Jack the Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Trilogy)

by Julian May

  “Tucker?” Marc’s voice was an anxious whisper. “What day is it?”

  “The day after,” said Barnes. “Sunday evening, 1840 hours, the fifteenth of February, Earth reckoning.”

  “Is Jack all right?”

  The metapsychologist was thrown for a momentary loss by the question. “Jack …? His condition is unchanged. Don’t you care about yourself?”

  Marc managed a small smile. “Okay, what kind of shape am I in?”

  “You’ve got a few third-degree burns, a sprained left wrist, and a small subdural hematoma—a little blood clot on the brain caused by landing smack on the top of your head when you were thrown from your bike. Your hard hat absorbed most of the shock, and the clot will go away by itself. None of your injuries will keep you down for more than a week or so. You were in shock. Now you’re out of it. You’ve got a tube up your nose giving you a little extra oxygen, and a couple of needles in your bad arm giving you sugar and water and stuff and monitoring your blood, and a catheter where you’d rather not have it collecting precious bodily fluids, and a batch of electrode bugs clinging to various other parts of your anatomy. Apart from that, you’re in good condition.”

  Marc was levering himself upright again, and this time Barnes’s coercion was impotent to stop him. “Tucker, I’ve got to get out of here. Got to go see Jack—”

  The door to the hospital room opened. Paul came in, with Lucille and Denis and Cecilia Ashe. The woman doctor reacted swiftly to Marc’s attempt to get out of bed. Her redaction did something unexpected to the motor area of his brain, and he dropped back onto his pillow as limp as a rag doll.

  “Unless you want me to administer a sedative, young man, lie still!”

  Marc glared at her. Then he quit fighting.

  “That’s better,” Cecilia said. “Tucker and I will leave you to talk to your father and your grandparents for a few minutes if you promise to behave yourself.”

  Marc nodded.

  Lucille opened her very large handbag and took out something that gleamed with a metallic luster. A trophy. “You won, Marc. The racing was halted for the day after the accident happened. Yours was the only trophy awarded.” She set the thing on the convenience unit beside the bed.

  Marc uttered a raspy little laugh and turned his head away.

  “How are you feeling, son?” Paul asked. He and Denis and Lucille drew up chairs to the bedside.

  “No pain I can’t psych away,” the boy said. The door closed behind Tucker and Cecilia. Marc’s husky whisper fell nearly to the point of inaudibility. “He died, didn’t he. Whoever he was …”

  “Yes.” Paul’s face was expressionless. “It was your Cousin Gordon McAllister.”

  “Gordo!” Marc’s mental screen thickened palpably. “Of course! I thought it was someone I knew. But it all happened so fast … God! Gordo! He must have been crazy. Poor Aunt Cat.”

  “Catherine’s devastated,” Paul said. “She said Gordon had been acting in a perfectly normal manner when she agreed to let him come up from Brebeuf for the Winter Carnival. He was staying at Phil and Aurelie’s house with some of the other cousins, happy as a clam with your old bike, talking about entering the ice-cycle races himself someday. None of us can make any sense out of what happened. What Gordo thought he was doing. Whether it was some kind of idiotic prank, or whether—”

  “He meant to kill me,” Marc said.

  Lucille gave a small cry.

  “Are you certain?” Denis asked gravely.

  “His intent was clear as glass, Grandpère. I didn’t even know who he was when he came at me out of nowhere, but I sure as hell knew what he intended to do. Jack gave me a nanosecond’s warning. I hit the brakes, and the Beemer’s spikes rode over my front wheel instead of over me. The fire—I can’t understand the fire. The fuel tanks of the bikes are safety-lined. They almost never burn in a crash. Poor old Gordo.” Bespeaking Denis on his intimate mode, the boy added: Was it quick?

  Denis said: No. But Uncle Rogi and I lied to your Grandmother and Aunt Catherine about that, and you keep quiet.

  Okay.

  Lucille rose from her chair. “We mustn’t excite you any more, dear. Is there anything we can do for you now?”

  “No, Grandmère. Thanks.”

  Paul said, “Now that I’m certain you’re going to be all right, I’ll have to get back to Concord. There’s an important vote on Monday.”

  Marc lay quiet, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “It’s okay, Papa. I understand.”

  “I’ll farspeak you from time to time,” Paul continued. He touched Marc’s unbandaged right hand. “Especially if there’s any fresh news about the … accident. The police will want to question you about it tomorrow, when you’re feeling better.”

  “What—what should I say?”

  “Tell the truth,” Denis said.

  Paul nodded his agreement. “The truth, but no speculation. Your Uncle Sevvy is coercively redacting all the cousins who had any contact with Gordon over the past few days. If he finds out anything concrete about Gordon’s motives, he’ll pass it on to the authorities. It would be better if you stuck to the facts.”

  “All right.”

  Lucille bent down and kissed Marc on the forehead. She had on her favorite perfume, which Marc recalled had the incongruous name of Poison.

  “Pray for poor Gordo, dear,” she said softly. “And for Aunt Cat and the other McAllister children.”

  Marc only blinked. Denis lifted one hand in farewell, his compelling blue eyes downcast and his feelings veiled. Then the three of them were gone.

  Cecilia came back with a nurse. They removed the intravenous equipment and the oxygen tube and the catheter, but left the bugs. Then the nurse left and Cecilia said that he would be served a small supper. After that, he could either listen to calming music or watch something fairly quiet on the private room’s Tri-D for a little while. “But rest is what you really need now,” she concluded. “Your self-redaction will probably heal the blood clot first, and then the burns, and the sprain and the bruises last. It works most efficiently when you’re asleep. A nurse will be in to give you a sedative around 2030.”

  “No!” Marc protested. “I don’t want to be knocked out.”

  “If you fall asleep normally, I’ll forgo the downer,” Cecilia conceded, “but it’s important that you relax and don’t get excited. You did suffer from severe shock in addition to your injuries. You’ll find that your metafaculties are weakened and uncoordinated. Don’t be concerned about that. Things will sort themselves out in a couple of days.”

  At last she left. Marc continued to stare at the ceiling for a while, thinking furiously. Then there was a soft chime from the bedside convenience unit, and a tray with hot food slid out on a jointed arm. It smelled like some kind of bland invalid’s slop, but he decided he was starving to death. He maneuvered the bed up into a semisitting position and began investigating the covered dishes. Broth with a few bits of pasta. Some kind of custard, buttered toast, a small glass of milk. Yecch.

  As he ate it, he farspoke Uncle Rogi:

  You listening?

  Tonnerre!… You’re back among the living, are you?

  So they say. They also say it was Gordo.

  Yes. Incredible. Totally—completely—horribly—incroyable. But true. It was Gordorotten-Gordo never liked the little creep.

  Uncle Rogi! Damn you, are you plastered?

  No. Only a nice glow on.

  Shit!

  That’s not nice. Not a nice thing to say. Especially when we were worried sick about you, tigars.

  I’m all right. And I’ve figured something out about Hydra.

  Gordo was Hydra. Jack said so. Damned Gordo. Never liked him.

  It fits that Hydra should be one of the cousins. Gordo was in the right place at the right time to do the different killings, and he was also out on the river the night before last when I very nearly got creamed myself.

  ?! You what—

  Fury got to me through the CE
helmet. The cerebroenergetic interface is a perfect bypass of operant mind-screening. It never occurred to me that it could be dangerous. Fury, or possibly Hydra, tried to force me to crash the bike into the Woodsville Bridge while I was practicing for the race.

  Jésus. And when that didn’t work … he came after you during the race?

  Uncle Rogi, that’s not the worst of it. Hydra isn’t one mind. Jack tried to tell us that when Addie died, and he tried to tell me again later on. But I didn’t want to believe it. Now I think I’ve finally got the straights of it: Hydra is five minds. Five minds that were somehow touched by Victor when they were very vulnerable. When they were unborn. Five women were pregnant at Victor’s deathbed in 2040—Cecilia, Severin’s ex Maeve O’Neill, Cat, Cheri, and Mama. The children that were born later that year are Celine, Quint, Gordo, Parni—and my sister Maddy.

  Non! Ça, c’n’est pas possible! Five innocent little children?! Le bon Dieu, he doesn’t allow such things to happen!

  Uncle Rogi, Gordo wasn’t innocent.

  … Who’s Fury, then?

  I have no idea. If he really did invade my dreams, bespeak me there on the river before trying to have me killed, then I think he must be an adult. The mind-tone in my dream was mature. Very cold, very goal-oriented. Fury could be one of the Remillard Dynasty, someone who hates the Galactic Milieu, who’s conceived some mad scheme to destroy it by killing off key human operants and subverting others to his cause. Fury wanted to recruit me—and, dammit, I was tempted!

  No. It’s obscene! Diabolical! What can we do? Who can we trust? OhGodohGod—

  MacGregor is the only one who’d believe us without wasting a lot of time. Where are you?

  I’m at the bookstore. Inventorying.

  Drinking yourself blind, you mean! You’re going to have to sober up and go down to Concord and see the Dirigent in person—and do it right now.

  Can’t … Chrissake it’s supposed to storm like hell tonight, and I’m tight as a tick.

  Dammit, I warned you! Never mind. Forget it. I’m not thinking too good myself. It’s better if I farspeak MacGregor and persuade him to have the four kids picked up, and you go and stay with Jack. You’re not too far gone to make it up to Hitchcock, are you? Or do I have to break out of this hospital myself and—

  No no no … I can do that. Merde alors, I can drive to Hitchcock in my sleep.

  No you don’t! You stay awake! Make sure the security around Jack’s room isn’t relaxed for a minute. I’ve got a feeling he’s in danger. Find a way to keep Papa and the rest of the Dynasty away from him until the Hydras are in custody and they tell us who Fury is.

  Ti-Jean … ce pauvre petit. He knew Hydra was Gordo. Told me so. But Jack’s safe. I went to the hospital this morning. They wouldn’t let me in to see him. Armed operant security guard outside his door and a sigma-field and alarm doohickeys all over the place.

  Go to him anyhow. Make certain he’s all right tonight. Stay there with the guard. Please, Uncle Rogi!

  All right all right. Just make sure you do your thing. Get MacGregor to sic the Magistratum on those four damned kids!

  Yes. I’m going to do it right now.

  Cecilia Ashe opened the door of Marc’s room and entered, followed by the nurse. The doctor’s face was stiff with disapproval. “Marc, didn’t I emphasize how important it was for you to be quiet? Your body bugs just set off nearly every alarm in the nurse’s station outside.”

  She was at his bedside in four rapid strides. Pushing aside the robotic food tray, she took hold of Marc’s good arm, whipped out a transdermal infuser she had held concealed behind her back, and applied it to Marc’s neck. There was a hiss of compressed gas. A microstream of powerful sedative entered Marc’s left carotid artery. The nurse helped to hold him down as he writhed.

  “No!” Marc cried. “I’ve got to talk to Davy MacGregor! Please, Aunt Cele … it’s vital that … I farspeak …”

  He sagged back, unconscious.

  Dr. Ashe sighed. “Adolescents. And to think I believed this one was sensible! I might have known that any boy who raced those infernal ice machines was just a mite flakoid.”

  The nurse was sponging off Marc’s brow and settling him in. “None of the body monitors was displaced, Doctor. Will you want the IVs and the catheter replaced?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ll just let him sleep. He’s a healthy young specimen and he’s pretty well out of the woods. Let me know at once if there’s any change, but unless I miss my guess, he’ll probably sleep like a babe for ten hours.”

  A second nurse stuck her head in through the open door. “Dr. Ashe, your daughter Celine is on the teleview.”

  “Tell her I’ll be right there,” Cecilia said. She surveyed Marc one final time, shook her head, and said, “Pleasant dreams.” The two women left the room and closed the door.

  Marc groaned. With infinite slowness, his eyelids opened. The widely dilated pupils contracted even more slowly, and the eyes remained glazed and unblinking. Marc’s breathing was slow and regular, and his heartbeat maintained a steady rhythm. After an interval, the boy’s uninjured arm crept out from beneath the covers and moved toward his head. He touched a flattened lozenge-shaped thing clinging to his right temple. Awareness flickered in the gray eyes. His tongue stole out and moistened first his upper lip, then the lower. The questing hand moved with increasing confidence over his body, touching and counting the lozenges. There were seven all told, and their data-gathering mechanism was susceptible to looping. Slowly, one after another, Marc exerted his creative metafunction on the bugs so that they would continue to transmit repeated segments of unchanging data to the vital-signs monitor at the nursing station down the corridor. The nurses might notice the unnatural patterns if they paid close attention, but he was banking on their having set the machine’s alarms to go off only at some gross abnormality.

  When he was satisfied that he had executed the bug modifications correctly, Marc hauled himself into a sitting position, peeled off the small devices, and put them on his pillow. The drug was being rapidly metabolized by his redaction, but it still depressed his motor functions. He swung his legs to the floor with great effort, wincing a little from the pain of the burns on his left thigh. Gordo’s spikes must have nailed him there after all, puncturing his armor.

  He sat still for some time, cradling his sprained left wrist and burned hand, concentrating on husbanding his depleted mental energies. Then he exerted his farspeech, aiming the weakened thought-beam with as much precision as he could summon, attempting to bespeak Davy MacGregor in Earth’s capital.

  Concord was only 86 kilometers away. Nevertheless, there was no answering thought from the Dirigent.

  Marc leaned across the bed to the convenience unit. A wave of nausea swept through his guts, and a sharp pain stabbed at the top of his head. He cursed silently and waited motionless until he was sure that he would not faint. Then he picked up the simple telephone handset, got the number of the Dirigent’s office from information, and called it up.

  The functionary who answered the 24-hour landline told him that MacGregor was en route to Concilium Orb. He could be reached by subspace communicator if the message was extremely urgent.

  “How … long would that take?” Marc asked.

  “You’ll have to give me your message in its entirety. Then its relative importance and your own status will be evaluated by this office, and if a sufficiently high priority is confirmed, the message will be delivered within the hour. The Dirigent makes every effort to be accessible to all citizens, but you do understand that certain protocols must be observed.”

  “Yes …” Marc’s head was spinning. If he gave his name, would they check back with Paul? No. He was legally an adult now. But this evaluation garbage—God! If he could only think straight …

  “Citizen? Are you there? Do you wish to give me your name and message?”

  “I—I’ll get back to you,” Marc said, and hung up the phone.

  Jack, he called
. Jacko can you hear me?

  There was no response. Was his farspeech functioning at all? Again he paused, trying to muster up metapsychic strength. Redact the head pain, the nausea, the damned drug poisoning his nerves, the sweat breaking out on his forehead and chest. Bolster the motor function. Muscles—move!

  He stood up. Exerted deepsight and farsight, breathed a brief prayer of thanks that they seemed to work.

  There was a closet, and in it a robe and slippers. Outside in the corridor, two nurses were conversing at the station. Both were normals. There was no sign of Cecilia Ashe or Tukwila Barnes or any other operant.

  Marc wondered if his coercion would function well enough to get him past the nurses and downstairs. If he would be able to overpower some poor devil and coerce his clothes and car away from him. If he would be able to drive back into Hanover to the old hospital where Jack was and make certain for himself that his little brother was safe. Uncle Rogi, that sozzled old fool, couldn’t be trusted.

  I have to do it, Marc told himself. I have to!

  Very carefully, he began putting on the robe.

  Rogi had started out working on inventory, it being Sunday night and the bookshop closed. He’d come down from his apartment in his moccasins after supper, leaving Marcel behind so he’d get a little peace. Then he had an attack of the horrors, seeing that damned ball of flame in his mind’s eye again. There was a fresh bottle of Wild Turkey in the filing cabinet, and one thing had led to another.

  Now, more groggy than panicked after Marc’s mental communiqué, he had to go back upstairs to put on his boots and outdoor clothes before driving over to the hospital to Jack. He cursed Marc as he tied the boot laces with shaking fingers. Batège! Jack was safe as houses with the new security in place. MaxSec didn’t have any masterclass heads on its payroll, but the operant rent-a-cop outside Jack’s door would be able to hear if the child called for help telepathically. The hospital room was fenced with force-fields as well as mechanical and electronic alarms that would alert the Hancock police if anything should happen to the guard. What the hell good would it do for him to hang around the hospital all night?