by Julian May
Everybody knew that the car had been all warmed up and primed to go, but the symbolism was all that counted. Victor jumped out, leaving the engine running, opened the other door for Shannon, and bowed her in during a final bout of clapping. Then they drove off the quay and the ceremony was over. The crowd dispersed and the hose-handling derrick on the ship lowered its cable to begin the cargo-loading process.
They drove out of town toward the new airport, for she would have to go directly to Washington to confer with the eminent criminal lawyers who were preparing Gerry's case. Victor slowed the Mercedes and pulled off the road into a deserted log-scaling yard where trees hid them from passing traffic. He stripped the decorations off the car, dumping the flags into the trunk and letting the helium-filled balloons waft away into the leaden sky. Then he got back in and they sat there.
"Why did your father let you do it?" he asked.
"He thinks he's fattening you for acquisition. He's been watching your situation very keenly in spite of the fireworks in Washington. The way you weathered the capital crunch — squeaked through without losing control of the process — impressed him no end. Beware of sharks trolling bait. "
"Just let him try... Is this scandal of your husband's some of your doing? Are you using him to set your father up?"
Shannon laughed, a throaty, appetite-laden sound. "Why don't you read my mind?"
"I've done that already. "
He pulled her toward him and his icy lips and tongue possessed her hot mouth. Her white fox toque fell from her head and the long auburn hair flamed against the pale fur of her coat. His hand tightened, cupping her skull, and she moaned, her mind crying her need. Victor's other hand nearly encircled her neck. The fingertips against her upper spine seemed to be drawing energy from her supercharged pelvic nerves, draining —
No please Vic not that way damn you not that way let's try it for once my way please please!
No.
It's not love you fool there's no real loss no bonding why won't you there's nothing of him only me why not please oh do it —
I'll give you your pleasure I owe you that but in my own way...
Bastard!... Oh God how I hate you how I hate you
Hold on to that. Guard it very carefully until you're ready to exchange him for me.
"At least he's human, " she wept aloud. "But you..." She screamed then as the orgasms began, and was lost to warmth.
19
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD
Now I SHALL have to tell you about Gerry Tremblay, once a valued member of Denis's Coterie, whose spectacular disgrace was one of those backhanded blessings that seem to prove God's sense of humor.
The Pope's encyclical dealt frankly with the great sources of temptation that must accompany powerful operancy — a sinister fact of life that the American metapsychic establishment, in particular, had long tried to sweep under the rug. This ostrich attitude, a tendency to discount the possibility of disaster until it smacks you in the teeth, was probably quintessentially American. Even in the worst of times, we were a people who hoped for the best and believed that good intentions covered a multitude of sins. Because we were a young nation, because we skimmed the cream of the planetary Mind, and because our land was unarguably the richest and most fortunate on Earth, Americans had the arrogance of the golden adolescent upon whom fate smiles. We thought we were invincible as well as stronger and smarter than everyone else. We suffered a periodic comeuppance but bounced back as triumphalistic as ever. Even today, citizens of the Human Polity of the Galactic Milieu who are of American extraction tend to display a tiresome smugness about their heritage.
At the turn of the twenty-first century, the American metapsychic establishment shared the national flaw. It had deplored the Nigel Weinstein affair, but explained it away as a piece of temporary insanity. The atrocities of the Flaming Assassin were more patently criminal — but they, too, could be attributed to a madman. In other parts of the world, where there were fewer cultural inhibitions against the public avowal of operancy, there had been crimes committed in which metapsychic powers were used with obvious malice aforethought. In America — for reasons that became clear only after the Intervention — few such crimes were ever prosecuted; and none of them, until Tremblay's, had the aspect of a cause célèbre. American operant leaders had tended to sidestep the ethical aspects of their gifts and concentrate instead on the scientific and social applications of them. The few persons, such as Denis, who knew of the existence of evil and exploitative operants found themselves hamstrung by gaps in our legal system. American law, with its reverence for individual rights, makes no provision for the mental examination of suspected criminals. The very idea is contrary to the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that no person shall be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against himself. However, if this principle holds, certain types of operant criminal activity can never be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The Scottish jurors had come to this conclusion in the Weinstein case. It seems likely that Kieran O'Connor and Representative Gerard Tremblay (D-Mass. ) counted upon escaping retribution in a similar manner when they conspired to coerce the President. O'Connor's role in the affair was never proved. Poor Gerry got what was coming to him — and forced a fundamental revision of operant ethics at the same time that he became the ultimate cause of Kieran O'Connor's undoing.
As I have stated earlier, I never really liked Gerry Tremblay. One might credit prescience or redactive insight — or perhaps just the old Franco instinct for smelling a rat. Psychoanalysts would doubtless point out that it was Gerry's deep-seated insecurity and envy that laid him wide open to O'Connor's peculiar brand of sorcery. He was certainly besotted with his wife Shannon, who pretended to mold Gerry to her father's specifications at the same time that she was planning the ruination of both of them.
After Gerry was elected to his first two-year term in 2004, he served on the House Special Committee on Metapsychic Affairs, where his unique position as the only operant congressman assured him of continuing publicity and growing influence. The stance he took was surprisingly conservative, dismaying the operant establishment. He helped kill a measure that would have set up federally funded training schools for operant children. In a speech that was widely televised, he pointed out that this very sort of program — which was being followed in a number of liberal countries such as Japan, West Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian nations — was leading to the formation of elite groups of operant children, the same kind of group that had tried and failed to take political control of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet operants had evidently worked on the side of the angels, could one assume that all operants would inevitably be so high-minded? Representative Tremblay, an operant himself, counseled great caution. He declared that Americans should remain aloof from any schemes that would distance operant youngsters from normals and foster unhealthy illusions of superiority. While he was not in favor of having obstacles put in the way of operant training per se, he hoped that it would always be seen as an adjunct to regular public or private schooling — with operant and normal children educated together. This was the American way, avouched the Gentleman from Massachusetts, and the best way — for the sake of the young operants themselves and the nation as a whole.
Gerry's speech was a smash, and he was well on the road to the big time. Progressive operants tried in vain to point out that federal funding of their programs was vital. In those depressed times, the states had no tax revenues to spare for operant training; private facilities for operants, except at institutions such as Dartmouth, MIT, Stanford, and the Universities of Texas, Virginia, and California-Davis, where there were long-standing Departments of Metapsychology — were too expensive for the majority of gifted children. Minds would be wasted, the operants warned.
Not so, replied Tremblay. In time, when the nation could afford it, Congress would reconsider funding a generalized operant education program. But these
were perilous days. America was threatened not only by unemployment, inflation, and shortages, but also by the escalating Holy War of the fundamentalist Muslims, which now had spread further into Africa, India, and the East Indies; and China had taken a mysterious turn toward isolationism that alarmed both its neighbors and the United States. Tremblay told his fellow operants to be patient — and to ask not what their country could do for them, but what they could do for their country.
As the agent of Kieran O'Connor, Gerry Tremblay was given two important assignments. The first was to influence both the President and Democratic members of Congress in favor of O'Connor's military-industrial contractors, especially those connected to the Zap-Star satellite defense system, the new ON-1 Space Habitat, and the proposed Lunar Base. Gerry was successful in this area because Baumgartner was committed to a strong military posture and to the American space program, and liberal Democrats who favored the latter could rather easily be made to see the high-tech side benefits of the former.
Gerry's second assignment was to discourage Baumgartner from granting special privileges to operants, thus denying a power base to the operant establishment. The defeat of the Operant Education Bill was a great start for Gerry... but immediately after that he realized that O'Connor's second mandate was a no-hoper.
The factor that disrupted the carefully laid scheme was a small one: the President's grandchild, Amanda Denton. Baumgartner's antioperant feelings, never too firmly grounded in personal conviction, were shaken by the religious leaders' statements on the matter — and then utterly shattered by the little girl. She was a resident in the White House, along with her parents and two older brothers. Ernie Denton, the husband of Baumgartner's only daughter, served as a presidential aide; and whenever the Chief Executive felt depressed, he'd send Ernie off to fetch Amanda. The child was both charming and good for what ailed the President. (She grew up to be a Grand Master Redactor, a superlative metapsychic healer. ) And with Amanda cavorting about the Oval Office, Gerry Tremblay didn't have a prayer of reinstituting the antioperant mood that had characterized Baumgartner's first term.
This was a serious worry to O'Connor. In 2006, Gerry was re-elected to the House... but so were seven other operants from liberal states. Bills were introduced to reorganize and upgrade the EE Service of the Defense Department, which had been starved for funds during the past four years. The FBI, concerned that Islamic terrorists might once again target American cities, pressed for the recruitment of operant agents. There was a predictable outcry from conservatives; but such agents were widely used now in other countries and had proved effective — if unpopular.
And then came the greatest threat thus far to O'Connor's schemes. He had been grooming his creature, Senator Scrope, to run for president in 2008, since Baumgartner was restricted to two terms by the XXII Amendment to the Constitution. But the country now perceived the charismatic Baumgartner to be the Man on a White Horse who would save it from the maelstrom engulfing the rest of the world. In spite of all O'Connor's lobbying efforts, Congress passed a repeal of Article XXII in May 2007, and by the middle of October the necessary three-fourths of the state legislatures had ratified it. Baumgartner was free to run again, if he chose to do so. And if he did, the next four years boded ill for O'Connor and his secret operant cabal.
On 27 October, a delegation of the Republican National Committee (not including Chairman Cassidy, who had lost control of the organization) was scheduled to call on the President and formally request him to run for a third term. O'Connor's instructions to Gerry Tremblay were explicit. There could be no more subtlety. Gerry was the only O'Connor partisan with free access to the West Wing having the mental muscle for a full coercive thrust. He was to arrange for an appointment with the President immediately following that of the delegation, so he could station himself in the Oval Office's anteroom. From there he would eavesdrop telepathically, and at the critical moment compel the President to say that he believed the repeal of Article XXII to be an unwise and dangerous move — and that under no circumstances would he run again.
It was a desperate scheme and it might have worked, for Baumgartner would have contradicted his own public image of firm decisiveness if he repudiated the statement — and to charge that he had been coerced would put him in an even worse position. He would know his mind had been tampered with; but he would not know who had done it — or when it might happen again — and O'Connor was certain that subliminal follow-up thrusts by Gerry over the next few weeks would demoralize him and force him to accept the inevitable. At worst, Baumgartner would seem to be suffering a nervous breakdown and his allegations of mental compulsion would be unprovable.
The day came. Gerry arrived early for his appointment and was shown into the anteroom to wait by a White House usher who fell victim to his more subtle coercive wiles. Gerry watched as another usher shepherded in the delegation, together with a single minicam video journalist who would record the historic moment. Gerry suffered a brief qualm when he recognized an operant among the delegates, Dr. Beatrice Fairweather of the University of Virginia; but there seemed to be little danger of her detecting the coercive impulse. Her metafaculties were not strong, and she would have no reason to suspect that Baumgartner was being mentally manipulated.
The door to the Oval Office closed, leaving Gerry seated as close to it as he could get. Two oblivious aides worked at desks on the opposite side of the room. He exerted his farsenses and summoned a close-up image of the President.
There was a spate of greetings and preliminary chitchat, and then the delegation spokesman, the former Governor of Delaware, got to the heart of the matter:
"Mr. President, we have brought to you a request of the most critical importance, dictated by the Republican Party and also by millions of American citizens who have flooded our offices with their letters, videograms, and phone calls. The Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution was repealed for one reason and for one reason only — so that you would not have to step down from the presidency at this time when our beleaguered nation needs your continuing guidance so desperately. So I put the question to you frankly. Will you accept the nomination in 2008?"
Gerry took hold of Lloyd Baumgartner's mind in that instant. He saw from the President's eyes, heard with the President's ears, spoke with the President's mouth and vocal cords.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is an extraordinary honor that you offer me, and I want to assure you that over the past week I have been thinking and praying over it —"
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY GRANDPA?
"— so that this decision I give you today represents my carefully considered judgment, what I believe will best serve the needs of our great nation. I must decline — I must decline —"
GRANDPA! GRANDPA! YOU LET GRANDPA OUT OF HIS HEAD!
Through the President's eyes, Gerry saw the door of the Oval Office fly open and Amanda, like a pinafore-clad avenging angel, dash directly toward the desk where her grandfather sat. Far behind her, out in the anteroom, Ernie Denton stood gaping at the enormity of his five-year-old daughter's presumption.
"— I must decline —"
Baumgartner was fighting the hold. And the damn child was slashing at him with all her raw infant strength. Gerry's sight of her and of all the others inside the office dimmed as the captive mind began to slip away. Gerry lurched to his feet, knowing that if he could only manage eye contact with the President he could reassert control. The little girl screeched and pointed at him standing there in the doorway. The six members of the delegation and the goddam cameraman, too, turned to look at him. The child cried out loud:
"That's not Grandpa talking. That's him! He's inside Grandpa's head. Uncle Gerry is making Grandpa say things he doesn't want to say!"
The Secret Service men materialized out of nowhere, pinioning
Gerry's arms. In a last-ditch effort, he forced Baumgartner to say, "Decline... decline..."
Then the linkage broke. Dr. Beatrice Fairweather, a litt
le old lady with a kindly face, stepped up to Gerry and put her fingers on his forehead and opened his faltering mind like a sardine can.
"Oh, dear, " she said. "I'm afraid the child is right. "
The President slumped back into his big leather chair. He said hoarsely, "You bet your sweet ass she's right! Arrest that man!"
Gerry Tremblay relaxed then, and even managed a rueful little smile for the camera as the Secret Service agents led him away.
In July 2008 Tremblay went on trial. The evidence of Beatrice Fairweather was disallowed under the statutes prohibiting self-incrimination, but little Amanda Denton was a telling witness for the prosecution. Her testimony, together with that of the President, was sufficient to convict Representative Gerard Tremblay of aggravated assault and battery, and interfering with a federal official. A count of kidnaping was thrown out. Tremblay's appeal of the verdict eventually reached the Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction. He was impeached and expelled from the House of Representatives and served two years and six months of a concurrent three-to-twenty-five-year sentence.
In 2012, both houses of Congress passed the XXIX Amendment to the Constitution, which would permit defendants in criminal trials (operant or not) to be cross-examined mentally by a three-person group of forensic redactors — one for the defense, one for the prosecution, and one acting as amicus curiae. The Amendment was submitted to the state legislatures but had not been ratified by the requisite three-quarters of the United States by the time the Intervention took place.
Upon his parole in 2012, Gerry Tremblay became an officer in Roggenfeld Acquisitions, a firm specializing in the leveraged buy-outs of aerospace contractors. Five months after his release from prison, his wife Shannon presented him with a baby girl, Laura, who was destined for a spectacular role in the private life of a certain Magnate of the Concilium forty years into the future. Tremblay complaisantly acknowledged Laura as his own.