Part 48 (1/2)
”Shh, baby ... who else?” .
Veikko buried his head in her breast as his mind toiled the list of casualties: Frieda Singer-Dow, mother of Chee-wu Chan; Claire Shaunavon, mother of Matiwilda; Audrey Truax, mother of Margaret and Rebecca Kramer; Isobel Layton and Alonzo Jarrow, parents of Vaughn Jarrow; John .Horvath, father of Imre; Abdulkadir Al-Mahmoud and Olivia Wylie, parents of Jasmin Wylie; Eva s.m.u.ts, co-mother of Kane Fox-Laroche; Ronald Inman; Everett Garrison; Gary Evans; and ...
He was weeping now. ”I'm sorry, Rena. Arky, too. He was one of the injured ones. Streinbrenner did his best, but he's not as skilled in surgery as the Keoghs were, and there's no regen tank set up on Kyllikki. Arky died three days ago.”
His mind opened at last and she melded, pouring psychic balm on his supersensitive emotional structure, rocking him to and fro while the equinoctial sun warmed the southern flank of the mountain.
She said, ”It's strange. I dreamed about Daddy-then. It was a long dream, full of details. Probably a recapitulation of stories he used to tell me when I was small, and the books and the TriD ca.s.settes we shared. In the dream, we travelled all over the Milieu. We visited the human colonies of Volhynia and Hibernia first to see how our ethnic kin were taming the wilderness, and then we rested on the cosmop world of Riviera, the vacation place. From there we toured exotic planets. We met funny little Poltroyans and repulsive ent.i.ties that dripped green, and tall hermaphrodites with enormous yellow eyes-all coadunate metapsychics, in spite of their odd appearance. We saw the Krondaku, who aren't quite as scary in person as they look in a holo; and had a kind of seance with the Lylmiks, and learned that their race is so ancient that it might date from the previous universe. Finally we came home to Old Earth, to New Hamps.h.i.+re in America, where the O'Malleys and the Petroviches worked in the paper mills and had little farms early in the twentieth century. We saw Mount Was.h.i.+ngton, where the Intervention started, and the old Remillard house in Hanover.
Arky and I saw it all together: our grandparent's place, and the schools and churches and stores and restaurants and other landmarks of the real world ... He was a nice old villain, Veikko. He liked you, too, even though he tried hard not to show it. He kept asking when we were going to have a child.”
”Not here.”
”I tried to explain. Why we couldn't believe in Marc or his star-search any longer. But he refused to understand. Now he's dead, and all those others.”
Veikko wiped his face on his sleeve, found a comb and ran it through stringy fair hair. His face was thoughtful. ”Not too many left now for Marc to manipulate, are there? Let's see. Six magnates, not counting Manion. Those are the minds we really have to worry about. Only Kramer and Warshaw have any children left alive, and the old lady's hard-a.s.sed as they come where loyalty to Marc's concerned. I'm not so certain about Kramer. He might balk if it really came down to zorching Marge and Becky along with the rest of us. Secondary grandmaster minds ... eighteen. Quinn Fitzpatrick and Allison Sherwoods are weak sisters, but the others are concert-fit. And that big stud Boom-Boom Laroche is worth a mind and a half in anybody's roster.”
”Surely Walter wouldn't-”
All persons please a.s.semble immediately under the large canopy.
”The conference.” Veikko climbed to his feet. As they made their way back to the small village of huts and parked vehicles, he said. ”Don't delude yourself about my father, Rena. Walter's like a lot of other ex-Rebels. When he's outside of Marc's aura and thinks for himself he can understand our position and sympathize with us. But put him back within coercive range of the Angel of the Abyss and he's caught in the old spell-just as all of us were until Alexis Manion showed us how to escape.”
”And paid for it,” Irena added. After a minute she asked, ”Are you going to tell the others about the murders?”
”Not until I get Hagen's okay. Maybe not even then. Let him break the news once we're all safe in Goriah. If ever.”
They took their places on decamole benches facing an improvised rostrum, where Basil Wimborne waited patiently until the last stragglers were seated. Inevitably, the group was tripart.i.te: the ten North Americans, the twenty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, and the King's Men-twelve Tanu and twenty human golds-gathering together in distinct cliques. Only Basil himself and the cheerful little b.a.s.t.a.r.d factotum, Nirupam, had circulated freely during the journey from the Rhone Valley.
Now the former Oxford don tapped the lectern three times and fixed his audience with a gaze of magisterial self-a.s.surance.
The babble of thoughts and voices faded to silence.
”We have successfully completed the first leg of the expedition,” Basil began. ”Thanks to the skill of our drivers and the good offices of the Grand Master Elizabeth, who surveyed our route, we have managed to traverse the four hundred and ninety-six kilometres between Darask and Camp Bettaforca without misadventure. Our journey has taken fourteen days, a most commendable pace under the circ.u.mstances. I have been asked by the Deputy Lord Psychokinetic, Bleyn the Champion, to convey to you all the warmest felicitations from King AikenLugonn, who has kept us all in his heart and fa.r.s.eeing eyes. His Majesty is fully confident that the second phase of our operation will proceed as successfully as the first.”
This sentiment was delivered with a decidedly ironic tone.
Most of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds responded with arch grins, while Bleyn and the Tanu preserved a stately solemnity.
”The actual a.s.sault upon Monte Rosa involves, as most of you know, my own team of-uh-b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Those expedition members remaining at the base camp will have other matters to occupy their attention, however. Lord Bleyn was advised by Elizabeth early this morning that a force of approximately two hundred ogres and dwarfs has set out from Famorel City and is marching north up the Ysaar Valley. We can only presume that they will follow the river eastward, cross over the Little St.
Bernard pa.s.s into the Proto-Augusta Valley, and thence seek to clobber us.”
Exclamations of astonishment and dismay broke out. Lusk Collins, the young North American ATV wrangler, said, ”I warned you to kill those Firvulag we got the slugs from.”
”Sparing them was a calculated risk,” Basil averred primly.
”Aside from humane considerations, may I remind you that we were instructed to avoid bloodshed. Technically, a state of armistice exists between the Tanu and Firvulag kingdoms.”
”Remind the Famorel spooks, not us!” exclaimed Phronsie Gillis. ”So we fight. What the h.e.l.l! How long before the little hummers get here?”