Mindbridge (22 page)

It took a minute for the doctor to pry her gently away.

It is 14 April 2035. Drs. Mary and Robert Lefavre sit in a well-appointed psychiatrist’s office in New York City. He is Dr. Chaim Weinberg, a child psychiatrist who specializes in the problems of gifted children.

Weinberg opens the slim folder on his desk. “Well, there’s no question that Jacques is a brilliant child.” He traces his finger along the top sheet. “His IQ is 188 on the Modified Stanford-Binet (181 on the acultural version); his reading ability is that of the average college junior. Thematic Apperception and vocational preference tests . . . reveal a creative and challenge seeking personality. He has as great a potential for success and happiness as I’ve ever seen in a child.” He looks at them expectantly.

Robert supplies his punctuation: “But.”

“Well, as you know, he doesn’t get along with the other children.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Mary says.

“Dr. Lefavre, if I didn’t put things mildly to parents, I’d run out of patients in short order.” They share an urbane chuckle at Dr. Weinberg’s situation.

“I’ve had two talks with Jacques now, with Jacques under hypnosis. He believes that all of his classmates are either close allies or bitter enemies. No one in between.”

“Is that so unusual?” Robert says. “I think I felt the same way at his age.”

“Only unusual in its intensity and absoluteness. Most children are at least mildly paranoid. In your boy’s case, though, he sees the situation exactly backward. I’ve interviewed his teachers and social worker: they say he has a few close friends, but all of the other children are afraid of him. His unpredictable outbursts of violent temper-“

“They gang up on him!” Robert says sharply.

“Well, he’s a head taller than any of them, and stronger.”

“You aren’t suggesting we move him up another year?” Mary says.

“No. The others are already a year or two ahead of him in . . . the puberty sweepstakes. But as I say, the others don’t really hate him. In an odd way, they respect him. He’ll help anyone with his homework, without being arrogant about it, and he doesn’t show off his intelligence in the classroom. You trained him in that.”

“I was in his shoes once,” Robert says.

“Yes, of course. But the net result of this is.. . well, in playground jargon, they say he has a diode loose. That affair with the animals last year didn’t help.”

“That was blown all out of proportion,” Robert says evenly. “Scientific curiosity. He thought he had anesthetized them.”

Weinberg squares the stack of paper in front of him and stares at it. Softly: “That’s not what he says under hypnosis.”

Jacque was dreaming that they had inserted a long needle into his brain. They screwed a syringe onto it and sucked out yellow fluid.

“Darling! Jacque! Wake up.” Carol was shaking him hard.

Jacque shook his head and patted her on the shoulder. “Nightmare.” The sheet was twisted around him, soaked. He worried at it but only made the situation worse; swore, and jerked, tearing the fabric.

“Here, let me.” Carol got off the cot and unwound him, from the feet up. “Poor helpless creature.” She slid into bed next to him. Held him.

“Look, if you want to do that, let’s switch sides. This one’s all clammy.”

“Okay.” She rolled over onto her cot and Jacque followed. “Are we alone?” he asked.

“Far as I know. Nobody’s come in since I woke up.” He started caressing her. “Look, that, that’s not necessary. I’ve been waiting for you for an hour.”

He laughed softly and eased himself onto her. “We can go an easier way,” she said. “Long day ahead of you.”

He answered with a first slow thrust. “Call this work?”

The door to the billet slammed open. Sampson’s voice came through the privacy screen: “You up, Lefavre?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Carol giggled into his chest.

“Well, the last bunch of VIP’s came in. They’re about two hundred klicks away and homing.”

“All right. Give me five minutes.”

“Ten!” Carol said: “Jackrabbit,” she whispered.

“I’ll be outside in the truck.”

It wasn’t much of a conference room: a dissection table covered with homespun, surrounded by folding chairs and stools. Nobody sat. Pacing around the room were six of the most important people in the world:

Hilda Svenbjorg, pale, thin, chain-smoking; a touch of blonde in her ruff of white hair. World Order Council Majority Leader (C., Westinghouse).

Jakob Tshombe, light chocolate skin, expressionless features more Caucasian than Negroid, standing patiently. World Order Council Minority Leader (L, Xerox).

Pacing were Bill (“Hawkeye”) Simmons, leader of the Union of Independent Scientists; Reza Mossadegh, Coordinator of the World Petroleum Cartel; Fyodor Lomakin, Premier of the Eastern Grain Bloc; and Chris Silverman, leader of the World Council of Churches and Western Pope (her eyebrows shaved California-style).

They were ignoring Jacque and the other three Tamers. Carol and Vivian and Gus were in their GPEM suits, acting as bodyguards. Jacque sat on a stool in the middle of the room, next to a bowl of water that held the bridge.

A hissing sound from outside: the last arrivals. Jacque and Bahadur went out to greet them.

Tethered to the floater were three man-sized canisters, like overgrown oil drums: static life-support units. You can’t put an untrained person (or a pregnant woman, past a couple of months) into a GPEM suit; these LSU’s could keep a person alive, if immobile, for several weeks in any environment.

With the help of the floater pilot, they unscrewed the tops of the canisters; three undignified dignitaries came out. They limped into the conference room and Bahadur addressed all nine.

“I don’t know how much time we have, so I’ll give a brief summation of what we know. Which isn’t much. Then answer questions.

“You know that the L’vrai are an ancient race, and that they can assume virtually any shape, evidently by an exercise of will-“

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Hawkeye Simmons muttered.

“You will see it, I believe.

“They appear to be telepathic with one another. Since the Sirius L’vrai are in possession of information that L’vrai on Achernar and Earth learned only months ago, then their telepathic messages must travel at greater speeds than that of light. Perhaps instantaneously.”

“Impossible by information theory,” Simmons said.

“How interesting. Their telepathy works only imperfectly with human beings; evidently they can read our minds only at some preconscious level.”

“Can you be sure of this?” Tshombe asked. “We will be at a considerable disadvantage in negotiating if our thoughts are open to him.”

“There is objective evidence of a sort. When the L’vrai first appeared in human form, they . . . their sexual parts were exaggerated in a way that suggested the totems of primitive peoples. And they were unblemished, handsome idealizations of the self-images of the people with whom they were in contact.

“I myself saw this L’vrai take the form of his communicant’s-“ nodding at Jacque-“father. Evidently to inspire trust. It was the image of his father when the Tamer was a small, vulnerable boy.

“The L’vrai, the one who spoke with us, only used the first person singular pronoun-even when referring to his entire race. This means either that the race literally has only one consciousness-“

“Patently—“

“-or that his syntax reflects a philosophy that subordinates the individual’s worth to the idea of his membership in some larger group, or his relationship to a spiritually higher-“

A golden snake slithered through the open door.

The blood drained from Simmons’s face.

Silverman crossed herself.

Mossadegh clutched his throat.

Svenbjorg put out her cigarette and Tshombe raised one eyebrow.

The serpent’s head weaved at their level for a few moments. Then it continued drifting toward Jacque. Its scales hissed on the rough concrete.

Musky smell of nervous sweat.

“Is it . . .” Silverman began.

“Is it what?” Bahadur said.

“Is it going to hurt him?”

“Not physically. I don’t think. If it does we know how to kill it.”

The L’vrai raised itself as if to strike, towering over Jacque. Jacque bared his teeth and started to rise.

Then the snake blurred and melted and reformed as a bent old man clad in a white toga. His face was full of benevolent wrinkles and he had only a few strands of white hair. He could have been any race: his skin was the color of age and his features the’ shape of a saint’s.

The illusion would have been perfect except that the toga showed a barely perceptible network of yellow veins.

It reached into the bowl and took out the bridge, then offered it to Jacque. Jacque touched it and snapped to his feet, galvanized, face and body rigid with pain. Then he slumped back onto the stool and began to speak.

“You are curious about me. Ask anything.”

Tshombe’s voice was flat and authoritative: “Why are you here? What do you want with us?”

“That depends on what you mean by ‘here.’ I am in this region of space because I am expanding my sphere of influence, as you are. I am in this room for your convenience. To explain your situation.”

“And what do you mean by ‘I’?” Svenbjorg said. “Is there only one of you, or many?”

“In your sense there are many, there are billions. But really there is only one. Only L’vrai.”

“Which brings us back to where we started,” Bahadur said. “Do you mean this in a literal sense? If we killed half your billions you would not be diminished?”

“Only in the potential for exploring and manipulating the volume of space that surrounds me. If only one of me was left it would still be completely me, L’vrai.

“This could be true of humans as well. In a sense, it is true. You blind yourselves to it.”

“Theology,” Hawkeye Simmons muttered.

“No,” the L’vrai said, “it’s a simple fact. I am many but I am one. All identical.”

“What you mean is that you’re clones. All stamped out of the same mold.”

Jacque was silent while the creature searched his brain for the term. “In no sense. I am only one and have always been only one. Only L’vrai.”

“Each of your parts is aware of every other one?” Svenbjorg asked. “They act with common purpose?”

“You are asking the same question over and over. The answer, again, is ‘yes.’ Please ask something-“

“He could well be lying,” Mossadegh said.

“There would be no reason for it. I have absolute power over you. The ones in this room and the billions on Earth as well. And on the other planets, if they were worth destroying.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tshombe said. “From this room you can-“

“Did you listen to me? I am not only in this room.”

“Even so-“

“I will explain in detail, then. Yes, I could kill all or most of you in this room by creating what this one calls a ‘feedback’ condition in your brains. This body of mine would also die.

“Killing your other billions will take longer. That’s what the ships at the near blue star . . . Sirius, are for. With a relatively simple maneuver they can upset the harmony of forces inside your sun, and make it explode.”

“Why?” Silverman broke the silence, her voice quavering. “Why in the holy name of God would you want to do that?”

“Is that a serious question?” No one replied. “It seems so obvious. You are expanding through my volume of space. I must either destroy you or arrive at a compromise as to. . . the use of this region.”

“That’s why you’re here, then?” Simmons said. “To negotiate over who gets what?”

“You do not listen either. As I said, I am here to explain your situation. There will be no negotiating.” It paused. “Would you negotiate with an ant over the rights to a piece of sugar? The rights to your house?”

“You called this meeting to gloat, then?” Simmons was almost shouting. “Why not just sneak up and blow us to hell without any warning?”

The L’vrai smiled. “That might have been the most humane course.”

“Humane,” Silverman scoffed. “You enjoy killing people. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen the cubes. You just want to prolong-“

Jacque made a noise between a laugh and a death rattle. “You poor . . . ignorant creatures. I should explain-have explained.

“I did enjoy, yes, killing those people. Insofar as it was my duty to them.” He waited for them to quiet down. “Exactly that, my duty.

“I am an ethical and . . . the closest you say is ‘courteous’ . . . organism. My first act when I meet a new organism is to do what it expects me to do. As well as I can divine its wishes.”

“I can not believe this,” said Chin (L., Bellcomm). “These people, you claim, wanted you to kill them?”