Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) Read Free Page B

huna healing. “Unifex is too ashamed to talk about it. Even now.”

1
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD
    I FLEW HOME TO N EW E NGLAND ON AUTO -V EE THE NEXT DAY , sleeping most of the way with my cat curled up beside me on the rear banquette. Oddly enough, I didn’t have bad dreams after the interview with Marc’s son and daughter, for which I suppose I can thank Malama Johnson. God knows, I would never be able to think of Marc—or the Family Ghost—in the same way again after the horrors that poor Cloud and Hagen disclosed to me back on Kauai.
    I woke up, feeling fairly decent, as the egg announced that we were nearly home and demanded further navigational instructions. We traced a leisurely holding pattern 1200 meters above Hanover, New Hampshire. It was a lovely morning and the old college town by the Connecticut River was at its most charming, spread out below like a patchwork quilt of bright colors thanks to the autumn foliage.
    I discovered that I was ravenously hungry. Half a dozen congenial campus eateries lay within strolling distance of my apartment, and I had opened my mouth to give the command to descend—when suddenly a completely different notion on where to break my fast occurred to me.
    Sheer serendipity.
    Right.
    I programmed the aircraft for Vee-flight to Bretton Woods, and a few minutes later we’d whizzed 90 kilometers northeast and descended into the egg-park area of the old White Mountain Resort Hotel. It crouched at the foot of Mount Washington, a gargantuan white wooden confection with bright red roofs on its gabled wings and quaint towers. As the rhocraft landed, I announced myself over the RF com and confirmed that the establishmentwould be delighted to accommodate Citizen Remillard for breakfast.
    I opaqued the egg’s dome for decency’s sake, used the facilities, freshened up with a Beard-Wipe, combed my hair, and donned my old corduroy jacket. Then I opened a pouch of cat food for Marcel and thrust him into his carrier-cage. He bespoke telepathic indignation as he realized I was about to go off and leave him behind.
    “Sorry, old boy. No companion animals allowed in the hotel dining room. Old Yankee custom.”
    Marcel gave a bitter hiss of betrayal as I exited the rhocraft. Silly brute. When were the goddam cats going to admit that the raison d’être of the human race was not humble service to felinity?
    I came through the gardens, where chrysanthemums and dahlias and winter pansies still bloomed, and ambled into the hotel’s main entrance, giving my nostalgia free rein as I sopped up the familiar Edwardian ambiance. I hadn’t been here in thirty years, but the old place, beautifully restored, subtly tricked out now with high-tech innovations to allow year-round operation and adapted to accommodate other races besides humankind, looked almost exactly as I remembered it. The lobby was crowded with tourists, both human and exotic, many of them preparing to ascend Mount Washington via the antique cog railway.
    I went out on the veranda, where there was a gorgeous view of the Presidential Range, not yet touched by snow. The lower slopes were a blazing mosaic of dark evergreens and gold-and-scarlet sugar maples.
    Memories overwhelmed me like a psychic avalanche. The wedding of Jack and Dorothée had been held here in 2078, and I’d been the ring-bearer and killed a man for the second time in my life. And in 2082, the last time I had stood on the mountain, my nephew Denis had been with me.
    Denis. And the other.
    But I dared not think of that yet. So I went in and had a fine breakfast, then returned to my egg, where Marcel had retaliated against my perfidy in the time-honored catty fashion. I didn’t even bother to chide him, only turned on the aircraft’s environmental deodorizer full-blast and flew home. It was time to begin writing again, with or without the Family Ghost’s help.
    It was more than happenstance that brought me back to the White Mountain Hotel.
    In my younger