The Nonborn King

by Julian May

  Yes, set her up.

  Yes, the woman he loved.

  "Never again," he vowed. "No matter what I suspect about her. If it's true after ad, and he's back, I'd find out soon enough. But not by probing Mercy."

  He stood at the parapet watching the owls and listening to the surf from the Strait of Redon lash the distant seawall. How true it was: Being a king could be hell.

  He went switch-off, stopped thinking, let his racing mind go flaccid inside the snug screens of his own weaving and the artificial mental shield of the psychoelectronic device he now wore constantly. Downhearted, tinged with vagrant dread, he floated ...

  And heard it.

  A farspoken voice, faint but distinct on his intimate mode in spite of the stacked barricade:

  Aiken Drum. Greetings at last. You've been a hard nut to crack, you know. Don't be afraid. We've been trying to bespeak you for nearly a week now—with a good deal of untidy slop-over on the European end, unfortunately. It must have been very uncomfortable for those around you.

  "Who the fuck is that?" Aiken whispered.

  Laughter. Easy, lad, easy. Trace the thought-beam. Can you do that? Right. Way to hell and gone across the Atlantic. Nowhere near you or your Many-Colored Kingdom. Only me speaking to you now, not the others. And no threat to you. Just the opposite, actually.

  "Identify yourself," he said between gritted teeth, straining to penetrate the dark distance, "or I'd phase in the sigma!"

  You have one of those available? Interesting. But I'd still get through. Your own metapsychic wad is much more formidable than any contrivance, you know. Very effective, for an uncoadunate amateur. That's why we had such difficulty reaching you in the first place. But it never would have done for us to had you on the ordinary declamatory mode. What we have to discuss is for your mind alone.

  "Show yourself, dammit!"

  Very well.

  An image: massive, shining and metallic, roughly humanoid in shape, artifact of high technology. Space armor? Radiation shielding? Extremity life-support equipment? Superimposed was the man's face, ruggedly handsome; cleft chin and wide mouth, sunken eyes with winged brows, fine aquiline nose, curly hair going gray. He said:

  We'll help you get the Spear and the cache of golden tores.

  "The hell you say!" Aiken's heart soared at the same time that he was frozen with alarm. Who was he? "You mean, you know the exact location of Felice's hideout in the Betics?"

  Yes. We can make a deal.

  The trickster's natural craftiness reasserted itself. "Oh, yeah?"

  Three of my people are in Europe already. You have nothing to fear from them. Metapsychically, they're much weaker than you. [Images.] We know of your preparations to invade Spain before Felice comes out of the room without doors, your hope of finding and repairing the photonic Spear and then using it against her before she can retaliate.

  "It's my Spear, dammit, and the tores are my property, too! I won't blast Felice if she listens to reason after Elizabeth finishes her psychic overhaul job."

  So you think a sane Felice equates with a benign one, do you?

  "Fat chance," he admitted. "Get on with your pitch."

  Your scouts have not been able to pinpoint the location of Felice's hoard. To prove my good will, I will tell you that the eyrie is on the northern flank of Mount Mulhacén, about 430 kilometers southwest of Afaliah.

  "No map image?" Aiken remarked snidely. "It's a big mountain."

  My people will meet your forces here [image] in the foothills of the Betics, along the Rio Genii, and lead you directly to the cave. Be there one week from today.

  Aiken gave a scornful chortle. "Better still, let your guys pick up the Spear and the tores and bring 'em to me here in Goriah!"

  They are incapable of levitation and have no ground vehicles. Also, there is the inevitable mortal hazard, should Felice return prematurely. As you are no doubt aware.

  "Don't get cute with me," Aiken said quietly. "Suppose you tell me what's in this for you, Mr. Ironass. And who are you anyhow? That damn lobster shell you got on, how do I know you're human at all?"

  I'm as human as you are. The equipment ... allows me to exert my farsenses beyond normal metapsychic parameters. For example, the penetration of your multiphase barrier.

  Aiken's mental eye studied the now faceless mechanism. "It seems to me that I've seen pictures of rigs like yours. A long time ago, in some schoolbooks I should have paid more attention to. Metapsychic Grand Masters use life-support equipment like that in the Milieu when they're into ready heavy mindwork. And I don't just mean farsensing." Abruptly, he changed the subject. 'This deal of yours. I suppose it would involve share and share alike from now on in Europe."

  Not at all. If I had wanted the Many-Colored Land, I could have taken it years ago. You need have no fear that I covet your little realm, Aiken Drum. Ruling a few thousand barbarians as a quasi-feudal overlord isn't exactly my style.

  "Neither is diplomacy, sweetheart!"

  Touché, Your Majesty ... But I still maintain that this planet is quite large enough for both of us. My needs are modest and unlikely to affect your ambitions in the least. Unless you become tempted to aspire beyond Pliocene Europe.

  "Spell out the arrangement."

  It will take a good deal of explanation, including some rather ancient history. And some of the governing factors haven't matured yet. I would prefer to postpone discussing my side of the reciprocity until you've dealt successfully with Felice. For now, I offer you the knowledge possessed by my three associates, plus their full metapsychic cooperation in your raid. Their minds are stronger than those of your Tanu allies, but still susceptible to your coercive control within the metaconcert you and Culluket have devised.

  "So you know about that, too! How do I know you aren't really counting on Felice's blasting me—putting me out of the picture so I won't be able to queer your own scheme later?"

  Felice represents a much greater threat to my designs than you.

  "Ha! So you don't have enough watts to put her down yourself! Not even operating through that wizard rig of yours!"

  No. Felice is one of those wdd factors I mentioned. She is a menace to both our ambitions.

  Aiken hesitated. The unknown operant in North America was making uncomfortable sense, but the lingering suspicion remained, together with Aiken's own deeper doubts on the ability of his amateur metaconcert network to stop Felice in a direct confrontation.

  "I'm going to show you something," Aiken decided, allowing a diagram to form. "These are the minds I've got to work with. And this is the orchestration Cull and I worked out for a three-barreled coercive-creative-PK assault with me doing the focus and him monitoring the penetration. You seem to know Felice a hell of a lot better than I do. So ... how about it? Given the fact that she'll probably come up sane, be more in control of her faculties, would we have any chance of stopping her?"

  There was a silence. The armored image faded, leaving Aiken alone on the balcony, the chill wind blowing up his robe and making his golden balls retract with a sense of keen foreboding. Then:

  Your original plan was to avoid confronting Felice at all costs. You hoped to secure the photonic Spear, repair it, and poise yourself at a high altitude above Black Crag in order to burn her as she exited the room without doors.

  "Right But that scheme was contingent on finding her lair in the Betics before Elizabeth finished her redact We still might pull that one off. But what're the odds if Felice catches us flat-footed?"

  I lack complete data. But it seems likely that even with the help of my three people, Felice would be able to destroy you if she got within two kilometers of your assault team. The metaconcert matrix that your friend the Interrogator taught you is highly inefficient. In true synergy, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

  "What's our coefficient?" Aiken inquired grimly.

  Only about point-four-six.

  "Could you teach me how to jack up the output? In a week?"

 
; Laughter rang in Aiken's brain. He saw again the human face of the unknown, and his neurons tasted appreciation by another who shared a certain sense of bravado. "Well, could you?" yelled the shivering little man. (And is it possible you are who I think you are?)

  I could design such a program and impart it to you. Its use, however, would involve inherent perils, even for a raw natural talent such as yourself. Ideally, the metaconcert should involve my own operants as well as your torced subjects. The pair of us would contribute to the input and one of us would filter and provide impetus while the other handled executive focus.

  "I do that I control it."

  Channelizing that amount of psychoenergy harebrained could prove fatal. I don't know your capacity.

  "Culluket does. He could monitor the transfer. And cut me off as well if you tried to go primary and zap me instead of Felice!"

  Laughter. Sobriety. The equipment I use protects me from being annihilated by my own metapsychic power. You could never handle my full potential ... but less may not suffice for Felice.

  "On the other hand, it might! Right?"

  Silence.

  "Right?" demanded the Nonborn King.

  Do you know what psychocreative feedback is? [Image.] In this more sophisticated form of metaconcert there is danger to all the participants if the focusing agent is inadvertently overwhelmed—as could happen if your concentration faded at a crucial moment.

  Aiken chuckled. "I see. The director cashes in, there's a good chance the rest of the grunts in the orchestra do, too. But if the monitor does his stuff, the danger's minimized for you. Right? If Felice reflects the psychozap back on me, I get snuffed—but Cud's linkage snaps for a fail-safe and the rest of you can pud out under a synergistic umbrella. Isn't that the way it would work, Mr. Paramount Grand Master? Isn't that the way it worked when your brother and his wife put down your Rebellion?"

  Silence.

  "Well? You wanta have a bash or not? You don't have much to lose ... aside from making me a present of a mighty useful metapsychic program."

  It would be safer if I handled the focus. And we would be sure of finishing Felice.

  "No soap. I'm the King here, Ironass, not one of your leftover rebels. If you won't play, I'd revert to my old risky scheme. I should be able to find Felice's cave now, even without the help of your trio in Spain."

  Very well. I will work with you and your redactor, Aiken Drum.

  The trickster grin flashed across the intervening ocean. "I thought you'd see it my way. Folks often do! What would you like me to cad you? Some of the humans in my outfit might get nervous if I use your real name. And they'd have to put some handle on you."

  I have been caded Abaddon. [Ironic image.]

  "Very appropriate. One week to the Río Genil, then, Abaddon."

  Assemble your most powerful metapsychics. You'd need them ... King Aiken-Lugonn.

  The aether was abrupdy clear, the alien emanations gone as if they had never existed. He heard the night birds, the surf, a soft moan from Mercy asleep in the bedroom.

  He tiptoed in and shed his robe. She lay half-covered with one arm flung up in a posture of sweet vulnerability, dreaming. In his excitement and triumph, he found the temptation to probe her irresistible. He looked at her dream, and discovered that its subject was as he had suspected. Nodonn Battlemaster was alive, hidden, but no threat at the present time. He would keep.

  In her sleep, Mercy smiled. Aiken gently removed the probe, bent to kiss her, then tucked the satin around her shoulders.

  "Why did I have to love you?" he asked softly, before leaving the room to sleep alone.

  5

  THE THREE YOUNG MEN were together on the command deck of the ATV modular combine, with Hagen at the helm. The sky was brilliant cobalt without a cloud, and the air almost dead calm; but the vessel was making a steady six knots, its solar-powered impeller augmented by metapsychic thrust from the PK specialists on watch.

  "I haven't said anything to the others," Phil Overton remarked. "They've got enough to worry about, coping with the babies and the sickos and the PK load. But something's brewing in the atmosphere a couple of thousand kloms southeast of us that's got me worried."

  The image of a suspect weather system hung in their minds, as clear as a Tri-D picture. "See how sharp the cloud bands are? How well defined? Compare it to this other low-pressure dimple south of the Bight of Benin—normal for this time of the year. I've had my eye on the little mid-ocean sucker for three days now, and it's firmed up and deepened in an unnatural way."

  Hagen's knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel harder. "You think my father and the rest of them are psyching it?"

  "God!" Nial Keogh expostulated. "Not when we're so close to making the westerlies!"

  Phil shrugged. "It's the wrong time of the year for hurricanes, and the track of this storm is definitely anomalous. Meteorological conditions are favorable for its continued growth, whether anybody's helping it along or not."

  "Can we avoid it?" Hagen asked grimly.

  Phil made the projection. "Here's our vector—and here comes the storm, sneaking up beneath us. We're right in its track if we maintain present course. The kiss-point is 36–45 North, 16–20 West three days from now. We slow down, we get slammed by the winds in the northwest quadrant and pushed way south. We speed up, there's a slim probability of having it skim by our ass, or even bung us north into the zone of prevailing westerlies."

  "That's assuming the storm track is constant," Nial put in. "If Marc's in the driver's seat, it sure as hell won't be."

  "What can we do?" Hagen's face was a mask of sick despair. "Is there any chance of escaping the thing, short of increasing our speed? Sweet Christ, Phil—we're pushing ourselves to the utmost now! You saw what happened to poor Barry, and Diane's weakening, too."

  Phil considered. "It depends upon what Marc's objective is."

  "He's not out to sink us," Nial declared. "If he wanted us dead, he could have zapped us ten days ago. We won that gamble."

  "Could he blow us back to Florida?" Hagen asked.

  "Hell, no," Phil said. 'The low would poop out long before that. He'd need a whole set of storms to pull that one off. If he'd tried this stunt earlier in the game, there might have been a chance." His mind reviewed the atmospheric patterns of the past week. "But, see? The potential just wasn't there. This low is the first hot prospect he's had. Let me think a minute."

  Hagen said, "He can't blow us home and he's not looking to deep-six us. All that's left is diversion. That fix you mentioned, north of Madeira. If he manages to push us off to the southeast, we end up in Africa instead of Europe."

  Phil nodded agreement. Another meteorological diagram appeared in his mind. "The storm winds rotate counterclockwise. Ad he has to do is keep us poised roughly between six and nine o'clock inside the system and we're off on the road to Morocco. Even the fuckin' current's in his favor! The only joker that might save us hinges on the energy he's able to pour into the storm. If he can't keep it stoked up, we'd break free before he maneuvers us close enough to land to marshal a direct PK-creative shove."

  "What if we erect the big sigma-field?" Hagen said. "Lower our friction quotient so the winds stream around us?"

  "No good," Nial said. "You get a prohibitive power drain, using the generator on salt water instead of dry land. Maybe four, five hours max output."

  "Shit. He's got us in the nutcracker for sure." Hagen's mouth curved in a mirthless, one-sided smile, momentarily giving him an uncanny resemblance to his father. "We might as well change course for Africa right now! At least then the little kids will be spared riding out a hurricane."

  "You're the captain," said Phil. "Of course, this is ad conjecture about Marc being behind the storm. We have no proof yet ..."

  "Three days from now, we will," Hagen said. "It's him, ad right. You can bet your life on it!" He engaged the autopilot, turned to the binnacle computer, and called up a new heading. Slowly, the bow of the combine swung to starboard.
>
  "Course correction completed," said the autopilot "Steady on one-one-five degrees."

  Hagen yanked the door open and stumbled out onto the flying bridge. "Is that good enough for you?" he screamed at the sky. "You win again! Congratulations! And damn you to hell, Papa!"

  There was no response. He hadn't expected one. Empty-minded, he groped his way to the companionway stair and disappeared below.

  Phil and Nial reflected upon the inevitability. At last young Keogh sighed. "I'll take the con for the rest of the watch, boyo. You get along and tell the PK heads to hang it up. There's no hurry now."

  ***

  Moreyn Glasscrafter, city-lord of Var-Mesk, urged his chaliko and the riderless second mount along the moonlit beach with irritable telepathic nudges. How he hated to travel with these animals! Chalikos had an ingrained antipathy toward him and tended to evade his commands more often than not. The problem was negligible when there were other riders along who could augment his weak coercive faculty. But the mysterious farspoken message had insisted that he come alone, and enjoined the strictest secrecy through fearsome Psychokinetic Guild oaths. So he clumped along the ghostly gypsum-sand beach, keeping a sharp lookout for quickmires whenever he crossed one of the freshwater streams that ran down from the high continental escarpment. Faintly luminous wavelets lapped the shore and there was a thin line of wrack staining the formerly sterile whiteness. Diminishing salinity was making the erstwhile Empty Sea into a Sea of Life ...

  He was more than 40 kilometers from the city, traversing a deserted region that would, in six million years, lie just off the Côte d'Azur. Did he dare utter a short-range declamatory hail? He scanned the shore ahead and saw only dunes and isolated lumps of evaporite. The mysterious Psychokinetic Brother was well hidden.

  Moreyn here!

  ... Aha! On the other side of that pyramidal mass of salt the faintest of rosy-gold auras. Another poor devil, marooned all these months on some Tana-forsaken shore, had finally made his way back to the Many-Colored Land.