The Golden Torc

by Julian May

  At last the boat wallowed into straight and level motion. The waters slowed, flattened, opened out two kilometers wide in the midst of a valley with brown steppe hills.

  The boatman was still giggling. Felice torc off her straps, lurched to him, and slapped him with a fury that nearly sent him unconscious again.

  "You stupid fuckard!"

  The man's subvocal thought defied her through pain and maniacal triumph: You were afraid ha ha afraid monstercunt and I gotcher!

  Aloud, he groaned and spat blood from his bitten tongue. Hansi and Gert came staggering in to take over the helm.

  "Ah, shit, she breached," Hansi exclaimed, spotting the broken panel.

  "We can fix it," his partner said. "There's a tool kit and spare plass underdeck. All we have to do is demount the broken piece."

  Gert took the wheel while Felice and Hansi supported the limp body of Harry. "What happened, Felice?" Hansi inquired. "Guy suffer a relapse?"

  "The only relapse happened to yours truly," Felice snarled. "I let the bastard get away from me. He must have been waiting his chance all this time. And when I saw that damn dropoff just ahead I panicked and let my control slip. That was all he needed. He took us over the falls on purpose."

  Hansi said, "No real harm done. No use kicking yourself for being scared. These cataracts would make Genghis Khan holler for his mommy."

  Chief Burke, his ruddy complexion faded to gray, reeled up and clung to the frame of the wheelhouse door. "That was a bitch-catawampus, Felice."

  "We broke a panel," she said. "We'll have to moor someplace for repairs. And figure out how to keep the Ancient Mariner, here, from committing suicide and taking us along."

  "So that was it." The Native American and Felice dragged Harry to the passenger compartment and dumped him without ceremony onto the deck. The exhausted girl dropped into a seat and closed her eyes. Harry drooled and cursed until Burke and Basil tied and gagged him.

  The boat steered toward a heavy stand of willows on the left bank. They came into a quiet backwater where curving branches of great trees made a cave of green luminosity. There was a tiny sandy beach.

  "That was a bad one," Uwe observed. "I thought the boat was going to fold over on us like an omelet."

  "Felice lost control of Harry," Chief Burke said.

  Her brown eyes went wide and she jumped to her feet. "I was distracted! All right—I was scared! Old Fearless Felice lets the bad vibes get to her at long last. So what are you going to do about it, Red Man? Try me in your kangaroo court?"

  Amerie came and put a hand on Felice's shoulder. "Peo isn't blaming you. The boatman was docile enough on the other runs. You couldn't know he'd try something on this one. Your nerves are ravelled after shooting rapids all day, and it's a wonder you did as well as you did."

  Felice looked mollified. "I was able to turn the bloody boat right-side up again, anyhow. My PK's coming on fast. But the damned coercive function gets tangled up in my emotions too easily. We really miscalculated when we took old Harry's torc off. The Tanu have the right idea with their pleasure-pain circuits. I could have had him biddable as a baa-lamb in the torc, and he wouldn't be cold-turkeying all over us, either."

  "Day before yesterday you said you couldn't hack it," Khalid reminded her. "And what if he'd let loose a telepathic warning to any golds or silvers in range? Don't forget that the Great South Road is somewhere up on the west bank. There are Tanu caravans up there—and Tanu on the river, and silvers at the plantations. Quit kicking yourself."

  Vanda-Jo peered at the jungly bank. "Do you think it's safe to camp here?"

  "It better be," said Hansi, coming from the wheelhouse. "I don't want to go one klom farther until Gert and I give this tub a complete checkup. God knows what else we broke when we came slamming down." He began removing the roof panels preparatory to mooring.

  Ducks fled as they nosed in. "I might pot us a few waterfowl for supper," Basil suggested. "We didn't," he added with a rueful chuckle, "retain much lunch."

  "We can all use rest and food," Amerie said. "Then tomorrow we'll be in good shape for—whatever lies ahead. And what does, by the way?"

  Khalid said, "If we've passed six big rapids, then only one stands between us and Lac Provenpal. I haven't been on it, but it's said to be the longest and worst of all—the Donzere-Mondragon stretch."

  "Kaleidoscopic," groaned Felice.

  "After that there's only the Glissade into the Med Basin. I did ride that when I was taken to Muriah. It's steep but not difficult. Only needs a steady hand at the tiller. Gert and Hansi can handle it easily. But we'll have to depend on this boatman's skill one last time tomorrow."

  They all looked down at Harry. His hair stuck up in diabolical spikes. His eyes bulged and he strained and grunted against the gag.

  Amerie sighed and reached for her medical kit. "Poor Harry."

  "Poor us," Felice retorted.

  ***

  A half kilometer downstream from the grove of willows where the boat was moored was a jumble of large rocks, overgrown with tamarisk and acacia, that protruded out from the shoreline and made an excellent lookout. They decided to keep watch there, at least until late evening, to be sure that no other boats happened upon their hiding place.

  Amerie's turn came when the sun had been down for an hour and it had become cool. She was glad of the chance to get away from the others—especially the wretched boatman, whose vital signs had stabilized under renewed sedation and a veinfeed. She made her orisons under brightening stars. A few insects shrilled and the Rhône burbled beneath the riverside rocks. Little herons squawked in the shallows while chasing their supper.

  Across the broad waters the hills were dark. There must be plantations in this likely valley, Amerie thought. But no lights were visible from her vantage point. No boats came by during her watch, either. Night traffic was normally nonexistent on the river. Still, there was the small chance that the nonarrival of their skipper at his usual stops would be noted by his fellows—hence the watch. Burke and the others had not made too great a point of it, but it was obvious that the farther downriver they progressed, the greater the suspicions of the other rivermen might become when good old Harry failed to appear at some accustomed rendezvous. All of the craft on the Rhône were distinctive; Harry's, although of a common express design, had a spruce-green band around its silver hull and its name, Walloping Windowblind, painted in large letters on bow and stern. They had debated disguising the boat. But in the beginning they hoped that its owner would be cooperative, enabling them to bluff their way clear down to Muriah. Now, of course, it was too late to do anything but press on. When they passed other boats, they tooted greetings on the airhorn, hoping that the absence of a telepathic hail between skippers wouldn't be remarked during the busy Truce season...

  There was a small sound among the lower rocks.

  "It's only me." Felice clambered up to the high perch. "I'll take the last trick."

  "Not a soul on the river that I've seen. Only birds. All in order back in camp?"

  "Your patient's fine, if that's what you mean. The boat's back in good shape, and Gert and Hansi have gone off into the bushes to celebrate. VJ was in a generous mood, too, but only Uwe took her up. And I think that was mostly sweet charity on the old puffer's part."

  She plopped down cross-legged beside the nun, who did not comment on the badinage. "Nice night, isn't it? The weather in this Pliocene world is pyrotechnic! I suppose they must have a rainy season in winter, but it couldn't be lovelier now. Probably why the exotics have their Grand Combat this time of year. Perfect weather for a war."

  The nun did not reply.

  Felice said, "There'll be a lot of fighting, once we've hit the torc works and closed the time-gate. Those Tanu slavers are going to get what's coming to them now that we've got their number with the iron. I have other ideas, too, that I haven't discussed yet with the others ... Like, maybe forming a coalition with any of the silvers who'd be loyal to humanity instead of the Tanu.
Elizabeth could sort them out for us and we could re-torc them with stolen gold and have a human elite corps ready to counter any mass Hunt the exotics might mount. Human metas versus exotic metas! We could take over the whole corpuscular kingdom!"

  Amerie was still silent.

  Felice came closer. "You don't approve. It's not your Christian ethic. You think we should try to gain our freedom by some kind of negotiation. Sweet reason and brotherly love!...Why have you been avoiding me, Amerie? Have you decided I'm a monster, too, like the others?"

  The nun turned. In the starlight her face was kind. "I know just what brand of bullshit you're getting ready to serve up, Felice. Please don't. I've tried to explain to you how it is with me. I know you have your needs and you've been frustrated by missing the Finiah fight and driven half-bats by the poor boatman. But you can't use me to relieve your tensions. Not through cruelty or through sex either. I have a right to my own commitment. I don't expect you to understand it, but you're damn well going to respect it."

  Felice's laugh was uncertain. She sat very still, her tanned face contrasting with the halo of pale hair. "So much," she said, "for the brotherly-love pitch. Thanks for nothing, Sister. For a while there, I thought you cared."

  The nun rounded on her and grabbed the slender bare shoulders. "You impossible child! Of course I love you. Why do you think I came?"

  "Then, why? Why?" Felice's voice rose to a wail. For an instant, her coercive power stabbed out. The nun jerked away with a cry of pain. Felice exclaimed, "I'm sorry, Amerie! I'm sorry! I won't do it again. Don't look at me—don't think at me like that." The bright head sank. "Never ever. Either one of us. Why? Why is it so wrong to find a little happiness and warmth? We might be dead tomorrow and that'll be the end of it."

  "Felice, I don't believe that. Whether we live or die, I don't believe that's the end. That's one of the reasons for my renunciation."

  "Your religious mumbo jumbo! Who can prove there's a God out there? Or if there is, who can prove he cares—that he's not some game-playing horror? You can't prove it! You're an educated woman, a doctor. You know there's no proof!"

  "Only in human psychology. In our need. In our instinct reaching out. In our very odd veneration for the love that gives without taking."

  "I need your love! You won't give it to me! You lie when you say you love me!"

  "I have to be true to myself, too. To love myself, Claude called it. I had to come to the Pliocene to discover that I was worth loving. And you ... dear Felice. You've never learned to love at all. Not in human ways. Your need is different and—terrible. My kind of love can't satisfy you and what you call love would be an injustice to me. I want to help you, but I don't know how. All I can do is pray for you."

  "Wonderful!" The girl's laugh was rich with scorn. "Go ahead, then! Let's hear how you pray for poor damned inhuman Felice!"

  Amerie reached out, took the resisting girl in her arms. The chant was soft in the night.

  "Lord, how great is your constant care. We find protection under the shadow of your wings and are filled with the good things you give us. You have let us drink from the river of your kindness, for you are the fountain of life. In your light we will find light of our own."

  Felice cried out, "Oh— shit!"

  She wept and Amerie rocked her. After a long time, the girl pushed away and wiped her face.

  "Tomorrow ... it's going to be tough. I was scared out of my mind this afternoon and I'm going to be even more scared tomorrow. If I let that damned Harry get away from me again, we're all going to be drowned or dashed to pieces. And I might not hold him. I—my confidence is going. And that's fatal when you're playing mind-games. If you're afraid that you might fail, then the whole thing comes apart and—what am I going to do?"

  "I'll keep praying."

  "Fuck your nonexistent God! If he knows everything, he ought to help us without our asking! Or are we supposed to grovel? Is that what he needs?"

  "It's good for us to reach out to him. To will his help in getting things that we need."

  "So your God is a psychologist! And praying is just metapsychic focusing, so that if you have enough faith you move the bloody mountain! Who needs a God at all if we end up answering our own prayers? I should pray to myself, then—right? But I don't believe in me, either!"

  "Felice, I don't want to bandy semantics or theology with you. If the word 'pray' seems ridiculous to you, forget it. Just keep the psychic validity behind the concept. Tomorrow, try to reach out and demand strength from the Mind of the universe, from the life-source. Never mind whether it's aware of you or not, who it is or what it is. You have a right to share in its strength—not just for your sake but for the sake of all the rest of us who are depending on you."

  The girl said slowly, "I think I could do that. I can believe in Mind. I can feel ... that much is real. I'll try, Amerie."

  The nun rose to her feet, lifting Felice with her. She kissed the girl on the forehead, then looked beyond, across the river to the hills black against a purpled western sky. "Felice—there's something over there."

  The girl turned. On the far shore was a manifestation like a glittering string of beads moving in and out of the trees.

  "The Hunt," said Felice.

  They watched it in silence. It was moving southward through the bottomland that lay between the Rhône and the Great South Road.

  "I can farsense them a bit," Felice said. "They're out of a place called Sayzorask down beyond the gorge at the head of a big lake. They're looking for us."

  Amerie started to say, "You mean the overdue skipper—"

  "They're looking for us. Fortunately, none of them can fly, and they don't have any hot-dog farsensors, so they aren't aware that I'm eavesdropping on their mental yammerings. Strictly a collection of provincials. But the big boys will be waiting for us farther south."

  "How could they know?" Amerie cried.

  "Somebody told them," Felice said. "And I think I know who."

  ***

  They left the moorage as soon as it was light, while the yellow water was still mostly buried in cotton wool fogbanks. The air cleared when they came into the next deep gorge, and they saw that they were not alone on the river; three other craft were lined up at the top of the chute, waiting for a little more daylight before daring the twenty-kilometer stretch of rough water.

  "Bad news!" Gert sang out.

  "Pass 'em!" Felice decided. "Peo, Basil, get that zombie up here. No sense trying to play tricks. Those other boats can't do a thing once we're in the rapids."

  The noise of the cascading turbulence made it almost impossible for them to hear one another. When Harry, blue-lipped and feebly snarling, was strapped into place, Felice gave the other men a shove aft. "If we spring a leak, get everybody out of the harnesses and do the best you can."

  They passed the anchored boats at a distance of twenty-five meters. Felice forced Harry to wave and worked the airhorn herself, toodly-toot-toot. And then they were into the rapids...

  Take us through Harry do your job Harry do it and I'll get you another gray torc do you hear me another one just as good as the one we took only do your job Harry steer steer dodge and draw and race through the booming froth and the haystack bulges above the underwater rocks O go Harry good old boy stay off the knifeledge and the monstrous eddy whirling at the bend and the crazy tall waves filling the air with blobs of foam go on Harry go boy go and set her over broadside working the multiple rudders like organ pedals and twirling the wheel virtuoso Harry remember the new torc the old ecstasy just as good as before look out for the sluice and skim her on down Harry braving the violent Rhône all clogged with landslides and rock piles that should hold back the waters but never will come on I'm helping you Harry holding you and see not scared O no kaboom! sheesh all right Harry just a bouncer good recovery God there's a big mother big as a house in the middle of the channel right or left you know which is best Harry Harry Harry O you asshole get us out of this spin you Harry or I'll squeeze you unt
il you Harry get us out Harry stop the spin I'll hurt you Jesus Jesus we're going to hit again Harry Harry you rotten swine I won't let you you can't do it I won't let you you can't I won't let you—

  Die.

  Felice screamed. The mind within her grasp went incandescent in a last surge of opposing rage. And then, ever so easily, it slipped away from her and went off along a way she dared not follow. Alone, she returned to the chaos of the riverboat caught in the treacherous white eddy, rotating just downstream from a great craggy mass that parted the Rhône into two thundering streams. The boat spun faster and faster. With every other revolution it whanged against an underwater obstruction, the impact causing the strong inflated hull to vibrate like a beaten drum.

  Harry hung in his harness, seeming to wink at her. The vital-signs monitor on his forehead was solid black.

  Felice worked the quick-release fasteners and let the body fall to the deck. She took the skipper's place, grasped the wheel, tramped the rudder pedals, and sent her PK below the hull to lift.

  Ah, so hard so heavy so hard ... trying to tear loose from the grip of the spinning water! But I am strong (do you all hear?) and you can make me stronger so do it! Up ... up ... help me lift it up. All you lives loves you must help you will. Up! UP!...And the two-in-one hears and helps and the many-in-All as well because it is not only for me and the drumbeats stop and the scratching hiss of the muddy gravely water stops and the whirling the rocking the buffeting all countermovement stops.

  I lift. We float.

  I am able to hold us (thank you) even pull us higher now. Faster and faster until we fly! And the frustrated water writhes underneath and the amazed canyon walls lean over to get a better view of the magic.

  Ahead of us the walls fall away. Water jets out in a great round plume, creamy as rich milk. It arches down and down and down, so far into the vapor that clothes the great hidden lake. The terminal gush of the Rhône is swallowed below us without a trace.

  We soar! High above the mist-country, we soar safe in sunlight. Our enemies are stifled and blind below and the happiness is so great that I burn—I burn for joy.