The Wings Of Pegasus

By: Anne McCaffrey

Synopsis:

When Henry Darrow and Molly Mahoney team up to found a clinic for pparanormal healers they embark on a long and wondrous journey into what might be and what is. In this book we meet them and the people they recruit to their cause. Fast-paced, among McCaffrey's best.

THE WINGS OF PEGASUS (Contains both TO RIDE PEGASUS and PEGASUS IN FLIGHT)

This Book is respectfully dedicated to Betty Ballantine, a woman of many talents.

PART ONE TO RIDE PEGASUS

The slick pavement, oily with rain and motor lubricants that had dripped from the hundreds of illrepaired vehicles utilizing the major northsouth artery into Jerhattan, caused the accident. Henry Darrow had not been exceeding the speed limit when he passe d the old twoseater. But he had a date with destiny. And kept it on time.

Had there been no rain that day, or had the lane been closed as scheduled for resurfacing, or had the old twoseater maintained the minimum speed in the lefthand lane, Henry Darrow would not have been exasperated enough to pass, would not have skidded on th e slick paving, would not have crashed into the guard rail, would not have fractured his skull so that a bone fragment pressed against the brain pan; had the accident occurred even half a mile further up the arterial road, Henry Darrow would not have been sent to the one hospital in the area equipped with a special electroencephalograph.

As things came to pass, this was how his accident was to occur: exactly how. In fact, he had jotted down the exact time in his astral notebook: 10:02:50 post meridian. He had also reminded himself that day not to take the arterial route back into Jerhattan but he had not foreseen one slight delay at the gasoline station which caused him to change his mind and take the fateful route, forgetful of his own prognostication.

Of course, since it was a major turning for him as well as millions of other people, he could never have avoided the accident. Which is why his subconsciousor so it is maintainedprevented him from remembering his forecast at the critical moment.

Henry Darrow was therefore injured, seriously, with minor fractures in the left leg as well as the depressed fragment of skull bone. Had Henry been fully conscious during surgery, he would have assured the surgeons that, despite the severity of the wound, he would live. They would have been dubious. Henry Darrow kneW when he was going to diefrom myocardial infarction, some fifteen years, four months, and nine days in the future.

He couldn't tell them since the cranial pressure affected his speech center and he was mercifully unaware of his surroundings. Brain surgery can be a harrowing experience.

The operation was technically successful and Henry was assigned a bed in the intensive care ward, cardiac and encephalographic monitors keeping close track of his vital systems. The Southside General Hospital boasted the very latest technology, including o ne of the ultrasensitive electroencephalographs, familiarly known as "Gooseggs."

The Goosegg equipment was developed during the Apollo flights in the 70s, to monitor the effects of the mysterious "lights," which periodically afflicted the astronauts, and t o record any suspected damage by cosmic radiation to the brain tissue. The ultra sensitive equipment was primarily used now in hospitals to detect brain damage to newborn infants suffering oxygen starvation during birth, or, as in Henry Darrow's case, brai n injuries where similar oxygen deprivation, bleeding, and pressure must be ascertained.

The intensive care nurse on duty when Darrow regained his sense after surgery was, as Destiny preordained, Molly Mahony, a.rather plain girl who goodnaturedly bore a lot of teasing from her colleagues for her avowed dedication to nursing. She was invariab ly assigned the critical cases because she had a knack of pulling them through the crises.

i "Dr. Scherman, would you look at the printout on Mr. Darrow's EEG?" she said when the resident checked in at her station.

"The alphas are unusually strong for a man as critically injured as he, aren't they?"

; Scherman looked obediently at the graphs, nodded sagely and then gave her a wink. "He been conscious at all? Giving you a time?"

Molly shook her head, very serious though she knew he was teasing her.

Scherman always did. "He's not regained consciousness, Dr. Scherman.

I'm to notify Dr. Wahlman when he does. But should I give him a ring about these readings?"

"Ah, don't bother, Molly. That one's lucky he can print anything out on the Goosegg. You'd've thought he'd've known better."

"Better? About what? He was an accident casualty, wasn't he?"

"Better about going out at all. He's Henry Darrow, the astrologer.

Christ, it costs a fortune to consult him about your future." Scherman snorted. "And he couldn't cast his own properly."

Scherman left after a cursory glance at the other i.c. patients. Molly Mahony looked with renewed interest at the brain injury. She knew of Henry Darrow, though she wouldn't have admitted it to many. No more than she would have admitted to anyone that she felt she had the gift of healing. Unlike her grandmother who'd had no medical background and ran into problems with her "healing hands," Molly had professional cachet and knew best how and when to apply her "whammy."

Having a unique talent, Molly was keenly interested in all the paranormal manifestations. In her lexicon, the astrologist merely used the signs of the zodiac to focus a precognitive gift, one fortunately more scientifically based than tealeaf reading or ca rdtelling. Just as the nursing profession allowed her to focus her healing talent on a scientific basis. So she knew of Henry Darrow and now tiptoed, like an awed sycophant, to the bedside and stared down at a face she hadn't noticed before.

His face had character even in laxjawed abnormal coma. The eyesockets were black and blue pits, and here and there a trace of blood had escaped the emergency cleanup. It was unfair of her to look at him in such a condition. She laid the back of her hand ge ntly against his cheek, not liking the color of his skin. She flicked back the sheet, took a fold of the pectoral skin, and gave it a brutal twist. Well, at least he had reactions. She patted the sheet into place and stroked his cheek again.

The cardiograph pulsed slow but regular, though there were traces in the reading that spelled the beginnings of arteriosclerosis. No more than would be apparent in any reading of a fortytwo-yearold heart which had lived well and hard.

Now she placed strong, slender fingers on his temples, pressing lightly, trying to "feel" where the real injury was. Not that which the surgeons had corrected when they removed the splinter and released the pressure on the brain. But the psychic injury, th e essential blow to the vitalities of the man, which had been shocked by the proximity of death, by the exigency of the operationthat ultimate violation of personal integrity.

So often in her reading of case histories, she'd seen the simple term "heart failure," or the more complex medical annotation of heart stoppage for a variety of physically inexplicable and unnecessary reasons. Shock, they would term it for lack of better e xplanation, "the patient died of shock." Fright, Molly called it. When a patient of hers retreated from reality in this sort of fright, Molly would draw that violated integrity back again with her Talent.

The response to her healing touch on Henry Darrow's brow was different and puzzling. The cardiogram etched bolder, stronger peaks and the Goosegg made frantic passes on all four recording bands.

Henry Darrow's eyelids flickered, opened, and a faint smile crossed his lips.

"What the hell hit me?" he asked.

"You hit you," Molly replied, "on the center post of your car when you crashed into the guard rails, Mr. Darrow. Head ache?"

"Christ yes!" He moaned and tried to reach upward.

"Don't. You've suffered a severe concussion, head lacerations your left leg is fractured..."

There was mischief in the clear green eyes that met Molly's. "You're not supposed to tell me such things, are you?"

Molly smiled. "You know anyhow. And you really ought to pay more attention to your own predictions, Mr. Darrow."

The Goosegg chattered crazily and Molly whirled to see what was happening. But Henry Darrow was grabbing her arm, his eyes widening with bewildered surprise and incredulity.

"You're a Gemini. What's your name? You're going to marry me."

Love at first sight is a rare enough incident, particularly in a hospital setting, despite what the romances say. But far rarer was the scientific accident that proved a long suspected truth. For what had registered on the Goosegg's chart was indisputable proof that the parapsychic talent exists. Henry Darrow had a precognitive experience when he looked at Molly Mahony as a person, not just the nurse in attendance, and "knew" she would be his wife.

They did marry, as soon as his leg was out of the cast. Marriage was not the only thing Henry foresaw for Molly: he knew, too, her date of death, a fact he never disclosed to her. Talents, he learned very shortly, had to discount such precogs in their own lives if they were to operate efficiently for others. Molly was treasured, loved and cherished all the days of her life by her husband because he knew how little of her time he would enjoy.

The significance of the Goosegg's remarkable activity did not immediately impinge on Henry's awareness. To Molly Mahony belongs all the credit, therefore, for lifting the parapsychic function from the realm of chicanery to science.

For starters, Molly was fascinated with the unusual strength and pattern of Henry's EEG charts. She couldn't dismiss, as Dr. Scherman had, the variations. In her favor was a natural inclination to place Henry Darrow's mind into an exceptional category. Add ed to that, she knew Henry'd had the precognition of their marriage at the precise moment the Goosegg went wild. At the very first opportunity she tried an empiric experiment. She attached the electrodes to her own skull the next time she had occasion to e xert her own ability in the intensive care ward. A similar variation occurred in her reading; not as intense as Henry's, but significant. She took several more of herself, and copied those portions of Henry's records which showed this curious excitation.

She was rather surprised that Dr. Wahlman, Henry's surgeon, did not cancel the Goosegg monitoring when Henry appeared to have recovered from the worst of the concussion. She wondered if Wahlman was as interested in the EEG variation as she was.

Henry had two more precognitive incidents before she felt she could approach Dr. Wahlman with her private conclusions.

"For my own information, Dr. Wahlman, what is the significance of this activity in an EEG?"

"Well, now," said Wahlman, taking the graphs diffidently and studying them in a manner which told Molly that he hadn't a clue. "To be frank, Mahony, I don't know. This particular sort of printout usually occurs just prior to death. And Darrow's very much a live." The surgeon looked towards Henry's closed door with some irritation. Henry had insisted on pursuing his avocation of charting horoscopes, had even imported his computer, embarking on a cerebral activity which apparently had no deleterious effects on his rapid recovery but did not strike Wahlman as exactly the sort of occupation suitable to a man recovering from a nearfatal head injury.

"And these?" Molly showed him her own graphs.

"Whose are these? A terminal reading? No, couldn't be. The alpha's too intense. What are you up to, Mahony?"

"I'm not certain, doctor, but I do know that when Mr. Darrow is !

hardest at work, that's when this sort of variation occurs."

"Jasus help us, the damned Goosegg's queer for astrology?"

Molly smiled and apologized for bothering the surgeon with anomalies.

"Mahony, if you weren't the best postoperative nurse we have, I'd tell you to bug off. But if you have any idea, any unreasonable idea, why that kind of reading occurs, would you please let me in on the secret?"

She let Henry in first.

"The moment you woke up after your accident and asked was I Gemini and then said I was going to marry you, was that a precog?"

"Fact, my lovefact!"

"No, Henry, stop that now. Later. Answer me. Was your precognitive faculty at work?"

"Violently." The modified bandage on his head gave him a slightly rakish look but he stopped caressing her, responding to her serious mood.

"And, for instance, when Mrs. Rellahan was here, you told me that you had an intense prevision..."

"Hmmmm." Henry's mouth tightened slightly with dislike.

"This is what the Goosegg printed out. See, here the rapid needle, strong strokes, the length of the pattern... And, in these..."

"That's not my pattern, too, is it? Quite a difference."

"No, that's my brain waves. And this is what happens when I'm healing.

" Henry looked slowly up at Molly, an incredulous joy brightening his eyes, a light suffusing his face that rewarded Molly for her efforts and intuition.

"Molly, my own heart's darling, do you know what we have here?"

The world in general remained skeptical. Fortunately Henry Darrow cared very little for the world's thoughts but he was able to produce proof to a powerful, wealthy few that the parapsychic faculty existed in certain individuals and could be manifested at will.

A whole new line of research was instigated by those private persons and concerns which had long hoped for scientific recognition of the paranormal abilities.

"I've always had a presentiment of Destiny, of being on the threshold of some vast important breakthrough," Henry told Molly during the early hectic days shortly before they formed the first Parapsychic Center.

"Most megalomaniacs do, too, and your psychot ic paranoids like Nero, Napoleon, Hitler and Kyudu. That's why I had that team of psychiatrists examine my mental health with fine Freudian tongs.

Nonetheless it's a prejudicial admission. D'you know, I've been afraid to forecast my own future too far in a dvance now? Some details are unwise for any man to know..." He looked with unfocused eyes at the blank wall in front of them for a moment before he smiled reassuringly at her. "I've been a dilettante up till now and my critics can say either that I gain ed my wits in that accident, or lost the few I had, but that event was the threshold of my... of our destiny."

"Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead," Molly replied, gesturing theatrically.

"And torpedoes there will be," Henry agreed grimly.

"I thought you said you didn't see far in advance..."

"For myself, I meant. Not for what we must do." He was silent again for a moment. "God, it's going to be fun."

Molly looked at the amusement in his eyes, the anticipatory gleam of malice. "For whom?" she asked.

His eyes sparkled as he turned his gaze back to her.

"For us," he said, hugging her affectionately, "for all of us," and he meant the newly recruited Talents. "We may perceive the outcome, but half the fun, most of the fun in life, is getting there. And I've got just enough time."

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to argue with his surgeons (and because Molly assured Wahlman that Henry couldn't get around her vigilance), he was allowed to go back to work full time. Not, as previously, in his capacity as a dilettante astrologe r, but as the manager, organizer, fundraiser, and recruiter par excellence for the Parapsychic Center.

"MaryMolly luv, it's going to be accomplished in steps, this establishment of the Talented in the scheme of things. Not society, mind you, for we're the original nonconformists," and he tapped his forehead just below the pink flesh of the newly healed head wound.

"And Society will never permit us to integrate. That's okay!" He consigned Society to insignificance with a flick of his fingers. "The Talented form their own society and that's as it should be: birds of a feather. No, not birds. Winged horses! Ha!

Yes, indeed. Pegasus... the poetic winged horse of flights of fancy. A bloody good symbol for us. You'd see a lot from the back of a winged horse..."

"Yes, an airplane has blind spots. Where would you put a saddle?"

Molly had her practical side.

He laughed and hugged her. Henry's frequent demonstrations of affection were a source of great delight to Molly, whose own strength was in tactile contacts.

"Don't know. Lord, how would you bridle a winged horse?"

"With the heart?"

"Indubitably!" The notion pleased him. "Yes, with the heart and the head because Pegasus is too strong a steed to control or subdue by any ordinary method."

"You couldn't break our sort of Pegasus anyhow," Molly said firmly.

"Wouldn't want to even when he flies so high..." She burrowed into Henry's arms, suddenly frightened by the analogy.

"Yes, luv. When you ride the winged horse, you can't dismount.

Anymore than you can suppress the Talent you've been given. We'll find our bridle, I think, with time and training and more practice at riding.

"That Goosegg was the really important break. Now we can prove parapsychic powers exist and who has them. We can discredit the charlatans and clowns who've given the rest of us a bad name. The real Talents will be registered with the Center, and we'll have graphs to prove they've had valid Incidents. The Center will supply them with the specialized jobs that utilize their Talents. From just a sampling of validly Talented people we've already attracted, I can think of hundreds of top jobs."

"Even Titter Beyley and Charity McGillicuddy?" Molly Mahony asked.

Darrow's eyes danced with mischief because Titter drank continuously and Charity pursued an old profession diligently.

"Takes a thief to catch a thief and Titter's been stealing for years to support his habit. Remember that Charity's heart of gold beats in a true telepath's breast."

"Size 42C."

"Molly!"

"Go on with our future, Henry."

"I want Watson Claire as our PR man because I know damned well he's a receiving telepath: he must be to handle clients the way he does. He's got a positive genius for presenting the campaign a client'll buy.

Claire's the sort of person we've got to enlist, for his sake as well as ours. Ours, because we've got the biggest goddamn public relations program on our hands, and the public can make or break us. His sake, because he's not happy pushing products he despises." Molly nodded sympathetically.

"We get an intensive information program going and that will help recruiting. Then we've got to start rescue operations for those hidden Talents and especially those poor misfits in institutions because they heard voices... which they did... or they imagined impossible things, which they didn't. Or their empathy with the world around them was too great to be endured and they abandoned reality. And we've got to figure out the best way to train these Talents once we've got them verified.

"Then we've got to get exactly the right place to live in."

"To live? But this apartment is..."

"Okay for us, for the time being. But not for the rest of us. No, now don't worry, Molly luv. I know where we're going."

Molly regarded him steadily for a second. "But you don't know exactly how we'll get there, is that it?"

Henry laughed, nodding.

"That's the challenge, luv."

"And then what's on the agenda? I'd better know the worst."

Henry chuckled to give himself time to evade. "Then comes one of the harder jobs..."

Molly's eyes grew round. "You've outlined a lifetime's work and then tell me one of the harder jobs..."

"Will be to establish professional immunity for the Talents so we don't get sued out of our eyeball sockets because we said something would happen which didn't because we said it would. Oh, we'll get it sooner or later, but I'd rather sooner than later whe n' you consider the money that'll be tied up in suits. But that won't be my headache.""It won't be?"

"I can't live forever, luv."

She clung to him and he gave her only a quick embrace.

"I'll live long enough, MaryMolly luv, and so will you." He put her away from him then, for he had to keep his desire in check with the pressures of his destiny.

"Now, gentlemen, the subject all wired up to the electroencephalograph, familiarly known as the Goosegg, is a telekinetic Talent. That means, gentlemen, that he can move objects without any other agency than his mind. Ralph, would you be good enough to dem onstrate?"

Ralph, who used to be known as Rat Wilson, was not the most prepossessing of individuals, being skinny to the point of emaciation, with a rodentlike face and a mouth that remained slightly open due to untended tonsils and adenoids; but his rather large gre y eyes were dancing with mischief and interest. That he had perfected his art in the variety of correctional institutions which had attempted to remold him to society's requirements was irrelevantnow.

He sat under the electrode net of the Goosegg at one end of a large hall, a camcorder throwing a picture of the printout on the big screen above him. Fortyseven scientists and businessmen were seated around the room, in the center of which sat a table with a variety of objects: a hammer, nails and a plank of wood; a coffee tray with an urn, cups, cream and sugar; a guitar; and a training set of waldoes, limp and grotesque without hands to fill the gloves.

Henry Darrow walked to the other end of the room, as far from both Ralph and the table as possible.

There was a significant silence in the room, with the audience casting glances from table to Ralph to Henry. Suddenly a cup rattled, rose, was joined to a saucer and aligned itself under the spout of the urn which was tapped almost simultaneously to pour c offee into the cup.

Belatedly, a spoon clattered into the saucer.

"Who takes it black?" asked Ralph as cup and saucer veered to the nearest watcher.

"I do," said one cool businessman, lifting his hand.

"Hang on to it then, mac," replied Ralph. "Got it?"

"Hey!" The man closed his fingers around the lip of the saucer but when Ralph released it, he was unprepared and the black coffee sloshed over the saucer rim onto his hand.

There was a slight wave of amusement, shattered by the crash of a hammer driving a nail into a block of wood.

"I'll make the next one white. Who's for it?"

A second cup was delivered to its receiver as the hammer drove the nail smartly into the wood. At the same time, the waldoes jerked alive and began to assemble the objects in the tray. The guitar twanged with a bawdy ballad.

With cups sailing around the room, the crack of the hammer to the tempo of the song, the industry of the waldoes leaving everyone gaping, Henry returned to the stage, taking a pointer and starting the sales pitch.

"As you will notice, if you can take your eyes from the flying saucers, Ralph's use of his Talent results in the hard variations of the alpha waves, here and here. The beta fluctuation is rapid, deep. Note the difference at the beginning of the graph befor e Ralph started. Notice the increase as he stepped up the output of the parapsychic faculty.

Has anyone any doubts about the authenticity of this demonstration?

Will you accept this printout as valid, and that the graph represents Ralph's paranormal abilit y?"

"Stop him!"

Henry signalled to Ralph and coffee cups crashed to the floor. The hammer bounced and fell to the table and the waldoes went limp to a discordant twang on the guitar.

"For chrissake," and the man on whom a cup of coffee had fallen sprang to his feet, wiping at soaked pants and dancing from the hot bath.

Instantly the cup righted itself and incredibly refilled with the justemptied coffee.

"Sorry about that, mac, but someone said stop!"

The abrupt surcease of the parapsychic was recorded on the graph, as was the minor activity of mopping up the spill.

"Hey, my pants are dry!"

"Are there any other questions?" asked Henry, winking surreptitiously to the grinning Ralph.

"Yes," and a heavy set man towards the rear of the room stood slowly to his feet. "Coffee vending machines handle this sort of service, an idiot can drive a nail; granted a waldo is used for delicate sterile operations, any rock musician plays electric gui tar... not all at once, admittedly, but how would someone like Ralph be employed? And incidentally, I know his background."

"You might say," Henry said with a smile, "that Ralph is a real product of his background of reform school and correctional institution.

That's how he acquired his Talent. Society wasn't ready for Ralph or his Talent. We are.

"We've demonstrated here that Ralph can do a variety of things simultaneously; tasks requiring multiple action such as assembling coffee implements and teleporting them to the proper destination, as well as exercises requiring a certain strength and/or pre cision.

"However, Ralph has a limited range. We've duplicated today's fun and games over a distance of half a mile, but not further with any precision or strength. Ralph is not a superman. That's the first point I wish to impress on you. He has a Talent but it's a finite one, suitable for certain, rather limited use. He would be a profitable investment for someone like yourself, Mr. Gregory, for precision assembly under vacuum, sterile or radiation conditions.

"I don't say that Ralph is a totally reformed character at all," and Henry grinned at Ralph, "but he is now able to purchase legally the things he used to heist. He is subject, and he knows it, to the mental examination of a strong telepath. He also thorou ghly enjoys his present occupation."

"You bet, mac." And the scathing look Ralph bent on the audience left no doubts that the little man delighted in disconcerting the men of distinction, rank and position.

"If you can't cure'em, recruit'em," Henry added.

"Are you implying, Mr. Darrow, that half the population of jails and mental institutions are peopled by your misunderstood parapsychics?"

"Not at all. I admit we're testing many socalled misfits to see if thwarted or yes, misunderstood, paranormal Talents are not partly responsible for their maladjustment. But that does not mean they are all graduates of institutions.

"Talent, gentlemen, can include something as simple as being a born mechanic. We've all known or heard of the guy who just listens to the sound of an engine and knows what's wrong with it. Or the plumber who can dowse the exact location of a break in water pipes. Or the pyromaniac who "knows" when and where a fire will break out and has so often been accused of starting it; the woman whose hands ease a fever or soothe a pain, the worker who knows instinctively what the boss needs, the person who can always find what's been mislaid or lost.

These are everyday, but valid, evidences of the parapsychic Talent.

These are the people we want to include in our Centersnot just the more dramatic mindreaders and clairvoyants. The Talented are rarely supermen and women, just people who operate on a different wavelength.

Employ them in the proper capacity and utilize their Talents to your advantage."

"Besides money, what do you want from us, Darrow?"

"Doctor Abbey, isn't it? From you and your colleagues all over the world, I want the public admission that Talent has left the tearoom and entered the laboratory. We have scientific evidence that the parapsychic faculty exists and can be used, at will, wit h predictable result. Science, gentlemen, by definition, is any skill that reflects a precise application of principles. The principle in Ralph's case is moving objects without artificial aid."

"I might buy the teleportation, Darrow," replied Doctor Abbey, slightly contemptuous, "but go back to the tearoom a minute. Give me an example of the science behind precognition."

"I knew you'd ask that, Doctor Abbey. And I predict that you will receive a favorable answer to your latest inquiry into the problem" Henry raised his hand to suppress Abbey's exclamation, "I'm discreet enough, Doctor Abbeyinto the problem you're investiga ting with Doctors Schwarz, Vosogin and Clasmire. That, Doctor Abbey, is predictable, scientific and accurate enoughsince your correspondence with the three men is a closely guarded secretto be convincing. Right?

From the stunned expression on Dr. Abbey's face as he sank into his chair, Darrow knew he was right and Abbey was convinced.

"Now," Henry asked the audience in general, "all of you have had problems which I believe some of our Talents can solve. What am I offered?"

"Why, after fourteen years and nine rent increaseswhich I didn't protest by the waywill you not renew my lease?"

"Mister Darrow, I've been told that your lease is not renewable and that's what I've been told to tell you."

"How come the 'Mister Darrow,' Frank? Now look, I've paid my rent right on the button for fourteen years. I've had no more than legitimate redecorating, why am I not able to renew my lease?" Henry knew the problem, had foreseen this situation, but he was h uman enough to like to see people squirm. Particularly, if it might let in a little wisdom and understanding of Talent.

Frank Hummel looked very uncomfortable.

"C'mon, Frank. You know. Don't try to kid me you don't."

Frank looked up with a miserable expression in his eyes. "And that's it, Hank. That's just it. You do know. You know too goddamned much and the other tenants are scared."

Henry threw back his head and roared with laughter. "No one's conscience is clear? My God, Frank, do they really think I know or care, for that matter, about their petty intrigues and affairs?" Then he saw he'd offended Frank and wished he were a telepath, not a precog.

"Frank, I 'see' no more than I did when I used astrology to focus my Talent. No one was afraid of me when I was just a stargazer."

Frank did squirm at Henry's choice of phrase because that's how the man thought of Henry.

"I can't read minds," Henry went on, "and come to that, Frank, I don't really know what's going on under my nose. My Talent is not for individuals: it's for mass futures. Oh, yes, important individuals who will affect the lives of millions. But not if Mrs. Walters in 4C is going to have a baby... not unless I have cast her individual horoscope... and she's too scared of her husband to come to me for that." Henry sighed for even that piece of common sense insight was now being misconstrued by the apprehens ive real estate agent. "Look, everyone in the building knows Walters's opinion of me, and how scared she is of him. That takes no Talent at all, Frank. And it takes no Talent either to know that Walters is probably one of the prime instigators in getting m e evicted."

"You're not being evicted, Mr. Darrow."

"Oh no?"

"No! It's just that your lease is not being renewed."

"How much of an extension can I have to find new quarters? You know how tight the housing situation is in Jerhattan."

Frank looked everywhere but at Henry.

"Frank... Frank? Frank, look at me," and reluctantly, hesitantly, the man obeyed. "Frank, you've known me for fourteen years. Why, suddenly, are you afraid of me?" Henry knew the answer but he wanted Frank to admit it. One man, one Frank Hummel, wouldn't change the struggle of the Talented for acceptance but it might change one other mind now, three next week. Every ally was valuable. And to have allies one had to admit to enemies.

"It's just that... that... hell, you're not a stargazer anymore, Mister Darrow. You're for real." The apprehension in Frank Hummel's face was equally real.

"Frank, thank you. This isn't easy for you and I will make it less easy but I want you to remember fourteen years of a very pleasant relationship. I knew you'd be here today. I knew it four months ago when Molly and I had that series of graffiti painted on the door and the socalled burglary attempts. I've a lease on new quarters. We're moving tomorrow."

Frank already had too much to think about. "You mean, you knew?

Already? But I just got the orders yesterday and you told me that you didn't see individual... and you're" "I'm not lying about what I can see, Frank, but I'd certainly better see what affects myself, or a fine stargazer I'd be. Right?"

Hummel was slowly backing out of the apartment, less and less convinced. Once again Henry wished he were a telepathor at least empathicand could know what was running through Frank's mind and counter it.

"Do me one favor, Frank," Henry said. "On the 18th of next month, in the fourth race at Belmont, bet every credit you've been saving on a horse named Mibimi. Only don't place your bet until the last minute before the race. Will you do that for me? And then when Mibimi wins, remember Talent is useful."

Frank had retreated to the elevator and Henry wondered if the confused man had taken in his tip. He didn't often give them but for a friend you can do a favor... if it'll cement his friendship.

Henry shrugged as he closed the door. The scene just played in his living room had been repeated over and over, with acknowledged Talents as reluctant dramatis personae.

Just another of those paradoxes which assailed them from all sides now that Talent was respectable. By removing the onus of haphazard performance, by having Talents registered with the Center, they could contract for premium wages. But suddenly the Talents were also elevated into the genus "pariah," found themselves untouchables, unwelcome and feared, all through misunderstandings.

Watson Claire was mounting a massive softsell public information program, abetted by his contacts in the media profession who were delighted at something newsworthy. Judiciously applied blackmail kept the worst newsmongers at bay. But it would take time, C laire said (and Henry understood), for the program to seep down to the level where it was most required... in the housing developments which were now ousting anyone suspected of possessing Talent.

Well, the immense warehouse Henry had leased in the dock area would suffice until he'd figured out how to appeal to George Henner. That financial wizard had an accounting to make and Henry was vastly amused by recent findings. It was going to be fun watchi ng Henner's reactions.

He picked up the comunit to call the warehouse: the shielding had been in place a week ago so there had been just the finishing of the living quarters. Maybe he should have used telekinetics to move his furnishings? No, that would be a bad scene, however p ersonally satisfying it might be. Some things even Talents had better do the usual way.

"My name is Henry Darrow, Commissioner Mailer. This is my wife, Molly; Barbara Holland is our finder, and Jerry comes along to lug the Goosegg. I believe this is your list of most wanteds?"

"Just what is this?" The Commissioner for Law Enforcement and Order had risen in indignation from his paperfree desk. "My appointment was with James Marshall, not you, Darrow."

"I know. Jim got it for us because you've refused to see..."

"A bunch of tearoom crackpots!"

"Well, we're here and you're going to listen..."

"Not if I have any say..." The Commissioner was fumbling with his desk set and swore when the telltale lights did not wink on at his touch.

"It won't work, Commissioner Mailer," Henry told him. "I forgot to mention that Jerry's telekinetic and keeps closing the switches as soon as you press. Sorry. You're incommunicado until you listen. And watch. Barbara, if you would, please? Here's the list. Just sit here. Ready, Molly?"

The Commissioner's raging did him no good since his office was soundproofed. He continued to fumble futilely with his comunit, unable to believe that it wouldn't function because some nondescript young man stared at it. He didn't notice that Molly was quie tly placing the electrode net on Barbara's head. The girl adjusted it into the scalped spots in her hair and nodded to Henry.

"I gather these are in order of preference?" Henry asked the Commissioner. Henry perched on the desk, unperturbed by the Commissioner's belligerence and profanity.

"Preference? What'n'hell are you talking about, Darrow? Get your circus out of here. This is a law enforcement and order..."

"Neither of which you are able to maintain with the current restrictions on your men," said Henry, interrupting with such a forceful tone that the Commissioner's sputtering died and he stared at Darrow in amazement. Few people had addressed the LEO man in that tone of voice. "That's why I'm here, to render assistance you can't get from any other agency. Now sit down, shut up, and listen. Who do you want us to find for you first?"

"Find?"

"Find!"

The two men locked eyes and there was a quality in Henry's that wrought a sudden change in the Commissioner.

"All right," Mailer said in a tight hard voice, "find me the man they call Joe Blow."

"The Joy Pill man?"

"That's him."

Henry flicked out the second IBM card and handed it to Barbara Holland.

"Enough for you, Babs?"

The girl studied the sketch drawn by police artists from verbal descriptions of victims of the elusive Joe Blow. She read the notations on his most frequented locations, his general modus operandi.

Then she looked up at Henry with a grin.

"This isn't a really fair test, Henry," she said.

"Ha!" exclaimed the Commissioner, an unholy delight in his eyes.

"No," said Barbara, "because I've encountered him so it's easy to track him down." She closed her eyes, clasping the card between her hands.

The needles on the Goosegg began to whip across the graph paper. Her smile widened and she opened her eyes. "He's o n the corner of 4th Avenue New East and 197th Street. He's wearing a long blue duty mac, with waterproofed shoulders, and a long blond wig. No moustaches today. He's carrying nothing illegal but he has a great deal of money on him and some folded papers."

The Commissioner was fumbling with his comunit. "For God's sake release it or whatever. I've got to get..."

"Why?" asked Barbara. "You want him with dust or acid or the Brown Joy, don't you?"

"I want him in any way."

"Can you charge him?"

"I've only got to get him..."

Suddenly the comunit came alive on every previously pressed band, but the Commissioner got it sorted out and had a squad vehicle dispatched to the coordinates, to apprehend a man answering Barbara's description.

Then he turned back, smiling sourly at the f our people. "We'll see what we'll see. If such a man is there, we'll have him in three minutes. My people are quick and efficient."

"So are mine," said Henry and looked expectantly at Barbara, who nodded.

"What's that all about?" demanded the Commissioner.

"I'm keeping track of him," Barbara replied, and suddenly the third band began to show activity.

"That is the Goosegg at work, Commissioner Mailer," said Henry.

"Are you reading my mind?" Mailer looked alarmed and angrier.

"Not at all," Henry replied. "I'm not a telepath. I'm a tea leaf reader on a grandiose scale..."

The Commissioner pursed his lips to hear his own description of Henry Darrow thrown back at him.

"All right, then, tell me now if my men'll succeed?"

"Barbara can tell you better than I. I don't deal generally with individuals. My specialty is mass movement. But Barbara can find Joe Blow for you now and any time you want to check on his whereabouts..."

"They have him," Barbara said, and held out her hand for another card.

The Commissioner stared at her suspiciously.

"Oh, let's let his men tell him, Babs."

She shrugged and settled back in her chair. Then brightened and smiled sweetly at Mailer. "You left your pipe in your ski jacket, Commissioner, the blue one which you don't usually wear. If you call home right now, you'll find your wife there. And remind h er the coat is under your red dressing robe in the first closet."

Mailer regarded her with narrowed eyes. "I thought you said you weren't a mind reader."

"I never said that," Barbara replied, then pointed to Henry. "He did.

And I can only get impressions of lost articles. You did lose the pipe and were just now thinking where had you put it. And the only reason I know about your wife is because you say you can never find her when you need her." Barbara kept her face very straight but Henry knew her to be possessed of a sense of devilment, very much in evidence under that air of innocent helpfulness.

This "finding" was making far more impression on the Commissioner than her location of Joe Blow.

The comunit buzzed.

"They picked up a man, answering that description. What do they do with him? He's demanding rights."

Mailer was unprepared for only one moment. "Search him. There's been a local robbery and a man answering his description was seen nearby.

You're supposed to find a wad of credits and papers. Invoke citizen search prerogative."

"He's carrying roughly 8000 credits, sir," said Barbara.

"The heist was 8000."

There was a second long tense silence.

"He's got it, sir."

"Book him!"

The fleeting expressions on Mailer's face now told of intense mental conflict. He was a man to whom a miracle had been offered and he was too scared to accept it.

"Barbara is parapsychic, Commissioner. We brought Goosegg to prove to you on a scientific basis as reliable as ballistics, without a tea leaf in sight, that her mind generates a specific type of electrical impulse when she uses her parapsychic Talent. She can't read your mind except when you, or anyone, are worrying about something lost, strayed or stolen..."

"Stolen" The Commissioner pounced on the word.

"If you mean that hijacked shipment of crowd gas, Commissioner," said Barbara, "it's in a warehouse, with a southside feel. It's very dark inside, which hampers me: I can't see in shadows. I can make out some white airfreight containers, they've a plastic feel, rather than wood or steel. There's a geometric design in dark paint in the lower left hand side." She frowned and the Goosegg chattered rapidly for a moment and then toned down to a mild, normal swing. "I'm sorry. There simply isn't enough light ther e."

The Commissioner snorted but her information had obviously given him something to work on. "South side... air freight... white..." His fist slapped down an end key. "Jack... what air freight companies use white containers with geometric designs in lowe r left hand... Oh, they do. Now, what air freight companies use southside depots... Oh.

Hmmm. Well, check your contacts like right now." He turned a cold dispassionate look on Barbara. "You can't be more specific?"

Barbara gave Henry a quick glance before answering. "I've already narrowed the search to a small section of the city with as many specifics as I can see. There can't be that many warehouses for air freight! I've done more than you've been able to, Mr. Mail er."

"Now, just a minute, young lady..."

"You've had more than a minute, Commissioner, and my time is valuable."

Barbara was on her feet, the electrode net in her hand. "We're wasting time with this one, Henry. And I don't like him. Miserable vibes from him, just miserable!"

She left the room. Molly quietly began to pack up the Goosegg while the Commissioner stared first at the open door and then at Henry.

"She operates more efficiently with an occasional word or two of thanks, Mailer. Most people do." Henry gathered Molly into the curve of his arm, motioned courteously to Jerry to take the Goosegg and wishing Mailer a pleasant goodday, left.

"Hey, just a minute..."

Henry turned at the door. "As Babs said, Mailer, you've had more than a minute and our time is valuable."

"Does Charity have to be sedated again, Gus?" Henry asked the Center's physician. "We've got her a temporary contract to find out the troublemaker in the Arrow Shirt Company."

Gus ducked his head, his face twisted into a grimace, wanting to say no and having to say yes. He leaned against the now flagged door to Charity McGillicuddy's two roomed accommodation on the living floor of the Center's warehouse building.

"Even with the shielding we've got, Hank, it's not enough privacy for the empaths and telepaths. Not enough physical distance. No way to get out and away from ourselves, if you get what I mean. We're sort of all crammed into this warren despite the conveni ences and amenities.

You might say, it's too much of a good thing... to close a buddybuddy act. Like an overdose of euphorics. Everyone's high here on sheer good fellowship. And it's much too much for Charity."

Henry looked towards the corridor window with the projection of sunlight on the grass, a huge spreading beech tree, russet against an autumnally blue sky. Though it was so realistic that the leaves moved gently and the angle of sunlight altered slowly, Hen ry knew it to be only a projection and his mind would not accept the fantasy that deluded millions of warren dwellers.

"Talent requires certain realities not obtainable in this age," Gus went on. "And one of the most important is physical freedom and elbow room." He snorted, aware of the impossibility of fulfilling that requirement in Jerhattan's overcrowded boundaries.

"We've been offered that old game preserve in..."

"Too goddamned far to commute and most of us gotta." Molnar was head neurologist at the Midtown Hospital Center although he spent more time as the Center's physician.

"Okay," Henry said, "I'll do what I can."

"Henry?" Gus eyed his friend suspiciously. "What are you up to now?"

"Me? Nothing." Then Henry Darrow assumed a crouched stance and rubbed his hands together, chuckling evilly. "But Destiny... haha HA! I know when we twain shall meet. Soon!"

Gus rolled his eyes heavenward to deal with Henry Darrow in this whimsical mood.

"Oh, don't worry, Gus," Henry said in a normal voice. "I usually call 'em, you know."

Gus nodded sourly.

"Content yourself," Henry continued, "with the enticing thoughts of dissecting my brain when I die, and trying to figure out just how I do it."

"Ha!"

"You can't subpoena Barbara Holland, not on those grounds, Commissioner Mailer," Henry Darrow said. "But you can hire her services from the Center..."

"What Center?" demanded Mailer, looking scornfully around the minuscule space that served as Henry's office.

"The Center we'll shortly acquire with the wages you'll be paying Talents like Barbara, and Titter Beyley and Gil Gracie and..."

"Titter Beyley?" The Commissioner hovered on the verge of apoplexy.

"Yes, Titter. He drank to stop finding things. Alcohol affects the parapsychic faculty, sometimes it inhibits, as in Titter's case, sometimes it sharpens."

"Now, just a minute, Darrow..."

"My minutes are valuable, Mailer. I only have so many. You want things and people found: Barbara has that faculty and so does Titter Beyley. Actually Titter's much better for inanimate objects than Barbara. He doesn't like people. And the day you find out he's been drunk on duty, hen complain."

"And you mean to stand there, young man, and tell me that I'm going to get shot at Saturday? Again!" Governor Lawson tipped his chair back and roared with laughter: an exercise he broke off abruptly to glare with an intensity akin to hatred at Darrow and t he wraithlike Steve Hawkins. "So what else is new?"

"The predictive Incident says that a.38 slug will penetrate the right ventricle." Steve's voice shook slightly. Henry wondered if he'd made a mistake in bringing Steve, who was very new to his gifts and the Center's staff. "The man will approach from the left..."

"What does it matter where he comes from?" The Governor said, sharply, hostilely. "Oh, I don't disbelieve you, Darrow. Or you, Hawkins.

I've heard too much about you people to be skeptical anymore. But, if I don't appear..."

"You have to appear," Henry replied. "We ran the alternates through a probability computation and find that your appearance at that Forum Meeting must take place to sway a currently uncommitted 8% of the popular vote to your party. Without that 8%, you fai l to receive the critical majority and if you fail, the Laborites can obtain the plurality they need to effect a countermeasure that would have disastrous consequences on the economy."

Governor Lawson began a chuckle, his belly shaking first before the amusement was shunted up the rotund abdomen to the chest and finally became audible in the head cavity. Finally Lawson's lips parted to emit a rich, juicy laugh.

"So, that's the way it'll be, huh?"

"Yes, if your eloquence doesn't falter with foreknowledge."

"Huh? How's that?"

"You have been given a prescience of the immediate future. Such knowledge could, in itself, alter the circumstances of the future. We do not always have either the personnel or the foresight to modify the future. In your case, we make an exception. A Labor ite Majority is not a good thing for the Talented."

Governor Lawson nodded in appreciation of that expediency.

"Your man will intercept the bullet?"

Henry nodded.

"And the nut will be put away? That's better than leaving him free for another shot. Good! How many political figures does your group protect?"

"Those who need it. And we'd appreciate a kindly word for the Center when Steve diverts that bullet."

Lawson nodded agreement. "Those who need protection? Or those whom you need, Darrow? No, don't answer that one. Answer this... will I win this election?"

Henry smiled slowly. "You know the answer to that one, Governor, but the fun lies in making certain you've played the game right."

"How far do you guys play fun and games?"

"Just far enough!"

"Now, Mr. Rambley, what seems to be your problem?"

"Not my problem, Mr. Darrow. Yours!" The Internal Revenue Department man smiled a thin smug smile and began to pull IBM cards from his neat fakepig case.

"Really?"

"We have here WT forms from the Department of Law Enforcement and Order, from Johns Hopkins, Bethel General, Midtown from Dupont, Merck Pharmaceuticals... need I go on?"

"Just as you please."

"These salary chits represent the earnings of Barbara Holland, Titter Beyley, Charity McGillicuddy, Gil Gracie, Frank Negelsco Augustus Molnar..." Again the IRD representative regarded Henry Darrow with a cute expression on his fleshless face. "I could co ntinue..."

"Just as you please. I give every government official the courtesy due his office." Henry inclined his head toward Mr. Rambley who for the first time since he'd minced into Henry's tiny lair, looked nonplussed.

"After all, some of my best people are employ ed by the government."

With an irritated sigh, Rambley closed the stack of cards and tapped them in an admonitory fashion on the desk.

"Come now, Mr. Darrow. These people," and he brandished the cards, "earn tremendous salaries and yet there is no record of a single tax deduction, no returns..."

"They donate their salaries in toto to the Parapsychic Center. They lease their services contractually to the various employers. The Parapsychic Center files a corporate form to cover them. Under Corporation Law..."

"No one in their right minds would..." Rambley bounced on the end of his chair with indignation and disbelief.

"I never said any of the parapsychic Talents were in a right mind. In fact," Henry went on with gentle amusement, "there is every reason to believe that the core of the parapsychic is, if anywhere, in the left hand part of the brain."

"Mr. Darrow," Mr. Rambley was on his feet. "You did say that you gave government officials the courtesy due their office?"

"Yes, didn't I? Consequently, you're wasting time, your government's and mine, Mr. Rambley. The individuals represented by those neatly slotted cards do donate their total income to the Parapsychic Center.

Our accountant will be glad to show you the approp riate records and contractual agreements..."

"But... but I know that that Titter Beyley creature is driving a four passenger 350 horsepower vehicle!" Such an incongruity shocked Mr. Rambley.

"Yes, Titter's always wanted to drive a big one. The car belongs to the Center. You can check the registration papers."

"And that... that Charity McGillicuddy has a blue ranch mink coat."

"Indeed she has. She requisitioned it from Stores about four months ago."

"She requisitioned... from Stores?"

"She has a position to maintain now and her appearance is of great concern to the LEO office. Think how embarrassing it would be for someone employed by the LEO Commission to be arrested for wearing stolen furs. Of course, Charity says that now she can buy 'em instead of 'lifting' 'em, half the fun's gone. But it gives her a great moral boost to wear blue ranch mink in the LEO Block. We try to keep our workers happy."

Rambley had stared at Henry Darrow through this ingenuous explanation but his indignation rose with every gently spoken word.

"This won't be the last you'll hear from me, Mr. Darrow. You do not mock the Internal Revenue Department, Mr. Darrow." He slammed the file cards into his case, hands trembling with outraged dignity.

"You'll hear from us."

"That's fine by me. Just call ahead for an appointment. Only consider the fact that Senators Maxwell, Abrahams, Montello and Gratz approved our corporate structure."

Rambley's eyes widened.

"And the presidential advisor, Mr. Killiney, acted as our financial assistant. Don't you have his card in that file?"

Rambley exited, reduced to mutterings.

"Do you often trick your way into a private home, Mr. Darrow?"

"When I've been unable to secure an appointment any other way, yes, Mr. Henner." Henry smiled pleasantly, trying not to glance with obvious envy at the spaciousness of the magnificently furnished living room.

Such accommodation was almost archaic.

George Henner appeared more amused than irritated by Henry Darrows impertinence as he leaned back in his Italian brocade armchair.

"If it's money for your palmreading, tabletilting crystalgazing ' tricks, forget it."

"On the contrary, sir. I've affirmation that I can ask you to join our happy band." Henry smiled at the surprise in Henner's yellowed eyes.

"Join you?" Henner burst out laughing. His head went back showing a veritable gold field of fillings in his upper teeth. "By God, Darrow, you've made my day! If you can't lick 'em, recruit 'em?"

"Actually," Henry went on smoothly, seating himself and crossing his legs, counterfeiting an ease he didn't feel. He noted the flicker of irritation in Henner's face but the financier had a reputation of letting a man have enough rope to hang himself. "Act ually, Mr. Henner, your abilities in the financial world are as solidly derived from the parapsychic as my own. Incidentally, you're the crystal ball reader... although I see you've got a modern computer for stock market printout instead of the old glass case."

Henner gave an amused grunt but said nothing, his silence a subtle prod to keep Henry talking.

"You're known," Henry continued obediently, because that was the way the interview ought to proceed, "to have a genius, a second.sight into what stocks are going to rise, which will fall, what bond ;issues will pay the keenest longterm profit. And I can p rove that you're parapsychic."

Henner cocked his head slightly to one side, his amusement deepening, as he tacitly encouraged Henry to produce his proof. Darrow spread the graph out on the table. "I know you've followed the newsmedia coverage on us, so you're familiar with this sort of graph. What you may not immediately appreciate is the fact that this is your graph."

Henner became immobile with attention.

"When you had your last routine physical a month ago, your physician employed a Goosegg. He didn't realize that it wasn't his own office model so he's blameless. You did, however, experience what we call an Incident and it is recorded on this graph, here a nd here. I believe the Incident was in connection with the Allied Metals and Mining merger in which you managed quite a 'killing."

" "You don't read thought from an EEG graph, Darrow."

"Hardly. But you placed a phone call directly you were through your physical to your office and within the next few hours the merger was announced... but not before you had acquired a tidy pile of Allied stock. Are my facts correct?"

Henner nodded slowly, his eyes, narrowed to intense slits, watching Henry Darrow's face.

"That's proof," Henry said, rustling the graph paper, "that you're parapsychic, Mr. Henner."

The silence which ensued, designed to make Darrow exceedingly uncomfortable, did not. For a long space, Henry returned George Henner's stare, then folded his arms and gazed around the beautiful room. Finally he turned back to Henner and smiled.

"Blackmail?" asked Henner.

Darrow shook his head.

"No. You'd be far too clever for that. No, I'd hazard the guess that you want to borrow my Talent, as you call it, to make your fortunes?

That would still be essentially blackmail, wouldn't it, Darrow?"

Henry pursed his lips a little, expressing dubiety.

"Well, then what is it you want from me? It's something."

"Actually, it's the twelve acre tract of land on the Palisades."

Once again Henry wished he were a telepath to read the emotions swiftly passing through George Henner's mind. He had startled the financier, he had touched the most vulnerable point of the shrewd man's life: his intense love, and need for, the beautiful es tate of Beechwoods. It had been in Henner's family for a hundred and forty years, was a showplace which few saw. And Henner's need of Beechwoods was as great and for the same reasons as Henry Darrow's."

"How could you know?" demanded Henner in a hoarse whisper.

"That the State intends to confiscate all privately held lands within a hundred mile radius of the Jerhattan city limits? I know because it is as important to me as it is to you to know these things." Henner was on his feet, pacing to release the energy of his anger. In a barely audible monotone he inventively assigned destinations to the State en masse, the needs of the unhoused, unwashed multitudes in general and those particular officials who had fai led to keep Henner's ancestral home inviolate.

"If, however, the property is already owned by a religious, medical, educational or charitable institution which will accommodate a sufficient number of our everexpanding population, they cannot confiscate your property even under the terms of Section 91, Paragraph 12 of the Housing Act of 1998."

"This is 1997, man. That Act isn't passed yet. I can still defeat it."

"No. It will be passed."

Henner tried to stare that knowledge out of Henry's mind.

"And you know the inevitability, Mr. Henner. None of your contacts can hold out any hope of defeating that measure, nor of defending your Beechwoods?"

"And it's your tabletilting tealeaf readers who'll infest my home?"

"Your physical condition is poor, Mr. Henner, and your nerves damned near the breaking point. The solitude and privacy of this house and its grounds are vital to your life. It would be to any parapsychic mind forced to tune in on the emotional chaos that h aunts the very air we breathe. You know you've been living on borrowed time for the past year. You know what alternative dwelling accommodations will do to you."

"Do you happen to know," asked Henner casually for he'd got control of himself again, "the exact date of my death?"

"As I know the exact time of mine, Mr. Henner. You will die of a 'heart attack, the aorta will be closed by a globule of the arteriosclerotic matter coating your veins, at ninetwentyone PM, exactly one year, nine months and fourteen days from now."

A gleam of challenge livened the deadly intent of Henner's gaze. "And if I don't?"

"If you don't, then revoke the grant of Beechwoods to the Center. In the meantime, you'll have secured your last days in the ancestral home, which is your prime concern at the moment."

"I could have a heart transplant..." Henner was clearly enjoying this.

"Not with a diseased liver and the condition of your arteries."

"And that's your prophecy, Darrow?"

"A medical certainty," Henry said. "I've toyed with the notion of a transplant myself since my death will also occur from myocardial infarction on a certain May twelfth, at tenfiftytwo PM. But by May twelfth of that year, I intend to have accomplished the major part of what needs to be done to establish a viable, selfsufficient Parapsychic Center in North America..."

"On the Beechwoods estate?"

"On the Beechwoods estate. By May twelfth, I shall be grateful for the peace and tranquillity of my grave."Henner's eyes flicked from Darrow's to some inner middle distance, the harsh cynical lines of the financier's face softened.

"'Ease after war, death after life does greatly please'?" The words were softly spoken but there was no quarter in the hard look Henner then turned on Henry Darrow.

"In your scheming where does this house end up?"

"As an integral part of the Center."

Henner's expression was ironic. "And my money? I've no next of kin."

Darrow laughed. "You keep harping on your money, Mr. Henner. We don't need your money. Check our books on that. But only the Center can offer one of its own members what his money hasn't been able to secure for him."

For a long time Henner gazed out the French windows that gave on the flagged terrace, toward the sweep of magnificent lawn and the superb beech trees. When Henner finally turned back to Henry, his hand was extended. The two men shook three times in the anc ient custom of binding a bargain.

"Answer me one thing, Darrow! Did you foresee winning?"

"I knew that we would eventually secure Beechwoods, Mr. Henner," he said, permitting regret to tinge his voice. "But I wanted your cooperation."

"Cooperation? You goddamn well know I had no choice!"

"Didn't you?"

George Henner had wandered into the Graph room just as the first of the three Incidents was recorded. He had the habit of appearing in the various departments, taking what he called a per verse interest in the eventual eviction of the Center from Beech woo ds. In point of fact, Henner had admitted to Molly Darrow that the Center had given him something to live for. He'd been feeling much better since Henry'd conned him out of Beechwoods. Despite his professed intention of harassing Henry, George Henner's pas sing suggestions were usually solid advice. And despite his crotchety and often irascible manner, the Talents became fond of him.

"Got a strong Incident," Ben Avedon, the duty officer, told Henry on the intercom just as George Henner wandered into the Graph room.

"Patsy Tucker."

In moments, Henry and Molly arrived in time for Patsy's phone call of such details as she'd "seen."

"I'm on the water again," she said, breathless in an attempt to verbalize before details escaped her. "And there're boats. Four.

Sun's at a late afternoon angle, on my left so I must be looking north.

There's land beyond the boats, pines, a bluff. And oil on the water.

I can see it all rainbowy. The oil scares me. It's going to ignite, and then the water's covered with flames and the boats are eaten up and... oh, it's going to be wicked, Ben. Can you locate? Have I given you enough? I can't remember anymor e and the flames cover any details."

"It is a sooner?"

"Awful soon. Today. I'm sure of it. But it's morning, and I saw late afternoon... is there time enough?"

"Sure. Plenty of time. I'm feeding the computer with the data right now. Old didactic will pin the place down, Pat. But have you a notion about the size of the boats involved?"

"Oh, yes, of course. How stupid of me. I forget you haven't seen.

One's small, a pleasure craft... a power boat... no sails. That's the one that goes on fire. Two long low boats... I guess they'd be tankers. And a higher boat... I mean, one higher abov e the water...

And they're all much too close together. That's the problem because they'll all catch fire."

"A pleasure boat, two tankers and a freighter in the late afternoon.

That's fine, Pat. And the pines and bluff and being close together indicate a channel of some description. Now... think hard again, Pat.

Did you see any markings on the boats, funnel mar kings, ensigns, names?"

After a silence Pat mournfully admitted "seeing" nothing because the fire and smoke occluded.

"Get one of the pyros on it," Henry told Ben. "Patsy, Henry here.

That's a good job, lass. Now take it easy. We'll buzz you back with confirmation. Grand work, Pat." Henry disconnected her line, shaking his head, knowing how worried the girl would be until she heard they'd prevented the collision. If only there'd been markings to speed up identification, and then if the participants could be dissuaded from arriving on the previewed scene.... He moved deliberately to the computer panel and began tapping out queries. "Undoubtedly a seaway.

Could be Sheepshead Bay area, East River... no, not there. Or one of the canals..."

"St. Lawrence, with tankers and freighters..." suggested Ben.

"Or the Great Lakes..." said Molly.

Before there'd been a printout on possible locations or what traffic was already in the St. Lawrence Seaway, a second graph began to chatter.

"Right on time," said Ben. "Here's Terry, our local friendly reliable pyro."

"How come you don't know, Hank?" George Henner asked, settling himself on a stool in the corner.

"Not enough people involved, George, and too close a range for me.

That's Patsy's specialtycliffhangers. Besides, don't you agree that the good executive makes all the longrange decisions and leaves the picayune nittygritty details to keep his staff occupi ed?"

George grinned but he said nothing more, listening as intently as the others to Terry Cle's verbalization of his "sight." The broad outline correlated with Patsy's although he "saw" the event from a different perspective. He had sufficient detail on one ta nker and the small craft to result in exact Ids for both from Ship Registration. And there was a tanker of the Iricoil Line proceeding down the Seaway en route for Toronto, ETA 7:48 PM at that port. The small craft, the Aitch Bee, was registered to an A. F rascati, and was at that moment moored in a small boat basin on the American side of the Seaway.

Probability figures the cost of the collision and fire at several millions and a thirtysix hour tieup of Seaway traffic, plus delayed cargoes which would complicate schedules and routines for ninety-two companies, involving workloss of some eighteen thousa nd people.

"Okay, Ben, get out the usual warning format. See if Iricoil will listen to us."

"And if Iricoil doesn't want to believe?"

"We get after this Frascati. In fact, he'd be easier to bully than Iricoil but we've got to warn them, too."

Iricoil was suspicious and uncooperative and, in phrases just short of insult, refused to consider diverting the tanker. Its supplies were urgently required in Toronto by late evening. Frascati was not at his home nor in his business office. Urgent message s were left for the man to contact the Center before taking out his pleasure craft. Henry was dialing the Seaway Authority Control when George cut the connection.

"I've got an idea, Hank," George said. "I've watched this routine so often and seen you insulted, ignored, and calumniated. No one trusts the altruist anymore, whether he's Talented or not. You've warned Iricoil, tried to do them a favor. They aren't buyin g. Well, like the puppy who leaves too many messages, let's rub their nose in it."

"You mean, let the accident occur?"

"More or less. Considering what's involved in terms of credit and workloss, and considering that I have shares in four of the companies to be affected by the snarlup, will you play it my way, this once?"

Henry began to relax. "What have you in mind, George?"

"You did leave timed messages at Iricoil and for Frascati, didn't you?"

Ben Avedon tapped the computer panel. "All timesealed, George."

"Fine. Now, issue a fax warning to Seaway Authority. Then give me a few comlines to work from and Molly to help me. Irenee was telling me about their new oilpollutant at Dupont. This would be good PR for him.

Always like to oblige friends. Which reminds me , you get on to Jim Lawson... our revered Governor owes you a favor or two for that bullet Steve stopped. And ask him for a few more VTOLs and a couple of frogmen."

"Why?"

"You don't know?"

Henry grinned. "Would you believe an educated guess?"

Henner chuckled. "My, my, how the mighty have fallen! Guessing!"

"Run the show your way, George."

"Yes, let a pro show you how, Henry Darrow. You're too damned soft.

You talk too much. Action speaks louder than a hundred of your Talented words."

At exactly 16:32 hours of a bright spring afternoon, an Iricoil tanker proceeding down the St. Lawrence Seaway fouled its propellor on a tangle of steel cables, origin unknown. The tanker drifted athwart the current as a United Line freighter entered the narrow channel from the opposite direction. A second tanker, also United Line, making speed enough to reach Toronto port by dark, cruised into the danger zone, although it was apparent that the Iricoil boat was in distress. Both United Line ships continued, evidently hoping to pass the injured vessel, one on the port, t he other on the starboard. Likely they would have succeeded but the Aitch Bee, also impatient to reach port, came bucketing down the searoute. It swung rather close to the distressed vessel. As Frascati ever after maintained, he wanted to see if he could b e of any assistance in getting a message ashore: a ridiculous alibi since the tanker was well equipped by radio and shipshore telephone. Frascati's propellor became fouled on the same villain cable. The freighter began to pass the disabled pair and her was h slammed the small craft into the Iricoil tanker. The United Line tanker was broadside of the Iricoil when her bow swung out. Tanker #2 swung to starboard to avoid a collision and her stern banged into Iricoil, splitting a seam in the aft oil hold just as the small craft was ground between the two bigger hulls. Its galley fires caught old grease and spread in the cabin as the yacht's gasoline tank was breached. Oil pouring from the Iricoil vessel would shortly ignite from that flame.

At this point the hovering rescue copters intervened as newsmedia cameras recorded the event from every angle. Foam quickly doused the yacht fire, the oilpollution material gobbled up the split petroleum and kinetics held back additional oil loss by pressu re until the teleports could get the conveniently handy plates into position. Other kinetics and the frogmen worked loose the steel cable and it was hoisted out of the way. "Captain" Frascati and the two crew members (his sons) of the damaged yacht were lifted up and another team of kinetics kept the little ship floating until the belatedly arriving coast guard cutter could tow i t into port.

The Seaway was not blocked since all four vessels were cleared out of the narrow channel before others made the passage. There was no loss of life and no longterm pollution of the water. The Parapsychic teams were volubly and embarrassingly thanked for pre venting a major disaster, and by cocktail time everyone was pleased by the denouement, especially Patsy Tucker and Terry Cle.

The congratulatory euphoria lasted twelve hours, at which point the Seaway Authority began to realize that matters had come to neardisaster in an unprecedented way.

"What was the meaning of sending us only a fax to announce a major disaster?" the Seaway Commissioner demanded in such stentorian tones that George Henner need not have listened in on the second comunit in Henry's office.

"You were informed by fax as usual," Henry replied in a mild tone of voice.

"By fax! When countless millions of credits were at stake? And blockage of the most important waterway in North America? And do you realize that we have only just balanced the sealife ecology in that strip of waterway? That oil..."

"You were informed..."

"Well, I'm informing you that you're in for a suit of criminal negligence..."

"Negligence of what, Commissioner? You were informed nine hours and thirtyeight minutes prior to the accident by this exofficio group, which is not a government sponsored or accredited agency. We act for and in the public interest. But we are understaffed and overworked.

You could have queried this office for more particulars, although all we had were included in that fax. Your Authority could have held back any one of the four vessels involved, thus preventing the..."

"Are you accusing the Seaway Authority of negligence?"

Henry held the receiver away from his ear, shook his head, and replied in his mildest manner, "Forewarned is forearmed, sir." He caught George Henner giving the high sign of approval.

"You'll hear from us, Darrow. You people can't get away with irresponsible behavior like this."

The connection was rudely and noisily broken.

"Did you figure a lawsuit in your calculations, George?" asked Henry.

Henner rubbed his hands together in glee. "If they sue, we'd win."

Henry couldn't exactly share in Henner's gleeful anticipation. The precog knew of the multitude of lawsuits which would be served on Talents in the next decades and the sheer cost of inspired defense made him shudder. The money would be available but it wa s credit that could be used to better advantage in training and identifying Talent, not defending against misunderstanding and greed. By late afternoon, Henry's premonitions of immediate disaster were borne out by additional suits of negligence which arriv ed from United Line, Iricoil Tankers and A. Frascati.

"Let me handle this," George Henner told Henry and his hastily convened executive staff. "I don't need any crystal ball or anerodic graph needle to tell me how to manage this sort of crap."

Before he had Henry's voiced approval, he was on the wires to the major media networks, chatting familiarly with presidents and commissioners.

By the time the films of the Parapsychic Center's assistance had been widely aired, with a few choice comments on how the Center operated to forestall major disasters, the threatened legal action against the Talents was withdrawn. Suits were entered against the Seaway for criminal negligence. Then the Center, on George Henner's advice ("Make 'em pay for it, when they don't listen to you."), sent bills for the rescue operations to Frascati, United Line and Iricoil Tankers.

"And from now on, Henry," George said, "don't ever follow up your faxed warnings with personal phone calls. Don't be the supplicant, damn it.

Be the prelate!"

Henry watched with inner amusement as George Henner paced up and down the floor, his eyes flashing, even his stride firm and aggressive so that Henry could see traces of the strengths which had amassed George Henner his considerable fortune and which had o verwhelmed less determined adversaries in the business world.

"There's no point in you bruising your larynx with persuasion. You've proved your worth over and over again and this Seaway bollix ought to make a validated Parapsychic warning worth the paper it's printed on, even at the dreadful price of paper these days."

"A sound argument, George, and I appreciate your help..."

George stopped midstride, glaring at Henry through narrowed lids.

"Yes, I am helping you, aren't I? Shouldn't do that, should I?"

"My friendly enemy," replied Henry with a laugh.

"Ha! Tell me that when my executors snatch the rug of Beechwoods from under your telepathetic feet..."

"And we need you, George," Henry raised his voice to overwhelm Henner's snide remarks. "If I can convince a skeptic like you, I'm well away to swaying John ( Public to my side. He's more variable than you, and he will be the hardest to win over."

John O Public, however, quixotically decided the Seaway Authority had been foolish to ignore the Parapsychic warning. Criticism was heaped on the Seaway from every quarter. Later the Authority was somewhat exonerated of primary guilt since the Court felt t hat good judgment on the part of any one of the other three skippers would have prevented the accident and no costs were awarded the claimants. The official records cited and credited the Parapsychic Center with averting a major calamity, and loss of life and property. All Transport Authorities were severely enjoined to heed any warnings from the Center which involved public transport.

For the next few weeks all precogs of traffic problems, possible fire, storm or spring floods throughout the world were instantly acted upon.

The Center was besieged with anxious calls about whether Mr. S could undertake that long distance flight, or Mrs. J could safely make her annual pilgrimage from Florida to Wisconsin, and if there had been any precog about the transfer of cyanide cylinders to the authorized Atlantic Trench dump. Thousands of hopeful people applied for the simple tests which would indic ate if they possessed some useful Talent.

"It's an ill wind that blows no good," Henry remarked to Molly after another hectic day answering urgent calls and dealing with anxious queries.

"I suppose so," she said, sinking wearily into the armchair of their private suite in the main house. "But I wish we had more Gooseggs or a surer way of spotting the live ones."

"Any today?" Henry fixed Molly a stiff drink.

"Yes," and she brightened as if she'd temporarily forgotten the event.

"One very strong receiving telepath out of fortyfive aspirants." She accepted the drink, turning the glass in her hand as if the amber liquid held some other answer. "Henry, they come i n so hopeful...

and some of them leave so angry and disappointed. As if we ought to be able to find what doesn't exist..."

"Not your fault, love. Everyone wants to be, in some way, unique, and can't realize that being unique is a responsibility as well as a privilege. You can't cure that. How strong's the telepath?"

Molly brightened. "I think he's very strong, but he's been blocking thoughts, the way they all do. Out of fear. He may need a lot of training."

"No, not too much," Henry said easily, pulling his chair close to Molly and clasping her free hand. "Young fellow, isn't he? Welsh extraction, Welsh name. Right?"

"I just sent the report in..." Molly began, startled, and stopped midsentence, arrested by Henry's knowing look. "Not another one, Henry?"

"They do seem to appear right on schedule," Henry grinned at her but there was a shadow in his eyes. "Right on schedule. One day I'll be wrong."

"Don't, Henry." She clasped his hand tightly, reassuringly, knowing the strain of his unfortunate infallibility, knowing that some of the events he foresaw he'd rather not have seen. "And, he is, as you predicted, Welsh," she went on in a light voice, "by name, Daffyd op Owen. Very likeable chap. He's important?"

Henry nodded. "He won't need more than some basic pointers and a few quiet weeks here to wash the 'noise' out of his mind and learn to project as well as receive."

"Well, that's one on the plus side of the ledger." She rotated her shoulders to ease the day's strains but Henry's disclosure about young op Owen made her feel much better about her labors.

"When is he moving in?"

"Don't you know?" she asked in a bantering fashion.

"What I know I wish I didn't. What I'd give anything to know, I have to wait and see."

She smiled at him lovingly. "You mean, if we retain Beechwoods?" When he nodded, she chided him gently. "How often have you been wrong in the merest detail?"

"It's not how often I'm right, Molly luv, it's will I be wrong this time, this once? This important, crucial, critical once? Such a terrible gift, luv. Terrible when your knowledge means the loss of a friend..."

"Henry, your recognition, the very challenge of the Center," and her arm gesture encompassed all of Beechwoods, "have kept George Henner alive... and kicking." She peered into Henry's face, reassuring him by touch, word and look. "He's determined to do yo u out of Beechwoods, if only by a minute. That determination alone has strengthened his hold on life. I've seen his medical reports, Henry, I know." She leaned back in her chair. "You've done him quite a favor and he knows it. I shouldn't be surprised if h e hasn't left the Center Beechwoods anyway."

"He hasn't. He showed me the will."

Molly opened her mouth to say something then thought better of it.

"All right," Henry went on, catching her look of mischief, "so he could write a second one in secret... No, we've a wager on and..."

"I know what you mean, hoping to win the wager loses a friend."

"I can see horizons wider than mortality but I cannot always see the sparrow fall."

"So young op Owen will be your successor?" George Henner was in a very testy mood that morning.

"Yes, but of course, not for some time yet..."

"You've got it all foreseen, have you?"

"Certainly the basic problems..."

"Ha! I thought you'd already solved the basic problems..."

"By no means, my friend," and Henry's laugh was mirthless. "I've had the easy part. No, really. The establishment of the Center and others in time in strategic parts of the globe... is only the first bit: scarcely the worst.

"Once we'd elevated parapsychic Talents to a demonstrable, scientific basis, it was only a question of some decent organizational effort to make us selfsufficient and independent. We did dodge the governmental attempt to take control because we operate mor e efficiently as a private agency and because you could imagine the tax payers' shrieks about funding tealeaf readers. Funding was no real problem once we could prove Talent. Training, now... that is a long term program.

We've got to develop more efficien t techniques in recognizing and training Talent and that takes Talented personnel. Getting industry and the government to accept our workers was child's play with what we can offer." Then Henry sighed. "The suspicions of the general public can't be totally allayed but with the help of a discreet PR program, people can become accustomed to the Talented.

"No, George, some of our biggest problems are yet to be solved. The knottiest one is establishing legal protection for Talent. Without that, all we've carefully built could be wiped away in legal fees, damages and law suits... particularly against the pre cogs. Oh, I see that we'll get professional immunity sooner or later. I'm greedy. I want it sooner. And that's why a telepath like Dai op Owen is required as Director. He's more sensitive to the immediate situation. By God, the times I've wished I were a t elepath..."

George snorted.

"It's easier for a man who can delve into thoughts, not the future.

That's assured."

"Ha!" Light flittered from George Henner's sunken eyes. "Not yet.

You've three days, four hours and five minutes to go."

"No," Henry replied gently, "no, old friend, you've three days, four hours and five minutes to go. And I shall miss you."

"Ha to that as well! See any new signs of decay?" George jerked his head this way and that.

Henry shook his head slowly. "I will miss you, you old bastard."

"Will you? Will you when I defy your prediction and you and your Talents are thrown out into the mass noise again?"

Henry summoned a laugh. "Then why haven't you died long ago?"

George glared at him. "I intend to make you sweat, Henry Darrow.

Sweat. Bleed. Die a little."

"And you wonder I want a telepath as a Director?" He gripped George firmly by the shoulder and gave him an affectionate shake. "Play the enemy if it pleases you: if the choler makes the blood continue to run in your veins. You're more our friend than enemy. And I know it."

"Ha! You are nervous. You're worried that you're wrong. That this time you're wrong! I'll prove you wrong if it's the last thing I do."

Henry cocked his head at George, grinning ironically. "You may at that, you old bastard. I've never claimed infallibility, George. And you've heard me state time and again that foreknowledge of the future can alter it..."

"Cop out! Rationalization!" Henner shook with triumph. "You're admitting defeat! Ha!"

"Have I made your day, George? Fair enough! I've got to go placate that tax man again. See you later."

'Don't waste your time with him. He's stupid. No way they can tax the Talents with the structure I helped you build. And don't miss the party! The Death Party!"

"Christ, Hank," Gus Molnar complained to Darrow, "he's had me checking him over on the hour all day! And then that gaggle of 'impartial physician witnesses' check on me." Molnar ran his hand nervously through his long fair hair, his eyes restless with anxi ety and irritation. "And suddenly he won't let Molly out of his sight. Said her healing hands would turn the trick. Give him the minute he needs.

Goddamn old bastard!"

"Cool it, Gus. It's what he needed to keep him alive." Henry chuckled and straightened his tunic jacket, poked at his softly tied scarf.

Gus made a disgusted noise in his throat. "You're so damned sure?"

"Not at all. Unfortunately."

"Unfortunately? With the future of the Center at stake on one man's heart beat?"

"I've seen that we do get the property. I regret that it has to be validated by the death of an old and valued friend. I could almost wish that he does live past the appointed minute..."

"Minute..." Molnar corrected him. "Bastard's got a huge alarm clock rigged, to the Greenwichmeantime minute!"

"C'mon, Gus. Let's go to the wake and cheer the corpse on!"

"My God, Darrow, how do you do it?"

The Death Party was assembling, reluctantly, in the vaultroofed lounge of the Beechwoods mansion. George had invited a select few to be "in at the death."

Indeed, as he said himself, he had outlasted most of his contemporaries and those three represented today were more enemies than friends.

George quipped that business enemies had a reputation of being in at the death. He was dressed in his Vietnam campaign battle dress, remarking that he'd cheated Him then as a twentyyearold, so it behooved him to keep the appointment now suitably attired. Most of those present were Talents or connected with the Center. Young Daffyd op Owen was present. So were LEO Commissi oner Mailer, trying hard not to look uncomfortable, Governor Lawson, several Senators, representatives from four charitable organizations (probably benefiting under the will, Henry decided when he saw the guest list), and the four physicians who'd been cho sen at random from the AMA directory by George and flown into Jerhattan for the event. That was George's way of solving any medical question. With a touch of ghoulish humor, George had decreednot that he didn't trust the Talents implicitly, but one had to protect oneselfthat the autopsy would be performed on his corpse immediately after death had been assumed.

The party consequently generated little joviality despite the abundance of liquor and exotic foods on the sideboard. George ate sparingly, drank slowly. Anything he consumed these days, he complained, tasted sour or flat or insipid and caused heartburn.

Conversations were conducted in sepulchral tones and languished easily.

The occasional laugh was quickly suppressed. Only Henry Darrow contrived to look at ease though Molly knew, by the way he rubbed his thumb and index finger together constantly, that he was in a highly nervous condition. She didn't dare touch him since she was not a whit less distraught herself, and would only double Henry's tension. The person who was suffering most was young Daffyd op Owen. She had become very fond of the sensitive you ng man and wished that he didn't have to be present. He'd not had time to learn to shield himself, certainly not in such an emotionally loaded situation as this. Daffyd was visibly sweating, yet gamely trying to simulate proper party behavior as he chatted with another young Talent, a precog named Mara Channing.

As the appointed time drew nearer, any semblance of normality dwindled: efforts to keep party talk going faltered. Everyone had one eye on the clock and the other on George Henner.

"You're supposed to be happy," George Henner complained when the current silence remained unbroken for sixtyfour seconds. "My death means you're all safely ensconced here." His scowl was ambiguous.

Then he pointed a finger at Henry. "So tell me, Hank, if y ou lose the wager, where will you go? I..." and he laughed hollowly, "or my executors expect you to vacate the premises... immediately."

"And we will. I've assembled every telekinetic we've got... and a flock of physical muscle men. We can clear the premises in an hour, I'm told. You will grant us that much time?"

Henner grunted, then brightly asked where the new Center would be located.

"I've a site upstate seventy miles: woods, a small lake, very pastoral.

The disadvantage being the distance to commute. You know what copter traffic is like over the City and the Talents are contracted to be at work on time... no matter what."

Henner's chair had been wired to monitor his lifesystems, and the results were broadcast on a screen visible anywhere in the room.

George glanced up at it incuriously.

"All systems still go?" he asked, swinging around to the nearest medical man who, startled, nodded. "Three minutes and counting, Henry?"

"George, may I remind you that this excitement is bad for you?" Henry said.

"Excitement bad for me? Goddamn you, Darrow, it's kept me alive months past the estimate those jokers gave me. You've kept me alive, damn your eyes."

"Damn 'em?" Henry laughed. "That was the point, George, and you've admitted it before impartial witnesses, too."

Henner pursed his thin, bloodless lips, glaring at various people in the room, unsatisfied with his present victim's reactions and unable to vent his feelings on anyone better suited than Henry. His restless, probing glance fell briefly on Molly.

"Having to leave here will put your program back, won't it?"

Henry shrugged. "For this decade, perhaps yes. The new location will be too far for prospective Talents in the subbie class to come for the test. We can have mobile units... once we have the personnel.

Trouble is the units have to be especially constructe d... ""Yes, yes, you've told me all that." George flounced around in his chair, seeking a new or comfortable position as well as another victim. But he returned to Henry. "You'll be sorry you've kept me alive. In exactly two minutes and four seconds..."

"No, George, I won't ever be sorry for your life. Only sorry for your death."

"I can believe that!"

"Indeed you can!" cried Molly, unable to bear George's taunting acrimony.

"Molly..." George's voice entreated her and she instinctively stepped toward him, her hands outstretched to give the comfort which had often eased him. But he leaned away, suddenly suspicious even of her. Her hands flew to her mouth as the rebuff wounded her. But his reaction broke Henry's tight control.

"Damn it, George, she only wants to help."

"Help me? Live? Or die?"

Molly began to cry, turning towards the wall. But Henry took her in his arms, for once the comforter.

"Molly didn't deserve that from you, George. The wager was with me!"

"He didn't mean it that way, Henry," said young op Owen, the words bursting from his lips, as if he'd been holding back for some time the desire to speak out.

Henner nodded, his face flushed with what Dai op Owen afterwards said was remorse. But the monitors began flashing warning signals.

"Hell, Molly," George began in a choked voice, "I don't distrust you.

" Then the death alarm went off. "Ha! The appointed minute... And I'm alive! You're wrong, Henry Darrow. You and all your tealeaf, tabletipping crystalgazing..."

At precisely 9:00:30, George Henner's heart gave a massive contraction and stopped. Cameras on the dead man recorded that his hand raised slightly, towards Henry and Molly before the dead body collapsed.

Accustomed as they were to the death processes, the physicians in attendance were held motionless by the dramatic circumstances. Gus Molnar reacted first, hand moving towards the adrenalin syringe.

"No!" cried Dai op Owen, stepping forward, his hand outstretched. "He wants to die. He doesn't want to win the wager."

"My God," cried one of the physicians, pointing to the screen.

"Look at the Goosegg. It's gone wild. The mind's still alive...

No. Consciousness has gone. But God, look at the graph."

"Let him go. He wants to go," Daffyd op Owen was saying.

Molnar looked first towards Henry whose face was expressionless, then at the other physicians staring at the monitor readings.

"That means the brain's dead, doesn't it?" asked LEO Commissioner Mailer, pointing to the Goosegg graph now scribing straight lifeless lines.

Two of the medical men nodded.

"Then he's dead," said Mailer, glancing towards the Governor who nodded accord. "I'd say you won the bet, Darrow."

"The wager said 'minute', I trust, not second?" asked one of the Senators.

"He shouldn't've excited himself like that," a doctor muttered. "This party was a mistake. Of course we weren't consulted on that. But it set up circumstances which would obviously result in overstimulation, certain death for a man in Henner's condition."

"Or, there's the voodoo element in this," another physician said without rancor. "Tell a victim often enough that he'll be dead at such and such a time and the subconscious takes over and kills the man."

"Not in this instance," said Gus Molnar, loudly and belligerently.

"And there's ample medical substantiation, including your own remarks," he added, pointing at the voodoo adherent, "that the stimulation provided by the original bet kept George Henner aliv e long past his own medical men's estimate. The bet did not cause his death, it caused his life."

No one ventured to refute that statement.

"I believe," spoke up one of the attorneys present, "that the autopsy was to be performed immediately?"

As if on cue, two men appeared from the hallway, wheeling a stretcher.

Silently they approached, their passage unimpeded as guests stepped aside hastily. The body was laid on the stretcher in silence. But, as the men took their positions to leave, Molly br oke from Henry's embrace. With gentle fingers, she closed the dead man's eyes. The tears streamed down her face as she kissed George on the forehead. The stretcher glided out of the room. No one spoke until the last sound of footsteps in the hall was gone.

"Mr. Darrow," said the attorney, his voice sounding abnormally loud after the requiem silence, "I was enjoined by Mr. Henner to make a few announcements at this time usually reserved until several days hence.

I was to tell you that this was one wager he di dn't wish to win and hoped he wouldn't: no matter what indication he gave to the contrary.

He said that you were sportsman enough, Mr. Darrow, to appreciate the fact that he had to try to win." The attorney turned to the physician who had brought up the vo odoo insinuation. "He also ordered me to counteract any attempt to bring charges resulting from a misinterpretation of today's sad occasion. He empowered me to say that he had implicit trust in the integrity of all members of the Parapsychic Center. We," a nd he gestured towards his colleagues, "are to be the executors of Mr. Henner's estate, the bulk of which, excluding a few behests and excluding these grounds now the irrevocable property of the North American Center for Parapsychic Talents, is to go into a Trust Fund, providing legal assistance to anyone registered with the Center who may be imprisoned or charged with damages or lawsuits following the professional use of their Talent, until such time as specific laws are promulgated to give the Talents pro fessional immunity." The lawyer gave Henry a wry grin. "He said, and I quote, 'If you ride a winged horse, you'd better have a wide net when you fall. And that takes money!"

"He also said that after he was dead," and the lawyer faltered, embarrassed by the inadvertent rhyme, "he said the party was to begin. That this was to be considered a joyous occasion..."

"He was glad," Daffyd op Owen said, and his rather homely face lit with happiness. "That was so astonishing. His mind, the thoughts were happy, so happy at the moment of death. He was happy. I tell you. I know he was glad!"

"Thank God!" was Henry Darrow's fervent prayer. He raised his untouched drink. "A toast, ladies and gentlemen." Glasses obediently were lifted. "To those who ride the winged horse!"

One after another the glasses followed Henry's into the fireplace of Beechwoods to preserve the tribute to George Henner's memory.

PART TWO A WOMANLY TALENT

"If you were one whit less honorable, Daffyd op Owen," exclaimed Joel Andres heatedly, "you and your whole Center could go... go fly a kinetic kite."

The passionate senator was one of those restlessly energetic men who gave the appearance of continuous motion even in rare moments of stasis. Joel Andres was rigid nowwith aggravation. The object of his frustration, Daffyd op Owen, Director of the East Ame rican Parapsychological Research and Training Center, was his antithesis, physically and emotionally. Both men, however, had the same indefinable strength and purposefulness, qualities which set them apart from lesser men.

"I can't win support for my Bill," Andres continued, trying another tack and pacing the thickpiled green carpeting of op Owen's office, "if you consistently play into Mansfield Zeusman's hands with this irrational compulsion to tell everything you know. If only on the grounds that what you 'know' is not generally acceptable as reliable 'knowledge."

"And don't tell me that familiarity breeds contempt, Dave. The untalented are never going to be contemptuous of the psychic abilities, they're going to continue being scared stiff. It's human nature to fearand distrustwhat is different. Surely," and Andres flung his arms wide, "you've studied enough behavioral psychology to understand that basic fact."

"My Talent permits me to look below the surface rationalizations and uncover the..."

"But you cannot read the minds of every single one of the men who must vote on this Bill, Dave. Nor can you alter their thinking. Not with your thinking and your ethics!" Joel was almost derisive as he pointed a nicotined finger accusingly at his friend. "And don't give me that wheeze about lawmakers being intelligent, thoughtful men!"

Op Owen smiled tolerantly at his friend, unaffected by the younger man's histrionics. "Not even when Senator Zeusman steals a march on us with that so apt quotation from Pope?"

Andres made a startled noise of exasperation, then caught the look in the other's eyes and laughed.

"Yeah, he sure caught me flat-footed there." He deepened his voice somewhat to mimic the affected bass of Mansfield Zeusman:

" 'Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall..." '

"What a rallying cry that is! Why didn't I think of it first? Mind you," and Andres was deadly serious again, "that quote is pure genius... for the opposition. Spikes our pitch in a dozen places. The irony is that it would be just as powerful for us if we 'd only thought of it first. Dave, won't you reconsider," Joel asked, leaning across the table to the telepath, "eliminating the precogs from the Bill? That's what's hanging it up now in Committee. I'm sure I could get it put on..."

"The precogs need the legal protection most of all," op Owen replied with unusual vehemence, a momentary flash of alarm crossing his face.

"I know, I know," and Andres tossed a hand ceilingward in resignatiOn.

"But that's the facet of the parapsychic that scaresand fascinatespeople most."

"And that is exactly why I insist we be as candid as possible on all phases of the extrasensory perception Talents. Then people will become as used to them as to 'finders,' 'ports' and 'paths." Henry Darrow was so right about that."

Joel Andres whirled back to the desk, gripping the edges fiercely.

"The prophet Darrow notwithstanding, you don't tell suspicious frightened people everything. They automatically assume you're holding something back because they would. No one dares to be s o honest anymore. Therefore they are sure that what you're withholding is far worse than what you've readily admitted." He caught the adamant gleam in Daffyd's eye and unexpectedly capitulated. "All right. All right.

But I insist that we continue to emphas ize what the other Talents are already able to do... in their narrow specialized ways. Once people can stomach the idea that there are limits on individual psionic Talents, that all Talents are not mind readers cum weight throwers cum fire dowsers cum cry stalball-seers, all rolled up into one frightening package, they'll start treating them as you want Talents treated: as professional specialists, trained in one area of a varied profession and entitled to professional immunity in that area if they are lice nsed and registered with the Centers. Don't," and the hand went up again as Daffyd tried to interrupt, "tell them you're experimenting to find out how to broaden every Talented mind. Don' ask for the whole piece of bread with jam on it, Dave! You won't get it, but you will get protection for your people in the practice of their speciality, even your precogs. I'll bear down heavily on the scientific corroboration of authentic foresights," and Andres began to pace a tight rectangle in front of op Owen's desk, his dark head down, his gestures incisive, "the use of computers to correlate details and estimate reliability of data, the fact that sometimes three and four precogs come up with the same incident, seen from different angles.

And most importantlythat the Center never issues an official warning unless the computer agrees that sufficient data coincides between Incident and reality..."

"Please emphasize that we admit to human fallibility and use computers to limit human error."

Joel frowned at op Owen's droll interjection. "Then I'll show how the foresight prevented or averted the worst of the Incidents. That Monterey Quake is a heavensent example. No heroes perished, even if a few sparrows did fall from gas discharges."

"I thought it was the meddling with the sparrow's fall that perturbs Senator Zeusman," Daffyd remarked wryly. "For want of that seed, the grain won't sprout..."

"Hmmm, yes, it does! 'What will be, will be,' " and Andres mimicked Zeusman's voice again.

"Since he initiated Pope," said op Owen, "I'd reply 'Whatever is, is right."" "You want me to turn Papist now, huh?" Joel grinned wickedly.

Daffyd chuckled as he continued, "Pope also advises, 'Be candid where we can but vindicate the ways of God to man!'" The gently delivered quote had an instant effect on the senator, comparable to touching a match to a onesecond fuse. Midway to explosion, Andres snapped his mouth shut, sighed extravagantly and rolled his slightly yellowed eyes heavenwards.

"You are the most difficult man to help, Daffyd op Owen!"

"That's only because I'm aware how carefully we must move in the promulgation of this Bill, Joel. I don't want it backfiring at the wrong time, when some of the basic research now in progress becomes demonstrable. The Talents can't be hamstrung by obsolete statutes imperfectly realized on a scrabbling compromise basis."

"Dave, you want to run before you can walk?"

"No, but trouble has been foreseen."

"Darrow again, huh? Or are you hoist on your own petard?" Joel waggled a finger triumphantly. "Trouble stemming from current nonprotection. Go cast up a precog after the Bill is passed."

"Ahha" and Daffyd mimicked Joel now, "but we don't see the Bill passing!"

That rendered Andres speechless.

"And we are hoist on our own petard," the telepath continued with a hint of sorrowful resignation in his voice, "because all our preventive methods are affecting the future, unfortunately, much as Senator Zeusman presented the syndrome in his Sparrow's Fal l peroration. That was such a masterful speech," op Owen said with rueful envy. "Valid, too, for as surely as the Center issues a warning, allowing people a chance to avert or prevent tragedy, they have already prejudiced the events from happening as they were foreseen. That's the paradox. Yet how, bow can an ethical man stand aside and let a hero perish, or even a sparrow fall, when he knows that he can prevent unnecessary or premature loss."

"The Monterey Quake could no have been prevented," Joel reminded him, then blinked in amazement. "You're not holding out on me, are you?

You haven't found a kinetic strong enough to hold the earth's surface together?"

Dave's laughter was a spontaneous outburst of delight at his friend's discomposure.

"No, no. At least... not yet," he said just to watch the outraged expression on Andres's mobile face.

There were few people with whom Daffyd op Owen could relax or indulge in his flights of humor and hyperbole. "Seriously, Joel, the Monterey Quake is a spectacular Incident and a prime example of the concerted use of Talent, minimizing the loss of life or p roperty. We have never had so many precogs stimulated in their separate affinities. And it's the most concrete example of why precogs need legal protection. Do you realize that the Western Center was deluged with damage suits for the tsunami that followed?

" "That was predictable."

"But we issued no warnings. And it's against such irrational attitudes that precogs need legal protection more than any other Talent. Theirs is stimulated by mental perceptions as erratic as a smell in the morning air, a glance at a photo, the sound of a n ame. In a sense, precog is tremendously unreliable because it cannot be used as consciously as telepathy, teleportation and telekinesis. And to protect the Talent as well as the Center, we insist on computer corroboration when details are coherently specif ic. We never issue a public warning until the computer admits reliability... and we get damned because we have 'heard' and not spoken. Of course, a number of our precogs have become absorbed into business where peculiar affinities place them. For instance ," and Daffyd held up a tapefile, "this young man, who's applying for progeny approval, is a fireconscious. But he's one reason this city has such low fireinsurance rates: his Talent prevents thema blessing indirectly passed on to every resident..."

"Hmmm, but scarcely spectacular enough to register with the average egocentric Joe Citizen," said Andres sourly. He was restless with Daffyd's earnest review of facts he knew well. "However, every little bit helps, Dave, and the public moves a lot faster p ro bona pocketbook."

"True, exactly true, and they get rather nasty when we try to save them money and will not understand that a legitimate forewarning automatically alters the future, even to the point of preventing the foreseen Incident which will have cost old publican mon ey, or time, or effort he then feels was unnecessary."

"And there we are, right back at square one," said Joel in flat disgust. "That is what Mansfield calls 'meddling' and what makes him fight this Bill with every ounce of his outraged moralistic, neoreligious, mockethical fibre. Remember, he's backed by the transport lobbies, and every time one of your precogs hits that jolly little brotherhood, causing delays, hurried inspections, the whole jazzyou got a numberone headache. Because, when the predictions don't happen as predicted, Transport swears your meddli ng is superstitious interference, uncalled for, unnecessary and nothing would have happened anyway."

Daffyd sighed wearily. "How many times have we found bombs? Fuel leaks? Averted hijacks? Metal fatigue... mechanical justifications?"

"Doesn't signify, Dave, not if it touches the pocketbook of the Transport Companies. Remember, every precog implies fault: human or mechanical, since the Companies will not recognize Providence as a force. And human or mechanical, the public loses faith in the Company thus stigmatized. When Company profits are hit, Company gets mad, sues the precog for defamation of character, interference, et cetera."

"Then we are to allow the traveling public to fry in their own juice or be spread across the fields because a precog has seen a crash but doesn't want to offend a Company? For want of a screw the nail was lost!" op Owen's usually soothing voice was rough w ith asperity.

"Damn it, Joel, we have to preserve impartiality, and warn anyone or anything that is touched by the precognitive Talent, or we do usurp the position of the Almighty by withholding that evidence. I don't care if the transportation companies t hen decide to disregard the warningthat's their problem. But I want my people protected when, in good faith and based on computer-accepted detail, they issue that warning. We have no ax to grind, commercially, thanks to the Darrow endowment and member supp ort, but we must continue to be impartial."

"I hope your altruism is not going to be your downfall," said Joel, his manner unusually grave.

"There's been no warning that it will," Daffyd replied.A hint of irritation in his voice.

"You're too honest to be up against us crook politicians," Joel said, grinning, then glanced at his watch. "Wup. Gotta go."

"You push yourself too hard, Joel. You don't look well."

"A bit liverish, that's all, and no snooping."

"Not without permission and you know it."

"Hah! Among friends, I don't trust telepaths. Say, how's the recruiting program?" Joel asked as he swooped up his travel cape and case.

"We get hopefuls every week," the director replied as he escorted the senator to the elevator. "Sometimes we even catch a few young ones, before they learn to suppress a perfectly normal ability."

"That's another phrase you should delete around Zeusman," Joel said.

"He will not buy your premise that every mind has psionic Talent. " "But, Joel, that is scientifically valid. We know that those who possess Talent have strong, healthy twentyfirst chromosome pairs. It is certainly admissible evidence that when the twentyfirst is blurred or damaged to any degree, brain function is inhibite d. And, with the Downs's Syndrome, you have mental retardation."

"Don't beleaguer me," Joel said with widened eyes of innocence, "I believe!" He laid a hand on his heart. "I couldn't doubtnot after that 'finder' located my brother in the mine shaft before he bled to death. If we could only subject Mansfield Zeusman to s uch an experience, he wouldn't be so skeptical. Can't one of your pet Talents do something about that? I thought they always keep an eye on controversial men to prevent assassination and stuff."

Op Owen gave a snort. "Would Senator Zeusman honor a precog foreseeing his own demise?"

"Hmmm. Probably not. Say, you're not funded on the Government Research Program, are you?"

"No, thank God. The Henner Bequest was reserved for that. Why?"

"Hmmm. Just that Zeusman is extending this argument against the Bill to all 'specious'as he terms itforms of research, government funded.

And spring is appropriations time, you know."

"Fortunately, we've never had that kind of pressure."

"Talented of you," Joel said with a grin.

Behind him the elevator door slid open and a young woman, obviously in a hurry, ran out, right into the muscular frame of the young Senator.

She blurted out an apology, flushing with embarrassment as Andres reached out to steady her. Then her eyes opened wider as she saw op Owen and one hand flew to her mouth. "I'm awfully sorry, sir."

Just as Daffyd recognized Ruth Horvath, he also identified the combined emotions of shame at her precipitous arrival into a distinguished champion of the Talented, regret for her impulsiveness in coming to the Tower at this hour, and the underlying hope an d apprehension that had compelled her to come. Instinctively, Daffyd touched her with soothing reassurances: but Joel Andres's amiable and admiring glance was the tonic the pretty woman needed.

"No harm done, I assure you, Miss... ?"

"Mrs. Horvath... Senator Andres," Daffyd said and watched Joel's expression change from delighted interest to flattering chagrin.

"I do apologize, Senator," Ruth repeated, her cheeks blushstained again.

"And I apologize for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and..." an extravagant sigh "... too late." He bowed deeply to Ruth, reluctantly stepping aside to let her pass.

Instead she fumbled with the elevator button.

"I'm on my lunch break," she said with a stammer. "I've got to get back."

The panel slid open and Andres stepped in beside her, one finger jamming the "hold" button.

"Me, too," he said, grinning down at her.

"Your file is on my desk right now, Ruth," Daffyd said, suddenly comprehending the reason for her visit and her hesitancy in mentioning the subject in Andres's presence. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Her face lit up, her eyes became eager and, as she glanced away, Daffyd thought he saw the shine of tears.

"Take care of yourself, Joel. You're working too hard."

"A pleasure, I assure you." Joel's laugh was cut off by the closing door.

Daffyd op Owen stood looking at the indicator panel for a few moments before he turned slowly back to his isolated tower office. He had much to think about. Not that he would deflect one centimeter from his course of action. Only his firm beliefs sustained him for it didn't require precog, only intelligent extrapolationwhich some uninformed people insisted was the essence of precog to determine the difficulties still faced by the Talented all over the world. The Bill was so vital a forward step, raising the Talents from the onerous category of "mental chiropractors," (Senator Zeusman's phrase, though chiropractic treatment had long been an accredited branch of medicine), to a creditable position among professional abilities. Mansfield Zeusman had already sta lled the Bill in Committee for months, was capable of stalling it through the summer, and keeping it off the agenda next year. The senator was hoping to find some discrediting Incident that would forever banish hope of legal protection for the Talented.

The sheer genius of that Pope quotation was a measure of their opponent's worth, op Owen mused as he turned to the mass of administrated files awaiting him. The pity of it was that the quote would have been much more applicable to the Talent side of the ar gument. Come to think of it, much of Pope's "Essay on Man" was to the point.

Other pertinent lines came easily out of mental storage. Not much that Daffyd op Owen had once seen could elude his recall... a blessing as well as a handicap.

With too much knowledge for the Skeptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest: In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast: In doubt his mind or body to prefer Born but to die and reas'ning but to err...

"Enough!" and op Owen roused from introspection to direction. He flipped open the nearest tape case and slapped it into the playback.

It seemed somehow meet that it was the Horvaths' progeny application.

Were op Owen a superstitious man he could have accou nted it a good omen: a favorable auspice for the work he and his fellow directors around the world were inaugurating. Breed like to like, strengthen strong genetic Talent traits and develop, not the super race of omniscient, omnipotent superpeople Zeusman basically feared, but people trained and conditioned from childhood to use their Talents for the benefit of man. And, by such service, force the World to recognize the treasure that can be unlocked in the unused, untapped portion of the human brain.

A flaming, shattering precog caught Lajos Horvath at the moment when REM sleep was over and his unconscious mind was rousing from that phase of rest.

His groan of anguish awakened his wife instantly. With the reflex of training, Ruth flipped the recorder and pulled the retractable electrode Goosegg net to his head, expertly clamping the metal discs on the circles of his scalp that had been permanently d epilated.

Blinking her eyes to see the reading in the dawndim room, Ruth watched the definite pattern of an Incident emerge. Center was already picking it up for authentication. The Incident lasted a scant eleven seconds before the brain waves settled back to a calm reading. She lay back, going through the discipline that would relax her and prevent her from imposing her hasteurgency reaction on Lajos. As soon as he roused, she must be composed enough to question him for a verbal report.

She achieved the proper repose quickly, suppressing the thrill of satisfaction at her success. She was no longer as troubled by flashes of envy that Lajos possessed a valid Talent while hers was so nebulous as to elude identification. Now it was enough for her to know that, by the exercise of the deep empathy which existed between them, by her womanliness, she made his development more certain. Lajos needed her as a buffer, a source of solace from the sharp edges of Talent. Even the strongest personality co uld succumb to the Cassandra complex that destroyed the sanity of the unwary precog. Why was it, Ruth mused in a quiet inner voice, that tragedy has such a vicious way of reaching out of the mists of the future: like a falling man, blindly grabbing at anyt hing to restore balance and avert his fall?

Again the needle rushed across the graph, a slight whoosh barely audible in the quiet room. Ruth glanced over to make sure the Incident was being beamed to the Center and noticed the smile on her husband's face. A smile? A happy premonition? She forced her self to relax, unaccountably assailed by a raving curiosity. Lajos so rarely had happy foresights, and fleetingly she regretted that he was a precog.

Lajos stirred restlessly. He was waking now. She turned on the voice recorder and leaned towards him.

"What is it? What do you see?" she asked in the soft persuasive voice the Center had taught her to use at these times. Her ability to stimulate his verbal accounts was highly praised, for it was sometimes difficult for the precog to articulate the semireal into sufficient detail for preventive or supportive action.

"Flames!" Lajos groaned. "Must it always be flames?" He sat bolt upright in bed then, his brown eyes wide as he stared straight ahead at the retinal image of his premonitory vision. The electrodes were jerked from his skull, retracting with a metallic clin k into the case.

"The ship's burning, exploding. Throwing flaming debris across the harbor into the suburbs. Damp it! Deflect! Shield those passengers.

Watch out! The propellant will spray. It's exploding. Contain it!"

"Markings on the liner?" a gentle but insistent voice whispered from the intercom.

Lajos shook his head, blinking furiously in an attempt to hold the fading sight. "It's awash with flame. I think I see an eight, a four, a threeor is it another eight? It's a Reynarder. It must be. They're the only ones who use that class."

"Which class?" the inexorable whisper wanted to know.

Suddenly Lajos sagged, panting with shock, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. He lay back exhausted.

"It's gone," he moaned. "It's gone."

"You had a second one," Ruth said. "What was that about?"

Lajos's brows drew together in a half frown as he brushed his straight black hair out of his face. He kept it overlong to hide the depilated circles where the electrodes fit. His lips curved in a halfsided smile. "Something good?" he asked hopefully.

Ruth suppressed her sigh. Lajos rarely detailed the felicitous ones.

"Incident validated, a strong reading, Lajos," the intercom voice said.

"Report in as soon as you're able."

"They'll check it out, won't they?" Lajos asked needlessly.

"Action already initiated."

Lajos lay so still that Ruth knew it was not passive quiescence but rigid strain. Another thorn in the Talented's side was the harsh realization that their warnings were often disregarded and they were forced to see their predictions come horribly true. Ru th wiped the sweat from Lajos's forehead and began to massage his neck and shoulders. After a moment he grinned weakly up at her.

"What a way to start the day, huh?"

"At least you ended on a happy note. Maybe that means they'll prevent?"

"If they can correlate enough data, in enough time," he said gloomily.

"And Reynarder bothers to listen!" He flopped onto his stomach, pounding the mattress with impotent fists.

Ruth transferred her attention to his muscular back. She loved the line of him, the broad double plateau of his shoulder blades with the small mounds of hard muscle, the graceful curve that swept down to the narrow waist, the hollow of his spine, the Greci an beauty of his buttocks. She quickly suppressed a flare of desire. This was not the time to intrude sex on his personal anguish. And she knew that her intense sexual hunger for him stemmed from a yearning for the child of his seed. A daughter, tall and f air, with Lajos's dimples in her cheek. A son, strongbacked and arrogant, with thick black straight hair.

This hunger for his child was so primal, it paralyzed the sophistication overlaid by education and social reflexes. Nowadays a woman was expected to assume more than the ancient duties required of her. Nowadays, and Ruth smiled to herself, the sophists cal led those womanly talents, Maintenance, Repair and Replacement, instead of housekeeping, cooking, nursing and having babies, but the titles didn't alter the duties nor curb the resurgent desires. And, when you got down to it, men still explored new ground, even if it were alien lands, and defended their homes and families. You could call Lajos's precog a kind of an earlywarning defense system. Well, then, she'd added the chore of being CerebralRecording Secretary to Maintenance and Repair but they'd better let her Replace soon or....

She concentrated on more soothing thoughts, using her latent empathy to ease his remorse. When he began to take deep long breaths, she knew he was conquering the aftermath of the Incident, dispelling its destructive despondency. He had done everything he c ould. He could not change the course of every fated life. Some events had to come to their dire conclusions, for out of present tragedy so often rose future triumph; the result of sorrowful recriminations was often the catalyst of progress. A specious rati onale in the Silverlined Cloud Approach but true enough to save the sanity of the Talented.

It was a bitter thing, Ruth understood, to be Talented: bitter and wonderful. But it was worse to have evidence of Talent and never know what it was. Nonsense, she told herself sternly, discarding these reflections, you can't be what you can't be.

"Ahh, you've got the right spot," Lajos said gratefully and she doubled her efforts across the heavy shoulder muscles.

And yet, when she anticipated his desires and needs, sometimes the words from his mouth, she wondered just how she had tapped that need; just what might awaken the occluded Talent within her.

The Center believed that psionic abilities were latent human characteristics: their absence due to malfunction of the necessary brain synapses or, even more basically, underdevelopment due to a protein lack in the gene. When chromosomes in the twentyfirst pair were damaged or blurred, no Talent was detected. There was no aberration in Ruth's chromosomes, and although she tested as Talented, her ability was unidentifiable. She had never been able to stimulate an Incident involving any of the known abilities.

She'd met Lajos during the testing: they'd been approached by the Eastern American Center after finishing their secondary schooling and had qualified for the sixmonths' training designed to stimulate latent Talent. Their genetic history had been taped bac k to the fourth generation. They had endured hours of cerebral recording on the Goosegg under a variety of stimuli. Ruth was finally labeled "indeterminate"; Lajos showed strong precog tendencies.

Ruth still secretly hoped that her Talent would develop. She'd been assured that this was a possibility: they cited her high empathy rating, her ability to anticipate attitudes and actions of those nearest and dearest to her. True, she might be no more tha n a receptive telempath, one unable to broadcast but receptive. Ruth therefore alternated between hope and despair: being a practical creature, she dwelt mostly on the pessimistic side of the pendulum, refusing to believe anything but the most conclusive e vidence. This attitude was reinforced during Lajos's worst Incidents, when she wanted no part of the cruel gift.

Lajos Horvath was one of several thousand Talented people, licensed and registered with the Center; devoted to its precepts and ideals, contributing all of his salary to it. The Center was not paternalistic, nor did it require any recompense. But the Talen ted preferred to live together, if possible, on or near the Center's grounds at Beechwoods, among their peers: reassured and reinforced. As the Center "policed" its own members, it also protected them.

Ruth had no specific objections to their situation: she had willingly taken the course orienting untalented partners to their gifted spouses.

She would have undergone a far more arduous requirement, so deep was her love of Lajos. But lately, obedience to E.A.C. had begun to gall Ruth and it was not due to any fault of the Center's. She recognized that.

The muted buzz of the intercom roused both of them. Lajos propped himself up on his elbows, his profile towards her so that she observed the thin bitter line of his mouth and knew that he was steeling himself.

"Lajos," it was Daffyd op Owen, "you were correct. A class 7 Reynarder had a propellant leak at Buffalo jetport."

Something in the director's slow deep voice told them that Lajoss information had not averted.

"And?" Lajos's question was a firm demand for the truth.

"We had to compute the variable details with the possible airports near water, flights landing or departing on the Reynarder line. We got only one other personal precog involving the Incident but your data aloneparticularly the registrywas sufficient. The loss would have been catastrophic without your warning. Teleports on the Rescue Squad deflected most of the flaming wreckage into the Lake before it could land in the suburbs. Kinetics managed to shield the passenger deck until the propellant could be foam ed. The passengers and crew suffered massive heat prostration but all will live. Ruth, does he need a tranquilizer?"

"No!" the negative exploded from Lajos's lips.

"Good lad!" op Owen's voice was warm with approval. "We've authenticated the Incident. It averted a major tragedy: one more pound of evidence on our side of the scales for the Bill. And the passengers and jetport personnel know who gave the warning."

Lajos went limp with relief as the Director signed off with expressions of gratitude. Lajos halfturned his face and Ruth didn't know for a moment whether to comfort him or not. She waited. Finally he gave a long shuddering sigh and relaxed, one hand slippi ng over the side of the bed, fingers limp, the veins in his forearm bulging, blue under his unusually fair skin.

"Then what I sawdidn't happen, Ruth. The jet didn't turn into a flaming hull, exploding all over the suburbs. So what did I see?

Which didn't happen because I saw it? Because my seeing it was sufficient to alter the future?" He shook his head, his beard st ubble rasping against the tightly drawn bedsheet, but his voice was no longer hoarse with recrimination; it was calm: his philosophy was asserting itself.

Ruth felt the muscles in her shoulders unknot and only then realized how tense she had become, waiting for his reaction.

"'A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox,'" she chanted lightly, stroking his back with her fingertips. "My darling pirate," and she kissed his cheek.

Lajos bounced out of bed and stretched, his sleeppants falling off his narrow hips. He grabbed them back up, not out of modesty but to keep from tripping over them on the way to the bathroom.

"Maybe the good precog you had... it followed a bare sixty seconds after the first, you know," Ruth remarked later as she served his breakfast, "was the realization that you had averted."

Lajos considered that, then shook his head. "No. The two were definitely nonrelated."

"Why is it," Ruth asked with mock shrewishness, "that you can detail the horrors but not the happies?"

He didn't know and began to eat heartily, his appetite indicative of restored equilibrium.

"Got to run, honey. Be a busy day. And that's no precog. It's a sure thing." He grinned then kissed her soundly. "Annual review of contracts, and Zeusman notwithstanding, the Firm handles the government's insurances in this city."

Ruth would have to hurry as well. She disliked being late although her job was not essential. She fitted filaments to fractional feeders, an intricate, delicate operation which required deft hands even with waldoaids, and a certain tenacious patience with micromovements. Her employers never objected to her occasional delays as they employed teleports and telekinetics for the transportation of delicate equipment and to assemble by remote control the "hot" components of instrumentation to be used in the Jupit er probes. Ruth did not need to work, for Lajos was highly paid, but she preferred to keep busy until their request for progeny was approved. She wanted so to be a fulltime mother.

There was unlikely to be a problem in receiving approvaleventuallybut anyone was liable to pick up a dose of accidental radiation that could blur or damage chromosomes. They knew their genetic patterns were sound and they had completed the three years' pro bation to establish the compatibility and stability of their marriage. For the last six months they had undergone continual egg and sperm cell check for possible aberrations. It was time-consuming, but who wanted a handicapped child? It had taken years to weed out the psychedelic damages that had resulted in the freaks of the late Seventies and early Eighties. There were still occasional mutants as a result of the heavy Solar Winds in the first decade of the twentyfirst century. It was only common sense to check every variable.

But Ruth found it hard to be patient. She asked for very little of what her heritage had once seemed to offer. She didn't mind being an unidentifiable Talent, she had adjusted to it. She didn't really mind the often worrisome role of a passive observer to the mental asked in a small voice, aware even as the words popped out that she sounded resentful. Oh, I don't mean it that way. It's just that when you predetermine, it takes away all the mystery that's left to motherhood."

"Ruthie," and Lajos's tender teasing voice thrilled her. "You're a real recessive. O.K., we'll just let nature take its course."

"Can't we eat first?"

Lajos threw back his head and laughed boyishly at her deliberate coquetry. He hugged her until he heard her ribs crack and her dinner sizzling.

It was a magical night. Ruth responded to lovemaking with an ardor that astounded her husband: a surrender that left him breathless and not a little awed: as if, sloughing off the onus of contraceptive interference, she could allow herself to be touched to the depths of her being.

If the quality of their loving had anything to do with the final product, their child ought to be a perfect human, Lajos thought as they finally fell asleep in each other's arms. There was no guarantee that conception occurred that night. In fact, Lajos ho ped that it hadn't if Ruth would react like this until she did conceive.

Shortly, however, it was apparent that conception had occurred. Ruth developed a luminous beauty that touched everything around her with harmony. Jerry Frames, the Center's resident physician, with a healing talent, privately told op Owen that the foetus w as female and that Ruth was healthy enough to experience no problems.

The girl weighed seven pounds and three ounces at birth and was immediately christened the Little Princess by the nursery staff in the Center's hospital. Her parents called her Dorotea and were utterly besotted with her miniature perfection, her pinkandgol d beauty. They were oblivious to the curious stares and whispered comments of the staff. It was Ruth, preternaturally sensitive to anything regarding her daughter, who began to notice the surreptitious glances, the cluster of people constantly near her dau ghter's crib.

"You're hiding something from me," she told Jerry Frames accusingly.

"There's something wrong with Dorotea."

"There's not a thing wrong with her, Ruth," Jerry replied sharply and thrust the baby's chart at her. "You've enough pediatrics to read the medical notations. Go ahead."

Ruth scanned the sheets quickly, then reread word and graph, checking the laboratory reports of body function, the cerebral and cardiac readings, even the nourishment intake and eliminations. There was definitely nothing abnormal about Dorotea. Even her ch romosome mapping was XX/healthy/normal. Reassured, Ruth passed the clipboard back, and smiling confidently, continued to nurse her child.

Frames later said that he'd had a moment of pure panic because he couldn't remember how much genetic training Ruth had had or might remember. Op Owen assured him that his instinctive impulse had been the only possible course under the circumstances.

"It's exceedingly fortunate though, Jerry," the director said, his eyes active with speculation, "that they are already under the Center's protection. That child must have every safeguard we can provide. I want equipment installed in her nursery, tuned to her pattern day and night. If what we suspect is correct, it may manifest itself in her first six months. Can you imagine the strides we can make in formulating an early childhood program with such a superb example?"

"A pure case of doing what comes naturally."

"Nothing must interfere with the child's development."

"I still don't see why we've kept it from the parents. Are you stepping down from your 'knowall, tellall' pedestal after all?"

Op Owen returned the physician's sardonic look.

"I'm not a precog, but I felt a strong reluctance to inform Lajos."

"Why? He'd be walking nine feet tall to think he produced such a Talented child."

"Haven't we changed sides, Jerry?"

"It's one thing to withhold information from the unwashed public, but another to clam up on one of the gang."

"We don't know positively that Dorotea Horvath is..."

"Come off it, Dave. Cecily King is a strong TP and she heard that child protest birth. Oh, I know that some of 'em can cry out in the womb but this was no physical cry or it would have been audible to the rest of the delivery room personnel. Is your stumbl ing block Ruth Horvath?"

Op Owen nodded slowly.

"Well, that makes a little more sense, although I'd say she'd welcome her daughter's Talent. A kind of vindication that she's never been identified. Unless you call the transmission of strong genetic traits a Talent."

Op Owen shook his head, his lips pursed in thought. "She has wanted a child desperately. As a mother wants a child: not as a Talented person wants evidence of succession." He spoke slowly, the words dragged out of his mouth as if he were sorting the though ts. "Lajos says that although Ruth is a great help and very understanding, sometimes his Incidents bother her more than she admits. Let's just let things take their course. We'll keep an eye on them."

"What they don't know won't hurt them, huh?" Frames sighed. "Wish you'd let that attitude spill over into other areas, Dave."

Op Owen regarded the doctor intently. "I can conceivably bend a little privately, for the benefit of those under my care, but I cannot as easily rationalize the broader issue which I cannot oversee or control."

"All right, Dave, but I feel, and Joel Andres feels, that private reactions are a strong basis for predicting public ones. You're reluctant to tell Ruth Horvath, a girl conditioned and trained to accept Talent, that her child shows exceedingly strong telep athic Talent. You willingly want to broadcast information that even frightens me, and I'm Talented, to a public that is in no way conditioned to accept a fragment of that knowledge. The two attitudes cannot be reconciled."

"The ethical position of the Talented must never be questioned."

"Dave," and there was entreaty in Jerry Frame's voice and manner, "yo are unable to be unethical. The withholding of prejudicial knowledge is not unethical, it's plain good ol' common sense. Which you are sensibly applying to Ruth Horvath's case. How many times I have considered telling a patient he's bought it and how few times have I actually come clean. Very few people can stand the whole, complete, unvarnished truth."

"I hang between, in doubt to act or rest," op Owen said, resigned as well as frustrated.

"What's that?"

"I apologize, Jerry. Your point is well taken. I've erredon the side of the angels, I hopebut this attitude of mine towards Ruth Horvath is a curious vacillation from my tendency to be forthright. Yet I know that there is a reason to be slightly devious."

"Then you'll ease back on this allopenandaboveboard routine?"

"Yes, I'll ease back as you put it."

"Still," and Jerry frowned slightly, "it isn't as if they won't find out soon enough." He meant the Horvaths.

"They need time to get used to the idea." Op Owen was thinking about humanity.

"Where on earth did she get those blue eyes?" Lajos asked as he sat entranced by his threemonthold daughter's at tempts to capture her toes. She flopped over, gurgling cheerfully to herself.

"Heavens, it's possible," Ruth replied, beaming fatuously as she caught her daughter's eye. "I may be greyeyed, and you brown, but we both have ancestors with blue eyesfour generations back."

"I always said you were recessive, hon."

"Humph. I don't mind in the least, not if it produces a blueeyed blonde daughter with dimples. And I've got her, haven't I, love?

You're all mine."

"Except for the twentythree chromosomes from me."

Dorotea twisted her head backwards over her shoulder and burbled moistly at her mother.

"Love at first bite," Lajos said in a mutter of mock surliness.

"There's a conspiracy of females against this poor lone male."

Dorotea impartially gurgled at him, her eyes bright and wide and happy.

"You never had it so good," said Ruth.

And Lajos privately admitted the truth of that. Ruth was so enthralled with her daughter, their apartment had a noticeable atmosphere of benevolence. He was more relaxed than ever, and despite an increase in Incidents, extending beyond his usual affinity, he suffered less from the depressions and exhaustions that were the inevitable postlude.

The day Dorotea's Talent blossomed, Daffyd op Owen was reviewing the records obtained overtly and covertly from the Horvath apartment. He'd had Lester Welch, his electronic chief, rig a buried web in Ruth's mattress, in case the baby instinctively contacte d her mother first.

However, Lester had pointed out the slight variation in Ruth's readings. It was more as if the needle had snagged itself on an imperfection in the graph paper. There was no such variation on the baby's recordings. Welch had been about t o discredit the occurrences until he checked them against Lajos's and discovered that the minute variations in Ruth's chart always occurred exactly at the onset of Lajos' Incidents.

"She might well be a latent 'receiver,' " op Owen said to Welch, "only now beginning to develop from continued proximity to her husband and the advent of the child. I can't present another explanation."

"That'd be nice, Dave. Ruth's a good little person: cheerful, intelligent and crazy for her husband and child. Just the sort of well-balanced, understanding parent to have for a..."

Lester was abruptly staring at op Owen's retreating back. The man had leaped to his feet and raced down the hall to the recording room.

Lester Welch was not Talented, although his electronic engineering was often sheer inventive genius, but op Owen didn't react like that without good cause. When Welch reached the doorway, he saw that Charlie Moorfield, the day engineer, was hunched over the console, unconscious, but op Owen's attention was for a graph.

"Take a close look at Dorotea's graph," op Owen said, grinning fit to pop his jaw, and then he passed his associate on his way out.

Common sense told op Owen that, despite the urgency of the summons, there could be no danger threatening the baby. Yet he could not disregard that call. What could have happened, he wondered as he ran down the front steps. Suddenly he noticed that there se emed to be a mass exodus from all parts of the building. And everyone was headed in the same direction. As abruptly as the call had been issued, it ceased. People slowed down, stopped, looked around, grinning foolishly.

"What was that?"

"Who called?"

"Wot hoppened?"

"It's all right," op Owen found himself reassuring them. "A new technique improperly shielded," he said to the telepaths. And grinned at his own dissembling as he continued towards the Horvaths' apartment.

I here was a crowd in the hall before their apartment. Op Owen politely pushed his way through the disturbed residents. Dorotea her baby face still tearstreaked, was held high in her mother's arms, cooing and chortling at the smiling faces around her. Op O wen's arrival signaled the crowd's discreet dispersal and shortly, he was alone with the mortified mother.

"I'm so embarrassed, sir," Ruth said, jiggling her baby as she walked nervously up and down her living room. "I fell asleep with the tape recorder blaring away. And I just... didn't hear Dorotea wake up...

I've never done such a thing before and we've ne ver permitted her to cry long..."

"No one is remotely suggesting that you mistreat Dorotea." Op Owen smiled as the baby flirted delightfully with him. "In fact a little honest frustration is very useful. It certainly placed her Talent."

"Ooooooooh," and Ruth collapsed on the sofa, staring wideeyed at Daffyd op Owen as she absorbed the implication, which she had been too preoccupied with calming Dorotea to see.

"She broadcast a very loud signal. I shouldn't be at all surprised if every Talent in the city heard her."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Lajos charged through the door.

"What happened to her? How did she get hurt? My head is splitting!"

Lajos snatched Dorotea from her mother's lap to examine her firsthand.

She began to whimper, catching his anxiety.

"Only her feelings were hurt," Ruth replied, suddenly very calm. Op Owen noticed that with approval: she was dampening her own distress to soothe the others. "I'd fallen asleep with the tape recorder blasting away and just didn't hear her when she woke up hungry and all damp."

She took her daughter back, rocking her until the baby began to beam again. "She was hurt because she felt she was being ignored, isn't that right, sweetie?"

"Well, good god!" Lajos sank onto the couch, mopping his forehead. "1 never heard anything like it before. Sir," and he turned to op Owen, "look, this can't... I mean, can this sort of thing happen every time my daughter's upset?"

"Oh, I'm sure she's likely to protest many assumed indignities, Lajos.

Babies have to suffer some frustrations to grow. We'll just move you all to a shielded apartment and dampen down that lovely loud young voice."

"You're not surprised about Dorotea at all," Ruth said, regarding op Owen with round, suspicious eyes. "So that's why everyone was so excited about her in the nursery."

"Well, yes," the Director agreed slowly. "She was heard by the TP nurse at birth."

"But I thought psionic Talents don't usually show up until adolescence..."

"Conscious Talent," op Owen said, correcting her.

Ruth looked down at the drooling baby in her arms. A strained look crossed her pretty face. "But I want Dorotea to have a normal, happy childhood!"

"And she won't because she's Talented? Is that it, my dear?" Op Owen knew, sadly, that his instinct about not telling Ruth at once had been all too wellfounded. "Except for this ability, which might as well be drawing freehand, she is a normal, healthy chi ld, totally unaware that she is in any way remarkable..."

"But I know you'll want to test her, and all that, with stimuli..."

Ruth's distress was so acute that she couldn't go on.

"Ruth!" Lajos bent to comfort her, surprised by her reaction. She clutched her daughter tightly to her.

"My dear Ruth!" op Owen said gently, "testing and stimuli are for people who come to us after they have subverted and suppressed their Talents. We know what Dorotea is already, a very strong telepath. And we've been 'testing' her, as you call it, already.

As for stimuli, I assure you," and there was nothing forced in op Owen's chuckle, "she's applying the only stimuli... to us."

Lajos laughed, brushing his hair back from his forehead as he remembered his frantic homeward flight. Beneath his arm, he could feel Ruth relaxing. A slight smile touched her lips.

"Dorotea will have an unusual opportunity, my dear. One denied you and Lajos, and myself, and so many other potential Talents. She has the chance to grow up in her Talent, learning to use it as naturally as she learns to walk and talk. We will all help her to understand it... as much as we do ourselves," he added with a wry smile. "To be candid, Ruth, we are in much the same position as your daughter. We are all learning to act in a publicly acceptable fashion with this new facet of human evolution. Psioni c Talents are in their infancy, too, you know.

"You might even extend the analogy a little to include the Andres Bill, which we hope will afford all Talents professional status and legal protection. We, in effect, must prove to the public, our parentbody, if you wish, that we are not 'bad,' 'naughty' o r 'capricious' children. Dorotea has already contributed something to that end," and op Owen caught himself before he explained his own revelation.

"Dorotea needs love and reassurance, discipline and understanding.

She'll pick that up from you, Ruth, with your warmth and sweetness. I want her, possibly more than you do, to have a normal, happy childhood so that she will be a normal, happy adult."

He rose, smiling at the baby's infectious gaiety.

"See, she knows how pleased we are with her right now, the little rascal."

Op Owen left, assuring them new quarters within the week. Ruth was so quiet and thoughtful that Lajos remained home the rest of the day. He found the revelation of Dorotea's Talent as much a shock as Ruth apparently did. However, by morning, he was consume d with a paternal pride and, in the succeeding days, discovered an overweening tendency to maunder on about his daughter's prowess. By the time they moved to the larger, shielded apartment, he was accustomed to the notion and, since Dorotea made no more fr antic summonses, succeeded in ignoring it. Until he noticed the gradual change in Ruth. At first, it was no more than a sudden frown, quickly erased, or a nervous look towards the baby's room if she slept longer than usual. Then he caught Ruth looking at h er child with that wary expression he had once privately called 'the freak Look,' which untalented people occasionally directed at him when they discovered his affiliation with the Center.

"You've got to stop that, honey," he blurted out. "You've got to keep thinking... strongly... that Dorotea is just like other kids. Or you'll prejudice her. Which is the one thing we have to avoid." Ruth vehemently denied the accusation but she turned so white around the lips that Lajos gathered her quickly into his arms.

"Ah, sweetie, she hasn't changed just because we've found out she's Talented. But she is perceptive and she can sense your feelings towards her. You start suppressing that 'freakfeeling' right now. You think positively that she's our beautiful baby girl, s weet and loving, kind and thoughtful. She'll have that opinion of herself and it won't matter that she's a strong TP as well. She'll merely consider that part of the whole bit. It's when she senses criticism and restraint and hypocrisy that we'll be in trouble. I had to get used to it, too, Ruthie. Say," and he tilted her chin up and grinned down at her reassuringly, "why don't we get a little help from op Owen? Talk this over with him. He can put a block on i f you need one."

The very suggestion that she couldn't love and understand her own child made Ruth indignant. She'd had years of parent training. She understood every phase of early childhood development. She adored Dorotea and she certainly wouldn't do a thing that might jeopardize her daughter's happiness. They both felt better after such a candid discussion and the problem was shelved.

"Sir, I thought you ought to see the Horvath charts," Lester Welch told op Owen. "A variation keeps appearing in Ruth Horvath's. See?" And Welch unrolled the paper, pointing here and there to the almost imperceptible alteration in Ruth's normal pattern. "S ee, here and here, it's a couple of microseconds longer and broader. It begins to broaden minutely until it hits this frame which has remained constant.

Now, compare her timesequence to Lajos's... and remember we're picking up her pattern anywhere in the new apartment just as we pick up his from the office."

Op Owen saw the correlation immediately.

"He's finished no precog in six weeks?"

Welch contented himself with a nod as op Owen studied the graphs.

"If I didn't think it was impossible, I'd say Ruth was suppressing him.

But how?"

"Don't you mean why?"

"That, too, of course, but 'how' is the bigger question."

"If you mean the type of pattern, Dave, I can't give you that. There isn't enough to identify it as a known variation."

"That wasn't exactly what I meant, although I would like a magnification of this to study. Can you put on a more sensitive gauge, or a faster needle, to lengthen the stroke?"

"Hmmm." Welch considered the suggestion. "I'll rig up something, I guess."

Op Owen chuckled. "One of the comforting things about you, Les, is your unfailing rise to the challenge. I don't believe you know what failure is."

Welch regarded his superior with some surprise. "Failure is an inability to consider what is not presently known. Like Ruth Horvath's variation?" Then he added, "Or Senator Zeusman's strategy?"

Op Owen dismissed that with a wave of his hand and continued to scan the Horvaths' readings. "Dorotea's first Incident rocked him, didn't it?"

"Yes, it shows up in his sleep pattern as unusual restlessness the first nights, but see, he's calming down by the third."

"It's from that date that his precogs begin to dwindle."

"By God, you're right. I thought he'd be too stable for a deviation like that."

"Yes, he's been too consistent a precog. I think I'll call him in and drop a few leading questions to see what reaction I get." Op Owen initiated the call then and there.

"There's nothing wrong with Dorotea, is there, sir?" Lajos asked as soon as he entered the office.

"Good heavens, no," Daffyd op Owen said, gesturing Lajos to a chair.

"It's about my drop in Incidents, then, isn't it?"

Op Owen eyed his young colleague for a moment, savoring the peripheral emotions the man was generating. It took no Talent to recognize the defensive nervousness in Lajos's attitude.

"Not exactly. There are always periods of rest for precogs, caused by any number of valid reasons, including the absence of fires. However, your graphs show an onset of Incidents, broken off just as they begin."

"Once or twice in the office, I've felt as if something was preventing me..."

"Preventing you... ?" Op Owen prompted Lajos gently as he had broken off, startled by his own phrasing.

"Yes, sir," Lajos went on slowly, "it's as if something's preventing me from previewing. Sort of like... glancing into a strange room and having the door slammed in your face."

"Aptly put. Could you suggest why... or perhaps what... is preventing you?"

"You think it's a psychological suppression, don't you?"

"That's my first thought."

Indignation and disbelief were Lajos's instant reactions.

"Why would I want to suppress suddenly?"

"Something you yourself don't want to see. Precog is not the easiest of Talents, Lajos," op Owen replied. "Often the precog imposes his own block, as a relief from the psychological pressures."

"If you think there's a chance that I'm developing the Cassandra complex..." Lajos was heatedly provoked now.

"No, that follows an entirely different pattern."

"Dorotea's preventing me?"

"If this occurred only in your home environment, we'd have to seriously consider the possibility. But it's improbable for a variety of reasons: the prime one being that her room is shielded to protect her from overtones of your precogs as much as to protec t us from her blatant calls."

"Ruth?" Lajos's hushed question had the power of a shout. "She is Talented after all. But why suppress me? She loves me. I know she does. She's always helped with Incidents. It made her feel a part..." Lajos stared at op Owen. Then shook his head, violent ly disagreeing with the natural conclusion. "No! I don't see why suppressing me would... do her any good."

"Has something else upset her? The suppression starts not long after Dorotea's first Incident."

Lajos covered his eyes, groaning deeply. He collected himself almost immediately and, looking up at op Owen, recounted Ruth's curious uncertainty about Dorotea.

"Yes, I see now what has possibly happened. She's made you her whipping boy."

"Now wait a minute, sir. Ruth's not petty or vindictive."

"I'm not for a moment implying that she is, Lajos. Let us both try to see her conflicts. She's had to make so many adjustments. She had such hopes when she entered the training program. remember her cheerfulness and vivacity so well. It was difficult to ha ve to disillusion her. You two married and she has exhibited skill in assisting you. But even the most generous soul experiences twinges of envy. She looked forward to maternity as an outlet for her natural inclination and the assuagement of her failures.

Suddenly she finds herself with the extraordinary daughter who makes even the Director of the Center jump at her whim." Lajos weakly returned op Owen's smile. "I thought at the time she was very much distressed at the thought of relinquishing any of Dorote a's care to our impersonal toils. I don't believe we entirely relieved her fear that the Center will usurp her role in her daughter's upbringing. Can you see why she may be indirectly punishing you for circumstances that threaten her happiness?"

"Yes, I can." Lajos's admission was dejected.

"Now, it's not as bad as that," op Owen said firmly. "In fact, stop feeling guilty and look at the very positive sideRuth actually has been able to suppress your strong Talent."

"And that's positive?"

"Yes. The underlying problem is Ruth's lack of Talent. We now can prove conclusively that she has one. She has demonstrated it superbly.

Severe frustration often breaks down blocks. And she's had that."

"Of course." Lajos's face began to light up. "Whoa. You said she doesn't know she's doing it?"

"I've proof for her. And the further proof will be the renewal of your precogs. I'll have a talk with her and straighten this out today."

He made the call as Lajos left. There was more to the problem of Ruth Horvath than touched the little family. If you don 't tell all you know, how much is enough? op Owen wondered.

"All right, I'm forced to believe you," Ruth said, her defensiveness waning under op Owen's gentle redirection, because she also could not deny the evidence of the graphs: of that remarkable, infinitesimal variation that had to be an Incident.

Daffyd op Owen felt himself begin to relax with her admission. He had known it would be a stormy confrontation: one reason why he had not delayed it. Ruth had been appalled by the knowledge that she had subconsciously blocked Lajos. She finally admitted th at Dorotea scared her: that she had lost all joy in her daughter and was terrified of predisposing the child towards her.

"Yes, I have to believe you," she repeated, not bothering to stifle resentment, "but it's a pretty poor excuse of a Talent," she added bitterly, "if all I can do is block my husband's, and not even know I'm doing that."

"On the contrary," op Owen replied with a laugh, "it's exactly the one you need the most... applied properly."

Ruth glared at him, waiting pointedly for an explanation.

"You've a strong moral code, Ruth. You would not permit yourself to act against your daughter, though her Talent frightened you. But you will have to waive that most laudable principle. Until Dorotea has developed sufficient discretion to handle her mental gift, you are going to have to block it."

Ruth blinked in surprise and then her eyes brightened, her mouth formed an "O" of astonishment as she began to understand.

"Of course. Of course, I understand." Tears of relief welled in her eyes. "Oh, of course."

Op Owen smiled at her. "Yes, Dorotea cannot be permitted to dip into any mind she chooses. You must restrict her by your ability to block.

You won't need much pressure to dissuade her from broadcasting or eavesdropping."

"But won't Dorotea resent it? I mean, she'll feel me doing it, won't she?"

"All children require limits. Want them. As long as those limits are consistent and reasonable, a child as aware as Dorotea of her parents' approval and affection won't resist. In any event, by the time she could, or would, we shall have been able to insti ll discretion and your moral code. Right now, Ruth, you have all that's required to keep Dorotea from becoming a nuisance and a brat."

Ruth instantly reacted with indignation to his calculated insult and then laughed as she recognized the bait. She left his office considerably reassured, once again at harmony with her situation.

Op Owen envied her that carefree assurance. He still didn't know what to call what she'd done. Yes, she had suppressed Lajos's precog over the last six weeks, but in the four months prior to that Lajos's abilities had increased in strength and efficiency a nd, except for duration and width, by a similar application of psionic effort on Ruth's part. What did her Talent actually affect? And would it, as he had so blithely assured her, be able to "block" Dorotea?

Well, if she thinks she can, she will. At least she is no longer afraid of her precocious child, he thought. He swung his chair round, gazing out at the peaceful view of the grounds of Beechwoods, seeing the city beyond with its spires, towers and living b locks.

Was I right in my analogy that Talent is in its infancy, and the public is the parent? With the duty to block the undisciplined child? The Talents are more disciplined that the average citizen we often have to search out and rebuke, protect and cherish. It would be catastrophic for the parent to fear the child. How much of the whole truth would reassure, as it had Ruth?

Those who truly understand psionic powers need no explanation. Those who need explanation will never understand.

Two mornings later, while reviewing contracts covering institutions holding government research grants, Lajos experienced one of his strongest Incidents. So powerful was the flamefear that it was all he could do to pull the Goosegg recording web to his sku ll and depress the key that would relay the reading back to the Center.

"Flames!" he said, gasping; his mind reeled with the panoramic intense preview.

"Where?" he was prompted.

"A sheet, in front of a huge window, overlooking... the grounds.

Rhododendrons. Red ones. The clock in the church tower... nearly twelve. Too much heat! The converter is flawed. It'll blow. There are so many people watching. They don't belong there." Laj os was abstractedly curious at the sound of indignation in his voice. "They caused the fire. Meddling. I know him!" Lajos struggled to get a clear picture of that face.

"You don't like him. Who is he?"

"Ahhh... the flames. Obscuring everything." Lajos fell back in his chair, shaken and sweating.

"Can you make it to the Center? I'll send transport," the duty officer said.

By the time Lajos reached the computer room in the Center, the system was already chuckling away at the details, locating which laboratories had scheduled visitors in the a.m.: laboratories using heat converters.

The church clock tower suggested a college so that data was added as well as the planting of red rhododendrons.

Op Owen greeted Lajos with a grin of approval. "That was the most intense pattern you've ever projected. Have you any idea why that premonition should affect you so?"

"None, sir," Lajos replied, taking the seat op Owen indicated. He was still shaken.

"The man you knew: he was someone you obviously dislike. Do you have the impression that you've met him personally?"

"No. I recognized his face, that's all. Then the flames leaped up."

"We don't have much time," and op Owen's eyes glanced towards the wall clock, registering quarter to eleven. "Your precog came at 10:12.

Unfortunately this appears to be appropriation time and every lab in the country is having its share of visitations. I want to play back your answer, Lajos. I was struck by two things and if you can pinpoint them also, we'll have the 'where' at least."

"Anything." Lajos could see the vivid overprint of the flames in his mind and tried to see beyond their obscuring curtain. "And one day, figure out why I have a pyro affinity."

"Keeps insurance rates low, Horvath," Welch said drily as he rewound the tape. "Don't knock small favors."

Lajos listened as objectively as he could, appalled at the odd wooden quality of his voice, the fear when he mentioned the flames.

"I've got it, sir," he said. "The converter, the lab, the church tower. Knowing that the people didn't belong there. Wherever it is, is familiar to me."

"Charlie," Welch spoke over his shoulder to the programmer, "add Horvath's place and travel card."

Almost immediately a printout appeared.

"Sir, it's North East University. Checks out, clock in church tower, visible from research laboratory which uses a heat converter."

"Any visitors scheduled today?"

"No report on that yet, sir, but they do have a government funded research project in neoprotein and subcellular engineering."

"Check the university direct," Welch said after a nod from op Owen.

"Only limit it to a request about visitors," op Owen added. "There was something else I want to check first."

"Excuse me, sir," Charles broke in as op Owen lifted his desk phone.

"Several parties are expected during the course of the day. Dr. Rizor wishes to speak to you."

"When your office puts in a guarded call, Daffyd op Owen, I'm curious.

Come clean."

"Henry, we are not alarmists..."

"Precisely. So... ?"

"We've had a valid Incident that appears placed at North East. Several of the details have not coincided, however. We are fallible you know."

Rizor's snort was derogatory. "What's the rest of the precog?"

"It centers around the heat converter in the lab building opposite the church tower."

"And? God, it's like pulling nails from you, Dave."

"The heat converter may be faulty. The precog was that it will blow due to a sudden hot lab fire, just before noon, while visitors are on the premises."

"I'd hate for something to happen there now, Dave. We're on the verge of a breakthrough in the neoproteins. Running tests that are awfully good. But no visitors are expected there."

"Then a variable has already altered the precog."

"That's too glib a dismissal, Dave. Why would a lab fire stimulate your precog? I didn't think they usually worked out of their own area."

"Our precog recognized one of the visitors."

Welch signaled urgently to op Owen.

"Look, Dave," Rizor was saying, "I'm taking no chances. I'll have that converter checked and the building cleared. That'll alter circumstances, too. Besides I don't want visitors in that building until we complete the program. A breakthrough will warrant g overnment funding all next year. I appreciate your calling, Dave. Let me know when I can help again."

Welch was practically apoplectic before op Owen hung up.

"Washington sent in an urgent personal precog for Mansfield Zeusman!"

"That's who I saw," Lajos cried, jumping to his feet.

"Get Senator Zeusman's office on the phone, Charlie, and don't indicate the origin," op Owen said.

"Dave," and Les Welch had a peculiar expression on his long face, "he's the last person to warn. One, he won't believe you. Two, he's our principal antagonist. Let that damned hero perish."

"Les, you have a dry sense of misplaced humor."

"I'm practical as all hell, too," Welch added.

"Can you tell me if Senator Zeusman is expected in the office this morning?" Charlie's voice carried clearly in the tense silence. "Oh, I see. Can you tell me where he plans to be in the morning hours?

But surely, he left an itinerary? Thank you." Charlie's voice was wooden and his face expressionless. "He is not in the office. The assistant is a very rude, uncouth bumptious twit."

"If he's not in the office," op Owen said, "he's college hoppinghim and that Research Appropriations Committee of his. He's the sly kind is Zeusman, loves to arrive unannounced."

"He could be on his way to North East then," Lajos said.

Op Owen told Charlie to get Rizor back on the line.

"Sir," Charlie reported, concerned, "Dr. Rizor has left his office.

Is there a message?"

Op Owen picked up an extension phone. "Miss Galt? Daffyd op Owen here. We have reason to believe that Senator Mansfield Zeusman will pay an unscheduled visit to your campus before noon. Will you please inform Dr. Rizor immediately? Good. Thank you. I can b e reached at the Center on a priority call basis. Yes, the situation could be considered critical."

Lajos felt himself unwind a trifle but his apprehension did not completely abate. He smiled weakly at op Owen.

"Paradox time."

"How so, lad?"

"Dr. Rizor believes. He is already altering the circumstances I foresaw. We may have undone ourselves!"

Op Owen's eyes flashed. "At the risk of Zeusman's life, and that of how many others you saw in the precog?"

"No, sir, I didn't mean it that way," Lajos replied, stung by op Owen's scorn. "I mean, that fire can't happen now because Rizor will prevent Zeusman from entering the lab."

"I'd still prefer to see that sparrow fall!" Welch's mutter was clearly audible.

Op Owen swung his chair in idle halfarcs but his eyes remained on his dissident engineer.

"I am not in the least tempted, gentlemen," he said in his usual easy voice. "We are not God. Nor are we trying to replace God. The psionic arts are preventive, not miraculous. We are fallible, and because of that fallibility we have to be scrupulously imp artial, and try to help any man our senses touch, whoever he may be, whenever we can. Lajos is right. We have already..."

"Sir," Charlie's interruption was apologetic but determined, "two more danger precogs involving Mansfield Zeusman. One from Delta and one in Quebec. Neither could get through to Zeusman and are applying to us."

Op Owen looked as if he might be swearing silently. He glanced up at the clock, its hands inexorably halfway past eleven.

"We haven't altered the future enough," Lajos said with a groan.

"Charlie, alert all rescue teams in the North East area," op Owen said, his words crisp but calm. "I'll try for Rizor. Les, get Lajos a sedative. Henry, f;m glad I could reach you..."

"Don't worry about a thing," Dr. Rizor replied cheerily. "I've a crew checking the converter and the building is completely off limits.

What's this Miss Galt says about Zeusman paying us an unexpected visit?"

"Evidence points in that direction, and we've new precogs of danger for him."

"Look, we're all set here, Dave," Rizor told him in an easy drawl. "No one can pass the gate without checking through my office and... Oh, no! No!"

The connection went dead. Op Owen looked around at the others.

"That's known as locking the barn when the horse is gone," said Welch in a flat voice. "Lay you two to one and no previewing, Rizor just discovered that Zeusman uses a helijet for these jaunts of his."

"Charlie, get me through to one of the mobile rescue team trucks."

"Sir, they're converging on the campus. Only they've been delayed at the gate," Charlie said in a quiet sad voice after a moment of urgent crosswire phoning.

Welch scratched his head, smoothing his hair back over his ears, trying not to stare at op Owen's expressionless face. Lajos wondered how the Director could sit so calmly, but suddenly, not the tranquilizer but an inner natural composure settled Lajos's te nsions.

"Sir," he said to op Owen, "I think it came out all right."

Everyone glanced up at the clock which now ticked over to high noon.

The secondhand moved forward again, and again, the sweep-second duly circumscribing its segments of time. The phone's buzz startled everyone. Op Owen depressed Receive and Broadcast.

"I want to speak to the Director of this socalled Center," a bass voice demanded authoritatively.

"Op Owen speaking, Senator Zeusman."

"Well, didn't expect to get you."

"You asked to speak to the Director; I am he." Op Owen hadn't switched on his visual.

The composed answer appeared to confound the Senator briefly. He had not activated the screen at his end either.

"You've outsmarted yourself, Owen, with this morning's exhibition of crystalballing. I thought you'd have better sense than to set one up and try to fool me into believing in your psionic arts bunk." The senator's voice was rich with ridicule and selfsatis faction. "Heat converter's blowing, indeed! They're constructed not to blow. Safest, most economical way of heating large institutional buildings. A scientific way, I might add."

"I tell you, Senator," Rizor interrupted, "there is a flaw in the bleedoff of that converter. My engineers reported it."

"Get off the extension, Rizor. I'll settle your hash later. Applying for funds to run a research program which you arbitrarily interrupt at a vital stage on the sayso of crackpots and witch doctors? Your university is unfit to handle any further public mon ies over which I have any control." Zeusman was almost snarling.

"I won't get off the extension, Zeusman. This is my college, in what is reputedly still a free country, and I don't regret in any way having listened to Dr. op Owen. There was a flaw which would have exploded under conditions foreseen..."

"Don't defend Owen, Rizor," Zeusman said. "His meddling costs his defenders too damned much. How's Joel Andres feeling these days, Owen?

How's his amyloidosis progressing? Just remember when you predict his death that the research your scheme interrupted h ere might have saved his life."

There was a loud clack as Zeusman broke the connection.

"Dave?" Rizor sounded defeated.

"I'm still here," op Owen replied. "What's this about Joel Andres?"

"You've had nothing? I thought you always kept a check on important men... like Zeusman." The name was grated out.

"Nothing's been reported on Joel. Precog is highly unpredictable, as you've just witnessed."

"That damned converter was faulty," Rizor was angry now and defiant.

"It would have blown in the next overload. You saved Zeusmanand you've also saved other people."

"And Joel? Is it true about his liver?"

"So I understand," Rizor said in a heavy voice, "And our research was for a neoprotein to replace the faulty endogenous protein and restore a normal metabolism. Don't worry. The experiments can be reinitiated."

"With Zeusman withholding funds?"

"There are other sources of funds and I intend to use your so-called 'meddling' to advantage. Damn it, the converter would have blown!"

Rizor was muttering as he ended the call.

Lajos was utterly spent when he returned to his apartment. Ruth took one look at his face and fixed him a stiff drink. He took it down, and with a weary smile flopped onto the bed.

"Dorotea asleep?" he asked hopefully. He was too disturbed not to generate emotional imbalance and too tired to suppress it.

"Fast asleep. Good for a couple of hours, honey," Ruth replied, her strong fingers already at work on his tense muscles. She did not question his depression and weariness. Slowly she felt him relax as her massage and the stiff drink combined to bring surce ase.

He woke in time for dinner and seemed in control again, laughing at Dorotea's antics, playing with her on the floor until her bedtime.

Only when the baby was safely asleep in her shielded room did he tell Ruth all that had happened.

"Oh, no, not Mr. Andres," she said when he finished. Lajos didn't notice her quick flush as she recalled her one personal encounter with the magnetic Senator Andres. He'd been... so kind to her and she'd been so embarrassed.

"How could I guess that he'd be involved? It was the flames. And how could I know that Zeusman would be saved at Andres's expense?"

"Why, you couldn't, darling," Ruth cried, alarmed at his self-castigation. "You couldn't! You mustn't blame yourself. You saved lots of lives today! Lots!"

Lajos groaned, miserable. "But why, Ruthie... why does it have to ricochet off Andres? If Rizor hadn't ordered the converter off, the experiment would have been concluded. All they had to do was keep visitors out."

"No, that's not quite true," Ruth told him in stern contradiction.

"You said yourself that the heatconverter proved to be flawed. That flaw would not have been discovered without your precog. It would have exploded during the next lab fire. Who knows who m ight have been killed then?"

"But Andres is the one who needed the neoprotein!"

"They'll come up with a neoprotein somewhere else, then," Ruth said, very positively to distract Lajos. "They've made so many strides in organ replacement..."

"Except livers! That neoprotein was supposed to correct some kind of abnormal protein growth... faulty endogenous protein metabolism...

that's what's killing Senator Andres... stuff is cramming into his liver and spleen, enlarging them and there's no kn own way to clear the amyloids. And when the liver doesn't work, that's it, honey. Ticket out!"

Ruth went on stroking Lajos' forehead gently, knowing that he must find his own way out of this. He burrowed his face into her neck, entreating the comfort that she never denied him. Later her mind returned to the terrible paradox, the tragic linkage of ci rcumstance and the sorrow of the wellintentioned Good Samaritan.

God gives man stewardship of his gifts and the free will to use or deny them. Why must it be, that a man acting in good faith, finds himself reviled?

As sleep finally claimed her in the early morning hours, she wondered if she ought now to use her Talent to prevent Lajos from precogs like this. No, she drowsily realized, she had no right to take negative action. One must always think positively. One is one's brother's keeper, not his warder!

"I rather expected a call from you, Dave," Joel Andres said, his grin on the vidscreen slightly waving from atmospheric disturbance. "And that's no precog. No indeed," he rattled on, without permitting op Owen to speak. "The good senator from that great midwestern state called especially to warn me that I'm the next spa rrow to fall because my pet witch doctor read the wrong crystal ball. Hey, that rhymes.

Now, I don't believe that for a moment Dave, on account of I don't think that that stupid mockprotein goop would have been jelled or curdled or what have you, in time t o save my misspent life anyhow."

The words were lightly said but there was an edge to Andres's voice that ruined the jovial effect.

"How long, Joel?"

"Probably long enough to get that Bill out of Committee, Dave, and I'll count the time well spent. Zeusman can't put down the mass of evidence in favor of psionics, the tremendous saving of loss of life already effected by validated precogs. By the way, We lch told me that the precog came in at 10:12. Do you know the time when Zeusman gave his pilot orders to fly to North East?"

" 10: 12?"

"Right, man. And that's in the record! Right in his flight log and a friend of mine impounded it because the pilot isn't so contemptuous of the circumstances as Zeusman. That pilot was scared silly by the coincidence. And don't think I'm not going to ram t hat down Zeusman's doublechins."

"He'll never admit our warning saved his life, Joel," Daffyd said.

"Hell, he doesn't have to admit it. The facts prove it. But I must say, Dave, you made one mistake." Joel's chuckle was rich.

"Had I known what I know now, I do believe that this once, I'd've sat back and twiddled my thumbs."

"Ha! I don't believe that for a minute... no, maybe you would have," and the lawmaker's voice rippled with amusement. "If this has buckled your altruistic armor, it's worth it. Worth dying for, because there's nothing trickier to tie down than an honest m an gone bad! Now let me go to work."

"Joel, let me know..."

"Hang loose, man. Don't rob me of my cool. Not now!"

The senator signed off but Daffyd op Owen sat staring moodily at the wall opposite his desk, unable for the first time in his life to divert his train of thought. His mind writhed in recrimination as bitter as an ancient inquisitional penance.

"Dave?" Welch's brisk voice broke through his introspection. "There's an anomaly on... Oh, I'll come back later...."

"No, Lester, come in."

Welch gave his friend a speculative look but he unrolled the graphs without comment.

"Ruth Horvath!" Op Owen was surprised, almost irritated that she should be the subject of the intrusion.

"Couple of things. Here... on the baby's chart... Incident after Incident... compare it with Ruth's. No pattern. Not even an inky hiccup. I thought you said she could block that baby."

Curious now, op Owen scanned the charts. "What's this?" he asked, pointing to a sustained emphatic variation.

"That's the anomaly. Happened last night. It's a spontaneous variation. All her others have been triggered, usually by Lajos. And, if you'll look at the peaks and valleys in last night's records, you'll see that the pattern is kinetic."

"That's too tight for a true kinetic touch."

"Well, it's not TP, it's not 'finding' and what'n'hell would she be trying to do, fast asleep? 'Finding' is a conscious application, anyway. No, this is a kinetic pattern."

"For what reason? Against what?"

"Who knows? The point is, while she has stopped suppressing her husband, she hasn't started blocking her daughter. And that's going to be serious. I mean, we don't need a teething telepath broadcasting discomfort."

"Teething?"

"I forget you're not a parent," Welch said with tolerant condescension, "to small babies, that is."

Op Owen was engrossed in the patterns and it was obvious that Ruth was not responding and seemed unable to use a conscious block. And that was too bad. He frowned at the unusual kinetic display of the previous night.

"She's got it. She used it."

"Not consciously."

"I hate to resort to therapeutic interference. It might jeopardize her ever using it consciously."

"It's therapy for Ruth, or that baby'll tyrannize both parents. And that's bad. A kid that strong has got to have limits, right now, before she can develop precocious resistance."

Op Owen examined the charts one last time, shaking his head as he noticed the telepathic patterns on Dorotea's chart, saw the impingement on the mother's and no block.

"These could be legitimate calls..."

'Don't evade, Dave. I know you hate interfering with Talent; that it should be spontaneous. Admit Ruth Horvath is one of those who cannot use Talent consciously. Meddle a little!"

Op Owen rose, his face drawn. "I'll drop over to see them today.

Let's hope she responds well to hypnosis."

"She does. I looked up her training record."

Two days later Welch came back in triumph, trailing two sheets of graphing tissue like victory streamers.

"You did it, Boss. Look, pass blocked, time and again, with a minimum of effort on Ruth's part. But damn it, she's not a pure kinetic. What could she be moving with such an infinitesimal touch? How does she apply the block?"

"Unconsciously," op Owen replied with a sly grin. "However, it may be because that touch is so delicate, she can't do it consciously. I didn't look very deeply. But so many kinds of Talent are fairly heavyhanded, violent. Like using awls in place of micron eedles." He winced a little, remembering how his mental touch had uncovered Ruth's pitiful lack of selfconfidence in her Talent. All her Incidents occurred without her awareness, deep in the subconscious levels of her mind into which Daffyd saw no need to trespass. She was a nice womanly person: her surface thoughts revolving around her husband, her daughter: all her anxieties were needless guilts over minor details.

It was, therefore, relatively easy to block her notions that she would inadvertently harm D orotea, or try to suppress Lajos. It was easy to erase conscious knowledge of her Talent, replacing it with a feeling of accomplishment and wellbeing: the posthypnotic command to respond to Dorotea's telepathic demands and channel them firmly into speech c enters. He also displaced her reluctance to have other Talented children because she felt inadequate. Ruth must have great resources of self-assurance. He planted them.

Now op Owen turned to Welch. "Ask Jerry Frames how soon Ruth Horvath can bear another child. I'd like her first two fairly close together before she gets cold feet."

"Cold feet he calls it!" was Welch's parting crack.

"I 'm sorry, Daffyd," the Washington precog said, "I've stared at Joel Andres's picture for hours. I've read his House speeches, I've read his memoirs. I've sat in his outer office until the Senate police asked to have a word with me. Then he came in, and recognized me, of course. And gave me a scarf to hold." Mara Helm paused. "As a memento, he said. But I don't see it."

"You've had no stimulation about him at all?"

"Nothing dire."

"What do you mean, nothing dire?"

"That's what I mean and all I mean, Dai. Nothing conclusive, in that his life concludes. And, as you know, my accuracy is unfortunately high."

"I don't understand this, Mara."

"No more do I when I hear the gossip around town."

"Which is?"

"That Senator Andres is spending his last moments helping a minority group that not only has predicted his imminent demise but destroyed his one chance of a cure." Her voice held no inflection as she uttered these quick sentences, but her dislike of impart ing the gossip was obvious to her listener. Mara cleared her throat suddenly. "I do have a precog though," she added, mildly amused.

"A good one, if I recognize that tone of voice. I could stand some pleasant tidings."

"I'll be seeing you shortly," and she laughed mischievously. "In the flesh, I mean. Here!"

"In Washington?" Daffyd op Owen was startled. He rarely left the Center and, at this moment, he had no desire under heaven to set foot in Washington.

Two weeks later, Daffyd op Owen, in a swivet of anxiety which no perception could dispel, disembarked from the helijet on the Senate landing pad. Mara Helm and Joel Andres were waiting for him. Daffyd had no eyes for anyone but the senator who strode forwa rd, grinning broadly, eagerly grasping the telepath's hand, forgetting in the excess of his welcome that Daffyd avoided casual physical contacts.

However, op Owen wanted more than anything to touchsense his friend.

And was reassured by the vigorous sensation he felt equally strong through mind and body. He might disbelieve the evidence of his eyes as he stared at Andres's clear pupils, the healthy t anned skin with no trace of the yellow, indicative of liver disorder. Op Owen could not deny the feeling of health and energy that coursed to him in that hearty handclasp.

"What happened?" he asked hoarsely.

"Who knows?" Joel replied. "The medics called it a spontaneous remission. Said my body had started manufacturing the right enzymes again. Something to do with a shift in the RNA messenger proteins or some rot like that. Anyhow, no more amyloids in the peri vascular spacesif that makes any sense to youthe old liver and spleen are back to normal size and I can feel that. So, friend, I no longer need that neoprotein research that Zeusman scrapped."Mara Helm remained aside, smiling benevolently at the two men, until they finally remembered her presence.

"Dai, see?" and she laid a finger fleetingly on his sleeve. "You're here as predicted!"

"Did you bring the graphs and records I asked for?" Joel inquired.

"Here they are," and Daffyd handed the neat package over.

"Good," and the senator's expression was maliciously gleeful. "We're going to hoist Senator Mansfield Zeusman today on his petard.

However," and black anger surged across Andres's face, "I beg your indulgence, Daffyd. Certainwhat would you call them, Maras ecurity measures?"

Mara's lips twitched but there was an answering indignant sparkle in her eyes.

"A shielded cage?" Daffyd asked.

"Yeah," and the sound was more of a growl than an affirmative. "Don't think I didn't protest that insulting..."

"In fact," Mara said, "he ranted and screamed at the top of his voice.

All Washington heard. I elected to keep you company in the giltwired goldfish bowl," and she gave op Owen a flirtatious wink.

"You'll have an advantage over me," Andres said. "You can switch off the sound of Zeusman's voice."

"Who? Me?" Daffyd asked and the three entered the Senate Building laughing.

Op Owen was not surprised at Mansfield Zeusman's insulting treatment.

He expected little else. Although the senator had initiated the investigation of all the Centers, he had never personally entered one.

Obviously Zeusman was among those who believed that any telepath could read every mind: he would be unlikely to believe that telepaths performed their services much as a surgeon does an exploratory operation in the hope of uncovering a patient's malignant disease.

Zeusman also decried the psychiatric scien ces, so his attitude was at least consistently narrowminded.

"One more thing," Andres said as he held open the door into the shielded room, "you're here at the Committee's request, not Zeusman's, or mine. They may want to question you. Please, Dave, don't tell all you know?"

"I'll be a verbal miser, I promise."

"That'll be our saving," Andres replied. He obviously distrusted op Owen's sudden meek compliance.

"Doesn't Joel look wonderful?" whispered Mara as they seated themselves.

"Yes," Daffyd replied and then shut his lips. Even that interchange, broadcast into the chamber beyond, drew every eye to them. Op Owen crossed his legs, clasped his hands and composed himself outwardly.

Zeusman was not as large a man as op Owen thought he'd be. Nor was he a small man in stature which might have explained the aggressive, suspicious personality. He resembled a professor more than a senator, except for the elaborate gesticulations which were decidedly oratorical. And he was expatiating at length now with many gestures, pointedly ignoring Andres who took his place at the conference table.

The other five members of the Committee nodded towards Andres as if they welcomed his arrival. Their smiles faded as they turned back to the speaker. It was apparent to Daffyd that Zeusman's audience was heartily bored with him and had heard the same argum ents frequently.

"These Experts claim..." and Zeusman paused to permit his listeners to absorb the vitriol he injected into that label, "that even the advertisement of that precognitive word changes events. Now that's a cowardly evasion of the consequences of their pernic ious meddling."

"We've been through that argument from stem to stern before, Mansfield," the lanky bald man with a hawk nose said. Op Owen identified him as Lambert Gould McNabb, the senior Senator from New England. "You called this extraordinary session because you claim you have real evidence prejudicial to this Bill."

Zeusman glared at McNabb, McNabb calmly tamped down his pipe, relit it, pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger, blowing against the pressure to relieve his eardrums, sniffed once or twice, put the pipe back in his mouth and turned an expectant face towards Zeusman.

"Well, Mansfield, either hang 'em or cut 'em down."

"I have your attention, Senator McNabb?"

"At the moment."

"My contention has always been that protection for these meddlers is against common sense, ethics, and all the laws of man and God. They usurp the position of the Almighty by deciding who's to live and who's to die."

"To the point, Mansfield," McNabb said.

"Senator McNabb, will you desist from interrupting me?"

"Senator Zeusman, I willif you will desist from jawing."

Zeusman looked around for support from the other five members of the Committee and found none.

"On the 14th of June, I left my offices in this building for the purpose of visiting several of the universities requesting the renewal of Research Funds. As you know, it is my custom to arrive unannounced.

Therefore, it was not until we were airborne that I gave my pilot his directions."

"What time was that?" asked Andres quickly.

"The time is irrelevant."

"No, it isn't. I repeat, at what time did you give your pilot his flight directions?"

"I fail to see what bearing..."

"I have a transcript of the pilot's log, from the files of the Senate Airwing," Andres said and passed the copy over to McNabb.

"Tentwelve, Daylight Saving Time, the record says," McNabb said in a drawl, his eyes twinkling as he casually flipped the record across the table to the others.

Zeusman watched, frowning bleakly.

"I have here," Joel went on before Zeusman could grab the floor, "authenticated graph readings of four precognitive Incidents: one from Eastern American Center, the Washington Bureau, Delta Center and Quebec. The period, allowing for time zones, in which t hese precogs occurred is between 10:12 and 10:16. Excuse the interruption, Zeusman, but I'm trying to keep things chronological."

Zeusman awarded Andres a vicious smile and then a keener look. Op Owen wondered if Zeusman was only now aware of Andres's improved health.

"Ahem. When my helijet landed at North East University, I and my party were physically restrained by Dr. Henry Rior, the Research Dean and members of his staff, from conducting our in vestigation of their project on the specious grounds that a precog had been issued, predicting a flaming death for me and my party, due to a faulty heat converter which was supposed to explode. Well, gentlemen I fathomed this little trap immediately."

"Whoa, whoa Mansfield," Robert Teague said, tapping the material now in front of him. "The precog reports I have here... by God, I'm getting so I don't need an expert to translate them for me anymore... indicate that's exactly what was to have happened.

At... ah, shortly before noon. When did you arrive at North East?"

"Quarter to twelve."

"Then you'd've been in the building around twelve. I'd say you owed these precogs your life."

"My life? Don't be ridiculous!"

"I'm not. You are," Teague replied with considerable exasperation.

"I'm no fool, Bob. I know when I'm being had, in spite of all the forged records going. The whole business was rigged. Heat converters don't blow."

"Right, so how could one be rigged to blow at precisely twelve noon at North East when no one, including yourself, knew when or where you were going that morning until 10:12?"

"A flaw was discovered when the heat converter was dismantled: air bubble in the steel tank," Joel Andres said, passing another affidavit to Teague. "The main chamber has been replaced. It could have blown, through that air bubble flaw, under just such cir cumstances of overload as predicted."

"But it didn't!" Zeusman said in a roar.

"No, because it had been turned off to prevent such an occurrence."

"Exactly. The whole thing was a hoax. Tentwelve, twelve noon, whatever. And, " Zeusman rattled the words out so loud and so fast that no one could interrupt him, "in turning off that socalled faulty converter, the experiment then in progress, paid for by g overnment funds, was ruined just before what was certain to be a successful conclusion of a highly delicate, valuable project. I've papers of my own to present"he dramatically flung stapled sheets to the table"depositions from the various qualified, highly trained, highly reputable scientists in charge of the neoprotein research. And here is where these... these meddling godlets overreach themselves. That neoprotein research, so rudely interrupted on the brink of success would have produced, by scientific methodsaccurate, repeatable, provena substance that would prevent certain alltoocommon and terribly painful deaths due to liver failure. Prevent an agonizing death facing a certain member of this august Committee. And, if these precogs are so omniscient, s o benign, so altruistic, so wise, whyI ask you, why, did they not foresee the effects of their own meddling on their avowed champion?"

Op Owen's altruism and benignity hit an alltime low and he found himself obsessed with an intense desire to turn kinetic and clog Zeusman's windpipe permanently.

"Ah ha," crowed Joel Andres, leaping to his feet, "why should they foresee my demise, my dear colleague? Due to liver failure? How interesting! Of course, you have a paper to prove it, Senator, such as my death certificate?"

"Easy, Joel," said McNabb, squinting at Andres keenly, "Anyone can see you're healthy as a hog, though I must admit you had been looking a bit jaundiced. You look great now, though."

"But I had a report that he was dying of liver failure," Zeusman said.

"Got that authenticated?" Teague asked sarcastically.

"Easy, Bob. We know Mansfield's been doing the job he was elected to do, protect his constituents and this country. That used to be as easy to do," McNabb paused to drag on his pipe, "as finding decent substitute tobacco. But Mansfield proved that was bad for most of us."

"We're discussing experts, not tobacco," Zeusman reminded him.

"No, we're discussing progress, on a level some of us find as hard to take as giving up tobacco. However, it was proved that tobacco was unhealthy. These people have proved that their Centers protect health and property, and they go about it scientifically. Everything I've heard today," and McNabb jerked his pipe stem at Zeusman as the latter started to interrupt, "proves conclusively to me that you've been putting the wrong eggs in the right basket. That precog was for your health and wellbeing, Mansfield, which these people are pledged to protect: you didn't have to take the warning... " "I was forced..."

"Lots of us were forced to stop smoking, too," McNabb said, grinning.

"This artificial stuff still doesn't taste right but I know it's better for me.

"Most important of all, Mansfield, and it seems to have completely escaped your logical, scientific, onetrack mind, is the very fact that these people warned you! Whether they knew the consequences to Joel Andres or not if they also stopped the experiment, they had to warn you and your party! So stop your maundering on about their ethics and meddling. I'd've let you burn!"

Zeusman sank down into a chair, blinking at McNabb's craggy face. Then the New England senator rose, a slight smile on his lips.

"Gentlemen, we've hassled this Bill back and forth for close to two years. We've satisfied ourselves the provisions protecting the parapsychic professions, as outlined in Articles IV and V, do not threaten the safety of the citizens of this country, do not jeopardize personal liberty, et cetera and all that, and, hell, let's place it on the agenda and start protecting these poor idealistic bastards from...

from them as don't wish to be protected."

McNabb's grin was pure malice but he didn't glance in Zeusman's direction nor was the midwesterner aware of anything but this unexpected defeat.

Op Owen reached the Center after full dark of the late spring evening.

The pleasant sense of victory still enveloped him in contentment. He found himself, however, turning toward the apartments rather than his own quarters. The news that the Andres Bill ha d left Committee and would be presented to the Senate next session had already been relayed to the Center. He heard echoes of the celebrating which appeared to be going on all over the grounds.

A little premature, he thought to himself, for the Bill must pass Senate and Congress. There would be sharp debate but they predicted it would pass. The President was already in favor of protection for the Talented since he benefited from their guardianshi p.

Op Owen entered the building where the Horvaths lived. He hesitated at the elevator, then made for the steps, pleased to arrive without breathlessness at their apartment door.

He had a split second of concern that he might be interrupting the young couple but it was quickly dispelled when Lajos, still dressed, flung the door wide.

"Mr. op Owen!" The precog's face was a study in incredulous amazement. "Good evening, sir!"

"I'm sorry. Were you expecting someone?"

"No, no one. Exactly. Please, come in. It's just... well, everyone's been apartment hopping since the news came.

"The Director is immune to jubilation?"

Lajos was spared the necessity of answering because Ruth entered from the kitchen, her face lighting up as she rushed forward to greet their guest. Op Owen was relieved at her obvious welcome: she could have developed a subconscious antipathy for him after their recent session.

"I don't think anyone expected you back tonight, sir," Lajos was saying, pressing a drink on op Owen.

"We're all so proud of you, sir," Ruth added shyly.

"I did nothing," op Owen replied. "I sat in a shielded room and listened. It was Lajos's precog..."

"There were three other reports, sir," Lajos said, "but is it really confirmed that Senator Andres has had a remission of that liver ailment?"

"Yes, absolutely, demonstrably true. I know we've all felt burdened with a certain... regret, on that aspect of the North East Incident.

It is the inevitable concomitant of the precognitive gift."

"And Dr. Rizor's grant will be restored?"

Op Owen was taken by surprise. "I'm embarrassed to say I didn't think to inquire." He felt himself coloring.

"We can't think of everything, can we?" Ruth asked, her lips twitching with a mischievous smile.

Op Owen burst out laughing and, after a startled pause, Lajos joined him.

"I'll bet it will be restored," Ruth went on, "and that's no precog: just plain justice."

"How's Dorotea?" op Owen asked.

"She's asleep," and there was nothing but pride and pleasure in Ruth's face as she glanced towards the closed nursery door. "It's fascinating to listen to her figuring out how to get out from under the table."

Lajos echoed her pleasure. Op Owen rose, suddenly conscious of the rippling undercurrent between the two young people. His presence constituted a crowd.

"I wanted you to know about Joel Andres, Lajos."

"Thank you sir, I do appreciate it."

"It was good of you to tell us. You must be so tired," Ruth said, linking arms with her husband and standing very close to him.

"Save your maternal instincts for your children, Ruth," he said kindly and left.

Once again in the soft night air, op Owen felt extremely pleased with life. Obeying an impulse, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed that the lights in the Horvath apartment were already out. He had interrupted them after all. Sometimes, shield as he c ould, the stronger emotions, sex being one of them, seeped through.

He took his time walking back through the grounds, permitting himself the rare luxury of savoring the happy aura that permeated the Center.

He stored up the fragrance of the joyful night, the exuberance that penetrated the dark, the hopefulness that soften ed the chill of the breeze, against those desperate hours that are the commoner lot of man.

These times of harmony, concert, attunement came all too seldom for the Talented. They were rare, glorious, treasured.

Habit made him stop in at the huge control room. Surprise prompted him to enterfor Lester Welch, a dressing robe thrown over his nightclothes and a drink in one hand, was bending over the remote graph panels. His attitude, as well as that of the duty offic er, was of intense concentration.

"Never seen anything like that before in a coital graph," Welch was muttering under his breath.

"Turned graphic voyeur, Lester?" Daffyd asked with tolerant amusement.

"Voyeur, hell. Take a look at these graphs. Ruth Horvath's doing it again. And at a time like this' Why?"

Welch was scarcely a prurient man. Stifling his own dislike of such an unwarranted invasion of privacy, op Owen glanced at the two graphs, needles reacting wildly in response to the sexual stimuli mutually enjoyed. Lajos's graph showed the normal agitated pattern: Ruth's matched his except for the frenetic action of the needle, trying valiantly to record the cerebrally excited and conflicting signals its sensitive transistors picked up. The needle gouged deep into the fragile paper, flinging its tip back an d forth. Yet the pattern of deviation emerged throughout the final higha tight, intense, obviously kinetic pattern.

Abruptly the frantic activity ceased, the lines wandered slowly back to normalfatigue patterns.

"That was most incredible. The most prodigious performance I have ever witnessed."

Op Owen shot Welch a stern glance, only to realize that the man meant the electronic record. He was momentarily embarrassed at his own thoughts.

"What does she do?" Welch continued speaking and the technician glanced up quickly, startled and flushing. "The kinetic energy is expended for what reason? Not that she'd be able to tell us anyhow."

"For what reason?" op Owen asked quietly, answering the safest question. "For the exercise of a very womanly talent." He waited, then sighed at their obtuseness. "What is the fundamental purpose of intercourse between members of the opposite sex?"

"Huh?" It was Welch's turn to be shocked.

"The propagation of their species," op Owen answered his own inquiry.

"You mean... you can't mean..." Welch sank, stunned, into a chair as he began to comprehend.

"It hadn't occurred to me before now," op Owen went on conversationally, "that it is rather odd that a browneyed, blackhaired father and a greyeyed, brownhaired mother could produce a blue-eyed blonde. Not impossible. Just quite improbable. Now Lajos is pr ecog, and we have to grant that Ruth is kinetic. So how do these genes produce a strong, strong telepath?"

"What did she do?" Welch asked softly. His eyes knew the answer but he had to hear op Owen voice it.

"She rearranged the protein components of the chromosome pairs which serve as gene locks and took the blueeyed genes and the blondehaired ones out of cell storage. And what ever else she wanted to create Dorotea. That would be my educated guess. Just the w ay she unlocked the RNA messengers for..." Op Owen hesitated: no, not even Lester Welch needed to know that bit of Ruth's tinkering"whatever it is she has in mind for this child." Welch had not apparently noticed his hesitation. "It'll be interesting to s ee the end product."

Welch was speechless and the technician pretended great industry at another panel. Op Owen smiled gently.

"This is classified, gentlemen. I'll want those records removed as soon as you can break into the drums," he told the technician, who managed to respond coherently.

"I'm glad of that," Welch said with open relief. "I'm glad that you're not blabbing all this to the world. Are you going to tell Lajos?"

"No," Daffyd replied with deliberation. "He obviously intends to cooperate. And they'll be happier parents without that knowledge."

Welch snorted, himself again.

"You sound like you're getting common sense, Dave. Thank God for that." He frowned as the drum wound the last of that Incident ut of sight. "She can actually unlock the genes!" He whistled softly.

"'One science only will one genius fit.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit!'" "How's that again, Dave?"

"A snitch of Popery!" op Owen remarked as he left.

PART THREE APPLE

The theft was the lead morning 'cast and ruined Daffyd op Owen's appetite. As he listened to the description of the priceless sable coat, the sapphire necklace, the couture model gown and the jewelstrap slippers, he felt as if he were congealing to his cha ir as his breakfast cooled and hardened on the plate. He waited, numbed, for the commentator to make the obvious conclusion: a conclusion which would destroy all that the East American Parapsychic Center had achieved so slowly, so delicately. For the only way in which such valuable items could have been removed from a store dummy in a scanned, warded, very public display window in the fiveminute period between the fixed TV frames was by kinetic energy.

"The police have several leads and expect to have a solution by evening. Commissioner Frank Gillings is taking charge of the investigation.

"'I keep my contractual obligations to the City,' Gillings is reported to have told the press early this morning as he personally supervised the examination of the display window at Coles, Michaels and Charny Department Store. 'I have reduced street and co nsensual crimes and contained riot activity. Jerhattan is a safe place for the law abiding. Unsafe for the lawbreakers."" The backshot of Gillings's stern face was sufficient to break op Owen's stasis. He rose and strode toward the comunit just as it beeped.

"Daffyd, you heard that 'cast?" The long, unusually grim face of Lester Welch appeared on the screen. "Goddammit, they promised no premature announcement. Mediamen!" His expression boded ill for the first unwary reporter to approach him. Over Les's shoulde r, op Owen could see the equally savage face of Charlie Moorfield, duty officer of the control room of the Center.

"How long have you known about the theft?" Op Owen couldn't quite keep the reprimand from his voice. Les had a devoted habit of trying to spare his superior, particularly these days when he knew op Owen had been spreading himself very thin in the intensive public educational campaign.

"Ted Lewis snuck in a cautious advice as soon as Headquarters scanned the disappearance. He also can't 'find' a thing. And, Dave, there wasn't a wrinkle or a peak between 7:03 and 7:08 on any graph that shouldn't be there, with every single Talent accounte d for! " "That's right, Boss," Charlie added. "Not a single Incident to account for the kinetic 'lift' needed for the heist."

"Gillings is on his way here," said Les, screwing his face up with indignation.

"Why?" Daffyd op Owen exploded. "Didn't Ted clear us?"

"Christ, yes, but Gillings has been at Cole's and his initial investigation proves conclusively to him that one of our people is a larcenist. One of our women, to be precise, with a secret yen for sable, silk and sapphires."

Daffyd forced himself to nullify the boiling anger he felt. He could not afford to cloud reason with emotion. Not with so much at stake.

Not with the Bill which would provide legal protection for Talents only two weeks away from passing.

"You'll never believe me, will you, Dave," Les said, "that the Talented will always be suspect?"

"Gillings has never caviled at the use of Talents, Lester."

"He'd be a goddamned fool if he did." Lester's eyes sparkled angrily.

He jabbed at his chest. "We've kept street and consensual crime low.

Talent did his job for him. And now he's out to nail us. With publicity like this, we'll never get that Bill through.

Christ, what luck! Two bloody weeks away from protection."

"If there's no Incident on the graphs, Les, even Gillings must admit to our innocence."

Welch rolled his eyes heavenwards. "How can you be so naive, Dave? No matter what our remotes prove, that heist was done by a Talent."

"Not one of ours." Daffyd op Owen could be didactic, too.

"Great. Prove it to Gillings. He's on his way here now and he's out to get us. We've all but ruined his spotless record of enforcement and protection. That hits his credit, monetary and personal." Lester paused for a quick breath. "I told you that public e ducation program would cause more trouble than it's worth. Let me cancel the morning'cast."

"No." Daffyd closed his eyes wearily. He didn't need to resume that battle with Les now. In spite of this disastrous development, he was convinced of the necessity for the campaign. The general public must learn that they had nothing to fear from those gif ted with a parapsychic Talent. The series of public information programs, so carefully planned, served several vital purposes: to show how the many facets of Talent served the community's best interests; to identify those peculiar traits that indicated the possession of a Talent; and most important, to gain public support for the Bill in the Senate which would give Talents professional immunity in the exercise of their various duties.

"I haven't a vestige of Talent, Dave," Les went on urgently, "but I don't need it to guess some dissident in the common mass of have-nots listened to every word of those 'casts and put what you should never have aired to good use... for him. And don't com fort me with how many happy clods have obediently tripped up to the Clinic to have their minor Talents identified. One renegade apple's all you need to sour the barrel!"

"Switch the 'cast to the standard recruiting tape. To pull the whole series would be worse. I'm coming right over."

Daffyd op Owen looked down at the blank screen for a long moment, gathering strength. It was no precog that this would be a very difficult day. Strange, he mused, that no precog had foreseen this.

No. That very omission indicated a wild Talent, acting on t he spur of impulse. What was it Les had said? "The common mass of havenots?"

Even with the basic dignities of food, shelter, clothing and education guaranteed, the appetite of the havenot was continually whetted by the abundance that was not his. In this c ase, hers. Daffyd op Owen groaned. If only such a Talent had been moved to come to the Center where she could be trained and used. Where had their so carefully worded programming slipped up? She could have had the furs, the jewels, the dresses on overt pur chase... and enjoyed them openly.

The Center was well enough endowed to satisfy any material yearning of its members. Surely Gillings would admit that.

Op Owen took a deep breath and exhaled regret and supposition. He must keep his mind clear, his sensitivities honed for any nuance that would point a direction toward success.

As he left his shielded quarters at the back of the Center's extensive grounds, he was instantly aware of tension in the atmosphere. Most Talented persons preferred to live in the Center, in the specially shielded buildings that reduced the 'noise' of cons tant psychic agitation. The Center preferred to have them here, as much to protect as to help their members. Talent was a double-edged sword; it could incise evil but it neatly separated its wielder from his fellow man.

That was why these broadcasts were s o vital. To prove to the general public that the psychically gifted were by no means supermen. Research had indicated there were more people with the ability than would admit it. There were, however, definite limitations to most Talents.

The Parapsychic had been raised, in Daffyd's lifetime, to the level of a science with the development of the Goosegg, ultrasensitive electroencephalographs which could record, and identify the type of "Talent" by the minute electrical impulses generated in the cortex by the application of psychic powers. Daffyd op Owen sometimes thought the word "power" was the villain in perpetuating the public misconceptions. Power means "possession of control" but such synonyms as "domination," "sway," "command" leapt readily to the average mind and distorted the actual definition.

Daffyd op Owen was roused from his thoughts by the heavy beat of a copter. He turned onto the path leading directly to the main administration building and had a clear view of the Commissioner's marked copter landing on the flight roof, to the left of the control tower with its forest of antennal decorations.

Immediately he perceived a reaction of surprise, indignation and anxiety. Surely every Talent who'd heard the news on the morning 'cast and realized its significance could not be surprised by Gillings's arrival. Op Owen quickened his pace.

"Orley's loose!" The thought was as loud as a shout.

People paused, turned unerringly towards the long low building of the Clinic where applicants were tested for sensitivity and trained to understand and use what Talent they possessed: and where the Center conducted its basic research in psionics.

A tall, heavy figure flung itself from the Clinic's broad entrance, charged down the lawn, in a direct line to the tower. The man leaped the ornamental garden, plunged through the hedges, swung over the hood of a parked lawntruck, straightarmed the overhan ging branches of trees, and brushed aside several men who tried to stop him.

"Project reassurance! Project reassurance!" the bullhorn from the tower advised. "Project happiness!"

"Get those cops in my office!" Daffyd projected on his own as he began to run towards the building. He hoped that Charlie Moorfield or Lester had already done so. Orley didn't look as if anything short of a tranquilizer bullet would stop him. Who had been dimwitted enough to let the telempath out of his shielded room at a time like this? The moron was the most sensitive barometer to emotion Daffyd had ever encountered as he was physically dangerous if aroused. By the speed of that berserkercharge, he had so aked up enough fear/anxiety/anger to dismember the objects he was homing in on.

The only sounds now in the grounds were those of op Owen's shoes hitting the permaplast of the walk and the thudthud of Orley's progress on the thick lawn. One advantage of being Talented is efficient communication and total comprehension of terse orders.

But the wave of serenity/reassurance was not penetrating Orley's blind fury: the openness dissipated its effect.

Three men walked purposefully out of the administration building and down the broad apron of steps. Each carried slimbarreled hand weapons.

The man on the left raised and aimed his at the audiblypanting, fast approaching moron. The shot took Orley in the r ight arm but did not cause him to falter. Instantly the second man aimed and fired. Orley lost stride for two paces as the shot penetrated his thigh but incredibly he recovered. The third manop Owen recognized Charlie Moorfieldwaited calmly as Orley rapidl y closed the intervening distance. In a few more steps Orley would crash into him. Charlie was swinging out of the way, his gun slightly raised for a chest shot, when the moron staggered and, with a horrible groan, fell to his knees. He tried to rise, one clenched fist straining towards the building.

Instantly Charlie moved to prevent Orley from gouging his face on the coarsetextured permaplast.

"He took two doublestrength doses, Dave," Moorfield exclaimed with some awe as he cradled the moron's head in his arms.

"He would. How'n'hell did he get such an exposure?"

Charlie made a grimace. "Sally was feeding him on the terrace. She hadn't heard the news 'cast. Said she was concentrating on keeping him clean and didn't 'read' his growing restlessness as more than response to her until he burst wide open."

"Too much to hope that our unexpected guests didn't see this?"

Charlie gave a sour grin. "They caused it, Boss. Stood there on the roof, giving Les a hard time, broadcasting basic hate and distrust.

You should've seen the dial on the psychic atmosphere gauge. No wonder Orley responded." Charlie's face softened as he g lanced down at the unconscious man. "Poor damned soul. Where is that medteam? I 'called' them when he got outside."

Daffyd glanced up at the broad third floor windows that marked his office. Six men stared back. He put an instant damper on his thoughts and emotions, and mounted the steps.

The visitors were still at the window, watching the medteam as they lifted the huge limp body onto the stretcher.

"Orley acts as a human barometer, gentlemen, reacting instantly to the emotional aura around him," Les was saying in his driest, downeast tone. To op Owen's wideopen mind, he emanated a raging anger that almost masked the aura projected by the visitors. "H e has an intelligence factor of less than 50 on the New Scale which makes him uneducable. He is, however, invaluable in helping identify the dominating emotion of seriously disturbed mental and hallucinogenic patients which could overcome a rational telepa th."

Police Commissioner Frank Gillings was the prime source of the fury which had set Harold Orley off. Op Owen felt sorry for Orley, having to bear such anger, and sorrier for himself and his optimistic hopes.

He was momentarily at a loss to explain such a vi olent reaction from Gillings, even granting the validity of Lester Welch's assumption that Gillings was losing face, financial and personal, on account of this affair.

He tried a "push" at Gillings's mind to discover the covert reasons and found the man had a tight natural shield, not uncommon for a person in high position, privy to sensitive facts. The burly Commissioner gave every outward appearance of being completely at ease, as if this were no more than a routine visit, and not one hint of his surface thoughts leaked. Deepset eyes, barely visible under heavy brows, above fleshy cheeks in a swarthy face that missed nothing, flicked from Daffyd to Lester and back.

Op Owen nodded to Ted Lewis, the top police "finder" who had accompanied the official group. He stood a little to one side of the others. Of all the visitors, his mind was wide open. Foremost was the thought that he hoped Daffyd would read him, so that he could pass the warning that Gillings considered Orley's exhibition another indication that Talents could not control or discipline their own members.

"Good morning, Commissioner. I regret such circumstances bring you on your first visit to the Center. This morning's newscast had made us all extremely anxious to clear our profession."

Gillings's perfunctory smile did not acknowledge the tacit explanation of Orley's behavior.

"I'll come to the point, then, Owen. We have conclusively ascertained that there was no break in store security measures when the theft occurred. The 'lectric wards and spyscanner were not tampered with nor was there any evidence of breaking or entering. T here is only one method in which sable, necklace, dress and shoes could have been taken from that window in the five minutes between TV scans.

"We regret exceedingly that the evidence points to a person with psychic talents. We must insist that the larcenist be surrendered to us immediately and the merchandise returned to Mr. Grey, the representative from Cole's." He indicated the portly man in a conservative but expensive grey fitted.

Op Owen nodded and looked expectantly towards Ted Lewis.

"Lewis can't 'find' a trace anywhere so it's obvious the items are being shielded." A suggestion of impatience crept into Gillings's bass voice. "These grounds are shielded."

"The stolen goods are not here, Commissioner. If they were, they would have been found by a member the instant the broadcast was heard."

Gillings's eyes snapped and his lips thinned with obstinancy.

"I've told you I can read on these grounds, Commissioner," Ted Lewis said with understandable indignation. "The stolen..."

A wave of the Commissioner's hand cut off the rest of Lewis's statement. Op Owen fought anger at the insult.

"You're a damned fool, Gillings," said Welch, not bothering to control his, "if you think we'd shelter a larcenist at this time."

"Ah yes, that Bill pending Senate approval," Gillings said with an unpleasant smile.

Daffyd found it hard to nullify resentment at the smug satisfaction and new antagonism which Gillings was generating.

"Yes, that Bill, Commissioner," op Owen repeated, "which will protect any Talent registered with a parapsychic center." Op Owen did not miss the sparkle of Gillings's deepset eyes at the deliberate emphasis. "If you'll step this way, gentlemen, to our remo tegraph control system, I believe that we can prove, to your absolute satisfaction, that no registered Talent is responsible. You haven't been here before, Commissioner, so you are not familiar with our method of recording incidents in which psychic powers are used.

"Power, by the way, means 'possession of control', personal as well as psychic, which is what this Center teaches each and every member. Here we are. Charles Moorfield is the duty officer and was in charge at the time of the robbery. If you will observe th e graphs, you'll notice that that periodbetween 7:03 and 7:08 was the time given by the 'casthas not yet wound out of sight on the storage drums."