Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (65 page)

Marc emerged from his CE rig and surveyed the scorched bay and half-melted auxiliary machinery. He farspoke the other nine members of his team, and after he had determined that they were alive and capable of shedding their armor by mental override of the ruined computer he staggered to the personnel conveyor. He had been severely injured, but his redaction and paramount creativity were already initiating repairs to his brain.

The conveyor door slid shut and Marc stabbed a shaking finger at the pad that would take him to the Vulpecula’s bridge. He slumped back against the wall of the car, his soaking wet coverall dripping dermal lavage onto the floor.

Only then did he realize that he was not alone.

A tall figure stood in one comer. It was an elderly man in old-fashioned evening clothes with a neatly trimmed white beard and a patriarchal halo of silvery hair. Marc had last seen him when he was thirteen years old, in Concilium Orb, at the Inaugural Ball of the Human Polity.

Marc tried to smile. “Hello, Lylmik.”

The exotic said, “Hello, Abaddon.”

The conveyor was clearly not moving. Marc said, “ ‘We fought against the empire of heaven. We were—that I will not deny—vanquished in that conflict: Yet the great intention was not lacking in nobility. Something or other gave them victory; to us remains the glory of a dauntless daring. And even if my troop fell thence vanquished, yet to have attempted a lofty enterprise is still a trophy.’ ”

“I’ve forgotten the author,” the Lylmik admitted. “Is it Milton?”

“Giambattista Marino. Have you come to haul me off to solitary confinement?”

“No,” Unifex said. “The Quincunx has voted a reprieve. Your armada will go to Earth. There the injured can be evacuated to medical facilities. After they’ve recovered, most of them will be given the opportunity to choose again.”

“Most of them?”

“I have other plans for you—and certain other grandmaster-class Rebels in the fleet who aren’t too badly wounded and who
choose to accompany you. Assemble one hundred of them here on the Vulpecula before you set out for home.”

“What are you going to do?” Marc spoke with weary resignation. “Make some kind of example of us?”

“Au contraire,” said Atoning Unifex. “I am going to let you go free. In a manner of speaking.” Then he told Marc why he had to go to France, and what he would find waiting for him in a warehouse just outside Lyon Metro.

In the days following Saint Augustine’s, the whole world talked about what had happened at Okanagon—not so much the destruction of the planet, nor even the heroic deaths of Jack, Dorothea, and Paul—but rather that effulgent, unforgettable glimpse of Unity that would eventually bring about a spontaneous metamorphosis of the human racial Mind.

There were still Rebel soreheads who vowed never to give in, and numbers of bloodyminded fools who insisted that Dorothée and Ti-Jean had been to blame for Okanagon’s destruction. But most people knew better. The Milieu canonized Jack the Bodiless and his wife, whom the exotics called Illusio Diamond Mask, assuring their mourners that the ashes of the couple would help to bring about the birth of a new star commemorating humanity’s entry into full cosmic consciousness.

But that was still in the future.

When the Rebel fleet began to limp into Earth starports four days after the confrontation, the battered crewmembers were greeted with compassion. In the excitement, no one noticed at first that one hundred and one high-echelon evildoers—including the Angel of the Abyss himself—had escaped.

After a single unobtrusive stop-off in Hanover, New Hampshire (which I did not witness), they flew in small orbiters to the tiny village of Saint-Antoine-des-Vignes in France. There, they took possession of the treasure trove of survival gear, including weaponry, that Unifex’s shopping expedition had provided. Hauling the loot off in a long caravan of all-terrain vehicles, they proceeded to L’Auberge du Portail, Madame Guderian’s unique establishment that provided a one-way time-gate to the Pliocene Exile, six million years in the past.

Marc took his children, Hagen and Cloud, with him. Even at the end, he refused to give up his dream of Mental Man.

*  *  *

The tale of Abaddon’s temporal translation, his Pliocene adventures, and his expiation in the Duat Galaxy have been told in other books. My own memoirs end here … unless there is a new beginning.

T
HE OLD MAN STARED AT THE BIBLICAL QUOTATION ON THE
Display of his transcriber for a long time before he hit the
PRINT
and
FILE
pads.

“Eh bien, Ghost. It’s done. Barely under your deadline, but I pushed myself. I hope you’re satisfied.”

In the night outside the little room in Rogatien Remillard’s third-floor flat, the wolf wind was wailing in the doorways, the snow drifted deep along the road, the ice gnomes were marching from their Norways, and the Great White Cold walked abroad.

Rogi heard someone whistling the old college song. The sound was almost inaudible amidst the noise of the storm and the whistler was invisible, but the old bookseller knew who it was.

“What would you like me to do with the thing?” Rogi gestured at the growing stack of durafilm sheets being spit out by his printer. “Hand it over to the media?”

No, said the Family Ghost. Give it to my sister Marie. She’ll know how to have it properly published. Just be certain that no one cuts anything out or alters anything.

“D’accord. Will … you go away now?”

Yes. But if you should ever be mortally endangered, your own Great Carbuncle will summon colleagues of mine who will assist you. There are four of them—at least for now—and they wear human bodies.

“Batège! Corporeal Lylmik. What next?”

A spectral chuckle sounded and the Ghost said: Perhaps something interesting.

The old man scowled. “Dammit, hasn’t my life been interesting
enough? What I’d really appreciate is a little peace for myself. And I don’t mean Unity!”

You might find its merits more appealing in the months to come. Talk it over with Malama.

“Maybe.” Rogi’s tone was mutinous. He climbed to his feet and hesitantly stuck out his hand to the empty air. “Well, if this is goodbye, I want to say no hard feelings. It was a helluva story. There were times when I didn’t even believe you were real but …”

He felt a firm clasp, and then something enveloped him in a near-orgasmic rush of physical pleasure that was gone almost as soon as it began.

Adieu, mon oncle. Priez pour moi.

Rogi lowered his head and spoke in a broken whisper. “Sure, Marc. Damn tootin’ I will.”

Then he knew that the room was empty except for himself and Marcel, curled up in his basket beside the desk, looking at him with gray-green wildcat eyes. Rogi stood without moving for a long time.

At last he said to the cat, “Reckon that’s that, old Fur-Face. Let’s get on to bed.”

He heard a knock at the front door.

Grumbling, he went into the parlor and then to the small entry of the apartment. He snapped the lock and opened the door. She stood there in a down-filled jacket, her strawberry-blonde hair glistening with melting snowflakes and her silvery eyes smiling. A faint scent of Bal à Versailles perfume came to him as she lifted a bottle of inexpensive domestic champagne with a red ribbon tied around its neck.

“Happy New Year! Sorry about the cheap bubbly, but it was all the supermarket had left.”

Rogi stared at her, unable to utter a sound.

Elaine Donovan kissed him gently on the lips and pushed past into the parlor. “Don’t just stand there, darling. We’ve years of catching up to do.”

Rogi closed the door and got on with it.

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