"May, Julian - Galactic Milieu 3 - Magnificat" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

Fifteen years later, as I attended mass in the Catholic chapel in nearby Bretton Woods, I heard my wretched brother's telepathic death-scream. Even worse, I experienced Don's last burst of furious hatred for me--and also, mysteriously, for himself. At his funeral I received disquieting news from Denis, who was then a professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover and one of the most famous metapsychic researchers in the country. My nephew blamed himself for not preventing his father's death. Denis also told me that Don had been murdered, and that I myself was in deadly danger. He urged me to come live near him--so that he could protect me and also help me to attain my full metapotential.
I didn't want to leave the White Mountain Hotel. I had a job that I was good at and thoroughly enjoyed, and nobody in the place knew I was a metapsychic operant--which suited me just dandy. In the end, however, Denis did convince me to join him. I moved to Hanover and became an antiquarian bookseller, sole proprietor of the shop called The Eloquent Page; but from then on the relationship between Denis and me was more ambiguous and troubling.
I loved my foster son dearly. But deep in my heart I was afraid of him and his tremendous mindpowers--as I was also afraid of my own metafunctions. The fear was entirely irrational, rooted deep in my unconscious, and I never have managed to shake free of it

Like many geniuses, Denis Remillard was a man of unexceptional appearance. He was fair and slightly built, with a manner that seemed gentle and self-effacing--unless you happened to look directly into his electric blue eyes and feel the strength of the coercive power lurking there. Whereupon you might be excused for thinking that your skeleton had suddenly liquefied and seeped out through your paralyzed toes.
Denis's intellectual achievements were even more prodigious man his metapsychic talents. His research earned him a Nobel Prize in psychiatric medicine, and his books and monographs are classics, still highly respected thirty years after his death. As is Denis himself.
The 2013 Congress on Metapsychology was held at the White Mountain Hotel at his instigation, and its fateful climax was largely his doing. Prominent metas came to New Hampshire from all over the world for what was supposed to be their last annual convocation. They were a beleaguered minority in those early days of the twenty-first century, weary of being assailed and misunderstood by hostile normals, discouraged by the apparent inability of our race to live together in peace and fellowship, but still hopeful that they might somehow be able to use their higher mindpowers for the good of all humanity.
On the last night of the Congress, the operants were scheduled to dine at the spectacular Summit Chalet atop Mount Washington... and there they were also supposed to die. Other historians in addition to myself have told how the operant madman Kieran O'Connor conspired with Denis's younger brother Victor to murder the Congress delegates. The failure of the plot has been ascribed by some people to fortuitous coincidence--by others to the aggressive use of metaconcerted mindpower by numbers of the delegates under attack.
In these memoirs, I have told what actually happened. Some of the besieged operants did use their mindpowers as weapons. But then, rallied by Denis, they resisted the temptation to strike back mentally at their enemies. It was Denis who integrated their minds--and the minds of countless other human beings of good will, both operant and nonoperant--into a benevolent mental alliance that extended worldwide. That unique, loving metaconcert, foreshadowing the greater one forged by Jack and Dorothщe in 2083, lasted only for a few moments. But it was sufficient.
The planet Earth had shown the watching Milieu that its immature, quarrelsome Mind was worth saving. The sky above Mount Washington--and above every major population center in the world--filled with exotic starships, and the human race was inducted willy-nilly into a galactic confederation.
I also had a hand in it, and so did a certain Lylmik. But the Great Intervention would never have happened without my nephew Denis.
Et maintenant la leчon touche р sa fin.

2
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE, EARTH
2 FEBRUARY 2078

The rudalm-composer MulMul Ziml landed its rhocraft across the street from The Eloquent Page bookshop, climbed out, and stood in the snow for some time absorbing the local telluric aura and giggling in unashamed rapture at the heady stimulation of it all. Earth in winter! The veritable heart-nest of the Remillard clan! It was inimitable. Sublime. Very nearly inenarrable!
The hermaphroditic exotic had feared that Rogatien Remillard's place of work and residence would have been tarted up and modernized by now, sixty-five years after the Great Intervention. But no--there the exquisite old three-storey building stood, Federal-style clapboards gleaming in the thickening snowfall, windows cheerily alight (the upper ones had green shutters), and sloping metal roof softly blanketed. So evocative. So human! One might readily compose a worthy rudalm on this enchanting scene alone. (But, alas, if one expected to sell the work to the lucrative Human Polity market as well as to one's own, more aesthetically sensitive Gi race, the leitmotif required more interspecies appeal and pizzazz.)
The planet's sun had long since set. Increasing numbers of crystalline flakes danced in the frigid atmosphere, glistening as they drifted through the beams of streetlights and the headlamps of passing groundcars. Melting grids were working full tilt to keep the sidewalks and streets clear for pedestrians and vehicles, but fresh snow was already thick on the bare branches of the trees and other unheated surfaces. It lay nine cents deep on the little patch of frozen lawn in front of the bookshop and whitened the concrete footing and the evergreen shrubs around the building's central vestibule steps.
The Gi musician's tall quasi-avian body was clad in a rented environmental suit, and its enormous yellow eyes peered out through a transparent protective visor. The creature found the nocturnal townscape to be almost unbearably ravishing, especially when savored through the pla'akst sensory circuit, but it now began to shiver and feel incipient chilblains in its feet and hypersensitive external genitalia. Turning up the suit's thermostat didn't seem to help. Reluctantly, the Gi decided it had accumulated enough outdoor imagery. It was time to get on with the interview and the full-sensory extraction.
MulMul Ziml tripped off heedlessly across Main Street, only barely managing to dodge a scannerless, aged groundcar full of Dartmouth students that skidded on the wet pavement trying to avoid it. The reversed turbine whined and a horn blared furiously. The near-disaster had been entirely the Gi's own fault and it prayed forgiveness from the Cosmic All as it scrambled clumsily onto the opposite sidewalk. Fortunately, the human occupants of the vehicle weren't metapsychic operants, so MulMul's excruciating telepathic cry of terror had not distressed them unnecessarily.
The door of the bookshop opened and an operant human male peered out, broadcasting emanations of anxiety. "God! Are you all right?"
"Quite safe, quite safe," the Gi fluted. "How kind of you to inquire! It was so silly of me not to calculate the velocity of the approaching vehicle before attempting to cross the street, but I'd forgotten how fast you Earthlings drive."
"Well, come inside before we both freeze our bizounes off," the man said rather tetchily. "I suppose you're the one Dorothщe said was coming."
"Yes, the Dirigent most kindly--'' The Gi broke off, did a double take, and shrieked in delight. "It's you! Uncle Rogi!"
The bookseller sighed and shut the door behind the exotic visitor. "That's what everybody in town calls me. You might as well, too. Take off your things and come sit by the stove with me and my buddy. Tell us about this opera or whatever it is you're writing."
An antique cast-iron heating device and several chairs occupied one corner of the bookshop. There were also reading lamps and a small table with a coffee-making machine. Another male human, weakly metapsychic like Rogi, was sitting there quaffing from a mug. His mind-tone was amiable and a species of small domestic animal rested on his lap.
MulMul hesitated. "You're sure you won't mind if I divest?
Some Earthlings feel uncomfortable in the presence of unclothed members of my race."
The bookseller laughed. "Hell, no. Go right ahead. Me and Kyle need more than a buck-nekkid Gi to shock us. Just hang your suit on the clothes-tree there and kick off your boots. I know you folks can't abide coffee, so I'm going to make you a hot toddy. You look like you need one."
Rogi went off to the back of the shop and MulMul shyly undressed, shaking out its compressed filoplumage and untangling its testicular peduncles and accessory mammillae. "The rental agent at Anticosti Starport assured me that this garment would keep me comfortable in the coldest weather," the Gi remarked, "but I fear it may be defective. My toes have turned quite blue with cold and just look at my poor phallus."
The second man seemed to choke slightly on his drink, but he recovered quickly and gave a sympathetic nod. He was a robust specimen with abundant brown hair and a ruddy complexion. "Aweel now, Citizen, that's truly a scandal. The stuff they hire out these days just can't be trusted. You be sure to raise a stink when you return it and likely they'll cancel the fee."
"Oh, I'd never dream of complaining!"
"By damn, of course you will," Rogi said, returning with a steaming cup, which he thrust into the Gi's elongated, near-humanoid hands. "When on Earth, you gotta do as the locals do. Stick up for your rights! Sit down there now and toast your tootsies and let's get on with whatever it is you want from me. I'm planning to close the shop early because of the snow... Oh, by the way, this is my old friend Kyle Macdonald. You won't mind if he sits in?"
"Not at all!" MulMul Ziml burbled. "The Dirigent's grandfather! What a signal honor to make your acquaintance." The exotic flopped into the indicated chair and extended its large four-toed feet toward the stove. What a relief it was to be warm again! And the hot drink was truly delightful, its generous alcoholic content enhanced with butterfat and a large helping of maple sugar. The Gi expressed its gratitude after belatedly introducing itself.
"As Dirigent Macdonald may have explained, I am a composer. My specialty is the rudalm--a musical artform that some critics have called a cantata virtuale. Recently, rudalma have enjoyed considerable favor among human music-lovers. They are not true operatic works, but rather full-sensory impressions of a significant event or scene, virtually realized for operant attendees, accompanied by a Gi choir."
"And you're doing the deliverance of Caledonia," Rogi said.
"Precisely! The inherent excitement of the event--together with the participation of distinguished beings such as Jon and Marc Remillard--make it what you humans deem a 'natural' for both Gi and human audiences."
"My granddaughter Dorrie and a few other folk had a wee hand in saving Callie, too," Kyle Macdonald put in, flashing a chilly smile.
"Yes, of course! Oh, dear--I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Most especially since Dirigent Dorothea Macdonald and the Caledonian geophysical team have been so cooperative in sharing their own memorecall of the averted catastrophe. Unfortunately, I've been unable to secure the memories of Jon or Marc Remillard. They seem to be occupied with other affairs just now. The Dirigent suggested that I come to you instead, Uncle Rogi, since you were there during the incident and you enjoy such a close rapport with the heroic Remillard brothers."
"Umm." The old bookseller looked dubious.
"What a singular challenge it must have been!" the hermaphrodite caroled. "Using metaconcerted mindpower to defuse an ascending magmatic plume that threatened to destroy the colony!"
"Not a plume," said Rogi. "A diatreme. Different kinda thing. With plumes, you don't get diamonds in the eruption."
The Gi's huge eyes glazed in ecstasy. "And what a climax that fantastic shower of gems will provide in virtual experience! I've viewed the media recordings of the event, of course, but you were a sensory witness--"
Rogi shook his head. "Only viewed the blowout on monitor equipment in the observers' bunker. Still, it was quite a show."
"If you would consent to share your impressions, you'll provide invaluable input on the entire sequence of events. The Dirigent said that you did witness Marc Remillard's arrival on Caledonia, and you also persuaded him to intervene in the geophysical operation. That occasion is crucial to the exposition of my work."
The Gi took something small from its feathered armpit orifice and held it out to Rogi. The device looked something like a badminton shuttlecock with a narrow, spongy tip. "This full-sensory extractor will absorb your perceptions of the entire episode in short order. The process is quite painless. All we do is insert the soft end into your ear, and I ask you questions--"
"Now, just a damned minute, you!" Rogi barked, starting up from his seat. "Nobody mind-probes me. Nobody!"
The Gi fell back in confusion. "But--"