Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) Read Free Page A

spatiotemporal nodalities are immutable and the past, present, and future form a seamless whole. It is impossible to change history. Unifex acted as he must act—and yet his actions were and are freely done. Our own actions are free as well, contributing to and formulating the mystery of the Great Reality.”
    Hagen gave a scornful laugh. “And ‘God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world’?”
    “Perhaps,” Malama said.
    They sat in silence for several minutes. Then Hagen spoke again. “Something’s just occurred to me. The Lylmik race is the closest thing to Mental Man that our galaxy has produced, but it’s decadent and headed for extinction. What do you want to bet that Papa tried to modify
Lylmik
evolution just as he wanted to modify ours—and failed!”
    Rogi shrugged. “Nobody knows a damn thing about Lylmik history.”
    “Maybe,” the young man continued slowly, “Papa plans to return to his original scheme now that he’s six million years wiser after the fact … and he has his original experimental subjects back in hand.”
    “Don’t talk like a fool,” Cloud cried out to her brother. “The Galactic Concilium would never permit the Mental Man project to be revived—not even by the arch-Lylmik himself.”
    “Would you bet your life on it?” Hagen shot back at her. “Again?”
    “I can think of one sure way you two can help prevent it,” Rogi said suddenly, “in the unlikely event that Hagen’s right.”
    “How?” the brother and sister demanded.
    “Tell me all you know about Marc’s scheme, and I’ll publish it in the fourth volume of my memoirs. The full story of Mental Man has never come out. Most of the details of the plan were suppressed by the Galactic Concilium—supposedly to preserve the tranquillity and good order of the Milieu.”
    “You were on the brink of the Metapsychic Rebellion then, weren’t you?” Cloud asked.
    “Right. Officially, the Rebellion was fought to liberate humanity from the Milieu and its Unity. But the main reason Marc decided to declare war was because he was so pissed off at having his great dream condemned. He caused a monumental uproar when the Mental Man project was cancelled, charging that the exotic magnates and their loyalist human confederates were conspiring to deprive our race of a great genetic breakthrough. He said that the Milieu was afraid humanity would become mentally superior to all the rest of creation, and the only solution was breaking away, as the Rebel faction had advocated for so long. A lot of normals believed that the Mental Man project would insure that all their children would grow up to be metapsychic operants. But Marc and his people never did explain to the general public exactly how this miracle was going to be accomplished.”
    “He didn’t dare,” Hagen muttered. “They would have lynched him.”
    Cloud said, “It was years before Hagen and I finally discovered what Papa had planned. When our mother found out the truth … well, you know what happened.”
    “No, I don’t,” Rogi said. “Not really. Tell me! Help me tell the story to the whole Galactic Milieu. That’s got to be the reason why you two were sent here to talk to me. I don’t understand why Unifex doesn’t give me the information himself, but he must have his reasons.”
    “It was his worst sin,” Malama Johnson stated in her calm voice. “Worse than leading the Rebellion into violent conflict and causing the deaths of all those people. Deep in his heart, Marc thought the war against the Galactic Milieu and its Unity was justified, as his followers did. But the Mental Man project was quite different. He knew it was wrong, and yet he couldn’t resist the awful elegance of the concept—the opportunity to personallyengineer a great leap forward in human mental and physical evolution.”
    The three others stared at her wordlessly.
    “Don’t you see, dear grandchildren?” Malama spread her hands, embracing all their minds in