Magnificat

by Julian May

  I said, “Uh-oh.”

  “The next day he was still intensely preoccupied. He said we were going to have to return to Seattle soon, because important work was waiting for him there that he was anxious to show me. He hoped I’d want to help him with it, for it was very important to the success of the Rebellion. He said he needed to confer with some people at Dartmouth College before we went home. We’ve been here in Hanover for three days now. Marc has mostly left me by myself while he’s been off picking the brains of Catherine Remillard and the other specialists in developmental metapsychology. And he hasn’t touched me sexually.”

  Prudish old goat that I am, I took refuge in my coffee cup. “I—I understand that sometimes husbands react a little strangely to the first pregnancy. He may be afraid of hurting you—”

  “That’s cock and shite,” snapped the daughter of Rory Muldowney. And then she sprang it upon me abruptly. “Rogi, who is Mental Man?”

  “Mental Man?” I repeated stupidly.

  “Lucille didn’t know. She farspoke the other members of the Dynasty in residence here on Earth, including Paul, and none of them had ever heard of him. But I’m convinced that Mental Man—whoever or whatever he is—is what’s got Marc all in a stew.”

  “Mental Man isn’t a person, it’s a scientific project,” I told her. “The idea for one, rather. Marc has noodled it over for years, but so far as I know it’s still vapor. I know very few details of it. Basically, Marc would like to find a way to engender large numbers of highly operant human beings artificially. He particularly wants to create more paramounts like himself and Jack.”

  Cyndia frowned. “Like the nonborns? Through in-vitro fertilization?”

  I flapped my hands. “How else?”

  “But eugenic engineering of the human brain is impossible. Everyone knows that. There are thousands of genes involved, many of them pleiotropic—influencing more than one trait”

  “I’m only telling you what Marc told me—and that was several years ago, when he never intended to marry or father children naturally. We were sitting together in the Peter Christian Tavern here in Hanover one night, both pretty well oiled, and I told him a dirty joke. One of those that starts ‘How many sperm does it take to …’ After he laughed, I made a crack about all those superior wigglies of his going to waste. And that’s when he told me that someday they’d help to make Mental Man.”

  “This project—is it still theoretical?”

  “Well, of course,” I assured her.

  But it was nothing of the kind, as not only Cyndia but also the entire Galactic Milieu would find out in short order.

  I don’t usually try to send telepathic calls over any kind of distance. I’m not good at it, especially if a narrow intimode squawk is required rather than a declamatory hail that any head in the vicinity can read. But that night I decided to make a special effort. I knew they were staying at the venerable Hanover Inn just two blocks north of my place, so along about ten o’clock I walked down Main Street, crossed Wheelock, and began a very slow perambulation along the paths of the college green opposite the hotel, figuring he’d surely be able to hear me from so close. For over two hours I wandered and loafed beneath the lamplit mutant elms, making tentative shouts on Marc’s intimate mode and getting no response. Finally, just as I was about to give up and go home, I heard him reply:

  What the devil are you doing prowling out there Uncle Rogi?

  You in the hotel?

  Of course I am. I just got back from a conference.

  We gotta talk. Come out. It’s important.

  … Wait five minutes.

  When I saw the tall figure with the discreetly damped aura emerge from the inn I went over to meet him. It was a warm night in late June and we had plenty of company on the green. We found a place on the shadowed grass reasonably far away from the joggers and canoodling couples and sat down. Crickets were singing and clouds of moths were gyrating around the softly glowing globes of the old-fashioned streetlamps. Now and then a swooping nighthawk would make a meal of one.

  “How’s Cyndia?” I asked.

  “If you must know, I found her asleep when I got in. I was halfway undressed myself when you called. Now what’s this all about?”

  I spoke telepathically:

  Mental Man. And your wife.

  For a long moment Marc said nothing. Then: She asked you about Him.

  “You got it in one, mon fils.” You leaked a thought fragment about Mental Man one night back at the White Mountain Hotel. She knows you’re brooding about the project and suspects that this is the big deal you’re going to spring on her when you two get back to Seattle. She loves you very much but she resents the fact that your sudden fixation on Mental Man seems to be more important to you than your own unborn son—to say nothing of [discreetly expurgated image].

  Marc groaned out loud, and his mind said: Merde! I didn’t mean to be insensitive toward her. I just … didn’t think.

  Obviously.

  For months there’s been room for nothing in my mind but Cyndia. Then she told me about the child and it was as though I fell out of heaven and back to earth with a crashing thud remembering everything I’d put aside during the honeymoon—especially Mental Man the most important thing in the world to me.

  Oh really?

  I … don’t you try to mindfuck me Uncle Rogi! I worship Cyndia. I’ll make up for my inadvertent neglect. But Mental Man is my work the most important project I’ve ever conceived compared to it CE is nothing my personal life is nothing! Mental Man is going to save the human race from exotic domination.

  That’s what you told me when you first talked to me about it years ago. But you never spelled out how the miracle was supposed to happen. You want to tell me now?

  No. Not yet. The project is still in a preliminary phase of research and development.

  Oh right. But you’re going to have to tell Cyndia … or risk losing her.

  “Don’t talk like a bloody idiot!” He sprang to his feet and hulked over me in the starlight. Then the heroic body seemed to sag. He spoke almost formally. “I’m sorry I said that, Uncle Rogi. I’m sure you have only my best interests—and those of Cyndia—at heart. I do appreciate that you called this problem to my attention. When we’re back at home I fully intend to discuss the Mental Man project with her and convince her of its vital importance. I hope she’ll even want to share the work with me.”

  I climbed up myself and took Marc’s hand. “Do that. And do one other thing: When you get back to your hotel room, make love to her.”

  “But she’s asleep,” the great paramount lummox protested.

  “Wake her up and do it,” I insisted, with all the coercion I could wring from my antiquated neurons. “For God’s sake, just do it.”

  He shook his head in puzzlement, said good night, and went away.

  I saw Marc and Cyndia again three days later, just before they left Hanover for Seattle. She appeared radiant and he was solicitous and tender. I presumed that all was well once again in their bedroom, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then, with summer in full swing and me feeling chipper, the charming Sally Lapidus appeared on the scene once again, inclined to give me a second chance. I forgot about Mental Man and the sex life of other folks, being happily absorbed in my own.

  Marc made the big revelation on 10 September 2080, in a calculated public-relations ploy that was obviously intended to win the instant approval of ordinary humanity while at the same time dealing the Milieu a stiff biff below the belt. For the first time, portions of the CEREM complex were opened to a tour by the human media—ostensibly to celebrate the “rollout” of the new production models of the 600X CE enhancer, which were destined for the Okanagon Geophysical Corps.

  Mental Man was introduced to the world as an ostensible afterthought when Marc led the mob of reporters into the lab where Dr. Jeffrey Steinbrenner and his associates were tinkering with an elaborately modified El8 helmet. What was the fancy hat for? Why, the scie
ntists were using it in farsense mode to evaluate the metapsychic complexus of human embryos.

  [Sensation! Cacophony of questions! Order restored by unobtrusive coercion.]

  The New York Times asked if it was actually possible to assay the mindpowers of pre-fetal humans with any accuracy using CE.

  Jeffrey Steinbrenner said yes, within certain limitations. A highly trained farsensor could analyze the microscopic aura of an in-vitro embryo as early as the seventh week of development. By then, the new being had a brain that interacted fully with the mental lattices. Early experimental trials of the evaluation technique, utilizing an earlier model CE helmet, had been conducted by Steinbrenner when he was associated with the IVF Facility—the so-called Nonborn Factory—in Chicago. The correlation between his evaluation of embryonic auras and the later conventional metapsychic assay performed on infants after parturition had improved steadily. He claimed that it now approached 92 percent accuracy. For political reasons that Steinbrenner professed to find difficult to understand, his research was given a low priority at IVFF. He had joined CEREM in 2078, becoming head of its Department of Bionics and working at first on the 600X CE project. For the past year, however, he had devoted himself solely to embryonic assay.

  There were technical questions from Science and Newsweek that Dr. Steinbrenner declined to answer “at this time.”

  Then PNN wondered why a CE corporation like CEREM had decided to fund this particular line of research at all.

  Marc took the question. He explained that embryonic metapsychic evaluation was only part of a much larger project, essentially noncommercial, that had long been of deep personal interest to him. The ultimate goal of this project was the engendering of large numbers of human children having paramount metapsychic faculties. The project was called Mental Man.

  [Sensation again! Greater babble of questions. Order restored once more by coercion.]

  Galaxy Today asked whose germ cells had been used to engender the embryos being used in the present Mental Man evaluations.

  Marc said that the sperm were his and the ova were from a female donor of extremely high metapsychic assay who wished to remain anonymous.

  Star Network wanted to know what disposition was being made of the Mental Man embryos after their evaluation.

  Marc said that the viable seven-week embryos used in the preliminary study were being put into cryonic storage after their MP complexus was analyzed. The media representatives surely understood that at the present time it would contravene the Milieu Reproductive Statutes if a privately held corporation such as CEREM should nurture human embryos artificially into the legally defined fetal state of eight weeks—much less allow those fetuses to mature fully. Eventually, Marc hoped that the laws would be changed and the Mental Man embryos—whether paramount or “merely” operant—would be made available for adoption by qualified parents.

  TerraNet asked incredulously if Marc meant that any family could have a superembryo, and if so, how much it would cost.

  Marc said that the usual criteria for adoption would apply, and there would be no charge.

  Then the IBC correspondent put her finger on the most provocative aspect of the project: What was Marc’s personal interest in Mental Man? Was his goal pure research, was it altruism—or did he have another motive for sponsoring such an expensive and controversial project?

  He said that there were two imperatives that had inspired him to establish the Mental Man laboratory. The first was to give every human family the option of raising an operant child (and every operant family the option of raising a paramount child), either through embryonic implantation or nonborn adoption.

  His second objective was to insure that the Human Polity was never forced into Unity by the exotic races of the Galactic Milieu. It was his belief that Unity would destroy individuality and fundamental human nature. Perhaps, he said, smiling his appealing one-sided smile, his personal belief was wrong and Unity was a good thing. But the decision to accept it or reject it should be humanity’s alone. As leader of the Rebel Party, he refused to bow to the exotic contention that unUnified humanity was a danger to the Milieu, and that human Unification was nonnegotiable. The paramount metapsychics engendered in the Mental Man project would insure that humanity would never be absorbed into a Galactic Overmind against its will.

  [Tumultuous reaction.]

  Marc said he would take just one more question, and then the interview and the tour of CEREM would have to conclude.

  Operant Topics asked if Marc’s own unborn child had been assayed using the Mental Man technology.

  Marc said no. He and his wife Cyndia would welcome and love their son no matter what his metapsychic armamentarium might be, although they had high hopes for a paramount child.

  Then Marc thanked the reporters for coming and promised to keep them posted on the progress of the project.

  A predictable storm of controversy erupted in the human media following the unveiling of Mental Man, intensifying the polarization of humanity into pro- and anti-Milieu factions. As Marc had anticipated, vast numbers of people were wildly enthusiastic over the prospect of raising a Mental child. Lower-echelon operants besieged CEREM with requests to adopt paramount embryos, and nonoperants seemed even more eager to welcome Mental Man into their families. (Most normals, whether they admitted it or not, hoped and prayed for offspring that would possess the higher mindpowers of the galactic elite.) Acquiring an operant child by embryonic implantation or adoption seemed a perfectly acceptable option, especially to colonial families already comfortable with the custom of nonborn fosterage.

  The reaction among the higher ranks of operants was more cautious. Milieu loyalists were quick to downplay Marc’s contention that a new brood of paramount children would form a bulwark against the alleged evil of the Unified state. It was more likely, they said, that the superior youngsters would come to appreciate the fact that Unity was not only harmless but also desirable.

  Jack himself took this line, but he was careful not to denigrate his older brother’s professed desire to make operant embryos widely available. Paul, on the other hand, went savagely on the offensive. He called Steinbrenner’s credentials into question (and there were undoubted murky patches in his professional background), demanded an independent study of the embryonic MP assay technique (which Marc declined to cooperate with), and even hinted that Mental Man might be nothing but an elaborate hoax designed to win support for the Rebel Party.

  Privately, Paul made the mischievous suggestion that Marc, by using his own sperm to engender Mental Man, was unconsciously attempting to outdo his own father in the procreative game. By that time, the First Magnate had sired not only six children by his late wife, Teresa Kendall, but also thirty-eight natural offspring whom he freely acknowledged.

  The official reaction of the Galactic Milieu to Mental Man was initially a long, loud silence. At last, nearly a month after Marc’s press conference, Davy MacGregor and the other Planetary Dirigents of the Human Polity made a joint response:

  The issue of Mental Man would be put up for consideration in the Galactic Concilium, as were all matters of high Milieu policy. Only human and exotic magnates would participate in the debate. The decision of the Concilium would be final. Until that decision was issued, CEREM and Marc Remillard were forthwith enjoined from publicizing Mental Man in any way, shape, or form, and were expressly forbidden to nurture any human embryos beyond the seventh week of life or to cause said embryos to be nurtured by other persons, through either uterine implantation or in-vitro culture. Officers of the Galactic Magistratum would inspect the CEREM premises periodically to insure that the injunction was not violated.

  The majority of nonoperant human beings—and respectable numbers of operants—gave a predictable response to the dictum. Boiled down, it amounted to: Fuck that.

  And thus began the final act of the Metapsychic Rebellion.

  Cyndia’s reaction to the epiphany of Mental Man was private and deeply troubled. Although Mar
c denied it to the media, he actually had urged her to permit Jeff Steinbrenner to evaluate their unborn baby by means of amnioscopic CE. But she obdurately refused, perhaps out of a secret fear that Marc might want to abort the fetus if it fell short of paramount potential. Marc had seemed to bow willingly to his wife’s wishes, especially since she otherwise appeared to be enthusiastic about the project. Cyndia did agree to having their unborn child educated in utero using experimental preceptorial methods intended for Mental Man, since the new teaching technique was largely a much-modified and expanded version of that already widely in use among operant parents.

  Denis Hagen Muldowney Remillard (his mother insisted upon the unusual second name, but refused to explain its significance) was born on schedule on 21 November 2080, a healthy little blond bruiser weighing in at 3.9 kilos. Due to the press of Rebel affairs, his father was not in attendance at the birth, although he did manage to get home in time for the christening, which took place at historic Emmanuel Church in Eastsound village on Orcas Island. I was Hagen’s godfather, and Cyndia’s older sister Sara the godmother.

  With his aura no longer enveloped in that of his mother, the little boy was subjected to conventional assay of his metafaculties and determined to be a potential grandmaster operant in farsensing, creativity, and psychokinesis. The assay also showed that the baby was a potential paramount in coercion and redaction—but these metafaculties were all deeply latent and unusable. There was always the chance that the boy’s proto-paramount powers could be raised to operancy later, however, and Marc seized on this hope to cheer his wife and assuage his own bitter disappointment.

  The mental deficiencies of Hagen and the opposition of the Milieu to Mental Man were not the only problems Marc had to contend with at that time. Paul’s disparagement of Dr. Jeffrey Steinbrenner’s professional abilities proved to be quite unwarranted, and the embryonic assay technique perfected by the bionic specialist was a great success. Unfortunately, the thousands of embryos produced by the union of Marc’s sperm and Dierdre Keogh’s ova were not.