Diamond Mask (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) Page 5

  A few gulls accompanied the ferryboat now, dodging easily among the enormous ocean swells, but Dee felt too ill to look in her book and identify them. She had never seen such monstrous waves, like heaving crags streaked with foam. At first she waited, stiff with dread, for one of them to crash down on the boat and kill them all, praying to her guardian angel to take her to heaven when she died. But none of the big waves ever broke over the rail. The ferry rolled and wallowed and creaked, but it kept pounding sturdily onward, miraculously immune from being swamped, while the jaunty birds soared alongside and Dee felt more and more dazed and miserable.

  I’ll die, she thought. Or even worse—I’ll spit up my breakfast and everyone will call me a baby! Oh, angel, help me.

  She clung to the chair-arms with white-knuckled hands. There was a sour taste in her throat and the giddiness was getting worse.

  I won’t throw up! I won’t! I won’t …

  Ken was suddenly there, holding a glass of ginger beer. “Gran Masha says this’ll help calm your stomach.” He held out the drink.

  “My—my stomach is fine,” she mumbled mulishly. Only troublesome children complained.

  “Come on. Take it. You must be broadcasting subliminal barfvibes. Those three Gi sitting over there came twittering to Mummie and said that her poor darling little girl was getting ready to toss her cookies. Gran called me on my wrist-com and told me to bring you this.”

  On the far side of the saloon, near where Mummie and the others sat, engrossed in telepathic conversation, the trio of friendly longnecked nonhumans waved their silly feathered arms at Dee and whooped and simpered.

  Chagrin at being betrayed darkened the girl’s eyes. “It’s none of their business how I feel. The hateful snoopy-minded things.”

  “Gi are supersensitive to emotions. You’re probably making them feel like woofing their custard, too. Come on, drink this.”

  Ken was two years older than Dee. The lank hair falling over his brow was the color of oatmeal porridge, and his brown eyes seemed too large for his waxen, fine-featured face. He wore corduroy trousers tucked into Nesna lobben-boots and a thick Fair Isle sweater. He had left his tan anorak with the grownups.

  Dee took tiny sips of the spicy, bubbling ginger beer, but it only seemed to make the nausea worse. Any minute now, she was surely going to vomit and disgrace herself. “If only the boat would stop tipping from side to side,” she moaned. “Then I’d be all right.”

  “You think this is bad?” Ken gestured at the rampaging sea. “You’d feel a million times worse if you were on a starship popping in and out of hyperspace. You probably don’t remember, but Mum says you squalled like a piglet during every limbo-leap on the trip from Caledonia to Earth.”

  “I was only a little baby then. And I bet you cried twice as much, you rotten old dumb doofus!”

  Ken shrugged and flashed a gap-toothed grin. “Look,” he said kindly. “I read about motion sickness. It’s all in your head. Your inner ear is sending wrongo signals to your brainstem’s upchuck switch because it thinks you’re off-balance and not in control of your environment. What you gotta do is show the brain that you are still in control. Take a good gargle of your beer and redact the pukes away.”

  “I can’t,” she sobbed miserably. “I already tried. You know my mindpowers are no good.”

  Ken bent closer. “That’s not true. We’ve both got really strong powers even if we’re latent, and sometimes they can be used if we really need them. Especially redacting—the healing power. Try hard. I did once and it worked for me.”

  Dee stared at him through bleared, skeptical eyes.

  “When I was really small,” he continued, “I used to wheeze and pant all the time. It was a thing called asthma. Sometimes I could hardly breathe. Do you remember?”

  Dee shook her head listlessly.

  “I didn’t think you would. I got it just after we first came to Earth. I took medicine and a Master Redactor tried to cure me, but it didn’t help much. The doctor said something deep inside my mind was causing it. The asthma was really bad. I couldn’t run or play ball or anything without losing my breath. Then one night when I was about your age I woke up all of a sudden feeling like I was strangling. I couldn’t breathe at all. My eyes were popping out of my head and I saw all sorts of spinning crazy lights and I kicked and tried to yell and no sound came.”

  “And then what?”

  “I started to die.”

  Dee felt her chest constrict. She discovered that she was holding her own breath, willy-nilly. For a moment, her churning stomach was almost forgotten. “How did you know?”

  Ken was whispering. “I stopped hurting and choking and I went floating up like a kite. I could still see me down below in my bed thrashing around and turning blue, but—I really wasn’t there. I was going away to die. It felt soooo good! … But then I remembered that Uncle Robbie was taking me to a grownup rugger game the next day, and I decided I didn’t want to die after all. I got mad and I told myself, Cut that out! You can breathe if you really want to. No more of this stupid asthma shit. No more!”

  “What happened?”

  “I saw my body heave this big sigh and stop flopping about. Then all of a sudden there was a kind of no-noise explosion and I was back in bed. Sucking in air. The asthma was gone. And it never came back. Mum and Gran said I cured it with self-redaction.” He poked her midsection with one finger. “You can do the same thing, Sis. You really can. Try!”

  Dee squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head wildly. She was afraid to do as Ken asked. The grownups were always trying to make her use her latent higher mindpowers—trying to push their way into her mind, too, so they could force her to be operant. But even though she was a precocious and obedient child who tried very hard not to be troublesome and inconvenient, she had always resisted giving in to the adults in this very personal matter. What was hidden in her mind belonged to her, even if it was scary. The only way she could keep herself safe was to make sure that no one else ever got inside and messed about with what was there.

  She thought of the innermost part of her head as a dark and secret cellar full of strange boxes with special locks on them, the kind that wouldn’t open until you spoke a code word to their tiny internal computers. Inside the boxes, which were glassy but not quite transparent, were all the awful mindpowers that Mummie and the meta therapists had tried in vain to coerce out of her during the painful therapy sessions. The imprisoned powers shone dimly in different colors—blue, yellow, green, violet, rose—and moved about within their boxes like ghostly and dangerous sea creatures trapped in murky containers, darting at her in treacherous appeal, squirming and scrabbling against the walls of their traps like blobby, glowing starfish or demonic hands.

  The angel kept her safe from them. This friendly guardian was invisible even to her mind’s eye and quite mute; but Dee was certain that he was the custodian of the dangerous boxes. They were hers and there was no getting rid of them, but the angel was the one who prevented the things inside from escaping and harming her.

  Only once, long before she had found out about guardian angels, when she was still a toddling baby terrified by the adult minds trying to batter their way in and control her, had she dared to open one of those mysterious containers. Someone (it was a while before she realized who!) had told her the secret word enabling her to free the cool, midnight-blue shielding faculty. The power had seemed to flow out and enclose her entire mind and body like an impervious, completely transparent shell, protecting her from mental attackers.

  By now the faculty—which the frustrated preceptor-therapists told her was called the self-defensive aspect of metacoercion—was so much a part of her that she hardly noticed it. She had overheard Mummie and the other adults talking about her mental screen once, saying how different it was from Ken’s puny one, marveling at how wonderfully strong it was, and how it must be guarding other metafaculties of hers that were probably even more amazing … if they could just discover how to pry them out
of her.

  But she knew her latent powers were more than amazing. They were terrible, and they must never be allowed to escape. No matter how the therapists and Mummie tried, hurting her for what they said was “her own good,” Dee resisted their attempts to invade her and open the other boxes. The things inside were hers, not theirs, and so was the angel who guarded them. She didn’t want to be an operant like Mummie. Nobody could make her do what she didn’t want to do.

  Especially not Mummie.

  Ken said softly, “You stupid pillock—she doesn’t even have to know. None of ’em have to know! Just do it for yourself. Open the self-redaction box and keep the power … inside.”

  Dee almost screamed out loud from shock and terror. Ken had heard her thoughts!

  “Well, I could hardly help it, could I, the way you were howling at me.”

  She opened her eyes. He sat on the edge of a seat facing her, and his eyes were wide and black. He knew about the boxes, knew she had deliberately shut the adults out when they tried to force her into operancy. What else did he know?

  She cried: Stop looking and listening! I just want you to leave me alone! I want everybody to leave me alone!

  He backed away from her, as shocked as she was by the unexpected telepathic transmissions on his intimate mode. “Okay, okay! You let your screen crack while you were thinking about those things. I couldn’t help hearing. Then your mind almost knocked my socks off shrieking at me.”

  “Can you read my mind now?” she whispered suspiciously. She was back in control.

  “No. No more than you can read mine. We’re not True People, Sis. We’re deadheads. The farspeak and the other stuff only works when it feels like it—not when we want it to.” He got up and moved away, taking his drink. “But I’m not like the others, you know.”

  She watched him go. He had told the truth. He was a terrible tease, but unlike the grownups, he never pushed her to do things that hurt or frightened her. He was just Big Brother Ken—sometimes rude, very often snotty and superior. But never a threat.

  Cautiously (for she was still buffeted by the whirlpool of motion sickness) she descended into the mental cellar. She greeted the angel and contemplated the boxes.

  Yes, Ken was right. If she opened only the smallest rosy-glowing box, the one that now throbbed so eagerly, the redactive power she set free would behave as the friendly blue mind-screen had, remaining safe within her head. No one would ever notice if she redacted only herself—except maybe the grockly old Gi, and there were never too many of them around to worry about. Most Big Birds were too daft and giggly to teach or study at Edinburgh University, unlike the Green Leakie Freakies and the Wee Purple Poopers and the horrible Krondak monsters, who seemed to be all over the place. But those other kinds of exotics couldn’t see past her mind’s blue mask any more than True People could, so she would be safe most of the time.

  … I will be safe, won’t I, angel?

  But he did not reply. He never did, even though she was quite convinced of his existence. The angel was mute. She would have to decide all by herself.

  She took a deep breath. She said to the angel:

  Yes. I’ll do it! No more seasickness, no more painful latency therapy, no more colds, no more hurting when I stub my toe or fall down and skin my knees because you forgot to look after me! My new power will be able to fix all kinds of things like that. And no one but you and I and Ken will ever know.

  How stupid she had been not to think of this before! But when you were five years old, you couldn’t help doing a lot of stupid things, even though the grownups said you were a mental prodigy.

  She reached for the imaginary box with the shining red thing inside and touched it with a trembling, imaginary finger. The secret code word revealed itself to her in an instant. It was not a word a person said. You have to think it.

  She did. And the rosy squirming thing slipped joyously from its prison and swelled and grew, becoming as beautiful as a gigantic flower with shining petals. The rose enfolded her, turned to liquid light, to a calm lake glowing in the sunset that washed away all her sickness. She floated on it, completely at peace, and closed her eyes. Through closed lids, she was aware of the redness brightening, becoming dazzling white, becoming part of her. She felt no more fear, no more discomfort, no more helplessness. The new power belonged to her and filled her with its healing warmth. It was good.

  She opened her eyes, lowered her feet to the carpeted deck, and got up. She stood there easily, letting her body sway and compensate for the motion of the ferry. Her self-redactive metafunction let her take complete command.

  Ears, listen to me! I’m not off balance and I’m not going to fall. I’m just fine. Do you hear that, brain? You can stop telling my stomach it has to throw up. Nothing is wrong. I’m going to Islay on holiday, and I’m not going to be sick or even afraid anymore.

  Do you understand me, brain? I will tell you what to do.

  You will not tell me.

  Every trace of the seasickness was gone.

  Dee looked at Ken and nodded solemnly. Smiling, he gave her the thumbs-up sign. On the far side of the saloon, the three outlandish Gi were yoo-hooing and fluting incomprehensible things at her. They probably knew! But Mummie and Gran Masha had blank faces, as they always did whenever Dee or Ken made any sort of a scene, while Uncle Robbie and Aunt Rowan and the other human operants among the passengers looked puzzled. Dee was certain that they had no idea what had happened. She would never tell and she would make certain that Ken didn’t tell either, or she would hate him as long as he lived!

  Dee went to the nearest door leading to the ferry’s outer deck, slid it open, and quickly went outside.

  The rain had stopped. There were six or seven bundled-up adults standing at the ship’s rail. Herring gulls and blackbacks soared overhead calling, and sunlight was beginning to pierce the ragged clouds. Ahead, two large islands loomed above the choppy sea. The one on the right was stark, rocky, and dramatic, with two glistening conical mountains humping up from the interior. The one on the left was gently rolling and its slopes were a brilliant green. Oddly, there were peaceful vibes coming from the place with the weird mountains, while the prettier island seemed to have a faint aura of menace.

  Which one, Dee wondered, activating her plaque-book, was Islay?

  Hydra’s laying of the groundwork for the fateful trip had been flawless.

  When Professor Masha MacGregor-Gawrys returned home to Edinburgh after six months of bodily rejuvenation, her mental screen was understandably a bit woolly at first, easily penetrated by the subtle coercive-redactive ream that the Hydra knew how to use so well. The idea for taking a brief holiday that came stealing into her mind through the tiny aperture was both gratifying and pleasant, and Masha accepted it as her own without demur.

  Hydra withdrew from the professor’s unconscious and patiently orchestrated the next step in its plan.

  A few days later, Masha held a small tea party in her townhouse in the Willowbrae district of Edinburgh and invited those who were closest to her—her daughter-in-law Viola Strachan, Viola’s gifted children Dorothea and Kenneth Macdonald, Viola’s brother Robert Strachan, and Robbie’s wife Rowan Grant.

  Also attending, but unnoticed by the professor and her guests, was the Hydra.

  Masha served little crustless sandwiches, homemade spongecake and sweet whipped cream, and scones with butter and raspberry jam. She and the others sat round a cheery fire eating and drinking while rain rattled on the new leaves of the plane trees outside the sitting room window … and on the roof of the Bentley groundcar parked across the square, where the Hydra lurked and watched with its farsight.

  It took some time for the two children to get over their surprise at the remarkable change in their grandmother’s appearance. When they had last seen her half a year ago she was very old—fifty-two!—but now she seemed to be younger than Mummie. She no longer looked tired and wrinkled, and her tall frame was straight and slender instead of slumping and s
lightly too large for her clothes. Her hair, in the familiar coronet of braids, now shone like polished copper. Only her dry voice and her vivid emerald eyes, glowing with metapsychic power, seemed the same.

  Dutifully, Dee and Ken told Gran Masha what they had been doing in school during the months she had floated switch-off in the regen-tank. Ken had won a prize for a story he had written, and he produced this and, read it aloud to judicious appreciation. Then, prompted by Viola, Dee admitted that she had begun taking lessons on the scrollo keyboard. When Viola insisted, she unrolled the instrument, pecked out “Loch Lomond,” and then fled to the bathroom, overcome by shyness as the adults clapped.

  Masha sighed. “I hoped Dorothea would have grown out of that tiresome habit by now.” She frowned a little as she poured more tea for her daughter-in-law. “How is her latency therapy coming along?”

  “Not very well. Dr. Crawford found no progress after the latest round of tests. We’ll continue the preceptive exercises, of course, but Crawford thinks it unlikely that Dody will ever attain operancy. Her superior intellect certainly understands what the therapists are trying to do, but apparently she lacks the strength of will that would enable her to break the bonds of latency and finally become one of us.”

  “Now, Vi,” her brother said. “It’s not completely hopeless.” Robert Strachan was a natty man of small stature, only slightly taller than Viola. His dark eyes glittered and his hair was combed back, making him look sleek as an otter. He exuded the self-confidence of a highly adept metacreative operant. He was an Associate Professor of Psychophysics at the University of Edinburgh, director of the CE Operator Safety Research Project that also involved his wife and sister.