by Julian May
The planet’s sun had long since set. Increasing numbers of crystalline flakes danced in the frigid atmosphere, glistening as they drifted through the beams of streetlights and the headlamps of passing groundcars. Melting grids were working full tilt to keep the sidewalks and streets clear for pedestrians and vehicles, but fresh snow was already thick on the bare branches of the trees and other unheated surfaces. It lay nine cents deep on the little patch of frozen lawn in front of the bookshop and whitened the concrete footing and the evergreen shrubs around the building’s central vestibule steps.
The Gi musician’s tall quasi-avian body was clad in a rented environmental suit, and its enormous yellow eyes peered out through a transparent protective visor. The creature found the nocturnal townscape to be almost unbearably ravishing, especially when savored through the pla’akst sensory circuit, but it now began to shiver and feel incipient chilblains in its feet and hypersensitive external genitalia. Turning up the suit’s thermostat didn’t seem to help. Reluctantly, the Gi decided it had accumulated enough outdoor imagery. It was time to get on with the interview and the full-sensory extraction.
MulMul Ziml tripped off heedlessly across Main Street, only barely managing to dodge a scannerless, aged groundcar full of Dartmouth students that skidded on the wet pavement trying to avoid it. The reversed turbine whined and a horn blared furiously. The near-disaster had been entirely the Gi’s own fault and it prayed forgiveness from the Cosmic All as it scrambled clumsily onto the opposite sidewalk. Fortunately, the human occupants of the vehicle weren’t metapsychic operants, so MulMul’s excruciating telepathic cry of terror had not distressed them unnecessarily.
The door of the bookshop opened and an operant human male peered out, broadcasting emanations of anxiety. “God! Are you all right?”
“Quite safe, quite safe,” the Gi fluted. “How kind of you to inquire! It was so silly of me not to calculate the velocity of the approaching vehicle before attempting to cross the street, but I’d forgotten how fast you Earthlings drive.”
“Well, come inside before we both freeze our bizounes off,” the man said rather tetchily. “I suppose you’re the one Dorothée said was coming.”
“Yes, the Dirigent most kindly—” The Gi broke off, did a double take, and shrieked in delight. “It’s you! Uncle Rogi!”
The bookseller sighed and shut the door behind the exotic visitor. “That’s what everybody in town calls me. You might as well, too. Take off your things and come sit by the stove with me and my buddy. Tell us about this opera or whatever it is you’re writing.”
An antique cast-iron heating device and several chairs occupied one corner of the bookshop. There were also reading lamps and a small table with a coffee-making machine. Another male human, weakly metapsychic like Rogi, was sitting there quaffing from a mug. His mind-tone was amiable and a species of small domestic animal rested on his lap.
MulMul hesitated. “You’re sure you won’t mind if I divest? Some Earthlings feel uncomfortable in the presence of unclothed members of my race.”
The bookseller laughed. “Hell, no. Go right ahead. Me and Kyle need more than a buck-nekkid Gi to shock us. Just hang your suit on the clothes-tree there and kick off your boots. I know you folks can’t abide coffee, so I’m going to make you a hot toddy. You look like you need one.”
Rogi went off to the back of the shop and MulMul shyly undressed, shaking out its compressed filoplumage and untangling its testicular peduncles and accessory mammillae. “The rental agent at Anticosti Starport assured me that this garment would keep me comfortable in the coldest weather,” the Gi remarked, “but I fear it may be defective. My toes have turned quite blue with cold and just look at my poor phallus.”
The second man seemed to choke slightly on his drink, but he recovered quickly and gave a sympathetic nod. He was a robust specimen with abundant brown hair and a ruddy complexion. “Aweel now, Citizen, that’s truly a scandal. The stuff they hire out these days just can’t be trusted. You be sure to raise a stink when you return it and likely they’ll cancel the fee.”
“Oh, I’d never dream of complaining!”
“By damn, of course you will,” Rogi said, returning with a steaming cup, which he thrust into the Gi’s elongated, near-humanoid hands. “When on Earth, you gotta do as the locals do. Stick up for your rights! Sit down there now and toast your tootsies and let’s get on with whatever it is you want from me. I’m planning to close the shop early because of the snow … Oh, by the way, this is my old friend Kyle Macdonald. You won’t mind if he sits in?”
“Not at all!” MulMul Ziml burbled. “The Diligent’s grandfather! What a signal honor to make your acquaintance.” The exotic flopped into the indicated chair and extended its large four-toed feet toward the stove. What a relief it was to be warm again! And the hot drink was truly delightful, its generous alcoholic content enhanced with butterfat and a large helping of maple sugar. The Gi expressed its gratitude after belatedly introducing itself.
“As Dirigent Macdonald may have explained, I am a composer. My specialty is the rudalm—a musical artform that some critics have called a cantata virtuale. Recently, rudalma have enjoyed considerable favor among human music-lovers. They are not true operatic works, but rather full-sensory impressions of a significant event or scene, virtually realized for operant attendees, accompanied by a Gi choir.”
“And you’re doing the deliverance of Caledonia,” Rogi said.
“Precisely! The inherent excitement of the event—together with the participation of distinguished beings such as Jon and Marc Remillard—make it what you humans deem a ‘natural’ for both Gi and human audiences.”
“My granddaughter Dorrie and a few other folk had a wee hand in saving Callie, too,” Kyle Macdonald put in, flashing a chilly smile.
“Yes, of course! Oh, dear—I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Most especially since Dirigent Dorothea Macdonald and the Caledonian geophysical team have been so cooperative in sharing their own memorecall of the averted catastrophe. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to secure the memories of Jon or Marc Remillard. They seem to be occupied with other affairs just now. The Dirigent suggested that I come to you instead, Uncle Rogi, since you were there during the incident and you enjoy such a close rapport with the heroic Remillard brothers.”
“Umm.” The old bookseller looked dubious.
“What a singular challenge it must have been!” the hermaphrodite caroled. “Using metaconcerted mindpower to defuse an ascending magmatic plume that threatened to destroy the colony!”
“Not a plume,” said Rogi. “A diatreme. Different kinda thing. With plumes, you don’t get diamonds in the eruption.”
The Gi’s huge eyes glazed in ecstasy. “And what a climax that fantastic shower of gems will provide in virtual experience! I’ve viewed the media recordings of the event, of course, but you were a sensory witness—”
Rogi shook his head. “Only viewed the blowout on monitor equipment in the observers’ bunker. Still, it was quite a show.”
“If you would consent to share your impressions, you’ll provide invaluable input on the entire sequence of events. The Dirigent said that you did witness Marc Remillard’s arrival on Caledonia, and you also persuaded him to intervene in the geophysical operation. That occasion is crucial to the exposition of my work.”
The Gi took something small from its feathered armpit orifice and held it out to Rogi. The device looked something like a badminton shuttlecock with a narrow, spongy tip. “This full-sensory extractor will absorb your perceptions of the entire episode in short order. The process is quite painless. All we do is insert the soft end into your ear, and I ask you questions—”
“Now, just a damned minute, you!” Rogi barked, starting up from his seat. “Nobody mind-probes me. Nobody!”
The Gi fell back in confusion. “But—”
“You won’t coerce me, either! I can put up a damn strong mind-shield if I have to. And I don’t care if Dorothée sent you or not. To hel
l with this virtual operetta, or whatever it is, if it means fucking around in my brainpan!”
The hypersensitive exotic uttered a heart-wrenching soprano wail and sank slowly to the floor in a disheveled heap of plumage and quivering primary and secondary sexual organs. “I never meant … I never intended … Oh, forgive me!” The melodious voice coarsened to a rasp, the saucer eyes rolled up into the Gi’s head, and it swooned away.
“Now you’ve done it, you great clumsy gowk.” Kyle Macdonald dumped the cat Marcel from his lap and knelt beside the collapsed exotic. Unable to locate any of the Gi’s hearts in the mass of fluffy body feathers, nipples, and ovarian externalia, he felt for a pulse in its stringy neck. “Could y’not have been more tactful? The big birdies are ower delicate things! Sometimes they drop dead just to emphasize a point.”
“Aw, shit.” The dismayed bookseller helped his Scottish friend lift the Gi into a chair. Its eyelids were beginning to flutter. “I didn’t mean to hurt its feelings. But dammitall, I don’t even let members of my own family past my mindscreen nowadays.”
“It wasn’t going to probe, ye steamin’ nit. Yon wee gadget just records memories as a man thinks ’em. There’s no ferreting or forcing as with mechanical mind-sifters … Uist! I think the critter’s coming round.”
“Hey, I’m really sorry about that,” Rogi said to the exotic composer. “I didn’t mean to knock you for a loop.”
MulMul Ziml opened its eyes and managed a tremulous smile. “You are quite blameless, dear Uncle Rogi. We Gi have a psyche that is unfortunately a trifle fragile. One does realize objectively that overly emphatic discourse is commonplace among humans and not necessarily charged with mortal hostility, but—”
“I misunderstood you,” Rogi said. He retrieved the fallen full-sensory extractor. “I’ll be glad to do what you want if you promise to stick to matters concerning the diatreme.” He gestured to Kyle. “My friend will make sure that your memory requests are on the up-and-up. Okay?”
“Excellent!” The Gi bounced to its feet, miraculously recovered. Its pseudomammary areolae, which had gone waxy pale when it fainted, engorged to an enthusiastic cerise and its intromittent organ became tumescent with anticipatory joy. “Just relax in your chair—splendid! Let me help you with the extractor. Now, as I announce successive events, just close your eyes and try to relive them briefly in a daydream. Don’t worry about the details—the device will capture them. Ready?”
“I guess.” Rogi’s expression was resigned.
“Now!” The Gi crouched in front of Rogi and spoke with soft coercion. Kyle Macdonald, grinning fiendishly in the background, made twiddling motions with his fingers, parodying a symphonic conductor. “Think about when you and Jon Remillard first landed on Caledonia and learned details of the imminent seismic peril to that planet.”
“Wake up, old son,” said Kyle. “It’s all over and your fine feathered friend is gone, floating on cloud nine. It promised to send you a special presentation fleck of the rudalm just as soon as the thing is produced.”
Rogi groaned and stretched. “Putain! Wait till I get my hands on that chit Dorothée, siccing that oversexed turkey on me … Look at that rug! It was just back from the cleaners.”
“Och, don’t be such a cranky old fart. So the Gi did get a wee bit transported. The music the birdies make is glorious and their virtual vision’s unique. Fascinating the way they manage to put an erotic luster on everything. I can hardly wait to see what they do with the Callie diamond shower.”
“Three guesses.” Grumpily, Rogi rolled up the rag rug with its fluorescent pink cum-stain. “For God’s sake, Kyle, grow up. Virtual-reality porn was old hat before you were even born.”
“The Gi rudalma are nothing like that. No tickle-suits or buzz-hats or other paraphernalia. I caught a show once on Zugmipl with Masha. Very tasteful and all done through the unencumbered mind.”
Rogi grunted dismissively and peered out the bookshop window at the thickening snow. “That Gi didn’t … try anything funny with my other memories when it was rooting around in me, did it?”
“Nary a bit. I stood by every minute guarding your mental integrity. The only memories it called up were the ones relevant to the diatreme. What’re you fashed about, anyhow? Who’d give a rat’s ass about the rubbish in your skull?”
“You’d be surprised,” Rogi said darkly.
“Nobody cares if you’re a Rebel. Any more than anybody cares that I write my little fantasy novels pissing in the eye of the Milieu. We’re small fry, laddie, beneath the notice of the Magistratum and the Concilium. Or … is it the Fury thing that’s got your knickers in a twist?”
Rogi whirled around and seized the lapels of the Scotsman’s rough tweed jacket. “Now you listen to me, haggis-breath! I was shitfaced last week when I blabbed to you about that. You gotta swear you’ll never tell a soul!”
Kyle Macdonald’s eyes shifted. “Turn me loose, man. Are you daft? You and your fewkin’ skeletons in the family closet.”
Rogi let go of his friend, but he spoke quietly now and in deadly earnest. “I betrayed a family confidence when I shot my mouth off to you about Fury. The Galactic Magistratum knows all about the bastard—including the fact that it’s probably one of the Remillard Dynasty—and so do the Lylmik Supervisors. But they’ve sealed the evidence of the crimes and intend to keep quiet about them to save the reputations of the Remillard magnates.”
“And I say that’s a sin and a scandal! Why the cover-up?”
“They want Paul and Anne and the other strong pro-Unity members of the family to remain in office.”
“Oh, aye?” Kyle plucked his winter coat from the clothes-tree and shrugged into it. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t put a spoke in their loyalist wheels and give a leg up to our Rebel cause.”
“Don’t talk like a simplistic asshole. If word gets out that an unknown Remillard is a murdering nutcase, all the family will be discredited—Rebels and loyalists alike. Even Jack and Marc. There’d be the mother of all flaming flaps.”
Kyle leered. “And maybe that’d be all for the good, watching your hot-shit relatives scatter like cockroaches when you turn the kitchen light on!”
“You know it wouldn’t,” Rogi said quietly. “A scandal of that magnitude touching the Remillards might turn the exotic races against humanity as a whole. They might kick us out of the Concilium—or even out of the Galactic Milieu.”
“Speed the day!” Kyle chortled.
“Be serious. Throwing the Human Polity into turmoil over a Remillard scandal won’t help our cause. The Rebel magnates have to persuade other top human minds that the anti-Unity position is morally valid and logical. We can’t win this fight with only normals and low-powered heads like you and me. We need the real longbrains on our side—the Remillards, goddammit, with their reputations intact! We need Marc. We need Jack. We need the First Magnate and the loyalist members of the Dynasty.”
“Some hope you have of converting that lot. Marc doesn’t give a flying fewk about Unity, and the loyalist members of your family are adamant in favor.”
“Now they are. But given time, who can say? We’ve got Adrien and Sevvy already, and there’s a strong chance that Catherine is leaning in our direction, too. Just ask Masha.”
“Arrr.” Kyle growled in disgust. “Her nibs and me aren’t speaking this week.” He pulled a heavy wool tam-o’-shanter down over his ears and hauled on a pair of gloves. “You want to come along with me to the Sap Bucket for a wee dram or five or six?”
“Kyle. This is important. Will you keep quiet about the Fury thing?”
The Scotsman flung up his arms. “Oh, losh, I’ll be keeping your bloody secret, I suppose. Not to save the skins of the high-and-mighty Remillard Dynasty, mind, but for my granddaughter Dorothea’s sake. The poor lass has enough on her plate already, saying she’ll marry that freak of a Jack the Bodiless.”
“It’s especially important that no whiff of this gets to Davy MacGregor.”
Kyle was
nonplussed. “Why? What’s the Earth Diligent got to do with a potential scandal in the Galactic Concilium?”
“Davy has a personal vendetta against Fury and its creature, Hydra. They killed his wife back in 2051. Her death seemed to be suicide and the Magistratum didn’t disabuse the public, but MacGregor knew the truth—and he also knew that a Remillard was probably responsible. The Lylmik forced him to butt out. He’s only stayed off our case because he thinks Fury and Hydra have been dormant since then. But if he found out about the other killings and the attacks on Dorothée there’d be the devil to pay. The family doesn’t think the Lylmik would risk another grand-scale whitewash. Too many exotic members of the Concilium were opposed to Earth joining the Milieu in the first place.”
Kyle gave a solemn wink. “And they were quite right about us disreputable humans, weren’t they? I’ll bid you good evening, then. And be sure to keep a sharp eye out for things that go bump in the night.”
The bookshop’s little door-chime rang and Kyle Macdonald slouched away into the storm.
“Ah, chite de merde.” Rogi heaved a sigh. Kyle would probably keep his word. And in a few months, when Ti-Jean and Dorothée tied the knot, the rejuvenated old Scotsman would be an honorary part of the Remillard clan, too, with a stronger motive for keeping his trap shut.
Locking the door, Rogi programmed its little sign to read CLOSED. Marcel, the Maine Coon cat, came padding out from among the bookshelves and suggested telepathically that the two of them retire to their cosy upstairs apartment and eat.