The Mind Pool (38 page)

The encounter, Construct against Team Alpha, was beginning.

Mondrian watched everything, until the monitor no longer sent back any message.

After that he was silent and thoughtful for a long time. At last he went back to the record, and watched—three times over—the final few minutes of the transmission.

* * *

The call came while Luther Brachis was asleep. A tiny unit behind his right ear provided a soft but insistent summons. He grunted, lifted his head, and looked at the time. The middle of the night—and he had arrived home after the marathon session at the Sargasso Dump less than ten hours ago.

He swore, eased himself free, and slid quietly over to the edge of the bed.

Godiva gave a drowsy murmur of complaint. She slept like a child, deeply, peacefully, securely, snuggled against Brachis with one arm across his body. She usually fell asleep at once and claimed that she never had anything but pleasant dreams. Once she was asleep, Luther’s departure from her side was one of the few things that would produce any reaction at all.

He waited to make sure that she would not waken, staring down at her as he pulled on his uniform. As always, Godiva slept naked. The skin of her bare body was so fine and fair that it seemed to glow like a pink pearl in the faint light of the ceiling panels. Brachis cursed again as he left her and hurried through into the living room. Three in the morning! But the communication unit was already in message receiving mode.

“Commander Brachis?” said a weary voice, as soon as Luther touched the keys.

It was Mondrian. He might have known. “Here. This is a devil of a time to make a call.”

And if it were Mondrian, there had to be a good reason for it. Brachis was already straightening his uniform and pulling on his boots.

“I need to talk to you. At once.” The dry voice had a tone that Brachis did not recognize. “You look as tired as I feel. Come to Anabasis Headquarters. To Communications. Alone.”

The unit went dead. Brachis snorted. Alone! What did Mondrian expect, that he’d lead in a brigade of bagpipers? But he headed for the door with his boots stiil unstrapped. Mondrian would never add that unnecessary word unless the situation were truly abnormal.

The door to Anabasis Communications was locked. That was significant, too. Brachis banged his fist hard on the metal, taking some of his own irritation out on the panels. After a long delay and a clicking of tumblers the heavy plate slid open. Mondrian stood waiting. With one stiff movement he gestured Brachis to enter, and locked the door at once behind them.

Luther Brachis stared at him. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but I suggest you stop it. You look freeze-dried, like one of the things we pull out for identification after a major airlock failure.”

Mondrian did not smile, did not greet him. “Travancore,” he said.

“We lost the team?” Brachis was not too surprised. He had always thought that the first team in was likely to get wiped out. There was no substitute for experience, and the second or third team would have a much better chance.

“Worse than that.”

“Christ. The Construct is out and on the loose?”

“And worse than that.” Mondrian took the other man by the arm. His fingers bit into Brachis’s biceps. “There’s something terrifying on Travancore, fully operating and incredibly dangerous. I want you to watch this. Then we must talk.”

“I told you that the first team wouldn’t cut it when it came to blasting the Construct. They chickened out, didn’t they? Pipe-Rillas and Tinkers and goddamned Angels, no bunch of misfit aliens has the guts to do the job properly. Why not let
humans
handle it, that way there’s a chance of success.”

Mondrian paused in the middle of setting up a playback sequence. “You are wrong, Luther, quite wrong. But that is all irrelevant now. We have to blockade.”

“Travancore?”

“More than that. The whole Talitha system. The only thing that goes in is the next pursuit team.” The screen began to flicker with the preliminary rainbow fringes of a long-distance Mattin Link transmission. “And that’s just the beginning.
Nothing
comes out.”

“Esro, you’re out of your mind. Do you realize what it costs to blockade a stellar system?”

“I know exactly what it costs. It’s more than you think.”

“So why bother? There’s an easier way. I don’t care how tough that Construct is, it can be destroyed if we just pump in enough energy.”

“You’d have to sterilize half the planet.”

“So what? Sterilize the whole damned thing if we have to.”

“And who explains
that
to the Stellar Group ambassadors?”

“Easy. We blame the Construct. They’re scared out of their minds about it already. Do you think they’re going to question us?”

“I don’t know. I’m not going to find out. Sit down, Luther. I’m not going to argue with you now. I don’t have to, because you hate aliens a lot more than I ever will. Just watch what came in from Travancore—and then see if you don’t agree with me
completely
about the need for blockade.”

Chapter 29

Skrynol was ready to dim the lights when Mondrian stopped her.

“Not this time. If you don’t mind, I want to do something different.”

The lanky Pipe-Rilla clucked disapproval. “I do mind. The agenda is set by the Fropper, not the patient. And recently we have been making very slow progress.”

“Then one extra session won’t matter.” Mondrian had been carrying a narrow black tube, as long as his forearm. He handed it to Skrynol. “I also think this may be relevant to my problem.”

“A recording?” Skrynol glanced around the claustrophobic chamber for an open viewing space. “If it does not involve you, it has no value.”

“It is of me, and of one other. I want you to examine it, and tell me what he was thinking of as we talked. Also, I want to know what
I
was thinking.”

“Based on visual and aural inputs only? You are a supreme optimist, Commander Mondrian.” But Skrynol was already dimming the lights and setting the recorder to playback mode. To a Pipe-Rilla who was also a Fropper, the challenge was irresistible.

“I must watch this all the way through, Commander. In silence. During the second playing I will integrate my impressions and describe them to you. Before we begin, however, tell me something of the other party.”

“His name is Chancellor Vercingetorix Dalton. He was born and raised on Earth, but in unusual circumstances.”

As the image volume formed, Mondrian described Chan’s background, his odd history and training, and the successful Barchan Simmie hunt. He continued until the image space was completely defined, and Skrynol held up a fleshy forelimb.

“For the moment, that is enough. If I have questions, you can answer them after first viewing.”

She dimmed the lights, and a moment later Mondrian felt the soft touch of electrodes and needle sensors.

“With your permission,” said Skrynol’s voice in the darkness. “Your feelings as you watch may add much to what I can deduce from the recording.”

The projection record began. Esro Mondrian and Chan Dalton were facing diagonally across a table, with Chan apparently sitting in deep shadow. In fact, Mondrian had been at Anabasis Headquarters on Ceres, while Dalton was linking in from S’katlan, eighteen lightyears away.

Skrynol watched in silence for twenty minutes. At the end of the recording she sighed. “Ah, that rosy light. I recognize it. Sweet S’katlan, world of my dreams! To be there, to be home, instead of here.”

“I am sure Dalton would say exactly the same thing about Earth. Did you get anything?”

“Of course. Wait and see. Never fear, I will tell you what I observe . . . at the right moment.”

The recording began again.

Esro Mondrian was nodding his head to Chan Dalton. “Congratulations on a great effort on Barchan. You did it in record time, and you didn’t harm a single Shellback.”

(“There is already concealment,” said Skrynol. “On your part. You are thinking,
What a change in so short a time. Dalton grew up. But he is tense, taut as a Link-line. I must be careful!”
)

Mondrian, sitting in the dark, wondered at the wisdom of his decision to show the recording to Skrynol. His pretended interest in his own thoughts had been intended only to persuade Skrynol to offer her insights on Dalton’s thinking. Now it was too late to say that he had changed his mind.

Chan had been placed in a room designed by Mondrian. It was based on tens of thousands of psychological profiles. Humans unsure of themselves usually took the seat nearest the wall, or remained standing. Not Chan. He was sitting in the controlling seat, the chair from which his comments could be made most forcibly.

“Thank you,” he said. “But your congratulations should go to the whole team. It was a combined effort, and I give you thanks on behalf of all four members.”

(“He guards some secret—and he thinks,
‘Mondrian can see right through me. I think he knows about Barchan. But how can he?’
”)

Mondrian’s face on the recording was white and weary, and his eyes unnaturally bright. “I wish I had better news for you, Chan, after all your efforts on Barchan. But I’m afraid I don’t. I have to give you some very bad news.’ ”

(“Great fatigue! But that is obvious, without the services of a Fropper. You were thinking:
‘Dalton’s response is wrong. I tell him there is bad news.’ He tightens, then a second later he is relaxed again. ‘What’s on his mind? He has become unreadable. Who does he remind me of?’
I can of course answer that for you. Chan Dalton reminds you—and me—of Esro Mondrian. Now he is sub-vocalizing:
‘Mondrian can’t know. He wouldn’t put it that way if he did. Keep control. Remember what Tatty said.’—I feel your own emotional surge at that name—‘Work with him, but never let him get an edge. Or he will own you . . . Angel was right, as usual. No one knows—can know—what happened to the Simmie. Unless the whole thing was a set-up, and everything we did was watched.’ ”
)

On the recording, Chan was at last registering alarm. “Bad news about our team?”

“No. Bad news from Travancore.”

“What’s happening there?”

(“His focus has shifted. Now he is truly concerned, and not for discovery of some secret of his own.”)

“The planet has been placed in quarantine by the Anabasis,” Mondrian was speaking slowly, carefully. “I am sorry, but there is no way of making what I have to say less painful to you. The Morgan Construct on Travancore is even more dangerous than we realized. Team Alpha has been destroyed.”

(“He is losing self-control.”)

“Leah?—”

“Leah is dead. All the team members are dead.”

Chan shivered. He closed his eyes, leaned forward, and placed his hands on his face. “Tell me everything.”

(“And you have control of him—the control that you were seeking. But you are also afraid at this point of the recording. Fatigue is lessening your concentration, when it is most important to retain your dominance.”)

“I will tell you what I know.” Mondrian was speaking again. “It is not much. We obtained only limited information after Team Alpha descended to the planet. We know that they decided to explore the shafts that lead down through the vegetation to the true surface. We believe that they encountered
Nimrod—
the name they gave the Morgan Construct. It is not clear if that name is used by the Construct itself, or given to it by the pursuit team on Travancore. We suspect the former. We believe that the team, contrary to instructions, made the great mistake of attempting communications with the Construct after contact, rather than at once destroying it.”

(“Another reaction from Dalton. Your words have made him think of some action of his own. I cannot say what.”)

“That was a fatal mistake,” went on Mondrian. “Nimrod is supremely dangerous. The monitoring equipment on the orbital survey vessel obtained one brief sequence involving the Construct. After that there was nothing. No video, no audio, no telemetry of vital signs for any team member. The team members were . . . gone.”

(“You have lost him. He no longer listens to you. He is reacting to the earlier news, sub-vocalizing again:
‘Leah dead. Dead, dead, dead . . . they could not bear to kill the Construct, as we could not bear to kill the Simmie. It’s still living by Dreamsea. But this is different, Nimrod is more dangerous than the Simmie could ever be . . . Was it painless and quick, or slow agony? Did she think of me, ever, the way I think of her?’
Dalton doubts that his own team can ever destroy Nimrod, if Team Alpha failed. You talk to him still, but now he hardly listens.”)

“You did not know this,” Mondrian was continuing, “because we thought it might do you more harm than good. But now you must know. Livia Morgan had planned to build other capabilities into her later Constructs. She did it, we think, in Nimrod. That Construct can generate a field which disturbs the perception of wholly organic brains. It can induce images, thoughts, even words. The Construct itself is not affected.”

(“You are lying to him,” said Skrynol softly. “Even though you are exhausted. That I know, but I do not know why.”

“I was thinking something different, something that I did not want him to know. I was thinking, Luther Brachis is bull-headed, but he is right. He says, forget the idea of chasing the Construct. Lay waste the whole planet, the whole stellar system if we have to. Blame the Construct for it, and to hell with the worries of the Stellar Group.”

“No.” Skrynol had stopped the recording. “That may indeed be the view that Brachis holds, but it has little relevance to this. You were lying for other reasons. I will return to them later. For the moment . . .”)

The recording began again.

“What could the field do,” Chan was asking. “Make us unable to move, or unable to think?”

“Not in its original design. The field was supposed only to aid a Construct in escapingfrom danger, by inducing delusions in organic brains. A living creature would see things that were not there, or imagine situations not based in reality. It is a form of telepathy. While those false images endured, the Construct would move out of danger. But now we see Nimrod using it as an offensive weapon.”