by Julian May
The Rebels stood mute as they were summarily expelled from the Concilium. They were invited to remain in Orb for counseling but declined. Marc led the group of 128 en masse to the Human Terminal, where they boarded a single starship, the CSS Tyndareus, and set off for Okanagon. Since not all of the ex-magnates were able to endure high-displacement-factor flight, the voyage of almost 3800 lightyears would occupy some four weeks. Marc let it be known that no communiqués would be forthcoming from the Rebel high command during the interim.
It was a time of turmoil and consternation among humanity. Although there is no formal media coverage of Concilium affairs, news of the proceedings is regularly leaked to the galaxy at large. We on Earth knew of the Rebel expulsion within 48 hours, and pundits had a field-day predicting what might happen next.
Actually, not much did. At first.
Earth’s new Dirigent, Esi Damatura, called for calmness and reflection, and she was echoed by other planetary officials of the Human Polity. No effort was made by the Earth Magistratum to restrict the personal liberty or the rights of free speech and assembly enjoyed by local Rebels. Minor-league insurgents like Kyle Macdonald and I waited eagerly to see how Marc and his cohorts would respond, looking forward to blazing rhetoric such as that which had characterized the Mental Man ruckus, and maybe some gaudy sample of kick-ass CE, warning the Milieu not to mess with Okanagon or other Rebel strongholds. Meanwhile, we were entertained by the politicians in Concord.
In Earth’s Intendant Assembly, Rebel IAs denounced Davy MacGregor and the other loyalist magnates as traitors to their human heritage and craven minions of exotic tyranny. Moderate Intendant Associates deplored the polarization while holding out hope that the pro-Unity magnates still in session in Orb would defuse the political powder-keg. Legislators who stood firmly in the Milieu camp (and they were a small minority on the Old World) reminded their jingoist constituents that no one really knew what kind of self-defensive action the Galactic Milieu was capable of. For all humanity knew, the Lylmik might choose to incarcerate blatantly Rebel planets inside some novel form of force-field bubble, leaving them to stew forever in their own nonconformist juices.
But there was absolutely no hint from Concilium Orb that the Milieu might be considering a quarantine of Earth—much less that of the entire human race.
After about three weeks, the media flap over the expulsion of the Rebel magnates subsided for lack of fresh fuel. Persistent rumors maintained that the Rebels possessed armament and might mount a military attack upon the Milieu, but most ordinary people found the notion inconceivable. For fifty years we had been at peace. A war—even a war of independence—was a notion that had been bruited about among Rebel extremists for decades; but average citizens could scarcely envision an interstellar conflict taking place. There were thousands of Milieu worlds scattered throughout the Milky Way and only 148 planets then colonized by Earthlings. No military-industrial complex existed to furnish either side with war matériel. The space weaponry we old-timers remembered involved crude lasers reflected by Zap-Star satellites, and rocket vehicles carrying thermonuclear warheads—both easily subject to neutralization by the Milieu’s sigma force-fields.
Classic science-fiction films with their quaint Star Wars battles were dusted off and broadcast by opportunistic Tri-D stations, frightening children and naïfs and giving mature adults food for thought. But everybody knew that no Evil Empire of malevolent extraterrestrials lurked among the nebulae, ready to defend their turf with bloodthirsty zest The five exotic races that possessed interstellar transport were irrevocably committed to peace and a form of mental fellowship that might be problematical to operant philosophers but was hardly the stuff of nightmares where plain folks were concerned.
Few of us had the imagination to envisage what genuine antimatter bombs might do to an inhabited world—much less metaconcerted 600X CE. In our innocence, we thought that the Metapsychic Rebellion would turn out to be a war of words, moral suasion, and economic sanctions.
We had been too long at a far remove from profound evil, and we had forgotten its persistence in our own human souls.
On 19 March 2083, ten days after the CSS Tyndareus landed on Okanagon, Marc called a Planetary News Network media conference. Every inhabited world of the Galactic Milieu viewed that subspace simulcast, which initiated in a studio in Broadcast House in Chelan Metro, Okanagon’s capital.
I watched it in my own apartment above the bookshop. My companions were Marcel the Maine Coon cat and Kyle Macdonald—whose wife, Masha, was lightyears away among the defecting Rebels. Kyle and I were full of bellicose enthusiasm as we settled down before the Tri-D with absolutely no inkling of what was to come—except that it was bound to be Rebellious and inspiring. I had laid on a plate of crudités with supermarket cheese dip, potato chips, and gooey walnut brownies. We were imbibing prudent quantities of Moosehead Premium Dry Ale, a full-bodied brew from Canada, in order to keep our wits sharp for the historic occasion.
The Tri-D broadcast came into New Hampshire at two in the morning local time, and the voice-over introduction accompanying the SPECIAL PRESENTATION title produced the first surprise.
“And now, live from the planet Okanagon, a public-affairs program featuring Professor Anna Gawrys, Vice-Chairman of the Rebel Party.”
Kyle and I exchanged glances.
“No Marc?” said I. “Hell, I thought this was supposed to be his big show.”
An explanation was promptly forthcoming from Annushka, who looked somber in a simple black dress relieved only by a neck-scarf of cobalt-blue silk. She sat at one of those slightly tilted consoles newscasters use, with a sunken monitor screen and a control panel enabling her to personally manipulate the signal-feed from external video sources. She was flanked by Captain Ragnar Gathen, wearing his Twelfth Fleet uniform, and a crop-haired young woman in a burgundy nebulin business suit.
“I offer greetings to all the entities viewing and participating in this presentation,” Annushka said. “I am Anna Gawrys, formerly a dynamic-field physicist at Cambridge University in Britain. On my right is Ragnar Gathen, the Chief Operations Officer of the Twelfth Sector Starship Fleet. On my left is Dr. Eva Smuts, Director of Okanagon’s Chelan University Astrophysical Observatory. Before my colleagues and I begin, I would like to convey a fleck transcription message from our Rebel Party Chairman, Marc Remillard.”
The professor touched a pad and Marc’s head and shoulders appeared in holographic close-up. His gray eyes shone from orbits as dark as wells and his usual seraphic smile was absent. It was possible to see that he wore a garment almost like a lightweight spacesuit, black and skintight, with a sealing metallic neck-ring and two odd little dinguses that might have been electrodes nestling in the hollows on either side of his throat. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, but as incisive as a straight razor.
“The Concilium has chosen to expel me and the other magnates belonging to the Rebel Party because we declined to take an oath of unquestioning loyalty to the Galactic Milieu. We refused to surrender our human mentalities to the form of mental subjugation called Unity because we are convinced that to do so would deprive us of our fundamental nature—our individualism, our very identities—transforming us into something other than human.
“It is our heartfelt belief that the human race deserves to evolve independently of exotic interference, even when that interference is cloaked in a guise of benevolence. From the time of the Great Intervention, the five exotic races of the Milieu have compelled humanity to follow social, economic, educational, moral, and mental pathways dictated by them. In the beginning their despotism was overt, taking the form of the oppressive Simbiari Proctorship that destroyed human nationalism, oppressed certain religious faiths, and denied parents the right to control the conception and rearing of their own children.
“After the enfranchisement of the Human Polity in 2054, Milieu tyranny was more subtle, but still striking deep into the human heritage of independence. The exotic races have, in uncount
ed ways, sought to limit human scientific achievement—especially in mental science. They have also restricted human colonization and denied Milieu resources to planets struggling under conditions of environmental and economic hardship. They have declined to establish colonies for human population groups who fail to measure up to their standards of ethnic dynamism or an equally arbitrary scale of metapsychic potential.
“When I myself sought to bring about a dramatic increase in the number of operant minds in the Human Polity, the Milieu felt threatened. At the time, my associates and I did not fully understand why the exotic races were so determined not to allow the engendering of Mental Man … but we understand it all too well now. The Milieu is unwilling to face the prospect that the human race will evolve beyond the constricted bounds of what they call Unity.
“They are afraid of us, and so they have conspired to restrain us.
“The Rebel Party has entreated the Galactic Milieu to let humanity go. Again and again we have tried to reassure the exotic races that we mean them no harm. But they have refused to understand. Certain human Magnates of the Concilium, loyal to the Milieu, have called our Rebellion ungrateful, uncivilized, even immoral. We ask these people, our former colleagues, why the Milieu has refused to compromise. Why it declines even to consider the possibility of a free humanity living in peace and harmony with Unified exotics.
“We of the Rebel Party believe that human beings must be free. We believe we have a right to fight for that freedom, even if it means contravening the pacifistic ethic that pervades the Milieu. In order to manifest our stem resolution and our refusal to capitulate to despotism or invidious oppression, we have decided to conduct a tangible declaration of independence. Since I myself will participate in the demonstration, I will delegate its exposition to Professor Anna Gawrys.
“Thank you for your attention.”
I gawked at Kyle and he gawked at me.
“Tangible?” he croaked. “Was Marc wearing what I think he was?”
My affirmation was full of grim excitement. “Sure as hell looked like the coverall of a full-body CE rig to me. I betcha we’re gonna see the metaconcerted zap heard round the galaxy.”
The Tri-D screen showed Annushka and Ragnar Gathen. She said to him, “Within recent months, an alarming piece of intelligence has come to the attention of the Rebel Council. Will you tell us about it, Captain Gathen?”
The Norwegian-American officer spoke with a deliberation that was pained, full of honest regret. “We discovered that large numbers of Krondak starships—heavy cruisers with a high-df capability—have been gathering at the planet Molakar, a principal starbase in the Eleventh Sector, very close to Earth.”
Annushka stabbed her finger at a control pad and a view of the Krondak world flashed onto the screen. As Earth appears to be a white-swirled blue marble from space, so Molakar looked like a white-swirled umber marble. After the astronomical, a labeled quick-flick file shot of the immense Krondak starbase itself appeared: looming rows of clunky black vessels silhouetted against an angry crimson sky, the monstrous denizens of the planet squirming hither and yon on agile tentacles, tending to their mysterious (and perhaps ominous) business.
Gathen’s voice continued. “Nearly six thousand Krondak vessels have come to Molakar from every sector of the galaxy. They have gathered stealthily, without any public announcement of intent. The Rebellion detected their presence through farsensory CE.”
The hellish view of the Krondak world was replaced by a close-up of Annushka, kindly and grave. “At this instant, a Rebel star-ship, the PSS Vulpecula, is emerging from the superficies into Molakarian c-space. I will initiate SS com contact with the ship’s captain.”
She tapped the console. The Tri-D display split in half. Her side remained three-dimensional; the other was flat, depicting Fleet Commander Owen Blanchard on the bridge of the Vulpecula. He identified himself and then said, “Our communications officer is hailing Molakar Starbase, requesting to speak with its Starbase Governor.”
A bit of backing and filling took place. Then a hideous exotic visage, all warts, fangs, and multiple eyeballs, appeared on the Vulpecula’s big bridge display screen and a rumbling voice said, “Portitor Zela’edoo Kark responds to Commander Owen Blanchard. How may I assist you?”
“I make this formal inquiry on behalf of the Rebel Party of the Human Polity,” Blanchard replied. “Please explain why large numbers of Krondak starships have assembled on Molakar.”
The Portitor blinked several accessory optics. “Please wait.” About ten seconds went by. Then the exotic said, “I regret to inform you that the information you request is privileged.”
Blanchard’s face looked infinitely weary. I recalled that he and Annushka were the very first Rebels, long decades ago when it was unthinkable for an operant human to speak out in public against the Galactic Milieu.
Blanchard posed a final question. “Does the Krondak fleet intend an interdiction and blockade of the planet Earth?”
I whispered, “Oh, shit.”
Kyle, looking like a grizzly bear conked with a sledgehammer, didn’t say a word.
Zela’edoo Kark said, “I cannot respond to that query. This communication is terminated.” The Krondak face vanished.
Owen Blanchard said, “Initiate the demonstration.”
We watched Molakar die.
It was impossible, of course, to show the activity of the metaconcert. We in the viewing audience did not even see the 156 vessels of the Rebel force gathered in attack formation. We saw what the officers on the Vulpecula’s bridge saw.
For five excruciating minutes there was nothing. Then the reddish-brown clouds of the planet seemed to catch fire, beginning at the polar regions. What began as scattered pulsations of red and green light congealed into blazing waves of ionized oxygen in the upper reaches of the planetary atmosphere, surging in some arcane gravomagnetic consonance with the roiling magmatic plumes beneath the crust.
The thinner suboceanic lithosphere was the first to crack. Lava burst up through the seafloor in a hundred thousand white-hot fountains, vaporizing the sluggish seas, causing titanic bubbles to billow to the surface. The heat initiated noxious chemical changes in the complex hydrocarbons mixed with the water, breeding towering clouds of poisonous steam that clashed tornadically with the cooler air surrounding them. Deadly gases spread across the land, driven by hurricane winds. The sessile lifeforms that Molakarians call plants were incinerated in raging firestorms. Earthquakes rocked the continents.
Most of Molakar’s population died then. And since the Tau-Ceti star is less than twelve lightyears away from Earth, numbers of particularly sensitive operants on our planet not only saw the Krondak world’s destruction in living color on their home Tri-D sets but also farsensed the death-cry of its two billion highly intelligent inhabitants. Kyle and I, incompetent heads and bumbling revolutionaries, felt only vicarious pain.
Because of its more massive nickel-iron core, Molakar was a tougher nut to crack than Cible had been. The landmasses were not completely shattered by seismic activity, nor was the atmosphere driven entirely into space. There were no volcanic lava-bombs hurled into orbit, only rivers and lakes of seething gold, thinly edged with carmine, webbing the desiccated seabed off the continental shelves.
This took place within thirty minutes.
I have always feared the repugnant Krondaku, but that night I wept for them. They were not monsters, they were people having many of the same emotions as human beings, the first race to be inducted by the Lylmik into the infant Galactic Milieu. They were unfailingly just, but also capable of kindness. They mated for life and adored their grotesque offspring and cherished the elderly members of their race.
All the same, I decided that what Marc had done to Molakar was justified. Probably …
Apocalypse gave way to banality. PSS Vulpecula and her cohort fled into hyperspace and the view on my Tri-D screen returned to the studio on Okanagon, where the female astrophysicist—her face gray with
shock—gave a terse technical description of how the CE metaconcert had meddled with Molakar’s mantle, and exactly what had happened after that.
Annushka made a final statement on behalf of the Rebel Council. “It was with the most profound regret that our forces accomplished this demonstration. We now call upon the Galactic Milieu to insure that no additional punitive action on our part will be necessary. Rescind the Unity Protocol. We will give you fifty Galactic Standard days to respond. Any attack on Okanagon or Earth, or any attempt to sequester those planets by sigma-fields or any other means, will result in immediate retaliation.”
Then the professor and her two companions rose to their feet and stood shoulder to shoulder, as if drawing strength from one another. The studio cameras zoomed in on their faces. Anna Gawrys said, “Citizens of the Human Polity, the Metapsychic Rebellion has shown you one way to achieve freedom. Whether it succeeds depends upon you.”
The Tri-D images winked out. After a moment of silent nullity, the station logo came on. There was no commentary, only the solemn cadences of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, mourning the death of a world.
32
SECTOR 12: STAR 12-337-010 [GRIAN]
PLANET 4 [CALEDONIA]
1 AN CEITEAN [15 MAY] 2083
A MISTY DRIZZLE FELL IN NORTHERN BEINN BHIORACH ON CALEDONIA’S first evening of summer, tapping on the tender new foliage of the coleus trees in the garden and dimpling the placid black waters of Loch Tuath that fronted their cottage. But the droplets seemed miraculously to evaporate without getting a person wet.
“It’s dry rain,” she noted as they came out of the house. “Part of our Caledonian folklore. You’ve never been in it before, have you, love?”
“No,” he admitted.