she knew she would never be able to manage self-redaction of her olfactory glomeruli, a hopelessly delicate piece of work, because she was still s.p.a.ce-lagged from her trip. And if she opened a window to air the cab out, she'd be drenched. Oh, well. She rummaged in her bag, thinking that it might help a little to suck a menthol lozenge.

Then she remembered she had left them in her room.

Miserably, she settled back on the taxi's rumpsprung seat to brood. She was not looking forward to this meeting. The principles of human liberty were one thing, revolutionary conspiracy quite another. I am a mild-mannered academic, Masha told herself, not an apprentice gunrunner!

If only she hadn't let herself be talked into this side excursion ... But Tamara Sakhvadze had looked upon her granddaughter's trip to Caledonia on family business as a G.o.d-given opportunity to pa.s.s along the latest intelligence from Rebel headquarters on Earth to the stalwarts in the hinterworlds. Masha could not turn down the request of the desperately ill old woman, so she had agreed.

Worst of all, she was being forced to meet Kyle along with the others.

Heaven only knew what sort of a dive this tavern was. Probably one of Kyle's haunts, where he and his drunken normal buddies did their half-baked scheming and he cooked up plots for his scandalous anti-Milieu novels. New Glasgow teemed with low-echelon Rebels, notorious characters who proclaimed their beliefs stridently; but the more exalted members of the cabal, the operants holding high positions in the government, kept a lower profile for reasons of political expediency. They were wary of being seen together in places frequented by other operants and by loyalist normals. When Masha pa.s.sed on Tamara's request to Kyle, asking him to arrange a special meeting with the Rebel honchos of Caledonia, Okanagon, and Satsuma, he'd said it was Granny Kempock's or nothing.

The taxi rumbled and bounced and splashed over potholed pavement, eventually entering a run-down quarter between the University and the waterfront along the Firth of Clyde, where the narrow and twisting streets had a quaint, d.i.c.kensian squalor.

Masha felt herself relaxing in spite of her discomfort, her mind turning to thoughts of her rakish estranged husband.

Kyle Macdonald had been stunned when she called him on the subs.p.a.ce communicator and told him she was coming to Caledonia in four Earth months for the children. Evidently Ian had said nothing to his father about having discovered that both Dorothea and Kenneth were operant. As was required by law, Ian had reluctantly reported the fact to the authorities and then to his mother, the professor.

But that news was nothing compared to the second surprise Masha had sprung on Kyle. When she announced that her mother Annushka and grandmother Tamara had finally converted her to the Rebel point of view, Kyle was astonished to the point of incoherence. If only she could have seen the old reprobate's face as he gawped and spluttered! It would almost have been worth the hefty extra charge for SS com video.

The rain was starting to turn to sleet when the taxi finally pulled up in front of the Granny Kempock Tavern. Masha peered out of the taxi window, her heart sinking. "This is it?"

"As ever it's been, for goin' on forty year," the driver replied. "Ane o' the auldest groggeries in town. Mind the bust.i.t kerb."

"Who was Granny-some kind of dockside madam?'

"Nay. 'Tis not a wumman atall but an ancient magical rock near the original Glasgie, on Earth. I saw it when I was a wee sprat. That'll be twenny-six bux."

Grimly, Masha gave him her credit card, then made a dash for the door of the dingy pub across a cracked and icy sidewalk. The windows of the place were so filthy that she could barely tell there were lights on inside. One of the door panes had been replaced by a piece of ill-fitted particleboard covered in Gaelic graffiti. A hand-lettered sign proclaimed:

TONITE!.

SLIMEMOLD!!!.

ALSO MUNGO THE TRON-DOODLER.

She went inside and paused for a moment in the vestibule to dry her hair and banish the wet from her raincoat. She was not adept enough to fend off driving rain with her metacreativity, but this particular trick was easy enough, and harmless so long as no nonoperant was watching. If a normal had been present, Masha would have stayed wet rather than risk provoking envy by a gratuitous display of mindpower.

She poked her head into the fug and clamor of the barroom. A hulking youth, undoubtedly the second-billed Mungo, was playing "The King of Pain" with minimal talent on squealing electronic bagpipes. The tavern was jammed with young people drinking and talking and laughing. They were all nonoperant Casting about, Masha failed to detect Kyle's aura anywhere in the mob. The tavern vestibule also boasted a rickety stairway with a sign saying FOOD and an arrow pointing upward. A chalkboard listed the day's specials: hogget stew, baked adag in cream sauce, and grilled rhamphorhynchus with garlic b.u.t.ter.

Yes ... he was up there, sitting at a big round table in the far corner of the busy dining room with his Rebel companions, four men and a middle-aged woman. Kyle was bent over a steaming plate, feeding his face. The others seemed to have finished eating-or maybe they had not been brave enough to begin.

Keeping a firm hold on her shoulder bag, Masha climbed the stairs and made her way through the closely packed tables. Insolent students leered appreciatively at her and called out mildly salacious compliments in Gaelic. She sat down without a word in the single empty place across from the rumpled, tweedy figure of her husband and shrugged off her coat.

For a beat, the fantasy writer kept his head bowed over his plate of stew. Masha noted that he was eating with his old cap on, the lout. The other people at the table, all stalwart metas indeed, if one could judge from the clever suppression of their auras, watched the professor with an odd sense of amused antic.i.p.ation.

Then Kyle looked up at her, grimacing in triumphant glee, with food all over his fine white teeth.

Masha gasped. "My G.o.d! Look at you!"

He was rejuvenated.

The operant Rebels began to laugh. Downstairs, the piper had done a segue into "Mull of Kintyre." Kyle took a gulp from his gla.s.s of stout, used his napkin, and swept off his cap, revealing a full head of wavy brown hair.

"D'ye like it, Maire m'annsachd? I'm fresh out of the tin womb and still wet behind the ears, and a few little items n.o.body can see aren't exactly up to snuff since the engineers had too short a time to finish the job. But it's a great improvement over my old bod, don't y' think? And I did it all for your sweet love's sake."

Masha was speechless. The regenerative treatment had nearly restored Kyle Macdonald to the brawny, handsome roisterer she had fallen in love with thirty-nine years ago. His skin was unwrinkled and his eyes were clear and unenc.u.mbered by droopy bags. The nose that had gone red and bulbous from overindulgence was once again a keen Highland blade. He appeared to have shed over four stone of flab.

The others at the table were still chuckling at Masha's reaction when a young waiter came up and unceremoniously flung a ragged menu in front of her. "What'll ye have, then?"

"Get this poor stricken woman a double dram of Dalwhinnie," Kyle ordered. "And the rinkie special with buntata and a salad with oil and vinegar." He said to her, "You'll like rhamphorhynchus, la.s.s. A Mesozoic-type birdie with a long tail. Fills the seagull niche here on Callie and tastes like chicken."

Masha gave a minimal nod, still unable to take her eyes off him.

"And for my other friends," Kyle instructed the waiter, "a round of Drambuie cheesecake! No beggin' off now, you villains. This is my favorite eatin' spot and you're steppin' on my corns just drinkin' and nae takin' a single mouthful. And how about some tea or coffee?"

Kyle's companions opted for various beverages and the waiter went away.

Kyle lowered his voice. "We'd best get the business over with, since three of our fellow conspirators, here, will have to be moving along soon to catch the midnight shuttle to the starport. You were a wee bit late arriving, Maire a gaolach."

Masha didn't apologize. She pulled herself together with an effort. "Is it going to be safe talking aloud in this place?"

"It is," said Kyle. "Only deadhead students and other low types like me come here. And even if it wasn't safe, we'd tongue-talk anyhow. I'm no operant and I'm d.a.m.ned if you longheads are going to shut me out of the confab. I'm here representin' the normals."

"Whether they know it or not," said one of the Rebels with suave good humor. "Let me introduce myself, professor. I am Hiroshi Kodama, the Dirigent of Satsuma and a member-at-large of the Human Directorate of the Concilium."

"I recognized you, of course, Dirigent Director," Masha said. "I also could hardly believe my eyes. Your sympathy to the Rebel cause is hardly public knowledge."

Hiroshi's smile broadened. "Perhaps the Lylmik would not have appointed me to oversee the newest 'j.a.panese' planet if it had been."

"Now let me present Clinton Alvarez," Kyle said, "Special a.s.sistant to the Dirigent of Okanagon. Pat Castellane couldn't come and I'm glad. Clint's a more congenial drinkin' buddy."

The blond and striking Alvarez nodded coolly. He had a smooth manner that was almost feline, and was dressed, like all of the others except Masha, in clothes much the worse for wear.

The other three quickly introduced themselves. The woman whose tatty rainsuit could not disguise her commanding aspect was Catriona Chisholm, First Deputy to the Dirigent of Caledonia. She was widely believed to be the designated successor to sickly old Graeme Hamilton, who stubbornly refused to step down.

Masha had also recognized the thin, bearded man sitting next to the First Deputy, even though he was wearing an incongruous tam-o'-shanter and wrapped in a voluminous old plaid. He was Jacob Wa.s.serman, the Intendant General of Okanagon, a distinguished metapsychiatrist as well as the leader of his planet's legislature. The fifth conspirator was his opposite number, Calum Sorley, the fiery young IG of Caledonia, who had yet to be tapped for magnateship. His attempt to disguise himself as an impoverished student was somewhat negated by his designer haircut and a blue diamond pinkie-ring.

Kyle made a bravura gesture with his fork. "As you see, dear Maire, we have quite a collection of treasonous movers and shakers a.s.sembled expressly to hear the important communique you bear from dear old Tamara. And now, you may ask, why don't I stop haverin' and let you deliver it? So I shall!"

The waiter brought Masha's tumbler of Scotch and went off again. She tasted it and let her gaze rove from face to face, seeking clues to the minds hidden behind them. Only Kyle was readable, leaking semi-intoxicated sedition and renascent l.u.s.t like a colander. The mental barriers of the others were tightly locked. Only the lingering hints of their suppressed auras betrayed them as stalwart operants-and the most formidable of all seemed to be Castellane's young henchman. Strange that he was not a magnate. As a professional metapsychologist, Masha kept tabs on the more powerful young minds in the Human Polity and had acted as an advisor when the Lylmik put together the last list of Concilium nominees. How had this remarkable young man escaped her notice? She decided she would have to find out more about Clinton Alvarez when she returned to Earth.

"First I must tell you some very sad news," Masha began. "Tamara Sakhvadze is dying."

There were exclamations of distress and sorrow. Kyle dropped his fork and sat stricken while Hiroshi Kodama lowered his head and took out his handkerchief. Only Alvarez seemed unaffected.

"My dear grandmother is a weary woman who fears for the future, and she has declined rejuvenation in spite of all the family's urging. She is more convinced than ever that we Rebels will eventually have to fight for our freedom, and she says she has had enough of war. She wishes us well and asks me to offer her apologies for being unable to take up the burden of a new lifetime."

"You must rea.s.sure her on our behalf," Catriona Chisholm said. "No one has been a finer exemplar of mental liberty than she. Tamara has earned the right to rest, although we'll miss her greatly."

Masha paused while the waiter set a plate of broiled white meat in front of her. It smelled tempting, but she found she had lost her appet.i.te. The others were served their dessert and hot beverages and seemed similarly unenthusiastic-again excepting Alvarez, who tucked into the cheesecake with gusto.

"The second piece of news comes from my mother, Annushka Gawrys. As you know, she is the head of the Inst.i.tute for Dynamic-Field Studies at Cambridge. Her people at IDFS have confirmed experimentally that Marc Remillard's enhanced-creativity equipment may indeed be modified to produce the so-called 'mental laser' effect."

"Losh!" exclaimed Calum Sorley. "Does the Concilium Science Directorate know about this yet?"

"Certainly not," said Masha curtly. "Not even Marc knows. Annushka had Severin Remillard filch the design specs from Marc's new lab. Severin was once a rather decent neurosurgeon and Marc has been consulting him occasionally on technicalities of brain implantation. A reproduction of Marc's latest model CE rig was built by Gerrit Van Wyk and Jordan Kramer under conditions of greatest secrecy. Both of them have wide experience with cerebroenergetic enhancement-as well as with unorthodox versions of the Cambridge lie detector. Producing a destructive beam of mental energy required only a slight modification of Marc's design."

"Excellent!" Alvarez exclaimed. "There'll be no stopping us now!"

Masha frowned at him and continued. "Annushka believes that creative CE is a perfect weapon for our self-defensive purposes-compact, mobile, and versatile. However, she asked me to remind you that the equipment will not be truly effective until numbers of grandmaster creators are able to use it in metaconcert."

"We'll get them," said Jacob Wa.s.serman, showing small teeth in a foxy smile. "Okanagon alone has thirty stalwart creators in the Rebel camp. We'll get twice that number from the j.a.panese worlds, won't we, Hiroshi?"

Kodama nodded. "Most of the powerful creators on Satsuma sympathetic to our cause are still young. But they will mature. Atarashii-Sekai and Ezo have twenty-two stalwarts who may be suitable."

"Every year more concerned operants join the Rebel party," Kyle said, his eyes glittering. "When the time comes for the break-"

"It will have to be before the Human Polity attains its Coadunate Number," Clinton Alvarez said. He had an actor's voice, well modulated and deep. "That's a population of roughly ten billion, which we should reach in the early eighties. At that point, a vast metapsychic complexification will take place-if Milieu Unity theory is correct in a.s.sessing the evolution of the Human Mind. Other Milieu races have already experienced this so-called coadunation. It's not Unity per se. But in some ineffable way, a coadunate race is pressured internally to Unify-to make a quantum-style leap to a higher level of socialization. We must attain our independence before this complexification begins."

"That's an interesting idea, Clint," Calum Sorley said, letting his skepticism show. "I've studied the pros and cons of Unity rather extensively myself-but I don't remember running across the notion of an inevitable change in the human mental paradigm. What's your source?"

Alvarez smiled. "At the moment, it prefers to remain anonymous. I've been a.n.a.lyzing the criticality of coadunation in some depth myself. I'll have a report ready in about fifty Galactic days. If you'd care for a copy, I'll send one on."

Jacob Wa.s.serman blinked sardonically from beneath his tam. "I hadn't realized that Pat Castellane's new staff included psychophilosophers."

"The Dirigent is interested in everything that may affect the welfare of our home planet, Intendant General. She'd welcome closer liaison with you and the a.s.sembly on this and ... other matters."