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Anne McCaffrey - Pegasus 2 - Pegasus in Flight

PROLOGUE

During the late twentieth century's exploration of space, a major breakthrough occurred in the validation and recording of extrasensory perceptions, the so-called paranormal, psionic abilities long held to be spurious. An alternate application of the Goosegg, an extremely sensi- tive encephalograph developed to scan brain patterns of the astronauts who suffered from sporadic ' 'bright spots,'' temporarily diagnosed as cerebral or retinal malfunction, was inadvertenfly discovered when the device was used to monitor a head injury in an intensive-care unit of Jer- hattan. The patient, Henry Darrow, was a self-styled clairvoyant with an astonishing percentage of accurate "guesses." hi his case, as the device monitored his brain patterns, it also registered the discharge of unusual elec- trical energy as he experienced a clairvoyant episode. For the first time there was scientific proof of extrasensory perception.

Henry Darrow recovered from his concussion to found the first Center for Parapsychics in Jerhattan and to formulate the ethical and moral premises that would grant those with valid, and demonstrable, psionic tal- ents certain privileges and responsibilities in a society basically skeptical, hostile, or overtly paranoid about such abilities.

Extrasensory perception--or Talent, as it came to be called--came in varying strengths and forms. Simple, short-range telepathy was fairly common, once inhibi- tions were discarded. But there were also one-way tele- paths, people who could send their thoughts but not receive those of others, and people who could receive thoughts but not send. Others were empaths, able to adjust immediately to the moods of those around them, sometimes quite unconsciously. Telempaths could sense and react to extreme or more distant emotions; some of these were able to redirect emotion, by broadcasting other emotions or by neutralizing the negative--such Talents proved to be invaluable in crowd control, for they could keep a throng from turning into a senseless mob. But the most valuable of the telepaths were those who could both receive and broadcast thought, speaking to other minds anywhere in the world.

Telekinetics-- Talents who could move physical ob- jects by sheer mental power--were also invaluable, their abilities ranging from lifting heavy machinery to ma- nipulating on micro levels.

Clairvoyants or precogs could see future events, either close at hand, or at some remove from their present. Very often their visions allowed the future to be altered and disasters to be averted. Some clairvoyants had special af- finities: some sensed events revolving around fire, water, or wind; others were more apt to perceive children, or violence, or criminal intentions.

Finders also had affinities--some could locate people or animals, while others were able to sense inanimate objects--and their abilities could vary greatly in range.

Talent came in many forms and guises, and not all of the viable types had, as yet, been recognized. The various centers, worldwide, constantly searched for the less dramatic gifts because the need had now far out- stripped the supply. For those potential few, the train- ing was arduous, and the rewards did not always compensate for the unswerving dedication required by their taxing positions.

And yet to be found Talented became the aspiration of many, and the triumph of few.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

--William Shakespeare.

Chapter 1

V # Tiria took a quick look from the alley into the Main Concourse of Residential Linear G, then pulled back instantly, flattening her thin twelve-year-old body against the plas-slab wall. Public Health officials were swarming all over, rounding up the early-morning crowd of able-bodied workers who had been scanning the em- ployment board for a day's work, the mothers with their handicapped kids making their way to the Rehab cen- ters, and the legal children on their way to the Linear's physical-training facility.

Cautiously she took another look, to see what the PHOs were setting up on their tables: vials and the big compressed-air bottles that operated the hyposprays. She withdrew, having seen enough to recognize another wholesale vaccination effort. Strange, she hadn't heard of any new 'mune plagues. To give them their due, PHO was swifter than rumor to avert disaster.

Rapidly Tiria ran through her head her current list of those mothers of illegal children whom she should in- form: first, because they would pay her for warning them to hide the kids; second, because those who could afford to would pay her for stealing whatever vaccine was being administered. She counted on her fingers:

Elpidia, certainly; the old bouzma. Pilau; Bilala, and Zaveta, Ari-san, and Cyoto--and she had better ask Mama Bobchik if there were newboms, for they would need the Five-shotter. She would want one for herself, as well, and could possibly finagle a box, depending on 3

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how the current stuff was packaged. It all depended. Mirda Khan, yes--she had best tell that old wagon right

after she warned Mama.

She would have to change into clean clothing issue-- she had washed, but this week's issue was five days old and looked eight. Public Health were quick to notice details like that. Mama Bobchik was always good for fresh wear, especially if Tiria went to her first with her news. This could be a very good day, Tiria thought with a rise of spirits as she slipped back down the alley for the center-shaft emergency stairs on her way down

to Mama Bobchik's pad.

Most of Tiria's twelve years had been spent in scrounging a totally unofficial living in the multi-ethnic thirty-storied community of the Linears. She could not afford to miss a single trick, like today's unexpected Public Health roundup, to escape the stringent controls, clever obstacles, and little traps ingeniously set up by the Jerhattan Complex Administration Council and the Law Enforcement and Order Organization to identify and control each member of the restless population.

Officially there had never been a record of Tiria's birth. She was, however, the fifth child bom to Dikka-- only/the first, Tirla's brother, Kail, was legal. The gov- ernment tied a woman off when she gave birth to a second child. Consequently Pirza, Lenny, Ahmed, and Tiria had all been bom in Dikka's single-parent squat with the aid of Mama Bobchik, who had had an illegal child every year until her womb had dried up. Kail had been official until Dikka had sold him at ten. Firza had had the use of Kail's wrist ID for two years until she was profitably disposed of. In the next year, Dikka, Lenny, and Ahmed died of one of the immune plagues that sporadically flared up to decimate the Linears. In the haste and confusion of body disposal, Dikka's death had not been officially noted. So Tiria had been left with two ID bracelets--a fine legacy. Self-sufficient and resourceful, she had managed to retain the squat, draw-

Anne McCaffrey 5

ing two subsistence rations, until Dikka's ID was can- celed after her failure to appear for a routine medical examination.

Wise in the ways of her society, Tiria had not been caught short by the lockout. She knew Tenancy Arti- cles, Paragraphs, and Subsections by heart, so figuring out the cancellation date had been no problem. Two days prior to the eviction, she moved her few posses- sions--hotter unit, the best of the sleep sacks, the 'cor- der, and the pretties Dikka's men had given her from time to time--into new quarters five levels below the Main Concourse, in the maintenance segment of Linear G, right beside the charged security grille that protected the engineering section from unauthorized entry. Only a slight and agile person like Tiria could reach the ey- rie, where massive ducts formed a broad platform be- fore bending up the inner wall. She patched her hotter and 'corder wires into the overhead cables, certain that her small use of electricity was unlikely to be discov- ered, and settled in. She did miss the all-night infor- mational programs on the squat's tri-d. The big public tri-ds on the Concourse stopped 'casting at the midnight curfew. Tiria, with her clever, shrewd, and organized mind, was thirsty for knowledge. She even used Kail's ID to log into school. One of Dikka's men had said that one had to know the rules before one could break them. Tiria had never forgotten.

For another two years. Kail's bracelet supplied his small sister with daily subsistence, weekly clothing is- sue, and other amenities until "Kail" failed to appear at Evaluation Center within three weeks of his sixteenth birthday. The cancellation caused Tiria no problem, for by then she was well-established, almost indispensable to most of the Residential clients and gang bosses in the neighborhood industrial complexes. Her ability to translate any of the nearly ninety dialects and languages used in the subsistence-level Residential Linears saved clients hours at official transspeech centers, or worse,

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misunderstanding. She knew when to be ingratiating or stand firm. She knew what courtesies were due whom and never failed in performing them. Everyone who knew her knew very well that she was illegal. Because she was so useful to the residents of Linear G, as she would be today with her warning about the Public Healthers, and because officially she did not exist any- way, there was no profit--yet--in reporting her illicit existence.

The various errands she did--and she was scrupu- lously silent about them--often brought in "floating" credit chips. Floaters were legal tender--Pay to Bearer, untraceable chips that changed hands frequently. Jer- hattan Treasury and all the merchant and banking houses wisely ignored the circulation of minor amounts of floaters, just as they ignored the petty small traders as long as they made no trouble and their merchandise was harmless. Tiria, and others like her, relied on floaters to support their illegal existences in the Linears.

Linear G thrust thirty massive levels above the squat, featureless F and H commercial blocks where residents of Linears E, G, and I worked. Once, on a Free Day, while Tiria still had her brother's ID, she had gone with Mama Bobchik to the Great Palisades Promenade, where thousands upon thousands of people had swarmed to enjoy a brilliant spring day, to overlook the exclusive hives, platforms, and great cone complexes of Manhat- tan Island, and to ooh and aah at the monorail cars, large and small, that zipped along the tracks which gar- landed the buildings like colored tinsel strands. That was the first time Tiria had seen ships floating on water or the great pleasure skycars. There had even been a special issue of holiday food, yards above the standard fare, at dispensing banks. Buril, Mama's son, had a tripper key that he used on the dispers, so they had managed to stuff themselves before the mechanism's malfunction alarm was triggered. It had been a super

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day for Tiria. She had never dreamed that the world was that big.

That was the same day that Buril explained to her all about the space platform that was being built, which needed so many workers. When it was completed, he said, all the people living on Manhattan who had enough credit and were the "right kind" would be able to go off into space and find other worlds to live on. Then all those beautiful buildings would be empty and there would be enough space for everyone crammed into Lin- ear squats to live in proper big apartments with a bed- room for each family member and no more Public Health or LEO men and women tying men and women off, shaming a virile man.

This morning, as Tiria scratched on Mama Bobchik's door to tell her of the PH presence in the Linear, she heard the old woman gasping and groaning as she strug- gled off the bedshelf.

"Kto stuchitsya? Perestan'te udaryat'sya. Okh, kak bolit golova!"

Tiria grinned. So Mama had a big head this morning, caused by the vodka she had made from the potatoes Tiria had nicked for her. In that state, she would be easy to wheedle out of a credit.

"It's Tiria, and the Public Health are already on the Concourse."

"Boje moil Eto tak? Have I not enough pain in my life?" But the door was pushed open wide enough for Tiria to slip inside. "What have you said? The Public Health again? So soon? Why?"

"Another vaccination by the looks of it. They're grabbing everyone, able-bodies, students, bandies and their mothers."

"Ah, we must hurry. Elpidia, Zaveta ..." Mama Bobchik began reciting the names of her usual mater- nity patients.

Tiria tugged her arm.

"Nu, what do you want from me?"

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"I cannot help unless I have clean issue," Tiria said, managing to look piteous and sound efficient at the same time.

Buril had fixed the clothing-issue slot in his mother's squat so that it could be coaxed to extrude more than it ought. His taking ways had been very useful until Yas- sim--Tiria made the warding sign at just the thought of that man--had paid Mama a huge sum for him. Buril's unusual talent for "fixing" official equipment made him quite valuable--he had not gone the usual route of Yas- sim's purchases, and Mama had been paid enough float- ers to keep her comfortable in her old age.

Mama Bobchik blinked her reddened and bleary eyes and looked at the tiny girl. "Da, that is so!" She patted Tiria's head before she went to the clothing slot and did something that her heavy frame obscured from the girl's sight. When she turned back, she had a packet in her hand.

"I washed this morning," Tiria said, immediately unfastening and stepping out of the old suit. She had to roll up the sleeves and legs of the fresh issue, but when she had neatly folded each roll over wrist and ankle and pressed the edges to seal them, sleeve and leg bloused out nicely to give her apparel more style. She retied the pretty braided rope belt that she had inherited from her mother and tucked the excess material neatly back. "Now, I'll tell Mirda Khan, do this level, and then up and down. That'll be all I think I have time for. What'll I do for an ID? They'll grab me if my wrist's bare."

What Tiria wanted most in her life was a genuine, valid ID bracelet that would allow her a squat right, the use of a tri-d, three meals a day, and a fresh weekly issue of clothing. An ID that was all her own and had never been anyone else's! One that would allow her into the school programs that so few of the kids she knew seemed to care about at all.

Now she cocked her head at Mama Bobchik, know- ing perfectly well that an ID was essential when the

Anne McCaffrey 9

PHOs were swarming the Linear. Mama Bobchik pre- tended to consider, giving Tiria just a few moments of anxiety.

"Eto tak! For PHOs, we use one." With a flounce of her skirts, for Mama would not wear the single-piece coverall without proper skirts to conceal her limbs, she turned her back on Tiria again. No matter how hard Tiria listened, she could not tell where Mama secreted those precious counterfeit IDs that Buril had also con- trived. They were good for one day's use only--one day, because while the band would be accepted by a portable reader such as the PHO would have to record vaccinations, it would show up as a fraud later, when the day's entries were checked.

Mama-Bobchik turned around, dangling the precious ID band. "You split the take for the warning with me. As usual."

Tiria nodded solemn agreement to the terms, her eyes watching the swing of the band.

"And if you can steal enough vaccine, I will give you thirty percent of that take," Mama added.

Tiria gave an incredulous snort. "Sixty. I could get caught stealing."

"Forty, then. No one has caught you yet. After all, I gave you the ID at no cost to you and have the ex- pense of the spray gun."

"Forty-five!"

The two hagglers eyed each other, and then Mama's broad face beamed down at Tirla's unyielding expres- sion. She spit in her palm and engulfed Tirla's delicate hand in her own to seal the arrangement.

"You are a clever one. You must huny now."

The girl was already slipping through the half-opened door and down the hall to spread the warning.

Despite her speed, Tiria barely finished her route be- fore the PH officers began to penetrate the levels, checking the IDs of each squat's occupants and herding

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them out and down to line up for their hypospray. She soon learned that the health threat was not a 'mune plague but a virulent intestinal disease that had started in Linear B with devastating results. All Linears were being vaccinated in an attempt to stem the spread of the ailment. The PH public-address system droned on con- stantly giving a short explanation in all the languages registered in Linear G; Tiria did some rapid translations of her own when requested by nervous mothers.

"It's only another food contamination," she assured the skeptical. "They've isolated the source, who have been heavily fined and lost their license."

"Huh!" Mirda Khan said, her dark eyes glistening with skepticism. "That will be gone as long as it takes to send in enough credit to reissue it. How long will the protection last us?"

"Oh, this one'll do us for a year!"

"A year? They are improving."

Trudging forward step by step in the long line, Tiria and Mama Bobchik finally reached the PH, dropped their wrists across the reader, and received their shots. Immediately Mama pretended to become faint and stag- gered against the table. While the PH woman was cop- ing with that, Tiria swept an entire tray of the vaccine ampoules into the shopping sack Mirda Khan had ready as she, too, came to Mama's assistance.

"Okh, kak bolit golova!" Mama said in an appropri- ately wispy tone, the back of her fat hand against her head. The pain in her voice was not entirely faked, considering the hangover headache.

"What's she saying?" the PH officer asked, hovering between concern and annoyance.

"Her head hurts," Tiria replied.

"Not from this injection," was the callous response of the PHer. "Now move along!"

Solicitously Mirda Khan and Tiria propped up Mama Bobchik as she made her way slowly toward the nearest

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side aisle. Once safely out of sight, Mama immediately reached for Mirda's sack and peered inside it.

"One whole tray? Miraculous, Tiria, truly miracu- lous. There are more than enough. Run ahead and tell them to come in small groups. The PHOs have already checked our three levels. It will be safe."

In the course of her errands, Tiria tried her ID brace- let on as many public dispensers as she passed, no mat- ter what commodity emerged from the slot. She tucked each purloined item into the extra material at the back of her coverall, or into a sleeve or a trouser leg. It became harder to move quickly, but she managed. By evening, she had enough small floaters and illegally ac- quired items to keep her well fed and content for the next month. If she stretched a bit, it might even be six weeks before she need bother about working again.

Anne McCaffrey 13

Chapter 2

#t #$# There was no aura of menace or threat," Rhyssa Owen told Sascha Roznine as he stood glaring down at her. To reduce his threatening glower to a more pro- ductive, thoughtful mood, she touched his arm, rein- forcing her statement with a mental See? Curiosity. An impingement, not a threat.

Sascha subsided, but he continued to glare at the graph recording of Rhyssa's eariy-moming sleep pat- tern, where the wide black mark of the spoke showed that she had been roused from an REM dream sequence to full alertness by a mental intruder.

As the director of the Center for Parapsychic Talents on the North American East Coast, Rhyssa Owen lived on what had been the Henner estate, a reserve of trees, lawn, and mature gardens above the Hudson River on the Palisades. This archaic remainder of the twentieth- century residential suburbs interrupted the flow of Lin- ear structures that housed the millions who lived and worked in the massive Jerhattan complex. Rhyssa's quarters were undistinguished from any of the other three-story apartment blocks set among the gardens and trees. As with all dwellings for the Talented, these were secured and shielded from unannounced entry. In fact, even those who tenanted the Linear constructions run- ning on the long sides of the Center's extensive grounds did not know of its existence, so artful were its screens. No one should have been able to intrude on Rhyssa, much less in her sleep.

"Awkward, rousing you so thoroughly. You need all the rest you can get." Sascha projected a vision of him- self and Rhyssa curled together in her bed, the double- thick duvet tucked around their spooned bodies.

Yes, yes, Rhyssa replied. She responded with a vision of a firm foot pushing the Sascha body out of the bed. But even if you had been there physically, you couldn't've helped, Sascha-bear. It was all in my mind, in my dreams. And that's your duvet, not mine. I never use plaids.

Rhyssa smiled up at him, fluttering her eyelashes to mock his projection. He raised his brows in resignation. They both enjoyed this game. They had been playing it for years.

Picky, picky. Don't avoid the issue, Sascha said. "Who, I'd like to know, could knock in on your mind? And why?"

"Indeed!" Rhyssa crossed her arms and stared off into a view of the lowering clouds and dismal rain that obscured a usually breathtaking view of Jerhattan. That's what perplexes me.

Don't range, Streaky. Sending your mind out search- ing for him takes too much out of you. You're going to need all your energy to deal with the Zealots. He pro- jected the vision of three persons with limbs so entan- gled they resembled an Oriental fetish, each caricatured face wearing an expression of mixed intransigence and skepticism.

Oh, don't! She laughed as her return image untangled arms and legs and set each person upright, a whisk- broom smoothing tunic and trousers while emblems of rank were straightened. I can't remember that when I have to deal soberly with their urgent requests for Tal- ents I don't have. They 're laughable enough as it is.

"Good. That's all they deserve. Shall I have Sirikit check back and see when this phenomenon first regis- tered?" Sheer impudence! Sascha snorted his annoy-

ance.

"That's an idea." Rhyssa smiled ruefully as she

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Anne McCaffrey

pulled clothes from drawer and closet. She continued to talk as she dressed in the bathroom. "I only thought of checking my graph this morning. I really do need my sleep."

"Probably some emergent Talent who doesn't under- stand protocol. I do wish they didn't always feel required to overreact to their newfound mind-powers.''

"Damned strong one!" Maliciously, Rhyssa pro- jected an image of a very young Madlyn Luvaro, mourn wide open, and the circle of people cringing away from the waves of sound emanating from her.

Sascha grimaced. Madlyn Luvaro had a mental shout that could penetrate to the space station and any of its peripheral dockyards. It had been Sascha's task, as he was nominally in charge of Training and Development, to teach her how to focus and moderate her mental voice. Madlyn adored him passionately and was em- barrassingly possessive of him, an adulation he was finding increasingly difficult to discount--it was the rea- son that he assiduously cultivated the notion that he and Rhyssa were on the brink of a total partnership. Kindly, Rhyssa did not disclaim the rumor.

"I'll have Sirikit run a check on possible emer- gents," he told her, then sent the request to Sirikit in the Control Room, also asking her to check Rhyssa's encephalograph charts for the previous months.

Emerging washed and dressed, Rhyssa beckoned Sa- scha to follow her through to her office, which adjoined her living suite. She yawned as she sat down at her desk, kinetically pulling some pencil files into her reach, fanning them out, and turning each until the index-code side was visible. She selected the one she wanted and neatly piled the others in front of her, code side out- ward, as her first selection inserted itself in the reply slot. Simultaneously the reader net came off its hook and settled lightly on her head. With one finger, she poked the left contact pad against her temple in a final adjustment.

"We won't find him there," she said, and was as startled as Sascha was that she used a gender. "Well, I know a trifle more than I thought I did from that fleet- ing nudge."

"A secret lover?"

"Could be," Rhyssa murmured, projecting an image of a sly grin and a come-hither expression directed at an amorphous shadow. Although her tone was light, Sascha perceived that her surprise at making any kind of an identification went deep.

"I'll follow through," Sascha said, and left her of- fice. As he took the antigrav shaft down from her tower to the vast basement complex where most of the Cen- ter's training and research was conducted, he carried with him a vivid mental picture of Rhyssa Owen at her desk, the reader net covering her black hair, a spider- webbing across the wide silver lock that she had had since her early teens. That streak grew broader every year, and by her late thirties her hair would be all Celtic silver.

Rhyssa would always have a young face, Sascha thought, as both her father and her illustrious grandfa- ther, Daffyd op Owen, had had: young, vibrant, with dark blue eyes that sparkled and gleamed with intelli- gence, humor, and unassailable energy. Rhyssa was nearly as tall as the males in her family and a shade too thin; she clothed her long bones in elegant, if often bizarre styles: generally long flowing garments that set her off in a society which had stripped apparel to the minimum.

She was not pretty--her features, though small, were too uneven and mismatched, her right eye socket canted above the cheekbone, giving her a gamine expression that no one who knew her would misjudge. Her nose had a slight bump, making her profile look haughty, and her mouth was too generous above a strong jawline. Still, one forgot such details within moments of meeting her. She had inherited the full measure of charismatic

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personality, as well as the strong psionic talents, of her parents--and of the grandfather who had battled to se- cure the position of Talents in the present socioeco- nomic-political atmosphere.

Sascha Roznine, himself a third-generation Talent and younger than Rhyssa by three months, preferred his cur- rent role as chief trainer and recruiter in the Center. Not for him the petty power ploys that Rhyssa coped with admirably, for he had struggled all his life to manage a quixotic temper. The nerve-racking sessions with Jer- hattan's managers and all the picayune details she had to deal with would have set him raging in five minutes. Sascha, on the other hand, had immense patience with emergent Talents, coaxing, cosseting, and curbing, gently allaying their doubts and building their confi- dence. When Rhyssa had once pointed out that, in their own way, emergent Talents were as obnoxious as man- agers, Sascha had replied mat at least Talents learned from their mistakes.

There were so many strengths and varieties of Talent. Of the precogs, there were those who could foresee events, generally those which would have a major effect on a large number of other people; those whose pre- science was limited to people they knew or were assigned to watch; and those whose precognirions had affinities with fire, water, males or females, children--there was as wide an assortment of focus points as mere were strengths of perception.

Telepathy was the most common Talent, though some people could only receive thought, and others only send it. Telempaths felt emotions and responded to the per- vading ones. A trained telempath could either dampen negative auras or reinforce positive ones, a Talent use- ful for altering the tension in a crowd, preventing ram- paging emotions from turning groups of people into disorderly mobs.

Finders were those Talents who could locate things, using only a facsimile of the desired item, or, in the

case of a missing human or animal, a garment or some other personal object.

Teleldnetics could work on the largest objects, or the most minute particles that could not be seen with the naked eye or even a microscope, though there had only been one known genetic manipulator, Ruth Horvath. Teleldnetics were invaluable in so many walks of life that those with this Talent were encouraged to have as many children as possible.

The rarest of the Talents were the pure and double telepaths--like Rhyssa, who could send and receive communications across the world as long as she had met the person she wished to contact. She could pene- trate any mind not shielded by the thin metal caps the nervous wore or by the natural mental shield that some normal people were born with.

Sascha, also a strong double telepath, lacked the phenomenal range that Rhyssa possessed, but he never resented her for it. Once her strength had been estab- lished by her grandfather, Rhyssa had been committed to a Center directorship and all its responsibilities- responsibilities that Sascha would never want to take on. As far as he was concerned, Rhyssa was welcome to her Talent.

He heard Madlyn Luvaro before he landed on the shaft cushion at the basement level. She was trying to be quiet, but she was as successful as if she had been tap-dancing across a sound-resonant surface.

Until you leam to damp down your aura, it won't work, Madlyn, he told her. Improper flow! Low positive energy is what you need to be 'silent.'

Dammit, I thought that's what I had! Her mental re- sponse was contritely discouraged.

Sascha pushed out of the shaft and there she was, flattened against the wall.

"I did 'hear' you coming," she said aloud.

Sascha: Giant step forward! Madlyn was a powerful

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sender, but generally she could "hear" only those in her immediate vicinity.

He tugged a strand of her tangled mane of black hair as he passed, and she fell into step behind him, her large and expressive eyes rueful. Madlyn was a volup- tuous eighteen-year-old with a sensual nature to match her appearance. She, and her Talent, had matured at fourteen, and since then Sascha had been struggling to teach her the necessary discipline that any Talent had to master, and that she would certainly require before her penetrating mental shout could be utilized.

Sirikit's already checking Rhyssa's Goosegg read- ings. Sascha had not tried to dampen his immediate concern. With so many telepaths aware of the alarm, keeping the investigation under wraps had been impos- sible.

Someone actually intruded on Rhyssa? Madlyn pro- jected an image of herself throttling a large, amorphous intruder and squashing it into a little ball which she then flushed down the toilet.

Sascha snorted. Madlyn was quite capable of attack- ing anything that threatened Rhyssa. Who in the Center wasn't?

They found Sirikit already scanning Rhyssa's Goos- egg encephalographs for the previous month. Several were paused at the spoking that indicated intrusive wak- enings. The Goosegg, initially developed to monitor the odd light flashes experienced by astronauts, was espe- cially sensitive in registering delta brain waves, which had been discovered to be the seat of paranormal or extrasensory perceptions. A Talent, trained to recognize his or her own slight mental alteration prior to paranor- mal activity, slipped on a net that could read brain ac- tivity. Many Talents, particularly the precognitives and clairvoyants, wore them night and day. They were lightweight, of a strong fine mesh matching the wear- er's hair color. The net transmitted to the Center's main banks, so that Incidents of paranormal activity could be

officially recorded, studied, and consulted. It was proof positive to any skeptics that the extrasensory percep- tions did occur.

"Look at Rhyssa's recordings, Sascha. There's no question that the Incidents have been increasing," Sir- ikit said as Sascha strode to the bank of horizontal spin- dles used in such comparisons. "First one three weeks ago, second four days later, then three, and this past week once a night--about four-ish."

Sascha: Odd time for a voyeur!

Sirikit: With three-quarters of the population asleep in bed.

Madlyn: Insomniac?

Sascha smiled, for not only was her mental tone ap- propriately soft but she had caught the quick exchanges.

Sascha: An adolescent generally has to be pried from his sleep. Rhyssa thinks it's an emergent Talent.

Madlyn: You keep telling me that emergent Talents follow no rule.

"Any statistics on insomniacs?" Sirikit asked.

"I'll program it," Madlyn said, flipping her hair back as she seated herself at a monitor, keying in directories that could access any computer bank in the world under the special concessions granted the Centers. She was cleared for normal use, although passwords were needed for any sensitive files. Madlyn might have been blatant in her sexuality, but her mind, open to inspection at all times, was as transparently guileless as a child's. "Well, this won't be productive. Anyone can have in- somniac phases. Anxiety is the biggest cause. There are some people, the elderly in particular, who can get along on only four hours of sleep a night!'' Her mental picture was of a horrified grimace superimposed on a tossing body in a rumpled bed. "I'm wrecked without eight hours!"

Sirikit leaned back from the spools, which had all paused to display the telltale spoke of intrusion.

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Sirikit: Three-thirty to four, predawn, too early for most shift workers, even air and road haulers.

Sascha bent over her shoulder, studying the reels as if he could glower the riddle into the open.

Sascha: Rig her net.

Madlyn gasped and stared at him. Sirikit blinked, sighed, and then, rising from her stool, went to the main board to enable the necessary program.

"Some early-moming joy seeker has to be overflying the Center. Set an alarm through her net, and we can catch the bugger in the act." Sascha's voice was vin- dictive.

Madlyn shot him a worried glance. She could feel the wave of high negative energy he exuded.

Chapter 3

^ ^ Barchenka, Duomi, and His Highness Manager Prince Phanibal Shimaz arrived promptly for their meet- ing with Parapsychic Center Director Rhyssa Owen at the Jerhattan City Manager's Tower, a massive struc- ture in the center of Central Park, the last vestige of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Manhattan. The tower, rising above the tallest of the mercantile build- ings, was crowned by ziggurats of communication dishes, giving it an appearance from any distance of a grotesque bunch of stiff daisies rammed into an im- mense glass brick. Skycars of varying sizes, at the land- ing level, stuck out like a fringe of angular, multicolored leaves.

Space Station Construction Manager Ludmilla Bar- chenka entered first, her odd bouncing gait indicating mat she was wearing her antigrav boots. Her infrequent visits back to surface gravity were difficult for her--but they tended to be worse for those she confronted. The woman's appearance did nothing to mitigate her abra- sive personality: she was stocky, big-boned though not fleshy, with a flat, broad face and unexceptional fea- tures. Pale blue eyes and short-cropped hair only added to the image of a tough persona--cold, inflexible tenac- ity. To top that off, Ludmilla invariably wore a thin metal skullcap, a shielding device that was almost an insult to Rhyssa in her capacity as director of the East- ern Center. Rhyssa was not sure if Barchenka used the shield merely out of concern for security or because she

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Anne McCaffrey

was pathologically wary of the Talents whose sendees she desperately needed even as she deplored their abil- ities. Sascha was convinced that Barchenka had some sort of Talent, even if it could not be scanned, and that she refused to acknowledge the possibility.

Despite her total lack of social graces, the Exalted Engineer's dedication could not be faulted. Padrugoi Station was due to be completed, and on budget, at the end of the current year.

With interstellar voyages now possible and habitable planets located in two near systems, the pressure to im- plement the colonization program was incredible. But first the Padrugoi Station, the essential springboard to the stars, had to be completed. The project had world- wide priority and the enthusiastic support of every po- litical and economic faction on Earth.

Considering that the first laboratory station had gone over budget by trillions and had been five years late in completion, Barchenka's achievements so far were con- siderable. But Rhyssa knew the truth: that the Exalted Engineer was beginning to fall behind schedule despite all her efforts. It was rumored that the woman slept no more than four hours a night and daily accomplished a prodigious amount of work--but that she expected the same dedication from everyone on the project. Unfor- tunately she did not have the charisma or leadership ability to generate either loyalty to herself or to the pro- ject. Initially many Talents had volunteered to assist, but one after another they declined to renew their con- tracts. The many enticements to return with their unique capabilities to work on Padrugoi Station had met with failure.

Personnel Manager Per Duomi, coming in behind Ludmilla, moved with the heaviness of someone accus- tomed to lighter gravity, but he managed without the antigrav assists. A Finn, as capable and dedicated as Barchenka, he was slightly easier to deal with. And though he, too, tended to wear a metal shield, the Tal- ents had liked working with Duomi: he was fair, com- petent, and had succeeded in persuading a few Talents to return for special, short-term assignments. But still most had declined to extend their employment, and they could not be conscripted. And though Rhyssa had du- tifully asked the directors of every Center in the world, she had no takers to offer Duomi.

Program Manager Prince Phanibal Shimaz pounced in behind Per Duomi, and his presence was neither es- sential nor welcome to Rhyssa. Peculiarly arrogant and impervious to her continued, and lately overt, distaste for his company, he used any excuse available to press his suit on her. Rhyssa often wondered why he had bothered to develop an impenetrable mind shield when his face revealed all that most men would have had the courtesy to hide. The prince was a computer genius- some said he had thought in binary codes in his creche and teethed on chips--and when he was barely out of his teens, he had mastered the use of the Josephson junctions in what he termed an "idiot proof" applica- tion to regulate with complete safety the vast flow of skycars and drones in and out of major Linear depots and over densely populated areas. He was currently ap- plying his efforts to create a similar basic and safe flow of spatial traffic.

Rhyssa composed her face and her mind, smiling with a warmth she did not feel as the three settled them- selves.

"I do not," Ludmilla began with no preamble, her deep voice guttural with only a slight trace of her native language, "have the required personnel." Her pale eyes accused Rhyssa.

"As I have told you repeatedly. Manager, I cannot and will not order the Talented into space."

Ludmilla brought her fist down with a wince that re- vealed that, in her frustration, she had forgotten the gravitational differences. She brought the bruised hand

24 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

Anne McCaffrey

up in a gesture that in the space station would have been flamboyant but was less graceful on Earth.

"You must insist--"

"I can insist, but they can resist," Rhyssa replied equably.

"How can I maintain schedules without the personnel to perform the necessary tasks? Day by day we fall minutes behind: minutes which your diffident workers could make up in seconds. I will not fall behind the schedule. We will make our completion deadline. We must have the suitable personnel. You told me that you have them, and I have here the proof." Triumphantly Ludmilla extracted a pencil disk from her tunic and brandished it at Rhyssa.

"In that reply I said that I would certainly approach all Centers with your specific requirements. I most cer- tainly did not promise to fill the vacancies."

Barchenka narrowed her pale eyes into a basilisk stare. "You recruit constantly. It is public knowledge that you find new Talents--"

"It does not follow," Rhyssa inserted smoothly, "that those we recruit are the kinetics that you specifi- cally request. Certainly I could not ask untrained Tal- ents to go into the hazards of space."

"Why not?" Ludmilla dismissed that consideration with a broad wave of her hand, inserting the pencil file back into its pocket at the end of the gesture. "We will train them on the job--to be useful, to be careful, to be specialists. They will love space. They will make many credits and be wealthy."

"The Talented do not accumulate wealth, Manager," Per Duomi stated in his flat, nearly toneless voice, his patient eyes never moving from Rhyssa's face.

"Nonsense! Everyone acquires wealth." Ludmilla had more than the usual contempt for altruists. "In the beginning we had many Talents working for us."

"We wished to assist the world project," Rhyssa

said. "But you would not accept their stipulations when their contracts came up for renewal."

"Stupid clauses, untenable for us. Shifts of no more than six hours when we work twenty-four on the plat- form. Special shielding for noise. There is no noise in space.'' Her scornful gaze rested hotly on Rhyssa.

"No noise which is audible to you, Madame Engi- neer, but which is extremely unpleasant to sensitives."

"Bah! Sensitive!" Once again Barchenka summarily dismissed that consideration. "Spoiled, pampered, ca- tered to."

"No, Madame Barchenka, not pampered or spoiled, but yes, catered to," Rhyssa flashed back. "The Tal- ented are skilled personnel and require some minor con- siderations to enable them to perform at their best in the hostile environment of space."

Barchenka plowed on as if she had not heard. "It is incredible that such a minority can exert so much influ- ence on the economic life of our world. In the airport, in the spaceport, in industry where, while I order ma- teriel, I see the very Talents I must have to complete the most important project of the world, a project which has universal approval, which means mankind may reach beyond the limits of this solar system and explore the very stars themselves. Yet you and the other Center managers do not permit me to hire the specialists I need."

"It is not the permission of the Center directors that is required, but the consent of the employed," Rhyssa reminded the engineer. "Center directors negotiate the individual contracts with the necessary safeguards."

"I can buy the contracts." Barchenka's challenge was also a threat.

"Such contracts cannot be sold. Engineer Barchenka, and if you would accept the necessary safeguards, you might be more successful in attracting Talent!" Rhyssa replied sternly, beginning to lose patience with the wom- an's dogmatic pursuit. She could ignore Per Duoml's

26 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 27

mournful expression and even keep her gaze averted from Prince Phanibal's hot eyes, slightly wet lips, and nostrils that flared slightly from his rapid breathing; but all three glaring at her were an unnerving combination. She kept a smile on her lips, deliberately increasing the flow of her limbic system.

"You can insist," Ludmilla repeated. "It is in all your contracts that 'it can be voided at the discretion of the Center in emergencies.' "

Rhyssa suppressed a rush of anger that Barchenka had been given access to a Parapsychic Contract and had to remind herself that such contracts were public knowledge. "My fellow directors do not consider that you have a true emergency. Engineer Barchenka."

For the first time Barchenka flared angrily. "I say this is an emergency! I say I must have a larger work force to complete mis world priority project."

"You have unlimited access to the conscriptable pool of workers."

"Bah! They are useless--sterile, uneducated, un- trainable grunts! I cannot build a space platform only with grunts. I will have the kinetics I need. I promise that, Director!" With that she wheeled and, in a dan- gerous imbalance, made a lurching exit. Prince Phani- bal following her.

Per Duomi took one step forward, bowing slightly at the waist. "Even half a dozen kinetics would improve the situation tremendously."

"As I have explained repeatedly. Per Duomi, insure the Talents shielded quarters and a six-hour maximum shift and they will be amenable. Surely if there's credit enough in your budget to support the number of trips back to Earth that have been made for the purpose of recruiting Talents, the funds can be found to supply their basic needs on Padrugoi!"

"Engineer Barchenka must adhere to the budget. No alterations can be made to existing staff accommoda- tions."

"Then Engineer Barchenka is stuck with the result." Rhyssa fervently wished that Per Duomi would relax his mental shield long enough for her to place directly in his mind the information her words patently did not convey. "You require kinetics to shift objects of mass proportions in the assembly of Padrugoi. You also need kinetics who can assemble chips of the most complex delicacy in the total vacuum of space. The kinetic en- ergy required by both tasks is the same and exhausting. They need quiet to restore their strength--they are sen- sitive to the metallic vibrations of Padrugoi itself, the inhumanly close quartering, the lack of privacy, and the appallingly bad rations which are insufficient to replen- ish their bodies and minds."

Per Duomi nodded impassively and then shrugged, unwilling to comment before he, too, turned to leave.

His departure left Rhyssa with an uneasy sense of foreboding. She directed a query to Sirikit on duty in the Control Room of the Center. Any precogs in just now?

Sirikit: None. You're expecting one?

Rhyssa projected an image of Ludmilla Barchenka's grim visage: Possibly!

Anne McCaffrey 29

Chapter 4

^ ^ TTie &oy blinked three times, and the channel on the ceiling screen changed again. He sighed. Yet an- other oldie he had already seen often enough to have memorized the good parts. He blinked the switch signal again, and realized that he had been through enough of the channels to be sure that there was nothing on to catch his attention--not even an educational program unfamiliar to him. The first few weeks he had been in the ward it had been lots of fun, watching the tri-ds all through the long nights. Kept his mind off--things- after his headaches had eased. Sometimes he almost missed those headaches, because at least then he had been feeling something in his body.

He sighed. He could do that, too, he reminded him- self, thinking positively as Sue, the therapist, said he must. He didn't understand a lot of what she told him, like imagining himself walking and running, thinking hard of how he used to do it--before he had run along- side the ruins and that brick wall had collapsed on him.

Why? The agonizing question made him gasp. He had thought he had stopped thinking about that. Asking "why" was definitely negative and always depressed him terribly. Why had that wall come down just as he, Peter Reidinger, had been running past it? Had he kicked a stone that had been enough to trigger the col- lapse? Had one of the boys chasing him lobbed a stone at the wall? Why, since it had been standing for fifty or a hundred years'all by itself, why had it picked that 28

moment to come down? Three seconds later, he would have been safe--safe from both the wall and the bays chasing him. Why had he turned into the forbidden area, anyhow? He'd had a choice at the end of the alley: over the wall, only it seemed very high to him and he had nothing to give him a leg up; to the right, only that took him back into the Alley Cats' territory and possible ambush; or to the left, weaving his way through the ruins, making it more difficult for them to know which way he would go. Why?

Negative! Negative! Peter screwed up all his face muscles and then made them relax, group by group. Then he smiled, slowly and consciously spreading his lips and bringing the comers of his mouth up, stretch- ing them until his cheeks lifted, his chin dropped, and his lips parted over his teeth; willing the nerve impulses in his face to change the limbic system. As Sue had taught him, he pulled his most happy moment out of his mind: his eleventh birthday, when his father had come home on leave from the space station in time for the party.

Planting that memory firmly in front of "why," Peter rehearsed the details of that happy experience until he could relive the entire scene from the moment the door chime had announced that his father had made it home until Dad had tucked him into his bunk. He had gotten so he could even feel the touch of his father's hand on his forehead.

Good thing Dad had touched him there--one of the only places he still had feeling. Peter sighed again and refelt the touch. Then he closed his eyes and "heard" his father leave the room, "heard" the muffled sounds of his parents talking and laughing. He expelled an- other deep sigh.

He was lucky. He could breathe on his own now. Sue had been so proud of him when that autonomic reflex had returned. He filled his lungs, knowing that his chest was rising, his diaphragm tightening. He could feel the

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Anne McCaffrey

air in his windpipe. He held his breath until spots came in front of his eyes; then he expelled it.

Immediately he heard the steps of the duty nurse. Miz Alien did not like to be disturbed, especially when he knew that they had a critical case on Pie 12. He counted ten steps and then she was peering down at him, making eye contact. She then peered at the wall panel that dis- played the readings from his monitors.

"Why was there a respiratory fluctuation, Peter?"

"Aw, I was just doing my breathing exercises. "

"You were not. " Miz, Alien glared at him a moment, and then her long thin face relaxed. She laid a light hand on his forehead and then drew one finger down his cheek to press it against his lips. ' 'You were fooling. Don't fool with your breathing, Peter. Your brain needs oxygen. And it needs sleep, too. It's quarter of four. You should sleep. You know how to achieve relaxation, Peter. Do your progressives, there's a good boy. "

They both heard the sudden whimpering of the bum girl on the other side of the circular ward.

Miz Alien, reproving smile and all, disappeared, and Peter counted her steps, twenty-one, to get to the crit- ical case. Then he counted to thirty, and the whimper- ing ceased. He knew bums hurt. He wished he felt something, even bums!

He immediately put his mind to the few progressives available to him: the relaxation of every muscle in his face, head, and neck. He could not move his head, but he had sensation in his neck. He reached total slack and thought carefully o/his place, feeling the spring of grass under his feet, hearing the shimmer of leaves as a wind soughed through them, smelling the fragrances of the garden, gazing up at the sky above, the sun warm on his back. He began to float again. He had the sen- sation of drifting up, out of the supine body resting on its cushion of air, amazed and annoyed at the various tubings and wires shunted into him that he never felt.

The garden of his dreams was miles away from Jer-

hattan. It had been part of the vacation farm to which his parents had taken him when he was eight. For some- one raised in Linear Jerhattan, surrounded constantly by the noise and smell of people and maintenance ma- chineries, he had been totally entranced by the farm. Peter knew that there were small green belts throughout the Jerhattan complex; he had even been to several, trying to relive that vacation, but none had evoked the same response in him, being too small and cramped to close out the eternal noise of the city.

He had found a place, though, where he could float when he got to the proper state of relaxation. It had grass and trees, barely visible in the eerie predawn light. And he was strangely attracted by other inexpli- cable strands, comforting wisps of thought, enticing him to linger. One in particular intrigued him, and he hov- ered as close to it as he could, tantalized by a sense of tranquil familiarity.

All of a sudden he was nearly blinded by powerful lights that flooded the scene. He felt a moment of terror. He could not suppress his scream, steadying only when he heard Miz Alien's steps. He did not open his eyes until he felt her hand on his forehead and knew he was safe back in Bed 7 of Pie Ward 12.

"What's the matter, Peter? " Miz Alien always knew if a patient was shamming and she did not tolerate false alarms. Her eyes flicked to the wall panel. "Bad dream?"

"Yes, bad dream. " Despite himself, his voice qua- vered, and her expression softened.

"Yes, your endorphin level shot up. I think you'll have to have some sleep. "

Peter nodded, relieved at her decision. "I've got VMR tomorrow . . ." He began, but then darkness overwhelmed him.

You scared him off! Rhyssa accused Ragnar, fuming that someone had triggered her net to alert the Center's

Anne McCaffrey 33

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security forces if her pattern spiked during the night. The field lights had blazed up. Moments later she had heard the thrumble of the skycars, shooting off in all directions. Sascha! she roared. He was the only one empowered to set surveillance on her!

Sascha: We'll catch the bugger!

Not that way! Rhyssa forced controls on herself to disperse the white-hot fury. Sascha had exceeded his authority--even the boundaries of friendship.

Sascha: / have not!

She inhaled deeply, aware that she was still trembling with anger. She expelled the breath right down to her toes, continuing to press downward until her belly mus- cles were taut. There was NO threat!

There was intrusion! His mental pattern broke briefly as he responded to some exterior stimulus. That's bloody strange, he said a moment later. There was no intrusion. Not a physical one. Not a blip on any screen that can't be accounted for. And nothing--read that-- nothing in our airspace.

An emergent! Rhyssa colored the thought with satis- faction. That is, if you haven't scared him out of his Talent! She sent an image of herself turning back onto her stomach, hauling the duvet in its pastel print tightly around herself, and dragging a matching pillow firmly over her head--which was what she did.

"An emergent from where?" was the qi 'stion that circulated the Control Room.

"Who's awake at four o'clock in the morning?" Sa- scha asked.

"I can do a probability curve," Madlyn suggested, "eliminating all the obvious shift workers."

"Why eliminate them?" Budworth asked.

"If they're working, they're not doing o.o.b.," she replied.

"And who says this is an out-of-body job?" Sascha asked, turning on Madlyn with surprise.

"What else could it be?"

Sascha grinned. "You may very well be right, Mad- lyn, and it's so obvious I wonder none of us thought of it before. Okay, who would go o.o.b.?" It was a lead- ing question to which he already had an answer.

"Someone who doesn't like the bod they're stuck with," she replied.

"But o.o.b.'ing is Talent," Budworth said, "and all of 'em are registered, so they have better things to do than o.o.b."

"If they're registered," Sascha pointed out.

"I see, so we run a check on new ones."

"That's right. With the hospitals."

Madlyn groaned. "D'you know how many hospitals there are in Jerhattan?''

"Not intimately," Sascha said with a grin, and pointed an index finger at her. "Think of it as a survey question in your training. Ask for paralytic cases, teen, preteen, insomniacs ..."

"Why blame the teens?" Madlyn asked, bridling.

"They won't have been scanned for Talent yet. Okay," Sascha added graciously, "try anyone faced with a sudden lack of mobility. I'll add the prison sys- tems, too." He grinned at Madlyn's groan. "One of the most famous was a guy escaping a sadistic jailor."

Madlyn's eyes widened. "Can the Center get pris- oners released?"

Budworth chortled. ' 'Don't you remember your Center history? This place was started by rejects from prisons and mental institutions--" He shot a sly look at Sascha. "--and all kinds of otherwise asocial and/or eccentric personalities."

"If my brother were here ..." Sascha waggled an admonitory finger at Budworth.

"Huh!" Budworth snorted. "I'm not afraid of your brother even if he is the high-and-mighty Law Enforce- ment and Order commissioner."

"I would be," Sascha replied. "Which reminds me,

34 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

I'm late for that appointment. Get the program started on checking hospitals and prisons. And buddy boy, you can do the mental institutions. I appreciate the re- minder."

"Ha!" Madlyn said to Budworth as Sascha left the Control Room.

"How can there be that many illegal children in the Residentials?" Jerhattan City Manager Teresa Aiello demanded of Medical Chief Harv Dunster. "Your peo- ple are supposed to tie off after a second pregnancy."

Harv's angular face was grim. "Only if we get to deliver 'em. You know that some ethnic groups still refuse to practice contraception. Until we have the right to use infertility drugs in subsistence-level food, there'll be unreported births--and continued traffic in preado- lescents for sexual perversions, or cheap labor in illegal factories. And the ones with the right blood factors and healthy organs will still be stashed away by the very rich for transplants as needed." He gestured at the fax sheets on Teresa Aiello's desk.

"And ruthless people will still dispose of the used ones," added Boris Roznine, commissioner 6fLaw En- forcement and Order. "Even illegal kids have rights." He glanced obliquely at the faxes scattered on the work- top.

Teresa inadvertently glanced down. She was a tough- minded woman, but she had a ten-year-old daughter, and the fax of the bloated bodies discovered as flotsam off the North Shore of Long Island spared no one's sensibilities. She averted her eyes. The coroner reported that the oldest had been twelve, the youngest five.

Boris Roznine had contacted her the moment the ap- palling discovery had been made. The temper of Jer- hattan was always uncertain when faced with such news, and Teresa had called an emergency meeting of her commissioners to prepare for a possible eruption if the news was leaked to the media. Boris's twin brother,

Anne McCaffrey 35

Sascha, was due to arrive with the Parapsychic Center's suggestions. To insure the tight security around the tragedy, the four were meeting in the shielded privacy of the city manager's tower office.

"Ah," Boris interrupted what Teresa had been about to say, his right hand lightly touching his temple in indication that he was receiving a telepathic message. "Positive ID of one, the Waddell girl who was kid- napped six weeks ago ..."

Teresa winced and let out a groan. The Waddells were acquaintances of hers, high-tech executives; the child, bright and extremely pretty, had been a school friend of her daughter. Teresa had put a top priority on the abduction, and had officially requested that Rhyssa Owen assign her best finder to the case.

"Two others are listed as runaways, reported missing two months ago. Of the others ..." Roznine shrugged, glancing at the medical officer. "The best the lab can do is genotypes, and it's all-sorts."

Every citizen of the United World was permitted-- provided they did not cany the proscribed genetic re- cessives--to produce a replacement. One parent, one child. Two parents, two children. ZPG was stringently enforced until the pressure of Earth's population could be released on the new habitable worlds, identified but not yet attainable. The Propagation Laws were easier to enforce in rural communities than in the huge residen- tial warrens of cities like Jerhattan, with its population of over thirty million.

Teresa turned to the LEO commissioner. "You haven't stopped the spot checks, have you, Boris?"

"Hell, no, but we're still not locating the early preg- nancies no matter how we try. If I had the personnel to mount simultaneous level searches, we'd catch more." Boris brought his clasped hands together as if closing a net. He gave a ghost of a grin. "We did pretty well at the Residentials, six weeks after the last big power out- age, but that was a once-off.'' Then he spread his hands

36 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

wide, matching Dunster's resignation. "You know our situation. We manage to keep a lid on most of the trou- ble--if we're all sitting down as hard as we can. It isn't as if we need more bodies."

"The ones that ignore the legal control," Harv said dejectedly, "are exactly the ones educational and hy- giene programs don't reach--in any language."

Teresa grimaced. "So there's no indication where the rest of those poor kids were snatched?"

Roznine shook his head. "Could have come from any subsistence level."

"m the last gruesome chucking, three months back or so, only four were recognizable ethnic types," Harv Dunster said grimly. "Near Easterners--Lebanese and Arabic. Two were Tay-Sachs, ten were dark-skinned, and one was an HIV carrier--which may well be why they were all ... disposed of." The medic sighed heavily. "I suspect Lab may also find anti-body posi- tives among this latest--"

"Spare me, Harv," Teresa said firmly, and called up the main Jerhattan map on her screen. "We've just had a go-round of the Residentials with Public Health. We haven't got the funds available for another. Exactly where were the bodies found, Boris?" Her fingers hov- ered over the terminal as she waited for an answer.

"Washed up out by Glen Cove, not far from some of the more exclusive residential hives bordering the Sound."

"Great!" Teresa's frustration came out as sarcasm. "No Incident logged?" she asked Boris, though that would have been included in the initial report.

"The storm, yes. The flotsam, no."

"Shouldn't your brother be here by now?" Teresa frowned, glancing at the clock ticking off the seconds in the comer of the main screen. "We need all the help we can get on this."

The focus of Boris Roznine's blue eyes locked briefly as he linked minds with his younger brother. "Traffic

Anne McCaffrey 37

snarl's breaking up. But he says"--his voice suddenly deepened as the Talent peculiar to the twin brothers allowed one to speak through the other--"Look, I want to save time--yours and mine. These murders go deeper than the loss of thirty juveniles. Forget the HTV factor- it's irrelevant here. They were disposed of because we'd got too close to them, but not close enough, soon enough. Teresa, Carmen's been on search-and-find duty ever since you handed us the Waddell kidnap file. She got a whiff or two of terror, but never enough light to pinpoint. Except that she got a hint of water." Boris's wide mouth quirked briefly, reflecting his brother's cha- grin. "Most of those children had to be illegals. We all know that that group of pederasts is active--and sup- plied--despite international efforts to eradicate that sort of traffic. We know that kids are bought as cheap labor and shipped who knows where. And that some are also secreted as possible transplant donors.

"We haven't been idle," Sascha's voice continued. "This could, in fact, be the break we've been waiting for. We got too close. It'd be nice to know--" and at that word the door to Teresa Aiello's office swung open and Sascha Roznine strode in, smiling at everyone. As he gave his brother's shoulder a grateful squeeze, he continued, "where exactly we got so close. We're working on it, and with your assistance, Harv and Te- resa, I think we have a line to throw out to those sharks." His smile took in each of his listeners, but he cocked his head at his brother and winked.

Slowly a smile began to lighten Boris's face as he read the detailed thoughts in Sascha's mind. "Tag kids with strands through the school system? That might just work! We might even catch the bastard child-stealers this time." Boris leaned forward across the table. "You are all familiar with the restraint filaments that were recently developed? Sometimes those we tangle with the strands escape before they can be secured. A second application has been made with a slightly altered for-

38 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 39

mula, and now the altered strand can be traced for up to six months. There're certain anomalies to be re- solved, but it's worth the effort to tag every child in the vulnerable group."

"You mean, this side of the river?" Teresa waved at the panorama visible from her tower office, the uptown cluster of beehive, cone, and single-tower Residential buildings clearly visible on this bright morning. "But statistically, it's the illegals in the Linear Residentials who are more at risk."

"If we could catch Linear kids to strand 'em," Boris said, raising his hands palms-up in resignation, "we'd be way ahead. Meanwhile we'll strand as many kids as we can on both sides of the river and hope."

"Hope?" Sascha asked softly.

Rhyssa! She recognized the mental touch of John Greene, the Talented bodyguard of Secretary of Space Vemon Altenbach.

We got problems? she asked.

Girl, you really deserve all the headaches of admin- istration if you can guess that much from just hearing me speak your name.

No precog needed, JG, because you never bother me unless there's political pussyfooting. What is it this time?

A bill to draft the Talented into whatever position the government needs them!

Not again? Rhyssa's response was half-amused, half- irritated.

Concerted attempts had been made in the past by government agencies to circumscribe the freedom of choice originally granted to the Talented. That was prior to the point at which the government began to appre- ciate the applications of Talent--after the days when Daffyd op Owen, her illustrious grandfather, abetted by Senator Joel Andres, had fought to gain legal immunity for Talents exercising their abilities.

Immunity had been particularly vital for precogs be- cause, when they warned of disasters which were, by those warnings, averted, they had been subjected to ex- pensive and time-consuming lawsuits. There had been attempts since then, from the ridiculous to the deadly serious, to regulate or restrict, all manner of Talents to military, civil service, or mercantile uses.

But the Talented had always managed, quite legally and with no untoward exercise of their particular abili- ties, to circumvent such attempts. Many Talents had willingly sacrificed personal freedoms to serve in the public sectors, some on a lifelong basis, to preserve the right for their peers to choose. Rhyssa's parents had done that, to give her the opportunity to achieve the position she now held.

Again, and this isn't funny, Rhyssa, Johnny Greene went on, space is in a bind. The platform has to be finished on schedule before the sheer weight of numbers on Earth becomes more unmanageable than it already is.

So Ludmilla's been lobbying?

She's got some hefty help, and Vemon's got tremen- dous pressure on him. I'm the loudest of the Washing- ton/Luxembourg voices, so I'm making the contact with you for the rest of the minders. We 've been excluded from far more sessions than we ought to be--sessions that have been attended by some of the most antagonis- tic Right Mutes that have ever been lined up against Talents. And when you think that I helped him develop his shields against unauthorized peeking, I could spit! The nerve of him closing me out!

One of the more sensitive professions open to em- pathic Talents was that of "minding" vulnerable top- ranking officials. Terrorism was still a fact of political life, and although the problem of the displaced and the minorities had been somewhat eased by the mass reset- tlements and the institution of the Linear developments near every major urban area, and the incidence of as-

40 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 41

sassinations had been drastically reduced, empaths were still employed to "mind" those officials who might be targets for the fanatics who still occasionally emerged.

Rhyssa could hear the hurt in Johnny's voice that Vemon Altenbach had been shielding his thoughts from his minder, especially since Johnny was also Vemon's best friend, as well as his brother-in-law. In his official capacity, Johnny served as under secretary in the Space Secretariat. Prior to that he had been a trained etop-- earth-to-platform--pilot with twenty successful launches . . . until the twenty-first had grounded him forever. His Talent had saved his crew from death but not him- self from losing both left leg and arm. Despite state-of- the-art prostheses, a new career had seemed advisable. So far Johnny had already prevented four attempts to kill or kidnap Secretary of Space Altenbach.

Johnny: / shoulda been included in these latest talks, but I wasn 't.

Rhyssa: Which means that Talent was being dis- cussed. Barchenka and Duomi want more kinetics on the platform in the worst way. I'm doing my best to help . . .

Johnny, in an uncompromising tone: Anyone thought of telling Barchenka that she's the reason why Talents won't work up there?

Rhyssa: Lance Baden did. He thinks she has selective amnesia. Can't even get her replaced, not with the per- formance record she's got!

Vemon's tried! She's so bloody good at what she does-- it's only how she does it. I'll keep in touch, but we felt you ought to be forewarned. There was a hint of criticism in his voice.

Nothing has come up with any precog, Johnny.

I know, I know. That worries me as much. This thing could be very very big, and not even Mallie's got a whiffl

Rhyssa: Then obviously the matter is solved before it reaches critical. She tried to sound firmly optimistic

even as a little shudder rippled down her backbone. Someone should have been sensing something! Mallie Vaden was one of the most sensitive precogs the Center had ever produced, and her lack of foresight--if John- ny's reading of the situation was correct--was surpris- ing.

I'll be in touch, Johnny assured her. I'll even see what the ghosts think. You know how they 'd like to see our Talented noses out of joint.

I think I'll try a frontal attack, Rhyssa said. Might jog a few brain cells loose.

When'11 I see you then? Johnny asked, his tone brightening.

If possible, today. Run me through Vemon's sched- ule. When Johnny did, Rhyssa stopped him at the lunchtime engagement. / like the food there. I'll just drop in!

Rhyssa always experienced a mild shock when she encountered Johnny in the flesh, for the light tenor of his mental voice was at variance with his strong phys- ical appearance. Medium tall, he kept himself physi- cally trim, and one would never guess his serious injuries from seeing him walk or manage eating uten- sils. Some latent kinetic ability had proved to be an asset with his prosthetic limbs. He rose as he spotted Rhyssa approaching the table where he. Secretary of Space Vemon Altenbach, Exalted Engineer Ludmilla Barchenka, and Padrugoi Personnel Manager Per Duomi were seated. Johnny's broad smile welcomed her, and they exchanged touch and a kiss.

Would you have dared look so stunning if the amo- rous Phanibal had come, too? Johnny's green-flecked amber eyes twinkled with devilment.

Rhyssa: Why doesn't that odious man go back to the Pacific island that spawned him and attend to the fam- ily 's plantations ?

Johnny: All you need is a strong handsome man

42 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 43

wAo 'II scare him off. Right now you 've got this lot em- barrassed by your appearance, and yet they haven't said a thing out of line, he added, all in the split sec- onds of the greeting.

Rhyssa gave Altenbach a genuinely glad smile, then nodded politely to the fiercely scowling Barchenka and the bland-faced Per Duoml. "Just the people I hoped to see. When I saw you were to be in Washington, Madame Barchenka, I realized that I should put in an appearance before matters get out of hand."

"Now, Rhyssa," Altenbach said, signaling a waiter to bring a chair and set up another place for his unex- pected guest, "you can't disrupt the established proce- dure of lobbying. That's not the way to play the game."

"Nor is going behind my back," Rhyssa said, smil- ing to take the sting out of her criticism. She turned to Barchenka. "You have a schedule to keep. What you will not appreciate is that one cannot schedule Talent or lobby it. The kinetics you so desperately need cannot materialize to help you meet your schedule. That many kinetics don't exist. Talent is a random and highly in- dividual trait, not an imposed one. No one can dictate to a Talent and expect the person to perform to the best of her or his ability. That dictation inhibits the Talent as surely as seasickness inhibits appetite. There is no legislation in the world that may chain the mind."

"There is legislation that will recruit those needed to do the job that the entire world has decided must be done." Barchenka's stolid words complimented her un- compromising expression. "The platform will be fin- ished as scheduled. The kinetics will participate."

Rhyssa caught another strong emanation, this time from Per Duoml, who nodded solemnly to support Bar- chenka's statement.

"There are ways," Barchenka added, her cold eyes scanning Rhyssa's whole appearance from the elegantly coined hair and subtle makeup to the couture outfit.

"Legal?" Rhyssa asked with a slight smile.

The secretary cleared his throat and handed Rhyssa a menu. "I'm still of the opinion that this--impasse--can be negotiated to the satisfaction of all concerned."

Barchenka made a monosyllabic noise of disbelief and resumed her perusal of the menu. After only seconds, she tossed it negligently to the table. "I would prefer nutritious food to this ..."

Johnny Greene beckoned to the maitre d', who was famous for his poise under the most trying situations that Washington could produce. "D'Amato, Manager Barchenka requires the other menu."

At a snap of D'Amato's fingers, an underling ap- peared and handed him a slim folder, which he pre- sented to Barchenka with a flourish. She gave him, then Johnny, a sardonic look that turned to agreeable sur- prise as she scanned a menu composed of the foodstuffs available on the platform.

"Five, twelve, and twenty, taken with tea," she said in a voice that still vibrated with controlled anger.

Watch it, Rhyssa! Johnny cautioned. Did you catch that flash? She's poison-sure she's got us where she wants us.

Simultaneously three other minders, dining with their charges in the same room, sent Rhyssa similar warn- ings. She was particularly glad to feel the mental touch of Gordon Havers, the youngest Supreme Court justice ever appointed, whose expertise might be extremely useful.

Fine! Now discover what? Rhyssa said mentally as vocally she chose her luncheon of cold fruit, soup, and salad. Gordie, are you available for some quick scans of obsolete statutes that could cover such a contin- gency?

Been driving myself and my clerks all hours trying to find one, Rhyssa, replied Gordon Havers. There's noth- ing in our constitution, but since the Russians won the contract for Padrugoi, there may be something in the

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 45

Russian section that does! Their legal system is as con- voluted as their grammar!

"You can, of course, invoke some forgotten but still active statute," Rhyssa remarked all too blandly, wait- ing for reactions, "to conscript Talents ..." Both Bar- chenka and Duomi looked startled.

Bingo! Gordie cried. I'll concentrate on the Russian end of space law.

"But," Rhyssa continued soothingly, "it has always proved unwise to force Talent to perform in an area that is either personally or professionally distasteful to them, and under punitive conditions."

"We have been too lenient with your temperamental tricks and traits," Barchenka said, leaning across the table in anger. "You will do this, you won't do that!" She affected a child's petulant tone. "Many conces- sions were made to eater to the whims and fads of your Talents, and still no significant numbers will volunteer for the most important world project of all history. Your

attitude is unacceptable."

"I am protecting my colleagues, not being obstruc- tive. I must repeat," Rhyssa continued smoothly, "it has always proved unwise to force Talent to perform duties unacceptable to them and under punitive living

conditions."

"That will change! Will be changed! The platform will be finished on schedule!" Barchenka's voice had risen with each sentence until it stopped conversation throughout the opulent dining room. She pushed herself from her chair, wobbling slightly as her movements, more suited to half grav, brought her stocky body pon- derously to an upright position. She kicked the chair away from her. "I do not tolerate insubordination!" And she clumped away from the table.

"I was doing my best for you," Vemon Altenbach said to Rhyssa, his face and manner resigned as he rose, his chair pulled back by a hovering waiter.

"You do not understand our position. Director

Owen," Per Duomi added, but he, made no move to leave the table. "We are forced to use unpleasant al- ternatives to avert far more serious disasters overtaking the world!"

"I'll see if I can calm her down, make her see rea- son," Vemon said with a gesture for Johnny to remain. "D'Amato, send my meal and hers to the private room. I'll be there."

"Do you believe, in your own heart. Per Duomi," Rhyssa asked, leaning across the table to the man, "that we are evading our duty to the world?"

He shrugged, his mind, with its metal shield, as im- pervious, Rhyssa thought, as his unwillingness to un- derstand the nature of Talent. "It is the opinion that this--reluctance--puts the whole platform project in jeopardy."

"It is Ludmilla Barchenka who puts it in jeopardy," Rhyssa said with more heat than she had intended. She smiled quickly, hoping to repair the damage of her can- dor. Per Duomi might not be Talented, but he was scarcely stupid.

"Ah! My esteemed colleague was correct," he said.

"I am not standing in her way. I am protecting my professionals even as she is protecting her project."

Well, she is why Talents won't work for her, Johnny said in swift reassurance. And we all know it!

Gordie: Yeah, but she stays! This will be an interest- ing power struggle, speaking from a purely legalistic viewpoint.

"I admire Barchenka's unquestionable abilities as a spatial engineer. I would prefer that she return the pro- fessional compliment," Rhyssa said amiably. "This soup is excellent. Per Duomi. Let us enjoy it."

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

You've got it! I've been over the statute--and it is Russian, from the pre-glasnost days, and should have been repealed long ago it's so archaic. In the good old Bolshevik days, it was illegal--get that, illegal--to be unemployed. The State was the only employer--not the employer of last resort--but the only employer. Ergo, everyone worked. Consequently, the only employer in a system that makes it illegal to be unemployed can cer- tainly do whatever is deemed necessary with its work force. Legally, it gives Barchenka the right, under Pad- rugoi's International Charter, to draft any technicians, professionals, or workers required by the space effort-- the space effort in terms of the original law being the Russian one. But the statute is still in effect, and, by legal crook, she can apply it to Talents. We can fight it, of course!

And? she prompted.

With a glib-tongued attorney like Lester Favelly, we might just win. But the trial would take years, and could be construed by Barchenka to prove her contention-- that the Talents are obstructing the Good Work. He paused significantly. We could just give her enough rope to hang herself?

The Talents will be miserable, and they won't per- form well. That was what rankled Rhyssa's fine sense of integrity. Talents did the best they could no matter what the circumstances. To give the slightest suggestion that they skimped was against the most stringent of te- nets for the parapsychic. But, in space, worn down by punishing hours and psychic static they could not avoid, inevitably their performances would suffer.

Exactly, Gordie said. Ask the other directors. You must appear to be accepting the inevitable.

The sort of press this could give Talents would undo the work of the last century, Rhyssa said despairingly.

/ know. Although to sweeten this very bitter pill, Rhyssa, Mallie Vaden sees nothing going wrong.

Anne McCaffrey

Whose side is she on? Rhyssa coul< bitterness out of her tone.

Ours, as you well know, was Gordon reply. Ergo, it has to work out by our c< I've initiated some investigations that mi, a lever against Barchenka. Meanwhile, c, Quick action might shift public support i

Anne McCaffrey 49

Chapter 5

"^ ^ Some of the fourteen other Center directors were not best pleased to be roused by her urgent request for conference in the middle of their nighttimes, and there was some grumbling. Though all Centers were theoret- ically equal, no director decided issues mat would affect all Talents without consulting the others first, and Rhyssa--in charge of negotiations for the Talents be- cause Padrugoi's administrative headquarters was in Jerhattan--deemed a meeting necessary. As soon as all were attending, she explained the situation.

And from what equally .critical positions does this Russian think we can draft these essential kinetics? Lance Baden, the Australian director, demanded. Rhyssa always found it odd that his mental voice was devoid of the Aussie accent. We sent everyone we could bribe or blackmail up there. Sheer bloody-mindedness keeps some of 'em in place, but my staff's down to nubbins or feather-movers.

I have told Ludmilla Ivanovo, said Vsevolod Ge- browski of me Leningrad bureau at his most apologetic, time and again, that there are few kinetics not already doing double, triple work in order to supply essential services in Russia. Believe me, I have tried to educate her to the practicalities . . .

We do believe you, Geb, we do, was the mass thought that reassured him.

What's the levy, Rhyssa? Miklos Horvath, the West Coast director, asked.

She's demanding one hundred forty-four kinetics! Rhyssa said grimly, and threw up a buffer against the cries of outrage. The number of registered Talents in every Center was open knowledge to every director, as transfers constantly shifted key Talents at need from one Center to another.

We don't happen to have a handy gross of kinetics, the Brazil director said angrily. And I spent six months up there, in the most godforsaken barrio I've ever seen. Constant noise! Dreadful food--nutritious food could at least have a distinctive flavor. How she can expect us to junction ...

If we use the discretionary clause, we can remove the required number from commerce and industry. Max Perigeaux of the large European bureau began in his slow, thoughtful way.

Ignoring the howls . . .

Under the circumstances, at least we 're not liable to penalties ...

That's a real comfort to those forced up to Padru- goi...

Well, Commerce and Industry want this station--they 'II have to suck lemons along with the rest of us . . .

Max went on, his message weaving inexorably among the asides: . . . put the trainees where at least they can be overseen, we could just about manage it. But how can we expect our people to endure the con- ditions up at the platform and still perform creditably? To do less than our best reduces our reputations, but how can anyone operate at his best in that milieu! And the noise! The tall aesthetic man imaged a shudder of revulsion.

But something must be done to give those who are conscripted some relief!

Barchenka believes we set up the conditions of shielded quarters and short hours to be obstructive! Rhyssa said. / was informed that there is no noise in the vacuum of space, and, because there is also no

Anne McCaffrey 51

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gravity, there is less physical stress and longer hours can be worked, not fewer.

The woman is utterly without a shred of understand- ing or empathy, the director of Africa North said.

Has anyone tried to adjust her thinking? Hongkong

Jimmy asked.

You've never met Barchenka, have you? Shields tighter'n a chastity belt! Baden said in an acid tone.

What's a chastity belt? Hongkong Jimmy flicked back

in genuine innocence.

Images from nine helpful telepaths enlighted his ig- norance. Rhyssa was grateful to him for easing the growing tension in the linkage with that byplay.

We are compelled to comply, are we not! Perigeaux said, at his most mournful. And without delay, so that we can bargain on the best possible conditions for those who must sacrifice themselves. A rotation scheme, per- haps . . .

If she's after the gross, that makes rotation impossi- ble!

I can try to insist on some sort of short-term stretches,

Rhyssa said.

Let us also issue some publicity, Miklos Horvath sug- gested, about conditions up there.

Of dubious value when she needs to recruit so many grunts. You know she has to go to the shelters for any- one below Civil Service-8.

But the public must see that Talent's objections to

working in space are valid!

The most valid being Barchenka herself. . .

Can no one lean on her?

It's been tried . . .

Who's the best we've got?

What about her associate, PerDuomI? Any chinks in

him? It isn 't that we don't want to help with the project,

but she is her own worst enemy. Did she specify kinetics only?

No one's told her that some kinetics are also tele- paths!

Don't anyone mention that! Lance Baden said with unusual vehemence.

Wouldn't dream of it!

You mean, she doesn 't know?

Ludmilla Ivanovo knows what she wants to know, Vsevolod said wearily. She only hears the explanations she wishes to hear.

In twelve minutes of rapid-fire exchanges, the Talents arrived at a grim but workable course of action. Max, Baden, and Jimmy would do the actual selection of suit- able kinetics. Some Talents could be excused on grounds of infirmity, pregnancy, or unsuitable skills--- though two of Baden's "feather-dusters" were well able to handle the fine tunings. Rhyssa, Miklos, and Dolores of the Brazilian Center would attempt to achieve shielded quarters and work shifts of six hours maxi- mum, four for the less experienced kinetics. Barchenka might be running her operation twenty-four hours a day, but eight hours of telekinesis were impossibly draining, even in space and hi 0.5-grav conditions.

What we must also organize, for ourselves, Kayan- kira of the Delhi Center said as the main issues had been resolved, is an emergency system in a disaster situation. In her mind churned images of the previous year's catastrophic floods in the northeastern sections of the Indian subcontinent, mitigated only by the rapid mobilization of hundreds of kinetics when the precog had come in.

Kayan, you 've had far more experience with that sort of thing than anyone needs, Baden said with unexpected humility. Advise us and we will comply.

You always do! We'll have to strip all nonessential industrial firms and reduce Port Authority staff to a dangerous minimum. But we shall be very short of those we most need.

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

Anne McCaffrey

Weather permitting! was Hongkong Jimmy's droll re- mark. When are we going to find a weatherman ?

If we weather this one, Miklos said, we can all apply!

The mindlink was dissolved, and despite the massive task ahead, the Center directors were much heartened by the contact. When Rhyssa informed Gordie Havers of the results, he gave a loud mental cheer for solidar- ity.

There're going to be some mighty unhappy kinetics! she told him. Every Center is going to be stripped, and I'm steeling myself to endure the slings and arrows of

outraged businesses.

Machinery predated kinetics, and men used their muscles before that. Let 'em go back to traditional ways. It'll make 'em appreciate us more than ever, Gordie imaged an archaic block and tackle to move ma- teriel usually hoisted by a kinetic. Who's handling the publicity ?

We 're going to have to be careful about that--don't want Barchenka to say we're interfering with her on- going employment drive.

The man I have in mind is not a valid Talent, but he's a brilliant publicist, Rhyssa. Let me get Dave Le- hardt to wave the flag for us,

Dave Lehardt?

He put our honored president in the White House.

And he's not Talented? That's unfair! That campaign was sheer genius!

We have to allow the Mutes a few prerogatives, you know. Shall I approach him on this delicate matter?

Please do. I'll give him all the help I can.

By the by, did you realize that most of what you do is totally illegal in Scotland, which still has antiwitch- craft laws on the books ?

Spare me!

I had, and look what it got us. I'd been working up to the Russkis by 'way of the British Isles and Scandi-

navia. Sorry about that! You never know where to start in nullifying age-old bigotry, do you!

When Gordie had broken their mental link, Rhyssa spoke to Sascha.

You got touched again? he demanded.

In the head, but not by my peeper. She put in his mind all that had happened in the past half hour.

He whistled in a descending scale. We're going to get a lot of flak from Commerce and Industry!

They can't have it both ways. They 're the group that gave Barchenka such punitive fines if she doesn't de- liver on time. That clause is just coming home to roost where they didn 't expect it. They 'II have to dust off their machinery and toughen up their muscles. We've made it far too easy for them.

What if they like the old-fashioned ways and don't want to rehire our people?

Rhyssa snorted derisively. Just consider how much money kinetics save industry every year in equipment and maintenance costs--the arguments we used to get them to take kinetics in the first place!

Yeah, but how do we explain it to our kinetics?

Rhyssa projected an image of her on her knees, tear- ing her hair out, pleading to amorphous faces, offering jewels and ingots of gold. Enlistment has always been preferable to conscription. And then we can insist on shielding and short shifts. We can't if she implements that blue law. We 're over a barrel, and every Talent will realize that!

Vsevolod can't help us there? Sascha asked.

He was appalled, apologetic, and all, but apopleptic that one of his nationals was doing this to us.

Nothing mentioned about getting the law wiped off the books?

Gordie's working on it! Rhyssa did not bother to lighten the grimness she felt.

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 55

Dave Lehardt swung into Rhyssa's tower office at the Henner estate within an hour of the Talents' reluctant

acceptance of the inevitable.

"My God, do you have wings?" Rhyssa commented as the energetic Lehardt shook her hand. He was a full two meters tall, athletic in build, and he emanated a competence and geniality that could only come from a secure, well-adjusted personality. He was handsome enough, with mid-brown hair, blue eyes, and regular but not remarkable features, and he dressed with con- servative elegance.

"Not wings! Vanes! More reliable," he said with a charming grin. He began sorting through the papers in his attache case. "Gordie said it was urgent, and I watch the news." He stopped when he noticed her baffled ex- pression. "What's the matter? Did I break out in

spots?"

"No, but you haven't an ounce of Talent, and you

ought to."

"Why?" Dave Lehardt shrugged. "I've never needed it. Astute student of human psychology and keen ob- server of body language.''

He also had an impenetrable natural shield. With all her skill, she could not read his mind.

"Now," he said, hauling a spare chair up beside hers and spreading out hard copy of advertisements and graphics, "we get in there before Barchenka even thinks of crowing in triumph, so the public will see that Tal- ents are graciously mobilizing all available personnel to be sure Padrugoi Platform is finished on schedule--with phrases that imply she can't make it on her own without

Talented help."

"That's true enough," Rhyssa said grimly. "Ah, but there are ways and ways of saying the same thing," Dave Lehardt said with a truly malicious smile. "I tangled briefly with the Barchenka Stonewall for an- other client, and believe me, I'm on your side!" Rhyssa smiled to herself. Dave Lehardt did have

something like a Talent--a self-confidence that radiated from him like an aura. She had never met someone like him before: someone whose mentality she could not delve into, however discreetly. It was a new experi- ence, and she found herself watching his expressive face, noting the way his hands emphasized points and how he occasionally added a shoulder movement that reinforced what he said. He also kept glancing at her, meeting her eyes as few non-Talents would. Clearly he was not the least bit in awe of being in the presence of one of the top telepathic Talents.

Oblivious to her reactions, he went on. "I've been yearning to score on our gracious 'Milla." A flicker of some quickly suppressed emotion shot across his face, but Rhyssa could not decipher it. "All-out Talent as- sistance, even at the expense of long-established links with the public sector, at considerable personal sacri- fice--'Milla doesn't pay the going rates, since hers is a priority contract and has worldwide backing."

"She will not believe that money is not a'considera- tion . . ."

"Are you aware of the size of her bonus if she gets the station fully operational on time?"

Rhyssa grinned. "One of the best-kept secrets of the Talents. We also know the percentage she has to cough up if she doesn't."

"You are well informed!" He paused with a hopeful expression and then sighed as she merely smiled. "No, I didn't think you'd tell me." He snagged the comer of a graphic sheet from me pile and spread it out. "To address your two points: six-hour shifts and shielding--- very alliterative. I'm going to be able to use that as a slogan, you know . . . Have you demonstrated the problem?"

"How do you mean 'demonstrated'?"

"Time and motion studies, energy expenditures--that sort of recordable data. Remember, I've seen your ki- netics in action, but I doubt that Ludmilla or even Per

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 57

Duomi have taken the trouble to watch them work. They've been too busy hitching about weightlessness and the silence of space to appreciate the effort kinesis actually takes. I thought you might not have thought of that gimmick. So I had a chat with a Talent I know who was up on the platform, and he gave me some remark- able insights into the actual shift mechanics. If the day's materiel was properly organized, the kinetic could put everything in place for the grunts to lock on and weld.

"Then, the noise element. Samjan ran some of the 'noises' past me--" He grimaced and crossed his eyes in sympathy, "--and I think if we did a tape simulation , of what a sensitive hears in unshielded quarters and

played it back ..." "Not to Ludmilla. She insists there is no noise in

space."

"She's more of a Mute than I am." "But I take your point. I hadn't thought of a trick

like that."

"No trick, my dear, just presentation--and that's where I'm the expert." His grin was a mixture of im- pudence and malice.

For the first time in her Talented life, Rhyssa found herself fascinated by a Mute, and half of that fascina- tion was due to the fact that she could not predict what he would do or say next. It was fun matching wits with him during subsequent interviews, giving the onerous task an unexpected exhilaration.

Dave Lehardt was at her side for the initial meeting with a Barchenka who oozed smug satisfaction that she made no attempt to disguise. Rhyssa was hard put to remain civil. Dave Lehardt talked so fast that the en- gineer had to listen attentively to catch his points. Per Duomi was, as usual, with her, but Rhyssa had been spared another confrontation with Prince Phanibal.

"All we have had is talk, empty talk," Ludmilla Bar- chenka said when Dave had explained the dual prob- lems of short shifts and shielding. "Even the physically

impaired are able to work proper shifts in space: no gravity, no sound!" She shot an accusatory look at Rhyssa.

"Ah, but it is not gravity which is a problem, nor the vacuum. Ludmilla Ivanova, I have arranged a demon- stration ..."

"I have no time for demonstrations," the Exalted Engineer stated dismissively. "I must return to the plat- form. Already there are delays which must be recti- fied."

"Understood, Engineer Barchenka," Dave said soothingly, with just the right amount of respect and understanding. "Perhaps Per Duomi will attend. This demonstration is likely to put the basic problems into proper perspective, and thus help us all resolve the main problems with the maximum benefit to your project."

Duomi would be much easier to deal with--his mind was not totally closed, although he was as dedicated to me project as Barchenka. If they could prove their points to him, they would be halfway to victory.

"I think she's disappointed she didn't have to invoke that wretched statute," Rhyssa told Sascha later.

"D'you think we gave in too easily?" he asked. "The news quotes Barchenka calling it the 'cowardly capitulation of the effete.' "

"Let her. If we can just swing Duomi to our side." Rhyssa frowned. "I don't see what else we could have done. Dave Lehardt is running public-opinion polls. One point is clear: Everyone wants Padrugoi to be fin- ished, everyone wants someone else to work up there, and everyone thinks people who volunteer for anything are crazy."

The next day, Dave Lehardt and Rhyssa Owen took Personnel Manager Per Duomi to the most prestigious exercise complex in Jerhattan, a facility that occupied me first nine floors of a Residential ziggurat near Cen- tral Park. The largest gymnasium was set up with three sets of stress-monitoring paraphernalia and technicians,

Anne McCaffrey 59

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

three pyramids of standard-size packages, a forldift, a bevy of impartial observers, and the Complex director, Menasherat ibn Malik, who had been a multiple Olym- pic gold medalist for four times running.

Per Duomi was suitably impressed by ibn Malik. So was Rhyssa, for the man exuded physical vitality and competence. He also had no more Talent than Dave Lehardt, who appeared well acquainted with him. Dave stood by, a slight smile on his face, while ibn Malik accepted Per Duomi's homage and conversed amiably

with him.

"Now, Manager Duomi," the Complex director said, gesturing to the three men who entered from the side. Stripped down to their shorts, they were all festooned with wires, which were in turn hooked up to the ma- chines. "Let me introduce you to Pavel Korl, bronze medalist in heavyweight boxing; Chas Huntley, a fork- lift operator with International Canning; and Rick Hob- son, me kinetic."

Rhyssa was almost as bemused as Per Duomi as ibn Malik made the introductions. Korl and Huntley were big men, towering over Duomi and certainly making Rick Hobson, who was average in height and build, look insignificant.

"Now, if you would care to check the movables in each pile. Manager Duomi, to assure yourself that they are equal in weight ..."

Duomi complied, and it was clear that he had to struggle to lift any of them.

"Then once our guinea pigs' wires are double- checked, we can start the test--which is rather simple. By muscle, by machine, and by mind, our subjects will transfer their piles across the floor. The energy levels required, the stress factors, and calories consumed will be displayed on the monitors. Now," ibn Malik said, moving to the big screen set in the wall for use at sport- ing events, "on Padrugoi, three men will be doing ex- actly the same in Q hangar." He spoke into his collar

mike. "If you're ready up at Padrugoi?" The big screen lit up with a scene not dissimilar to the one around them, except that all the men wore space suits. "In space, our hand shifter is Jesus Manrique, the lifter is operated by Ginny Stanley, and the kinetic is Kevin dark. Are you all ready? On your marks--" The gold medalist raised his arm. "Get set--go!" His arm came down, and the activity on the gym floor and in Q hangar commenced. ' 'This test will last an hour,'' he informed Per Duomi, gesturing for the observers to take seats to one side.

After the first few minutes, Per Duomi stopped watching the burly figure of Korl manhandling the packages down the floor, or Huntley zipping back and forth on the loader. He kept his eyes either on Rick, who had seated himself at a table and, with no visible effort, kept a steady stream of packages flowing, or on the platform kinetic, who was doing his work while leaning against a stanchion. Occasionally Duomi flicked a look at the monitors chattering out their hard copy.

Both Talents worked their way through their piles in half the time it took the others. The instrumentation proved that they had expended half again as much en- ergy and used up twice as many calories.

When the test had been completed, Dave Lehardt stripped the hard-copy sheets from all six printers. Neatly folding them, he handed the sheaf to Per Duomi, who took it without a word. The test subjects were all thanked and left the gym, Rick Hobson throwing Rhyssa an impudent wink as he walked by.

"You will, of course, wish to analyze the results of this test with your own motion experts. Manager Duomi," Dave Lehardt said, "but I'm sure you rec- ognized the fact that weightlessness grants no bonuses to the kinetic. As to the noise factor ..." The publicist took a compact recorder from his hip pocket and thumbed it on.

At the babel and squeaks and metallic groans. Per

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Duomi covered his ears in defense and stared in shock at Rhyssa.

"That is what a sensitive 'hears' on the station," Dave said, raising his voice and inserting his words in between the worst of the noise. It was a fair selection, representing the streams of consciousness of eighty mentalities: resentments, complaints, shouts, pains, an- gers, and myriad metallic noises that some of the ki- netics endured. "With ten thousand people living up there already, the mental noise is never-ending. So all that garbage is a constant secondary drain on their nerves, reducing their efficiency if they have no respite from it in shielded quarters."

Having set the decibel rate herself, Rhyssa knew that covering his ears gave Duomi frail protection, but she did not reduce the volume until Dave had finished his little speech.

"I see that you hadn't realized just what we meant by noise," she said finally. "But the cost of shielding personnel quarters for the kinetics is going to be less than the cost of materiel lost or damaged due to tired minds."

"You have made your points," Per Duomi said with a grim expression. "I shall present them to Ludmilla Barchenka."

"Present them and insure their implementation, Per Duomi, and you will have the kinetic assistance you require. Oh, and one other minor point," she added, smiling to take the sting out. "Barchenka is to relay all orders to the kinetics through the regular channels. We will have no more of her rousting Talents out of their quarters at inappropriate hours and insisting on 'extra duty' because her schedule is two minutes out of line! Have I made myself clear on that point?''

He nodded, his expression solemn.

Rhyssa hoped he could convince Barchenka.

Chapter 6

^ No, please V Peter Reidinger cried as the elec- trician was about to disconnect the tri-d in the ward. His cry was echoed by the other children.

#"!# <

"Look, kids, there's some kind of freaky drain on the hospital's power supply, and we've finally traced it to this ward. I gotta fix it, or some of your support systems will go down when they shouldn't," the elec- trician said with a hint of exasperation in his tone.

"No, wait, please," Peter said. "The program's all about the space platform and the Talents."

"Huh?" The electrician took a better look at the monitor.

"It'll only be a few minutes! Just the newscast!" Peter pleaded.

"Wal, I guess-"

"Shhhh," Peter interrupted, straining to hear the commentator. Not that he really needed the voice-over to identify the scene as the estate of the late George Henner, one of the earliest supporters of the parapsy- chics. As the camera panned across the trees and lawns, the boy was startled by the place's eerie familiarity. This was the place he had sought--a place of tranquil greenery and huge old trees and vine-covered buildings. The place that had scared him away. And now he knew why. They would not want to have their precinct in- vaded. They needed their privacy to do all the wonder- ful things they did. Like help to finish the last three 61

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spokes of the Padrugoi Platform so that mankind could, at last, reach for the stars.

"It's not only the Talented who are making a sacri- fice," the commentator went on, still standing in that marvelous oasis, "for Industry and Commerce have granted leave of absence to their Talented employees to assist with this final push out to space. Platform Man- ager Ludmilla Barchenka announces that the most am- bitious world project yet undertaken will be completed on schedule. And now to other news in the Jerhattan district ..."

"Okay, mister," Peter said, relaxing against his frame. "That's what we wanted to see."

"You're not looking for a career in space, are you?" the electrician asked, half-teasing. He was always a lit- tle nervous around kids who were so badly injured.

Peter cocked his head at him. "Why not? With no gravity, I wouldn't be stuck in this frame, and a push of my toe or my little finger--" He waggled the two extremeties, which were, after months of therapy, all he could move. "--I could float about."

"Yeah, I guess you could. Now, nurse, can I start with this frame?" the electrician asked, gesturing to the multiple-tasking device that gave Peter what indepen- dence he had in his condition.

"Yes, it's time for Peter's body-brace session any- way," Sue Romero said. "C'mon, Peter."

"Aw, do I have to? Couldn't I watch what he does?"

"No, the moment for positive thinking has come. Let me see that limbic-system smile on your face."

Peter hated the body brace and the morning's 'tor- ture session,' as he mentally categorized the therapy. He felt heavy in the frame, his body more lifeless than ever. "But see, I can move my big toe and my little finger. Please ..."

"Hey, what the--?" the electrician exclaimed.

The diagnostic reader he had just hooked up had un- expectedly registered a blip.

While Peter gamely concentrated on his body-brace drills, the electrician checked out the bed's wiring, but except for that one brief blip, he could find no short, no dysfunction in any of the circuitry. By the time an exhausted Peter was back in his bed, the electrician had done a thorough test of all the spe- cialized treatment electronics in the ward. Baffled by the continual surges on the ward's circuits, the man left a small monitor attached to the one piece of equipment that had registered an abnormality, slight though it had been, and left.

Peter knew by her face that Sue Romero was dis- appointed in him. He did try to make his body re- member how to move. The frame sent electrical impulses into his atrophied muscles, the theory being that the little jolts would restimulate neural and mus- cular activity. He hated that intrusion into his body even more than he hated being paralyzed.

"Peter, if you would only stop resisting the mech- anism," Sue said reproachfully. "If you would only go with it, instead of denying the help it could give you. You could, you know, even get to the platform. Your schoolwork was excellent--there'd be no prob- lem with the educational end . . ," She trailed off, fighting her own dispiritedness. Sometimes with the very badly damaged children, she felt she was pounding at the well-known immovable object--gen- erally, as in Peter's case, the child itself.

The boy was exhausted, eyes closed, arms and legs sprawled just as he had been rolled out of the body brace. Sue Romero could not afford to pity him--it was unprofessional and helped neither of them in his rehabilitation--but she did. As she turned away, she thought he was sleeping. She would have been amazed to leam that he was reviewing that vision of

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the Center, with its trees and lawns and . . . Rhyssa Owen.

That night, Rhyssa was wakeful, going over and over that telecast. She had felt good about it during filming. Dave Lehardt had done his job well. They would, of course, have to wait until opinions had been sampled, but Rhyssa felt that Barchenka was coming out a poor second at the moment, despite her apparent triumph at the cow- ardly capitulation of the effete Talents. Rhyssa fretted that she had somehow weakened the consolidated strength of Talents and wondered how she could rectify what was still, in the minds of most Talented, an untenable position with Barchenka getting her way.

She felt then the gossamer touch--envious, yearning, wistful, and so terribly sad that a sob clogged her throat.

Wait, little friend,. she murmured in the softest of tones.

Say what? With the voice came mixed impressions of stardement, sense of apology-denial-rejection, and an astringent smell. And then the touch--timorous and reluctant--was gone.

Rhyssa tried to follow, her touch feather soft, but the retreat had been too swift, like a flicker of shadow across the moonlight outside her window. She made a quick note of the time: 3:43. Then she lay there savor- ing that touch, examining it, letting her perception an- alyze it.

Such swiftness suggested a young mind--no old thoughts or experiences to slow the instantaneity of ac- tion. A boy on a prank ... A boy? Doing an out-of- body maneuver? A boy in a hospital--yes, a hospital would account for the astringent odor--his movement constrained so that only his mind could travel?

That fit the pieces together so perfectly that Rhyssa got out of bed and paced over to the console.

"Bud, I want a call out to all hospital Talents," she said, unable to keep the elation out of her voice.

Anne McCaffrey 65

"The peeper caught you again?"

"That's right. An adolescent boy, quite likely crip- pled or paralyzed. I want to see who was awake on the wards at three-forty-three this morning."

"The last thing you need tonight is some pimple- faced nerd rousing you."

"On the contrary. Bud, I think that's exactly what I did need. A youngster able to go out of body? He's got to have fantastic potential."

"For what?" Budworth wanted to know.

"That," Rhyssa said with a surge of hope, "is what we'll have to find out."

As she climbed back into bed, she had a lot to think about before she could compose herself for sleep. How long had it been since a new Talent that strong had been identified? And what sort of a Talent was it? Even strong telepathy did not leave an image, however transparent. A new type of kinesis? Very few kinetics could move themselves! Inanimate objects, yes, but animate ones, no. Most out-of-body experiences were the results of traumas and useless in a commercial sense--and theo- rists still argued over whether the out-of-body phenom- enon was a kinetic manifestation or a strong telepathic projection.

Just remember, she told herself that it was the com- mercial applications of Talents that provided us with legal immunities, good jobs, and special status for the past four score years . . . and let us get marvelously complacent. Maybe it wasn't really "noise" that even kinetics heard in space but some other form of inter- stellar communication, a multilingual garble that they were picking up. Open your mind up, gal. Look around you. Look at Dave Lehaidt. He has to be Talented, even if it won't register on a Goosegg graph.

Why, Rhyssa Owen, she asked herself, does Dave Lehardt have to be Talented?

And that was the quandary she fussed over as she finally slipped into an uneasy sleep.

66 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT Anne McCaffrey 67

"I discovered some interesting new facets of employ- ment on the platform," Dave Lehardt told Rhyssa in her office two days later. "Came out in further talks with my platform contact, Samjan, and a few judicious inquiries." He gave her a humorless grin. "The casu- alties."

"Yes, the total is horrific." Rhyssa shuddered. "But working in space there were bound to be some."

"Some?" Dave raised his eyebrows. "Some, yes, but when I checked with Johnny Greene in Altenbach's office, we found several different sets of figures on the casualty rate."

Rhyssa straightened. When Dave had arrived unex- pectedly, she had been busy reshuffling the rotas of the Center's kinetics, steeling herself to endure their un- derstandable reproaches and arguments. Any interrup- tion was welcome.

"Then I got JG and Samjan together, and they both did a bit of research," he went on, "and, using their security clearances, they came up with what we think are the real statistics." His expression was bleak, and there was a stillness about his body that forewarned her. "You know how the unemployed are terrified to be conscripted to Padrugoi? They may not be Talented, but they've got an instinct about baaaaaad situations. They have good reason not to want to get conscripted. She loses grunts at a frightening rate, far beyond the allow- able. The major reason is because Barchenka's so bloody-minded about keeping her Sacred Schedules, she won't interrupt a shift to retrieve drifters!"

To be sure she understood his meaning, Rhyssa un- consciously tried to read his mind. It was like stubbing her toe on a stair raiser, and she blinked. "Run that past me again, please, Dave," she asked, struggling with confusion at her inability to read him the way she was used to reading most of her friends.

"Surely you've seen the promotional footage," he

said, "with the grunts suited up and pushing gi-nonnous sections of a spoke with the tips of their fingers or a spare foot?"

"Yes ..."

"In the real working situation, not that mockup they did for recruitment, a worker'll push too hard, and with every action causing a reaction in space, the poor sod goes spinning off into the dark deeps."

"Yes ..."

"Well, Barchenka doesn't stop work to rescue them. Oh, no, anyone that stupid has to wait until the shift is over before his buddies are allowed to go after him. That is, if a skiff is available, and if the bod's been tracked."

Appalled at the vivid scene his words evoked, Rhyssa stared at him. "Is this public knowledge?"

He gave her a cynical look. "Why do you think the grunts never take surface leave? It's not the fact that they're paid so little that they can't afford surface leave, or that there's no available space on shuttles for mere grunts, or that they're unlikely to have any family to visit on Earth. It's that they're plain not allowed back down to tell anyone what's happening. The grunts are also segregated so that even the observant among the more elite employees don't know exactly what's going on. It took both JG and Samjan and some long program analyses to piece fact out of the publicly available fic- tions."

"But all the recruitment films show safety lines and ..." Part of Rhyssa crowed with delight at discov- ering Barchenka resorting to very questionable tactics, while another part balked at the enormity of the crime.

' 'That's promo footage, my dear director. The theory is great. In practice, Barchenka dispensed with safety lines--they kept getting tangled in equipment, slowing down her precious work schedule. So safety lines are a space myth.

"And Barchenka has such saving ways." Dave Le-

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hardt perched his lean frame on the edge of her desk. "For instance, we discovered by an analysis of records that a suited grunt is given only enough air in his tanks for that shift and maybe a sniff or two left over. Oh, there's plenty of safety regs for the engineers and su- pervisors and skilled technicians--but not the grunts. She doesn't care what happens to them. There're plenty more where they came from."

Rhyssa was outraged. "You just validated my in- stincts about that woman. Law be damned, I won't ask my kinetics to face such risks!"

Dave gave a snort. "They're far too valuable to be risked. There'd be too much of a stink kicked up if a drifting Talent wasn't retrieved right then. Overworked, yes. Samjan confirmed the notion that eight-hour shifts are another platform fallacy.

"On top of that conspicuous savings of consumables, I uncovered several other little anomalies: grunt suits have limited-range corn units. They can't be heard shrieking for help! Might disturb their fellow workers."

Rhyssa stared at him aghast.

"There's also a high incidence of agoraphobia among the grunts and genuine space cafard. But ailing grunts are never transferred down. They just disappear! Acci- dental death! Never suicide! Always accidental. After all," he said, taking on a mock Russian accent, "ev- eryone knows how dangerous it is to ignore safety warnings and procedures. And then there appears to be a neat little system which causes unexpected casualties during the routine drills they so conspicuously hold from time to time on Padrugoi." Dave paused again. "Checking through medical records, it becomes appar- ent that the unfortunate victims of those drill 'accidents' are always either the injured or the headcases."

"Oh, my God, Dave!" Rhyssa propelled herself from her chair to pace agitatedly up and down the tower room. "Why haven't any of the precogs caught this?"

"According to ,your brief summary on Talents' ca-

pabilities, precogs usually latch onto large numbers, Rhyssa. There are never enough--"

"Numerics is no excuse!" Rhyssa was surprised by a vehemence that answered the despair in his voice. She wondered if his mind, too, was filled with faceless forms, twisting and turning in space, drifting farther and farther from the network of lights that was the oasis of air and warmth in the blackness, and a violent shud- der seized her.

A warm hand cupped her shoulder. "Easy! Talent spreads itself thin enough as it is. You're not God, or gods, to mark each sparrow's fall."

She blinked and looked up at him. Though his mind was as closed to her as ever, the sympathy and under- standing in his warm blue eyes was obvious. She would not tell him that Talents generally disliked tactile con- tact--surprisingly enough, she had discovered that she liked him touching her.

"Armed with this information, however, you can spread Barchenka over a barrel." His voice was soft and teasing. "If you see what I mean. Or, maybe you Talents are too simon-pure to lower yourselves to out- right blackmail."

"Not when the lives and safety of my Talents are at risk, I'm not," Rhyssa declared stoutly. "Not to men- tion those poor sods who've not even been given half a chance to survive. I'll insist on short shifts and shields, and we'll increase that ante to safety lines for everyone working on the platform and the deployment of rescue skin's. Or do skiffs have limited power and air on them, too, so as to save costs?"

He crossed his arms on his chest, grinning at her. "Your Talents wouldn't be at risk anyway, unless I've misunderstood their capabilities. There's no way Bar- chenka can pull the same tricks on them that she does with the poor grunts. And unless your response is unique among your ilk, I can't see your folk standing by for

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some of her tricks, once they know what to look for. Some of the kinetics are telepaths, aren't they?"

"Quite a few." Rhyssa gave a sardonic chuckle. "A fact we haven't actually mentioned to Barchenka, whose understanding of Talent is severely limited."

Dave let out a bark of laugh. "Not the whole truth nor even half the truth, huh? Good girl, Rhyssa!" He playfully knuckled her chin. "Is distance a problem? Or the vacuum of space?" When Rhyssa shook her head, he went on. "Well, you guys could sure be pop- ular with the grunts because yo""--he waggled his fin- ger at her--"could be their insurance. A Talent could haul back a drifter, couldn't he? Without asking for permission during his shift, or waiting for a skiff?" He gave her a broad smile. "That'll help a lot of ways. Damned good PR, too. The best, because it proves that the Talents will help the ordinary grunt where Bar- chenka just simply hasn't!"

Rhyssa suddenly turned away, not wanting Dave to see her expression. Sascha? she called. I've just found the perfect job for Madlyn! Tell you later!

I can read your evil mind, Sascha said, and she's not even on the list for the platform.

She is, as of right now, Rhyssa replied. How often have you said that Madlyn could be heard at the space platform? We'II just put it to the test! She smoothed her expression and looked up at Dave Lehardt, who was eyeing her keenly.

"Who were you talking to just then? And don't hold out on me. I'm getting used to your ways, woman!" His voice rippled with an odd emotion, and the gleam in his eyes intensified.

Rhyssa's grin was half embarrassment at his scrutiny and half delight with her inspiration. "We've got a tele- path with an extraordinarily loud voice. We'll send her up in an administrative capacity. Put her on a radar scope, and she'll locate and reassure any drifters for the nearest kinetic t&haul back to safety."

"Lady, you don't realize what a difference that could make to morale up at the platform." Dave's grin was so infectious that Rhyssa had to grin back. "Not only is Barchenka unaware that she's her own worst enemy, but her ignorance about Talent in general will prevent her from realizing that she's just hired a battalion of undercover agents."

"That's the beauty part!" Rhyssa said, grinning more broadly. "Does Duomi? Or Prince Phanibal?"

Dave Lehardt considered briefly. "Prince Phanibal might, but he's not on the platform as much lately- some crisis in Malaysia that occupies a lot of his time. Besides, I read him as being just ornery enough not to tell her something as crucial at this time for the sheer pleasure of watching her squirm. Now what's this emergency clause Lance Baden wants added to the con- tracts?"

"In case of a major emergency, we must be able to bring Talents back down. You remember the floods last monsoon on the Indian continent and that major shake in Azerbaijan? We knew about each of them ten days before, so we were able to muster help and reduce the effect of the catastrophe. Sending her a hundred and forty-four kinetics has wiped out our disaster-squad or- ganization. We want a twenty-four-hour clause--to bring key personnel back to Earth in time to cope here.''

"Can't you teleport 'em down?"

Rhyssa laughed. "No, more's the pity. Our Talents are finite, definite, and nowhere near such a fantasy application as instantaneous transmissions. That takes more power than a human brain can generate."

"I thought the Moral Code on legitimate bio- engineering permitted--"

"Hold it right there, Dave." Rhyssa held up a warding hand. "Read the Code: congenital defects, yes--manipulations, no. And I doubt any genetic en- gineer would monkey with the brain yet--even a monkey's brain."

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"If you can find one. Though don't you think it's likely that someone has been doing illicit experimenta- tion, the world being what it is these days?"

"That's cynical of you, Dave."

"Sometimes- saying no is registering a challenge," he replied with a shrug. "I wouldn't nile out the pos- sibility."

"Meanwhile," Rhyssa said, bringing the discussion firmly back to relevant matters, "I'd very much like to see a full report on what JG and Samjan have been discovering about platform personnel problems."

Dave grinned, taking three diskettes from a breast pocket. "I thought you might. Gives you a stronger bargaining position for shields, short shift--"

"Safety lines and skiffs," Rhyssa finished, taking the diskettes but letting her fingers linger on his a little lon- ger than the transactions required. "I thank you, sir." What on earth was happening to her in Dave Lehamt's presence? She felt as giddy as--as Madlyn could be in Sascha's company.

When Per Duomi, Prince Phanibal Shimaz, and two other minor officials, one of them the accommodations officer, arrived to settle the minor details, Dave Lehardt had another presentation that altered the proceedings. Rhyssa, sitting with Max Perigeaux, Gordie Havers, and Lance Baden, found the meeting eminently satis- fying.

Showing the accurate fatality statistics--figures that bleached all color from the faces of Duomi and the prince--Dave Lehardt talked knowledgeably of some of the "minor" problems that the Talents would be will- ing to undertake, such as the retrieval of any suited workers experiencing "malfunction of suit jets," and telepathic contact "with those using short-range corn units," plus monitoring systems; they would also in- clude among the Talents two with broad diagnostic ca- pabilities. Dave pointed out that the savings on skiff

Anne McCaffrey 73

fuel and man-hours required for retrieval would more than compensate for the cost of shielding required in Talent accommodations.

Nor was there any discussion about the emergency clause. Lance Baden announced that he was to be Tal- ent liaison with the engineering staff and that was that.

And what were they saying about cowardly capitu- lations? Lance commented.

Rhyssa was so weary from accumulated stresses that she experienced no elation at having forced every single concession out of the Padrugoi officials. She wanted nothing more than a quiet supper and some mental peace. Per Duomi had a natural shield, but the other project representatives at the meeting had not, and when their initial euphoria at coercing Talents onto the work force was burst by hard facts and figures and compro- mises, their emotional responses of anger, horror, and embarrassment had been hard to deflect.

Sascha: I've cleared everyone out of the first floor. Relax!

Rhyssa: Oh, you are a pet!

Sascha: Lot of good it does me! But she knew he was only teasing.

Rhyssa entered the Henner house, appreciative of the deep silence in the elegantly appointed rooms. Very lit- tle had been altered from the days of George Henner, the parapsychics' first benefactor: all had been lovingly preserved in his memory. The subterranean offices, the annexes, and her tower were modem, with state-of-the- art technology, but the main reception rooms were re- minders of more leisurely times. The kitchen, where modem appointments were hidden behind old-fashioned cupboards, exuded an aura of comfort--it was spacious, with an archaic but working fireplace, a huge table, and comfortable chairs. The dining portion faced onto the gardens at the rear of the main house, bright with blooms and bushes.

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Some thoughtful kinetic had activated the kettle. She made herself a cup of tea, found sandwiches in the crisper, and kicking off her shoes, curled up in one of the wing chairs.

There was something amazingly restorative about looking out onto the garden, watching the flowers move in the light breeze. She set her mind adrift, savoring the quiet, despite the deep-seated nagging presentiment.

"I'm not a precog," she told herself and sipped her tea. "What I am feeling is just reaction to the last few hectic days. A quite natural depression."

Then she felt me touch, once again colored with wist- fulness and a deep sadness that pierced her to the heart, making her own malaise seem insignificant.

She dared not reach out for fear of startling the boy. Boy he was, and despairing. Had her transitory unease triggered a response from him midday? Or was it his need seeking consolation? What could so desolate a young person? One could endure detached misery- tragedy happening at a distance to people one had never met--but to feel the palpitating misery of another person was an intense experience.

Delicately she impinged on the boy's mind, hoping to gain some clue to his whereabouts. He was dreading something, and the yearning for trees and lawn and flowers and someplace that was not hospital had precip- itated the nebulous contact. And her mind, less con- trolled than usual in its weariness, had attracted his. Dreading what? She inserted the question.

The body brace!

Rhyssa had not expected an answer. She tried to keep the lightest of contacts, though, oddly enough, he felt very close at that moment. Isn't it meant to help? she asked cautiously.

It doesn't. It hurts. It's artificial, it's awful. It's a cage. The bed is bad enough. I don't want to. I--don't-- want--to!

Anne McCaffrey 75

A wail from the depth of a forlorn and comfortless mind reached her--then it was abruptly cut off.

"We got another one of those surges this afternoon-- usually we get 'em at night," the hospital's maintenance man said as he held up the printout to the consultant en- gineer whom the concerned hospital administration had finally called in.

The engineer peered at the peak, a sudden sharp devi- ation lasting seventy-two seconds. He asked for the other anomalies and was presented with further examples. "Shouldn't be any drain on the systems at three-forty- three, three-oh-three, three-fifty-two, or three-thirteen. You've checked all the equipment?"

"I put meters on several floors. Got a blip on PedOrth Ward Twelve when I was installing it. So I took every- thing apart on that ward and there wasn't nothing mal- functioning. Craziest thing I've ever seen. And you know how Admin is when you got outages and anom- alies with all them life-support systems hooked up. Funny though, nothing in the ICUs."

"Okay, screen me your schematics for all the equip- ment on PedOrth and see what's being used there." The engineer sighed heavily--he could see it was going to be one of those days.

A stir around the beds in the circular ward alerted Peter Reidinger, and he blinked away the screen that blocked his view. A very old lady stood in the doorway, Miz Alien hovering with her "you'd-better-behave" look on her face as she glanced around the ward to be sure everything was in order for the visitor.

Instantly Peter's attention was riveted on the lady. She was different. That became more apparent to him as Miz Alien began to introduce her to the kids in the ward. Cecily even smiled and answered the lady. Cec- ily was a spina bifida case who "ought" to have been corrected in utero but had not been. Osteomyelitis had

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caused her to have one leg amputated, and her recovery from that operation was very slow. She rarely opened up to other people--and particularly not to strangers-- so her response to the old lady was a minor miracle. Peter was in a sweat of anticipation by the time the lady reached him.

"This is Peter Reidinger, Ms. Horvath." The way Miz Alien cocked her right eyebrow told Peter that he had better behave himself.

Ms. Horvath just smiled down at him, her eyes twin- kling, and they were not at all old, or rheumy, or hard. He wondered she let herself look so old.

I promised my husband that I would grow old grace- fully, she startled him by saying. That way I wouldn't surprise people so much when I don't act my age.

Peter goggled at her. She had not moved her lips-- and yet he had heard her voice clearly in his mind.

"Peter ..." Miz Alien prompted him.

"Pleased ta meetcha!" Peter managed to get out. Miz Alien cleared her throat wamingly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Alien, I'll just chat a bit with Peter," Dorotea Horvath said, pulling a chair to Peter's bedside and dismissing Miz Alien in a manner that astounded the boy. Miz Alien doesn't really believe in telepathy and Talents. And we just haven't had the chance to go around the pediatric wards lately. So we missed you.

"Missed me?"

Dorotea smiled again, a smile that was magical be- cause it seemed to envelop Peter with warmth and car- ing. The hard knot of self-pity and resentment that had been building up at the thought of another body-brace session dispersed.

"That is, until you started visiting Rhyssa."

"Rhyssa?"

Into his mind came a new touch. I'm Rhyssa. I sent Dorotea to you because you run away from me. Doro- tea says you can't run away from her right now, Peter

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Reidinger. Please come live with us where I know you long to be.

"Now that you've had an official invitation, will you accept?" Dorotea asked, brimming over with amuse- ment at his stunned reaction.

"But I can't. I'm crippled. I can't go anywhere ..."

Ahahahaha! Dorotea chided him, still smiling. A boy who can go out of body on tours of Jernattan at three in the morning is no cripple!

"But I can't use the body brace!" Peter was horrified to hear himself blubbering and to feel tears streaming down his face. He had not cried in months.

Crying's a natural release for emotional pressures, Dorotea said as she blotted his cheeks matter-of-factly. All that manly repression has also been blocking Tal- ent. I do believe that the brace also posed an inhibition. I think it short-circuited natural ability. We'll sort it out. Cytbat I'm positive.

And suddenly Peter had no doubt at all.

"First, of course, we have to get your parents' per- mission." Dorotea was always practical. "Do you think they'll mind?"

"Mind?" Peter nearly shouted. He knew that the hospital fees, even with the huge compensation the city was forced to pay since he had been injured on city- owned property, had been a terrible financial drain on his parents. His mother came to see him regularly, but his father's visits grew fewer and shorter. His mother always had some plausible explanation for Dad's ab- sence, but Peter had not been fooled.

Suddenly Dorotea's eyes widened in pleased surprise. "I don't think you'll need much training after all," she said, pointing at him.

"What?" And at that moment Peter realized that he was hovering above his bed--and that an alarm just be- neath it had gone off.

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Rhyssa! Dorotea's mental shout was a very welcome diversion for Rhyssa.

The Eastern director had not been able to make that first contact for several reasons, the foremost one being the Padrugoi priority. The other reason was that Dor- otea was still the most accurate Talent diviner in the entire world, with the deftest touch to allay fear and suspicion.

Rhyssa, Peter Reidinger reeks of Talent. I can't imagine why the resident didn't tumble to it a long time ago, despite the fact that Peter's been suppressing his natural feelings to be considered a brave boy. Being in a hospital situation, he 'd have to blank out all periph- eral static or get wound up in everyone else's pain. Though he's not your garden-variety kinetic or tele- path. In fact, I've never touched anyone quite like him. One thing's sure, he no more needed a body brace than you need a videophone.

Can you expedite his release to us? Rhyssa asked.

In my best granny mode! I don't anticipate any trou- ble with the family--they've been struggling under the medical costs. I gather the father has trouble visiting his "crippled" son. They should regain some perspec- tive now that Peter'II be able to pay his own way.

How medical is he?

Dorotea gave a mental snort. With a little help from his friends, he won't be medical past the gate of the Center. Whoops! We've just been charged by an irate electrician and a stupefied consultant, and--my God!

Dorotea broke off contact, startling Rhyssa--Dorotea usually had no trouble double-talking. Rhyssa waited for the old woman to come back and explain her abrupt disappearance. After three minutes with no further word from her, Rhyssa reluctantly resumed her immediate task.

Worried about Dorotea and the boy, it was difficult for her to keep her mind on the reassignment of kinetic Talents, but the-matter had to be cleared up as soon as

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possible. The Eastern Center would be left with just ten to do the work of thirty, along with five trainees who could be slotted into some of the less exacting hoist work. Airshuttle clients, passengers or commercial, were just going to have to wait longer to collect their luggage; all construction firms would lose kinetics, save those on two nearly completed projects where kinesis was the only way to safely install heavy equipment on the uppermost stories.

She and Miklos Horvath, Dorotea's grandson on the West Coast, also had to arrange "fetch and cany" teams, telepaths and kinetics who could work in tandem and at long distance. But such skills were exhausting and would have to be reserved for emergencies.

Dave Lehardt had come up with yet another valid suggestion that might not improve relations with Bar- chenka and Duomi but would certainly make more ef- fective use of the four-hour shift of each kinetic.

"I looked at some of the motion studies," he had told her, "and some videos of an actual working day. Samjan mentioned that he spent a good portion of every shift on Padrugoi doing nothing--waiting until materiel was organized from the storage yard or bins, or while the engineers sorted out minor discrepancies. So I got Samjan and Bela Rondomanski, who was Space Lab designer, together with Lance Baden, who's a trained engineer. Bela said a lot of the delays on Space Lab were caused by a chronic disorganization in Supply. Lance said that the problems hadn'-t been completely solved when he did two tours at Padrugoi, but one of Barchenka's strengths is her organizational skills. Take them one more step forward, and, in a four-hour shift, a kinetic can get everything in a spoke section lined up so that all the grunts need to do during the next twenty hours of shift time is give a tiny shove and the elements will fall into place.

"Of course, it'll mean a good deal of reorganization in the stores and materiel already up at Padrugoi, and

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maybe some shipment rearranging, lighting a fire under the taidy suppliers, but the time spent doing that will cut down on the man-hours upstairs."

"Duoml's returned to the station," Rhyssa said.

"We'll just borrow Hangar Q again for another handy little demonstration. I'll work out the details. Hey, you're looking mighty good today. New hairstyle? Sure shows off your skunk streak." Her screen diffused on another of his famous confidence-inspiring grins.

Skunk streak indeed, she thought, her fingers smoothing it back. At least he had noticed. With a sigh, she went back to her analyses, until she realized that she had not heard another squeak from Dorotea.

Then, as abruptly as the contact had been broken, Dorotea returned.

Well, I said I'd come back as soon as I could. It's too soon to be sure what he does do, Rhyssa, but he apparently taps into electrical sources. He's been glitching the hospital circuits fit to drive the electrician and a high-priced consultant barmy. And it also ex- plains why he couldn't cope with the body brace: the impulses which were fed directly into his synapses were short-circuiting inherent abilities, so the poor lad was trying to cope with an overload. Sue Romero is in bits thinking of all she's been doing to Peter, and he's in a state because he had no way of explaining why the body brace was all wrong/or him. . . and the head nurse, Miz, Alien, is one of those by-the-bookers and compounded the problem. Oh, his family are delighted, especially to know that Peter will not be "handicapped"--but their heads read "crippled, useless, financial drain. " It'll be stan- dard contract until he's eighteen and fully trained. Here's one kinetic Barchenka won't get her space gloves on!

When can you bring him home?

We're on our way! Dorotea replied triumphantly. Get Roddy's room in my house ready. She shot Rhyssa a mental glimpse of Space-Force posters on every wall, models of space' shuttles, mass passenger hotels,

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stealths, space labs, and generation ships descending from the ceiling, and a bunk bed with desk space be- low. Nothing could be more distant from the antiseptic environment he's been living in for months.

The physical meeting between Rhyssa Owen and Pe- ter Reidinger was not quite an anticlimax. Dorotea had warned her that Peter's mother and older sister were accompanying him in the heli-amb, excited but slightly apprehensive at his new circumstances.

lisa Reidinger was a pleasant enough woman, terribly concerned for and certainly extremely proud of her Pe- tey. She struggled with a less than congenial job in order to help meet the medical bills. The sixteen-year- old sister, Katya, was what Dorotea called "pushy," trying to figure out how her brother's good fortune might spill over on her and disgruntled that Peter had Talent and she had none. Dorotea said that Katya resented Pe- ter because the cost of his hospitalization had kept her from having many of the things that she, the elder child, ought to have been able to enjoy. Perfectly understand- able reaction, Dorotea told Rhyssa as the women deftly maneuvered Peter's gumey into Dorotea's house and on through into Roddy's room.

Both telepaths could feel Peter's spirit lifting as he saw the unmedical furnishings and artifacts.

"But how'll you do all that has to be done/or him all the time?" lisa Reidinger began in surprise.

"Oh, Peter'11 only need a little help in the beginning, Mrs. Reidinger," Dorotea said. Her mental Alley oop was the signal for Rick Hobson to "lift" Peter up into the bunk bed. "Now, let's all clear out and let him settle himself in. And," Dorotea added as she shooed everyone before her, "the heli-amb is waiting to take you and your daughter home. Here's the vid number. As you saw, Peter has a set in the room. Call him any time. Unlike the hospital, here you can see what mis- chief he's getting into. All right?"

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Dorotea's positive manner made refusal impossible, and soon the heli-amb was thunking its way up out of the Center's grounds.

Rick, hopk me up a line from the 4.5-kpm generator in the garden shed and bring it right into the room with Peter, Dorotea requested.