The Mind Pool

Chapter 29

Skrynol was ready to dim the lights when Mondrian stopped her.

Not this time. If you don’t mind, I want to do something different.”

The lanky Pipe-Rilla clucked disapproval. “I do mind. The agenda is set by the Fropper, not the patient. And recently we have been making very slow progress.”

“Then one extra session won’t matter.” Mondrian had been carrying a narrow black tube, as long as his forearm. He handed it to Skrynol. “I also think this may be relevant to my problem.’

“A recording?” Skrynol glanced around the claustrophobic chamber for an open viewing space. “If it does not involve you, it has no value.”

“It is of me, and of one other. I want you to examine it, and tell me what he was thinking of as we talked. Also, I want to know what / was thinking.”

“Based on visual and aural inputs only? You are a supreme optimist, Commander Mondrian.” But Skrynol was already dimming the lights and setting the recorder to playback mode. To a Pipe-Rilla who was also a Fropper, the challenge was irresistible.

“I must watch this all the way through, Commander. In silence. During the second playing I will integrate my impressions and describe them to you. Before we begin, however, tell me something of the other party.”

“His name is Chancellor Vercingetorix Dalton. He was born and raised on Earth, but in unusual circumstances.”

As the image volume formed, Mondrian described Chan’s background, his odd history and training, and the successful Barchan Simmie hunt. He continued until the image space was completely defined, and Skrynol held up a fleshy forelimb.

“For the moment, that is enough. If I have questions, you can answer them after first viewing.”

She dimmed the lights, and a moment later Mondrian felt the soft touch of electrodes and needle sensors.

“With your permission,” said Skrynol’s voice in the darkness. “Your feelings as you watch may add much to what I can deduce from the recording.”

The projection record began. Esro Mondrian and Chan Dalton were facing diagonally across a table, with Chan apparently sitting in deep shadow. In fact, Mondrian had been at Anabasis Headquarters on Ceres, while Dalton was linking in from S’kat’lan, eighteen lightyears away.

Skrynol watched in silence for twenty minutes. At the end of the recording she sighed. “Ah, that rosy light. I recognize it. Sweet S’kat’lan, world of my dreams! To be there, to be home, instead of here.”

“I am sure Dalton would say exactly the same thing about Earth. Did you get anything?”

“Of course. Wait and see. Never fear, I will tell you what I observe … at the right moment.”

The recording began again.

Esro Mondrian was nodding his head to Chan Dalton. “Congratulations on a great effort on Barchan. You did it in record time, and you didn’t harm a single Shellback.”

(“There is already concealment,” said Skrynol. “On your part. You are thinking, What a change in so short a time. Dalton grew up. But he is tense, taut as a Link-line. 1 must be careful!”)

Mondrian, sitting in the dark, wondered at the wisdom of his decision to show the recording to Skrynol. His pretended interest in his own thoughts had been intended only to persuade Skrynol to offer her insights on Dalton’s thinking. Now it was too late to say that he had changed his mind.

Chan had been placed in a room designed by Mondrian. It was based on tens of thousands of psychological profiles. Humans unsure of themselves usually took the seat nearest the wall, or remained standing. Not Chan. He was sitting in the controlling seat, the chair from which his comments could be made most forcibly.

“Thank you,” he said. “But your congratulations should go to the whole team. It was a combined effort, and I give you thanks on behalf of all four members.”

(“He guards some secret — and he thinks, “Mondrian can see right through me. I think he knows about Barchan. But how can he?’”)

Mondrian’s face on the recording was white and weary, and his eyes unnaturally bright. “I wish I had better news for you, Chan, after all your efforts on Barchan. But I’m afraid I don’t. I have to give you some very bad news.” (“Great fatigue! But that is obvious, without the services of a Fropper. You were thinking: ‘Dalton’s response is wrong. I tell him there is bad news. He tightens, then a second later he is relaxed again. What’s on his mind? He has become unreadable. Who does he remind me of?’ I can of course answer that for you. Chan Dalton reminds you — and me — of Esro Mondrian. Now he is sub-vocalizing: ‘Mondrian can’t know. He wouldn’t put it that way if he did. Keep control. Remember what Tatty said.’ — I feel your own emotional surge at that name — “Work with him, but never let him get an edge. Or he will own you … Angel was right, as usual. No one knows — can know — what happened to the Simmie. Unless the whole thing was a set-up, and everything we did was watched.’”)

On the recording, Chan was at last registering alarm. “Bad news about our team?”

“No. Bad news from Travancore.”

“What’s happening there?’

(“His focus has shifted. Now he is truly concerned, and not for discovery of some secret of his own.”) “The planet has been placed in quarantine by the Anabasis,” Mondrian was speaking slowly, carefully. “I am sorry, but there is no way of making what I have to say less painful to you. The Morgan Construct on Travancore is even more dangerous than we realized. Team Alpha has been destroyed.”

(“He is losing self-control.”)

“Leah? — ”

“Leah is dead. All the team members are dead.”

Chan shivered. He closed his eyes, leaned forward, and placed his hands on his face. “Tell me everything.”

(“And you have control of him — the control that you were seeking. But you are also afraid at this point of the recording. Fatigue is lessening your concentration, when it is most important to retain your dominance.)

“I will tell you what I know.” Mondrian was speaking again. “It is not much. We obtained only limited information after Team Alpha descended to the planet. We know that they decided to explore the shafts that lead down through the vegetation to the true surface. We believe that they encountered Nimrod — the name they gave the Morgan Construct. It is not clear if that name is used by the Construct itself, or given to it by the pursuit team on Travancore. We suspect the former. We believe that the team, contrary to instructions, made the great mistake of attempting communications with the Construct after contact, rather than at once destroying it.”

(“Another reaction from Dalton. Your words have made him think of some action of his own. I cannot say what.”)

“That was a fatal mistake,” went on Mondrian. “Nimrod is supremely dangerous. The monitoring equipment on the orbital survey vessel obtained one brief sequence involving the Construct. After that there was nothing. No video, no audio, no telemetry of vital signs for any team member. The team members were … gone.”

(“You have lost him. He no longer listens to you. He is reacting to the earlier news, sub-vocalizing again: ‘Leah dead. Dead, dead, dead … they could not bear to kill the Construct, as we could not bear to kill the Simmie. It’s still living by Dreamsea. But this is different, Nimrod is more dangerous than the Simmie could ever be . … Was it painless and quick, or slow agony? Did she think of me, ever, the way I think of her?’ Dalton doubts that his own team can ever destroy Nimrod, if Team Alpha failed. You talk to him still, but now he hardly listens.”)

“You did not know this,” Mondrian was continuing, “because we thought it might do you more harm than good. But now you must know. Livia Morgan had planned to build other capabilities into her later Constructs. She did it, we think, in Nimrod. That Construct can generate a field which disturbs the perception of wholly organic brains. It can induce images, thoughts, even words. The Construct itself is not affected.”

(“You are lying to him,” said Skrynol softly. “Even though you are exhausted. That I know, but I do not know why.”

“I was thinking something different, something that I did not want him to know. I was thinking, Luther Brachis is bull-headed, but he is right. He says, forget the idea of chasing the Construct. Lay waste the whole planet, the whole stellar system if we have to. Blame the Construct for it, and to hell with the worries of the Stellar Group.”

“No.” Skrynol had stopped the recording. “That may indeed be the view that Brachis holds, but it has little relevance to this. You were lying for other reasons. I will return to them later. For the moment …”)

The recording began again.

“What could the field do,” Chan was asking. “Make us unable to move, or unable to think?”

“Not in its original design. The field was supposed only to aid a Construct in escaping from danger, by inducing delusions in organic brains. A living creature would see things that were not there, or imagine situations not based, in reality. It is a form of telepathy. While those false images endured, the Construct would move out of danger. But now we see Nimrod using it as an offensive weapon.”

“Is there a defense against it?”

“There is no defense … except flight.”

(“He is strengthening. You no longer control him. He is saying to himself, ‘Flight, never. It will be attack. Vengeance, for Leah. I will go to Travancore and kill the thing that killed her. Without delay, without argument, without mercy — no matter what the other team members want to do.”) The recording suddenly stopped. Mondrian felt Skrynol’s soft touch on his chest.

“Which, of course, is exactly what you wanted him to say. Dalton was to make that decision, to kill (you see, Mondrian, how easily I say that word, Kill! I am truly insane). He decided to kill, and swiftly. Decided for himself, without ever being told to do so. That is why you brought the recording — to see if Dalton had really been moved as you wanted him moved. We both know that actions taken from internal conviction are far better motivated than any external commands.”

There was a strange tremble in Skrynol’s limb. The Pipe-Rilla was laughing. “Ah, Esro Mondrian, human audacity — your audacity — is as boundless as it is unjustified. To think that you might conceal such simple motives as these from your own Fropper!

“But now” — more electrodes came snaking out of the darkness, to attach themselves to Mondrian — “now we will begin. We will change focus to a more profitable subject. Let us study on that recording not the simple emotions of Chancellor Dalton … but the wondrously more complex ones of Commander Esro Mondrian.”