Part 79 (2/2)
”For G.o.d's sake, how?”
Creyn helped him into a chair, drew up a footstool. ”Rest here for a while. I'll be back directly with some food for you-and a golden torc.”
Heavy rain sluiced against the French windows of the lodge's grand salon. The slow-burning oak logs in the great fireplace did little to dissipate the chill.
Marc said to Brother Anatoly, ”They have arrived.”
The lanky old friar arose from one of the settees and brushed crumbs of tetraploid popcorn from his scapular. ”Then I'll be off to bed. You won't want me cluttering the family reunion. I don't think I can wish you good luck.”
”I wish you'd stay. You might find yourself coming to appreciate my point of view.” Marc knelt beside the wood rack, selecting some billets of stone pine. ”So might the children.
None of you have all the data. When you do, perhaps you'll finally understand. Cloud and Hagen don't realize that they're absolutely vital to the Mental Man concept. Neither do most of my old a.s.sociates who accompanied me to the Pliocene. If the children had never been born, I would have been content to die in my failed Rebellion and that would have been the end of it. But they were born. Call it providence or synchronicity or whatever. Now they have no choice but to fulfil their destiny.”
”No choice?” Anatoly flared. ”Ne kruti mne yaitsa, khui morzhoviy! A choice is exactly what they do have!”
Marc fed the fire, smiling. ”G.o.d, you have an ugly mouth, priest.”
”I know. It got me in trouble a lot back in Yakutsk. Lack of charity, the besetting sin of my life ... It could be yours, too, you Paramount Grand Master tinkling cymbal, if you persist in treating your children like specimens in some breeding experiment!”
”You have no notion of the importance of the Mental Man concept.”
”Maybe not. But I do understand human dignity-and your children's right to a free choice.”
”The birth of transcendent humanity is more important than the rights of two individuals, no matter who they are! Hagen and Cloud can't be permitted to withdraw. Not now, when I finally have the means to bring the project to fruition.”
”Then make them believe in you,” Anatoly said. ”Convince them. Convince yourself! Prove that the Milieu's verdict on you was a mistake.”
The flames were building as the resinous wood caught. Marc said, ”The human race must fulfil its great potential. This can't be evil!”
”So,” said the friar in a voice ominously quiet. ”Instead of my reforming your erroneous conscience, you want to reform mine! One poor old zalupa konskaya tells you it wasn't a sin after all, that makes it all right? It's not me you have to justify yourself to, Marc-it's Hagen and Cloud.”
Firelight shadowed Abaddon's eyes. ”You'd better pray that I can, Anatoly. Because all I really require is their germ plasm.”
There was a knock on the door.
Elizabeth's mind said: We've come.
Marc sprang to his feet and stood with his back to the fire, a silhouette in a black polo-necked sweater and black cord trousers. The salon's double doors opened. Four people were there, all wearing Tanu storm-suits with the hoods thrown back. Elizabeth stepped aside. Cloud and Hagen, both in white, stood there together. Behind them was the King.
Cloud said, ”Papa!” Marc opened his arms and she ran to him. Their minds embraced and she kissed him, and he held her bright-haired head against his chest until she stopped weeping. Then she looked up at him with a plea naked in her eyes, moved away, and waited for Hagen.
The young man stood a full four metres off, at the side of Aiken Drum. His hands were still gloved, stiff at his sides. He ignored his sister's invitation and Marc's, keeping his mind tightly barricaded. He said, ”I'll hear what you have to say, Papa. That's all.” The heavy raindrops clattered against the windowpanes.
”Will you sit down?” Marc's voice was mild. ”It won't take long.” He deliberately turned his back on them to poke up the guttering fire.
There were three large settees grouped around a low table.
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