Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (35 page)

“I don’t believe Unity is like that—a passive exposure, a spilling of secrets. I think it must be dynamic, on the order of a grand metaconcert, as Denis said in his last book. According to his theory, Unity is an enormous freewheeling construct with a common vector in the overarching matrix lattices [image], the realm of the Cosmic All. In some mysterious way, Unity conjugates Mind while maintaining the integrity of the partner mentalities. It may be that its oneness reflects the unique bond of the Trinity. ‘That all may be one, as you, Father, in me and I in thee; that they may also be one in us.’ The oneness in God is the Holy Spirit, a third unique person. Who can say what Unity would produce in our own racial Mind?”

“Oh, Jack.” She put down her fork and sighed in irritation. “That’s all very beautiful and profound, but it doesn’t tell me what Unity’s going to do to
me
. And besides, Christ was talking about something quite different: a community of religious belief.”

“Was he? That’s certainly what his first followers thought, and it was a useful and valid concept for two thousand years. But if we consider that our Catholic faith has evolved just as the human race has, then perhaps that particular message has a special meaning in
our metapsychic age. It might describe a universal truth acceptable to minds who follow religions and ethical systems other than Christianity. It seems to me that both Christ’s Unity and that of the Milieu can best be defined as transcendent love—and if that’s true, then we have nothing to fear from it, just as the exotic races have maintained all along. In true love, individuality is never compromised or diminished. What’s missing is antagonism.”

“I don’t want to love other people the way I love you,” she said obstinately.

“Nor do I. Common sense tells us there are different kinds of love. The Unity of the Galactic Milieu could be a supreme friendship. A magnanimity and unanimity. A great trusting. The exotic races have their quirks and crotchets, but they do live and work together in a spirit of good will and mutuality. They certainly aren’t sinless—but by and large they have a civilization without malice.”

“But if Unity is so simple,” she cried, “why have we so persistently misunderstood and feared it?”

“Because it’s going to be imposed on us, willy-nilly, if we want to remain within the Milieu. Like the Great Intervention, only more so … And Unity is
not
simple, any more than maturity is simple, or the altruistic imperative, or falling in love. If it were simple, then the exotics would be able to explain it to us: A B C. They can’t seem to do that. We’re going to have to discover it and accept it for ourselves.”

She looked at him anxiously. “But how are we to manage it? The Unity education campaigns don’t seem to be working—except amongst those who don’t really need to be convinced.”

“I think,” Jack said slowly, “there will have to be a concentration of attention.” And he showed her another mental image.

“Oh, no!” She pushed her chair back and sprang to her feet. “That’s—that’s appalling.”

“So is crucifixion. Another great attention-getter.”

“There must be another way!”

“But events seem to be leading toward this one. If the mental laser factory found near your father’s farm isn’t just an isolated piece of villainy, if the Rebels do take a more forceful position now that they’ve got an effective leader, if Fury isn’t dead—”

“No!”

She pushed away her chair and whirled about, tears dimming her vision, then went to stand by the partially opened casement windows. The Grand Canal was completely engulfed in fog.
Music came faintly from one of the caffés in the Fish Market across the water.

“Perhaps I’m wrong.” He came behind her, taking her in his arms, and kissed her neck. She felt his sex and welcomed it with her body, taking comfort and giving it as he came erect. His fingers touched the tears on her cheeks. He moved his hands slowly down her face, caressing her lips. She shivered and he held her tightly against him.

“Do you want to be wrong, Jack?” Her voice had a hint of fear.

“Listen to me, my darling: If exotic theorists in the Unity Directorate are correct, our race should coadunate more or less spontaneously when our population reaches ten thousand million. The coadunation process seems to involve the opening up of a new avenue of intermind communication on the unconscious level. An actual enhancement of the collective unconscious. Unity is supposed to supervene eventually—but in the case of humanity, the eventuality might encompass an unacceptably long period of time.”

“Whereas the—the other would mean an evolutionary leap?”

“And not the first time humanity has been kicked up the staircase of socialization by catastrophe. Consider the Ice Age, the Black Death, World War II, the devastation of the Holy Land: another fine mess, another hard lesson learned.”

“We’re speaking of a species of love, Jack!” she exclaimed. “How in the world could a galactic catastrophe engender that?”

His embrace softened. She felt his hands stroke and stimulate her breasts like a musician playing twin instruments, coaxing trills and arpeggios of sensation. “It’s happened many times before, on a much lesser scale. Think of your own world in the aftermath of the diatreme disaster, with unexpected acts of bravery and compassion commonplace among the people. I’m sure the same thing happened in old Pompeii.”

“An ignition of love … a falling in love?”

“I think so. Unity can probably be born in an instant, but it will have to ripen more slowly. Once the first great leap of trust is taken and the affirmation made, Unity would be there, in place, consoling and strengthening and encouraging selflessness and a sense of inner peace, especially in minds strong in creativity. It would expand and flower naturally, like maturity of mind. Denis believed that we would be incapable of losing it once we had it. Exotic scholars say he’s right.”

“People fall out of love.”

“But they never fall out of maturity unless the mind becomes
diseased. Unity is supposed to be analogous to that: by no means the Beatific Vision, but a higher niveau d’esprit than what most of us ever experience now.”

She looked at him over her shoulder, finally smiling through her tears. “We do have other joys, though. For which we should be duly grateful.”

She stilled his gentling hands. Electric warmth poured from her own fingers into his, sending lightning up the nerves of his arms and into his spine and brain, reinforcing his swelling passion. She turned to him with a soft, throaty laugh. Her eyes were like stars reflected in the sea. “Unity’s consolation is a long way off, Zan Degola, my love. Tonight I’ll settle for something primal.”

He impaled her and their two bodies melted together, the limbs fusing, the faces haloed by radiant neural coronae that conjoined their brains. Their minds sang together in a duet of mental intercourse more ecstatic than that of the body. He opened his uttermost depths to her. She did not hesitate to reciprocate, and in the aftermath of the ringing consummation they caught a brief glimpse of what they had been searching for.

They contemplated it, awestruck, not believing it could be so simple.

It was not clear how it could be incorporated into their minds on a permanent basis.

He said, “I think more research is required.”

She said, “Oh, good.”

In Alpenland Enclave, Marc Remillard climbed to the sleeping loft of his small A-frame hut, peeled off his clothes, and arranged the duvet and pillows to make a comfortable nest that his creativity instantly adjusted to the perfect temperature. It was cold in the hut, the way he liked it at bedtime. Outside the window glimmered facsimile star patterns of Earth’s northern-hemisphere winter: Orion, Canis Major and Minor, the gorgeous flow of the Milky Way.

And creeping over the jagged artificial eastern peaks of the enclave came the constellation Hydra.

It was a measure of the thing’s hold on his unconscious mind that the name of the stellar sea serpent evoked only a lengthy pattern of stars. He never thought of the living Hydra during his waking hours, nor did any consideration of Fury enter his mind. He had forgotten Parnell, forgotten Uncle Rogi’s ordeal. The family had never told him any details about the terrible episode of the previous Christmas and he had accepted the death of Denis
with brief, sincere regret. He and his grandfather had never been especially close.

Marc lay there, reviewing the events of the day, smiling his one-sided smile at the stars. This Concilium session had been a triumph. As the new leader of the Rebels, he had given the movement fresh impetus at the same time that he had soothed exotic apprehensions about its ultimate goal. His own CE research was safe for the time being. The objections voiced by its exotic and human opponents (the latter including both Philip and Maurice Remillard) were too abstract to prevail in the face of CE’s demonstrable usefulness—and the votes of the Rebel members of the Science Directorate. His new full-body rig was still secret and he intended it to stay that way until he was certain that exotic opposition could be quelled once and for all.

After strategy discussions with Cordelia Warshaw, Adrien Remillard, Helayne Strangford, and Annushka Gawrys, he had decided against a direct attack on Unity anytime in the immediate future. That could wait until Alex Manion’s research was complete and he exploded his bombshell in the next session. The Rebel Party line would, for the time being, emphasize the prudent necessity of not alienating the human race’s nonoperant majority by “premature” imposition of a new mental order. He had also quietly pointed out the speed with which human technology had overtaken that of the Milieu, implying that any attempt at expulsion and quarantine of humanity was bound to fail.

Loyalist humans hadn’t been taken in by the moderate tone of his Concilium disquisitions, but the exotics had apparently swallowed them whole. They liked Marc. His easy yet compelling manner was a welcome respite from Annushka’s dour inflexibility and the wrangling of Rory Muldowney and the other Rebel firebrands. Until his own accession to the leadership, the escalating anti-Milieu controversy within the Human Polity had increasingly dismayed and scandalized the Krondaku, the Poltroyans, the Gi, and the Simbiari. Some of them had begun to openly challenge the guiding wisdom of the Lylmik, who had insisted upon inducting humanity into the Milieu in advance of its sociopolitical maturation.

However, now that the Rebel Party had taken Marc as their new chief—an eminently coolheaded mind of paramount metafunction—even the most conservative exotics expressed cautious hope that the discord could be resolved through compromise.

They were in for a shock.

But the timing of the Great Divorce was still problematical. If
humanity was to prevail against overwhelming exotic numbers, it would need not only sophisticated weaponry but also large numbers of more powerful operant minds. Paramount minds like Marc’s own.

He needed Mental Man.

“Y
ES
, I
’M QUITE CERTAIN WE WANT TO DRIVE,” SAID THE
Russian. “We won’t be able to stay long on Hibernia, but it would be a pity if we didn’t see some of your lovely scenery during our visit. Dirigent Muldowney has said that this section of the Loch Mór coast is one of the most dramatic regions of the planet.”

“Well, it’s that, all right.” Jane Cloherty, the VIP-minder and public-relations dogsbody for the Intendancy of Connemara, produced a meaningful smile as she led the visiting officials out of the sky port lobby. A gravomag Mercedes from the government motor pool was waiting in the portico, coachwork sparkling in the rain. “The only thing is,” Jane continued, “it’s winter now and the Boireann is rather lonely out of season. This isn’t really the best time of year for driving along our inland sea. All of the holiday facilities are shut down and the villages are rather few and far between.”