INTERVENTION (91 page)

The mind-tone was wheedling, tempting: Don't be a fool my boy do you want your brother Denis to get away? And the other American operants the ones who will perfect MacGregor's aura-detector and use it to bring down you and your associates oh no oh no here they are together never again such a golden opportunity ... I've had my moment. Now I leave the rest to you.

"What is the rest?" Victor raged. "You bug-fucking old devil—what have you done?"

The mortal stench was now almost unbearable. Victor shrank away in the frigid darkness, braced himself against the tilted seats, heard the first rustle of sleet strike the coach's metal skin. He couldn't stay here any longer. His inside man at the chalet was supposed to have sabotaged the delegate transports. Could one of them be repaired? They could still make the hit and get out before—

His racing thoughts were interrupted by the old man's voice, suddenly strong again. "I thought I would be the agent of destruction. And then it seemed that you would be Her deputy. Now at the end I see the truth—that humanity will destroy itself without our impetus. Even these superior minds! We are all children of the Black Mother dam dham nam tam tham—"

The voice dwindled away to an exhaled breath. And then Kieran O'Connor's eyes flew open in thunderstruck surprise, and he screamed and died.

***

Denis Remillard gripped the lectern. He had to coerce them into silence, then plead with the ones who had left the main dining room to return.

He said: You
must not leave the chalet! The temperature has dropped below freezing and another storm front will be here any minute. Please! Come back to the dining room and we'll decide what's to be done...

Jamie MacGregor, wearing a borrowed parka, came striding through the disheveled banquet tables. "Every one of the fewkin' air-buses is out of commission. Someone got to 'em while the crews were eating in the lower lounge. Some of the handier delegates are outside trying to fix things, but it looks bloody hopeless. There are cars belonging to the chalet staff, but not nearly enough to evacuate all of us—even if we managed to get past those buggers who're on the way up ... Is help on the way?"

"Not from the police," Lucille said. She and most of the Coterie were gathered around the speakers' table. "The officers who had staked out the road on the Pinkham Notch side of the mountain were ambushed by the Sons. There's no way the police on the western side of the mountain can reach us without aircraft."

Denis said, "The President said he'd send an FBI special team—but it has to come all the way from Boston. The Governor's called out the National Guard. It will take two hours to mobilize."

"Bloody hell!" Jamie exploded. "Why don't they roust out the Marines or the Army Antiterrorist Unit?"

Lucille said, "Because this country doesn't handle riots that way."

The Scotsman snorted. "This is no riot, it's a soddin' siege—"

"Jamie, please." Denis's knuckles were white as he continued to grip the sides of the lectern.
We don't have much time. We must decide what we aie going to do.

Young Severin Remillard, unnoticed in the press of anxious adults, piped up: "The only thing is to keep on like before—like Uncle Rogi and that other guy said—and clobber the sonsabitches!"

Lucille took the boy firmly by the shoulder and turned him over to his older brothers.

The Coterie turned away, returning to their seats. Other delegates who had dashed up to the observation turret or to other parts of the mountaintop convention center returned to the dining room as Denis had requested. Some sat at the tables. Others stood around the perimeter of the huge room, their farsight probing the exterior darkness. The clouds had thickened again and freezing rain ticked against the thick glass in the western lobe. The corps of servers and the white-clad kitchen personnel, normals all, huddled in a separate group.

Presently, Denis spoke into the microphone: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have called for help, and it is on the way." There were murmurs and scattered applause from the normals; but the operants were under no illusions. "It now seems clear that there are at least two forces of domestic insurgents belonging to the antioperant Sons of Earth group advancing on this building. About sixty are coming from the two crashed X-wings on the western slope. More than a hundred more are on their way up the Carriage Road on the eastern side, traveling in light trucks and cars. The motorcade seems to be equipped with rifles, shotguns, and small arms. Many of them are under the influence of one thing or another. They can be characterized as a run-of-the-mill lynch mob—and aside from blocking our escape down that road, they offer a very minor threat to our safety."

A voice yelled: "Du gehst mir auf die Eier, Remillard, mit diesem Scheissdreck! Was können wir
tun?
"

"He's right! What
aie
we going to do?" another voice shouted.

"That other lot from the aircraft aren't minor! I pEEped automatic weapons and at least one grenade launcher—"

Again, unwillingly, Denis coerced them to silence.

"Please listen ... The airborne group
is
heavily armed. They have explosives with them as well as heavy weapons, and the only reason they aren't outside the chalet already is the sudden change in the weather ... and they've temporarily lost touch with their leader. For those of you who don't already know, that leader is my younger brother, Victor."

The room vibrated with a blast of wind. Some of the chalet workers were whispering among themselves.

Denis said, "The real instigator of the attack is a man named Kieran O'Connor. Many of you know him as a pillar of the multinational military-industrial complex. O'Connor—like my brother—is a powerful natural operant who has concealed his metafaculties and used them to his personal advantage. For years O'Connor has worked secretly to destroy the operant establishment—not only because we might expose him, but also because peace isn't profit-generating to his line of business. Our globalism threatens him, just as it has threatened fanatics and dictatorships all over the world ... just as it seems to threaten good people frightened of fellow human beings with higher mind-powers. And the normals
do
have good reason to be frightened, as long as operants such as Kieran O'Connor or my brother Victor exist."

A Chinese delegate, Zhao Kud-lin, exclaimed, "This is precisely why operants must be politically active—to ferret out and deal with such vermin!"

There were some murmurs of agreement. An anonymous mind-voice shouted!
Let's stop this palavering and whomp up another concert Denis! Come on pull us together again and let's start picking the deadheads off!

Denis said, "It was Kieran O'Connor—not I—who led some of you in the aggressive metaconcert that downed the attacking aircraft."

Sensation!

A woman delegate cried: "Then three cheers for Kieran Warbucks!"

"No! No!" others shouted in dismay. "Shame!"

Denis said, "Kieran O'Connor knows we're divided in our attitude toward psychic aggression. I don't believe that his primary intent is to trap and destroy us here. He really wants to discredit all operants everywhere in the eyes of the normals by forcing us to abandon our Ethic. Some of you who joined his metaconcert probably reacted instinctively against a perceived danger. Others ... did not. But we must all understand that we face the most critical choice of our lives here and now. We represent the operant leadership of the world. We will have to choose whether to adhere to the Ethic that has inspired us ever since our first meeting in Alma-Ata—or to do as certain of our fellow operants have already done: use our minds as weapons ... I say that if we do this, even in this situation of obvious self-defense, the normal people of the world will ultimately condemn us as inhuman, a race apart, a monstrous minority too dangerous to share the planet with."

The audience was still. Momentarily, the lights flickered. A few people cried out, then fell silent again as the illumination steadied.

"Make no mistake," Denis said quietly, "we could very easily die in support of our principles. But I believe there are two honorable courses open to us. The first is simply to wait for rescue, utilizing what passive defenses we can muster. The second is to unite in a very different form of grand metaconcert—not only embracing those of us here, but also every other operant that we can summon telepathically from all comers of the world,
and even the normals.
Yes! I believe that we must try to gather them under our aegis as well. The focus of our grand metaconcert must be our enemies, the enemies of peace and tolerance everywhere. But we won't try to destroy them or even to coerce them. We'll try to reach their hearts."

Out of the stunned hush, Jamie MacGregor's voice was imploring. "But could it work, lad? It's a brave notion—but could it possibly move them?"

Denis had lowered his head. "I don't know. I don't even know if we can put together this type of metaconcert. In aggression, mind-melding is easy. Mob rule! But this other kind ... demands that one surrender part of one's individual sovereignty to the whole, and to do so leaves the mind vulnerable. I myself find the idea of metaconcert frightening. Invasive. I've only conjoined with my wife, whom I love more than life, and with my uncle, who has acted as a father to me. I don't know whether I would be able to do it with all of you or not. There's a potential for damage—very serious damage—to the coordinator. But I've decided that I'm willing to try, if this group asks me to do so. If it choses to uphold the Ethic."

Denis lifted his eyes slowly and swept the room. "Of course, you're quite free to choose the other way. I know you'll want to think it over. But please don't take too long."

***

Victor had managed to rally most of his scattered force in the lee of the Gulf Tank, a landmark next to the upper section of the railway where the cog locomotives once took on water. Sleet coated the old wooden structure with glistening rime and whitened the rocks; but little of it stuck to the huddling men, who were dressed in electrically heated suits and helmets.

The most telepathically talented of the attackers had eavesdropped upon Denis's speech, and when it was over the aether clanged with their contemptuous laughter.

Victor shouted into the roaring wind, not caring who heard:
A prayer! That's what they want to zap us with boys! Not mental lasers or great balls of fire but a goddam prayer!

When all except a few stragglers had assembled, Victor got down to business. He projected a mental map pinpointing their location—some six hundred meters from the chalet as the crow flew, if one would have dared on such a vile night. The disabled transport aircraft that had carried the delegates up the mountain and the twenty or so vehicles belonging to the restaurant staff were in a sheltered bowl on the other side of the summit. One small squad of men would go around the north slope, secure the vehicles for the group's escape, and dispose of any persons in the vicinity. The five-man demolition crew, which Victor planned to lead himself, would advance on the western side of the chalet under cover-fire from the rest of the force.

"You guys get up two, three hundred meters from the building, and make like the Battle of Gettysburg. Never mind trying to hit anything. Just fire high and fire a lot so those heads don't have time to think about anything but their precious skins." Victor projected a farsight view of the western half of the building, which jutted shelflike above a small precipice and was supported by stout piers anchored in bedrock. If these were undermined, the entire structure would topple downhill into the vast gulf of Ammonoosuc Ravine.

"Once I'm certain the charges are placed right I'll activate the timers," Victor said. "And then I'm going to yell
go-go-go
over the helmet intercom, and telepathically too. You hear that, you haul ass for those cars. You'll have ten minutes from the shout. Whatever you do, don't mind-yak to each other—especially about the explosives! Remember these are heavy heads inside the building and they can use your thoughts to target you if they change their minds about doing a pray-in. Everybody understand?"

They muttered into their helmets. A few of the men, wearing older models with low wattage, were already having to scrape ice from the visors.

One querulous voice asked, "Vic—you
sure
we can get down the mountain with that other bunch coming up? Seems to me—"

Victor cut him off. "We got us a shit-trip. Nobody knows it better than me. But if push comes to shove we can walk off this rock-pile six different ways. Anybody starts wetting his pants better think hard about the one million cash he won't be getting if he screws up. I'm gonna come through this thing and so will you if you do what I told you. Now get going!"

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD

A
S I ROBBED
the body, I cursed my late adversary for being built like an ape instead of a proper beanpole.

This meant that his electric suit would have to be slit around the upper inseams and crotch in order to fit me—a mutilation that fortunately did not damage the thermal wiring—and the embarrassing fore and aft gaps filled in with a ludicrous loincloth rigged from my cut-up jacket. His high moon-boots closed the ankle gap nicely, however, and once I had turned up the suit's heat full blast, pulled on the warm gauntlets, and settled the helmet into place, I was no longer at imminent risk of death through exposure, an expedient that had seemed all too likely before I had encountered this straggling mercenary and chopped him across the back of the neck with a sharp wedge of granite.

I had managed to bash my head and bruise my left leg severely in my escape from the train. The injuries, together with the arduous scramble that had preceded my ambush of the mercenary, had reduced my mental faculties almost to zero. Not only was I dead beat and only slowly recovering from hypothermia, but I was emotionally torpid—certain that nothing I could do would be able to help the twenty-eight hundred operants trapped in the chalet above.