"I see things differently. Families are the fundamental building blocks of a stable society. Extended families -- clans -- are the best conceivable environment for the rearing of children, the perpetuation of a commercial forte, and the germination of new families and their ventures. A clan like yours, Miss Albermayer, conserves a brilliant genetic line and a priceless medical specialty at the same time. A clan like yours, Mr. Morelon, makes possible a benign agricultural empire and produces natural leaders one after another while connecting Hope to its most distant origins. And all healthy families, which cherish life and bind their members to one another in unembarrassed love, can find far more to occupy and amuse them than they need."
Teresza's mind lit with memories of the way the Morelons had enfolded her and made her one of them. No day could have been long enough for all they had to say and do and share with one another.
"When Earth's regard for families and their most fundamental function deteriorated, her people ceased to enjoy the sorts of ties that had held them together throughout the history of Man. Without families, and especially without children, they groped for other things to fill their time, whether to give them a sense of purpose, or to distract them from the waning of their lives. Some invested themselves in industry or commerce, but without the sense of the family line to be built up and made prominent, those things failed to satisfy. Others immersed themselves in games, toys, fripperies, and increasingly bizarre forms of entertainment, which palled on them even faster. Still others made a fetish out of sex; there was a substantial sex industry on Earth, though it tended to operate in the shadows and was seldom openly discussed. They needed emotion and substance, but all they could contrive was sensation and novelty, and they pumped an ever greater share of their effort and wealth into seeking them. That's my thesis, for what it's worth."
The hall was silent. Teresza peered furtively at the faces of the students nearest her. The majority of them were wet with tears.
"For us," Stromberg said, "it's enough that we're happy, secure, and free. We don't really need to know definitively why our statist forebears traveled a path so different from our own. But it's among the great mysteries of social science, and worth thinking about from time to time even in isolation." The bell rang, and the sociologist smiled. "For the present, try to forget all about it. I'll see you here on Tuckerday."
***
The lecture hall had emptied, but Armand and Teresza remained in their seats. Armand had not moved since the closing bell, and Teresza was afraid to nudge him. She simply sat, his big hand between hers, and waited for him to return from his private space.
They'd sat in complete silence for several minutes when he murmured, "I think I see."
"What, Armand?" She chafed his hand gently.
"Where he's going with this." He looked straight ahead, toward the lectern but not at it, a true thousand-yard stare. "He's been hinting at a unified theory of society, like they're looking for in physics. I think I see what it is."
He doesn't look happy about it.
"There's only two forces that really matter," he said. "Life and death. Everything else is a sideshow. When we work to live, and to make more life, and to take pleasure in life and help others do the same, that's healthy. That's freedom. But the people of Earth weren't free. They were surrounded by their States. By death. And the States never let up for a moment. So they couldn't make more life, or take a lot of pleasure in it. They had to distract themselves from all the death hemming them in. All the bodies piled up around them." He rose and turned to her at last, and she rose in response. Tears trickled down his face. "But our ancestors chose life. The Spoonerites made the Great Sacrifice and broke the circle, so our ancestors could get free." He wiped at his tears and smiled, a peculiar compound of pity for those who had died in bondage and gratitude that he and she and their compatriots would not. "We are so lucky."
She spread her arms, and he pressed her tenderly against him.
"Armand..."
"Hm?"
"There's something I should have told you."
"What's that?"
"My father's a genetic engineer." She tried to smile, but it didn't work. "Probably the best on Hope. He designed me from the genes up. I didn't have a mother. I was born from an incubator." She closed her eyes against her fear. "He says we're genetically incompatible...that I can't conceive by you."
"I know, Terry. I knew before I proposed to you. It doesn't matter."
"What?" She pushed him back and stared at him, incapable of believing what she'd heard. His face was free of any guile. "How did you know?"
"Grandpere Alain told me. He's known your father for a long time."
Chapter 17
Ethan Mandeville felt Charles Petrus's eyes spear into him as if he were an insect mounted on a display mat.
"What are the odds?" Petrus said.
Mandeville wanted to back away from his suggestion, but the matter was too grave.
"I can't say. It hasn't been tried before. How am I supposed to estimate the chances of something that's never been tried before?"
Petrus's gaze flashed toward Einar Magnusson. The biophysicist maintained a silent, stony stare. The agronomist's attention returned to Mandeville at once.
"Have you discussed this with Einar yet?"
Mandeville shook his head.
"It's entirely your idea?"
Mandeville hesitated. "No, not entirely. Something...Dmitri said got me thinking about it."
Petrus's eyebrows rose. Dmitri Ianushkevich chuckled dryly, arms folded across his chest.
"The developmental studies, Ethan?"
Mandeville bobbed his head.
"They weren't followed up properly, you know."
"No," Mandeville said, and paused. Is this a test of some kind? Could I be venturing out onto thin ice? "But how old was the oldest Tellus at his apotheosis?"
The parapsychologist frowned. "Emile Morelon was twenty-four."
Mandeville clasped his hands behind his back and started to pace around the monitoring chamber. "That's about the age at which the growth hormones peter out. If we leave him out, who was the oldest?"
Ianushkevich looked off into the corner. "Cleo Thyssan, at twenty-two. Most of the rest were twenty or younger."
Mandeville nodded. "So we've had no Tellus whose endocrine system was completely steady-state at the time of his elevation. That's not conclusive, but it does give me hope."
"Ethan," Magnusson rumbled, "you're talking about pouring gasoline onto a raging fire."
The graduate student quailed before his mentor's obvious disapproval. Yet it was only a moment before his impulse to cringe was displaced by a heedless braggadocio.
"Do you have a better idea, Einar? The planet is odds-on to starve to death in three months and the usual conditioning program has never taken less than five. Are we supposed to fold our hands and wait for a miracle?"
Magnusson's mouth dropped open.
Petrus produced a wry grin. "The lad is a bit more realistic than I'd have expected from one of yours, Einar. I must admit, I have no better ideas myself. If it's a certainty of death or a wild gamble on life, I'm as willing to gamble as anyone."
"And if it fails, Charlie?" Magnusson's gravid bass was ominously soft. "What do we say to one another if it fails, when we could have had two shots at a normal conditioning program with the two most powerful psi talents Hope has ever known?"
Silence descended. Eyes flicked back and forth until Mandeville realized that only he could break it.
"We don't experiment on both of them," he said. His voice sounded unusually loud in the chamber's stillness. "We experiment on one and hold the other in reserve. The regular program might be a poor chance, but at least we would have hedged the bet as best we could."
It got him the grandees' full attention. They looked at him with something like awe.
That wasn't hard. Why couldn't they see it?
"Ethan," Ianushkevich said, "I can see that you're puzzled by
our reaction. Please remember that we are old men, and very much alone. The last clever idea any of us had was centuries before you were born." He smirked dourly. "The Hallanson-Albermayer therapies are not a panacea. They keep the body young and supple, but they don't do much for sclerosis of the mind or paralysis of the imagination."
"So which shall it be?" Magnusson said.
Mandeville opened his mouth to speak, but pulled up short when Ianushkevich said, "The Peterson girl."
The suddenness of the announcement seemed to disconcert the others.
"Isn't she the lesser talent?" Petrus said.
"In some areas," Ianushkevich said. "Her telekinesis is superb, but her clairvoyance will need some work before she can manage the whole crust of Hope without conscious thought."
"Then why --"
"It's not open to discussion, Charlie." Ianushkevich rose and crossed his arms over his chest.
Petrus was momentarily silent. "You've spoken to his grandfather, haven't you?"
Mandeville gasped. Magnusson sat bolt upright.
"You knew I would, Charles." The words rang like a tocsin. "Alain Morelon is the reason we've gone unmolested for twelve centuries. He's the source of most of our funds. He's also the reason his grandson is here. Did you know that?"
A muscle twitched along Petrus's jawline. He said nothing.
"That's right, Charles. Alain knows what we face. He's aware how thin our pickings have become. He knew the stakes, so he sent us his flesh and blood, despite the Cabal's promise, twelve centuries old, that no Morelon would ever again be chosen for Tellus. And he told me, Charles..." Ianushkevich closed his eyes and drew a single deep breath. "He told me that he himself would take the role if neither Armand nor Victoria would do it. Alain Morelon is worth a hundred of all of us put together. I have no doubt his grandson is, as well. I will not break the Cabal's vow to the Morelon clan until no alternative remains."
The parapsychologist turned eyes black as space upon Ethan Mandeville, and the graduate student felt the wind of decision blow through his soul.
"The Peterson girl. Tonight."
***
"More strength tests tonight?" Victoria said.
Mandeville's smile flickered and went out. "No, some sensitivity exercises. Your telekinesis has amazed all of us, but we're puzzled why it should be so far beyond your other gifts. We think you have clairvoyant potential you haven't tapped yet."
She frowned. "I thought my telekinesis was why you wanted me."
He shook his head. "That was just the ability that most impressed us from the initial screenings. Remember, the mind is an organic whole. If your telekinesis is an indicator, your powers extend well beyond what you've demonstrated to date." He held the jar of conductive pomade as if he were trying to conceal it. "I've designed a new exercise that should stretch your limits. Ready for some fun?"
She nodded and lifted her hair off her neck. He took an unusually long time daubing her scalp and neck with the conductive jelly. The effect was too soothing for her to wonder about it.
When the contacts were in place, he rose, said "I'll be right back," and disappeared behind her. She frowned, but there was nothing to do but relax and wait.
It took about three minutes for vertigo to set in.
The first stirrings were subtle, just a hint around the edges of her consciousness that the world wasn't entirely steady on its axis. Her first impulse was to shake her head, but she forestalled it when she remembered the twenty-odd electrical contacts that adhered to it. She closed her eyes, thinking that it might quell her slowly mounting disorientation, but the reverse occurred instead.
Within moments the room was heaving around her like a skiff on a gale-churned sea. Whether her eyes were open or closed, she was peppered with bizarre, writhing images and flashes of ghostlight. They were accompanied by auditory hallucinations: inarticulate whispers, hummings and rumblings that seemed to come from great machines laboring far away, and a constant high keening, as if all the insects of Old Earth were shrilling at her in unison.
Aromas from gourmet meals and charnel pits assaulted her nostrils. Invisible fingers drew a thousand feathery trails along her body. She clamped her eyes shut and her hands on the arms of the chair with panic strength as she whimpered from fright. Nothing she did would make the sensations abate.
It seemed a thousand years before Ethan Mandeville's voice wafted to her, as pale and soft as river mist.
"Victoria..."
She wanted to rise from the chair, to rip the cables off her head and flee, but her fear would not permit it.
"Victoria, can you hear me? Raise your right hand if you can."
She relaxed her fingers out of their death grip on the chair and raised her trembling right hand.
"Very good, dear. Now try to see me."
"Are you...are you in the room?" she whispered.
Whether or not he had heard her, he told her what she needed to know. "I'm a little way directly below you. Can you cast your viewpoint through the floor? Would you try for me?"
She swallowed, steadied herself against the unceasing barrage of nightmare inputs, and let her viewpoint drift free of her body.
As soon as her viewpoint detached, the storm in her sensorium ceased. The end of the assault was as jarring as its onset had been. Her body, tensed against the waves of sensation, relaxed all at once. She ignored it, concentrated on forcing her awareness down through the floor of the room.
"Come to me, Victoria. Come to me. I'll keep talking to you as you move. Just keep descending until you enter another room, a room with cut rock walls that contains a lot of displays and electronic equipment...and me."
She began her descent.
Beneath the floor of the lab she found, not another layer of rooms, but a mass of solid rock. It resisted her intrusion as if she were trying to force her way through a heavy curtain, moored along its edges.
"Come to me..."
She bore down, still unnaturally aware of the silence in her skull, and pushed until the barrier gave way before her.
"Come to me..."
Already she'd extended her psi perception further than she'd ever previously gone.
Can Armand do this?
The rock seemed to go on without limit, an infinite expanse of igneous stone threaded here and there with thin veins of metal. She sensed only the occasional tiny fissure or subsidence crack as she drove her awareness through it.
"Come to me..."
After what seemed an endless time, the rock ceased. Her viewpoint staggered and surged as she entered the deep subterranean chamber where Ethan Mandeville awaited her.
He appeared enormous, a gigantic caricature of a man. He was grinning broadly and holding a block-lettered sign.
YOU HAVE DIVED TWO HUNDRED FEET THROUGH SOLID GRANITE
CONGRATULATIONS!
Behind him stood a bank of display screens that showed multiple views of a frail, pallid middle-aged man lying on a large, plushly made bed. His eyes were open, his breathing was shallow, and his body was as rigid as Victoria's had been a few minutes before.
***
Mandeville peeled the contacts from Victoria's scalp in silence, hoping she couldn't sense the magnitude of his exultation. She sat passively, probably still woozy from the effects of the hormone cocktail he'd infused through her scalp.
"Was that what you were expecting?" Her voice was soft, but her articulation was precise. Apparently the effects of the gel had passed.
He tried for a casual tone. "More or less."
"That wasn't the same stuff you used on me before, was it?"
"Pretty much. This one has an improved binder in it." He pried off the last of the spatulate connectors and let the bundle of cables drop to the floor. "More water soluble, too. It should be easier to wash out, when you get home."
She rose and turned to face him. A moment later he was snatched off his feet and hurled backwards through the air at uncanny speed to crash full length against the wall. His feet da
ngled several inches from the floor. His body was pinned there with such force that he could barely breathe.
"What --" he croaked, when an invisible hand wrapped around his throat and choked off his words.
Victoria stood watching him, arms crossed, eyes flat and opaque.
"I'm a long way from stupid, Ethan," she said. "I can tell when someone's lying to me. I could tell that your jelly wasn't the same texture or weight as what you used in our other sessions. And I can tell when I've been drugged."
He tried to speak again, but her telekinetic hand continued to forbid it.
"If you have a good reason for drugging me without notice and without my consent, I'd like to hear it. It would save you a little pain tonight and a damage suit tomorrow. Of course, that you did it in the first place suggests that you don't have a good reason, but I'm willing to give you a chance to explain." Anger frosted her smile. "One chance. So don't lie to me again."
Mandeville felt the grip on his throat loosen. Simultaneously the pressure on his torso relented enough to allow him to slide to the floor. He coughed, massaged his larynx and stared at her.
"What was in the jelly, Ethan?"
He hesitated.
"Well?"
"It was a blend of four hormones in an organic penetrant. Pituitin, androsterone, somatotrophin and estrogen. We've been theorizing about the connection between the peak phase of the anabolic cycle and the maturation of the psi powers these past few years. We thought they might be the key to the balanced development of all the powers at once. You seemed the ideal subject for a test."
"Because I'm so good at telekinesis and relatively weak at the other skills?"
He nodded. "Only relatively, of course. You exceed every other psi talent we've ever discovered, except for one."
Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1) Page 12