INTERVENTION

by May, Julian; Dikty, Ted

  "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.

  15

  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 equivalen
t 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.

  TREMBLAY: Papa why are you black now!

  O'CONNOR: The Absolute is black and I reside there. When there was neither sun nor moon nor earth nor planets nor starry universe there was the dark and in it was calm and an end and there will be again.

  TREMBLAY: Black the deep black the inaccessible black from which all things come and to which they go ...

  O'CONNOR: Yes! Clever son beautifulbrained son to see in the dark the form of the Formless the meaning of the enigma yes yes the source of life is death and all light finds its end in deep night in the negation of the Absolute.

  TREMBLAY: God!

  O'CONNOR: He is light we reject him and his burning.

  TREMBLAY: No no no LIGHT CREATION LIFE GROWTH DIFFERENTIATION COMPLEXIFICATION MENTATION COADUNATION UNITY LIGHT...

  O'CONNOR: A sham a joke a cruel hoax they lead only to pain. Creation groans! He is a God of pain we are born in it live in it die in it he wills it for all his creatures for all growth is pain inescapable. But there is a secret way I know a way I share with my beloved ones in a great antithesis! We do not create we destroy the dark is our birthright our Black Mother whose belly is a void that takes us in... dam dham nam tam tham dam dham nam pam pham... to consummation.

  TREMBLAY: Papa Papa I don't understand I'm afraid of the dark!

  O'CONNOR: Darkness is fearful only when viewed by the fleeing turn around accept it embrace it know it love it.

  TREMBLAY: But how!

  O'CONNOR: Make your own darkness behind closed eyes follow me along the Left-Hand Path an old neglected way but one that annihilates the corrupting Light the painful Light follow me into the Black and together we will know a moment of ineffable beauty the one perfect and final joy: leading all into the void.

  TREMBLAY: I understand. It's true. I'm tired of pain. Show me. Papa show me...

  O'CONNOR: Come.

  ***

  O'CONNOR: ...Gerry? Can you hear me, boy? Gerry?

  TREMBLAY: God. Kier? What happened. Jesus, did I pass out?

  O'CONNOR: Seems like it. How do you feel now?

  TREMBLAY: A little woozy. But I think I'm okay. Dammit, there's this flu thing going around back East...

  O'CONNOR: I'm going to take you out to the house and we'll have Doc Presteigne check you out.

  TREMBLAY: Listen, I'm feeling okay. Really!... Now, this lobbying you wanted me to do on President Baumgartner. You realize that a freshman Congressman's influence on a President of the opposition party is going to be just about nil—

  O'CONNOR: Not so. He's going to like you, Gerry. And listen to you! He will do as you want as I want just as you will...

  TREMBLAY: You want me to coerce him.

  O'CONNOR: That's an ugly word. Persuade him!...And the message you'll be getting across is a very important one. We were discussing it just before you dozed off on me, boy. Do you remember? We want Baumgartner to keep pressing for antioperant legislation. The Benson Act is dead, but we can lobby for other laws that will be in our best interests. Laws restricting operants. Who is in a better position to warn the country about operancy's dangers than you, Gerry? You've seen them conspiring to take power... You know what mischief ambitious or evil-minded heads are capable of.... Don't you Gerry? Don't you!

  TREMBLAY: Yes.

  O'CONNOR: President Baumgartner has begun to get soft. We put him in the White House and now that he's a shoo-in for a second term the bastard's forgotten who his friends are! His mind is normal, but he's a tough nut, Gerry. He was an astronaut and a corporation president, you know. Nobody's patsy.

  TREMBLAY: Your other people can no longer handle him...

  O'CONNOR: So you're going to work on him. Subtly. Using posthypnotic suggestion and subliminal hints most of the time and saving direct coercion for critical situations. He must never have the remotest notion of what you're up to. You'll have to be artful in the presentation of your public persona as well. On the face of it, you'll be a liberal Democrat championing the rights of operant metapsychics and other minorities.

  TREMBLAY: Yes.

  O'CONNOR: You see my overall plan, don't you Gerry! The Tightness of it the brilliance the inevitability!

  TREMBLAY: Yes yes oui oui mon cher Papa...

  O'CONNOR: Fine! Now let's get our coats. The rush-hour traffic on the East-West Freeway should be past now, and we'll have an easy trip out to the house. [Touches office-garage key-pad.] Frankie? You want to bring the Bentley around? Thanks a lot.

  16

  WASHINGTON, DC, EARTH

  20 JANUARY 2005

  WITH HER WAY cleared by the Secret Service bodyguard, Nell Baumgartner rushed into the Capitol Rotunda. To be late for her husband's second inauguration! Oh, please, God, she begged. Not that... And the news! How would Lloyd react? Should she tell him now or wait until after the swearing-in ceremony?