Part 51 (1/2)

Then it's done G.o.d done. He's latent but safe. Remove torc ... whatareyouDOINGMarcwhatareNO!! STOP STOP ABADDON STOP DEVILb.a.s.t.a.r.d STOPSTOPSTOPLet me lead. You need not die. And so ...

[E C S T A S Y.] ... it is done. And so easily.

You-you let us go?

Poor Elizabeth. Of course.

Later, he said, ”I'm profoundly sorry that I had to use force.

But it never again would have come so easily for him as it did at that moment. He was ripe, ready; and I felt the end justified the means. I knew you wouldn't suicide. Your unconscious realized that I was no threat, even if your panicky conscious tried to tell you otherwise.”

”You devil,” she said, nearly paralysed with revulsion.

”I'm only a man, as you are only a woman.” His tone was level, almost scolding. ”And one, au fond, more comfortable in the subordinate mode, as your late husband Lawrence undoubtedly realized. You might keep that in mind as you ponder your personal predicament.”

”No wonder your children hate you! And the Milieu ... ”

Wearily, he turned away, moving toward the window.

”Neither you nor the baby was harmed. And he's operant.”

A syntactical probe gave her confirmation of the diagnosis.

The infant lay sleeping, his mind cycling in bright dreamlessness.

His skin was a normal rose-ivory colour; the only traces of the fierce blistering were tiny bits of dry crust about the torcless small throat.

Elizabeth sank back into her chair and let her eyes close, fatigued to the uttermost depths of her soul. She heard Marc say:”Children ... You and Lawrence thought your work was more important, and learned your mistake too late. I never intended to have natural children, either. Not after genetic engineering of the normally sited human brain was proved impracticable. Not with my heritage! The vicissitudes overcome by the saintly Jack must have their place in the history texts of your post-Rebellion Milieu. But I doubt whether you know the truth about me and the others-Luc and Marie and poor d.a.m.ned Madeleine, and the stillborn ones and the teratoid abortions, and Matthieu, who would have killed me before birth if I hadn't antic.i.p.ated him and struck first. Oh, we were a little less than the angels, we Remillards, if the truth be told. One saint and a myriad of sinners! And all except the lucky one, chained to our weak flesh, distracted by its needs, afflicted by the chemical reactions we call emotion. And doomed like all the rest of humankind to evolve only through endless, slow, pain-filled generations-until I thought I had found the way to force evolution's hand. I foresaw a billion human minds released, free and immortal: all of them my children. Engendering Mental Man would have been fatherhood enough for me ... ”

There was silence. She saw him standing in front of her, dressed again in the familiar black, but with a golden circlet fastened about one wrist. Brother Anatoly's brocade robe was like a puddle of blood on the floor at his feet.

She said, ”But you did father Hagen and Cloud.”

”Cyndia wanted children, and I loved her.”

”But you couldn't love them?”

”Of course I did. And do. I brought them to this place, knowing they would grow up flawed, less than I, because it was impossible to abandon all that I had left of my dreams. My children still have the potential within them-and not only Hagen and Cloud, but all the others as well. If they'll only follow me.”

”You don't understand at all why they want to escape you!”

Her voice was tense with loathing.

”Their vision is limited, like their minds.”

”Marc-they simply want to be free!”

He said patiently, ”When they were younger, they accepted their destiny willingly. But there were problems on Ocala, attrition among the weaker-minded of my old a.s.sociates, and I was away on the star-search too much of the time. The children were seduced from the ideal, primarily by a man named Alexis Manion, who had once been my closest friend.”

”He's in the history texts, too. The one who attempted to disprove the Unity concept.”