by Julian May
She would be coming, even though he had forbidden it, eager for the final treachery. So be it. Devouring Mother I would give her to you myself if I could. But I dare not waste the least spark of my dwindling powers. Please understand. Dam dham nam tam —
"Are you asleep?"
Kieran opened his eyes. Victor Remillard was standing beside the closed window of the Mercedes. His dark wool Melton storm coat and close-cut curly hair glittered with mist droplets. A large orange van belonging to the New Hampshire Highway Department blocked the entrance to the waterfall's parking lot.
Kieran pressed the window button. "You're on time. I presume those are your wheels. "
"The way the cops have the resort area sewed up, I figured something official might come in handy. Especially later. "
"Everything's in order?"
"I told you it would be and it is. But you're not getting any details, Kieran. "
"I don't want them... It surprises me, though, to perceive that you plan to oversee the operation personally. Aren't you concerned about being recognized?"
Victor laughed. "I can fuzz my identity. You mean you can't?"
"The late Fabulous Finster, a valued associate of mine, once attempted to impart the technique to me. But I just didn't have the knack. I've had to make do with other mental expedients. " The old man's shadowed eyes lifted and barely reined coercion flashed in their depths. "I thought I told you to meet me here alone."
"I need Pete Laplace. He knows every back road and abandoned track in these parts and I've got other things to do besides study road maps. I'm running most of this goddam hit word-of-mouth and message-to-Garcia. No farspeech, no electronics. Not until the tail end, when it'll be too late to stop us. "
"You've made the arrangements for my participation?"
"Yes. But I think you're crazy as a fuckin' bedbug. "
"Never mind, " Kieran said amiably. "Humoring me in this final matter will have no effect at all on your part of the operation. But it's an old Irish custom to join the dance if you've paid the piper. "
"Which brings us to fork-over time. "
Kieran picked up an attaché case made of black lightweight metal and passed it through the window. "It's not locked. You'll wish to program the locking device and the built-in security mechanisms after checking the bona fides of the instrument of transfer with your people at Chase Manhattan. But I assure you that everything has been arranged as we agreed. My assets will become the property of your dummy Canadian corporation upon the completion of certain legal formalities at — at four o'clock this afternoon. Sixteen hundred hours. You see — I trust you to fulfill your part of the bargain. "
"What about the Big Cherry?" Victor prompted. "And the last condition?"
Kieran lifted one hand in a reassuring gesture. His smile was pained. "I told you that my final request wouldn't be difficult for you to fulfill — and a fair exchange for the access code to the override system of Zap-Star. "
"Well?"
"My daughter Shannon is at the White Mountain Hotel. In spite of my strictest orders to the contrary. She expects you to kill me, as you agreed to do in return for her favors. What I want you to do is show her the documents and the gigadisk data that are in the case I gave you. Get into the hotel computer and let her see the corporate transfer confirmed. And then, use the computer to confirm your access to Zap-Star as well — but without revealing the access code to her. Then you may question Shannon tactfully on what role she plans to play in tonight's operation... "
Victor's gloved hands tightened on the metal case. His mind was an impregnable fortress. "Why?"
Kieran began to laugh, but then his body convulsed and he groaned through clenched teeth and fumbled desperately inside his coat. Victor could see that the old man's shirt was partially unbuttoned and a flattened plastic control mechanism with numerous electrode wires was taped to his upper chest. For a brief interval Kieran writhed helplessly, until his fingers reached the device's key-pad. He summoned maximum analgesia and fell back in abrupt relief.
Presently, Kieran said, "Sorry. Your question—?"
Victor's face was expressionless. "I don't understand why you want me to confirm my — my takeover to your daughter. It's only what she expects. "
"Tell Shannon that she never really had any secrets from me. Tell her that I knew all along about her duplicate mind-screen and had access to her secret heart. Tell her she was free only in her fantasies. My pathetic little girl! I was sadly mistaken about her and it nearly cost me my — my life's goal. But I was shown another way... " Thank you Mother thank you dam dham nam tam —
Victor demanded: What do you mean what the hell are you saying and WHO IS SHE who is that?
"My Mother. I pray her mantra." Kieran's eyes closed and he lay limp against the soft leather seat. The rain had finally started and plump silver pearls danced among the lesser misty splatters on the waxed hood of the Mercedes. Kieran said, "Go away. Do the things I've told you. Shannon's reaction will show you what my last request of you is. The Mother has compassion on my weakness and pardons me from having to do the job myself. And she doesn't need me to bring the final Blackness, either. It will all happen as it must happen. Dam dham nam tam tham dam dham nam pam pham... "
"The access code! Is that it? The mantra?"
Kieran's eyes opened and blazed. Will you do as I say with Shannon?
"Yes. " Victor's mind opened to confirm the truth.
Kieran nodded slowly. "Another thing... She also fantasizes that her child Laura is yours. Disabuse her of that at the end, will you? It will bring home the point. You may want to take Laura away from Gerry Tremblay and bring her up yourself... Or perhaps you won't. You don't want to share, the way I did. " The eyes closed again. Kieran's face was yellowish-gray and he breathed slowly through his open mouth. "I loved her, though. I loved them all. But not you and that's why you are my heir to the night. "
Victor reached out with his coercion, exerting it with delicate care: Kieran. Don't sleep yet. You must tell me the access code. The satellite access code. Tell me.
Yes yes this is the phrase without any punctuation FOR BEHOLD HENCEFORTH ALL GENERATIONS SHALL CALL ME BLESSED the key to bring about the final death of energy the final dark... I must sleep now but I'll wake this evening I'll wake in time to see it through it's all right now Mother I've done it now rest...
The mental image. Victor saw it again in the instant before Kieran slipped into unconsciousness. It was a great wheel of black petals with fire at the heart, held within the belly of a barely perceptible female figure. But Victor Remillard had never heard of Kali, and so all he did was swear in French as the vision faded.
Then he opened the door of the Mercedes and brought the window up. He closed the door, locked it, and left Kieran O'Connor to sleep beside the thundering waterfall until the operation began at 1930 hours that evening.
Shannon Tremblay attended Jamie MacGregor's lecture as openly as she had the other Congress events that interested her, confident that a severely tailored suit, eyeglasses with tortoiseshell rims, and a short black wig hiding her auburn hair rendered her unrecognizable. The concept of a mental signature, a personal thought-pattern as distinctive as a fingerprint, was quite unknown to her; and so she was badly startled when someone called out as she left the meeting room:
"Oh, there you are, Shan. Would you let me have a word with you before you go on to the next round of papers?"
It was a tall, balding academic, a man she had never seen before, and she regarded him frostily and said, "You've mistaken me for someone else, " and would have walked on. But coercion took hold of her and forced her to turn and accompany the man into an alcove, and she did not dare protest and call attention to herself.
"I've been looking all over the hotel for you, " the man said. For a split second his ascetic face flickered and another underlying set of features took its place.
Victor!
The coercive grip tightened to the point of pain and she wh
impered.
"Use regular speech, " he ordered in low tones. "Your telepathy has always been incompetent in focusing along the intimate mode. "
She winced at the pressure. "Let me go, damn you! What do you mean by accosting me —"
"You're supposed to be in Cambridge. "
She reseated her glasses and turned away from him. "I can go where I please. "
"So you couldn't resist being in on the kill, eh? Never mind if somebody spotted you and put two and two together! Don't you realize this place is swarming with FBI and Justice Department agents?"
"They're not looking for me, " she retorted. "They're looking for Daddy—or his known associates. Daddy disappeared three days ago, you know. I was the one who put two and two together and deduced that he must be on his way here, to this final Metapsychic Congress. It was the perfect occasion for him... and for you. Of course I wanted to be on the scene for the finale. " She lifted her chin with a triumphant smile. "Are these Sons of Earth militants your idea? What will they do — try to burn down the hotel? The old place is a real tinderbox. I'm staying at the Horse & Hound in Franconia, so feel —"
"Shut up, " he hissed. "Do you think this is all some entertainment put on for your benefit?"
She laughed softly. "For both our benefits. " Then her expression hardened. "Daddy has made the deal with you, hasn't he! You arrange for some convenient Sons-of-Earth-sponsored disaster to befall this hotel full of operants, and he says he'll hand everything over. "
"That's right. "
"You're a fool if you trust him. He'll never give up his power until he's dead, and he won't die until he's ready to. The doctors can't understand how he's been able to survive this long — but I understand! He wants to offer a holocaust of operant minds to appease some horrible fantasy, and if you help him he'll find some way to finish you off with all the rest. You'll never get the best of Daddy unless you kill him. I told you that at the beginning. "
"Your father will die tonight. " Victor held up the black metal attaché case. "And he's already turned over everything to me — including the access code for Zap-Star. "
She gasped. "I don't believe it! He's lied to you. "
"There is that possibility. Which is why you and I are going to check things out before my big production number goes any further. "
He took her arm again and guided her up a wide flight of carpeted stairs to the main lobby. They might have been colleagues chatting familiarly after a long separation.
"Did Gerry know you were coming here?"
"Of course not, " she said. "He knows better than to question me about my affairs. "
"What's he doing these days — househusbanding? Baby-sitting, perhaps?"
"Pulling his head together before going to work for a Boston branch of Cams, Elsasser, Lehmann, if you must know. He took it hard when Griffith kicked him out of Roggenfeld Acquisitions. "
Victor chuckled. "Too timid to swim with the sharks, I heard. How are you two getting along these days?"
"Gerry is civil, and he's afraid of me, and there are times when I'm certain he's hiding some ghastly secret — but my redaction is no good against a trained operant like him, and I've never been able to pry it out. You'll have to. Afterward. "
"How does Gerry get along with your baby, Laura? The kid's about nine months old, isn't she? And big-brained?"
Shannon said coldly, "Aside from his little character defects deriving from overweening ambition, Gerry is a decent sort of man. He knows Laura isn't his, but he doesn't hold it against her. He's kind. He's certainly more interested in her than you seem to be —"
They had passed out of the lobby into the executive offices of the hotel and now paused before an unmarked door. Indicating mentally that Shannon should keep silence, he opened it and stepped inside. It was a suite of rooms that obviously housed the computer functions. A young man in shirtsleeves working on a sheaf of print-outs looked up in surprise and opened his mouth — then froze as Victor's coercion took control of him. Without saying a word, the young man got up and led Victor into an inner room where the equipment was kept. Victor said:
Your work for the day is finished. Go home now without speaking to anyone. You will not remember having seen us.
The young man turned on his heel and marched out, closing the door behind him.
Shannon said, "What are you going to do?"
Victor had seated himself at the manual console and began to rap expertly on the key-pads. The display said: CHASE MANHATTAN BANK DATACEN. GOOD AFTERNOON MR REMILLARD. PLEASE BEGIN UPLOAD.
Victor took the thick plastic gigadisk out of the attache case and slotted it. Then he waited.
Shannon's eyes were glued to the display screen, which now said: WORKING. She whispered, "He couldn't have. I don't believe it. " And then the screen said: TRANSACTION VLNX2234-9-21-2013 PRELOGGED AND READY FOR FINAL EXECUTION 1600 HRS. DO YOU HAVE INSTRUCTIONS?
Victor typed: PRECIS.
And the computer obliged.
Shannon gave a strangled little joyous shriek. "It's true! He's done it! My God, it's totally unbelievable!" She would have thrown her arms around Victor, but his coercion flicked her back as casually as an insect. "Wait. We have to confirm the other. "
Thanking and dismissing the bank, Victor retrieved his disk and replaced it in the case. Then he typed out a certain telephone number with a northern Illinois area code. The screen said: YOU HAVE REACHED A PRIVATE NUMBER. PLEASE INSERT ACCESS CODE.
Victor typed: FOR BEHOLD HENCEFORTH ALL GENERATIONS SHALL CALL ME BLESSED.
The computer said: ENTER.
Victor typed: DIR.
The computer said: ZAP-STAR OVERRIDE 1MARY.KOC. THIS COMMAND FILE IS VALID BUT NOT OPERATIONAL UNTIL 12-25-2013 AT WHICH TIME THE ZAP-STAR SYSTEM COMES ONLINE. DO YOU HAVE INSTRUCTIONS?
Victor typed: NO. GOODBYE. And then he erased all record of both the calls, using an old hacker's trick, and turned in the seat to face Shannon.
She said, "It's true. He's capitulated completely... unless he plans to cheat you some way at the last minute —"
"I don't believe that he does. "
"Then," she said, "all that's left to do is finish him off. "
"And the Metapsychic Congress. "
"Oh, there's no need for that! Only a paranoid like Daddy would believe that the mass murder of a couple of thousand leading operants would leave people like us with a clear field. What about all the rest of the heads in the world? If we kill this lot, others will eventually take their places. No... Daddy's famous 'edge' is obsolete, and so is yours, Victor. You should have seen the apparatus that Professor MacGregor demonstrated at his lecture! It was the first aura detector. All it does is shine a beam of something-or-other at a person and analyze the reflection — and it can tell whether or not that person is hopelessly latent, or suboperant, or operant. And it even quantizes the degree of operancy! One of the subjects MacGregor used in his lecture was the ten-year-old son of Denis Remillard. Would you believe the boy sent the analyzer right off the scale?... So you see, with a gadget like this available, it just won't be possible for people to keep their operancy secret. Even casinos will install these things —"
"There are other edges, " Victor said.
Shannon looked at him mutely, her mind incredulous. Finally she said, "You can't mean it!"
"I'd call Zap-Star the ultimate edge. Of course, it wouldn't be used in the clumsy death-ray scenario your father dreamed up. Its use would be very selective. "
"But it's not necessary, Victor! Any more than killing these operants is necessary. Once Daddy is dead you'll have all the power and wealth that any man could want —"
He shook his head. Slowly, he rose from the chair and came to her. "He said you disappointed him. You've disappointed me, too. "
She didn't try to flee. Proudly, she said, "I see. You don't need people the way Daddy did. You're self-sufficient. You don't need — or love — anyone but yourself, do you, Victor? Not me. And certainly not our child.
"
"Laura is not my child. We've never had physical intercourse. You were quite right to call me self-sufficient. "
"Good God. Not yours... " Her eyes were fixed on him as the truth of it slowly broke through. "Yes, I see. You're impotent. "
Victor laughed at her. "Not in any way that really matters. Not the way your father is now, powerless because he still loves you. He asked me to tell you that you were never really free of him. He was always able to penetrate your double screen. I suppose he let you keep the illusion in hopes that it would shore up your ego. Keep you from suiciding. "
"And it suited his plans when I came to you. " Her eyes had gone dull. "Of course. He had to manipulate both of us. He must have known he could never bond you... " She straightened, proud again for a moment.
"Neither of you will use Zap-Star, you know. The government knows the system is penetrated. "
"All they know is what you — and my brother Denis — have told them. I'm willing to gamble that the President won't be able to stop the system's activation on schedule. Not on the word of two dead heads. "
His farsight roamed the area, then lit on a small storeroom that opened off the computer room. He compelled her to follow him to it, opened the door, and flicked on the light.
"This will do. No one will come in here so late on Saturday afternoon. It won't matter tomorrow. "
She said, "You aren't going to do it quickly."
"I have some time to kill, " he said, laughing, and took off her black wig so that the long flaming hair tumbled out. Her face and mind were calm. Eventually he would give her what she wanted.
He asked her to kneel, and she sank down without protest. Then he cupped her head in both hands and pressed her against him, and stopped her heart for the first time.
30
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD
FOR MORE THAN a year, since Denis's interrogation of Gerry Tremblay, government investigators had sought in vain for hard evidence that would connect Kieran O'Connor to the sort of grandiose conspiracy that his daughter had accused him of perpetrating. It was easy enough for EE adepts to search his offices and his residence — and the presence of the elaborate satellite uplink equipment was duly noted, but conceded to be quite legal. The heavily guarded data bank beneath the O'Connor mansion undoubtedly held the key to the mystery; but EE adepts could scrutinize its library of disks until doomsday without knowing what they contained. No search warrant could be served because no probable cause of felonious action could be demonstrated, and U. S. law forbade "fishing expeditions" as unwarranted invasions of privacy.