Armand didn't twitch. "Myself, my wife, and a strong taste for privacy."
The greeters erupted unanimously into laughter.
"Privacy's something you have to buy around here, friend. In case you hadn't noticed, this is a busy little strip of land. You didn't expect to just wheel in here with a pretty gal, a working motorbike, and a couple of saddlebags full of good stuff, put down stakes wherever you pleased, and not have to pay rent, did you?"
"That's exactly what I expected."
The man's smile took on an ugly edge. "Then you expected wrong." He waved his companions forward.
None of them took a second step. All fell to the ground screaming in agony, clutching at their groins as if needles had been rammed through them. Two attempted to rise, only to scream still more loudly and fall completely prone. Teresza gasped. Their leader stared down at them, dumbfounded.
Armand smiled pleasantly. "You were saying?"
"How did you do that?"
"Do what?" Armand said. "Replace your side boys with crippled ringers? I haven't been in town that long."
The leader pulled out a needlegun. Armand raised a single eyebrow.
"You really as tough as you think, kid?"
Armand shook his head. "Probably tougher. Go ahead, shoot me, so we can finish our business."
The ruffian's eyes went wide. He swiftly surveyed his henchmen. None appeared ready to rise.
Armand sauntered toward him. "Are you going to fire that thing or not?"
Teresza's pulse accelerated to a drumroll cadence. The ruffian pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. No projectiles issued forth. Armand stood eye to eye with the ruffian, looking for all the world as if he'd expected nothing else.
The ruffian stood frozen in place, staring at his weapon and crushing its trigger as if he could compel it to fire by sheer cruelty of grip. Armand plucked it from his hand and tossed it aside.
"Got any more arguments to offer, or do you understand my position now?" Armand said. He waved at the hovels beyond. "I'm betting that a few of those are unoccupied, and that you would know which ones. Tell you what: if you'd kindly show us to the soundest of them, I'll do something nice for you."
"What?" the man whispered.
Armand seemed to swell in size.
"I'll let you live. Even though you were about to kill me, steal my possessions, and no doubt gang-rape my wife, I'll let you live." Armand looked briefly back over his shoulder. "I'm still making up my mind about them, though. Maybe you'd better be extra nice, find us some firewood and blankets, too. It would really improve my opinion of you. Got that?"
For several heartbeats the silence was broken only by the moans from the four men still writhing on the ground.
"You can't sleep with one eye open," the ruffian murmured.
Armand grinned. "And you know this...how?" His eyes flicked westward, at the disk of the setting sun. "Light's fading. Hadn't you better get moving?"
The ruffian turned and headed toward the hovels.
***
Mandeville felt Dmitri Ianushkevich's eyes as a weight upon him.
"You didn't abuse your influence over her in some way, did you, Ethan?"
Mandeville shook his head.
"Well," the parapsychologist said, "it might have been the hormones. No reflection on your attractions, Ethan," he added quickly. "Still, this poses us with a problem we haven't faced before." He rose and went to peer out Mandeville's narrow window at the campus below.
"How, Dmitri?"
Ianushkevich glanced back over his shoulder and grinned. "Does my given name come somewhat easier to you lately? Don't give it a second thought. I'm glad." He sat once again in Mandeville's guest chair and regarded the graduate student with a look that combined compassion and calculation.
If there's another surprise coming, I'm not sure I want to hear it.
"You will outlive her, you know."
Mandeville nodded. "She knows it too."
"She's a brave girl. Braver than I gave her credit for, at first," Ianushkevich said. "But what of you? Are you willing to be her companion these next fifty years? Have you considered what you'll have to give up?"
It will be halfway between the fulfillment of my dearest fantasy and fifty years in hell. "Yes, I have. She's special in more ways than one, Dmitri. She doesn't deserve to be alone. I...I want to do this. For both of us, and for the good of Hope."
Ianushkevich leaned forward and dropped his voice. "And what about your family ambitions? You do want children, don't you?"
Mandeville looked away.
More than I could say. But no child of mine will be forced to choose between being imprisoned underground and living without his parents.
"I did," he said. "And I do. But that will have to wait."
Ianushkevich's face was as grave as death. "For Victoria's term as Goddess of Hope to run its course?"
Mandeville's jaw tightened. "Did you have to say it out loud? It's hard enough just to think it. Why was --"
"Because you're in love with her, Ethan. I've lived more than six centuries. I know what it looks like." The parapsychologist's tone hardened. "There will be no cure for the terminal deterioration. In half a century at most, she'll go insane and die. Are you certain you'll be able to face it?"
"I am certain of this," Mandeville ground out. "She's courageous, and bright, and more capable than any God you've ever spoken of. She's beautiful, and affectionate, and she does not deserve to be alone. She will spend the rest of her life underground, holding our whole world in her hands. For whatever it's worth, I will be there with her. Do I need more certainties than those?"
Ianushkevich's eyes rested on his for a long time. He met them unflinching. Presently the parapsychologist said, "Have you been valved?"
"Uh, no."
Ianushkevich rose. "Come with me."
Mandeville followed him out of the little office and down the hall. "What for?"
"You're getting one right now."
"Is it that urgent?"
"It is."
"Ah."
Chapter 23
When the end came for Tellus, the twenty-fourth God of Hope who had once been Jean D'Avenire, it was mostly a relief, despite its violence.
Ianushkevich was at the monitors, a post he'd manned by himself for nearly three months. Tellus had lain rigid and unmoving for days. His stillness was so complete that except for the medical transducers that stippled his body, which continuously reported his vitals to a screen at Ianushkevich's left hand, the parapsychologist would not have believed that he still lived.
Tellus's last crisis came without preliminaries. His arms rose from his sides as if moved by a force other than his will. They stretched out above and behind him, pulled tighter than a man's flesh was ever supposed to be. Ianushkevich rose to his feet.
Tellus's legs had splayed wide, apparently under a similar tension. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain that recalled the stories Ianushkevich had read of the Earthly torture known as the rack.
On the medical monitors, the graphs that reported Tellus's pulse, blood pressure, blood conductivity, alpha and theta waves were jumping crazily about. Every trace was festooned with spikes too large to be fully displayed. Tellus's whole physiology was caught in oscillations beyond human comprehension.
Ianushkevich ran to the cipher-locked vault door and keyed in the combination with trembling fingers. He slipped around the door as soon as it was open enough to pass his gaunt frame and ran to Tellus's side.
Tellus was still stretched taut, as if teams of horses had been yoked to his extremities and whipped into flight. His face, which had displayed no animation for weeks, was twisted into a mask of horror.
Sounds of tearing came from his shoulders and hips. Lines of red seeped through his gilded tunic at every major joint and just below his navel. Ianushkevich stepped back.
As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Tellus's body relaxed. His eyes glazed over and his face became
slack. The rising and falling of his chest ceased. From the monitoring chamber came the sharp whine of the crisis alarm.
Ianushkevich pressed the call button on his pager.
Seconds later Magnusson, Petrus, and Mandeville stood beside him, all staring down at the fallen God of Hope. For a long time no one spoke.
At last Magnusson murmured, "He was the strongest of them."
Petrus looked sideways at him. "What about Cleo Thyssan?"
"Not his powers," Mandeville said.
Petrus fell silent again.
"We owe him," Magnusson said.
Ianushkevich looked up and found his centuries-long friend and colleague staring directly at him.
"That we do," he said.
"Ethan," the biophysicist rumbled, "is the girl ready?"
Mandeville turned a numb gaze on Magnusson.
"Well?"
"I...think so. She seems to have the sensitivity and the scope now. There've been no lapses or abnormalities. But..."
"But what, Ethan?" Ianushkevich said.
Mandeville's eyes had returned to the figure of the dead God. "Nothing."
"We should have the ceremony at once," Petrus said.
"No," Magnusson said. "We won't rush it. Give us a day to mourn, Charles. The metal flows can't move that far in a single day. Jean deserves --"
"You're not supposed to do that."
"He's gone, you bastard! Tellus is dead. Fifty years ago we stripped him of his name and set him on a throne no man should have to occupy. He gave a world that had no idea who he was everything he was and everything he could ever be. He never received a word of thanks, and he never complained. Can't we let him be a man again, with a man's name, now that he's dead?"
Petrus started to reply, bit it back, and nodded.
"I'll tell Vicki," Mandeville said. He made for the chamber door.
"Ethan," Ianushkevich said.
The graduate student stopped and turned.
"Only the necessary. Please?"
Mandeville nodded.
***
Mandeville went to his office for his jacket and found Victoria sitting in his guest chair.
She was amusing herself, telekinetically juggling half a dozen of his academic journals. The motion of the books was perfectly smooth; it appeared that at no time was any of them out of her direct control. She glanced over at him and smiled coyly. He hurriedly closed the door behind him.
"I was about to go to your dorm room," he said
The swiftly rotating ring of journals froze in place. "Why?" Her grin turned naughty. "Wasn't eighteen hundred approaching fast enough?"
He blushed.
"You know, Ethan, we didn't discover sex. People have been doing it for years now. We're actually a little behind the trends." She giggled. "Maybe we should practice more."
He said nothing. She finally noticed that his manner was anything but light. One by one, his journals glided across the room and found their proper places in his bookshelf. He watched in silence.
"What's the matter?" she said.
"Tellus died a few minutes ago."
Her face tightened. Mandeville could easily read her expression. The announcement had startled her. Her commitment had come due, with all of its implications. She was frightened of what was to come, but she would rather die than admit it.
"What happens next?" she said.
He leaned against his desk chair and rubbed his forehead.
"There'll be a remembrance for him tonight. Do you think you might come?"
She hesitated, then nodded.
"The others asked me if you're ready. I said I think you are. They want to...enthrone you tomorrow evening. There'll be a special ceremony and a few final treatments, and you'll be the Goddess of Hope." There was much more he wanted to say, despite Ianushkevich's request, but a ball of pain had formed in his chest, and the words would not pass it.
"Am I ready, Ethan?"
He nodded.
She went to his little window and stared out at the Gallatin campus. He moved up behind her and put his arms around her waist. She leaned back into his embrace.
Spring was well along. The ground had thawed completely. The mason trees were sprouting new crowns of teal needles. On the bolivar hedges, yellow buds were growing profuse. The great oaks spaced evenly along the axis of the quadrangle's central lawn were alive with fresh green, as vital and untroubled as their ancestors on Earth had been at the coming of each new year's warmth. Students and faculty strolled the walks in light and colorful dress, basking in the sun and reveling in the sense of release from the confines of winter.
"You never told me," she said, "why the God has to live in that sealed apartment."
He started to answer, checked himself.
Dmitri wouldn't want me to say.
Victoria reached up to caress his cheek, and a surge of rebellion swept through his brain.
FUCK Dmitri!
"Pain," he said.
She turned and stared at him from beneath furrowed brows. His hands rose to cup her shoulders.
"The apotheosis procedure will make you...a lot more sensitive to psi currents. The apartment vault is specially lined to block the random ones. Otherwise, you'd scream night and day from the pain. It would be like being forced to sit in front of a ten thousand watt radio you couldn't shut off that played nothing but static, all day and all night."
"Will I be allowed to come out if I want to?"
"Yes," he said. "But you won't want to."
If I don't say it now, I never will.
"Vicki," he murmured, "with Armand gone --"
"I know. But that was a longshot anyway, wasn't it? I mean, you've probably been looking for a therapy for twelve hundred years already."
He nodded.
She went back to looking at the quadrangle.
"I know what you're thinking," she said. "If I want to cut and run, now's the time. Armand did, so I should have the chance, too." Her hands clenched and released. "But why would I do that? To have a few weeks at large in a world starving to death? To die as free as a bird?" She snorted gently. "This is the job I contracted to do, whether I knew it or not. I'll do it. Besides," she said and put her hands to his face, "you wouldn't come with me, would you, Ethan?"
He said nothing.
"You and the Cabal have some sort of doomsday contingency plan, don't you? Better that a few should live, and who better than you, who've safeguarded the life of a whole planet for twelve hundred years, right?"
"Do you want me to run away with you?" he whispered.
She wrinkled her nose. "No, not even if I were going. I don't want you to die with me." She hesitated. "I want you to live with me. You'll have the Hallanson-Albermayer treatments, won't you?"
"All the
Inner Circle members do," he said. "Does Tellus get them?"
He nodded. "They don't stave off the final deterioration, but they keep the God youthfully vital and in top shape for...for his duties."
"And other things, I hope." She smiled. "Our nights together have been good ones, haven't they?"
"Yes."
She turned and pulled him close. As always, her warmth and strength aroused him to the limit of his endurance. He felt her smile against his cheek.
"Stay with me, Ethan," she whispered into his ear. "I promise you, they'll get better yet."
"I will," he murmured.
Once again, her tone made clear that he'd be allowed no other choice.
***
"Stand back, friends."
Six dozen Hopeless folded away from the rig. Armand slathered the main's mating flange with sealing grease, took it in both hands and yanked with all his strength. It moved perhaps six inches. He yanked again, and the flange clanked smartly against the output fitting of the well pump, scraping a flap of skin free of his right hand in the process.
"Agh!" He shook his hand and fought down the pain. Before the blood could well through his exposed dermis, he swiftly pinched shut the capill
aries in the layers below. The pinches would hold until he released them, but he had no more than ten minutes before the onset of necrosis. He shut down the C-fibers in the surface nerves and took up his wrench.
He tightened the mating bolts quickly and forcefully. The pump had to start on the first tug of the cord, or he'd lose what face the project had earned him among his Hopeless neighbors. That wouldn't do. To live decently here, he and Teresza had to be known as persons whose good will was essential.
Perhaps two hundred Hopeless were clustered around him. More trickled into the crowd with each passing moment. Even Burt Marchesand, the ruffian who'd thought to shake them down when they first arrived, had come to watch. The lot of them were silently, unnaturally attentive. He forced himself to concentrate.
The seal appeared to be adequate. The pipes and unions he'd scavenged were old, but by some miracle they'd stayed sound enough for his purposes. He'd probed their structures psionically to assure himself that there'd be no sudden failures in the near term. He'd worry about the far term later.
He wiped his hands free of grease, checked the prime on the engine's fuel lines, pushed the throttle all the way in, grasped the starter cord for the pump's engine as casually as if the device were brand new, and pulled once.
He'd cannibalized the engine from his motorcycle and mounted it on a freestanding frame. It had been built to run on gasoline. Armand had spent four days reworking its fuel system to accept kerosene, the best fuel the Hopeless could make, without any certainty that he'd got it right. It caught, sputtered, threatened for three agonizing heartbeats to die ignominiously, found its rhythm and settled into a steady purr.
The crowd of onlookers immediately turned to peer at the far end of the main. A few trotted the pipe's two hundred foot length for a closer look.
For a few seconds there was nothing. Armand waited. Teresza slid up beside him and put an arm around his waist.
With a rumble like the thunder of giant wings, the six-inch maw of the main gushed clean, clear water. It sprayed forth in glorious, sparkling profusion, its mist glittering and striking little rainbows from the afternoon sun.
Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1) Page 16
