by Julian May
The place was dark as the inside of your hat, without a sign of life. But one of the antique engines had its firebox aglow and the steam up, and its smokestack threw sparks on both sides of the track that sizzled as they hit the puddles. Old Pete clambered into the engine cab, and Vic and O'Connor and I got aboard the unlit coach that traveled ahead. No blast on the whistle marked the train's departure. It simply hissed like a fumarole, clanked, and set off chugging and rattling toward the cloud deck that hid the summit.
Victor and O'Connor ignored me completely as they conversed on the intimate telepathic mode. I discovered only one of the infamous secrets that the dying old villain passed on to the hungry young one. God only knows what other bizarre thoughts they shared. They were both madmen by any civilized standard, and yet sane enough to recognize and still embrace the evil that their minds created. They were not mistaken, not misguided or deluded; they were only terribly and mysteriously bent and I have long since given up trying to understand them. The little train climbed valiantly into the sky, taking one to death and the other to oblivion. I could only huddle in my seat, half frozen now that we approached the tree line, praying that one of the unsuspecting operants in the chalet above us would turn his mind downward, penetrate the dense granite bulk that blocked line-of-sight view of this part of the track from the summit, and sound the alarm.
The coach tilted more and more steeply and the little engine undertook its most severe challenge — a trestled section called Jacob's Ladder with a grade of more than thirty-seven percent. My night-sight, dimmed by Victor's coercion, saw that O'Connor was clinging like a limpet to the seat in front of him, a grimace of what I took to be excitement distorting his wasted features. We had been passing through dense cloud ever since beginning our ascent of the ladder; but now we broke free as we approached the Westside Trail crossing and there were sudden flashes of lightning from the towering cumulus massed to the east. In another moment it would be possible for us to see the Summit Chalet silhouetted against the skyline... and the people in the chalet would have a greatly enhanced chance of farsensing us.
But Victor's elderly henchman knew his stuff. The deafening clatter of the cogs gripping the steel rack between the tracks diminished to a portentous clickety-clack, then stopped as the engine ground to a halt.
The smoke cloud, blasted by high winds, raced uphill ahead of us. Surely someone would see it —
"It doesn't matter now, " Vic said. The locomotive clunked and wheezed and in a moment the rear door of the coach opened and Pete thrust himself in, grumbling about the chill.
"This is it, Vic. Get 'em up here damn quick before we're spotted. "
"Higher!" Kieran O'Connor croaked. "I want to see the chalet go!"
"Shut up, " Victor said. "Look there — to the north. "
O'Connor keened: "Aaah!"
"Now you can get 'er rolling again, Pete!" Victor's voice was triumphant. "Our own X's are on their way in!"
The old man dived for the rear door, which was still open. And at that moment Victor's hold on me eased as he broadcast some powerful farspoken command to the approaching aircraft. I flung myself from my seat, rolled downhill toward the door, and was outside feet-first and tumbling down among the frost-encrusted granite boulders before Vic could stop me. Somewhere in my trajectory I had smashed into that aged rascal, Laplace. I heard his wail echo thinly among the crags, then cut off abruptly.
God — now what? Uphill! Keep as much rock as I could between me and that young devil, Vic, and yell my brains out:
DENIS!DENISTHEY'RECOMINGFORTHECHALETINAIRCRAFT! DENISDENISFORGOD'SSAKEVIC&O'CONNORHAVE ARMEDAIR CRAFTATTACKINGCHALET —
I hear you Uncle Rogi.
Coughing and gasping with the cold, I toiled upward over the rock-field. Behind me, I heard the engine give a mighty chug, then start uphill once again. Vic had probably taken the controls himself. There were two X-wings and neither of them had navigation lights. Up above the cloud deck, there was enough fitful moonlight shining between the thunderheads to show the planes approaching fast around the shoulder of Mount Clay; but they weren't gun-ships, they were ordinary domestic transports, half the size of the ones used to ferry the Congress delegates up the mountain.
DENIS THEY'RE GOING TO LAND! STOP THEM! ZAP THEM SOMEHOW USE CREATIVE METACONCERT!
I heard for the first time other minds — hundreds of them — but the lightning-fast moral debate was incomprehensible. The pair of X-wings hovered nearly over my head, their roaring drowning out the howl of the wind. Only my continued scrambling kept me from freezing.
DO SOMETHING! I pleaded.
Another mind-voice, one of surpassing power with a signature that was completely unfamiliar, said:
Together! Hit them together! Let me show you how...
A white fireball soared against the sky, arching over the crest from the direction of the chalet. It struck the central boss of the X-wing rotor housing on the lead aircraft and seemed to be absorbed soundlessly. But the sudden drop in the noise level was the aircraft's engine cutting out.
That's the way! Join with me again. Together...
NO! another voice pleaded, and I knew it was Denis.
A second ball of psychocreative energy flew up like a meteor and zapped the other X-wing. Both ships were in uncontrolled descent, windmilling with the deactivation of their engines. They pranged in not more than five hundred meters away from me, down the northwestern flank of the mountain. There were no explosions and no flames, and although my ultrasenses were impeded by trauma and the intervening crags, I knew that the occupants of the aircraft had survived and were pulling themselves together to begin a ground assault.
I cried: DENIS THEY CRASHLANDED YOU DIDN'T KILL THEM —
He said: I never tried. Most of us didn't.
I was scrambling uphill as fast as I could. Fortunately, at that point there was a footpath along the right-hand side of the cog track. As I came out of a hollow I saw the train again, chugging slowly along the skyline and trailing its spark-shot plume of smoke.
VICTOR IS DIRECTING ATTACK FROM COG! HIT THE TRAIN!
I heard laughter in the aether: Yes. Hit the train. Together with me now!
Another bolide arose. This time I saw it materialize just above the chalet roof and move purposefully in a flat trajectory toward the little train. But it faltered in flight and began to wobble, and instead of hitting the engine it bounced along the roof of the coach and then dove down onto the track ahead. There was a sharp flash. The coach bucked and slewed and fell off to the side. The sound waves reached me moments later — a detonation followed by a prolonged grinding crash as the coach left the track and toppled onto the icy boulders. The engine had slammed on its brakes. It screamed to a stop before reaching the damaged section of track and stood silhouetted against moonlit thunderheads on the skyline above me. Its firebox glowed hellishly and the rising gale blasted smoke over its trailing tender. A figure jumped from the engine cab.
UncleRogiDUCK!!
I did — just in time. A bullet fweenged off a rock a few centimeters above my head. I had completely forgotten the crashed X-wings and their complement of armed thugs. The warning had come from little Severin, who now told me:
They're creeping upon you they have infrared GET OFF TRAIL!! I'll help createdecoybodyglowCOMEUPMOUNTAINHURRY!! SLEET STORM COMING...
I said: Putain de bordel de merde!
Sevvy said: You can say that again.
Another bullet struck, far off the mark to my left. Bruised and shivering, I resumed my climb uphill.
31
MOUNT WASHINGTON NEW HAMPSHIRE, EARTH
21 SEPTEMBER 2013
VICTOR REMILLARD GRASPED the old man by the coat lapels. The head lolled and there was a bleeding gash across the forehead. But Kieran O'Connor was alive.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Victor shouted. "I should — I should—"
Kieran's eyes opened and he smiled. "You should kill me. But it's totally
unnecessary. Let me warn you, however... one touch of probe or coercion, and I'll never answer your questions. And you do want the answers, don't you?"
They saw one another in the shadowless eeriness of mental vision and ignored the strengthening wind that whistled through the broken coach. Victor was aware for the first time of a deathly stench emanating from the body of the dying man. Through the open shirt, he could see that the telltales of the painkilling mechanism had gone dark. No agony he could inflict on Kieran O'Connor could surpass what Kieran had already freely embraced.
"You took charge of those operants when Denis wouldn't. " Victor was accusative. "You knit them together in some kind of mental unit and squeezed out those globs of energy that downed the aircraft and derailed the train. "
"The procedure is called metaconcert, " Kieran told him. "An idea quite foreign to your mentality. I wasn't at all sure that I could work it.
With my own people, the results have generally been unsatisfactory. But these fully operant minds... marvelous!"
"You fucking old bastard! You shot down my men — tried to kill them!"
"Nonsense. The craft are engineered to soft-land in case of power failure. Only the incompetence of your pilots and the rough terrain caused the damage, and most of your people were uninjured. "
"Then why?"
Kieran indicated the Summit Chalet, blazing like a jewel box on the mountain above them. "They needed teaching, these silly pacifists. A revelation of their own power. The Russian operants have already learned the lesson and so have a few other groups. But these idealist leaders resisted the inevitable. They were too much influenced by your brother and MacGregor. An aggressive metaconcert was unthinkable for such minds — until they were given suitable incentive. "
"We'll knock them out! Your scheme — whatever the hell it is — can't work. The main vanguard of the local Sons of Earth took out the State Police barricade at the same time that the X-wings took off from Berlin. They're coming up the Carriage Road in trucks and four-wheelers right now. Even if that bunch in the chalet has called for outside help, it can't get here in time... and you won't pull your metaconcert trick again. "
Kieran was chuckling soundlessly, his breath forming small puffs of vapor in the freezing air. He said: Of course not it's no longer necessary NOW THEY KNOW HOW they are consecrated to the Mother without realizing it O Her jests O Her infinite wisdom behold the final generation shall call Her blessed —
Victor let go of the old man's coat. Kieran slumped back against the cracked windowpane, eyes closed, breathing in raspy bursts. Victor said, "I'm not going to waste any more time listening to your crazy shit. Whatever scheme you cooked up — whatever way you planned to use me and my people — it's not going to work. I'm calling off my men from the X-wings and we're getting the hell off this mountain. The Sons can watch their own asses and take the blame —"
The mind-tone was wheedling, tempting: Don't be a fool my boy do you want your brother Denis to get away? And the other American operants the ones who will perfect MacGregor's aura-detector and use it to bring down you and your associates oh no oh no here they are together never again such a golden opportunity... I've had my moment. Now I leave the rest to you.
"What is the rest?" Victor raged. "You bug-fucking old devil — what have you done?"
The mortal stench was now almost unbearable. Victor shrank away in the frigid darkness, braced himself against the tilted seats, heard the first rustle of sleet strike the coach's metal skin. He couldn't stay here any longer. His inside man at the chalet was supposed to have sabotaged the delegate transports. Could one of them be repaired? They could still make the hit and get out before —
His racing thoughts were interrupted by the old man's voice, suddenly strong again. "I thought I would be the agent of destruction. And then it seemed that you would be Her deputy. Now at the end I see the truth — that humanity will destroy itself without our impetus. Even these superior minds! We are all children of the Black Mother dam dham nam tam tham —"
The voice dwindled away to an exhaled breath. And then Kieran O'Connor's eyes flew open in thunderstruck surprise, and he screamed and died.
Denis Remillard gripped the lectern. He had to coerce them into silence, then plead with the ones who had left the main dining room to return.
He said: You must not leave the chalet! The temperature has dropped below freezing and another storm front will be here any minute. Please! Come back to the dining room and we'll decide what's to be done...
Jamie MacGregor, wearing a borrowed parka, came striding through the disheveled banquet tables. "Every one of the fewkin' air-buses is out of commission. Someone got to 'em while the crews were eating in the lower lounge. Some of the handier delegates are outside trying to fix things, but it looks bloody hopeless. There are cars belonging to the chalet staff, but not nearly enough to evacuate all of us — even if we managed to get past those buggers who're on the way up... Is help on the way?"
"Not from the police, " Lucille said. She and most of the Coterie were gathered around the speakers' table. "The officers who had staked out the road on the Pinkham Notch side of the mountain were ambushed by the Sons. There's no way the police on the western side of the mountain can reach us without aircraft. "
Denis said, "The President said he'd send an FBI special team — but it has to come all the way from Boston. The Governor's called out the National Guard. It will take two hours to mobilize. "
"Bloody hell!" Jamie exploded. "Why don't they roust out the Marines or the Army Antiterrorist Unit?"
Lucille said, "Because this country doesn't handle riots that way. "
The Scotsman snorted. "This is no riot, it's a soddin' siege —"
"Jamie, please. " Denis's knuckles were white as he continued to grip the sides of the lectern. We don't have much time. We must decide what we are going to do.
Young Severin Remillard, unnoticed in the press of anxious adults, piped up: "The only thing is to keep on like before — like Uncle Rogi and that other guy said — and clobber the sonsabitches!"
Lucille took the boy firmly by the shoulder and turned him over to his older brothers.
The Coterie turned away, returning to their seats. Other delegates who had dashed up to the observation turret or to other parts of the mountaintop convention center returned to the dining room as Denis had requested. Some sat at the tables. Others stood around the perimeter of the huge room, their farsight probing the exterior darkness. The clouds had thickened again and freezing rain ticked against the thick glass in the western lobe. The corps of servers and the white-clad kitchen personnel, normals all, huddled in a separate group.
Presently, Denis spoke into the microphone: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have called for help, and it is on the way. " There were murmurs and scattered applause from the normals; but the operants were under no illusions. "It now seems clear that there are at least two forces of domestic insurgents belonging to the antioperant Sons of Earth group advancing on this building. About sixty are coming from the two crashed X-wings on the western slope. More than a hundred more are on their way up the Carriage Road on the eastern side, traveling in light trucks and cars. The motorcade seems to be equipped with rifles, shotguns, and small arms. Many of them are under the influence of one thing or another. They can be characterized as a run-of-the-mill lynch mob — and aside from blocking our escape down that road, they offer a very minor threat to our safety. "
A voice yelled: "Du gehst mir auf die Eier, Remillard, mit diesem Scheissdreck! Was können wir tun?"
"He's right! What are we going to do?" another voice shouted.
"That other lot from the aircraft aren't minor! I pEEped automatic weapons and at least one grenade launcher —"
Again, unwillingly, Denis coerced them to silence.
"Please listen... The airborne group is heavily armed. They have explosives with them as well as heavy weapons, and the only reason they aren't outside the chalet already is the sudden change
in the weather ... and they've temporarily lost touch with their leader. For those of you who don't already know, that leader is my younger brother, Victor. "
The room vibrated with a blast of wind. Some of the chalet workers were whispering among themselves.
Denis said, "The real instigator of the attack is a man named Kieran O'Connor. Many of you know him as a pillar of the multinational military-industrial complex. O'Connor — like my brother — is a powerful natural operant who has concealed his metafaculties and used them to his personal advantage. For years O'Connor has worked secretly to destroy the operant establishment — not only because we might expose him, but also because peace isn't profit-generating to his line of business. Our globalism threatens him, just as it has threatened fanatics and dictatorships all over the world.,. just as it seems to threaten good people frightened of fellow human beings with higher mind-powers. And the normals do have good reason to be frightened, as long as operants such as Kieran O'Connor or my brother Victor exist. "
A Chinese delegate, Zhao Kud-lin, exclaimed, "This is precisely why operants must be politically active — to ferret out and deal with such vermin!"
There were some murmurs of agreement. An anonymous mind-voice shouted! Let's stop this palavering and whomp up another concert Denis! Come on pull us together again and let's start picking the deadheads off!
Denis said, "It was Kieran O'Connor — not I — who led some of you in the aggressive metaconcert that downed the attacking aircraft. "
Sensation!
A woman delegate cried: "Then three cheers for Kieran Warbucks!"
"No! No!" others shouted in dismay. "Shame!"
Denis said, "Kieran O'Connor knows we're divided in our attitude toward psychic aggression. I don't believe that his primary intent is to trap and destroy us here. He really wants to discredit all operants everywhere in the eyes of the normals by forcing us to abandon our Ethic. Some of you who joined his metaconcert probably reacted instinctively against a perceived danger. Others... did not. But we must all understand that we face the most critical choice of our lives here and now. We represent the operant leadership of the world. We will have to choose whether to adhere to the Ethic that has inspired us ever since our first meeting in Alma-Ata — or to do as certain of our fellow operants have already done: use our minds as weapons... I say that if we do this, even in this situation of obvious self-defense, the normal people of the world will ultimately condemn us as inhuman, a race apart, a monstrous minority too dangerous to share the planet with. "