Mute (6 page)

“Just how much detail did that recording show? If you had a bug hidden on your person, it could not have picked up a great deal of detail of that sort.”

“See for yourself,” she said, smiling grimly. She brought out a sphere, holding it in her hand. In a moment a haze formed around it. A larger sphere of image developed, obliterating her hand and her arm to the elbow. It showed Knot and Finesse in quarter size, standing together, kissing, and proceeded in full-color animation from there.

Knot watched, spellbound. There was no doubt about it: this was a genuine recording, not a re-creation. He remembered the episode vividly. Now, as voyeur, he became strongly excited. There were details he could perceive in the image that he had been unable to see while in action, pornographically complete, and they—

He saw Finesse’s eyes beyond the spherical image, bearing on him. She was watching this too. How could a man properly appreciate a stag film, when its object was watching the subject? Yet that instant of embarrassment of realization only increased his reaction. He wanted her again, with a craving much greater than before. The first time, there had been great promise; this time there was confirmation.

But he controlled himself. “You were angry because I made you forget this,” he said. “Because you had to learn it from the recording.”

“Wouldn’t you be angry? You robbed me of my most intimate experience! And you did it deliberately!”

“Involuntarily,” he said. “I don’t control my psi. Everyone forgets me, within an hour of separation from me. Sometimes much sooner. My own enclave supervisor meets me for the first time every few days. I always eat in the newcomer section of the mess hall. The people I interview and place in compatible positions never remember who did that favor for them, and no one reminds them. I am the original forgotten man. So I live for the present, taking my joys on an immediate basis, knowing memories count for nothing. I couldn’t have let you retain that experience if I had wanted to.”

“What about your secretary, Pork?
She
knows.”

“Her name is York. She transcribes my interviews from a distance, so is not affected. She remembers what she needs to, and more important, remembers that everyone else forgets. She covers for me all the time. But when I seduce her, she too forgets. She knows it has happened because she makes notes on everything, but she can’t remember it personally. It’s a great frustration to her. She always hopes one day she’ll find the key and retain a memory. It’s a game we play.”

You are holding something back,
Hermine thought.
It is your background mind. There is a way to retain memory—

Keep the secret!
Knot thought.

“And I, a top-notch investigative interviewer, with the assistance of clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy—you made a complete, utter and thorough fool of me! My report was at absolute variance with my recording. CC must have laughed its circuits loose!”

She’s working into another fit,
Hermine thought.
I haven’t perceived a show like this in months!

“I’m sorry,” Knot said, “We all do what we must do. You were playing cruel games with me, so I played back my trump. I love this enclave, I like the work I do, I value my freedom, and I am loyal to my own kind. You are a normal, representing the galactic government I detest. I had to put you off.”

She’s going to destroy you!

“At least you could have warned me,” Finesse said sweetly.

“And had the warning recorded on your holo, for all the galaxy to know! My secret is virtually worthless if it isn’t secret.” He was still watching the image, fascinated. At the time of his performance, he had been under the impression that he was doing the doing and she the acquiescing, but from this vantage it was evident that she had keyed in many of his doings, leading him from one exploit to another. She was certainly no amateur! “Where was the pickup?”

“In my hair. It’s a heat reader. CC interprets the variance patterns and renders them back into a visual representation. It is independent of line-of-sight. I still think you could have made your point without humiliating me.”

“There would have been no humiliation without that recording. I never intended anyone to know about my ability, apart from necessary individuals like York. I would be much happier if you just forgot the whole matter.”

“Which I shall surely do—until I review the current recording.”

“CC already knows?” That was rhetorical. Since CC had processed the recording and assimilated her contrasting report, that was a foregone conclusion. The net was drawing tight, and Knot had not yet found a way to slip free. For one thing, CC would now have a copy of the recording on file.

“CC always did know, I’m sure. CC knows everything about everyone it is interested in.”

“Even you? Why did it select a normal for this mission?”

“CC surely knows more about me than I know about myself. I was a foundling, a bastard baby sired by a spaceman; CC arranged for my care. It was only natural that I should grow up to work for CC.”

“A spaceman? They have only short planet-leaves. You should have been a mutant.”

“Well obviously I wasn’t!” she flared. “Probably CC took me in with the hope that I would manifest psi, since I had no physical mutation. I must have been a disappointment. But by the time that was evident, too much was invested in my education. Now you know more than you deserve to know about me. And now CC is ready to recruit you,”

“Why didn’t CC just come flat-out and
ask
me, then?”

“Because a number of prospects are under consideration, and CC must select only the best one, and needs further data. My first interview with you provided that. You were the cleverest, smoothest, slipperiest, least ethical scoundrel who remained true to his basic loyalties and knew what they were, and you very nearly foiled the investigation itself. That, it seems, was what CC was looking for. You are the one selected.”

“Selected for what?” Knot decided not to make an issue of the personal description; it was accurate enough.

“For whatever mission CC has in mind. That’s its job, you know—to match the mutants to their best situations. I’m only an interviewer.”

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered, “Tell CC to go ram a disrupter electrode up its tubing sidewise.”

She looked at him obliquely. “Most people are flattered to be chosen for special assignments by the Coordination Computer. It means they are the very best for the position. The best in the galaxy.”

“I told you: I don’t like CC or approve of the system. I refuse—”

Alert! Alert!
Hermine broadcast.
Mit says a bad act of nature forms.

“Oh come on,” Knot muttered. “I’m not going to rape her.”

“Shut up,” Finesse said. “Hermine never jokes about a thing like this.”

Apparently at this range it was possible for the weasel to send to two minds simultaneously, because Finesse had reacted at the same time Knot picked up the thought. “Storm?” she asked now, evidently thinking it at the weasel too.

Not water. Strange.

“We have very sudden, fierce tempests at erratic intervals,” Knot said. “Some are wet, some dry. We’d better get under cover in a hurry—if Mit’s clairvoyance is to be trusted.” Knot looked at the sky. “Though I see no sign of a storm.”

“Mit’s precognition has its limits, but is to be trusted,” Finesse said. “He may not be able to properly define what is coming up, but it is surely dangerous. We’ve never been able to define his ability precisely; it seems to be a unified perception embracing present and future. Clairvoyance with a temporal dimension.”

Not storm,
Hermine repeated.
Something else.

“We’d best use the leadmuter’s cave,” Knot decided.

They hurried forward. But it took several minutes to get near the cave, and the threat coalesced before they arrived. The trees began to move strangely, aligning their leaves along common planes or lines of cleavage, none touching others. Grass stood erect, similarly aligned. Finesse’s hair began to rise.

“An electric charge!” Knot cried, feeling his own hair extend. “Rare, but bad. Keep moving!”

The charge intensified. Now Finesse’s hair radiated out like an anemone helmet, and even her eyebrows bushed out, Knot’s skin tingled; all the hairs of his body were straightening. Where was the charge coming from, and where was it going? Knot had supposed the wild stories about this effect were exaggerated. Now he wasn’t sure.

My fur is sprung!
Hermine thought, alarmed.

“It is discharging the electricity,” Knot explained, for weasel and woman. “A harmless effect—for the moment. But if sparks start jumping—”

There was a crackling. Jags of light struck upward from the trees. At first the displays were small and faint, but they soon grew more spectacular.

“I don’t like this!” Finesse exclaimed, trying to pat her standing hair in place. A little aura of light showed where her hand approached her head. She resembled a remarkably cute witch with an uncharacteristic halo. “I’m sure it’s playing havoc with my recording.”

“That so?” Knot asked, not at all disgruntled by the news. “You mean you’ll have no way to remember what is happening now?”

Oh, ho!
Hermine thought, projecting a fleeting vision of a predator closing in on prey.

Knot was startled. “Hermine sends pictures, too!”

“Of course she does,” Finesse snapped, giving up on her hair. “Where is this cover we’re headed for?”

“Just coming into sight ahead.”

They ran on, each person radiating fat sparks. The whole landscape was blazing with the electrical discharges, and small lightning forks were jumping from the trees high into the sky before petering out in umbrella-like spreads. Knot was a good deal more alarmed than he cared to admit.

Me too,
the weasel thought.
But Mit says we’ll make it. The cave is safe.

They did make it. They bundled into the cave mouth as if taking shelter from hail.

No farther!
Hermine warned.
Mit says it is safe only here at the edge.

“Thanks,” Knot said aloud. It was easier to focus his thoughts when he engaged the vocalizing mechanism, and it let Finesse know what he was thinking. Though he had no doubt he could learn readily enough to project without vocalizing or subvocalizing, at such time as he needed to. “The leadmuter gets excited by storms and things and tries to transmute other substances—such as people—into lead. Doesn’t work, but it’s not too healthy either—for him or the subjects.”

Finesse looked out at the electrical display, then into the passage leading to the leadmuter. She shuddered. “I’m not used to this sort of danger.”

She’s pretending,
Hermine thought mischievously.
She’s tough as rats.

You’re helping me against her?
Knot thought, nicely managing to avoid vocalization.

It doesn’t matter. There is no help for you.

Hm. “If I understand the situation correctly, there’s no danger as long as we heed Mit,” he said, uncertain himself.

“Yes, we must stay right here,” she agreed.

“Of course—until the threat passes. But you know, it is hardly in my interest to keep you safe. What you have already recorded is enough to damn me.”

“I didn’t come here to damn you!” she protested. “CC needs your help.”

What is her real interest?
Knot asked Hermine, who had climbed from Finesse’s pocket and was prowling the cave.

She means to seduce you into joining CC.

Just as he thought. Finesse’s first visit had been exploratory. The second was recruitment, and she had an obvious weapon. He recognized that, but remained vulnerable. She was really his enemy, but he would do a lot to obtain her good will.
Ask Mit whether she will succeed.

Knot expected no direct answer to that. He was wrong.
She will succeed.

The seduction or the conversion to CC?

Both.

Don’t I have anything to say about it?
Knot demanded.

Nothing.

Nothing?

It has been determined. Mit knows.

Knot experienced a sudden firm resolve. He would see about that! He had little faith in precognition, especially as it might relate to himself. A storm might be predicted accurately enough; it had no free will. A man was different.

Finesse was making herself comfortable, arranging her limbs attractively, setting up for her effort. Knot tried to ignore her.

Other psi powers were remarkable but basically sensible. They merely accomplished by mental means what could also be done by physical means. His own talent was an example: there were drugs and treatments that could cause people to forget recent events, temporarily or permanently. They interfered with the intermediate process of memory fixation, so that the short-term memories never made the necessary transition to long-term memories. Electric currents applied to certain sections of the brain could erase established memories. The leadmuter’s ability was another example. Transmutation of substances could be accomplished in the laboratory, with extraordinary effort and expense; this was not worthwhile economically, but it was possible. Clairvoyance was merely the awareness of surrounding landscapes and events, and extension of the normal perceptions. Telepathy was like a built-in intercom.

But precognition—that was essentially fortune telling. It was inherently paradoxical, since the future was mutable. Tell a man he was about to step into a hole and hurt himself, and he would avoid that hole, rendering that prediction inaccurate. Thus true precognition could not exist—at least, not if what it showed was told to the subject.

There are rats who don’t believe weasels can kill them,
Hermine thought.

I’m a rat, all right.

“Dollar for your thoughts,” Finesse said, smiling at him. He almost felt the warmth penetrating his skin, compelling his body to react. She was so infernally pretty; it was her weapon, and she used it well.