Part 41 (1/2)

As long as we have you, everliving!

”Faithful Pat.” He was standing close to her, looking down from his great height, and he had let the dressing gown fall. His contours were still magnificent, but an intricate network of keloid scars, the consequent of a too-brief sojourn in the regeneration tank covered his entire body below the neck. Only his hands and genitals had been perfectly restored.

She came into his arms and their lips met, tasting salt and honey, setting her whirling into the bright burning maelstrom that had him as its inevitable beginning and end. In the wondrous way of master metapsychics there was no constraint of gravity between them, no barrier posed by garments, no awkwardness in the embrace. The ineffable pleasure spun her to the brink of senselessness, lifted her as on a giant wave to the ultimate conjunction. There the binary star would s.h.i.+ne for a small eternity, she in the shouting blaze of fulfilment, he, as always, withdrawn into his abyss.

From the beginning, Marc had warned her that there would be no love. She had willingly agreed, leaving him solitary at the climax. But tonight his curtain had been only imperfectly woven.

She had caught a glimpse of what lay beneath the brilliant corona of o.r.g.a.s.mic release.

She lay alone on the bed, having surfaced into consciousness.

Recollection clamped her heart in ice. Had he been distracted because of the terrible events that had taken place? Or had his subconscious been compelled to give up the secret?

”Marc,” she whispered. ”Is it true?”

He was fully dressed, staring out the forward window of the sterncastle. The sea had moderated and was star-stippled. The sails had been hoisted by the winching mechanism and the great schooner forged ahead.

He said, ”You will tell no one. It could be disastrous to morale. The children don't know, of course. No one did, except the Keoghs-and Manion. Alex has his own reasons to keep silent.”

”How ... how long?”

Since before the Rebellion since her death je suis le veuf a la tour abolie.

”My G.o.d! But we thought that the Keoghs had-”

”After Cyndia's death, they restored me completely, just as the tank restored me here.” He was calm. ”There is no organic dysfunction, only nonviability. My late brother blamed it on a sense of sin. I suspect rather a defect of the will, or the inevitable trauma when falling from a great height.” He regarded her steadily from beneath winged brows. ”The cure, if any, will be spontaneous-induced by success. We still can succeed. Mental Man will live if we prevent the children from pa.s.sing through that time-gate. Ideally, we need all of them. At the minimum, my son.”

”If you had only told Hagen! Or taken precautions-”

”Precautions were taken-and circ.u.mvented. I was too trusting during our early years on Ocala. Later, trying to compensate for my neglect, I was too stern with the children. Hagen is weakwilled. Flawed. He knows it. My attempts to intimidate him merely made him hate me. To reveal the truth ... would give him a weapon. It's a h.e.l.lish mess, complicated even more by the children's alliance with Aiken Drum. But we can still succeed. If the time-gate doesn't open ... if I can prove to Hagen and Cloud that I love them, that their destiny is with me ... ”

Patricia rose slowly, pus.h.i.+ng the light brown hair back from her face, working to suppress the misgivings. ”There are so few of us left to help you. O'Malley may not survive, and Fitzpatrick and Sherwoode aren't strong. If we discount those three, that leaves only twenty-two for your offensive metaconcert. Six of us magnates.”

”We'll manage. We have plenty of conventional weapons to counter Aiken Drum. And the d-jump capability.”

”You can't take any weapon with you inside the armour.”

He did not respond to that. She went to the cooking unit and took out his meal, then poured cups of tea for both of them.

”Come and eat your supper while it's hot,” she said, sitting down at the table in front of the windows. ”There's ham in orange sauce, and even some of your favourite gamma pea soup.”

”I ordered it up thinking that I'd be celebrating a successful long jump.” He took a spoon and studied the steaming bowl.

”Just three pouches left after twenty-seven years. Habitant pea soup in the Pliocene. A touch of New Hamps.h.i.+re aboard a windjamming bateau ivre!” He shook his head slightly and began to eat.

Patricia drank her tea without attempting to touch his thoughts. After a time she began speaking in a low, urgent voice. ”I understand now why you opposed those of us who wanted to counter the time-gate threat with force against the children. You were never really afraid of retaliation from the Milieu at all, were you?”

He made a dismissive gesture. ”It was a smokescreen. A necessary deception, I thought. Aimed primarily at the children, and at the more dubiously loyal of our own generation.”

”I thought so. So you could listen to all our bloodthirsty talk about killing the children if necessary-even pretend to consider the option-but all the while you knew you'd have to find another way.”