Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” he said then. He looked curiously at her. “Is there some special significance to the time you arrive there?”

  “Not to me so much,” Telzey said. “But I just remembered—today’s my birthday. I’m sixteen, and the family wants me to be home for the party.”

  1972

  CHILD OF THE GODS

  Telzey found that being under someone else’s control wasn’t pleasant . . . but the question was, who is controlling whom?

  I

  The ivory gleam of the Jadel Tower, one of the great inner city hotels, appeared ahead and to the left beneath the flow of the traffic lanes. The urge became now to turn out of the lane and go to the Jadel Tower; and there was a momentary impression that on arriving there she would be directed to set the car down on a terrace of the tall structure. Telzey tensed slowly. If she could hold out against any one specific command, she might be able to loosen the entire set of controls. She kept the car on lane course.

  The urge simply grew stronger. The psi hold on her was crude and incomplete, but whoever had obtained it knew what he was doing and had force to spare. In seconds, her muscles began to tremble, and sweat started out on her face. She gave in abruptly. The Cloudsplitter dropped out of traffic, went slanting down. She settled back in the seat, sighing. Let him get the impression she’d resigned herself to what was happening. She knew he hadn’t invaded enough of her mind so far to be able to read her thoughts.

  Moments later, the car moved clear of the main traffic—and now she should act at once before he realized she was about to attempt escape by a different route! She pushed the door open suddenly, tried to thrust herself out of the car.

  Tried to. She felt a start of surprise on his side, then an instant painful clenching of her muscles, which held her frozen in position on the seat. After a moment, her arm flexed slowly, drew the door shut, locked it.

  A flick of sardonic approval came from him. He’d guessed what she intended, checked her just in time . . . and, for the moment, she’d run out of tricks and would have to patiently wait for a new opportunity to come along.

  She let herself relax physically. Mentally, tension remained. Not only to keep the other psi from increasing the advantage he held—if he gave her any kind of opening, she might still be able to jar him enough to shake him off. So far he’d been careful. In the two hours since she first encountered him, she’d gained hardly any impression of his personality, none at all of his purpose. She’d been at ease, doing a casual telepathic scan of whatever happened to touch her attention as she rested, half napping, when she sensed an unfamiliar pattern, a light, drifting, gentle awareness. Wondering what manner of creature was producing it—something small and fluffy and friendly seemed to fit—Telzey reached out toward the gentleness. But that appeared to cause alarm; it faded to a trace, almost vanished. So it had psi sense, too! Intrigued, she approached again, gradually and reassuringly. This time, whatever it was didn’t withdraw; after a moment, it seemed to be responding to her.

  Then, in a flash, she knew that this was no natural impression but a trick, that while her defenses were relaxed, her attention distracted, a stealthy intrusion of her mind had begun. Instantly, she threw in every block she could to check the invader-nothing small and fluffy and friendly, but a human psi, a dangerously accomplished one. Her reaction kept him from taking complete control of her then and there, as he otherwise should have done. But she couldn’t do much else, however furiously she fought to break the holds he’d secured, or to reach his mind in turn. He’d already established control enough to leave her effectively helpless; and when she realized it, she stopped struggling, though she continued to watch for any momentary weakening of the control pattern or any move on his part to extend it.

  There were no indications of either. She discovered next that she couldn’t get outside help. She was unable to inform anyone of her predicament; it was simply impossible. She had to act as if nothing had happened. For a while, there was no significant change in that situation. Then came an impulse to get out her car and start toward the center of Orado City, and she couldn’t prevent herself from following the impulse. She knew he was making her come to him, and presently that he waited somewhere in the Jadel Tower. But after he canceled her attempt to jump out of the car and let the dropcatch system immobilize her, there was no way she could keep from going there.

  Unless he slipped up at the last moment . . .

  He didn’t slip up. The Jadel Tower drifted closer; his controls remained locked on her mind,’ incomplete but adequate, and if it was causing him any stress to hold them, there was nothing to show it. She turned the Cloudsplitter toward a parking terrace at around the fiftieth level. A dozen private cars stood on it; a few people were moving about them. She set her car down in an empty slot, left the engine idling, unlocked the door on the driver’s side, and shifted over to the adjoining seat.

  A few seconds later, the car door opened. A man settled himself in the driver’s seat and closed the door. Telzey looked over at him as the Cloudsplitter lifted back into the air.

  His face was a featureless blur to her—he was covering up. Otherwise, she saw him clearly. He appeared to be fairly young, was of medium size, athletically built. And no one she knew.

  The blurred face turned toward her suddenly. Telzey sensed no specific order but only the impulse to shift sideways on the car seat and put her hands behind her back. She felt him fasten her wrists together with light cuffs. Then she was free to resume her previous position and discovered that meanwhile the view outside the car also had blurred for her, as had the instrument console.

  It reassured her somewhat. If he didn’t want her to know what he looked like, or where she was being taken, he must expect that she’d be alive and able to talk after this business was over. She settled back in the seat and waited.

  Perhaps half an hour went by. Telzey remained wary, but while the mental hold the strange psi had on her didn’t relax in the least, he didn’t try to develop it. At last, he set the car down, shut off the engine and opened the door on his side. Suddenly, she could see her surroundings again, though what she saw wasn’t very revealing. They were in a carport; beyond it spread a garden with trees, a small lawn, some flowering shrubbery. Patches of white-clouded sky showed above the trees; nothing else.

  The man, face still a blur, walked around the car and opened the door on her side.

  “Get out, please!” The voice was quiet, not at all menacing. He helped her climb out of the car, then took her by the elbow and guided her to a door in the back of the carport. He unlocked it, motioned her into a passage and locked the door behind them. “This way—”

  She sensed a psi-block around them which might enclose the entire building. The appearance of the passage suggested it was a private residence. Probably the home of her kidnapper.

  The blurred face said from behind her, “You did intend to jump from your car back there, didn’t you?” She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Aerial littering!” He sounded amused. “If you’d alerted the dropcatch system and been picked up by a sprintcar or barrier, you’d have found yourself in rather serious trouble! Rehabilitation’s almost the automatic sentence for a city jumper.”

  Telzey said impatiently, “I could have got out of that. But I’d have been kept under investigation for three or four days, with no way to get to you, whatever I tried. I don’t think you could have held on to me for three or four days.”

  “Not even for one!” he agreed. “It was a good move—but it didn’t work.”

  “Am I going to be told why I’m here?”

  “You’ll be told very quickly,” he assured her, stopping to open another door. The room beyond was sizable and windowless, gymnastic equipment set up in it. The man followed Telzey inside. “We haven’t been acquainted long,” he remarked, “but I’ve already discovered it’s best not to take chances with you! Let’s get you physically immobilized before we start talking.”

 
A few minutes later, she stood between two uprights near the center of the room. There were cuffs on her wrists again, but now her arms were stretched straight out to either side, held by straps attached to the cuffs and fastened at the other end to the uprights. It was a strained position which might soon become painful.

  “This is a psi-blocked house, as you probably know,” his voice said from behind her. “And it’s mine. We won’t be disturbed here.”

  Telzey nodded. “All right. We won’t be disturbed. So now, who are you and what do you want?”

  “I haven’t decided yet to tell you who I am. You see, I need the help of another psi. A telepath.”

  “I’m to help you with what?”

  “That’s something else I may tell you later. I’ll have to make sure first that I can use you. Not every telepath would do, by any means.”

  “You think I might?” Telzey said. “If I weren’t almost sure of it, I wouldn’t have hung on to you,” he told her dryly. “You gave me a rather bad time, you know! If I’d realized how much trouble you were going to be, I doubt I’d have tackled you in the first place. But that’s precisely why you should turn out to be the kind of dependable assistant I want. However, I can’t say definitely until you let me take over all the way.”

  “Would you do that, in my place?” Telzey asked.

  “Yes—if I were aware of the alternatives.”

  She kept her voice even. “What are they?”

  “Why, there’re several possibilities. Drugs, for example. But I suspect they’d have to depress your psi function to the point where I couldn’t operate on it. So we’ll pass up drugs. Then I might be able to break your remaining blocks by sheer force—after all, I did manage to clamp a solid starting hold on you. But force could do you serious mental harm, and since you’d be of no use to me then, I’d try it only as a last resort. There’s a simple approach I can follow which should be effective enough. See if you can use your pain shutoffs.”

  Telzey said after a moment, “I . . . well, I seem to have forgotten how to do it.”

  “I know,” his voice said. “I was able to block that from your awareness before you noticed what was happening. So you don’t have that defense at present—and now I’ll let you feel pain.”

  There was a sudden intolerable cramping sensation in her left arm. She jerked violently. The feeling faded again.

  “That was a low-intensity touch,” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard of such devices. As long as their use is confined to arms and legs, they can’t kill or do significant damage, but the effect can be excruciating. I know somebody I could bring to the house in a few minutes who’d be eager to help me out in this because he likes to hurt people. If you were being jolted constantly as I jolted you just now, I doubt you could spare enough concentration to hold up your blocks against me. Because there’d be nothing to distract me, you see! I could give full attention to catching any momentary weakening of your defenses, and I’d say it would be at most an hour then before I had complete control. But meanwhile you would have had an acutely uncomfortable experience for no purpose at all. Don’t you agree?”

  Unfortunately, she did. She said, “Let me think about it.”

  “Fair enough,” he told her. “I happen to be in something of a hurry, but I’d much sooner settle this without any unpleasantness.”

  “How long would it take to help you in whatever it is you want to do?” Telzey asked.

  “Perhaps four or five days. A week at most.”

  “You’ll let me go when it’s finished?”

  “Of course,” he said reassuringly. “I’d have no reason to keep you under control any longer.”

  That might be a lie. But a good deal could happen in four or five days, and if he was to make use of her as a psi, he’d have to leave her some freedom of action. “All right,” she said. “I’ll give up the blocks.”

  “How do you feel?” his voice asked presently.

  “My arms are beginning to hurt.” He hadn’t released her from the uprights and he was still somewhere in the room behind her where she couldn’t see him.

  “I didn’t mean that,” he told her. “You’re aware of the changes in you?”

  Telzey sighed. “Oh, yes. I know how I felt before you started.”

  “And now?”

  She reflected. “Well . . . I’ll do anything you tell me to do, of course, or try to. If you haven’t given me specific instructions, I’ll do whatever is to your advantage. That’s more important now than anything else.”

  “More important than your life?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know it’s not at all sensible, but it is more important than my life.”

  “Not a bad start!” There was satisfaction in his voice. “You’re aware of the manner in which you’re controlled?”

  She shook her head. “If I were, I might know how to break the controls. That wouldn’t be to your advantage. So I can’t be aware of it.”

  “How do you feel about the situation?”

  Telzey considered again. “I don’t seem to have much feeling about it. It’s the situation, that’s all.”

  “And that’s also as it should be,” his voice said. “I noticed you have connections with the Psychology Service, but if you keep your shield tight—as you will—that won’t be a problem. So aside from a few additional modifications, which I’ll take care of presently, we’ll consider the job done. Let’s get you out of those cuffs.”

  She was freed a moment later and turned to look at him, rubbing her arms. He was smiling down at her, face no longer a blur. It was an intelligent and rather handsome face but not one to which she’d feel drawn under ordinary circumstances. Of course, that didn’t matter now.

  “I make it a rule,” he remarked, “to use psi only when necessary. It lessens the chance of attracting undesirable attention. We’ll observe that rule between us. For example, we don’t talk on the thought level when verbal communication is possible. Understood?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Fine. Let’s have some refreshments, and I’ll explain why I want your help. My name is Alicar Troneff, by the way.”

  “Should you be telling me your name?” Telzey asked. “That is, if it’s your real one.”

  He smiled. “It’s my real name. Why not? Federation law doesn’t recognize human psi ability, so this is hardly a matter on which you could take me to court. And the Psychology Service makes it a rule to let independent psis settle their own differences. Your friends there might interfere if they knew what was happening, but they’ll take no steps later on.”

  “I might tell them Alicar Troneff is a psi, though,” Telzey remarked.

  He grimaced. “Unfortunately, they already have me on record as one! It’s made some of my operations more difficult, but I have ways of getting around that obstacle.”

  Over plates of small cakes and a light tart drink in a room overlooking the garden, Alicar came up at last with some limited information. “You know what serine crystals are?” he inquired.

  Telzey nodded.

  “A fossil deposit,” she said. “Mined on Mannafra, I think. The cosmetic industry uses it.”

  “Correct on all counts! I located a serine bed last year, acquired rights to the area and brought mining equipment in to Mannafra to extract the crystals. It isn’t a large mine, but it could easily produce enough to meet all my financial requirements for the next dozen years. I went back to Mannafra two days ago after an absence of several months and discovered I had a problem at the mine. I need a telepath with high probe sensitivity to investigate it further for me. You should be perfect in that role.”

  She looked at him. “A psi problem?”

  “Psi seems to be involved. I won’t tell you what I noticed, or think I noticed, because I want your unbiased opinion.”

  “And you think an investigation might be dangerous,” Telzey added. “Or you’d do it yourself.”

  Alicar smiled. “That’s possible. I’ve told you as much as you ne
ed to know at this stage. You’re to think of some good reason now for being absent from Orado for about a week, and, of course, you’ll avoid arousing anybody’s curiosity. We’ll leave in my private cruiser whenever you’re ready. How long will it take you to make the arrangements?”

  She shrugged. “A few hours. We can start this afternoon if you like. Anything special I should take along?”

  “The kind of clothing you’d want in a desert climate with a wide range of temperature,” Alicar said. “We might be going outdoors—at least, you might be. I’ll take care of everything else.”

  He added, “One other thing before you go. While I was setting up my controls, I checked over a few of your past experiences and realized belatedly that I’d taken more of a chance in trapping you than I’d thought. It seems that if I’d made any mistake in that initial encounter, I might have been fortunate to get away with my life!”

  Telzey nodded. “Perhaps. If I could have reached you, I’d have slammed you with everything I had.”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m going to install a prohibition against your use of psi bolts, and another one against your techniques for controlling others as I control you at present.”

  “But why?” she said, startled. “I might need all I know if I’m to handle a psi problem, and particularly a dangerous one, for you. I wouldn’t use anything against you now. I couldn’t!”

  Alicar’s handsome face hardened, and became thereby rather ugly.

  “Probably not,” he said. “But I had to leave considerable flexibility in the control patterns to let you function satisfactorily, and there might be moments when my overall hold on you will become a little lax. I’m making sure there’ll be no disagreeable surprises at such moments! If a situation calls for it, I can always rearm you—but I’ll be the judge of that. You’ll go blank now on what happens during the next few minutes.”

  II