Authors: Anne McCaffrey
“Numerics is no excuse!” Rhyssa was surprised by a vehemence that answered the despair in his voice. She wondered if his mind, too, was filled with faceless forms, twisting and turning in space, drifting farther and farther from the network of lights that was the oasis of air and warmth in the blackness, and a violent shudder seized her.
A warm hand cupped her shoulder. “Easy! Talent spreads itself thin enough as it is. You’re not God, or gods, to mark each sparrow’s fall.”
She blinked and looked up at him. Though his mind was as closed to her as ever, the sympathy and understanding in his warm blue eyes was obvious. She would not tell him that Talents generally disliked tactile contact—surprisingly enough, she had discovered that she liked him touching her.
“Armed with this information, however, you can spread Barchenka over a barrel.” His voice was soft and teasing. “If you see what I mean. Or, maybe you Talents are too simon-pure to lower yourselves to outright blackmail.”
“Not when the lives and safety of my Talents are at risk, I’m not,” Rhyssa declared stoutly. “Not to mention those poor sods who’ve not even been given half a chance to survive. I’ll insist on short shifts and shields, and we’ll increase that ante to safety lines for everyone working on the platform and the deployment of rescue skiffs. Or do skiffs have limited power and air on them, too, so as to save costs?”
He crossed his arms on his chest, grinning at her.
“Your Talents wouldn’t be at risk anyway, unless I’ve misunderstood their capabilities. There’s no way Barchenka can pull the same tricks on
them
that she does with the poor grunts. And unless your response is unique among your ilk, I can’t see your folk standing by for some of her tricks, once they know what to look for. Some of the kinetics are telepaths, aren’t they?”
“Quite a few.” Rhyssa gave a sardonic chuckle. “A fact we haven’t actually mentioned to Barchenka, whose understanding of Talent is severely limited.”
Dave let out a bark of laugh. “Not the whole truth nor even half the truth, huh? Good girl, Rhyssa!” He playfully knuckled her chin. “Is distance a problem? Or the vacuum of space?” When Rhyssa shook her head, he went on. “Well, you guys could sure be popular with the grunts because
you”
—he waggled his finger at her—“could be
their
insurance. A Talent could haul back a drifter, couldn’t he? Without asking for permission during his shift, or waiting for a skiff?” He gave her a broad smile. “That’ll help a lot of ways. Damned good PR, too. The best, because it proves that the Talents will help the ordinary grunt where Barchenka just simply hasn’t!”
Rhyssa suddenly turned away, not wanting Dave to see her expression.
Sascha?
she called.
I’ve just found the perfect job for Madlyn! Tell you later!
I can read your evil mind,
Sascha said,
and she’s not even on the list for the platform.
She is, as of right now,
Rhyssa replied.
How often have you said that Madlyn could be heard at the space platform? We’ll just put it to the test!
She smoothed her expression and looked up at Dave Lehardt, who was eyeing her keenly.
“Who were you talking to just then? And don’t hold out on me. I’m getting used to your ways, woman!” His voice rippled with an odd emotion, and the gleam in his eyes intensified.
Rhyssa’s grin was half embarrassment at his scrutiny and half delight with her inspiration. “We’ve got a telepath with an extraordinarily loud voice. We’ll send her up in an administrative capacity. Put her on a radar scope, and she’ll locate and reassure any drifters for the nearest kinetic to haul back to safety.”
“Lady, you don’t realize what a difference that could make to morale up at the platform.” Dave’s grin was so infectious that Rhyssa had to grin back. “Not only is Barchenka unaware that she’s her own worst enemy, but her ignorance about Talent in general will prevent her from realizing that she’s just hired a battalion of undercover agents.”
“That’s
the beauty part!” Rhyssa said, grinning more broadly. “Does Duoml? Or Prince Phanibal?”
Dave Lehardt considered briefly. “Prince Phanibal might, but he’s not on the platform as much lately—some crisis in Malaysia that occupies a lot of his time. Besides, I read him as being just ornery enough not to tell her something as crucial at this time for the sheer pleasure of watching her squirm. Now what’s this emergency clause Lance Baden wants added to the contracts?”
“In case of a major emergency, we must be able to bring Talents back down. You remember the floods last monsoon on the Indian continent and that major shake in Azerbaijan? We knew about each of them ten days before, so we were able to muster help and reduce the effect of the catastrophe. Sending her a hundred and forty-four kinetics has wiped out our disaster-squad organization. We want a twenty-four-hour clause—to bring key personnel back to Earth in time to cope here.”
“Can’t you teleport ’em down?”
Rhyssa laughed. “No, more’s the pity. Our Talents are finite, definite, and nowhere near such a fantasy application as instantaneous transmissions. That takes more power than a human brain can generate.”
“I thought the Moral Code on legitimate bioengineering permitted—”
“Hold it right there, Dave.” Rhyssa held up a warding hand. “Read the Code: congenital defects, yes—manipulations, no. And I doubt any genetic engineer would monkey with the brain yet—even a monkey’s brain.”
“If you can find one. Though don’t you think it’s likely that someone has been doing illicit experimentation, the world being what it is these days?”
“That’s cynical of you, Dave.”
“Sometimes saying no is registering a challenge,” he replied with a shrug. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility.”
“Meanwhile,” Rhyssa said, bringing the discussion firmly back to relevant matters, “I’d very much like to see a full report on what JG and Samjan have been discovering about platform personnel problems.”
Dave grinned, taking three diskettes from a breast pocket. “I thought you might. Gives you a stronger bargaining position for shields, short shift—”
“Safety lines and skiffs,” Rhyssa finished, taking the diskettes but letting her fingers linger on his a little longer than the transactions required. “I thank you, sir.” What on earth was happening to her in Dave Lehardt’s presence? She felt as giddy as—as Madlyn could be in Sascha’s company.
When Per Duoml, Prince Phanibal Shimaz, and two other minor officials, one of them the accommodations officer, arrived to settle the minor details, Dave Lehardt had another presentation that altered the proceedings. Rhyssa, sitting with Max Perigeaux, Gordie Havers, and Lance Baden, found the meeting eminently satisfying.
Showing the accurate fatality statistics—figures that bleached all color from the faces of Duoml and the prince—Dave Lehardt talked knowledgeably of some of the “minor” problems that the Talents would be willing to undertake, such as the retrieval of any suited workers experiencing “malfunction of suit jets,” and telepathic contact “with those using short-range com units,” plus monitoring systems; they would also include among the Talents two with broad diagnostic capabilities. Dave pointed out that the savings on skiff fuel and man-hours required for retrieval would more than compensate for the cost of shielding required in Talent accommodations.
Nor was there any discussion about the emergency clause. Lance Baden announced that he was to be Talent liaison with the engineering staff and that was that.
And what were they saying about cowardly capitulations?
Lance commented.
Rhyssa was so weary from accumulated stresses that she experienced no elation at having forced every single concession out of the Padrugoi officials. She wanted nothing more than a quiet supper and some mental peace. Per Duoml had a natural shield, but the other project representatives at the meeting had not, and when their initial euphoria at coercing Talents onto the work force was burst by hard facts and figures and compromises, their emotional responses of anger, horror, and embarrassment had been hard to deflect.
Sascha:
I’ve cleared everyone out of the first floor. Relax!
Rhyssa:
Oh, you are a pet!
Sascha:
Lot of good it does me!
But she knew he was only teasing.
Rhyssa entered the Henner house, appreciative of the deep silence in the elegantly appointed rooms. Very little had been altered from the days of George Henner, the parapsychics’ first benefactor: all had been lovingly preserved in his memory. The subterranean offices, the annexes, and her tower were modern, with state-of-the-art technology, but the main reception rooms were reminders of more leisurely times. The kitchen, where modern appointments were hidden behind old-fashioned cupboards, exuded an aura of comfort—it was spacious, with an archaic but working fireplace, a huge table, and comfortable chairs. The dining portion faced onto the gardens at the rear of the main house, bright with blooms and bushes.
Some thoughtful kinetic had activated the kettle. She made herself a cup of tea, found sandwiches in the crisper, and kicking off her shoes, curled up in one of the wing chairs.
There was something amazingly restorative about looking out onto the garden, watching the flowers move in the light breeze. She set her mind adrift, savoring the quiet, despite the deep-seated nagging presentiment.
“I’m not a precog,” she told herself and sipped her tea. “What I am feeling is just reaction to the last few hectic days. A quite natural depression.”
Then she felt the touch, once again colored with wistfulness and a deep sadness that pierced her to the heart, making her own malaise seem insignificant.
She dared not reach out for fear of startling the boy. Boy he was, and despairing. Had her transitory unease triggered a response from him midday? Or was it his need seeking consolation? What could so desolate a young person? One could endure detached misery—tragedy happening at a distance to people one had never met—but to
feel
the palpitating misery of another person was an intense experience.
Delicately she impinged on the boy’s mind, hoping to gain some clue to his whereabouts. He was dreading something, and the yearning for trees and lawn and flowers and
someplace
that was not hospital had precipitated the nebulous contact. And her mind, less controlled than usual in its weariness, had attracted his. Dreading what? She inserted the question.
The body brace!
Rhyssa had not expected an answer. She tried to keep the lightest of contacts, though, oddly enough, he felt very close at that moment.
Isn’t it meant to help?
she asked cautiously.
It doesn’t. It hurts. It’s artificial, it’s awful. It’s a cage. The bed is bad enough. I don’t want to. I—don’t—want—to!
A wail from the depth of a forlorn and comfortless mind reached her—then it was abruptly cut off.
“We got another one of those surges this afternoon—usually we get ’em at night,” the hospital’s maintenance man said as he held up the printout to the consultant engineer whom the concerned hospital administration had finally called in.
The engineer peered at the peak, a sudden sharp deviation lasting seventy-two seconds. He asked for the other anomalies and was presented with further examples.
“Shouldn’t be any drain on the systems at three-forty-three, three-oh-three, three-fifty-two, or three-thirteen. You’ve checked all the equipment?”
“I put meters on several floors
.
Got a blip on PedOrth Ward Twelve when I was installing it. So I took everything apart on that ward and there wasn’t nothing malfunctioning. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And you know how Admin is when you got outages and anomalies with all them life-support systems hooked up. Funny though, nothing in the ICUs.”
“Okay, screen me your schematics for all the equipment on PedOrth and se what’s being used there.” The engineer sighed heavily—he could see it was going to be one of those days.
A stir around the beds in the circular ward alerted Peter Reidinger, and he blinked away the screen that blocked his view. A very old lady stood in the doorway, Miz Allen hovering with her “you’d-better-behave” look on her face as she glanced around the ward to be sure everything was in order for the visitor.
Instantly Peter’s attention was riveted on the lady. She was different. That became more apparent to him as Miz Allen began to introduce her to the kids in the ward. Cecily even smiled and answered the lady. Cecily was a spina bifida case who “ought” to have been corrected in utero but had not been. Osteomyeitis had caused her to have one leg amputated, and her recovery from that operation was very slow. She rarely opened up to other people—and particularly not to strangers—so her response to the old lady was a minor miracle. Peter was in a sweat of anticipation by the time the lady reached him.
“This is Peter Reidinger, Ms. Horvath.” The way Miz Allen cocked her right eyebrow told Peter that he had better behave himself.
Ms. Horvath just smiled down at him, her eyes twinking, and they were not at all old, or rheumy, or hard. He wondered she let herself look so old.
I promised my husband that I would grow old gracefully,
she startled him by saying.
That way I wouldn’t surprise people so much when I don’t act my age.
Peter goggled at her. She had not moved her lips—and yet he had heard her voice clearly in his mind.
“Peter . . .” Miz Allen prompted him.
“Pleased ta meetcha!” Peter managed to get out. Miz Allen cleared her throat warningly.
“Thank you, Mrs. Allen, I’ll just chat a bit with Peter,” Dorotea Horvath said, pulling a chair to Peter’s bedside and dismissing Miz Allen in a manner that astounded the boy.
Miz Allen doesn’t really believe in telepathy and Talents. And we just haven’t had the chance to go around the pediatric wards lately. So we missed you.
“Missed me?”
Dorotea smiled again, a smile that was magical because it seemed to envelop Peter with warmth and caring. The hard knot of self-pity and resentment that had been building up at the thought of another body-brace session dispersed.