Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy)

by Julian May

  He farspoke his sensible twelve-year-old sister Marie, who was trying to write her first novel at their grandparents’ old summer place on the Atlantic shore. Marie told him she had seen their mother last weekend, and things were as normal back at home as they ever were. Teresa was clearly grateful for her time alone. She displayed no overt symptoms of mental dysfunction. She was doing some gardening and was working with every evidence of enthusiasm to transpose an obscure folk song cycle from the archaic Poltroyan into modern human notation.

  In Marie’s opinion, Marc’s premonitions and uneasiness were nothing more than mental indigestion. His giant brain was doubtless suffering overload from all the weird cerebroenergetic experiments he had inflicted upon himself, and he should slow down and smell the flowers before his synapses snapped.

  Marc told Marie thanks for nothing.

  Next he tried to bespeak his Great-granduncle Rogi, who lived above his bookstore only a block and a half away from the family home. Rogi’s puny mentality did not respond to Marc’s farspoken hails, and that probably meant that the old man was in one of his downslide phases and stinko again. However, there was only a small chance that Uncle Rogi would know the truth about Teresa anyway. He had always been leery of Marc’s parents and the other Galactic celebrities of the Remillard clan, even as he was surprisingly congenial toward Paul and Teresa’s aloof eldest son, Marc …

  In the end, the boy decided that there was no way to resolve the dilemma but to go home and check things out personally, and at all possible speed.

  It took three days for the CSS Funakoshi Maru to travel from Okanagon to Earth at the highest displacement factor endurable by masterclass humans. Marc Remillard scarcely felt the pain of the three deep-catenary hyperspatial translations at all. Enmeshed in his premonition, he had also neglected to note that the cost of his ticket on the premium-class superluminal transport had eaten up nearly all of his remaining personal credit-card allowance. When the starship docked at Ka Lei, Marc discovered that he couldn’t afford to travel the rest of the way home from Hawaii via express eggliner and taxi. For emergencies, he carried the family corporation credit card, with its unlimited rating; but since he was legally a minor for three more years, no matter how extraordinary his metapsychic quotient, using the card would require parental authorization and thereby alert his father. And the damned premonition seemed to urge that he not let anyone—most particularly not Paul—know that he had returned.

  So Marc took the cheapie local shuttle, which took twice as long as the express to fly from Ka Lei to the North American spaceport on Anticosti Island. It was from there that he had embarked for the planet Okanagon the previous June, leaving his BMW T99RT turbocycle in the long-term parking facility. He considered but rejected the idea of sneaking his wheels out without paying. The garage exit was fully automated against that very contingency, and its computer notably sneetchproof, even to the likes of him, and if he blew it and got nailed, he might as well have stayed on Okanagon. There was nothing to do but play it straight. Unhocking the turbocycle reduced the credit on his personal plass to just about zero; but fortunately the BMW was fully j-fueled and ready to roll, and the tolls would be automatically debited to the family account.

  Marc removed the cycle leathers from the machine’s boot and put them on. He checked the charge and ran an internal test of the circuitry in the cerebroenergetic guidance helmet, then clapped it on, effectively plugging his brain into the bike the moment the hard-hat electrodes came alive at his imperative thought and pricked his scalp. The BMW’s instrumentation became part of his own senses, and its operating controls belonged to his voluntary nervous system, answering to his mental commands. There was nothing unique about the cerebroenergetic system except the fact that it was designed to operate a mere turbocycle instead of a starship or another highly sophisticated piece of apparatus. And instead of being manufactured by IBM or Datasys or Toshiba, it had been built by Marc himself.

  Ordinarily, he drove his overpowered BMW in a scrupulously law-abiding manner except when he was on a racecourse; but now, in the emergency, he’d crank the bike flat out in the maxcel lanes of the autoroutes and screw the scofflaw monitors with his metacreativity. If a living police officer spotted him, he’d just have to risk brainwiping the cop.

  The mind-controlled two-wheeler with the boy aboard rolled out of the spaceport parking garage, adhering to the speed limit all through the Jacques Cartier Tunnel leading to the Labrador Autoroute on the north shore of the Saint-Laurent. Once it reached the maxcel lanes of the major groundway, the boy hung out the spoilers and commanded maximum throttle. Luckily, no human traffic police eyeballed him en route, and no busybody civilian drivers happened to be alert enough to note his tag number as he scorched past. He reached Hanover, New Hampshire, shortly after noon, having achieved an average velocity of 282.2 kilometers per hour.

  The beautiful old college town was swathed in a summer heat wave and seemed nearly deserted. Marc drove the bike in quietly and decided that it would be a good idea to scan things out at close range before going to the house.

  He went to the empty parking area of the Catholic Church on Sanborn Road, just around the corner from his home. It was so hot that the birds had quit singing and the tarmac that paved the lot was semiliquid between the bits of gravel. When he unzipped the environmentally controlled leather suit from left shoulder to right ankle and stepped out of it, he felt as if he had stepped into a sauna.

  He was able to mentally adjust his body thermostat easily enough; but the feeling of impending disaster had now become almost overwhelming. During the shuttle trip and the drive from Anticosti, he had deliberately refrained from any attempt to farsense Teresa or try to make mental contact with her. The premonition had seemed to warn him that this would be dangerous, that she would inadvertently give away his presence on Earth and somehow preclude his helping her. But now, standing in the dusty shade of a gigantic mutant elm with the cooling engine of the Beemer ticking gently beside him, the boy reached out with the most heavily shielded farsensory probe he could manage and entered the old white colonial-style house at 15 East South Street.

  Neither Herta Schmidt, the operant nanny, nor Jacqui Delarue, the nonoperant housekeeper, was anywhere in the place. His mother, Teresa Kaulana Kendall, was in her music studio on the second floor, sitting at a keyboard in front of an open window, playing a soft guitarlike improvisation. As Marc’s ultrasense lingered on her face, which was lightly sheened with perspiration, she brushed a damp lock of dark hair from her eyes with a sharp gesture at odds with her tranquil aspect.

  Her mind was enveloped in a grandmasterclass screen that no Remillard—not even her husband or her eldest son—had ever been able to breach.

  Across the room, sitting stiffly on a ladder-back chair between the computer desk and a bookcase stuffed with old-fashioned printed musical scores, was Lucille Cartier—Marc’s redoubtable grandmother and Teresa’s mother-in-law. Lucille’s rejuvenated beauty was unsullied by sweat, and her dark brown hair, cut in bangs and a classic Chanel bob, was perfectly groomed.

  Lucille said, “Now that we’re certain that the prognosis for successful prenatal genetic engineering is negative, you must agree that only one course of action is possible.”

  Teresa said nothing. The music she played was technically brilliant but completely lacking in depth or nuance.

  Lucille was reining in her famous temper admirably, projecting regret, sympathy, and feminine solidarity at the same time that her coercion was working overtime. “Teresa, dear, there is no other way the family can protect you from the legal consequences of your irresponsible behavior. And the child is—”

  “Doomed anyhow,” Teresa finished, smiling abstractedly.

  “Severin himself performed the genetic assay, confirming the presence of at least three intractable lethal traits in the fetal DNA. And I needn’t remind you”—Lucille’s voice hardened—“that doing those tests makes Sevvy just as much of an accessory to your crime as I
am. But he was willing to put himself in jeopardy just to prove to you that the situation is irremediable.”

  “And I thank you both for trying. And for not reporting me.”

  “We never considered reporting you to the Magistratum!”

  The smallest movement uplifted Teresa’s lips. “Of course not. The Remillard family honor—and the honor of the first human Magnate-Designate—would never recover from the scandal.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.” Lucille’s words were still objective, composed. But her mental substratum, clearly perceptible to Marc’s spying ultrasense, smoldered with outrage. “Any more than you really knew what you were doing when you deliberately flouted the Reproductive Statutes.”

  “Oh, I knew … but I never intended to harm Paul or the rest of the family. I—I only knew that this time the risk was worth taking.”

  “How you ever expected to get away with it—”

  “I had a plan. Once my condition became obvious, I’d slip away to my family’s old beach house on Kauai, where only native Hawaiian people and a handful of haoles live now. It would have been easy to make some excuse to Paul.” Teresa uttered a small laugh. “He certainly would never miss me, what with the hullabaloo over the upcoming ending of the Simbiari Proctorship and the formal induction ceremonies for the new Earth Magnates at Concilium Orb. I thought that afterward, when the Human Polity finally took its place in the Milieu and the Dynasty was settled in as magnates, I’d eventually be exonerated.”

  “That is by no means a certainty.”

  “I’m not the only person who thinks the Reproductive Statutes are unjust! Nor am I the only operant who’s attempted to circumvent them. For normals, the penalty is only a fine and sterilization and the loss of a few entitlements. Why the Simbiari decided to deal with us in such a draconian manner—”

  “We operants have more privileges,” said Lucille gently, “and we also have more responsibilities.”

  “To hell with them both.” Teresa’s voice was level. Her musical improvisation became Bachian, faster and almost frenzied in its intricacy. “To hell with the whole ungodly Proctorship scheme. To hell with the exotics and their Milieu. What fools we all were to think it would be so wonderful to become part of a Galactic civilization.”

  “There are some normals who would agree with you, and a few operants. But most of humanity believes that the Intervention saved our planet from catastrophe.”

  “The price—in human freedom and dignity—has been too high.”

  Lucille Cartier’s mental veneer of sympathy thinned momentarily to reveal the thought: Poor neurotic fool! And if any love or pity for Teresa tinged this stark judgment, it was imperceptible to Marc.

  Teresa seemed to notice nothing and continued equably. “But all this is quite beside the point. My little scheme failed to reckon with your own maternal astuteness, Lucille. You found me out.”

  Her playing slowed, and the music passed into a minor mode. Almost as an afterthought, she said, “If you and Severin are prepared to perform the procedure, we’d best do it early tomorrow, before Paul comes back from Concord.”

  “Thank God you’ve finally come to your senses!” Lucille sprang up from the chair and came swiftly to her daughter-in-law, taking Teresa’s hands from the keyboard and drawing her to her feet. “Darling, I know how terrible this is for you. And I’m so sorry it has to be this way. We should have realized what emotional turmoil you were suffering. Paul should have known …”

  Teresa freed her hands. “Not Paul,” she said very quietly. There were tears in her eyes now, but the mental façade that she displayed to her mother-in-law was suddenly casual, uncaring—almost as though the secret, once discovered, was no longer worth agonizing over. “Paul never would have known. It took another woman to find out the truth. Well, it will all be over tomorrow … Lucille, you mustn’t worry about me anymore. You’re quite right and I am a fool, and that’s an end to it. I think you’d better go now and arrange things. I’d like to be alone for a while … to do my vocal exercises. You know how I am about letting anyone hear how awful I’ve become.”

  “That’s nonsense!” said Lucille stoutly. “Your voice is as fine as ever. How many times must we tell you that your singing difficulties are entirely psychosomatic? And this other—this obsession of yours would also respond to therapy if you’d only—”

  “Please.” Pain flashed briefly from Teresa’s eyes. “Just let us be alone together for these last few hours.”

  “It’s not sapient! Not at five months!” Lucille’s voice was shrill, and her eyes blazed. “It’s only your sick imagination hearing it!”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Teresa turned her back on Lucille, took her seat again at the keyboard, and toggled a fortepiano patch. She began to play Chopin’s Berceuse. “I’ll be ready tomorrow. Just call me. Tell me where and when.”

  Lucille’s mouth tightened as she recognized the lullaby. But she only nodded and left the room, hurrying down the staircase and out of the house to her waiting groundcar. Marc waited until his grandmother drove off and turned away on Main Street before starting to walk his bike toward the house, bespeaking his mother on the way.

  MARC: Mama. I’ve come.

  TERESA: Marc? It’s you? But … why, dear? What about the little holiday you were supposed to take with your friends after finishing the undergrad seminar on Okanagon? The trip to the Singing Jungle! I know you were looking forward to a break before beginning at Dartmouth this fall—

  MARC: I’ve come to help you.

  TERESA: I told you there was nothing wrong. Nothing that need concern you. [Detachment.]

  MARC: I know better. I felt your need. Your danger. There was an irresistible compulsion. You coerced me and I came.

  TERESA: Oh no Marc. You know my mind you of all people. I’m weak in the coercive faculty unable to project a compulsion into the next room, much less five hundred light-years to Okanagon.

  MARC: Unconsciously, you could do it … under the circumstances. It had to be you. It certainly wasn’t him.

  TERESA: Oh Jesus you can’t mean … Marc do you know?

  MARC: Not all of it but enough. I can read your subliminal thoughts now, Mama. Your barrier is down, and you’re thinking so loudly that I can hardly avoid it! Does—does he really speak to you?

  TERESA: Lucille insists it’s impossible. He’s only five months alive and his brain hasn’t developed far enough even an eight-month fetus is barely able to conceptualize much less achieve the bilateral cerebration necessary for even the most primitive form of self-awareness or communication it’s not anything I can understand. I only know it know HE IS THE ONE not you not the others my poor wonderful babies forgive me forgive me I had to do it he must live mutant or not HE IS THE ONE Marc can you help us how can you possibly help you’re only thirteen Lucille and Severin will kill him to save me but I won’t let it happen I’ll run away I’ll do away with both of us before—

  MARC: Teresa be still!

  TERESA: … Yes.

  MARC: I’m here. In the house. Coming upstairs. I know what to do how to save both of you your unconscious mind was right to call me. Trust me.

  TERESA: Yes.

  Teresa did not look up as Marc entered. She stared at her hands, silent on the electronic keyboard. “You’re only a boy. A boy with an amazing mind, but hardly powerful enough to counter the law enforcement authorities of the Galactic Milieu. What I’ve done is a serious crime, and if you help me you’ll be an accessory and liable to the same penalty as mine.”

  “As Grandma and Uncle Sevvy will be, too, if they do the abortion.”

  “The danger of their being found out is infinitesimal, whereas you would almost certainly be caught if you tried to help me escape.”

  “I won’t be caught. I’ve already worked it out. Look!” [Image.]

  “I see,” Teresa whispered. “I see.”

  She reached out to him mentally, to this oldest child, who had distanced himself fr
om his parents in the earliest years of life, keeping himself to himself, apparently rejecting love as a needless distraction as he cultivated the awesome metafaculties that might someday make him the leading human operant of the new Galactic Age. Teresa seemed genuinely astonished that it should be Marc who would try to save her … save both of them. He had shown no particular affection for his other siblings and seemed to have only an Olympian regard for his mother and father. Even now he instinctively froze at her attempted mental caress, as though he knew that love’s interface would breach his precious self-sufficiency and render him vulnerable.

  As it had.

  “Marc, are you sure?” she asked, taking his hand. It was warm, unlike the ramparts guarding his soul’s core.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Teresa kissed the young hand, then smiled as she guided it to her belly, which had hardly begun to swell. Marc’s muscles tensed, and she feared he would pull away; but then—

  “There,” she said reassuringly, and the boy relaxed. “You must listen very carefully. His—his thought-mode is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, human or exotic. It’s rather frightening until you get used to it. At least it was for me! Probe deep. Be open for something quite different. And be gentle, because he feels he must hide, sometimes, like a little frightened animal …”

  Marc knelt beside Teresa, placed both hands on his mother’s abdomen, and closed his eyes. Transfixed, he hardly seemed to breathe for many minutes. Finally he gave a low, inarticulate cry. He opened his eyes and regarded his mother with mingled elation and fear.