Free Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) by Julian May Page A

rein to rummage in my brain—even to save Denis. Then a notion occurred to me, a perfect way to do my bit without laying myself open to her. I took a deep breath.
    “Okay. Let’s get started as soon as possible. I’m willing to let
Dorothée
—no one else—probe my mind for repressed Fury memories anytime you like.”
    “I should have thought of that myself,” Anne said approvingly. “She’s the most talented redactor in the Human Polity. Even better than Jack … Very well. This will all take some organizing, Uncle Rogi, and we’re going to have to be very careful not to tip our hand to Fury. We know the thing’s farsensory faculties are extraordinary.”
    I shrugged and quoted an old metapsychic cliché. “ ‘The whole operant world could be spying on us this very minute—but it probably isn’t.’ ”
    That was true for as far as it went. Unfortunately, it didn’t go far enough …
    We drank our cognac and coffee and listened to the music. Anne may have been checking the aether for metapsychic snooping, but there wasn’t a hope in hell she’d detect anything if the eavesdropper was a paramount.
    I finally said, “How in blazes do you plan to get Denis to submit to your therapy? I can’t see Fury lying meekly doggo while a squad of CE-equipped Remillards politely asks for permission to unbutton its host’s mind.”
    “I’ll talk the matter over with Jack and Dorothea, but I suspect we’ve got no choice but to take Denis by surprise.”
    I mulled that over. “If Marc builds coercive-redactive brainboards for your therapy session at the CEREM facility, word of it will almost certainly leak out. There are too many Rebels in his corporation who’d really prick up their ears about something as outré as CE redaction. Before you knew it they’d spread the news all over the Orion Arm.”
    “I think you’re exaggerating—”
    “Listen to me: The one person who
could
build the hats in secret is Ti-Jean. The crafty little bugger’s got unlimited resources.”
    “Jack!” Anne exclaimed. “What a great idea. And he could do the metaconcert design, too. You’re brilliant, Uncle Rogi.”
    I flapped one hand modestly.
    “My greatest fear,” Anne went on in a low voice, “is that an alerted Fury might find some way to subjugate Denis’s core persona before we’re ready to attempt the therapy. If Fury took over Denis’s body and then went into hiding, we’d never be able to track him down—any more than we’ve been able to trace the two surviving Hydra-units.”
    I was aghast. “Do you really think Fury might snatch Denis’s body permanently if it gets the windup?”
    “I think it’s distinctly possible. That’s why I’m going to stay away from Earth until we’re ready to roll. I’ll work out of my office in Concilium Orb so Fury has no chance to probe me. It can’t do it at a distance. Fortunately, Denis hates star-hopping.”
    “But you’ll miss the wedding!” I exclaimed.
    “It will break my heart not to be able to marry Jack and Dorothea, but I’ll survive. I’ll brief the newly weds on the entire situation when they attend the next Concilium session in Orb. That’ll be late July, Earth time. We’ll get things started then. In the meantime, I don’t intend to mention a word of this to the other members of the Dynasty—and you won’t either. No one in the family must know about the plan until Jack gets the modified CE equipment and the metaconcert program ready and we’re set to begin practice.”
    “You won’t even tell the First Magnate?”
    “Especially not Paul. Heaven only knows what tangent he’d fly off on if he discovered the truth and had months to brood about it. He might decide that the lot of us had an obligation to turn ourselves and Denis in to the Galactic Magistratum or Davy MacGregor—just to make a grand gesture. He’d certainly insist on resigning the First Magnateship, and that would jeopardize our pro-Unity agenda.”
    I kept my subversive