INTERVENTION

by May, Julian; Dikty, Ted

  The factor that disrupted the carefully laid scheme was a small one: the President's grandchild, Amanda Denton. Baumgartner's antioperant feelings, never too firmly grounded in personal conviction, were shaken by the religious leaders' statements on the matter—and then utterly shattered by the little girl. She was a resident in the White House, along with her parents and two older brothers. Ernie Denton, the husband of Baumgartner's only daughter, served as a presidential aide; and whenever the Chief Executive felt depressed, he'd send Ernie off to fetch Amanda. The child was both charming and good for what ailed the President. (She grew up to be a Grand Master Redactor, a superlative metapsychic healer.) And with Amanda cavorting about the Oval Office, Gerry Tremblay didn't have a prayer of reinstituting the antioperant mood that had characterized Baumgartner's first term.

  This was a serious worry to O'Connor. In 2006, Gerry was re-elected to the House... but so were seven other operants from liberal states. Bills were introduced to reorganize and upgrade the EE Service of the Defense Department, which had been starved for funds during the past four years. The FBI, concerned that Islamic terrorists might once again target American cities, pressed for the recruitment of operant agents. There was a predictable outcry from conservatives; but such agents were widely used now in other countries and had proved effective—if unpopular.

  And then came the greatest threat thus far to O'Connor's schemes. He had been grooming his creature, Senator Scrope, to run for president in 2008, since Baumgartner was restricted to two terms by the XXII Amendment to the Constitution. But the country now perceived the charismatic Baumgartner to be the Man on a White Horse who would save it from the maelstrom engulfing the rest of the world. In spite of all O'Connor's lobbying efforts, Congress passed a repeal of Article XXII in May 2007, and by the middle of October the necessary three-fourths of the state legislatures had ratified it. Baumgartner was free to run again, if he chose to do so. And if he did, the next four years boded ill for O'Connor and his secret operant cabal.

  On 27 October, a delegation of the Republican National Committee (not including Chairman Cassidy, who had lost control of the organization) was scheduled to call on the President and formally request him to run for a third term. O'Connor's instructions to Gerry Tremblay were explicit. There could be no more subtlety. Gerry was the only O'Connor partisan with free access to the West Wing having the mental muscle for a full coercive thrust. He was to arrange for an appointment with the President immediately following that of the delegation, so he could station himself in the Oval Office's anteroom. From there he would eavesdrop telepathically, and at the critical moment compel the President to say that he believed the repeal of Article XXII to be an unwise and dangerous move—and that under no circumstances would he run again.

  It was a desperate scheme and it might have worked, for Baumgartner would have contradicted his own public image of firm decisiveness if he repudiated the statement—and to charge that he had been coerced would put him in an even worse position. He would know his mind had been tampered with; but he would not know who had done it—or when it might happen again—and O'Connor was certain that subliminal follow-up thrusts by Gerry over the next few weeks would demoralize him and force him to accept the inevitable. At worst, Baumgartner would seem to be suffering a nervous breakdown and his allegations of mental compulsion would be unprovable.

  The day came. Gerry arrived early for his appointment and was shown into the anteroom to wait by a White House usher who fell victim to his more subtle coercive wiles. Gerry watched as another usher shepherded in the delegation, together with a single minicam video journalist who would record the historic moment. Gerry suffered a brief qualm when he recognized an operant among the delegates, Dr. Beatrice Fairweather of the University of Virginia; but there seemed to be little danger of her detecting the coercive impulse. Her metafaculties were not strong, and she would have no reason to suspect that Baumgartner was being mentally manipulated.

  The door to the Oval Office closed, leaving Gerry seated as close to it as he could get. Two oblivious aides worked at desks on the opposite side of the room. He exerted his farsenses and summoned a close-up image of the President.

  There was a spate of greetings and preliminary chitchat, and then the delegation spokesman, the former Governor of Delaware, got to the heart of the matter:

  "Mr. President, we have brought to you a request of the most critical importance, dictated by the Republican Party and also by millions of American citizens who have flooded our offices with their letters, videograms, and phone calls. The Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution was repealed for one reason and for one reason only—so that you would not have to step down from the presidency at this time when our beleaguered nation needs your continuing guidance so desperately. So I put the question to you frankly. Will you accept the nomination in 2008?"

  Gerry took hold of Lloyd Baumgartner's mind in that instant. He saw from the President's eyes, heard with the President's ears, spoke with the President's mouth and vocal cords.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is an extraordinary honor that you offer me, and I want to assure you that over the past week I have been thinking and praying over it—"

  WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY GRANDPA!

  "—so that this decision I give you today represents my carefully considered judgment, what I believe will best serve the needs of our great nation. I must decline—I must decline—"

  GRANDPA! GRANDPA! YOU LET GRANDPA OUT OF HIS HEAD!

  Through the President's eyes, Gerry saw the door of the Oval Office fly open and Amanda, like a pinafore-clad avenging angel, dash directly toward the desk where her grandfather sat. Far behind her, out in the anteroom, Ernie Denton stood gaping at the enormity of his five-year-old daughter's presumption.

  "—I must decline—"

  Baumgartner was fighting the hold. And the damn child was slashing at him with all her raw infant strength. Gerry's sight of her and of all the others inside the office dimmed as the captive mind began to slip away.

  Gerry lurched to his feet, knowing that if he could only manage eye contact with the President he could reassert control. The little girl screeched and pointed at him standing there in the doorway. The six members of the delegation and the goddam cameraman, too, turned to look at him. The child cried out loud:

  "That's not Grandpa talking. That's him He's inside Grandpa's head. Uncle Gerry is making Grandpa say things he doesn't want to say!"

  The Secret Service men materialized out of nowhere, pinioning Gerry's arms. In a last-ditch effort, he forced Baumgartner to say, "Decline... decline..."

  Then the linkage broke. Dr. Beatrice Fairweather, a little old lady with a kindly face, stepped up to Gerry and put her fingers on his forehead and opened his faltering mind like a sardine can.

  "Oh, dear," she said. "I'm afraid the child is right."

  The President slumped back into his big leather chair. He said hoarsely, "You bet your sweet ass she's right! Arrest that man!"

  Gerry Tremblay relaxed then, and even managed a rueful little smile for the camera as the Secret Service agents led him away.

  ***

  In July 2008 Tremblay went on trial. The evidence of Beatrice Fairweather was disallowed under the statutes prohibiting self-incrimination, but little Amanda Denton was a telling witness for the prosecution. Her testimony, together with that of the President, was sufficient to convict Representative Gerard Tremblay of aggravated assault and battery, and interfering with a federal official. A count of kidnaping was thrown out. Tremblay's appeal of the verdict eventually reached the Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction. He was impeached and expelled from the House of Representatives and served two years and six months of a concurrent three-to-twenty-five-year sentence.

  In 2012, both houses of Congress passed the XXIX Amendment to the Constitution, which would permit defendants in criminal trials (operant or not) to be cross-examined mentally by a three-person group of forensic redactors—one for the defense, o
ne for the prosecution, and one acting as amicus curiae. The Amendment was submitted to the state legislatures but had not been ratified by the requisite three-quarters of the United States by the time the Intervention took place.

  Upon his parole in 2012, Gerry Tremblay became an officer in Roggenfeld Acquisitions, a firm specializing in the leveraged buy-outs of aerospace contractors. Five months after his release from prison, his wife Shannon presented him with a baby girl, Laura, who was destined for a spectacular role in the private life of a certain Magnate of the Concilium forty years into the future. Tremblay complaisantly acknowledged Laura as his own.

  He never learned—unlike his father-in-law, Kieran O'Connor—that it had been Shannon who sent little Amanda to visit her grandfather on 29 October 2007, and also arranged for Dr. Fairweather to join the nominating delegation at the last moment.

  20

  OVERSIGHT AUTHORITY VESSEL

  SAD A [SIMB 220-0000]

  PODKAMENNAYA TUNGUSKA BASIN

  USSR, EARTH

  20 JUNE 2008

  THE HUGE SIMBIARI Authority flagship and its attendant fleet of twenty-six smaller observation vessels descended slowly and openly, in broad daylight, over the event site. By order of the Lylmik Supervisors, the commemoration was to be deliberately conspicuous, reminding the populace of this war-torn Earth nation of a truth they had once championed—that human beings were not alone in the starry universe.

  On the bridge of the Sada, Captain Chassatam, his Executive Officer Madi Ala Assamochiss, and Senior Oversight Magnate Adassti watched the view-screen, which was in terrain-proper mode, as the wilderness of verdant bogs and conifer thickets drew closer and closer.

  "Approaching stasis altitude," said the Exec.

  "Very well," said Captain Chassatam. A fast farsight sweep told him that the formation was perfectly organized, and seconds later it hovered motionless some six hundred meters above the taiga. One level of his mind commanded the attention of all crews, while another signaled the Simbiari chaplain stationed in the topside bubble to organize and energize the solemn metaconcert aimed at coercing God.

  O Source and Sustainer of Life! Our minds and the Mind of the Simbiari Polity in all the far-flung reaches of the Galaxy praise you this day at the site where your martyrs, the crew and survey personnel of the Observation Vessel Risstimi, did one hundred planetary orbits ago choose to sacrifice themselves rather than bring great harm upon the innocent people of a world placed under their care. Help us to understand and appreciate your martyrs' extraordinary act of love. Console the bereaved among us who lost kin and dear friends in the event. If it should be your will, give us the courage to emulate their selfless action freely and without fear, confident as they were confident that you will receive our undying minds into the Great Mind even as our bodies perish. We trust that you will welcome us one day as you welcomed them into your Divine Milieu of unending peace and light, love and joy. Praise to you. Author of the Universe and exemplar of perfect Unity! Praise throughout all space and time! We Simbiari say this with one Mind.

  WE SAY IT!

  "A chopper approaches from Vanavara," the Exec noted, inserting its image into a comer of the view-screen. All three Simbiari scrutinized the tiny craft with their farsight and did a surface probe of the humans within. Lettering on the body of the helicopter indicated that it belonged to the local reindeer-herders' collective.

  "I'd hoped for a higher-status set of eyewitnesses than this," the Magnate said rather peevishly. She mopped green mucus from her face. As the senior personage present it had been her duty to express ritual sorrow during the prayer.

  "They've closed down the air bases at Ust'-Ilimisk and Tura," the Captain said. "They'll have to send jets from Krasnoyarsk."

  "Military observers always receive higher credibility ratings from Earthlings," Magnate Adassti said. "I hope they're not asleep at the switch down there at PVOS."

  The Exec said, "The chopper carries a pilot and the local stringer for the Evenk People's Video Net. The journalist has remembered to load his camera and take off the lens cap, and he's framing a fair shot of the fleet."

  "Thanks be to sacred Truth and Beauty," the Magnate sighed.

  The small craft came whop-whopping over the spruces, following an erratic course. The Magnate turned her thoughts to higher things, reminiscing out loud in what she hoped was a comradely fashion.

  "My sainted Auntie Bami Ala was among the Tunguska martyrs. I recall her clearly, even though I was a mere toddler when she left on her first exotic assignment. She was only a TechOne with the Taxonomical Service, but very keen at the thought of bringing Milieu enlightenment to a suboperant world. Dear Auntie... She showed me my first visuals of humans. I had to fight to keep from gagging at the first sight of them—those horrid dry skins, like Poltroyans only ranging in pigmentation from dusty black to fish-belly pink. She explained their strange physiology and shocked me to the toe-webs. No algae symbionts in the epidermis, so they were constantly eating and excreting through a hypertrophied gastrointestinal tract—even making a ceremony of food taking. And I had thought that the Gi were uncouth! Auntie told me about the primitive state of human technology and psychosocial development, and then scandalized me even more by admitting that the Lylmik had the highest hopes for Earth. But I'll tell you, Captain, that even now I can hardly imagine a more unlikely candidate-world for coadunation of the local Mind."

  "I don't know," the Captain said. "They may give us a run for the money in the high-tech field. Their rate of advancement has been little short of stupefying." He waved a hand at the wealth of ingenious mechanisms that crowded the bridge of the Sada. "Give humanity a few more decades and they'll have most of this. With their elaboration of the Universal Field Theory, they've been able to begin work on gravo-magnetic propulsion. And it's only a fluke that they haven't tamed fusion yet. Fooling around, wasting their resources on manned-satellite schemes. If they only knew that we have nearly eight hundred worlds for them!"

  "Captain," the Executive Officer warned, "the exotic aircraft is venturing too close to the rho-field coronal zone. Shall I push it off?"

  "Do so. We can't have the thing dropping out of the sky like a zapped mosquito... That's better. Neat work with the pressor, Madi Ala. We'll give him just a few more minutes and then send him off. The emotional tone of the pilot is turning flaky."

  "The journalist must make an explicit record of our presence," Magnate Adassti averred. "The Lylmik were emphatic on that point."

  The Captain sipped carbonated water from his platinum flask with a certain air of disdain. "Does the Supervisory Body really believe this manifestation will divert the Soviets from their internal conflicts? Frankly, with the way things are going down in Transcaucasia, I doubt that a mere fleet of starships over the Stony Tunguska will even make the evening news."

  "Vulgar cynicism is hardly called for, Captain." The Magnate was somewhat starchy over his minor breach of decorum. Rehydrating oneself among equals or in informal situations was certainly acceptable. But the Captain had not even bothered to ask her permission before drinking, and the Executive Officer was a subordinate! Flight crews were a roughhewn lot, regrettably egalitarian.

  The Captain only chuckled at her subliminal rebuke. "It looks to me as though the Soviet Union is only a half skip away from complete disintegration. Cynicism seems quite justified."

  "Nonsense. The nation may be battered, but its economy and governmental structure are still basically intact. The reports of our presence here will be sent to Moscow and eventually disseminated throughout the planet. As to what good the manifestation will do... we can expect benefits to accrue over the long term."

  "Earth hasn't got a long term. If the Lylmik hold off Intervention much longer this whole Second Oversight Phase will be a wasted effort. We'll find ourselves with a suboperant world again! The normals are starting to kill off coadunating minds down there, you know."

  "Unfortunately, this is true," the Magnate admitted. "If only the impr
isoned Soviet operants had embraced a pacifistic stance, as their colleagues in other countries advised them. Poor misguided ones! The military dictator in the Kremlin was badly jolted by the mass escape attempt of the aggressively empowered adepts. Nearly fourteen hundred minds lost to the overall coadunation effort... I fear that an ethic of nonviolence is a tough bolus for many Earthling operants to swallow."

  "The bunch at Darjeeling stayed peaceful—until the Muslim mob tore them to pieces. On this planet, metapsychic operants may be in a no-win situation. It's happened on other worlds."

  "The Lylmik still hold out hope. On the other hand, the revised schema postulates that Intervention must occur within the next five years here, or it probably will not occur at all..."

  "Captain, the helicopter is retreating," said the Exec.

  "Yes, Madi Ala, I see. The poor pilot's had enough. He's frightened nearly out of his mind. He didn't have nearly as much to drink today as the journalist."

  A telltale blinked an alert and the Exec said, "Now we are being scanned in the infrared by a Soviet satellite surveillance system as well as by the phased arrays at Krasnoyarsk. Is this allowable?"

  The Captain passed the buck to the Magnate, who said, "Affirmative. But obscure any attempt at configuration fine-scan of the Sada by light-amplifiers. I don't want us to be too blatantly on the record. We'll remain in position for a few more minutes and let EuroSat ZS spot us on its next sweep. Three sightings should provide modest credibility and give the Earthlings something to think about besides killing one another."

  "Very well," said the Captain. He was watching the view and slurping from his flask again, radiating overfamiliarity. "You ever been landside in Siberia, Magnate Adassti?"