Galactic Milieu - Diamond Mask Part 5

By far the most interesting aspect of the local economy, and one unique to this single human colony, is the cultivation of native balloonflora that yield peculiarly valuable biochemicals. In the mid-twenty-first century, airfarming was the fastest-growing commercial enterprise on Caledonia, but one that was risky as well. Ian Macdonald was already experiencing difficulties due to undercapitalization when he brought his new bride Viola to Glen Tuath Farm, a primitive homestead nestled amidst precipitous crags at the head of a great fjord on the northern end of Beinn Bhiorach.

The continent is roughly dumbbell-shaped, measuring some 1200 kilometers from north to south and 400 at its widest from east to west. It lies a good 9000 kloms from Strathbogie, the nearest landma.s.s to the southeast. In 2054 it boasted only a single munic.i.p.ality that could be dignified with the t.i.tle of "city"- the state capital of Muckle Skerry on the southern coast. This place had a large biochemical plant, a brand-new shopping mall, a medical center, governmental and law enforcement offices, and a fast-proliferating gaggle of grog-shops, clip joints, bordellos, and recreational drugstores that catered to the hardworking miners, ranch hands, agriworkers, airfarmers, fisherfolk, and other dwellers in the sticks who egged into town on weekends to whoop it up in a civilized setting. There were no inst.i.tutions of higher learning or metapsychic research in Muckle Skerry or anywhere else in Beinn Bhiorach. The other twenty-one permanent settlements of the frontier continent were very small, ranging from market towns and fishing hamlets to lonely trading posts in the interior mountain ranges. The only settlement within 300 kloms of Glen Tuath Farm was Grampian Town, population 2200, a center for barley-growing and the site of two important distilleries and a brewery.

Ian worked his holding with the help of seasonal contract workers, some of whom owned their harvesting aircraft. Viola, an energetic young woman, willingly took over the bookkeeping and purchasing, supervised the airfarm's domestic robotics and ground personnel, and spent long hours transforming the bleak collection of prefabricated buildings into an oasis of dramatic beauty. At the same time, she gestated the couple's first baby, Kenneth, who was born-regrettably frail of body and metapsychically latent-in 2055.

Like her mother-in-law Masha before her, Viola Strachan compensated for her disappointment in the nonoperant child by turning once again to neglected academic pursuits. The branch of psychophysics that had been her specialty involved a good deal of mathematical a.n.a.lysis that required no other equipment than her own talented brain and a computer with satellite-linkage that put her in touch with the University of New Glasgow. Through that inst.i.tution, Viola could communicate with fellow researchers on worlds throughout the galaxy. Early on, she began to specialize in statistical cerebroenergetics, with a special emphasis upon the potentially injurious effects of mind-boosting equipment upon CE operators.

Ian was more than willing to have his wife resume her scientific career, even if it meant that he would have to hire a domestic manager to take over her erstwhile duties. He worshipped Viola, finding it almost incredible that such an exceptionally talented woman would have agreed to marry him, bury herself in a colonial wilderness, and have his children. He was so deeply in love that he would have done almost anything to please her. For two years they seemed to be happy, in spite of the fact that little Kenneth was a sickly child who failed to thrive. The meta therapists in New Glasgow declared that there was no chance that he would ever achieve operancy, even though his intellect was exceptional.

Then Dorothea was born in 2057-also latent but quite healthy-apparently having a prodigious mentality, with truly extraordinary suboperant metafaculties that might conceivably be released if the appropriate stimuli were applied. Unfortunately, Caledonia did not then have the facilities to handle the baby girl's case properly. For accurate evaluation and treatment she would have to be taken to Earth.

Viola was bitterly disappointed that this second child, like the first, was not an operant. She began to rea.s.sess her marriage and saw her handsome husband in a new, much less flattering light. It seemed clear to Viola that the meta shortcomings of their children were a result of his genetic input, and she felt increasingly stultified by the intellectual isolation of farm life as well. She became withdrawn and cool to Ian and began to exert her considerable coercive power upon him, urging him to sell the airfarm and return to Edinburgh with her and the children, so that their daughter at least might have a chance to reach her enormous mental potential.

Ian at first agreed. The farm was going through an especially rocky period and he was discouraged and overworked. He would be able to get some kind of job Earthside, and Viola had already been offered a good research position at her alma mater. But then Ian's father Kyle Macdonald caught wind of what was about to happen, egged over to Beinn Bhiorach from Clyde, and in an impa.s.sioned man-to-man dialogue managed to change his son's mind.

Viola was thunderstruck when Ian then flatly refused to sell Glen Tuath. All of Masha's warnings about the impossibility of an operant woman having a successful marriage with a normal man now came home to Viola. She finally looked at her husband with complete objectivity ... and decided that she no longer loved him.

Less than a year after Dorothea's birth, Viola Strachan told Ian Macdonald that she was going to divorce him. She returned to Earth on an express starship, taking Kenneth and Dorothea with her. At first she moved in with her sympathetic mother-in-law Masha, who was then a full Professor of Clinical Metapsychology at the University of Edinburgh as well as a Magnate of the Concilium. Later Viola rented a townhouse of her own and the children were cared for during the day at a nursery school.

For the next four years Viola worked in the university's Department of Psychophysics together with her older brother Robert Strachan and his wife, Rowan Grant, until all three of them were slain on a day that changed the history of the Galactic Milieu.

5.

ISLAY, INNER HEBRIDES, SCOTLAND,.

EARTH, 26-28 MAY 2062.

There were many other tourists at Dun Bhorairaig besides Professor MacGregor-Gawrys and her party, but all of them were adults except Dee and Ken, and so the student archaeologist who was their guide pitched her lecture at a rather rarefied level. The dun was an ancient stronghold on a knoll high above the Sound of Islay. It had been extensively excavated and it featured a small museum with dioramas and exhibits in addition to the partially restored ruins. The two children liked the museum, but they soon became bored by explanations of the diggings and wandered off by themselves. Ken was eager to snoop through the rubble in hopes of finding some treasure that the scientists had overlooked. But Dee was feeling odd again, and all she wanted was to stand quietly at the edge of the parapet, staring down the long rough slope leading to the seash.o.r.e.

Even in bright sunlight, with the expanse of water shining and birds warbling in the heather, she could not escape the feeling that something very bad was going to happen. By instinct, she connected the premonition with the strange aetheric atmosphere of Islay itself, which had made it seem so much more sinister than neighboring Jura when she had viewed both islands from the ferry. She had never felt this way before, and it was very unpleasant.

Closing her eyes, she set about to delete the disagreeable sensation with her new self-redactive faculty. She greeted the invisible, silent angel, took up the proper box, opened it, freed the soothing redness, and let herself float effortlessly upon it.

There, she said to herself. Now nothing can hurt me. It's all right. Yes- "Dee! Look at this! D'you think it might be ancient?"

The spell broke and her eyes flew open. It was Ken, holding what looked like a rusty bit of crinkled wire under her nose.

She gave a cry of consternation. "I was trying to use my new power and you spoiled it!"

Ken grimaced. "You fixing to upchuck again?"

"No! I just ... feel funny." She looked at him sidelong. "Don't you get weird vibes from this place?"

"No." He was clearly uninterested. "I'm going to show this doodah I found to the archaeologist. It could be important."

Smoldering with indignation, Dee watched him go back toward the crowd of tourists. Boys! A grungy old piece of wire was important-but she wasn't. It would serve Ken right if the terrible thing happened to him.

But as soon as the thought pa.s.sed through her head, she repented of it. Not Kenny, she prayed. Please, angel, don't let anything happen to my big brother.

Her malaise was forgotten. She trotted off after him, calling: "Wait for me!" She caught Ken up just as the archaeologist was examining his find and p.r.o.nouncing it to be a hairpin of late-twentieth-century vintage. The adults gathered round were laughing and Ken's pale features had gone bright pink with embarra.s.sment.

"Don't fash yuirsel', laddie," said a stout middle-aged man wearing a marmalade-colored sports jacket and trews in the gaudy Buchanan tartan. He was standing with Gran Masha and the other members of the family. "Losh, at least yuir een were sharp enow to identify the wee whatsit as a human artefack. That's verra commendable."

Gran Masha said, "How kind of you to say so, Evaluator. May I present my grandson Kenneth Macdonald and his sister Dorothea ... Children, this is Evaluator Throma'eloo Lek, who is a Visiting Fellow in Forensic Metapsychology at Edinburgh University. He is also here on a holiday visit."

Dee said "How do you do" and shook the Evaluator's very clammy hand. But Ken stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Kenneth!" Mummie chided him. "Your manners."

With great reluctance, the boy held out his hand. After the greeting had been exchanged, the Evaluator winked and said: "Noo, that wasna sae gruesome, was it?" Then he exchanged a few more jovial words with Gran Masha and took his leave, saying he was on his way to visit the usquebaugh works.

"What a surprise, finding him here," Rowan said. They all began heading back to their rented groundcar, a s.p.a.cious blue Audi.

Robbie laughed. "Not really, when you consider that Islay is probably the most renowned producer of single malts on Earth. It would be odd if old Lek and his ilk didn't make the pilgrimage."

Ken was still looking shocked. Dee stared after the departing Evaluator. There was something creepy about him. But what? He looked very old, but lots of people didn't want to be rejuvenated. Was it his fakey use of Scots dialect when he was obviously not Scottish at all?

"What do you say we follow Throma'eloo's example?" Robbie suggested. "There's plenty of time to visit the Bowmore establishment before we're due at Finlaggan for this evening's festivities. It would be a pity if we didn't come home from Islay with a few well-aged souvenirs." When his stern-faced sister looked as though she were about to object, he laughed. "Oh, come on, Vi. Lighten up. It isn't as though the bairns were going to absorb the product by oz-b.l.o.o.d.y-mosis."

"Unless the gene is dominant," Viola said bitterly. "Oh ... very well. If Masha can stand it, so can I."

They climbed into the car, the professor spoke the destination, and they drove off. What with the strange old man and the incomprehensible byplay among the adults, Dee felt totally mystified. But Ken was sitting in the front seat between Mummie and Gran and there was no way she could question him about what was going on without the grownups hearing, and she was too proud to admit her ignorance to them. So she sat back and looked out of the window while the car traveled at a sedate pace along the narrow roads, heading southwest and eventually reaching Lochindaal, the great arm of the sea that nearly divided Islay in two. The threatening feeling Dee had experienced at the dun had vanished.

Bowmore, the unofficial capital of the island, was a tidy village with slate-roofed white houses and an unusual round church at the head of its broad main street. On the southern outskirts of town was some kind of sizable factory with shiny onion-shaped "paG.o.das" towering above its buildings. A peculiar odor filled the air, and when Dee asked what it was, Masha replied crisply. "Burning peat, fermenting barley water ... and fine single-malt Scotch. We are going to tour one of the places where Islay whisky is made, because liquor from this small island is famed throughout the entire Galaxy."

At first Dee enjoyed the Bowmore Distillery tour very much. The paG.o.das turned out to be ventilators on top of peat-fired kilns for roasting malted barley. In another building they watched the sweet-smelling dried malt ground up and turned into porridge. Sugary liquid drained off the porridge was mixed with yeast, and fermentation eventually turned the sugar water to a kind of barley beer having a low percentage of alcohol. This was carefully heated to concentrate the spirits through distillation.

Dee was especially intrigued by the stillroom with its huge copper vessels shaped like gnome hats. Numbers of other trippers were staring at the stills as well. The things were very old, and the tour guide began an elaborate explanation of how they operated ... but suddenly Dee could no longer hear him.

It was back.

The threat of impending danger had abruptly returned. Even worse, Dee felt something prying at her mind, something cold and horrid and fearfully powerful, quite different from any human coercive-redactive prober she had ever encountered. She froze where she stood, unable to call out to Mummie or the other grownups who stood several meters away listening to the guide. There was only her brother close by, and four or five innocent-looking strangers.

Then she saw them.

They were lurking amongst a group of human beings who had just entered the stillroom: the three Gi from the ferryboat! In a flash she understood everything. Her fear turned to hot anger and indignation. She gave a mighty mental push, banishing the would-be intruder from her head, then poked her brother and whispered, "Kenny, look! Those awful Big Birds are here."

"So what?" he muttered. He had been unusually quiet ever since they had left Dun Bhorairaig.

"They're trying to probe my mind and they're making me feel all spooky. I think they were sneaking about on the dun, too! If they keep following me, the holiday will be spoiled."

"Why should the Gi follow you? You're bonkoid! What's the matter-are you afraid they'll tell Mummie about your new power?"

Dee shook her head. "It's not that at all. I've felt that something bad was going to happen ever since we got to Islay. And just now somebody really, really strong was trying to dig into my mind! It's not one of the True People. It felt different. So it must be an exotic-"

Ken grasped her arm and squeezed an urgent warning. "Shh! Pipe down. Didn't you know? There's another nonhuman here on the tour with us! Over there. That geeky professor or whatever he is that Gran Masha made us shake hands with. It must be him drilling at your mind-screen."

Dee followed her brother's eyes and saw the man dressed in the orange nebulin sports jacket and funny pants. He was staring up at the row of gigantic copper pot stills. The expression on his face was one of religious awe.

Dee was bewildered. "But he's just a grownup!"

"He's not," Ken said, with stark conviction. "He's a ruddy great thumping Krondaku Grand Master! Metacreatively disguised. They do that sometimes when they go prowling on other folks' planets and don't want to be recognized."

Dee stared. Was it possible that that ordinary-looking person was actually a great warty tentacled monster with six eyes and a funnel mouth full of sharp fangs? She, like most very young Earthlings, was terrified by the supremely intelligent exotic beings, whose coercive and mind-probing powers were legendary. "But why would a Krondaku care about me?" she whimpered.

Ken shrugged A sly smile touched his pale lips. "Maybe he wants you for a snack."

But Dee was having none of that. "The Krondaku don't eat people, silly!"

"Then maybe he wants you for a stupidity specimen."

She very nearly punched him. But that would have meant losing control. She took a deep breath instead and spoke with complete calmness, even though her eyes blazed with anger. "Now you listen, Kenny! I'm not fooling. Something really is messing with my mind."

Ken's att.i.tude changed from mocking to sober in an instant. "You could tell Mum or Gran Masha," he began. But his tone was dubious. He knew that the Evaluator must be a very important person, not to be lightly accused of the unauthorized mental probing of a child. Everyone knew that was a serious crime under the laws of the Galactic Milieu.

"No." She shook her head stubbornly. "I'm not even sure that he's the one. Maybe it's the Gi."

"It could be your imagination."

"It's real! It felt like the mind-ream the latency therapists use, only ever so much stronger. And exotic."

"If you say so. But I don't know what we can do about it- short of telling the oldies."

Dee's face had gone stony. "I'll be all right. Whoever's doing it, I'm not going to let him in. But-"

"What?"

"Can I hold your hand?"

He sighed. "Gaw! What a complete dragola. You know what? You're turning into a faffing beanbag."

But he held on to her tightly until they were safely back in the car, and by then the queer sensations had once again disappeared.

Early in the evening they visited the expertly restored seat of the Lords of the Isles, built on an island in Loch Finlaggan. It was both a museum and the scene of a "medieval feast" presided over by costumed actors, with fourteenth-century entertainment accompanying the meal. Ken was very taken with the Macdonald castle and its pageantry; but Dee found the ambiance disturbing and once again felt unaccountably ill at ease, although this time there was no outsider attacking her mind-screen.

All throughout the feast she felt as though someone were watching her. She whispered her suspicion to Ken and they studied the crowd of dinner guests carefully, but there was no sign of the three Gi or the camouflaged Krondaku. It was a relief to Dee when the bards sang their last song and she and her family walked back to the car park across the torch-lit lake causeway. The feeling of danger melted away completely as they drove to Bridgend, where they spent the night in a handsome inn.

On Sat.u.r.day morning they hiked up to see the "Giant's Grave," an important prehistoric site on Beinn Tart a' Mhill. Then they visited the Museum of Islay Life in Port Charlotte, where there were exhibits of simple family dwellings ranging from Neolithic huts to homesteadings of the late nineteenth century. After that Masha, Viola, and Rowan drove off together to see the great Celtic cross and the carved grave slabs at Kildalton Chapel while Robbie and the children attended a lively little agricultural fair near Bowmore. Many of the other tourists (including the three Gi) were also at the gathering, buying up island handicrafts and homemade goodies and watching demonstrations of traditional folkways.

The fair turned out to be an occasion of pure fun for Dee. There was no trace of her former feeling of foreboding as she and her brother and her good-natured uncle mingled with the happy crowd. Collie dogs showed off their shepherding skills; s.h.a.ggy little West Highland cattle, lyre-horned Ayrshires, and other pampered pet livestock were paraded before critical judges by their proud owners; and there was an old-fashioned shearing contest with hand clippers that demonstrated the way wool was taken in the days before a simple pill that temporarily interrupted the hair-growing cycle caused sheep to drop their fleeces as neatly as unzipped fluffy coats.

After spending that night at the Dower House Hotel in Kildalton, they went on Sunday morning to look at the little whitewashed cottage on the nearby Lochindaal seash.o.r.e where their grandfather Kyle Macdonald had been born in 2006. The place had long since pa.s.sed out of the family and become someone's summer home. There was no possibility of going inside. Nevertheless Dee and Ken insisted upon getting out of the car and walking round the locked and deserted building.

"Well, do be quick about it." Viola's irritation was plain. "Gran Masha and your aunt and uncle and I would much rather have our picnic than sit here in the car waiting for you two."

"We won't be long," Dee said. "But we really want to see Grandad's house."

It had never really come home to the two children before that their grandmother had had a husband and a family. Dee and Ken mostly thought of Gran Masha as a professor at the University and a very important person-who coincidentally happened to be a rather jolly elderly relative. That she could also have been a wife to someone named Kyle Macdonald and a mother to Ian, their mysterious father, was something they had never really thought about before.

"Grandad's on Caledonia with Dad," Ken said. "He writes books. I heard Uncle Robbie say so." They were out of sight of the car, walking through the house's back garden that faced the sea. Pinks and sandwort grew amidst the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, and the dog roses were in bloom. Beyond the strand, the wide sea-loch was almost as calm as green gla.s.s. The sky had become hazy.

"Both Dad and Grandad are latent," Ken added in a low voice. "Like us. That's why Mum and Gran Masha never talk about them."

"I wonder if Grandad wore a kilt when he was little and lived here?" Dee tried to peer into one of the back windows, but the interior of the house was too dark for her to see anything.

Ken gave a scornful laugh. "Not likely. He was born just before the Great Intervention. Kids back then wore clothes pretty much like ours ..." He broke off, suddenly uncertain. "But I read that people on Caledonia wear kilts a lot, so maybe he does now. And Dad, too."

"I wonder if Grandad's nice? I really wish we could visit him and Dad. Do you think we ever will?"

"Mum will never take us. That's a dead cert."

"No," Dee agreed gravely. "She thinks Earth is the best place to live."

"I'm not so sure about that. When I grow up, I'm going to go to Caledonia and see for myself."

"Take me with you!" Dee begged.

Before Ken could reply, his wrist-communicator peeped softly. With a sigh, he pressed the RECEIVE pad. Mum's voice, incisive and not to be ignored, ordered the two of them back into the car at once.

Suddenly Dee's eyes were fierce. Both her fists were clenched. "Kenny-please! Please promise you'll take me to Caledonia."

"Stupid git," he said, but his voice was kind. "Oh ... all right. I promise. Now let's go back to the car before Mum comes after us and starts frizzing our ears."

The last activity Masha had planned for them before they caught the late evening shuttle bus back to the mainland was a picnic followed by a leisurely walk along the wild northwestern sh.o.r.e of the island, where they would be able to explore the cliffs and sea-caves and perhaps catch sight of some rare birds. The car carried them north to the Gruinart Flats that formed Islay's narrow "waist." Long ago the flats had been drained dry for crop planting, but now they had reverted to their original wetland state and were set aside as a bird sanctuary.

"Islay once had over fifteen thousand people living on it," Gran Masha said, "and much of the native wildlife was killed. But when the Great Intervention opened the way to the stars, many of the inhabitants went away and helped to colonize new planets, just as human beings in other parts of the Earth did. Those who still live here on Islay are very careful to take good care of the land and the plants and animals, so that the island will remain beautiful forever."

"Did some of the people who went away go to the planet Caledonia?" Dee asked.

"Yes," Gran Masha said shortly. Then she changed the subject, and began talking about the Battle of Gruinart.

By now, everyone-even Ken-had already read the story of the Kilnave Fiend from the book that Dee had picked up on the ferry. (But when Robbie Strachan checked with Islay Telecom, there was no listing for subscribers named John Quentin or Magdala MacKendal, so Dee was allowed to keep the plaque.) Viola had been very dubious about the tale of the Fiend. She had taken the time to consult with the Keeper of the Islay Museum and found out that there was no evidence whatsoever that the dwarf known as the Dubh Sith, a genuine historical character, had been responsible for the fiery ma.s.sacre of the MacLeans. As for the notion that the Kilnave Fiend still stalked the moors dealing fiery death to the unwary, the Keeper had laughed and called it sensational rubbish. Viola had said that she suspected as much, and she used the occasion to lecture the children on the virtue of healthy skepticism.

They spent a brief time looking over the scene of the 1598 battle, a glistening spread of salt marsh alive with waterfowl. Dee entered the birds that she could recognize into her Day List of species observed. Then the car headed up the road on the west side of Loch Gruinart toward Kilnave. After about five kilometers they came to a discreet notice board on their right that directed them down a short dirt track to a roofless stone church overlooking the sandy shallows. Everyone got out of the car, and Aunt Rowan took her camera and made a Tri-D video as they explored the scene of the ancient atrocity.

The church of St. Nave was built of ma.s.sive gray slabs stained with yellow lichen. A stone cross with dim carvings stood outside. Dee hated the place, in spite of the colorful wild-flowers that surrounded it. Her earlier feeling of uneasiness had returned more strongly than ever during the drive north. She refused to go inside the decaying stone-arched door of the ruin, which reminded her of a mouth with snaggleteeth, and she was the first to climb back into the car when Gran Masha said it was time to move on.

Beyond Kilnave the road led past some abandoned farmstead-ings and then turned inland, away from Loch Gruinart, and skirted Loch Ardnave, a small body of freshwater that was alive with nesting ducks and grebes. They stopped briefly so that Dee could enter the birds in her notebook. Eventually they reached the road's end at the sea, where there were several stone picnic shelters in niches among the sand dunes of Traigh Nostaig. Two other groundcars were in the parking area and a few people were visible down by the sh.o.r.e. The sky had partly clouded over again and great waves were crashing onto the beach: But it was pleasant inside their shelter, where Aunt Rowan and Uncle Robbie unpacked the lunch and set it out on the salt-bleached wood of the rustic table. A flock of gulls immediately appeared, evidently having designs on the food, and some of the bolder birds began buzzing the picnic grounds.