by Julian May
Old Pete came up to me, reached out, and seemed to take something that I had. He said, "Come on, " and headed out into the open. The thunderous vibration was gentling and the wind fell so rapidly that by the time we were out from under the chalet and heading along the down-slope trail toward the south the air was dead calm and the snow had dwindled to a few drifting flakes. Pete had left his lantern behind. The sky was oddly bright, and when I stopped and looked back at the chalet I saw that the entire structure was clothed in auroral brilliance.
"This is far enough, " Pete said. He held something up above his head with one hand. I saw it was the Great Carbuncle.
"You!" I said.
The thing flared like a nova, blinding me. I felt someone take my gloved hand, slap something into it, and press the fingers shut.
"You can have it back now. But take good care of it. This is only the beginning, you know. Au 'voir, cher Rogi."
When my vision returned he was gone, and the New Hampshire sky was filled with the thousands of starships of the Galactic Milieu, and the Great Intervention had begun.
FINIS VINCULI
Epilogue
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE, EARTH
26 APRIL 2113
ROGATIEN REMILLARD LOOKED at the last words on the display of the transcriber, hit both PRINT and FILE, and then treated himself to a luxurious yawn. The cat Marcel, sitting at his elbow on the battered deal desk, pricked up its ears and stared alertly at an empty corner of the bookshop's back room.
"Is that you?" Rogi inquired of thin air.
Naturellement!
"Checking up on me, eh? Well, I've finished this bit. Don't think it was easy, even with your help. "
My congratulations on a satisfactory job.
Rogi grunted. "Let me ask you a question or two off the record. Were you responsible for Vic not killing me when I found him and Shannon at the hotel?"
No. He wanted you. In spite of all his power, he was an ignorant man. He hoped, pathetically, that you would somehow be a mentor to him, as he perceived you had been to the young Denis.
Rogi shook his head. "Too damn psychological for me... Another question: Were you always Pete Laplace?"
I assumed the personas of living humans when it was convenient, setting them... aside until the guise was no longer needed.
"Did you do that kind of thing very often?"
I confess, it did tend to become habit-forming! You must try to understand that, at the beginning of my direct participation, I was unsure how much adjustment of the probability lattices would be required of me. Meddling by an incorporeal Lylmik seemed marginally riskier than manipulations done in human disguise. In time, I came to realize that my doubts were merely prideful resistance to the promptings of the Cosmic Afflatus. My actions, though quite freely willed, were demonstrably preordained in the larger Reality, which is mystery. Keeping this in mind, I just got on with it.
"And even enjoyed yourself!" Rogi's tone was accusing.
The Ghost laughed: We Lylmik take our Olympian pleasures where we may. I assure you they are few and far between.
"I'll just bet, " said Rogi sardonically. Then he asked, in a more serious vein, "What really happened to Victor? In retrospect, I don't hardly see how I could have zapped him without your help. I was just too far gone. "
I helped.
"Why didn't you kill him outright instead of trapping him inside his skull? My God, he was blind, deaf, deprived of all tactile sensation and every metafaculty but self-awareness. And the poor bastard lived another twenty-seven years. "
The tenderhearted may regard cerebral solitary confinement as too harsh a purgatory for any entity. I assure you that, for a mind such as Victor's, it was not. He was vouchsafed a period of reflection... just as I was. Unfortunately, his final choice was the wrong one. Priez pour nous pécheurs, maintenant et à l'heure de notre mort.
Rogi sighed. "Well, I'm going to take a vacation before I start in on the next part. Yours. Get in a little skiing before spring strikes with a vengeance. Might go to Denali. That was one of your favorites, as I recall. "
The Ghost was chuckling. Marcel flattened his ears as the printed paper pages in the transcriber's receiving rack riffled, as though flicked by an invisible finger.
The Ghost said: So you are quite sure now, are you, that you know me?
Rogi nodded complacently. "Haven't figured the why of it — much less the how. But I guess I'll worm it out of you eventually along with some other parts of the story that always mystified me a bit. " He cut the power to the transcriber, stood up, and stretched. "I'm outa here and up to bed. "
The Ghost said: Good night, Uncle Rogi.
Rogi said, "Good night, Marc."
The End Of Intervention