Jack the Bodiless

by Julian May

  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.

  5

  FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD, A DIGRESSION

  THE METAPSYCHIC PIONEERS DENIS REMILLARD AND LUCILLE Cartier had lived in the old house on South Street for more than thirty years while raising their seven amazing children. Paul, the youngest and most mentally formidable of the brood, was born in 2014, the year after the Intervention. He was the only one of his siblings to be educated in utero by means of the new Milieu preceptorial techniques; and by the time he grew to adolescence he was acknowledged as the first human Grand Master metapsychic, with powers that were so overwhelming that he was virtually guaranteed a Concilium seat at such time as humanity’s long probationary period ended.

  In 2036, when Paul was twenty-two and already media-conspicuous for political maneuvering (read: circumventing the Simbiari Proctorship’s more inconvenient restrictive ordinances), as well as being the most brilliant scion of Earth’s “First Family of Metapsychology,” he met Teresa Kaulana Kendall, a young woman of Hawaiian extraction, who was a celebrity in her own right. She was a musical prodigy who had made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York the previous season singing the fiendishly difficult roles of the Queen of the Night and Lucia di Lammermoor. She was barely nineteen, and the storm of critical and popular acclaim greeting her had been colossal. The New York Times had called her “the Voice of the Century … a rare, exquisitely high sopra acutissima that is perfectly controlled and full of ravishing color.” Teresa Kendall was also beautiful, and a natural actress, and her stage presence even at that early age had the magical quality that differentiates a talent from a superstar.

  The rather inhibited young Paul Remillard found her singing to be an unfailing aphrodisiac.

  Even people who ordinarily did not care for operatic music idolized the glamorous young performer. She was also metapsychically operant, although her higher mental faculties were by no means as spectacular as her vocal abilities. The modern-day disparagers of her legend like to hint that the voice’s effect was a mere psychocreative illusion, a mesmerizing of the audience by the mindpower of the singer—but this is patently ridiculous. While it is true that Teresa’s popularity owed something to her coercivity and charm (as is true even of nonoperant divas), the voice stood on its own merits, unique and phenomenal, as her recordings prove.

  Less than five months after Teresa and Paul’s first meeting, they were married on the Met stage at the close of the 2036-37 season. The set was from the last act of a Russian fantasy opera that had been revived especially for her, which she had sung to tumultuous acclaim. The bride was attended by the production’s principals, all still in gorgeous Slavic costume. (The groom wore conventional black tie.) The Archbishop of Manchester-in-New-Hampshire, a noted opera buff and a close friend of the groom’s distinguished parents, performed the ceremony. It was witnessed by a mob of singers, stagehands, supers, technicians, musicians, and most of the rest of the opera company; and as the bride and groom kissed, the Met Chorus made the chandeliers shiver with a recessional version of the hymn to love from Turandot. Sundry Remillards were in attendance—including a certain elderly bookseller. So were Teresa’s mother, the noted actress Annarita Latime
r; her father, the distinguished astrophysicist Bernard Kane Kendall; and her lovely and spectacularly rejuvenated grandmother, Elaine Donovan.

  (The collateral consanguinity of the couple, even had it been acknowledged, would have been no real obstacle to this marriage under Milieu law. It would be another matter altogether when Marc and Cyndia Muldowney determined to marry many years later and their true relationship came to light.)

  The production that Teresa had starred in on her wedding night was, portentously enough, The Snow Maiden by Rimsky-Korsakov, a dark fairy tale with a disturbing ending; but no one thought about omens at the time. Teresa was captivated by the dashing Paul, eager to have his children—who would certainly be metapsychic giants—and confident that she could continue her singing career with a few minor adjustments to her schedule.

  Lucille and Denis turned their big old home on South Street over to the newlyweds and moved to an elegantly refurbished farmhouse on Trescott Road east of Hanover. By then Denis was Emeritus Professor of Metapsychology at Dartmouth College’s Metapsychic Institute, and the rejuvenated Lucille was the doyenne of faculty society.

  At first, Paul and Teresa seemed to share a union written in the stars. Three mental prodigies were born to them in quick succession—Marc, Marie, and Madeleine. The family was saddened when Marc’s twin, Matthieu (actually the firstborn), died at birth; but the small tragedy was quickly forgotten and its import quite unappreciated at the time. Like most opera singers, Teresa had the physique of an athlete, and she had her first three babies easily, retiring from the stage only during the final month of each pregnancy. The precocious infants were nursed backstage, in rehearsal halls, in dressing rooms, and even in the cabin of the luxurious Remco rhocraft that the family corporation provided to shuttle the Prima Donna between her home base in New Hampshire and opera houses in New York, London, Milan, Tokyo, Moscow, and a dozen other Earth metro regions. She also sang on the populous colonial worlds of Assawompsett, Atarashii-Sekai, Cernozem, Londinium, Etruscia, and Elysium, on the exotic planet SponsuBrevon, the Poltroyan artistic center, and on Zugmipl, where adoring Gi packed the house to the rafters for her week-long engagement in La Traviata. In an ultimate tribute, sixteen particularly keen Gi opera aficionados expired in aesthetic ecstasy at the climax of her final performance.