Pegasus in Flight

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Do you have the area on video?”

  “I do—the whole yard.”

  “Relay it to this screen immediately,” she ordered. Dorotea, bring Peter to my office. We’ve got to try to help. They’re patching through the image.

  Dorotea: Dare we?

  Rhyssa: We’ll never know unless we do. Lives are at stake. He’s got the potential, and he’s done well enough already with bulky, heavy things.

  Dorotea: That’s halfway across the city. But . . . all right. I’ll have Peter there in a dash.

  Sascha and Rhyssa kept their eyes on the screen, which was showing the container, the hoist cables at one end of it still whipping in backlash. It had come down askew across a small forklift, the sturdy frame of which was keeping it from crushing the driver and two men who had been working near him. The Talents could see the dangling arm of one man pinned at one side, the feet of a second protruding under one corner—and nothing at all of the driver.

  “Why did that hoist cable part, Mr. Gaskin?” Rhyssa asked calmly. “Surely you checked all your equipment before you put it in use again.” She deliberately made herself sound censorious.

  The office door opened and Dorotea and Peter entered; Peter’s eyes went immediately to the screen.

  “If your goddamned Center hadn’t pulled our kinetic,” Gaskin exploded, “this wouldn’t have—Holy hell! How’d you get someone here this quick?”

  Rhyssa, Dorotea, and Sascha held their breath as they watched the long unwieldy mass of the container slowly rise off the crumbled forklift, revealing the driver slumped across his controls and another man sprawled flat on the ground while the third staggered to his feet, holding his injured arm. They were also aware of a humming that they could feel through the floorboards of Rhyssa’s office. The hum peaked off as the container was lowered carefully to the waiting truck loadbed.

  “Bravo, Peter, beautifully done! Magnificent!” Rhyssa said—and then she saw him crumpled on the floor. “Oh, Lord! Did you strain yourself, love?”

  Sascha reached the boy before she did, lifting him gently and depositing him on Rhyssa’s conformable chair, which instantly altered to fit the boy’s limp body.

  “Will the men be all right?” Peter wanted to know, his white face contorted with anguish. They were hurting bad.

  “More to the point, young man,” Sascha said, frowning, “are you all right?” Don, get up here on the double!

  “By God, ma’am, how’d you do that?” Bob Gaskin cried. The Port Authority manager was mopping his face with shaking hands.

  “You haven’t been completely abandoned by Talent, Mr. Gaskin. We have a skeleton crew”—Sascha’s image of Peter’s frail form, bony structure emphasized, made it very hard for Rhyssa to keep her features composed—“which we can throw into gear for emergencies of this nature. Do please now overhaul your equipment. We don’t have the manpower for unnecessary accidents, you know.” She ignored Sascha’s exaggerated grimace as she saw medics rushing to assist the injured men as a Southside heli-amb landed nearby. “Good morning, Mr. Gaskin.

  “We’ll check in with Southside General Hospital later, Peter,” Rhyssa assured the boy.

  “After Don’s checked you out, young man,” Dorotea added, “though your concern for the men does you credit.”

  I know we had to, Rhyssa, Sascha said on a tight band to Rhyssa, but should we have?

  Rhyssa made a face. Hobson’s choice, Sascha. We maintain an official position of the skeleton crew. By the way, don’t do that to me again real soon, huh?

  Sascha rolled his eyes, expressing remorse but no reassurance. I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to hang that lie, so would you get all uptight if I tried to follow his mind’s thrust when he’s lifting? I didn’t realize how quickly he’s emerging to full use of his Talent.

  No, after this exhibition of Peter’s ability, I was about to ask you if you could spare some time to work with him. I need your insight, since you’re more expert at training. If we could duplicate the gestalt, even our featherweights could move containers.

  “Okay, who’s done what to whom now?” Don Usenik demanded as he entered the room. He looked around, then spotted the wan Peter on Rhyssa’s chair. “What have you been doing? Moving mountains?”

  “Which do you want first? The good news, or the bad news?” Dave Lehardt asked Rhyssa a week later.

  She could tell nothing from his expression—the look of his eyes was curiously intent on her face. He might not be a Talent, but he was unusually astute at picking up minute body-language signs. She was so glad to see him that she really did not care what news he brought, but she followed his cue.

  “The bad!”

  “Barchenka is certain you’ve been holding out on her. She’s heard that you have a team of kinetic Talents that are not on your official register. She’s about to create a stink. And I have to tell you that I’ve heard some mighty peculiar rumors circulating.”

  Rhyssa laughed. “We’re not holding out on her—Talents can’t. Telempaths can always detect a lie. She has Russian telempaths on her payroll. Tell her to ask them. What’s the good news?”

  Dave Lehardt raised one eyebrow in a skeptical arch. “The polls are again favorable to the Talented. When businesses employing them had to cope with old-fashioned ways, Talent popularity hit a fifty-year low—worse even than after the Hawaiian volcano disaster—even though everyone was pro-Padrugoi and everyone, meaning the Talents, was doing their share. Seems that this nonexistent team of yours has provided emergency services. Only no Talent has been observed on the scene.”

  “It’s a remote technique that we’ve been developing for emergency situations,” Rhyssa said, schooling her face to reveal nothing. It was not that she did not trust Dave Lehardt, but she wanted to protect Peter. “And it’s the one reason we felt we could strip all our Centers of kinetics to help Padrugoi.”

  “A remote technique?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No Talent I’ve spoken to knows anything about it.”

  “I said it was remote,” Rhyssa repeated, struggling to keep amusement out of her voice. “Not something we want to go public on just yet. I’m sure you can appreciate that!”

  “So Ludmilla can’t get her hands on it?”

  “She’s coerced almost every kinetic we have onto Padrugoi. She’s got sufficient numbers and skills right now to finish her work on schedule. She shouldn’t get greedier!”

  “She wants to come in under schedule, and the way your Talents are working, she could.”

  “Is a bonus involved in early completion?” Rhyssa was annoyed. Damn the woman to a disintegrating orbit!

  “Didn’t you know?” Dave Lehardt seemed surprised.

  “I heard a great deal about penalties and a completion bonus, but strangely enough, nothing was said, or even hinted, that early completion was her goal.”

  “I’ll do what I can to squash the rumors—and, if I may be so bold, you should keep that new team out of operation if at all possible. No more cavalry charges to the rescue without warning me, huh? Please?”

  That was very sound advice, which Rhyssa intended to follow. Since the emergency lift, she had been chary of using Peter’s skill. It just took too much out of his not-so-sturdy body. He was strengthening himself daily—exercising was becoming almost an obsession with him. But she was still rigorously restricting the use of his Talent to life-threatening situations in the Jerhattan area, which, fortunately, were few. Meanwhile, in the ongoing training sessions, he was using fax placement photos to send items to other Centers.

  “I can follow his thoughts all the way,” Sascha told Rhyssa after a week of linking minds with Peter during those exercises. “I can even feel the vibrations of the generator in his cerebrum, but how he effects the gestalt is still beyond me. And, as nearly as I can tell, he’s relying less and less on the power. At least for light stuff.”

  “If he keeps on this way, maybe Lance is right,” Rhyssa remarked. “Plug him int
o a powerful enough source and he could probably obviate the need for Padrugoi.”

  Sascha blinked, then projected a series of images depicting Barchenka’s expression, the consternation on the egg-splattered faces of the space station’s major supporters, and one small boy sending out starships the way children his age launched paper planes. The last and largest image was of Sascha himself, elongated mouth wide open, chin to his chest. “Could he?”

  Rhyssa laughed, rolling her eyes. “I won’t say he couldn’t. But you know as well as I do that all Talent has limitations. Now is not the time to put any sort of pressure on Peter. He’s such a happy boy now.”

  “We can thank God he is!” His mental picture was of himself, patiently controlling the lovelorn Madlyn Luvaro, huge wads of cotton wool in his ears.

  Rhyssa retorted with an image of stray forkfuls of potato festooning his office. “A kinetic has far more options than a telepath!”

  “He’s easier to keep happy than Madlyn ever was, too,” Sascha said, stretching his long legs. “The odd traffic snarl or two a day, and he feels he’s worth his keep. Which reminds me, I’ve had some pretty pointed remarks from industrial VIPs lately about this remote team of ours. My answer is that we’ve managed to combine the trainees with an experienced featherweight to achieve the necessary heft, but the application is limited due to the extreme youth of the participants.”

  Rhyssa sighed. “That old tangled-web routine, huh?”

  Sascha quirked an eyebrow. “Favoring Shakespeare? Thought your family ran to Popery.”

  Rhyssa laughed, envisioning her illustrious grandsire, Daffyd op Owen, as she remembered him, tall, silver-haired, slender, with the face of a poet and the chin of an Italian prince. “Sometimes the Bard fits better. Which industrialists have asked?”

  “Nail on the head, girl. Every one of them supplies something to Padrugoi! And, as you know, there’ve been delays in getting materiel up to the station, weather problems mainly, with all those freak storms messing up launch windows.”

  Rhyssa frowned and, in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness, flipped a stylus end over end. “Lifesaving, yes; and with the technique he’s been showing over distances, I think he probably could launch a drone up to Padrugoi through any sort of weather. But there’s no way Peter’s going to help secure her bonus or prevent her fines.”

  Sascha grinned. “I won’t mention the possibility of such fun and games to him, you spoilsport.” He threw her an image of him hastily raising a solid barrier against the barbs emerging from her eyes. “She couldn’t hire him anyway. He’s only fourteen. Underage, even under existing Russian law!”

  Rhyssa let out a low whistle, then grinned. “Yes, he is a minor, isn’t he? And Dorotea reminded me that he’s been working pretty hard with you. Tomorrow he has a day off. And I’ve got all these files—” She gestured resignedly at the stacks on the edge of her desk. “Testing reports to go through.”

  “Why don’t you take a night off?” Sascha suggested, grinning drolly. “With Dave.”

  Rhyssa sat bolt upright, closing her mind.

  “Honey, I don’t have to peek,” he told her.

  Rhyssa groaned. “He’s not a Talent.”

  “There’s no law in the Charter that says you have to marry Talent, you know.”

  “But that’s the way to increase . . .”

  “Yeah, and where did Peter Reidinger come from? I think sometimes, my dear friend,” he said, leaning over the desk toward her, “we have to look with our eyes instead of our heads. Just thought I ought to mention it. Dave’s the best friend Talent’s got.”

  “It’s not up to me, Sascha,” Rhyssa added, feeling uncomfortable for the first time in her old friend’s presence.

  “Could be. Maybe not. Lehardt’s clever enough to do his own promo work.” With that Sascha left her.

  As Tirla entered the Main Concourse of Linear G, she sensed an aura of excitement, telling her that something was about to happen to relieve the tedium of Linear living. As always, there were some general workers scurrying to the Plaza to see if the WorkBoard was scrolling out any jobs for able-bodieds, concerned with getting enough day work to keep out of Conscriptive Work Services. No self-respecting Linearite wanted to be sent on a hard-labor tour or, worse, spaced out to the shipyards around the Big Wheel. Few CWS ever earned a return ticket. And now even the Talents were not exempt. So most of the little knots of excited people were composed of women.

  Tirla edged close enough to a group of Hispanics to pick up the drift.

  “He lay hands on . . .”

  “Church is always lo mismo . . . The singing is bad.”

  “My Juan now . . . when he is reminded of the purity of the Virgin, he doesn’t beat me for a day or two . . .”

  “The true man of God provides food for the soul . . .”

  Tirla snorted to herself. Food for the soul was not high on her priorities when her belly was empty.

  “I have heard,” Consuela Laguna was saying earnestly, “that if he lays hands on the lame, he cures.” Consuela’s son was handicapped beyond remedy or repair, but she remained positive that somehow, sometime, her Manuelito would be restored to health by some new miracle treatment, and she was always asking Tirla to translate the medical bulletins for her.

  So, Tirla thought, a Religious Event had been unexpectedly scheduled for Linear G. That was odd. The Public Health meeting had been only four weeks earlier. It was true that there had not been an RE in a long time, but still she was suspicious. Two specials within four weeks?

  She moved on to the next group, all Neesters from the Levant, and they were babbling about how they could get their men to attend that night instead of adjourning to Mahmoud’s squat to see his new belly dancer. Then she slipped around to an Asian gaggle who were chattering excitedly about cures and whether the RE would be bad for business. Asians provided ancient remedies for the many minor ailments that beset those in the warreny Residentials.

  “He has come as promised . . .” she heard as she slid up to Mama Bobchik. The old woman’s black eyes were wide; her cheeks a mottled glowing red of excitement. “You come, too, dushka,” she said, catching Tirla’s arm. “You must tell us his words, exactly. The last time I could not hear what was said, and my soul is black with sin.”

  “Nakonetz,” Tirla agreed easily. Most Religious Interpreter Groups generally said nothing, in the most ornamented phraseology. She could amuse herself by anticipating the trite phrases and flowery words. “So the Assembly extension was granted after all?” she asked, eager to maintain her reputation of knowing all that went on in the Linear.

  “Da, eto tak!” Mama Bobchik happily reassured her. “My man was sent word to prepare late last night.” Argol Bobchik was one of the Linear’s sanitary engineers. “The word is that this Religious is all-seeing,” Mama babbled on, “with an excellent backup group. They were well received at Linear P. Early as it is, already this morning many traders have booked space. It will be an occasion. We have not had religion here in G for some months. We are all in need of guidance. The souls of many are dark with sin and must be purged.”

  Tirla nodded solemnly. Mama Bobchik was certainly old enough to be facing a mystic accounting of the sins on her soul. Too bad no LEO man would be there to hear it.

  But how had Tirla missed such a juicy rumor? Maybe it had been decided very late the previous night. At any rate, the presence of traders would make it easier for her to wash the tied credits for the Yassim man. She shuddered at the thought of him. She did not like to hold onto his money too long. Not that he had any reason to distrust her—she just wanted to make certain he never did. Especially if he suspected she was close to salable age. She was small and thin enough to pass for the nine years she admitted to. Someday someone would count fingers on her. From time to time she thought about what she would do then—and tried to keep enough floaters stuck inside her blouse at all times so that she could flee to another Linear if she had to. She had even managed to get her hands on
a highly illegal copy of the cargo-train schedules and had found her way to the nearest access points to the subterranean concourse to eyeball escape routes.

  Deftly disengaging herself from Mama Bobchik’s fat fingers, she moved on to the Pakis, who were chattering about bringing in some relatives from Linear E and arguing over the advisability of such a move. Some insisted that, since the extension was legal, there would be no risk. Then Mirda Khan—a person Tirla was always careful to please—came up and quickly dismissed such stupid generosity.

  “The blessings of such a Lama would be few,” Mirda muttered in an intense and angry tone just audible to those around her, “for he cannot waste his holy strength on the trivial. Such as he would be gracious enough to dispense must be for us, here, in Linear G. For us,” she said again, poking her thin breastbone with a broad flat thumb, “the true believers, his faithful in Linear G.”

  “The Very Revered Ponsit Prosit has been at Linear P,” one of the other women murmured reverently. “Pandit heard of the miracles he performed.”

  Tirla was skeptical of miracles for, on close inspection, there were always alternate explanations for healings and savings and revelations. But they were fun to delve.

  “Then we save such for ourselves!” Mirda replied fiercely, defying contradiction. Suddenly she spun around, somehow aware of being the object of scrutiny—but Tirla was quicker, moving to flatten herself against the Concourse pillar. She had heard enough anyhow and left.

  So this Religious Interpreter, this RIG, had a reputation? As Tirla was quite aware, it took a real clever talker to keep from violating the variety of complex doctrines in a Linear. This Ponsit Prosit might well be worth listening to—and watching closely. In her precarious situation, Tirla was always open to pointers.

  If the whole thing was legit. She mulled over the probables as she ducked into side aisles before coming out again onto the Main Concourse, far enough away from the Pakis to be screened by other groups. Then she glanced up at the nearest publi-text screen. She watched through the usual notices and announcements until it scrolled down to 2200 hours, where a legal extension for use of the Assembly was posted, with trading and drinking permitted.