INTERVENTION (58 page)

Her wrists were cut, trailing streamers of blood.

"Shannon, I'm watching. Do you hear me?"

I hear, Daddy! Holothurian larvae clinging to their purring, grotesque parent ... break away break away, babies!...go free if you can and celebrate spineless triumph ... be sure to hide from the light!

"Shannon, come out of the water."
Come out. COME OUT.

He exerted his full coercion while the zany electronic music tinkled and trilled. Sweat had broken out on his brow and he found that he was holding his breath, commanding her to hold hers. But the range was too great for his compulsion to take hold of her. He felt, to his horror, a reciprocal mind-clutch and a gentle warning:

No ... I must finish this dance ... come down and watch me properly, Daddy. Your creatures have gone away now ... come and share mine with me... I'll help you ... THE HOLOTHURIAN SPINS A WEB LIKE MOIST PURPLE SILK—

"Damn you!" Lashing out violently, he broke her mental shackle and erected a defensive barrier. She only laughed. The blue light was fading with the end of the first embryonic song. A ruddy glow introduced the second.

This is the dance of the edriophthalma, a crustacean with sessile eyes... of a mournful disposition, it lives in retirement from the world in a hole drilled in a cliff ... Nonno! Dear Grandpa A1 do you want me with you shall I retire behind my film of red water with my mind's eye turned inward!

"Shannon—for God's sake!"

The music was a lugubrious parody of a funeral march. The swimmer's limbs folded tight against her body and she became a fetal ball, pinkly throbbing, floating some six feet below the surface of the water. A measured stream of silver bubbles, flattened like coins, tumbled upward from her emptying lungs.

Kieran stormed through the formal dining room into the main hall and ran to the elevator. As he punched G and the door whisked shut, he felt a hot pounding begin in his chest. There was an irresistible urge to inhale, pressure on his eardrums, a scarlet fog seeping into his peripheral vision, a deadly stirring in his loins. God damn the little bitch! He'd delayed the bonding too long—

The elevator door opened. Kieran staggered along a passage walled with thermopane windows that cast wan light on the snowy landscape outside. The great house had been built into the east side of a hill and even now, in the dead of a winter's night, the metropolis over forty miles distant lit the sky like false dawn.

This is the third and final song ... the lively podophthalma have eyes on mobile stalks ... they are skillful and tireless hunters but they must be cautious—their own flesh is good to eat!...Eat or be eaten, Nonno. You lived in such a world and so will I twice over ... if I choose to...

Jolly galloping music and a vision of a slender form darting zigzag through black water, leaving twin trails of golden blood behind. Kieran ran sluggishly, as though he himself were under water. It was impossible for him to breathe, harder and harder to move. He passed the exercise room and the spa and finally came to the open door of the natatorium. It was dark inside and there was a strong smell of chlorine. The synthesizer music filled the tiled chamber with clanging echoes. His mind screamed.

Shannon!

Deep in the pool was an upright, spindle-shaped violet glow. It brightened abruptly, then shot up like a submarine missile, breaking the surface with a great splash and a dazzling burst of white light. A parody of a symphonic finale blasted from the overhead speakers. Erik Satie's jocose treatment of marine life was coming to an end, and so was the sinister water ballet of Kieran O'Connor's daughter.

He was finally able to haul in a gasping breath. His eyesight cleared and he stabbed at the control panel on the wall beside him. Normal incandescent light flooded the room and the only sound was the slap of wavelets against the sides of the Olympic-sized pool. Above the middle of the water a girl in a white tank suit floated on her back, eyes closed, hair fanned out like strands of algae, arms extended cruciform. She was smiling.

To Nonno. To my Grandfather on the day of his entombment. With love from Shannon.

"Come out," Kieran told her.

Descending, she swam, using a vigorous backstroke. She climbed the ladder and stood looking up at him, pale and shivering, with tiny drops of water winking at the ends of her eyelashes. Her mind shone bright and it was impervious to either probing or coercion.

"I hope you liked my dance, Daddy. It was for you, too."

He took hold of her hands and raised them, studying the wrists. The cuts were not deep and she had not severed the tendons, but there was a steady flow of blood that mixed with the water of her dripping body to make a pinkish puddle on the travertine floor. He released her, turned, and walked out the door. "We can fix you up in the gym. Let's go."

She followed with complete docility. The trainer's cubicle in the elaborately equipped exercise room provided hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic ointment, and bandages. He sat her on the massage table and wrapped her in a voluminous towel before tending her wounds, closing the lips of the cuts deftly with butterfly tapes and finishing up with gauze and temporary cuffs of waterproof plastic wrap.

"Now you can take a hot shower without spoiling my first-aid job." His voice was gentle.

"Thank you, Daddy." She eyed him askance. "You won't make me go to the doctor for stitches, will you? I can heal myself easily enough. But I had to have ... the effect."

"You had to scare the living shit out of me," he told her in a level tone, turning to rinse his hands of her blood.

"Have it your own way."

"How did you get out here from Rosary at this time of night?"

"I took Tippie Bethune's car and just drove out, then hid the car in Goldman's orchard and walked up our driveway. You were all so busy with your low politicking that it was easy to fudge your minds and sneak inside. I sang only for you. Don't you know about the intimate mode of farspeech? You can aim it at only one person."

So she knew about his plans for Baumgartner! "There'll be hell to pay when the college authorities find out you skipped."

She shrugged. "I'll take my shower now."

When she was gone, Kieran took several damp towels and went to clean up the gory traces she had left on the floor. The members of his domestic staff were well-paid psychics, bonded to him and utterly loyal; but he did not want them to know about this escapade. It was extreme—even for Shannon.

He said to her: You ought to examine your unconscious motivation for this piece of adolescent idiocy. The guilt you feel because of who/what you/we are is irrational. Seeking punishment to atone for my/your/Al's imaginary wickedness is also irrational. Attempting to dissociate yourself from me/Family/yourmentalheritage is not only irrational but futile. There is no rebirth for us. We are.

He put back the first-aid supplies, then lay down on the Panasonic Shiatsu lounger and turned it on. Timed waves of vibration soothed away some of the stress. It was nearly one in the morning. Big Al's funeral was today. She'd loved the old bandit deeply. She didn't think it a bit hypocritical that he had confessed a lifetime of sins on his deathbed and expired with the Viaticum on his parched tongue.

Damn her! She
would
have followed Al tonight if he hadn't given in to her and begged ... The suicide attempt was his own fault. It was the culmination of a lot of things—mainly his own neglect of her developing mind-powers. She'd grown up pathologically shy, introverted. There'd been suicidal hints that he had tried to laugh off. The Edinburgh telecast had been traumatic, intensifying her brooding. And now Big Al's death, and her growing realization of her father's extraordinary ambition. She would have to be bonded. The alternative was probably a descent into madness or self-destruction.

But to bond his own daughter...

She was mind-humming a reprise of the crustacean dirge as she took her shower. The musical parody was superimposed incongruously upon an image of Queen of Heaven Mausoleum, a fulsome monument to Italian-American piety that would, come daylight, receive the mortal remains of Aldo Camastra.

Kieran said: Shannon? Do you know why so many of your Grandfather's people prefer tombs in a place like Queen of Heaven rather than ordinary burial in the ground?

I never thought about it, Daddy.

Back in the Old Country, cemeteries may be more than a thousand years old. Space in the earth is at a premium. When a new grave is dug they may find old bones. The bones are taken up and put into a kind of storage place called an ossuary, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy with the bones of other skeletons.

How awful!

The only bodies sure to be left undisturbed are those interred in aboveground tombs or in mausoleums. That ancient fear of not being left to lie in peace lingers in tradition even here in America. Tradition can be a powerful motivator. Many kinds of tradition.

...Oh, I
know
the twisted justification that Al and the others in the Outfit subscribed to, Daddy—the old story about the simple peasants resisting tyranny in Sicily, then later on using the Thing as a steppingstone to power and wealth in this country. But it's different for you! You're no persecuted immigrant. You have mental powers that you could use to help all humanity, just as the organized metapsychics around the world are doing. But you won't join them, will you, Daddy! You'd rather get rich and then take over the country with your Mental Mafia.

Is that how you see it?

"That's how it is!"

Shannon came out of the spa wearing a white velour sweat suit, with her hair bound up in a towel. Revulsion and frustrated love radiated from her but her voice remained measured. "You're worse than Big A1 ever was, Daddy, because you came deliberately into the Outfit. He and the others had their Family tradition, but you joined them because you'd analyzed the possibilities in cold blood. And you've done very well, transferring the Mob assets into legitimate business and covering your tracks. You're Big Al's son-in-law but nobody holds it against you—especially after your mind exerts its special charm."

Kieran laughed.

"Will bossing President Baumgartner be power enough for you, Daddy? Or are you bucking for Boss of the World?"

"You could be my little Crown Princess," he said.

She folded her bandaged arms and looked down on him lying in the chair. "No," she replied with cool dignity. "The embryo dance helped me decide. I'm leaving here, getting out of Rosary College and transferring to Dartmouth. I'll ask that Professor Remillard to accept me in his psychic Peace Corps thing. I won't do anything to hurt you, but I won't stay with you anymore. I've been very silly and naive, thinking it was natural for us to—to be above normal people. The Edinburgh Demonstration was like some kind of miracle, opening my eyes. That wonderful Russian woman and her vision! And then Denis Remillard explaining his educational plan for all people with metapsychic talents—"

"He's very good on television," Kieran admitted. "Very nearly as charming a coercer as your depraved old Dad ... but also an idealist with no notion of the way the normal world actually works. He and the rest of them are in for a rude awakening, you know."

"No, I
don't
know!" Shannon flared. "Suppose you tell me."

Kieran got up from the lounger and regarded her with concern. She had begun to shiver again and her lips were blue. He wondered how much blood she had lost. "If you're really interested, I'll explain it to you. But not down here. I could use some coffee and brandy right now, and so could you."

He headed for the door and she trailed after. "I know you think I'm only a child," she said as they approached the elevator. "Maybe I am, but you can't expect me to accept this—this scheming of yours without questioning it!"

"Be sure you ask the right questions. You've led a very sheltered, pampered life up until now, thanks to the loyalty of Bayard and Louisa. Not all of us have been so lucky. I wasn't. Neither were Jason or Arnold, or Adam or Lillian or Ken or Neville, or most of the other people you so glibly designate my Mental Mafia. I wanted to spare you the horror stories. It seems I made a mistake, denying you the history of the persecuted minority we all belong to."

The elevator door closed as Kieran pressed 3.

Shannon said, "When I saw MacGregor and his people do the Edinburgh Demonstration, I was just devastated. There they were, doing their thing just as though it were—natural. And I thought: It doesn't have to be Daddy's way, hiding the powers, using them selfishly. I could come out in the open! When more and more operant people began to reveal themselves I got so excited I thought I would die. I wanted to confess what I was, too! But I was afraid..."

"For a good reason."

Her eyes were pleading. "We're different, but not so very different. The normals have been so grateful about the Psi-Eye program. The sensible ones support the metapsychic testing plan, too. The opposition is just from fundamentalist fanatics and people without the education to appreciate the good we can do. When the normals learn more about what operancy really means—"

"They will try to kill us," Kieran said.

Shannon stared at him, speechless, and in that split second of appalled vulnerability absorbed the details of the peril that he projected. Then they were at the third floor of the mansion and emerged into a part of the house that had always been officially barred to her (although she had snooped through most of it when Kieran was out of town). Here were the self-contained guest suites for certain visitors; the antiseptic sanctum that housed the awesome mainframe computer with its huge data bank, connected by dedicated fiber optics to corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago; the satellite receiving station; the mysterious "recovery room" that was occupied from time to time by certain Mental Mafia recruits; and—most tantalizing of all—a locked room referred to in hushed tones by the household staff as the Command Post and by Kieran as "my study." Shannon had never been inside it. Few people other than Kieran himself and Arnold Pakkala had.