The Mind Pool

Rarely for him, MacDougal was caught off balance. “You mean — you do not want me to dismiss Commander Mondrian and Commander Brachis?”

“No indeed.” The topmost frond of the Angel went into slow but wide-ranging oscillation. “That cannot be. The punishment must fit the crime. We, the Angels of Sellora, request a move at once to Closed Hearing. We request full closure, without staff. There should be no one but Ambassadors present.”

“But then the record—”

“There must be no record. The subject for discussion is a question so serious that it can be pursued only in full closed hearing. For this, we invoke our ultimate Ambassadorial privilege.”

Even as the Angel spoke, an opaque screen was flickering into existence around the atrium. The lighted areas around the four Ambassadors were visible for a few seconds more, then there was nothing in the center of the Star Chamber but a ball of scintillating darkness.

Luther Brachis stepped forward to stand next to Esro Mondrian. The two men were alone, outside the dark sphere. Within it sat the four Ambassadors of the Stellar Group. Their earlier meeting had been the first full audio and visual meeting in twenty-two years. Now came the first Closed Hearing in more than a century.

Chapter 2

Mondrian and Brachis had clearly been excluded from the Ambassadorial meeting. Just as clearly, they had not been given permission to leave the Star Chamber. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do.

That should have been no problem. With overlapping areas of jurisdiction, the two men had a thousand points of shared responsibility and a hundred disputes to settle.

But not today. They remained speechless, Brachis pacing and Mondrian sitting in brooding silence, until after two long hours the opaque screen shivered away. The atrium mat it revealed had only two places occupied. The Pipe-Rilla and Dougal MacDougal were still in position, but the Angel and the Tinker Composite had vanished. Even MacDougal’s presence was debatable. He sat crumpled in his seat, like an empty bag of clothes from which the occupant had been spirited away.

The Pipe-Rilla gestured to Brachis and Mondrian to step forward. “We have reached agreement.” The high- pitched voice was as cheerful as ever, but that was no more than an accident of the production mechanism. The Pipe-Rillas always sounded cheerful. The nervous rubbing of forelimbs told a different story. “And since the others are gone, and your own Ambassador appears to be indisposed, it is left to me to tell you the results of our discussions.” The Pipe-Rilla gestured around her, at the two empty places and then at the shrunken, miserable figure of Dougal MacDougal.

“What happened to him?” asked Brachis.

“There was a point of dispute between your Ambassador and the Ambassador for the Angels. The Angel has forceful means of persuasion, even from a distance of many lightyears. I do not understand them, but Ambassador MacDougal will — I trust — recover in just a few of your hours.” The Pipe-Rilla waved a clawed forelimb to dismiss the subject. “Commanders Brachis and Mondrian, please give me your closest attention. I must summarize our deliberations, and our conclusions. First, on the subject of your own blame …”

Mondrian and Brachis froze while the Pipe-Rilla stood, head bowed, for an interminable period. If a human had done such a thing, it would have been by design. But with a Pipe-Rilla …

“All the Ambassadors agree,” said the Pipe-Rilla at last. “You are both responsible in this matter. Commander Mondrian for initiating a project with such enormous potential for danger. Commander Brachis, for failing to make sure that the monitoring for which he had responsibility was suitably carried out. You, and Livia Morgan herself, are culpable in high degree. The willingness of both of you to accept responsibility does you credit, but it is not ultimately relevant. You are guilty. The suggestion of your own Ambassador was that you should be relieved of all duties, dismissed from security service, and stripped of all privileges.”

Brachis glanced at Mondrian. Their Ambassador! He held up his hand, palm outward. “If I could be permitted a comment — ”

“No.” There was a barely discernible tremor in the Pipe-Rilla’s voice. “I must proceed, and as rapidly as p-possible. If this discussion was impossible for the others, can you not see that it is far from easy for me? Ambassador MacDougal’s proposal was of course unacceptable. As the Angel Ambassador pointed out to him, we hold you, Commander Mondrian, more to blame than Commander Brachis, since you initiated the project, but it would be preposterous to dismiss either of you, or relieve either of you of your duties. In any civilized society, it is the individual or group who creates a problem that must have responsibility for solving it. The cause must become the cure. The creation of the Morgan Constructs, and the subsequent escape of one of them, came from your actions and inactions. Livia Morgan, who made the Constructs, is d-dead. And therefore the seeking out and d-disposal of that escaped Morgan Construct must be in your hands. We recognize that humans follow codes of behavior quite different from the rest of the Stellar Group, but in this case there is n-nothing to d-discuss. We are … adamant.”

There had been a shift in the Pipe-Rilla’s posture, and its voice reflected the change. It was too gabbling and jerky to be understood without translation, and Dominus had cut in to provide computer support.

“Ambassador MacDougal has agreed,” went on the Pipe-Rilla. “B-beginning at once, there will be created a new group within the department of Human System Security. It will be of a form peculiar to human history … a military expedition …. what your species knows as” — there was an infinitesimal pause, while Dominus selected and offered for Pipe-Rilla approval a variety of words — “as an Anabasis.”

“As a what ?” The grunted question from Brachis to Mondrian was nothing like a whisper. “What’s she mean?”

“Anabasis,” said Mondrian softly. “We need to review our translation boxes. I don’t know what she means, but I’ll bet that’s not it — the original Anabasis was a military expedition, one that turned into defeat and retreat. Not a good omen.”

The Pipe-Rilla took no notice of their exchange. She was in serious trouble of her own, limbs moving spastically and her narrow thorax fluttering. “The Anabasis,” she whistled, on a rising note. “It will be headed by Commander Mondrian, who has principal responsibility for the problem, assisted by Commander Brachis. Your t-task will be simple. You will s-select and t-train Pursuit Teams, to find the — location of — the Morgan Construct. You will follow it to — wherever it is hi — ding.” Now even Dominus could not help. The speech pattern of the Pipe-Rilla was becoming more and more disorganized as its voice rose past the range of human ears. It became a great, shivering whistle, matching the shake of the giant body. “Each pursuit team must contain one — trained — member of — each intelligent species. Tinker — Angel — Human — and … and Pipe-Rilla.” The voice became a supersonic shriek. “The Pursuit Teams will find the Morgan Construct and — they will — destroy it. DESTROY IT!”

The Pipe-Rilla was gone. The Link was broken, the Star Chamber atrium empty except for the huddled form of Dougal MacDougal.

Brachis turned to Esro Mondrian. “What in the name of living hell was all that about?”

Mondrian was rubbing his cheek and staring at the chromatic flicker of the dying Link connection. “I guess she couldn’t stand it. None of them can. No wonder they had to have a Closed Session, and a secret vote.”

“Couldn’t stand what?” Brachis was scowling. It had just occurred to him that according to the Pipe-Rilla’s edict, he now reported to Mondrian. “You’re as bad as they are.”

“Come on, Brachis. You know the prime rule of the rest of the Stellar Group as well as I do. Intelligent life must be preserved. It’s not to be destroyed ever, for any reason.”

“Yeah. As stupid a damned rule as I ever heard.”

“Maybe. But that’s the way they think of it — true at the individual level, and even more true at the species level.”

“So?”