INTERVENTION (74 page)

She fled, leaving Tremblay standing in the aisle behind the loges with Dr. Paulson.

"Will you be going to the dinner?" Tremblay inquired politely.

"No, I have had quite enough excitement for tonight. I will bid you adieu, Doctor. But before I go, please accept a bit of advice from an old man."

Gerry tried to look receptive.

"You feel in your heart that Denis Remillard wronged you by not granting you sufficient credit for your work. Whether he did or not is immaterial. Do not let your envy and disappointment drive you to a reckless course of action that may bring disaster upon you and all of your operant associates."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Gerry laughed. "And I'm afraid you don't either."

"It is hard to work with genius. I really cannot blame you for fleeing. You know that in the laboratory you will only be competent and so you turn the beacon of your ambition in another direction. Be careful. You think falsely that Remillard used you. He did not—but certain others will."

Gerry Tremblay's face was immobile. He looked into the old man's gray eyes, probing with all his power, and met stone.

"I didn't think you'd change your mind," Paulson said. "But I thought I would make the try as long as I was here tonight anyway. It has been an evening to remember. Please give my fondest regards to Madame Remillard ... and it may be some small consolation to you to know that even the great Xiong Ping-yung owes something of his monumental formulation to the thoughts of others. The germ of the Universal Field Theory was suggested to him by none other than I myself! But that was long ago and far away, and I have long since forgotten most of my higher mathematics. À bientôt, Dr. Tremblay." He walked off.

A nut, Gerry told himself. A salty old Swedish nut! He probably creeps out of the woodwork every year and makes a pest of himself at the Prize ceremony.

Forcing himself to believe this, he went off to find Lucille.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, EARTH

27
FEBRUARY
2004

KIERAN O'CONNOR
: Come in, Gerry. I'm glad you could get here on such short notice. I wouldn't have torn you two lovebirds apart so soon after the honeymoon if it wasn't important ... Shannon getting settled in the new place?

GERARD TREMBLAY
: The house is crawling with interior decorators and carpet-layers. I'm glad to be out of the war zone for a little while.

O'CONNOR
: Got your offices all set up in Cambridge?

TREMBLAY
: Pretty well. Still trying to find the right staff.

O'CONNOR
: Don't be in a rush. Where are you recruiting? My old Alma Mama, Harvard?

TREMBLAY
: [laughs] I'm running as a Democrat, sir.

O'CONNOR
: I understand there are still a
few
liberals lurking in the ivy ... Sit down, for heaven's sake, man. And don't call me "sir." If you can't manage "Dad," try Kier. How about a drink? Cheer the cockles on a cold afternoon.

TREMBLAY
: Thank you ... Kier. [Looks around in awed admiration.] My God, what a view from this office! On a clear day—

O'CONNOR
: You can see Milwaukee. Less smog than there used to be. One good by-product of the energy shortage, at any rate ... Scotch? Sherry? Campari?

TREMBLAY
: Campari and soda would be fine.

O'CONNOR
: Did you enjoy Nuku Hiva?

TREMBLAY
: It was fantastic, sir—Kier. I don't have the EE faculty, you see, so I've never been able to indulge in mental globe trotting. Or the regular kind, either, on an Associate Professor's salary!

O'CONNOR
: That'll change.

TREMBLAY
: I'm looking forward to it.

O'CONNOR
: No false pride, eh? That's a healthy sign.

TREMBLAY
: Shannon and I understand each other. Her money will be a means to an end. An end that both of us feel is infinitely worthwhile.

O'CONNOR
: That end of yours is the reason I asked you to come here to confer with me. We don't know one another very well yet, Gerry. That is... you don't know me. I've been interested in your political aspirations, and I'll confess that I watched you there in New Hampshire even before you and my little girl worked together on the Millennial Democratic presidential campaign. Both of you have made friends in the Party who'll do you a lot of good now that you've decided to seek office yourself.

TREMBLAY
: I have Shannon's good advice to thank for any success I might have had as a campaign aide. And of course, she funded our caucus's effort. That took a lot of courage when the whole country knew
you
were for Baumgartner.

O'CONNOR
: Shannon is a grown woman with a right to her own opinions and political loyalties. Having metafaculties herself—even though they're very modest ones—she was very upset when Baumgartner's campaign took on an antioperant stance. She broke with the Republican people here in Illinois over the issue and decided to go all-out for Kennedy. And what better state to do it in than New Hampshire?

TREMBLAY
: It was great for a gesture. But to really
do
something in the political arena, one needs a state with a bigger population base.

O'CONNOR
: [laughs] More clout! You don't have to tell me. I was born in Massachusetts. You made a wise change of domicile, Gerry, and I wish you good luck in your campaign ... But wishes are a penny a peck, right? I want to help you in a concrete fashion as well. Not with money, because Shannon's got more than you need, but with people. I want you to accept the services of two of the finest political advisers in the country—Len Windham of Research/Market/Data, and Neville Garrett, whose agency handles media liaison for top people in both parties.

TREMBLAY
: Kier ... I don't know what to say!

O'CONNOR
: Just say yes. They'll send people up to Cambridge tomorrow to begin coordinating your campaign.

TREMBLAY
: Well, of course! My God, I never dreamed ... a conservative like you ... but
why!
It can't be because I'm your son-in-law. I'm not a fool ...

O'CONNOR
: Can't you read my mind, Gerry?

TREMBLAY
: No, sir! For a normal, you're one of the most opaque mentalities I've ever run across. And we operants don't read minds with the facility that normals credit us with. That's just one of the myths—the misunderstandings that have got to be cleared up if this antioperant hysteria isn't to balloon into a national tragedy.

O'CONNOR
: Exactly my own feeling. Partisan politics and fundamentalist bullshit shouldn't dictate national policy on an issue as sensitive as metapsychic operancy. Dammit—my own little girl is a
head\
I can't stand by while fanatical assholes call her and people like her freaks or servants of Satan! This is the United States of America, not some benighted camel-jockey theocracy run by ayatollahs! I was deeply disturbed by the antioperant position Baumgartner took in his last campaign and by his support of the Benson legislation. We can thank God that the Supreme Court tied a can to
that
piece of madness.

TREMBLAY
: But Senator Benson has been one of your protégés for years—

O'CONNOR
: No more, by Christ! Man's turned into some kind of religious nut in his old age. A senile Gray Eminence. I blame
him
for pushing the antioperant position on Baumgartner. I don't believe that the President sincerely espouses the vicious canards being circulated about you people. I think he's uninformed, and he's been influenced by bad advice.

TREMBLAY
: His antioperant stance helped win him the Millennial election. Whether Baumgartner acted out of conviction or from expediency—

O'CONNOR
: Yes, yes, I see what you're driving at. But what
I'm
trying to say is that Baumgartner's not a lost cause! Gerry, I don't believe Kennedy has a hope in hell of unseating the President this fall. We're going to have another four years of Baumgartner, for better or worse. But with you in the House of Representatives, you'll be in a legitimate position to counter the antioperants. Baumgartner's my friend. When I talk, he listens! I'll admit he hasn't been listening lately... but we have a good chance of changing that now that the Supreme Court has struck down the Benson Act. Baumgartner's no fool. He'll change if it seems politic to do so. Your job—our job!—is to upgrade the operant image so he'll be forced to repudiate the fanatics.

TREMBLAY
: And bring back the Brain Trust?

O'CONNOR
: Mm'mm... have to go slow on that, Gerry. The old Trust was dominated by academics who were totally out of touch with the prevailing mood of normal voters. There was an elitist smell to them that didn't sit well with the American psyche. It was ridiculous for Copeland to plump for Cabinet status for what was merely a presidential advisory commission. And downright suicidal for Ellen Morrison and those Stanford people to persist in lobbying for universal metapsychic testing when it was plain that the mind of the country was against it. Once the nuclear menace was out of the way, the Psi-Eye program began to seem more of a threat than a benefit.
You
know! An American equivalent of the KGB's Twentieth Directorate...

TREMBLAY
: When I'm elected, I'm going to push for programs that will use operants in ways clearly beneficial to the normal majority. No elite corps... no thought police... concentrate on
good
powers... how about redaction, f'rinstance? Psychic healing works! But wha'd'you hear about it? Nothing. EE got all the funding... yeah, and now
none
of the meta programs got funding... my field, coercivity... take delinquent kids and turn them around... funny... kind of dizzy...

O'CONNOR
: Are you feeling all right, Gerry? You look a bit pale.

TREMBLAY
: Maybe... maybe I'm coming down with a bug. Feel lightheaded.

O'CONNOR
: And I called you halfway across the country when you belong in bed! Gerry, you should have told me.

TREMBLAY
: Felt... felt all right this morning... funny ...

O'CONNOR
: Easy, my boy. Give me the glass. Good. Just relax. Close your eyes for a minute or two. Close your eyes. Rest. Rest, Gerry.

TREMBLAY
: Rest...

O'CONNOR
: Rest, Gerry. [Touches intercom.]

ARNOLD PAKKALA
: Yes, sir?

O'CONNOR
: Dr. Tremblay and I will be here for a while longer, Arnold. But there's no need for you and the rest of the staff to wait.

PAKKALA
: Whatever you say, sir.

O'CONNOR
: [after an interval] Gerry. Can you hear me? No?
Can you hear me now Gerry!

TREMBLAY
:
Yes.

O'CONNOR
:
Good. Relax Gerry. Relax with your eyes closed. I'm going to turn off the lights and then I want you to open your eyes and look at me. Do you understand!

TREMBLAY
:
Yes... God! The colors the colors singing purple and gold sungold bittersweet cloud the liquid depths the colors and the perfume and the ambrosia O God...

O'CONNOR
:
Fly away into it Gerry let me lift you fly away.

TREMBLAY
:
BeautifulbeautifulGodsowonderfulamazing... God! J'ai besoin de toi...

O'CONNOR
:
Of course you need me and I need you. Fly Gerry. Fly.

TREMBLAY
:
Who are you what are you don't leave me...

O'CONNOR
:
Je suis ton papa ta maman ton amour ton extase!

TREMBLAY
:
Extase!

O'CONNOR
:
Look closely at me. Beyond the colored light.

TREMBLAY
:
Bright too bright the light hurts my eyes Papa...

O'CONNOR
:
There my son close your poor pained eyes see how comforting the black. But I had to see all of you Gerry how special you are so much better than all the others the mind elaborated into full trained oprancy sensitive and subtle an educated mind a psychologist with professional insight into secrets hidden from small minds yes my son my beautiful one you'll understand I'll have so much to show you and it will bring joy to you as you serve.