The Golden Torc

by Julian May

  "Those things are vicious, Mother," Imidol said. "They'll go for your eyes if they catch even a hint of threat. We should never have allowed them out of the aviary."

  "But I love them," the Queen said, laughing as she tossed away the drained flower. "And they know it. They would never try to hurt me." This morning she was wearing a soft blue robe. Her flame-colored hair was bound into a braided diadem.

  "You're too trusting," Culluket said. And there it was, the opening wedge the other two had been waiting for.

  Imidol, the youngest and most aggressive, rushed in with all the natural force of the metacoercive. "Even creatures that appear to be harmless can be dangerous. Consider human women! When they're cornered, when they're confronted with multiple psychic shocks, they may strike out rather than subside into the complaisant mode we've come to expect from them."

  "This new operant one could be a serious menace," Riganone cautioned.

  Culluket took his mother's arm as they came to a wide flight of rustic steps that led to a grassy area fully enclosed by flowering shrubs. A small marble pavilion stood in the center of the lawn.

  "Let's sit here for a moment, Mother. We must speak of this. It can't be postponed."

  "I suppose not." Nontusvel sighed. Culluket was smiling his reassurance and she radiated affection in return. Of these three grown children, he resembled her the most physically, having the same wide-set sapphire eyes and high brow. But in spite of his beauty and his great redactive skill, members of the Host rarely sought him out for the healing, even though he was their brother. Was it true, what the others said, that Culluket was too zealous in his scrutiny of pain?

  Nontusvel said, "Surely we have the resources among the Host to control this Elizabeth—for all her torcless power. When she sees more of our ways, she will surely unite with us. It's only reasonable."

  O Mother misapprehend! Woe.

  Screen up Cull? Listeners!

  Upfast. Imi shunt those gardeners away. Riga show her.

  "You mustn't whisper behind my mind," the Queen chided them. "This mental jumble—! I taught you better, dear ones. Now, an orderly disquisition, if you please."

  Riganone the farsensor rose from the marble bench and paced back and forth, tall and mauve, without meeting her mother's mind in the intimate mode.

  "Early this morning, as I had planned, I observed the awakening of the woman Elizabeth. I knew that her screens would be misty in half-sleep and hoped that I would be able to penetrate her deeply and without trace during the few moments that she was vulnerable. I undertook the task, rather than Culluket, because my combination of farsensing and redactive faculties is perhaps most congruous to Elizabeth's own, and thus least likely to be detected by her ... I believe that I succeeded. I observed her reactions to the events that took place at the supper last night, as well as her later response to the removal of her hot-air balloon and other survival gear from her chambers. As to the first: She views our simple culture with condescension and disdain. She finds our manners barbarous, our mental patterns adolescent, and our sexual mores incompatible with the ritual monogamy and sublimation fostered among the metapsychic elite of her Milieu. She despises us. She will never willingly integrate. She rejects and abominates the role of royal consort. There was something deep within her motivation that I was unable to con, but the fact of her resolution was clear and immutable. She will never submit to the new genetic scheme hatched by Gomnol. As to our abstraction of her escape gear—she still hopes to flee from Muriah in some manner and become a Lowlife."

  Reliefgratification! "But, my dears! We couldn't ask for a better outcome! My greatest anxiety was that she should aspire to be queen." And I ... come at last to share the fate of Boanda and Anéar-la.

  Never! cried the three sibling minds.

  The Queen expanded to embrace them: Dearest children flowers of my Host.

  Culluket said aloud, "Nevertheless, we mustn't delude ourselves. Even without ambition, Elizabeth menaces our dynasty. I have been farspeaking to Nodonn in Goriah and he agrees. As matters now stand, our noble brother is the obvious heir to the Thagdal even in spite of his flaw—and we shall amplify our power beneath Nodonn's aegis. But we could not hope to prevail against a line of operant metapsychics of the type that Elizabeth and the Thagdal would engender. You can be sure that Gomnol is quite aware of this."

  The redactor projected two genetic diagrams. "The first shows the offspring if Elizabeth is homozygous. Greg-Donnet says that metapsychic operancy is an autosomal dominant with full penetrance."

  "All of the children would be operant!" Nontusvel exclaimed in dismay.

  Culluket continued. "The second diagram assumes Elizabeth has only a single allele for operancy. Half the offspring would then be operant. Inbreed the operants of the first generation, and the next yields three operants out of four. Continue the consanguineous matings, and you have a rival host of torcless metapsychics ready to oppose us in the third generation!"

  Riganone's mind queried: Incest?

  Culluket showed his sister a bleak smile. "The scheme is Gomnol's. He is hardly one to scruple at our Tanu taboos. And the Thagdal grows old and ever more subject to the filthy Coercer Lord's human wiles."

  The four minds paused to reprise the old infamy. A human upstart as President of the Coercer Guild! Poor old Leyr hadn't had a chance against him.

  "A good thing the wretch is sterile." Young Imidol's hatred was vividly displayed. "Gomnol would go for Elizabeth himself! Defiler of our sacred blue and gold!"

  We depart from the immediate matter Brother.

  "Culluket is right," said the Queen. "But what are we to do with Elizabeth?"

  Visions: A red balloon soaring eastward from Aven, over the Deep Lagoon to the long isle of Kersic ... A sailing craft manned by Highjohn, or even by the woman herself, fleeing south to Africa ... A furtive figure in a red jumpsuit making its way westward on foot along the high spine of the Aven Peninsula, guided by ramas into the wilderness of Iberia...

  Consequents: The balloon swiftly spied out and pursued by flying psychokinetics loyal to the King rather than to the Host. The escaping boat retrieved with even greater ease by the same PK adepts, the sails of their cutters filled by mind-conjured gales. The woman fleeing on foot presenting a knottier problem—but how far could she go with the entire countryside aroused, and four hundred kilometers to travel before reaching the mainland of Spain? She would have to skirt the large city of Afaliah at the peninsula's base, escape its Hunt and plantation security forces. Still, if she did reach the Catalan Wilderness...

  "She would be out of the Thagdal's reach and out of ours," Culluket said, "but subject to capture by the Firvulag or even the heretic Minanonn. And this last, I submit, would be an even greater calamity than the one facing us now."

  The Queen's kindly heart shrank from the next question. "What is the solution, then?"

  "She must be put to death," said Imidol. "It is the only way. And not only her mind but her body destroyed, so there is no hope of Gomnol utilizing her ova in his obscene contraptions."

  Little olive-and-black finches warbled in the lemon trees. The breeze from the Mount of Heroes above Muriah was dying now and it was getting very hot. The Queen extended a ringed finger toward a tiny spider that was lowering itself from the rafters of the pavilion. Its web floated as in an unfelt wind, bringing the creature to a landing on Nontusvel's fingernail. She watched it stand there, combing the air with its front legs, its sparky predator's mind sniffing.

  "It may not be easy," she said. "We know little of the offensive capability of such a one. If we sent her far away, she would not desire to return. She would be grateful to us rather than perhaps doing us great harm."

  The spider began a wary descent from the Queen's finger. She sent it sailing safely to the branch of a remontant shrub rose. Eat the aphis, little hunterkiller, so that the roses may thrive.

  Culluket said, "Elizabeth is strong only in farsensing and redaction. Her other metafaculties are negligi
ble. She cannot spin concrete illusions nor conjure up psychoenergies. She has a small PK factor but it is useless for self-defense or aggression. There is no coercive power per se—but the redact is developed to a formidable degree."

  Imidol sent an ironic thrust at his brother. "And you, if anyone, Interrogator, should know the potential for mischief in a corruption of the mindhealing power."

  Imi we have no time for pettypushies! Aloud, Riganone said, "The Galactic Milieu placed limitations on masterclass metas after the time of their rebellion. There is not only an ethical restraint but also an imposed superego block, which I saw very clearly during my probing. Elizabeth cannot harm a sentient being except in the gravest defense of her fellow humans."

  Digestivemindpause.

  "A nice point," Culluket mused. "If we had sufficient time ... a compulsion to self-destruction would be effective. Do you agree, Farspeaking Sister?"

  "Her emotional tone was deep gray," Riganone agreed. "She feels she is alone. Bereft."

  And so she is, came the Queen's soft motherthought.

  Imidol said, briskly, "Cull and I will design a suitable compulsion. We'll plan a coordinate thrust powered by the one hundred and nine members of the Host who are presently here in Muriah. If this isn't strong enough, we'll try again at Grand Combat time when the rest get here."

  "We can't count on compulsions alone," Culluket said. "I'll try to work out some other options. And when Nodonn arrives, he may think of some better means of dealing with her."

  "The Thagdal must never know!" the Queen warned them.

  Nor Gomnol, Culluket's mind added.

  "We have time for maneuvering," Riganone said. "Remember that Elizabeth must go to Brede first for the initiation, and that will take some time. Not even the King would dare to interfere with an initiate—or with Brede."

  The enigmatic image of the Shipspouse hovered in all their minds. The guard and. guide of their Exile, older than the oldest of them, some said she was the most powerful of them all and few would doubt that she was the wisest. But Brede rarely intervened directly in the affairs of the High Kingdom on Earth. It had been a shock to the entire company when the King announced that Elizabeth would become the Shipspouse's initiate.

  "Brede!" Imidol exuded the contempt of the younger generation for venerable mysteries. "She has no allegiance to any faction. Still—Elizabeth is such a patent danger to us all, that perhaps if we appealed to the Shipspouse—"

  Riganone laughed without mirth. "Do you really believe that Brede doesn't know? She sees everything, hiding away in her room without doors! She very likely ordered the Thagdal to send the human woman to her!"

  "Damn Brede," said Culluket in vicious dismissal. "Let the Two-Faced One have Elizabeth for the time of initiation. What can she do? We'll get the human bitch somehow when the Shipspouse finishes with her. Elizabeth will never become queen-dam in your place, Mother."

  Never, never, vowed the other two.

  "Poor woman." The Queen arose and went out of the pavilion. It was time to seek the cool inner rooms of the palace. "I feel so sorry for her. If only there were another way."

  "There isn't," said Imidol. Dauntless in his coercer's blue and gold, he offered Nontusvel his arm. The four of them went off down the garden path.

  Back in the rose bush, the little spider was busy sucking the life juices from an aphis. When the finch swooped down on him, it was too late to duck.

  5

  "NOT SILVER...of course not silver, Bryan. Gold!"

  Ogmol's high voice, incongruous in one of such heroic physique, was loud enough to carry over the normal clatter and buzz of the marketplace and cause shoppers and sellers to stare at him. There weren't that many Tanu wandering among the stalls anyway, and no males that Bryan could see. Here and there a willowy exotic lady, attended by a retinue of grays and ramas to carry the packages and hold the sunshade, bent over the offerings of an itinerant human jeweler, glassblower, or some other cottage artisan. There were a few silver-torcs among the browsers; but most of those who moved about the open plaza seemed to be torcless human householders or grays in the livery of the great houses, out to purchase fresh produce for the kitchen, flowers, live birds or animals, or other items not generally available in the many small shops that lined the perimeter of the Square of Commerce.

  "I've been over this with Creyn," Bryan said patiently. "No torc for me." He stopped to examine a table crowded with a jumble of oddly assorted twenty-second-century artifacts; canteens, half-empty jars of cosmetics, tattered page-books, worn articles of clothing, broken musical instruments, defunct chronometers and voicewriters, a few common decamole appliances and vitredur tools.

  "It would help you in your work," Ogmol insisted. He took belated notice of the flea market wares Bryan was looking at. "These things—the usual castoffs. The more unusual and valuable items from your era may be disposed of only through licensed dealers. But there is a black market, of course."

  "Mm," said Bryan, moving on.

  Ogmol returned to the previous tack. "There are no coercive or dispositive circuits of any kind in a golden torc. In your case, since you have no significant latencies, the torc would merely enhance your telepathic ability—the metapsychic power every human has—and allow you to mindspeak with us. Think of the time we'd save! Consider the semantic advantage! You wouldn't miss a single nuance of your cultural immersion. The scope of your analysis would be broader, less prone to subjective error—"

  A vendor in a straw sombrero grinned and waved a skewer of small, freshly roasted birds. "Barbecued larks, Exalted Lords? My own Texas-style chili sauce!"

  "Popcorn," croaked a withered old woman in the stall next door. "New crop tetraploid. One kernel a snack in itself."

  "Only a few Perigord truffles left today, Lord."

  "Attar of roses! Orange-water to cool your temples! Just for you, Lord—a rare flagon of 4711!"

  Ogmol grimaced. "It's a fake. They ought to do something about these fellows ... But as I was saying, with a torc—"

  "The only working conditions I'll accept are those affording complete freedom." Bryan kept his good humor. Ogmol made a gesture of resignation and led the way to a building on the shady side of the square. A sign designated it BAKERY-KLEINFUSS-CAFÉ.

  The crowd of shoppers parted respectfully before them. Tables were set on a flower-decked terrace fronting the bakery. A rama in a red-and-white checked tabard came trotting up, bowed, and took them to a table, where Ogmol collapsed in a wicker chair.

  "This walking in the heat of the day! I hope we can engage in less strenuous researches for a while, Bryan. I'm still a bit hung-over from the party last night. I don't know how you manage to look so bright."

  The rama swiftly produced two cups of coffee and a large tray of pastries. Bryan chose one.

  "Why, there's a pill. Our race had to wait a long time, but we finally developed an instant cure for overindulgence just in the last year or so. Tiny little pills. I packed a good number in my rucksack. A pity I didn't think to bring them this morning."

  "There!" moaned Ogmol. "The very thing I mean. If you wore a torc, you'd know how I was suffering without my having to tell you in so many words." He downed his coffee in a long gulp and the rama refilled the cup. "And you'd be able to make your wishes known to the ramas as well. See? That little chap almost warmed up your cup before you were ready for it—but he'd never do that with me. You can't do much verbal communication with ramas, you know. Just 'come' and go,' that kind of thing. Persons without torcs have to use sign language with the little apes—and that can be very awkward for all but the simplest commands."

  Bryan only nodded, eating his pastry. It was delicious, evoking Vienna's best. Small wonder that the interior of the Bakery Kleinfuss was crowded with take-out customers. "As I understand it, the golden torc can't be removed once it's in place. And I also have learned that some personalities become seriously disturbed through wearing the thing. You can understand why I don't want to risk my sanity, Ogmol.
There's no reason why my torcless status should limit my researches. I was a competent worker in the Milieu without metafaculties, and so were most of my colleagues. All that's necessary for a valid analysis is dependable source material."

  The Tanu's eyes shifted. "Well, yes. We'll try our very best to obtain that for you. My Awesome Father has given explicit orders."

  Bryan tried to be tactful. "Some of my investigations are bound to touch raw nerves. I can't help it in a study such as this. Even my superficial observations have begun to reveal a pattern of profound stress resulting from the impact of human and Tanu cultures."

  "The very thing my Father wishes to evaluate, Bryan. But the researches could be done so much more—gracefully on the mental level. Words are so dense." He downed another cup of coffee, squeezed his eyes closed, and pressed the fingertips of both hands to his golden torc. Many of the exotic men had faces of transcendent beauty; but Ogmol's was refreshingly unhandsome. His nose had a knot at the bridge, and his lips, between the short-cropped beard resembling tawny plush, were too thick and red. He resembled the King only in his deepset, jade-colored eyes—now lamentably blood-webbed. For the sake of coolness he was attired in a short sleeveless robe of cyan-blue and silver, symbolic of the Guild of Creators. His arms and legs were furred with wiry tan hair.

  "No use trying to psych the miseries away." Ogmol tapped his knuckles against his brow. "Plum brandy will have its revenge. You will let me have a pill or two for future use, won't you, old man?"

  "Of course. And I'll try to be as judicious as possible in my investigations. It might take a little longer that way, but we'll get on."

  "Feel free to be as direct as you please with me." Ogmol gave a rueful chuckle. "My sensibilities are quite expendable."