Authors: Anne McCaffrey
“Were you aware of anything, Red?” Daffyd asked.
“Not at first. Then only Amalda’s surprise. I looked up and saw the waiters grabbing her. But before I could get across the room, Harold had acted.” There was admiration on Vaden’s face for the maneuver. “I should apologize to the guy. I think we got things quieted down before any of the convention crowd got wise.”
“After the attempt were you aware of Roznine’s mind, Amalda?”
“Not until we were leaving the hall.” She closed her eyes. “He said ‘I’ll get you. The next time I’ll get you.”
Daffyd looked questioningly at Red who shook his head.
Had you ever received words before, Amolda?
Daffyd asked.
Amalda looked at him startled and then shook her head, smiling shyly. “Only from you. Before now.” She was aware of his concern. “That’s bad, ain’t it?” she asked, her soft southern inflection intensifying her regret.
“Not necessarily. We have a problem,” he began, choosing his words carefully. “We know that Roznine would like to … get you, Amalda, to accomplish his own ends which, knowing your capability, must be illegal control of men’s emotions. We have to assume he’s been trying to locate you. We must also assume that he may not realize that Bruce is part of your ability. And that’s a link that can and will protect you, Amalda.” Daffyd reinforced that notion with a stern telepathic voice. “Roznine couldn’t succeed in kidnapping you today, could he? Well, he damned well won’t be able to anywhere else either.”
“You can’t be sure of that, Daffyd,” she said in a very small scared voice.
“I don’t intend to put it to the test Amalda,” Daffyd continued smoothly, smiling at the apprehensive girl, “but kindly remember that you have successfully eluded him twice now. Once by running away and hiding—successfully. And today by direct action against his agents.”
Amalda slowly nodded her head in agreement.
“Now, while Roznine is keen to get his hands on you, we … and I include the Commissioner … are very anxious to get Roznine.”
It was Bruce Vaden who stiffened and looked with an intensity dose to hatred at Daffyd op Owen. The telepath returned that look calmly, knowing in that exchange that Vaden understood the implication even if Amalda didn’t.
“Roznine is obviously a latent Talent. We know he fits minds with Amalda. We don’t know what else he can do, and he is in a peculiarly sensitive position in the ethnic situation of this city: in a position to do a lot of damage or a lot of good. We can’t push him too far and we can’t let him go. We do want him, preferably on his own initiative as you did, to come to the Center. You know what it’s like to have an unmanageable Talent …”
Daffyd was speaking more to Bruce Vaden than Amalda but it was the girl who answered.
“It’s awful … awful lonely, awful wonderful.” She gave Daffyd a smile, tremulous, and though she held her chin up in an attitude of confidence, he could see the indecision and fear of her mind.
“Now,” he went on briskly, “in using the Waiters Union to snag you, Roznine has put us in a difficult position: we can easily use the Professional Immunity Act to protect you but that would necessitate your appearance in court. And believe me, everyone interested in our cover agents would be there to identify you. Your team usefulness would decrease …”
“Does
Amalda
have to appear in court?” asked Red suddenly.
“Well, yes. Oh, I see what you mean,” and Daffyd started to grin. He managed to keep his smile normal despite what he had read in Bruce Vaden’s mind under the cover of the constructive suggestion. “Very good point. Two ways. Yes, I suppose we could make Amalda up to look different.… or we could have a stand-in for her. In that case, Amalda would have to be physically
present because Roznine would be there and he’d know if she weren’t present, which could score against us if an EEG reading is requested by the prosecution. Hmmm. Good notion.”
“What can Roznine hope to achieve by forcing us into court?” asked Red. He was trying to cover his earlier thoughts before they became apparent to Daffyd. Present now was a thread of hopelessness, a presentiment that the intense happiness and rapport that Bruce Vaden had enjoyed with Amalda was to be sundered: too good to last. Daffyd could only answer the spoken question.
“Now that has me stumped,” he said, and meant it on several levels.
“Stand-in?” Gillings appeared to reject the stratagem instantly and just as abruptly, he frowned thoughtfully. “Why? You don’t think anyone would be crazy enough to try and snatch Amalda in court, do you? Although …” he glanced over at the windows, “the atmosphere is damned unstable ….”
“I know,” Daffyd agreed. Even during the short copter flight to the LEO Block, he’d been aware of the pervasive “darkness” of the city’s emotional aura. The weather had been miserable, which didn’t help; general employment was down; there’d been the usual complaints about the subsistence-level foods; gripes about the TRI-D programming; nothing out of the ordinary … yet. There might indeed be the makings of a major blow-up.
It would take two weeks for an improvement in the food to have a perceptible effect: TRI-D programming was undoubtedly being altered but even the most perceptive Talents could be fooled over what the public really wanted on the boob tubes. The variety of “circuses” available was almost as infinite as food-tastes and yet one never knew precisely what would satiate the public appetite. Op Owen made a mental note to check all precog rumblings. Strange there hadn’t been any definite Incident
by anyone when such a large population unit was involved.
“Look, op Owen,” Gillings was saying, “I’ve got to have the team available for dot spotting. Particularly right now. And I can’t have them identifiable.”
“Then we send Amalda to the hearing made-up.”
Gillings muttered under his breath about fancy dress and sow’s ears and that suddenly swung round to fix op Owen with a startled glare. Daffyd hadn’t expected to keep Gillings in the dark long.
“Okay, op Owen, what’s behind all this pussy-footing? Who was trying to snatch Amalda at the Morcam Luncheon? Was it the same guy who was at the Fact? Because if it was, left get him and cool him. I need that team operating. And there’s that open charge of riot provocation …”
Op Owen took a deep breath. “I don’t think it would be advisible to cool Roznine.”
“Roznine?”
Gillings exploded from his chair with all the frustrated astonished exasperated impotence of the strong man suddenly discovering himself in an untenable position. “Roznine! Christ, op Owen, do you know what would happen to this city, in the present mood, if I arrested the Pan-Slavic leader?” He fumed on, in much the same vein, for moments more until either Daffyd’s placatory thoughts or his own lack of breath brought a stop to the flow of recriminations.
“I haven’t suggested you arrest Roznine. In fact, that would not only be impolitic but dangerous.”
Gillings glared at him, snapping out one short explosive word. “How?”
“Because Roznine is a latent Talent. That’s what scared Amalda.”
Gillings erupted again, thoroughly enraged. This time the shield of his public mind slipped sufficiently for Daffyd to see past the anger to the panic his confession evoked.
“No!”
Daffyd’s negative, forcible mental as well as audible, carried weight on every level and blocked those
avenues of action which he could perceive Gillings already plotting. “Roznine is contained … at the moment But—this time we don’t force a latent into a position where he can become dangerous to an entire city. I want to avoid another Maggie O far, far more than you do!”
Gillings had no escape from Daffyd’s mind, so op Owen did not relent in the pressure until he was certain of Gillings’s uneasy and resentful cooperation.
“Roznine is no threat to us … yet. But he does threaten Amalda,” Daffyd went on. “That threat is real. It would be stupid,” and he paused to let that word be absorbed, for Gillings was not a stupid man, “to get Roznine so frustrated that additional facets of his Talent—whatever it is—are stimulated.”
Gillings’s face was a study of frustration. He gave vent to a stream of profanity which so delighted and enlightened op Owen that he could ignore the fact that he was the victim of the spiel. But with the avalanche, Gillings recovered his mental equilibrium.
“I told you a couple of months ago that what you guys really need is a law that makes it illegal to conceal Talent.”
Daffyd laughed wryly. “Roznine may be unaware that what he uses is Talenti!”
“Unaware? My effing foot. With all the publicity you guys have been larding the TRI-Ds with, he’s got to know what he is—especially if he’s been playing mental potty-cakes with that Amalda. Op Owen, I don’t need a Roznine in this city! You Talents put him where he belongs and bridle him or lobotomize him or something. Or I’ll invoke whatever law an the books suits me and cool him permanently. I can’t have this city turned into a battlefield. Or have you forgotten Belfast?”
His buzzer winked the urgent red. Gillings raised one fist as if to squash the unit and then, swearing viciously, slapped the toggle open.
“Well?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. Daffyd could almost
see the caller swallowing hastily, probably wishing he didn’t have to continue.
“Commissioner, the lawyers for the WU are here with bail for their members. Do we release them?”
“I want to scan them,” Daffyd said in a swift undertone.
“Delay ’em. Someone’s on the way down from this office. Then permit bail.”
Gillings tossed an oddly designed coat button to op Owen.
“This’ll get you anywhere in the building. And keep it.”
Daffyd thanked the Commissioner, and left. Prowling the LEO offices would not be a frequent pastime: the “neural” noise level was more than a telepath of Daffyd’s sensitivity could bear.
The Waiters Union had sent a battery of lawyers to procure the release of their incarcerated members. They had been shown into a waiting room, just off the main admissions hall of the retention section of the LEO Complex.
Daffyd sauntered by, scanning each man’s mind quickly. What he “heard” he didn’t like, but it confirmed the fact that Roznine was organizing the proceedings. None of these men knew more than his own assignment. But each was moved by an intense desire to complete it expeditiously and successfully or … The “or else” held dark, dire and fearful consquences.
Daffyd returned as quickly as possible to the shielded calm of Gillings’s private eyrie. The Commissioner was absent. Daffyd used the few moments’ respite for some solid thinking.
There were times, he finally concluded, when a man had to operate on the “feel” of things alone. He was not God forfend, a precog, but there were also times when a man simply had to dispense with rational thought and its consequences. Particularly when faced by a free agent
like Roznine who could not be expected to have predictable responses to stimuli and pressures.
The similarities between Roznine and Maggie O were inescapable, but this time Daffyd had a tool and a resolve.
“We’ve been fighting fire with old-fashioned water, Frank,” he said to the Commissioner when the man stalked back into his office. “From now on we use modern methods, foam and tranquilizers.”
“What are you jibbering about?”
“I can’t explain, but will you trust me?”
Gillings glared back at him, but his tight natural shield leaked conflicting emotions of desire-to-believe, distrust, and irritable frustration.
“I goddamn well have to, don’t I? But, goddamn it, Dave, if you Talents don’t contain Roznine …”
“We
can,” and Daffyd op Owen began to grin with utter malice for the underhanded, immoral, unethical use of Talent he was about to invoke. Lester wouldn’t approve either, but then, he didn’t plan to tell Lester Welch.
The stratagem did require the invocation of the Immunity Act. What Daffyd didn’t count on was the hue and cry when the news of the hearing was announced on the media. Suddenly Aaron Greenfield vociferously supported the Waiters’ Union in their outraged cry against Talent abusing unTalented people and hiding behind the law. The Morcam Convention Committee tried to evade any responsibility by claiming that they had not hired a Talent team for their Luncheon … their defense being that
their
convention members were law-abiding peaceful people with no record of violence, so a LEO team was unnecessary and an insult to their good name, etc. Greenfield made political hay of this as well. He’d never been in support of the Immunity Law because “obviously it was a screen for illegal, immoral, unethical invasion of privacy: one more instance of establish-mentarianism and totally unwarranted minority privilege.” “Repeal the Immunity Act; no extraordinary privilege
for minorities!” “Make them Pay Their Own Way! Taxation for all on an equal basis.”
Precogs began to have troubled Incidents. To alter circumstances, the team began wearing disguises, with Amalda and Bruce Vaden both paired to combat-trained LEO men. They were also on twenty-four-hour call, hopping from one gathering to another, trying to forestall explosions—usually at rallies designed to bring their own downfall. Twice Amalda felt Roznine’s mind searching for hers. She’d break off all broadcasting and the team would leave that area instantly.
The weather remained unseasonably hot and humid. There were unprecedented foul-ups in the food supply and a heavy drain on the power sources necessitated cuts of the entertainment circuits. More trouble.
Roznine’s strategem also suffered from his zealousness. On the day of the hearing, there were so many people wanting to attend this test of the Immunity Act that he couldn’t possibly have attempted a kidnapping. The press of hopeful attendees provided the LEO officials with an excuse to be selective and, naturally, the audience was conveniently packed with out-of-town Talents whom Daffyd had invited. Sensitives at the Court Block entrance tipped the LEO men off whom to exclude and the Pan-Slavic contingent was decimated. In the wake of the prosecuting force, Roznine was admitted in his capacity as Pan-Slavic leader since one of the waiters was his ethnic. It was the first opportunity Daffyd op Owen had had to get a good look at the man and he was somewhat surprised by Roznine’s physical appearance. Daffyd would have liked to “scan” him but the emotional aura of the courtroom made that mentally and physically impossible. The telepath pondered on the subconscious impressions he’d been receiving from Gillings and Amalda, for Roznine was a perfectly presentable, personable looking chap, quietly dressed in a moderately expensive tunic, his heavy head of black hair cut to his shoulders and his
thick black moustache trimmed to join the sideburns, leaving the rest of the strong face bare. Roznine took a seat by the wall and turned for a careful survey of those already seated.