Just get to work.
And It did.
Chapter 59
Dawn had broken. The bedroom was awash with sunlight. Teresza had not slept. She was still on her knees, her eyes closed, deep in desperate, fevered prayer, when Armand stirred at last. He sat up so quietly that she was unaware of his return until a large hand landed jarringly upon her shoulder.
"Ow!" Her eyes popped open and she found Armand's face before hers.
"I'm...back, Terry." His speech was labored, as if he had to choose each word consciously.
"Are you okay?"
He nodded slowly. His smile appeared false, too wide and too bright.
"Is it...over? Did you win?"
Another nod. "There's...a lot left...to do, though." He straightened up fully and slid to the edge of the bed.
She started to ask for details, decided she didn't want them, and wrapped him in her arms. He clasped her clumsily and said nothing.
Her gaze moved to Valerie, still asleep on the far side of the bed. Her daughter had surprised her by sleeping uninterruptedly through the night for the first time. "I have to feed Valerie. It's been nearly nine hours. I'm surprised she isn't wailing to bring the house down."
His forehead crinkled briefly, as if he were trying to remember who Valerie was. Finally he said "Oh, yes," and slid aside. Teresza gathered Valerie into her arms. The baby woke and smiled. She exposed a nipple, and Valerie went for it hungrily.
When Valerie was sated, they made their way to the Morelon kitchen, slowly and carefully. Teresza could tell that not all was well with him. He seemed to lack fine control of his muscles. He literally looked at the floor as he walked, visibly planning the execution of each step. It appeared that his exertions in whatever realm Idem occupied had taken something out of him. Perhaps the struggle had wearied him so completely that he must convalesce for a time before he could function normally again.
But he's back. He won. And we'll live. All of us who remain. I have to be grateful for that.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you for everything.
Elyse and her father Teodor were in the kitchen. They rose as Teresza and Armand approached. Elyse glanced at her son and beckoned Teresza to her side. She took Valerie in her arms, rocking her gently and crooning softly, the archetypal new grandparent addicted to the smell and feel of her first grandchild. Armand stood in the entranceway, saying nothing.
"Will we live, Armand?" Elyse said.
He nodded. "It's basically settled."
"Settled?" Teodor said.
"There were some...concessions to be made." Armand flashed another artificial smile. "But I have to take a trip to Gallatin. Let some other people know about the new arrangements, before they...interfere. Will you watch over Terry and Val for the day, please...Mom?"
Elyse frowned, but nodded. Teodor pulled grandmother and child into the crook of his arm. Armand nodded in reply, bent to kiss Teresza, and made for the front doors, walking with care. The clap as they closed behind him resonated through Morelon House.
Teresza sighed and slid into the nearest seat. Teodor fetched a mug, poured coffee for her, and slid it across the broad oak table.
"He's not quite right, is he?" Teodor said.
"Maybe not, Dad. He might need some time."
"Did he give you any details?"
Teresza shook her head. "I didn't ask. Maybe when he gets back."
"Is there any doubt?" Elyse said as she rocked Valerie.
"I don't think so. But what can we do, except wait and see? There aren't any convenient asteroids flying past, are there?"
"Terry..." her father rumbled.
"Yes, Dad?" She donned her most innocent expression.
Teodor grinned. "Never mind."
"By the way, will you be moving in here?"
"Of course. Won't you?"
"I think I already have. Elyse, should we stay in that downstairs guest bedroom, or may we move to Armand's suite when he gets back?"
Elyse Morelon's eyebrows rose. "Why are you asking me?"
"Well --"
"The clan has a new matriarch, dear. Standing right behind you, in fact."
Teresza whirled to find Charisse and Chuck loitering in the entranceway, arm in arm, the picture of contentment.
"Sleep well, Teresza?" Charisse said.
"Not a wink. You"
Charisse giggled as Chuck squeezed her. "The same."
Valerie cooed.
***
Ianushkevich had lost all hope.
Terra's limp form had not twitched for a whole day. She'd taken no food or fluid. Her sphincters had remained closed. Though her breathing appeared to have stopped, her other vital signs were strangely normal. She simply lay, unmoving, uncaring, and silent, upon the ornate bed where her twenty-four predecessors had slept and died.
Petrus was almost as bad. When Ianushkevich left the monitor room the night before, Petrus had been hunched over in the corner, sobbing into his hands. When the parapsychologist returned that morning, Petrus was still there. Nor had he improved in the hours since.
It was the end Ianushkevich had feared for six centuries. Hope's crops would wither worldwide. Her young meat animals would refuse to mature, and the adult ones would fall to neurological decay. The death by starvation of the human population would be complete within three months, and the great forests of mason and henry would surge forward to reclaim the areas sixty generations of Man had cleared and cultivated. In a century or two, the Relic, no longer sustained by guardians on the surface, would skim the upper atmosphere, tumble from orbit and crash into the sea. The resulting cataclysm would leave no sign that Man had ever set foot on Hope.
The Cabal had failed at last.
Man's extinction from Hope probably meant the end of Man everywhere. It was hard to believe that there could still be humans on Earth, when no radio transmissions from the home planet had been detected for so long. It was far more likely that the States had finally fulfilled their destiny and slaughtered the entire population of the world, whether by accident or design.
Ianushkevich could not even summon strength enough to grieve.
It was different when Einar died. We could still believe that things might be fixed. We could still imagine that Terra would come to her senses and grow into her responsibility. But she never stopped being what she'd always been, and we found it more comfortable to lie to ourselves than to face what we'd created.
We could weep for Einar, because we still hoped to keep what he had lost. But we'll all be joining him soon.
A thin beep sounded from the chamber door. Ianushkevich's head jerked toward the sound. Petrus paused in his sobbing and stared. Someone was pressing keys on the outside cipher pad.
The latch clicked its mechanical approval of the code, the door swung smoothly inward, and Ianushkevich beheld Armand Morelon.
"How...how did you know the code?"
Armand smiled.
The big youth didn't look right. He stood as if he didn't trust his legs to bear his weight. The hunch to his shoulders suggested that he'd endured a great and protracted effort, and had not yet recovered from it. There was a tic in his face, a small twitch that sporadically pulled at the skin between his eyes as if he were resisting the urge to blink. Yet above it all he bore an air of invulnerable serenity.
Ianushkevich rose from his seat as Armand stepped into the room, looked around casually, and settled his attention on the display of Terra's comatose form. He moved to where Ianushkevich stood and peered closely into the display. Though his expression was unchanged, his eyes were shadowed by sadness.
"She's gone, Dmitri."
The parapsychologist studied the youth for a long moment. "How can you be sure?"
"Because she's no longer in there. I pulled her out."
Ianushkevich could not assemble the words into anything sensible. Armand apparently saw his confusion, for his mouth quirked into a wistful grin.
"I had to, Dmitri. She was a danger to the whole world.
I know you tried your best, and I don't fault you for it. You did the best you could from what you knew. You just didn't know the right place to look."
"What... what do you mean?" Petrus moved up next to them, eyes wide and hollow from grief not yet dispelled.
Armand flicked a hand at the display. "I killed her. I didn't kill her dead, though. I just pulled her out of her body and cut the cords. She's where she can't harm anyone, now. There's just one thing left to do."
Armand turned and frowned in concentration at the display. A moment later, Terra's body began to give off smoke, and Ianushkevich cried out in fright. Presently body and bed were enveloped in a shroud of blue-white flames. They needed less than a minute to reduce it all to a fine ash.
Armand waited for the flames to die, murmured "Rest in peace, Vicki," then turned, arms crossed over his chest, to confront the last two members of the
Inner Circle of the Cabal. "There's a new gun in town, gentlemen. Your efforts kept Man alive on Hope for twelve centuries, but they won't be necessary any longer. I've been negotiating with the proprietor. He's quite happy to let us stay. He'll keep the changes we've made and finish converting Hope for human habitancy, but only on the condition that you don't screw around with his body psionically any more. Just let people do what they do naturally. They can farm and mine and build as they please, and he'll take care of the rest."
"But --" Petrus said. Ianushkevich raised a hand and Petrus fell silent.
"Armand, are you telling us that Hope contains an intelligence?"
Armand nodded.
"And this intelligence is benign?"
"He is now. He calls himself Idem. It took him a while to realize that we were here. Remember, Dmitri, before we got here there was no animal life at all. The surface of the world was just Idem's skin. The plants and forests were just his hair. He didn't know there could be mobile life that supported conscious minds. He'd never created any, and he'd never met any."
Armand chuckled and perched himself on the edge of the control pedestal.
"You were close to driving him insane. All these changes were occurring in his body, and he couldn't figure them out. He was hiding in the core of the world, as close to suicide as you can get when you have no idea how to pull it off. For twelve hundred years he pushed back against the mind of the current God, and gradually wore each one down. When a Tellus or Terra started to fail under the pressure, he'd seize his chance and extend himself toward the surface, and we'd start having crop failures and developmental problems in our animals and kids. Then you'd train and install a new God, and Idem would have to go back into hiding again. And he never understood any of it."
"How did you find him?" Ianushkevich asked.
Armand shrugged. "A lucky guess, really." The fatigue in the young man's face and posture, nearly palpable when he'd entered, were rapidly fading. "My father-in-law suggested the possibility, and I, uh, looked around a little, and there was Idem. Talk about an awkward first acquaintance."
"Armand," Ianushkevich said, voice barely above a whisper, "is there any chance that he might turn on us?"
A spasm crossed the young man's face. The parapsychologist held his breath.
"None at all."
"How are you so sure?"
Armand indicated the smoky bedchamber with his eyes. "How do you think I did that?"
"But --"
"Remember how good Vicki was at telekinesis, Dmitri?" Armand stared down at the cables that ran down the wall behind the control pedestal.
As if gripped by ghostly hands, the cables pulled free of the control bench and began to writhe in the air. For several seconds they swirled in intricate loops and knots until they settled into a final pattern, a pair of words in a neat cursive script:
MANAGING PARTNER
Ianushkevich and Petrus gaped at the legend.
"That's what I am," Armand said. "I know people, he knows his body. He's promised to run things as I say, and I've promised not to leave him alone again."
"Leave him alone?"
The grin faded from Armand's face. "He's been very lonely. I can understand it. Imagine floating in space for four or five billion years, self-sufficient and free, with all the sunlight you can eat and everything else you need, but with no place to go and no one else to talk to. Makes the Hegira seem sort of trivial, doesn't it?"
"Armand --"
"I'll look after Idem. We have a good relationship. Hope will be all right. Idem's already correcting the soil and water chemistries. You should start seeing the return of full fecundity within a week. Just no more psi stuff on the ecology, Dmitri. You can't imagine how it hurts him to lose control of his body. Promise me."
"But what if you --"
"Die"? The grin returned, but beneath it was a well of tragedy, an acceptance of unpleasant necessity, so deep as to be bottomless. "It won't happen, Dmitri. Not in any meaningful way. Not that I don't wish it could. Now promise me you'll cut it out with the godhood stuff."
Ianushkevich glanced at Petrus, who nodded. "We promise."
Armand nodded. "Okay. Take care of yourselves. I've got a train to catch." He left the door to the monitor room open behind him. And Dmitri Ianushkevich and Charles Petrus, for centuries the furtive guardians of all the life of their race, were for the first time in their adult lives unemployed, and free.
***
There were few other riders on the train to Jacksonville. Armand's body settled gingerly against its lightly padded seat as the doors slid closed and the whine of the maglev unit rose to operating pitch. Its eyes slid closed, all its muscles relaxed, and after assuring itself of its autonomic soundness, the animating consciousness withdrew from it.
The integration of Armand's and Victoria's minds with Idem's had not been without its surprises. Victoria's psyche had carried a monstrous freight of venom and cruelty. Not all of it had been her mother's bequest. The discovery of her three murders had caused Armand to recoil, momentarily breaking the circuit that bound them. They'd shocked Idem almost too badly to continue. He cut the diseased emotions and the memories away from the young woman's psychic core with the delicacy of a surgeon.
Armand's carefully concealed baggage was less disturbing, yet harder to flense away. Despite all his gifts and achievements, the young man could hardly accept that he was worthy of anyone's regard, much less the adulation that had been his throughout his life, no matter where he was. Separating out the self-deprecation and repairing the rents in Armand's self-concept took all the care and precision Idem could muster.
All the same, at last they were one: a single will forged from the abilities and memories of three, a Trinity of psionic puissance capable of reshaping the world. A good thing, too. There was work to be done, work that would require the Trinity's whole powers and attention.
The healing of Hope would have been impossible for Idem alone, or for Idem and Armand together, but for the Trinity it was not. The addition of Victoria's unprecedented telekinetic powers to what Idem and Armand had already possessed made the closure of the fissures in Hope's crust and the calming of the storms that roiled its oceans, though protracted, strenuous, and painstaking, as straightforward as darning a hole in a woolen stocking.
There would be some legacies of the time of chaos. Even after Hope's wounds had been closed and sutured, it would bear scars in its flesh for centuries to come. The arctic ice cap had been reduced to about two-thirds of its former size; changes in the regional weather would be swift in coming and slow to reverse. Beneath the crust, deep channels had opened along the fissure lines that would pose a great danger to anyone minded to probe there. The Trinity's efforts to find and correct it all would go on for many years.
The human legacies would be no less. Many had died. Many others had been indelibly marked, physically or psychologically. Some would devote their lives to the search for explanations. Others would turn away from all they had loved, unable to dispel their fear that the terror that had missed them so narrowly might come again. But the gre
at majority would do as men have always done after even the largest disasters: pick themselves up, take stock of the damage, and set to rebuilding what they and their neighbors had lost. The men of Hope were above all a practical people.
When it seemed clear to them that the madness had ended, some, even among the most practical, fell to their knees as their remote forebears had done and gave tearful thanks for their deliverance.
Few of them knew Whom to thank.
***
Teresza ran to the entranceway at the first creak of the great wooden doors. Elyse and Charisse were only a split second behind her.
Armand closed the doors of Morelon House with infinite care. He looked as weary as a human being could ever become, ready to topple over at the merest touch, but there was a sense of completion in the way he held his head, and the gentle smile she'd loved from the first had returned to his face.
"Armand?"
"Where's Valerie?" he said.
"Upstairs with Dad and Chuck."
He nodded. "It's over, Terry. We won."
She could not hold back any longer. Her arms went around him as if they had a will of their own. She clutched him to her with a force she had never before possessed. He put his hands to the sides of her face and tilted her head back, bringing her eyes to meet his own. Though his speech and movements were once again smooth and assured, there was a new distance in those black eyes, as if the struggle had taken something out of him that might never be replaced.
"No more worries, Terry. I'm home to stay. From now on we'll just grow corn, look after Valerie, and tease Mom and Chary about their boyfriends. Do a little traveling, maybe visit our friends on the peninsula from time to time. Think you can handle that program?"
She nodded and closed her eyes against the imminent cascade of tears.
Elyse and Charisse Morelon wrapped themselves around their kinsman and his beloved. The four of them stood there in silent embrace for a long time. Presently the thin wail of Valerie's wakeful hunger came from the floor above, and the little knot of humanity loosened.
"I, uh, have a little job to do," Teresza said.
Armand grinned and wiped the moisture from her cheeks with his fingers. "Let's go see to it."
Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1) Page 40
