Star Science Fiction 6 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Frederik Pohl

  “It’s her life or many,” repeated Prann. “The governor knows that there may be only one solution.”

  “What happened to the colonel?” asked Gordon. He understood that Jill was a pyrophoric; that meant she had burned Forbes and had melted the spotlight on the command car. But he was puzzled about how Forbes had died.

  Prann said, “She TP’d him out of her sight. She can’t teleport any living thing other than herself—not and have it stay alive. Something happens to their organic structure.”

  This was all a disjointed mass of information to Gordon —he did not, could not comprehend it. A little girl with such unbelievable powers!

  “I’ve seen these things that happened tonight. I guess I have to believe them,” Gordon said. “But to lay them to the strange powers of a little girl is a lot to ask a man to digest. There must be some way she can be controlled!”

  Prann was silent for a time, as if taking time to formulate an explanation for Gordon.

  “Gordon, there is only one out—and we have to catch her first. And that will be nearly impossible at our present rate. She is learning and strengthening her powers by the hour. Gordon, relax your mind a moment, will you?”

  There was an abrupt transition. Gordon was startled momentarily. Then he realized he was receiving the thoughts of Prann. More than thoughts—sensations, a living something. ...

  * * * *

  VI

  He was actually seeing things with the help of Prann’s mind.

  The scientist was using his telepathic powers to show him what had happened; through it, Gordon was living a piece of someone else’s life—someone who (Gordon caught himself)—someone who was hardly human!

  First, there was a grayness.

  No—a blackness. Only it wasn’t a blackness; it was colorless, a complete absence of light.

  Then—images began clarifying themselves in Gordon’s mind—then there was an awareness, and the beginnings of impatience. There was heat. And pressure. And stirrings and bumps fromoutside. Outside of what? Gordon couldn’t tell; and the mindless, hardly-human lump he was inhabiting, it didn’t think in those terms. It only knew that there was something outside.

  And it—the lump—wanted to beoutside.

  There was no passage of time, only a seemingly endless series of movements and sounds, that led alternately to fright, and to a rudimentary curiosity. And then—to fury!

  The desire to get outside built up and built up, and—

  Something blasted the senses.

  The warmth and the pressure were gone. There was a cold, violent brightness that lashed the senses unmercifully, and strange sensations beat and mingled. But it was outside—

  The strange yet briefly familiar tenor of thoughts broke off suddenly, and Gordon was looking at Prann.

  “That was the prenatal mind of Jill,” Prann said. “Jill wanted to be born.”

  Like smoothly meshing gears, facts slipped together in Gordon’s mind. Prann was a projectionist. A wonderful talent, that gave its possessor the ability to project into the minds of others not only his own thoughts, feelings and experiences, but also the thoughts and experiences of others. It was this method, Gordon knew, that Prann must have used on the governor and Colonel Battin in order to persuade them to evacuate the town. No other type of reasoning could have cut so quickly through the red tape. The method was thorough. It taught—by vicarious experience—in an incredibly short time.

  Gordon felt a new respect for the man. But there must be more. There had to be more.

  “What do you mean, Jill wanted to be born?” Gordon said in a low voice.

  “That was the birth of Jill—and the birth of a talent. Jill’s talents begin before her birth, Gordon. She wanted to be born, so she was. She used psychokinesis to make herself be born.”

  Gordon was silent, trying to comprehend a foetus with such inherent power that it could make itself be born. The concept was too stunning.

  “I got this from her memory banks, of course, after we got her at the Institute,” Prann continued. “It was a vital factor in properly evaluating the strength of her talents.”

  “But premature babies happen often!”

  “True,” said Prann grimly. “But the cause of premature births is usually physical, not psionic. I say usually, because there are some cases where prematures were born without apparent physical cause. It is possible that there were PK forces at work in those cases. We don’t know.”

  “How about the doctor who delivered Jill?”

  “There was no delivering doctor. When he got there it was all over.”

  Prann stirred restlessly. “Her PK talent,” he said, “grew to such proportions in the next two years that her parents had to give her up. Then—her other talents began to appear. We knew we had something unique on our hands. Then—”

  There was a pause again, and the sense of something shifting.

  Once again Gordon felt his mind inhabiting another body—Prann’s body, this time. Prann, sleeping.

  The sleeping Prann was shaken awake by a man—a hospital orderly. Hospital? Oh, yes. The place where the child had been taken.

  “Dr. Prann. Dr. Prann!” The orderly cried frantically. “She’s gone!”

  Prann jumped up and reached for his bathrobe. “Again? When?”

  “In the last fifteen minutes!”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know, doctor!”

  Prann walked out (Gordon’s mind still inhabited his body) into the summer night after throwing on his robe. He knew just about where to look.

  “Jill. Oh, Jilly,” he called softly.

  Out near the willow trees beside the garage he saw a wisp of white in the moonlight. It was Jill in her nightgown. Slowly he walked toward her. She had her arms wrapped around her, for the night was late and the air had cooled; she was standing there barefooted, gazing at something in fascination.

  “Jill, what are you doing out here in the night? Want to catch a cold?”

  Without looking at Prann she said, “I cold. What?” She pointed.

  “Fireflies, Jill. Now let’s go back inside where it is warm and you can go back to bed.”

  “Fi-fies? Oh, ‘em’s nice!”

  She was all little girl, and enchanted. The fireflies were weaving a mosaic of yellow around the hanging branches and around Jill. A full moon was halfway above the horizon, beaming through the streaming thin branches of the tree. There was a gentle breeze that made Jill’s nightgown flutter around her feet.

  “Let’s go back, Jill,” he whispered.

  “Me ‘ikes fi-fies.”

  “Everyone likes fireflies, Jill. But it is night and you should be in bed asleep. Come with me now.”

  Jill pouted and she turned away from the fireflies. She bent her head reluctantly and let herself be led by the hand—back to the building, into the long hallway, up the stairs, to her room.

  Transition.

  * * * *

  The two of them relived another earlier day:

  Jill sat in concentration, one hand propping up her chin. It was hot, and Jill’s hair was tied behind her head in a tight pony tail. Part of a jar of jam was spread out across the little back patio that led into the kitchen. She was watching the air around it in concentration.

  Prann walked up silently behind her and gave the end of the pony tail a little playful jerk.

  “What’s my Jilly doing?”

  “Watchin’ fi-fies!”

  “Silly Jilly! They are not fireflies. They’re plain, ordinary house flies. Fireflies come out only at night.”

  Jill screwed her little face up in concentration. Then she said doubtfully, “ ‘Em’s don’t ‘ook ‘ike houses.”

  Prann couldn’t help laughing. “Fireflies light up. You saw them light up last night, out by the willow tree. These flies don’t light up. See?”

  She chuckled. “Me makes ‘em ‘ite up!”

  “Jill, you can’t make house flies light up. Only fireflies light up. That’s t
he way they’re made.”

  “Me makes ‘em ‘ite up,” she repeated stubbornly, and chuckled again.

  And Prann watched a tiny dark spot in the air suddenly glow into flame and drop. Then another. And another. And he heard Jill laugh: “Now ‘em’s fi-fies!”

  “Jill! What are you doing?”

  “Me makin’ fi-fies,” she said cheerfully. “ ‘Ook!”

  Little bursts of flame sparkled in the air. They dropped toward the patio, never quite reaching it, turning to almost invisible puffs of ash before they hit the concrete.

  It took a long time before Prann comprehended what Jill was doing. Then he just stood astounded, and a strange fear trickled into his mind, a chill of apprehension.

  It was the birth of a talent.

  * * * *

  VII

  Again they were seated on the bench outside the library.

  Gordon leaned back, almost toppling. He stared at Prann wordlessly: He had been inside that man. He had seen through Prann’s eyes, he had remembered what Prann remembered, he had done what Prann did; he had been Prann.

  It was a fantastic, frightening experience—

  But Prann had no patience for the strain on Gordon. Prann’s eyes were the eyes of a man who sees neither hope nor future. He closed them; his face looked as if carved of stone.

  “There was more. It didn’t stop with flies,” he said wearily.

  “In a month we had her melting five-pound lead balls— then ten. You know what she can do with that talent now.”

  Gordon did. He recalled vividly the burning spotlight and the smell of burning flesh. He shuddered.

  “Then,” said Prann—and paused.

  Gordon felt Prann’s mind slipping again into his own....

  “Can you move the heavy ball, Jill, through distance?”

  That was Forbes speaking. It was another day. Through Prann’s eyes, Gordon saw Forbes pick the lead ball off the table and roll it toward Jill. It disappeared.

  “Where is it, Jill?”

  “Godge.”

  “How do you know it is in the garage?”

  Jill looked disdainfully at Forbes. Clearly, it was a ridiculous, grown-up question. Forbes laughed and said, “Never mind, Jill. Can you bring it back?”

  It was back. It rolled a little, and Stinky reached for it playfully.

  “ ‘Tinky!” said Jill, “get off ‘at hebby ball!”

  Stinky stayed put, his tail swishing back and forth slowly, and his paws making playful motions toward the lead ball.

  Forbes bent down, stroked the kitten, and the creature rolled on its back to claw harmlessly at Forbes’ hand.

  Prann said, “Maybe Stinky wants to go through distance too, Jill.” They had not yet let Jill teleport any living creature.

  “Me don’t fink so,” said Jill uncertainly.

  “I think he does,” said Forbes encouragingly. “Look how he likes to play with the heavy ball.”

  Forbes rolled the ball a little, and the kitten attacked it with playful ferocity.

  Then it disappeared.

  Forbes and Prann looked at each other. Forbes said, “I think Stinky wants to come back, Jilly.”

  “Aw wight,” said Jill, beginning to be bored.

  Stinky returned—different. Jill looked and turned her little nose up. “ ‘Tinky’s real ‘tinky now,” she said.

  There was an odor of a freshly eviscerated animal, and fresh blood. Forbes and Prann looked down at the shambles that had been a cat.

  “What happened to it?” said Prann.

  Forbes rolled the mess over with the toe of his shoe. “It looks like it’s—inside out,” he said, and stared at Prann.

  Both men turned to Jill. Abrupt tears were welling from her eyes.

  “ ‘Tinky don’t move,” she said.

  “I—I think Stinky’s dead, Jill,” Forbes said softly, placing his hand on her head.

  “I’m sorry, Jill,” Prann said.

  There was a moment of silence. Then Jill asked, “What’s ‘dead,’ Docker Pann?”

  “It’s...like going to sleep and never waking up. You stop breathing and thinking and ... doing things. And you go to Heaven,” Prann added.

  “Will me go to hebben when me gets dead?” asked Jill.

  “I’m sure you will, Jilly,” said Prann. And his voice didn’t sound quite right.

  “Will ‘Tinky go to hebben?”

  “Yes, Jilly, Stinky will go to Heaven. Stinky will go to Kitten Heaven.”

  Jill began to cry.

  Again Gordon was looking at the lights in the library windows.

  Prann started to talk.

  “We tried to explain to her what death was. It was impossible, of course. A child can’t comprehend death. A child’s mind is an incomplete thing. It must learn in order to comprehend. It must have experience. That was the first time she had seen death, other than the flies she burned, and then there was no thought of death. She did not know she had killed the kitten. She couldn’t know she was killing Forbes and Battin, tonight. She was using the only methods of defense she knew when that happened, Gordon. Children live in a private kind of a world. It is partly fantasy. Small things like losing a toy are of great importance to them. Things like death and birth and life have no significance for them. A child will cry bitterly if a doll is broken, but will look at you uncomprehendingly if you tell it its dog has died.”

  “As you might suspect, the story doesn’t end there. Let me show you one more thing.”

  Again Gordon felt the overlapping effect of strange thoughts entering his mind. . . .

  This time there was a strong sense of impending danger! Prann sat upright in his bed, wide awake in an instant, ready for any action that might be necessary, every faculty alert.

  There was silence in the room—a strange silence, for there were the usual night noises; outside the distant and near chirping of crickets, the bleeping of tree toads, and the hushed threnody of a million, million insects. Prann did not listen to these sounds. He listened between them, for something foreign, not belonging. He strained for long seconds. There was nothing. Then—

  His mind reached out toward the thoughts of Jill, expecting to find her mind filled with child-sleep thoughts, fantasmal dreams, or dormant, idle, slow-flowing thoughts. There were none of the these; no dream thoughts, erratic, unfinished, melting out of one sequence and dissolving into another. Prann gripped the sides of his bed with both hands. He squeezed until his fists turned white, and it took all his effort not to scream.

  Jill’s thoughts came through hard and crystal clear. She was not asleep.

  There was a dizzying interplay of lights and darkness, changing, flashing, sweeping across his vision with frantic speed. And there was a fearful sensation that Prann could not at once place, yet it stopped his heart from beating and made his muscles freeze into immobility. He tried frantically to pull his mind away from Jill’s—without success.

  The crazy pattern of lights and darkness steadied abruptly. Everything stopped—hung motionless. Then Prann let go of the sides of the bed. Giddily he slid to the floor of his room in vast relief, glad of the solidity of the floor beneath him. He stopped trying to detach his mind from Jill’s. Then he recognized the pattern of lights and darkness. He had experienced it himself, as a child. It was one of the fears that was born with him, and that he could never fully conquer.

  “Jill, Jill,” he muttered to himself, feeling strength and relief flow back into his body. “What are you doing?” It was a pointless question, for he knew now what it was.

  Jill looked down at the top of the willow tree—now an indistinct form far below her, casting a faint shadow on the ground from the moonlight. Then she looked up at the stars. With uncertainty she looked back at the building— hundreds of feet below—and at the window where her bed was. She felt a little guilty. She knew she should not be doing this, but it was such fun; the night was so hot, and the sky was so empty except for the stars. It was so much fun to go up and up—
and try to reach the stars and the big, big moon—and then to stop the sigh force and drop toward the willow tree, tumbling and turning. And the night and the stars were making such silly designs in her eyes; the wind as she dropped made her nightgown twist and flap around her body, and made her skin feel cold.