Part 31 (1/2)
He laughed. ”You feel a certain affinity?”
”For another member of the Frankenstein Club? Oh, yes.
But I'm a comparative amateur in meddling with the course of human evolution. I lack your self-a.s.surance as well as your paramount qualifications. Take this black-torc business-I'm bungling it and the baby will likely die, but I can't help feeling that it would be for the best. If I save Brendan and the others like him, what future would they have in this poor d.a.m.ned land? I don't need Brede's clairvoyance to foresee what's going to happen when you get to Europe. There will be a war over the time-gate site.”
”Not if Aiken cooperates with me instead of with my son.
You could show Aiken where his best interests lie.”
She laughed bitterly. ”You're a fool if you think I can exert that kind of influence. Aiken does as he pleases. If he's decided to help your children escape from you, nothing I say or do will deter him.”
The hovering dark shape drifted nearer, sending a wash of chill air ahead. Hastily, Elizabeth covered the baby.
”Your protestations of helplessness lack conviction,” Marc said. ”Perhaps you have your own reasons for encouraging the building of a Pliocene time-gate.”
”And what about your motive for preventing it?” she retorted. ”Are you really so afraid that the Magistratum will come after you? Or is it that you would prefer to see your children dead rather than lose them to the Unity you couldn't accept?”
”You misjudge me,” he said. ”I love them. Everything I've done has been for them. For all human children. For Mental Man crying to be born-”
”Let it be, Marc!” she cried. ”It's over-it has been, for more than twenty-seven years! Humanity chose the other way, not yours!” A great weariness oppressed her and she felt her eyes sting. The strong mental walls she had erected against the commanding presence of the Milieu's challenger wavered, weakened. She was vulnerable and he knew it-but he forbore. She whispered, ”Let your children go. The Milieu will welcome them. Turn your s.h.i.+p around and return to North America. I'll do my utmost to insure that the Pliocene side of the time-gate is permanently closed, so that you and the other Rebels will be left unmolested.”
”How will you do that?” he asked. ”By going back to the Milieu yourself?”
She turned her head away. ”Leave us alone, Marc. Don't destroy our little world.”
”Poor Grand Master. It's a difficult role you've chosen.
Almost as lonely as mine.” The sound of his voice intensified and she looked up, startled, to see that he was actually standing on the broad sill of the window. There was no longer any trace of ghostly machinery surrounding him. As in a dream, Elizabeth watched him step down and walk slowly to the infant's wicker bed, leaving wet footprints on the parquet floor. The exudation of cold air was no longer apparent. He was fully materialized, divorced from the mind-enhancing equipment. One gloved hand gripped the rim of the baby basket and she heard the fibres creak. His grey eyes beneath their heavy winged brows held hers.
”Show me the program you're using in the child's redaction.
Quickly! I can't sustain this stasis for more than a few minutes.”
Her mind had gone numb, beyond fear. She summoned the program and displayed it.
”Very ingenious. Is it entirely your own construct?”
”No. Great chunks of it come from the preceptive courses I used when teaching children at the Metapsychic Inst.i.tute on Denali.”
”Redactive science has come a long way since my day ... I would judge that this program of yours is fully capable of effecting a cure.”
”It's too slow.” Her admission was starkly clinical. ”At the rate I was going with Minanonn, the procedure would take more than twelve hundred hours. The baby would almost certainly die before we could finish.”
”All you need do is magnify the coercive loading. At that minute focus, the child's mind can endure ten times the pressure Minanonn delivers.” He had gone into the small brain, scrutinizing, testing. The baby stirred and exhaled a soft cooing sound, smiling in his sleep.
Elizabeth said, ”I can only utilize a single auxiliary mind in this configuration. Phasing in a coercive metaconcert is out of the question.”
”I was thinking of something quite different.” Marc withdrew his redactive faculty and took two steps backward. ”We would have to wait until Manion and Kramer and I solve the problem of maintaining my translation in stasis-holding off the rubberband effect that tends to pull me back to the takeoff point of the jump. We couldn't risk that happening in mid redaction.