Diamond Mask

by Julian May

  “What good will it do to spy them out,” sighed Eupathic Impulse, “when Unifex has forbidden one to interfere? It’s maddening, enough to discourage one from contemplating the situation at all until bifurcation is imminent.”

  “There are hints of a stupendous skew in the noögenetic curvature,” Essence noted balefully. “One hesitates to predict calamity, but … see for yourselves.” She projected a complex probability graphic.

  Homologous Trend was more equanimous as he modified the equations to produce a more happy result. “The Hydras and Fury have taken on the aspect of strange attractors and may prove to be even more maleficent than we originally supposed. Or again—thus!—they may not. There is always a chance that the dynamic they introduced will paradoxically advance the Protocol of Unification rather than cause its disintegration.”

  “One can only continue to have confidence in the judgment of Unifex,” Concordance declared. “It is so much older and wiser.”

  “And capricious,” grumbled Impulse. “Oh, very well. Let’s get along to the shindig.”

  No sooner had they arrived at the party than they were dragooned into joining an overly energetic group dance. Twirling and prancing with humans, Gi, and legitimate Poltroyans through one merry tune after another, they found themselves unaccountably exhilarated. When the set ended and the pipers and fiddlers bowed and skipped off to refresh themselves, the four Lylmik applauded as enthusiastically as the rest of the dancers before staggering to a table outside one of the taverns and ordering a round of green crème de menthe.

  “How strange,” said Noetic Concordance, “that rhythmic, repetitious physical activity should be pleasurable to so many different races.”

  “Well, one may resonate for the fun of it in Lylmik form,” Eupathic Impulse noted, “even though some may deem it childish.”

  “It’s not quite the same,” Asymptotic Essence said. “The rhythmic irregularities and changing tempi of dancing have an appeal all their own.” Her ruby eyes twinkled at her partner. “You dance very well, you know.”

  “A paragon of agility compared to this one,” Homologous Trend added, with a ponderous laugh.

  Noetic Concordance sipped her sugar-laden liqueur appreciatively. In a Poltroyan body, one had Poltroyan tastes. “There is also an indefinable delectation in dancing with a partner of the opposite sex, even though that person exhibits more enthusiasm than expertise.”

  Homologous Trend toasted her ironically.

  “Have any of you perceived lurking Hydras?” Eupathic Impulse inquired of his colleagues. The responses were negative. “Or the entity called Fury?” Again, the disguised Lylmik shook their heads. Thus far, the oscillations in the mental lattices were entirely benevolent.

  “There’s the boy Jack,” Essence said, giving an imperceptible nod. “Haring about with his Uncle Rogi now that Luc’s gone off to celebrate with some older chaps. The child seems psychologically sound in spite of his horrendous mutation. I’m glad we had the family bring him to Orb so the Quincunx could look him over.”

  “One had the oddest feeling examining him,” Noetic Concordance admitted. “That powerful young mind—unaware of our scrutiny and yet having such … appealing affinity.”

  “One knows what you mean,” said Homologous Trend softly.

  Concordance called up a memoreplay of the experience, which they all studied once again. “Is this entity the only one who experienced a warm reiteration of Fa-Time when contemplating the immature human?”

  “I felt it,” Trend said.

  Essence only frowned, picked up a green pretzel in her enameled talons, and nibbled it thoughtfully.

  “Curious,” said Impulse. “Very curious indeed. If my fading recollection is accurate, there is no physical similarity whatsoever between newly generated Lylmik and the anomalous Jack.”

  “No,” Concordance agreed. “And yet, of all members of the human race—of all other races—this boy alone reminds one of us in the fundamental structure of his mentality. The girl Dorothea Macdonald, for instance, has suboperant metafaculties equal in potential to Jack’s but her mental patterns are fully human. Jack’s emotions and actions are human, but he thinks differently.”

  Asymptotic Essence uttered a disbelieving gasp. “Does one suggest that the Lylmik physical aspect might once have been similar to Jack’s disembodied brain? Or does one dare to carry the conjecture even further?”

  “Not at all,” said Concordance. “No member of our ancient race recalls our origins. To speculate is idle. Nevertheless one might ask what relationship young Jack, this prochronistic mutant with the most extraordinary mind his race has ever produced, has to us … and to the rest of humanity.”

  “One cannot respond to that yet,” Trend said, after finishing off his minty bumper. “But one is certainly entitled to one’s suspicions.”

  They sat without communicating for some time, scanning the scene and gently probing those minds that were unguarded, while the party grew more and more uproarious. The aether was a cacophonous babble. Even the Simbiari had begun to loosen up and numbers of them, dazed from overindulgence in carbonated water, were heedlessly dripping emerald mucus into the shamrock patches. A kilted marching band of humans, led by a heavily perspiring Rory Muldowney, tramped twice round the square playing “Amran na bFiann,” “Garryowen,” and “Mick McGilligan’s Ball.”

  The shining green satin cutaway tailcoat and knee britches worn by the Dirigent of Hibernia were getting a bit rumpled toward the finish and his top hat slid askew; but he was a fine figure of a man for all that, big and broad-shouldered, only a little gone to pot, with a goodly turn of leg in his white silk stockings.

  When the parade ended, music struck up again on the dancing grounds. Humans and Poltroyans began howling with laughter as a chorus line of Gi tricked out in green-dyed filoplumage and funny hats performed a travesty of Irish step-dancing to the tune of “Finnegan’s Wake.” The tall hermaphrodites tipped and tapped neatly with their oversized avian feet, batted their huge eyes saucily, and wound up their act to riotous applause with a dazzling flourish of external genitalia.

  Over on the village green the original pair of Rebel conspirators, Annushka Gawrys and Owen Blanchard, were surrounded by a triumphant group of like-minded magnates celebrating the defeat of the gag bill. Unexpectedly, Annushka had come to the party accompanied by her aged and unrejuvenated mother, the metapsychic pioneer Tamara Sakhvadze. All evening long the distinguished old lady had enjoyed the adulation of a host of admirers. Among those attending her at that moment were Davy MacGregor, his sister Katharine, the Poltroyan magnates Fritiso-Prontinalin and Minatipa-Pinakrodin, the new Dirigent of Okanagon, Patricia Castellane, and the slightly winded guest of honor himself, now drinking steadily from a large Waterford tumbler of neat Tullamore Dew.

  For some reason Paul Remillard had come to this final party of the session unaccompanied by a female friend. The four Lylmik Supervisors watched with increasing interest as he mingled with the throng, flashing his inimitable smile and looking splendid in an iridescent magenta dinner jacket. He was slowly making his way toward Tamara.

  A Poltroyan dressed as a serving lad came up to the Lylmik table. “Will ye have another round of likker?” he inquired. “The tavern’s got usquebaugh, heather ale, porter, stout, mead, and green beer. And if ye feel peckish I can offer the specialities of the house! (It all comes from Orb’s central provisioning depot, you understand, but we’ve gone to great pains to program authentic Irish fare!) There’s grand corned beef sandwiches loaded with tasty nitrites, mulligatawny soup or Dublin coddle with hot griddle bread, Irish stew, colcannon, champ, and pickled salmon. If ye fancy a sweet there’s flummery, spotted dog, tipsy trifle, gooseberry fool, or carraghìn mousse.”

  “Spotted dog?” Essence murmured qualmishly.

  The purple-faced leprechaun laughed. “Faith, and ’tis only a cake with raisins in it.”

  Trend said, “I don’t believe I’m up to the consequences of serious aliment
ation.”

  “We’ll just have heather ale and some dulse to munch on,” Noetic Concordance told the server. He bobbed his head and presently returned with the drinks and a snack bowl of seaweed.

  Two pipers and a concertina player launched into an infectious version of “The Irish Washerwoman” right there in front of the tavern, and numbers of the patrons left their tables to dance in the street.

  Eupathic Impulse said, “One could sit here comfortably for the rest of the evening waiting for the climactic event promised by Unifex.”

  “Not on one’s life!” said Essence, rising and seizing her partner’s arm. “Let’s dance!”

  “I really don’t want to leave the party, Uncle Rogi,” Jack protested. “Something interesting is about to happen. I’m sure of it.”

  “It’s late, Ti-Jean,” Rogi said. “You’ve had enough, and so have I.” The old man pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, fending off a headache. “I shouldn’t have drunk all that poteen after the hurley game. Filthy stuff—it sneaks up on you. First the glow, then the mule kicks you in the skull.”

  Jack remained prudently silent. He knew better than to offer a redactive cure. Uncle Rogi never let other people into his head. The two of them passed a tavern where people were jigging in the street, then found a jaunting car and climbed in. As the driver cracked his whip and they set off for the tube station, Jack looked back with keen interest.

  “Guess what, Uncle Rogi! There are four Lylmik dancing back there—disguised as Poltroyans.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said the old man. He exerted his nearly useless farsight but saw nothing unusual. “You sure?”

  “Oh, yes. What’s more, I recognize their mental signatures. They were part of the group that probed me just after I arrived.”

  “Merde! They did? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “It didn’t hurt. They were just checking me out. They installed a memory block, but I was able to override it. It was really interesting, hearing them discuss my mental assay. Do you know that there’s another kid who has mindpowers almost as enormous as mine? A girl on the planet Caledonia. Her name’s Dorothea Macdonald. She’s still not completely operant, but the Lylmik said she would be someday. I wish I could go to Caledonia and meet her.”

  “Maybe if you learn how to behave yourself and stay out of trouble, Grandmère and Grandpère will take you.”

  “I was good at the party,” Jack protested. “I didn’t even go for the pot of gold, even though I knew where it was hidden almost as soon as the game started. To hog the single prize because of my superior metafaculties would have been vainglorious and contemptible. It was different with the horse races where others had a chance to win, too.”

  Rogi gave a snort of laughter, then patted Jack’s shoulder. “Well done, Ti-Jean. You’re learning.”

  Not many guests were inclined to leave the party early. Among the sparse group of passengers waiting in the tube station were Marc’s four friends Alex, Pete, Shig, and Boom-Boom.

  “Don’t tell me you guys are packing it in already!” the bookseller said.

  “I get to stay at Fred and Minnie’s tonight with you and Uncle Rogi,” Jack piped up.

  Alex Manion said, “We’re not exactly heading back to the tree-house just yet.” His mind-screen, like those of his companions, was fully arrayed. “There’s another party we want to drop in on. A smaller one.”

  “Adults only. We’ll see you later,” said Boom-Boom, winking. “We got heavy dates. You know?” The quartet boarded a capsule destined for the human enclaves.

  When they were gone, Jack said quietly, “They’re going to Marc’s. But I promised Luc not to tell anybody why.”

  “A conspiracy, eh? I suppose the gang of ’em are plotting to turn Rebel.”

  “Oh, no,” said the child. “That’s not it at all. Please don’t do any more guessing, Uncle Rogi. I really can’t tell you and it would be a sin for me to lie.”

  “Perish the thought that I’d lead you into temptation,” Rogi said huffily. “Toi, t’es un vrai p’tit Saint Jean le Désincarné!”

  The capsule that would carry them to Fred and Minnie’s house pulled into the station and they got in and sped away.

  Paul Remillard bowed formally over the withered hand of Tamara Sakhvadze. She was 105 years old and wore a chic suit of dark worsted with a high-necked white blouse and a fine cameo. Thick-lensed old-fashioned spectacles perched on the end of her button nose and her snowy hair was cut short. Throughout the evening she had held court beneath the statue of St. Patrick, seated in a motorized chair, attended by her grandchildren Gael and Alan Sakhvadze and lionized by Rebels and Milieu loyalists alike.

  Operant etiquette made it unnecessary for Paul to introduce himself after the old lady extended her hand and invited him telepathically to approach. He simply opened his mind, revealing his identity in the unlikely event that she had not recognized him, and said: “It’s a great honor to meet you in person at last, Madame Sakhvadze. I hope you have enjoyed your visit to Concilium Orb.”

  “Please, First Magnate,” she protested in heavily accented Standard English. “You must call me Tamara and I will call you Paul. It is my first—and probably my last!—visit to this astonishing place. I have been both impressed and bewildered by your marvelous interspecific legislature.”

  Paul laughed. “It’s not nearly as disorderly as it seems.”

  Tamara shook her head slowly in disbelief. “That humanity and five exotic races can actually cooperate in a galactic government still amazes me. I remember, you see, the spectacular failure of my own late Soviet Union, which attempted to unite a multitude of different human ethnic groups through imposing an idealistic philosophy. It never worked. The weaknesses of human nature prevailed and not even the emergence of higher mindpowers was able to save us from civil war. From what I have heard during my visit, I fear that something similar may lurk in the future of your Galactic Milieu.”

  “Nonsense, Mamenka,” said Davy MacGregor. “The two situations are quite different.” The lanky, dark-haired Dirigent of Earth wore the spectacular Highland dress of his clan. His sister Katharine, in a long Regency ballgown with a shoulder sash of the MacGregor tartan, had married Tamara’s son Ilya. Their progeny included not only Gael and Alan but also Masha MacGregor-Gawrys. Both Davy and Katharine, tragically deprived of their own mother years before the Intervention, had accorded maternal honors to Tamara for years.

  Davy MacGregor spoke now with a voice full of hearty optimism. “The misunderstandings about Unity are bound to be resolved before humanity reaches its Coadunate Number and a final vote must be taken by the population. We’ve got at least twenty years to study the matter and put any feelings of misgiving to rest.”

  The little old lady cocked her head and peered up at Paul with an earnest expression. “And what do you think? Will it be so easy?”

  It was a long moment before the First Magnate replied. “I hope Davy is right. The great majority of human magnates and others of our race having metapsychic powers believe that Unity would be wholly beneficial to our mental evolution. A fair number of nonoperants fear that it would compromise the mental integrity of the individual and make operants less human in their thinking. The so-called Rebel faction of metas is also opposed to Unity, and their numbers have been slowly growing. I personally think we Milieu loyalists have our work cut out for us disproving the Rebel thesis, but I’m confident we’ll prevail in the end. The notion of divorcing the Human Polity from the rest of the Milieu is unthinkable.”

  Tamara turned to the little Poltroyan pair in their droll Irish fancy dress. The smiles had left the kindly faces of Fred and Minnie and their ruby eyes had clouded. “Both of you are exemplars of Unity,” Tamara said. “If the situation came to this—this Bill of Divorcement, would the Milieu let humanity go its way alone?”

  Minnie temporized. “The Concilium has never actually debated the contingency.”

  “There was considerable oppositio
n to admitting humankind to the Milieu in the first place,” Fred said somberly. “Your race has a long way to go before reaching the level of psychological and social maturity already achieved by the coadunate peoples. It’s true that the Simbiari are also imperfectly Unified, but their race has never been exceptionally aggressive—merely insensitive—and their minds continue to coadunate smoothly into the Whole. With humanity, there has always been the danger of fundamental incompatibility.”

  “We Poltroyans faced rather a similar situation when we were initiated,” Minnie said. “Like you humans, we have a predatory past which we overcame only with great mental effort. This is doubtless why we feel such sympathy for you.”

  Patricia Castellane, the recently appointed Dirigent of Okanagon, spoke up sharply. “But your friendship doesn’t extend to the point of being able to show us exactly what Unity entails!”

  Fred and Minnie’s distress was obvious. The Poltroyan female said, “Unity cannot be demonstrated, Patricia. It can only be experienced. It can be compared somewhat to the way sexual beings fall in love. No description can adequately portray its reality. Persons may yearn for it, be indifferent to it, or even fear it. But when it happens, its effects are inexplicably transfiguring.”

  “That,” said Alan Sakhvadze, an admitted member of the Rebel faction, “is what we’re afraid of: being transfigured to the point of losing our identity.”

  “One’s ego remains intact,” Fred said, “but egocentricity becomes impossible within Unity, as does the potential for hostile action toward one’s fellow beings. One is not coerced into abandoning these attitudes, you understand. They simply become inconceivable.”

  “And what,” Tamara inquired, “might a Unified operant human do if confronted by a life-threatening unUnified human?”

  “Resolve the situation peacefully,” said Paul Remillard.

  “Or die?”

  The First Magnate inclined his head. “The ethic is not unfamiliar to the human race.”

  The old lady’s hands, clasped in her lap, were trembling slightly, but her shuttered mind and immobile face betrayed nothing of her emotions. “Long years ago, when human operants were forced to conceal their mindpowers for fear of hostile normals, my dear late husband Yuri and I were lectured on that very point by a Tibetan lama. He told us that aggression—especially the aggressive use of metapsychic faculties—is never morally acceptable. To the day that he died, Yuri refused to accept this teaching. He had seen too much evil that could not be conquered except by extirpation. I did believe in the philosophy of nonviolence for a while—until we operants of the Soviet Union were given the choice of fighting for our lives or bowing to martyrdom.” She shrugged. “We fought. We lived. Was it wrong?”