The Intervention Part 24

The real corker, however, the brain-bender supremo of that enchanted evening, was a technical surveillance problem: the subjects were speaking - and thinking telepathically - in French. He had encountered this in his nightclub days, too, and learned to fake translations by cracking the linguistic formulation of the thought and extracting its purely imaginal content. (Ha ha, ugly gringo! Read my mind! Tell me I have six thousand-dollar bills in my money-clip! ) But translating more than a phrase or two of a foreign language was a b.i.t.c.h of a job for a mentalist - a.n.a.logous to eyestrain. The intense concentration required would leave him physically and mentally p.o.o.ped, by no means a healthy state for a guy in the espionage and extortion racket. Add to the French translation grief an uncanny premonition of disaster that no psychic could afford to ignore, and Finster decided he had been very unwise to accept the Remillard a.s.signment, no matter how much loot Kieran O'Connor dangled as bait.

Bait!

SCRAM! f.u.c.k OFF! f.u.c.k ELSEWHERE!.

Momentarily alone again in the starlight, Finster sighed.

His troubles had started at the beginning of the a.s.signment, when he'd tackled the kid professor, Denis Remillard. Denis was a truly boffo screener of his private thoughts, n.o.body to mess with. Any probe attempt by Finster would not only have been detected - but its source would have been pinpointed. So he'd settled for crumbs, bits of "public" telepathy Remillard addressed to his friends and a.s.sociates. Denis spoke only English and his subvocal thoughts were also couched in that language. But what thoughts! The prof ratiocinated on such a rarefied level that poor Finster was totally out of his league, lost in a labyrinth of symbolic logic, gestalts, alatory subintellections, and other horrors. If Denis was working on anything potentially threatening (or useful) to the O'Connor enterprises, it would take a better brain than Finster's to prove it at this stage. He had suggested, and his Boss had concurred upon, a more indirect course of investigation. Finster would leave Denis and his Coterie alone until there were hints of more than theoretical activity, and concentrate his efforts on the young genius's many relatives. One or more of them might provide useful leverage material for future action against the Dartmouth group.

It was when Finster began surveillance of Denis's uncle, who acted in loco parentis to the professor and worked at a big resort in the White Mountains, that culture shock struck. Like most persons who considered themselves one-hundred-percent Americans at that time, Fabian Finster was completely ignorant of the French-speaking minority population of New England. Uncle Roger was a harmless fellow who spoke fluent Yankee - but his thoughts were an untidy melange of French and English. Sorting them out had consumed a tedious month, during which Finster stayed as a guest at the resort during the high season, eating too many gourmet meals. But there had been a payoff: Uncle Roger was preparing to leave his job because he was afraid! Afraid of Denis's younger brother, Victor, the black sheep of the family.

Bingo.

Finster had zeroed in on Victor immediately, and discovered that the twenty-year-old man was not only a telepath but a powerful coercer as well - certainly stronger than his older brother and perhaps even more compelling than Kieran O'Connor himself. Furthermore, he was a crook, using a legitimate business as a front in much the same way that Kieran did, only on a vastly smaller scale.

O'Connor was very interested.

Finster was instructed to study Victor and his operation, using the utmost caution. He was always to stay out of coercive range, which they pegged at a hundred yards to be on the safe side, more than twice Kieran's sphere of psychic influence. He was to eavesdrop both electronically and telepathically, being especially alert for useful dirt. Each night Finster would fast-transmit the tape of the day's data to Chicago via scrambled land-line, and there would follow consultation and fresh orders from the Boss.

For three weeks, Finster had shadowed the young pulpwood entrepreneur in and around his home base of Berlin, New Hamps.h.i.+re. It soon became apparent that the shady aspects of Victor's operation were expertly papered over; there was no immediate prospect of blackmailing him. He had no wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or significant other susceptible to outside menaces. (He shared support of his widowed mother and younger siblings with Denis, but seemed to have no real love for any of them. ) His financing was tightly secured in two local banks and a third in Manchester. He had logging contracts in both New Hamps.h.i.+re and Maine, and seemed ready to expand into Vermont as well - as soon as he could pin down the appropriate persons to coerce. Given Victor's apparently invulnerable setup, Kieran O'Connor decided he had two options at the present time: He could let Victor be, as he had Denis, filing him for future reference; or he could invite the young man into his own criminal coalition.

Finster was now completing the feasibility study for the latter alternative... and it was looking dimmer and dimmer. In Finster's judgment, Victor Remillard was not only a mental bada.s.s, he was probably a nutter to boot. His French-English thoughts were often chaotic, indecipherable. There were dark hints of no less than three murders perpetrated within the last year, together with an indeterminate number of psychic and/or physical a.s.saults. He dreamed of monsters, and most of them had his own face. He hated Denis, and only some deep-lying inhibition constrained him from doing violence to the older brother he both envied and despised.

Fabian Finster had long cherished a salutary fear of Kieran O'Connor; but he had decided that he was even more afraid of Victor Remillard. When he finished up for the night, Finster intended to pa.s.s on to the Boss his own urgently negative vote regarding any alliance with Victor. On the contrary, the Mob might give serious consideration to putting out a contract on this kid before he spread his web any wider...

Sweaty, pest-ridden, and disquieted, Fabian (The Fabulous) Finster resolutely stayed on the job, whispering a simultaneous translation and running commentary into a bug-smeared Tos.h.i.+ba microcorder hung on a lanyard around his neck. Meanwhile, on the screened porch of his lakeside summer cabin, Victor Remillard drank cold beer and went about the business of recruiting fresh heads for his growing coven of psychic henchmen. He was concluding an interview with a middle-aged Canadian telepath of dubious moral fiber who had driven down that day from Montreal in a brand-new Alfa Spider.

"Now the two of 'em just sit there chewing things over... Now Vic offers the guy another bottle of Hibernia Dunkel Weizen from the refrigerator on the porch (Jesus!)... Now Vic says out loud in Frog, 'I agree that a merger of our two groups might be advantageous, Roe-bear, but it must be on my terms. I will make the machine march - be the boss. ' And Fortyay says, 'For sure, Vic. No - uh - ha.s.sle. I have seen for myself who you are and what you are. ' And he takes a fast slug of suds, trying to be brave. And Vic leans toward him and smiles just a little and thinks: 'Is it that you are certain your four playmates will accept my direction? Without making any doubts? I am not playing kids' games, Roe-bear. I am going to shock the gallery' - dammit! he means score big - 'with this mental thing. My Remco pulpwood operation is just - uh - for starters. I'm going to be a big vegetable' - s.h.i.+t! - 'big shot and make more millions' - wait, that means billions - 'than you can count. So will the people who work with me. But you will have to do things my way. Do you understand, Roe-bear? No one makes the c.u.n.t with me - uh - f.u.c.ks around with me and manages cheap - uh - gets away with it. ' And the other guy says out loud: 'Good blood, Vic! I told you, anything you say!' And his brain is dripping blue funk like a colander, and he thinks: 'You know why we're anxious to join up with you. Who else knows the music - the angles - of this mind business like you? Up in Kaybeck, me and Armang and Donyel and the rest have been just - uh - spinning our wheels, fooling around with small-beer scams. We know we gotta come South to get where the real - uh - action is. And that means joining your outfit. Why do you think I made my proposition regular?' He means above-board. 'Drill in my head all you want. Drill in the boys' heads. You'll see we aren't - uh - bulls.h.i.+tting. ' And Vic is all charm now. He says, like: 'Swell!' They both laugh. The thought-patterns are formless friendly - only underneath Roe-bear is still trying not to wet his pants and Vic's sub-bas.e.m.e.nt has a gleam like your steel tiger-pit, Boss... "

Finster hit the pause b.u.t.ton of the recorder and s.h.i.+fted position. Inky ripples spread out in circles from the johnboat. The water was now littered with insect bodies and the ba.s.s, sated, had retired for the night. Finster prayed that soon Victor would, too.

He whispered a few more translations and comments as the young man led his visitor down the front steps of the cabin and walked with him to the Alfa Romeo. A next meeting was set up, to include the other members of the Canadian gang. Then the Spider's headlamps flashed on, making two paths of wavering light on the lake that stopped short of Finster's boat. The car backed, turned, and drove off along the sh.o.r.e road.

Victor Remillard's mind was strangely aglow. He stretched, yawned, then walked down the path to the small dock in front of the cabin, where he stood looking out over the lake with his arms folded.

Finster's boat began to move slowly toward him, dragging its sash-weight anchor.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t, " muttered the mind reader. "s.h.i.+t a brick. "

He lunged for the three-horse outboard mounted at the stern and yanked the starting cord, producing pathetic burbling sounds. He yanked again and got a few apologetic pops. Cursing, he fumbled the small oars into their locks and flailed desperately at the water while the boat picked up speed, moving in the opposite direction.

"Turn me loose, dammit!" There were other cabins on the sh.o.r.e, some with lights. He yelled: "Help! Help!... " But his voice died away to a croak, lost in the summer chorale of frogs, crickets, and katydids. Nothing left to do! The tall silhouette at the end of the dock was barely ten yards away. Finster ripped b.u.t.tons from his soggy sports.h.i.+rt to get at the. 357 magnum Colt Python in its underarm holster. He lifted the gun with both hands and tried to aim, but the Colt seemed to have a life of its own and the blood-hot metal fought to squirm out of his grip, and when he clung to it, it became heavy as the lead sash-weight anchor and tried to break his wrists, and then he saw that the barrel was pointed at his right kneecap and his finger was tightening on the trigger, and he screamed and flung the thing sideways and it fell overboard and Vic laughed.

I'll jump out! his mind howled. And I can't swim but I'd rather drown - He was drowning.

Drowning in his own vomit that had flooded up his throat and into his windpipe. He made a terrible noise as he crashed against the low aluminum gunwale, his head and upper body hanging over the side, his eyes wide open beneath the dead-black water. And the mental voice: Don't be any more stupid than you've already been. Not until we have a chance to talk.

Talk?...

He was sitting upright, wet only with his own perspiration, and the boat glided smoothly up to the dock and stopped. A hand was extended to help him climb out.

He looked up. The zillions of stars in the summer sky outlined a tall, good-looking young man with dark curly hair. His mind was a simmering blur.

"Talk?" Finster repeated out loud, a wan chipmunk grin trembling on his lips.

"Come up to the cabin, " Victor told him curtly, and turned his back to lead the way off the dock. When the mind reader hesitated, something seemed to clamp his heart with red-hot pincers, making his knees buckle; but in a split second the pain was gone and he stood upright again, and the d.a.m.n frog growled over his shoulder, "Grouille-toi, merdaillon!"

Finster needed no translation. In fact, he was inclined to agree with Victor's rude a.s.sessment of him. It was the royal screw-up of his life - what was left of it - and he was a certain goner. Once this realization came, Fabian Finster's spirits paradoxically lifted.

"Sit there, " Victor ordered, when they came through the screen door onto the cabin porch. Finster lowered himself into a wicker chair with cretonne cus.h.i.+ons. Did he dare ask for a beer?

Something awful lit up behind Victor's eyes. "I could squeeze your brain like a grapefruit, Finster. I could force you to tell me everything you know about the ones who sent you to spy on me, then kick your a.s.s out of here with nothing but scrambled eggs left inside your skull. I've already done that to a couple of snoopers. One was a Russian - can you believe it? - offering me three hundred grand to get him into my brother's laboratory. I took his money very gladly and he disappeared without a trace. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, Finster. You could go the same way... or maybe not. You've got a certain familiar smell about you. "

And he lifted his mind-screen to give the barest glimpse of reprieve.

"All right!" Finster shouted, breaking into a guffaw of relief. "I dig what you're thinking, amigo! Do I ever!"

"Oh, yeah?" Victor's voice was like ice, and the tantalizing image the mind reader had grasped so desperately did a chameleon s.h.i.+ft and faded to imminent doom. Finster sat up straight, waiting for it.

But Victor was smiling. "You're not one of my brother's stooges.

You're not from the government. You're not a Red. Your mind's spread open like a planked salmon, Finster. I know exactly what you are. "

"I'm a crook, Victor, " Finster said. "Just like you. And I'm here following orders from another crook - who is definitely not just like you. He's big. Maybe the biggest, pretty soon. You reading my mind?"

"Better than you know. Tell Kieran O'Connor exactly what I say, Finster... Stay away from me. If your people try to interfere with me, I'll send them back to O'Connor's office in Chicago to die, right in front of his fancy desk. But you also tell him that I have certain plans. If he lets me alone, here in my home territory, maybe the day will come when the two of us have things to say to each other. It won't be soon. But when one of us really needs the other, I'll talk to him... Do you think you can remember my exact words, Finster?"

The mind reader shrugged, hooked one thumb around the lanyard that hung from his neck, and pulled out the Tos.h.i.+ba microcorder. "You're on the record, Mr. Remillard. "

"Then get out of here. " Victor turned away, heading for the interior of the cabin.

"No beer?" Finster ventured.

"No beer. "

"Figures, " Finster said. He went out the screen door, closed it very carefully, and headed for the dock.

13.

FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD.

As A BOOKSELLER, I have noted a curious thing: There are certain scientific books of epochal importance, t.i.tles recognized by every educated citizen in the Galactic Milieu, that nevertheless languish unread by modern people. One thinks of Darwin's Origin of Species, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, Wegener's Origin of the Continents and Oceans, Weiner's Cybernetics, and other works that provoked controversy in their day - only to subside into ba.n.a.lity once their contents had pa.s.sed the test of time and merged with the common body of human knowledge.

Denis Remillard's towering work, Metapsychology, is another that suffered this ironic fate. Now, 121 years after its publication, only a few scientific historians bother to read it. But I remember the uproar attending the book's appearance early in 1990, when it sold nearly 250, 000 copies in hardback format during its first year and became the common coin of TV talk shows and articles in the popular press - an amazing performance for a highly technical work, bristling with statistics, written in a dignified and daunting style. Metapsychology presented for the first time an integrated scheme encompa.s.sing all forms of mental activity, normal and supranormal, with an emphasis upon mind's interrelation to matter and energy. In a detailed and elegant series of experiments, scrupulously verified, Denis demonstrated how the so-called higher mind functions are inherent in the mental processes of all human beings. He showed how every mind contains, in some measure, powers both ordinary and extraordinary. His keystone theory explained the unusual activities of psychic adepts in terms of operant metafunction, and the deficiencies of "normal" people as an aspect of metapsychic latency - where operation of the higher powers was either inhibited by psychological factors or precluded by a limited talent.

Metapsychology provoked intense discussion - and a certain dismay - within the scientific establishment, since it presented hard evidence that the higher mental functions were genuine phenomena and not merely dubious conjecture. Psychic researchers (and there were many besides Denis), after enduring decades of condescending tolerance or out-and-out ridicule from their conservative peers, basked in a new and unprecedented atmosphere of respect as they found themselves courted by the media, by sundry government agencies, and by commercial exploiters scenting a new growth industry that might eventually rival aeros.p.a.ce or genetic technology. Numbers of hitherto clandestine operants "came out of the closet" as a result of Denis's book and became involved in serious research projects. There were also legions of quacks - astrologers, tea-leaf readers, spoon-benders, and pract.i.tioners of black magic - who enjoyed a brief heyday riding the coattails of the legitimate metapsychic movement. The public was entertained for months by debates and squabbles among the mixed bag of opposing psychic factions.

Denis himself remained largely aloof from the altercations his book had sp.a.w.ned, distancing himself from popular journalists, television interviewers, and other purveyors of ma.s.s t.i.tillation. He had not yet publicly revealed that he himself was one of the princ.i.p.al subjects of his experiments, nor were other operant workers at his Dartmouth laboratory identified by name to nonprofessional investigators. Attempts to make an instant celebrity of the author of Metapsychology were doomed by Denis's humorless and erudite manner, his penchant for quoting statistics, and his total lack of "colorful" personality traits. Media snoops found lean pickings at the scene of his researches, a drab old saltbox on College Street in Hanover, across from the Hitchc.o.c.k Hospital parking lot. The metapsychology lab's personnel was loyal and close-mouthed, giving superficial cooperation to reporters and interested VIPs while making certain that no really sensational data came under outside scrutiny.

Fortunately for the disappointed newsmongers, there were plenty of less diffident psychic researchers at other inst.i.tutions who were more than eager to fill the metapsychic publicity gap. These basked in the limelight and hastened to publish their own researches - as well as their critiques of Denis's magnum opus. Since most ordinary people have a gut belief in the higher mental powers, the public at large reacted positively to the opening of the new Metapsychic Frontier. There were surprisingly few commentators, in those early days, who envisioned any problem in having an elite population of operants living and working among "normal" humanity...

Late in 1990 when the Mind Wars scandal broke and it was revealed that the Defense Department of the United States had attempted to pressure psychic researchers into undertaking cla.s.sified projects, public opinion experienced its first anti-meta s.h.i.+ft. But this was destined to be swept away in the fresh furor that came the following year, when Professor James Somerled MacGregor of Edinburgh University revealed to a stunned world the first truly practical application of mind-power. MacGregor's demonstration was a total vindication of Denis's theories. It was also responsible for opening a rift in the human race that not even the Great Intervention would heal completely.

To digress momentarily from the earthshaking to the jejune, I must note that 1990 was also the year that I started my bookshop, The Eloquent Page. Nowadays the place has quasi-shrine status, but I continue to resist attempts by various busybody groups to inst.i.tutionalize it. The shop persists under the original proprietor at its address of 68 South Main Street, Hanover, New Hamps.h.i.+re. For the sake of Galactic tourists, I have a section devoted to works by and about famous Remillards. (I even have for sale a few fragile copies of the first edition of Metapsychology, exorbitantly priced. Inquiries are invited. ) However, my stock in trade remains, as always, one of the largest collections of rare science fiction, fantasy, and horror books in New England. My shelves hold no modern liquid-crystal book-plaques; every volume is printed on paper - and a goodly percentage of them are still st.u.r.dy enough to be read. I welcome browsers of all races, even Simbiari, provided they utilize the pla.s.s gloves I keep available and refrain from dripping green mucus on the stock.

The choice of the bookshop premises was not mine. I had initially decided to rent a place farther north on Main Street, closer to the Dartmouth campus, where there was much heavier foot traffic and where my business instincts a.s.sured me that trade would be brisk. This intention, however, was thwarted by an old acquaintance.

I remember the sunny autumn day that the rental agent, Mrs. Mallory, took me on a round of inspection. Even though I had already expressed my preference, the lady insisted on showing me one last vacant property.

"It's such a pretty place, Mr. Remillard, " she told me, "the corner shop on the ground floor of the historic Gates House building, across from the post office. A marvelous example of the Late Federal style, absolutely the ideal ambiance for a bookshop! The premises are a tad smaller than the location down by the Hanover Inn - but so much more evocative. And there's a lovely large apartment available on the third floor. "

I agreed to look the place over, and it was everything she had promised. The apartment, in fact, was virtually perfect. The store itself, however, seemed far too small for the type of establishment I was then contemplating, a combination of used books and current hardbound and paperback volumes. I told Mrs. Mallory that I found it charming but unsuitable.

"Oh, dear! I really thought you'd like it. " She gestured at the old beamed ceiling, the frowsty little nooks at the rear. "The atmosphere of antiquity - can't you feel it?" And then she smiled conspiratorially and said in a lowered voice, "It's even haunted. "

I paused in my inspection of the bay display window, polite incredulity on my face. "Interesting. I'm sure having a ghost in one's bookshop would be quite a novelty, especially since I plan to specialize in fantastic literature. But I'm afraid the place really is too small, and too far from the campus to attract much evening trade -"

And then I felt it. Without conscious volition, I had let my seekersense range out, the weak divination faculty I had been practicing under Denis's tutelage with a view toward guarding myself from intrusions by Victor or other undesirables. I had managed to learn how to detect the distinctive bioenergetic aura of fairly strong operants, such as Denis, Sally Doyle, or Glenn Dalembert - provided that they were within a radius of ten meters or so and not s.h.i.+elded by thick masonry or some other barrier.

And now, scanning this old frame building's empty corner premises, I fa.r.s.ensed the presence. I stood rooted to the spot, sweat starting out on my forehead.

Mrs. Mallory was chattering on: "... and if you're sure you'll need more s.p.a.ce, we might talk to the owner, since the little coffee shop next door might not renew its lease and it might be possible to double the square footage available... "

I seemed to hear someone say: Tell her you'll take it.

Who's there? my mind cried. Whotheh.e.l.l is that?

"I beg your pardon?" said Mrs. Mallory.

I shook my head. It was in the back room.

"I know!" she exclaimed brightly. "I'll just let you stay and look the place over at your leisure, both the store and the apartment, and you can drop in at my office later with the keys and let me know what you've decided. "

"That will be fine, " I said. The sound of my voice was distant, dimmed by my concentration on the detecting ultrasense. It was coming out of the back room into the main part of the shop. Mrs. Mallory said something else and then went out, closing the street door firmly behind her. Dust motes eddied in the brilliant sunbeams s.h.i.+ning through the display window. As I began slowly to turn around for the confrontation, an idiotic extraneous thought flickered across my mind: In late afternoon, I would have to make some provision so that the strong sunlight would not fade the books.

There's an awning. All you have to do is lower it.

"Bordel de dieu!" I spun around, exerting my fa.r.s.ense to the utmost, and detected an all-too-familiar aura. It had no form, nor was there anyone visible in the shadowed rear of the shop.

The Family Ghost said: It's been a long time, Rogi. But I had to be certain that you took this place and not the other.

"Ah, la vache! I might have known... " I stood with one hand braced against the wall, laughing with relief. "So you've been haunting this shop, have you?"

The previous tenant was a trifle reluctant to vacate and I had to insure that the lease would be available. Sometimes it's perplexing, trying to determine precisely which occasions require my personal attention. My overview of the probability lattices is by no means omniscient, and after such a long time my other faculty is unreliable.

"So! You've made up my mind for me and I'm to be forced to rent this place even though it's too small. Is that it? My poor little Eloquent Page and I will go broke just to satisfy your ineffable whim. "

Nonsense. You'll do well enough if you stock antiquarian books and forget about the cheap ephemera. The clientele will seek out your establishment and pay suitably high prices for collector's items, and you can also do mail-order business... Be that as it may, it is not your destiny to achieve commercial prosperity.

"Well, thanks all to h.e.l.l for the good news! As if my morale isn't low enough, changing careers at the age of forty-five and playing lab-rat for one nephew while another contemplates offing my a.s.s. "

Victor is otherwise occupied. You need not worry about him.

"Oh, yes? Well, you'd better keep him in line!"

I may not influence him or the other Remillards directly. It would violate the integrity of the lattices. You are my agent, Rogi, because you have been influenced. You must live and work here, in this place that is appropriate, only two blocks away from the house at 15 East South Street.

I was totally mystified. "Who lives there?"

At the present time, no one who need concern you.

I snarled, "Oh, no you don't!" and pointed a determined finger at the volume of air that seemed to radiate the aura of le fantome Familier. "I'm not standing still for any more of your mysterious directives from Mount Sinai! You cut the c.r.a.p and give me a d.a.m.n good reason why I should rent this shop instead of the other one - or find yourself another patsy. "

There was a cryptic silence. Then: Come with me.

The front door opened and I was firmly impelled out onto the pavement. I heard the locks click. A couple of coeds sitting at a sidewalk table in front of the little restaurant next door eyed me curiously. I let the Ghost shepherd me around the corner. It said: Walk east on South Street.

All right all right! I said rebelliously. For G.o.dsake don't make a public spectacle out of me!

I - or perhaps I should say we - walked along the quiet side street. It was only two blocks long, and near Main Street were a few commercial structures and widely separated old homes converted into offices and apartments. There was very little traffic and only sporadic bits of sidewalk, so I strolled along the edge of the street, past landscaped parking lots and mellow frame residences, and crossed Currier Place. There stood the Hanover public library, a modernistic pile of red brick, concrete, and gla.s.s-wall framed in enough greenery to allow it to blend un.o.btrusively with the more cla.s.sic buildings around it. Immediately east of the library was a large white clapboard house with dark green shutters, a modest portico, and third-floor dormers, set well forward on a thickly wooded lot that sloped toward a deep ravine in the rear. On a weedy and unkempt lawn lay an abandoned tricycle. A football and a yellow Tonka Toy bulldozer decorated the porch, along with a sleeping Maine c.o.o.n cat that resembled a rummage-sale fur piece. Two hydrangea bushes flanking the steps still carried pink papery blooms. No people were in evidence.

I stood under a scraggly diseased elm and stared at the house that would one day be famed throughout the galaxy as the Old Remillard Home. The Ghost said: You will note its convenient proximity to the bookshop.

I didn't say anything.

The Ghost went on: Six years from now, Denis will buy this house for his family. Many years later it will be Paul's home - "Paul?" I said out loud. "Who the devil is Paul?"

Denis and Lucille's youngest son. Marc and Jon's father. The Man Who Sold New Hamps.h.i.+re. The first human to serve on the Galactic Concilium.

Starlings were yammering up in the elm and the golden autumn sun heated the asphalt pavement and gave a faint pungency to the air. The pleasant old house - as solid and homely a piece of New Hamps.h.i.+re architecture as one could imagine - seemed to be drowsing in the late-afternoon calm of this little college town. I looked at it stupidly while my mind took hold of what the Ghost had said and tried to digest its import. The "galactic" bit was too bizarre to penetrate at first, so I seized on a more down-to-earth improbability.

"Lucille? Marry Denis? You've got to be kidding. "

It will happen.

"Admitted, she's one of his most talented psychic subjects. But the two of them are hopelessly incompatible - fire and ice. Besides, I happen to know that she's in love with Bill Sampson, a clinical psychiatrist at Hitchc.o.c.k. It's an open secret that they'll marry as soon as her a.n.a.lysis is complete and there's no ethical conflict. "

The Ghost said: Lucille and Denis must marry and produce offspring. Both of them carry supravital alleles for high metafunction.