by Julian May
"Eleven, Comrade Admiral. " Great dark eyes, rose-petal mouth.
"You have a Georgian name. Where is your home?"
"I live in Sochi — I mean, I used to live there before they found me and brought me here to work and go to school. Sochi is on the Black Sea. "
Ah, yes — a Celtic Caucasian girl, one of that ancient breed famed through history for their beauty and bewitching ways! "I know Sochi very well, Tamara. I have a vacation villa there, a very pretty place. It must be spring in Sochi now, with flowers blooming and birds singing in the palm trees. What a pity both of us are here in wintry Leningrad instead of in your pleasant hometown. "
And if I were there, I could sail my little boat — or sit at a small table in Riviyera Park, sipping a cold mix of Georgian champagne and orange juice and baking my tired bones in the sunshine. Gorgeous young things (your older sisters or cousins, Tamara!) would stroll by, tall and barelegged and bold of eye, and I would admire and remember old pleasures. When that palled I would plot the destruction of Gorshkov, that prick on wheels, and the KGB schemer Andropov, whose hobbyhorse this whole bioenergetics farce is, and put an end to it, and get on with the Extremely Low Frequency Broadcaster, just as the Yankees have done. Psychic forces as weapons! What superstitious peasants we Russians remain, in spite of our thin veneer of science and culture. One might as well speak of enlisting the terrible Baba Yaga and her hut on fowl's legs...
The girl laughed out loud. "You're so silly, Comrade Admiral!"
The woman scientist standing beside Tamara stiffened. Danilov said hastily, "The child is overexcited. Please excuse her rudeness. Let us begin the experiment —"
Kolinsky studied the girl narrowly. "Tamara and I have not yet finished our little talk. Tell me, devushka, what special talent do you have that interests the doctors at this Institute?"
"I read thoughts. At a distance. Sometimes. "
"Can you read mine?" the admiral asked softly.
Tamara now looked frightened. "No!"
Danilov implored him. "It is most important that the child be calm, comrade! If we could begin now... "
"Very well. " Kolinsky put the blue-marked microphone down.
Danilov signaled to his colleague. The woman took Tamara by the hand and led her to a large cubicle of copper screening that stood in the center of the test chamber. Inside it was a plain wooden chair.
"The enclosure is called a Faraday cage, " Danilov explained. "It is proof against most forms of electromagnetic radiation. We have found that Tamara works best when shielded in this way. The emanations from her mind do not seem to be in any way connected to the energies of the electromagnetic spectrum, however. The 'bioenergetic halo effect' that we monitored for you earlier on your tour seems to be a side effect of the life-energies rather than part of their primary manifestation. "
Kolinsky nodded, barely concealing his impatience. Within the test chamber, the girl Tamara was now completely enclosed in the copper-screen cage, sitting with her hands clasped in her lap. Dr. Lubezhny had withdrawn, and within a few minutes came into the observation booth.
"All is in readiness, " she reported. "Tamara feels confident. "
Danilov picked up a second microphone from the table. The tape marking it was bright scarlet. Activating it, he said, "Danilov here. Are you standing by?"
Masculine accents overlaid by static responded: "This is the diving tender Peygalitsa awaiting your instructions. "
"Please give us your approximate position, " Danilov requested.
"We are standing approximately nine kilometers due west of Kronshtadt Base in the Gulf of Finland. "
"The divers are ready?"
"Sublieutenant Nazimov and the Polish youth are suspended at the required depth of ninety meters and awaiting your bioenergetic transmission. "
"Okhuyevayushchiy!" exclaimed Commander Ulyanov.
Danilov flapped a frantic hand. "Please! No extraneous remarks! All of you — think the most refined and peaceable thoughts. "
Commander Guslin smothered a chuckle.
"Stand by, Peygalitsa, we are prepared to transmit. " Danilov set the red-marked microphone down.
The admiral murmured, "You are a man of surprises, Dr. Danilov. "
"The experiment has worked before, " the scientist said in a strained voice, "and it will work again — given the proper conditions. " He glared at the two aides and the GRU man.
Kolinsky wagged his right index finger at the trio. "Not a peep from you, minetchiki. "
The scientist expelled a noisy breath. He explained rapidly, "The girl Tamara is what we call an inductor. A telepathic broadcaster, the most talented we had ever found. The percipient or receiver is a seventeen-year-old Polish lad named Jerzy Gawrys, another gifted sensitive. Gawrys wears cold-water diving dress. He is holding an underwater writing pad and a stylus, but he is not equipped with telephone apparatus, as is his companion, Sublieutenant Nazimov. The only way that the boy Gawrys may communicate is by writing on his pad. Nazimov will relay the pad's message to the tender. The tender's radio operator will relay the data to us. Our own receiver picks it up and broadcasts it through the room speaker. "
"Understood, " said Kolinsky. "And what data are to be transmitted?"
Danilov lifted his chin proudly. "The data of your choice. "
The aides muttered fresh exclamations of amazement.
Danilov said, "May I suggest that you start with a few simple shapes — stars, circles, squares — then pictures, then a few words. Use the pad of paper in front of you and the ink-marker. As you finish each sheet, hold it up so that Tamara can see it... and send the message."
Kolinsky compressed his lips and bent to the pad. He drew a five-pointed star, raised the paper, and smiled at Tamara.
The girl stared intently.
"Star, " said the diving tender Peygalitsa.
The admiral drew an arrow.
"Arrow, " said the faraway relay operator.
The admiral drew a clumsy cat in profile.
"Cow, " the speaker reported.
Everybody in the booth laughed. Kolinsky shrugged and drew a circle with pointed rays around it.
"Sun. "
The admiral waved jovially at Tamara. She smiled and waved back. He wrote the seven Cyrillic letters that spelled a familiar greeting in Russian and held it up. The girl concentrated on them for some time. The speaker cleared its throat, then said: "We receive from Sublieutenant Nazimov the letters zeh-deh-oh-er-oh-uncertain-oh. "
Danilov picked up the red microphone. "Stand by, Peygalitsa. " He told Kolinsky, "You must remain mindful that our percipient is Polish. It may be difficult for him to receive complex messages written in our script. Please keep the words as simple as possible. " He alerted the boat to receive the next message.
Kolinsky printed carefully, "Tamara sends greetings. " The words were returned, letter by letter, over the speaker.
"May I congratulate you, Dr. Danilov, Dr. Lubezhny. " The admiral beamed on the scientists. "A splendid breakthrough!" And so Andropov had been right after all. A billion-to-one gamble seemed to have paid off and he, Kolinsky, would have to eat his ration of shit. If Tamara's talent could be taught to others, the Soviet Navy could scrub its own Extremely Low Frequency Broadcaster Project. Let the Americans use the long-wave radio system to send messages to deep-lying missile submarines — a system that worked, but was so slow that a three-letter word might take nearly a half hour to transmit. The Soviet Union would talk to its submarines via mental telepathy, in moments! As to the KGB's use of psychic powers, the less said...
Danilov was babbling. "You are very kind, Comrade Admiral! I know that little Tamara and the boy Jerzy Gawrys, who have worked so hard, will also be gratified by your praise. Perhaps you would like to tell them so yourself. "
Kolinsky said, "First we will test one other message. " He bent to the pad, then held it up to Tamara. The lovely little face glowed at him through the copper mesh, so pleased that everything had gone w
ell, so eager to show her skill.
She saw: FIRE MISSILES.
Tamara sat still. Her dark eyes opened wider, like those of a cornered doe.
Admiral Kolinsky tapped a finger firmly against the paper.
They waited.
Finally, Danilov addressed the red microphone: "Attention, Peygalitsa. Do you have a message to relay?"
"No message, " said the loudspeaker.
Kolinsky regarded the little girl without expression. So that's the way of it, little Tamara! Can one blame you? You have hardly lived at all, and the true purpose of your work did not occur to you. You are shocked and revolted. You shrink from adult wickedness. But one day, will you see such wickedness as duty? As patriotism?
"No message, " said the loudspeaker.
Danilov apologized. "Perhaps the girl is tiring. Perhaps Jerzy has temporarily suffered diminished sensitivity —"
"No message, " said the loudspeaker.
"I will go and speak to her, " Dr. Lubezhny suggested.
"No, " Admiral Kolinsky said. "Don't be concerned. I've seen quite enough for today. Please be assured that I will urge full funding of your continuing efforts here at the Institute, and I will commend your work most highly to the Council for National Defense. " The admiral rose from his seat, tore the sheet of paper into small pieces, and let them sift from his hand onto the table. He beckoned to his aides and strode out the door after having given one last wave to the motionless little girl.
Dr. Danilov's eyes met those of Dr. Lubezhny. The woman said, "If only she were younger. Then it would be a game. "
"She will bend to larger considerations in time, " Danilov said. He picked up the red microphone and keyed it. "Attention, Peygalitsa. The experiment is ended. Thank you for your cooperation. "
"Message coming through, " said the loudspeaker.
Danilov almost dropped the microphone. "What's that?"
The amplified voice was brisk. "We receive another set of letters. It spells... nyet. "
"Nyet?" exclaimed Danilov and Lubezhny in unison.
Down in the Faraday cage, Tamara Sakhvadze looked at them and slowly nodded her head.
14
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF ROGATIEN REMILLARD
I CAME TO Don and Sunny's house every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evening for nearly three years. We would have supper, and Sunny would stack the dishes. Then she would bring little Denis into the living room for the educational sessions that we came to call "head-lessons. "
At first Don tried to work along with me. But he had very little empathy with the infantile mind and his attempts at telepathic rapport were so crude as to be little more than mental puppy-training: Here it is, kid — learn or else! He couldn't resist teasing the baby, looking upon our work with him as an amusement rather than serious business, treating the child like some glorified pet or a sophisticated toy. The occasional mental quantum leaps made by the boy could be very exciting, and then Don was all praise and affection. But there were tedious times as well, the nuts and bolts of teaching that Don found to be a colossal bore. He would put pressure on Denis, and more often than not the session would end with the child crying, or else stubbornly withdrawn in the face of his father's mocking laughter.
As I expected, Don got tired of the teaching game after only a few weeks. Not even Sunny's pleas would move him to continue serious participation. So he watched television while Sunny and I worked with the child, and looked in with a proprietary condescension during commercial breaks. This might have been a satisfactory solution — except that babies have no tact, and little Denis couldn't help showing how much he preferred my mental tutelage to that of his father. Don's pride was hurt and he began to broadcast bad vibes that the sensitive baby reacted to, setting up a kind of mind-screen that threatened to cut him off not only from his father but also from me. I had to tell Don what was happening, dreading his reaction. He surprised me, however, and said, "What the hell! Teaching kids is no job for a man like me. " And he began going out to the Blue Ox right after supper, leaving me alone with his wife and son.
I found out some time later that a burly tavern habitué named Ted Kowalski dared to make a suggestive crack about this unorthodox domestic arrangement. Don decked him with a single uppercut. Then he made a little speech to the awed onlookers at the Ox:
"My egghead brother Rogi is writing a book. It's about the way that little kids' minds work. Me and Sunny are letting him use our son Denis as a kind of guinea pig. Rogi runs tests on the kid using blocks and beads and pictures cut from magazines and other suchlike crap. Sunny helps. I used to help, too, but it was dull as dishwater. That's why I'm here, and why my brother and my wife and kid are at home. Now would anybody besides the late Kowalski care to comment?"
Nobody did, then or ever.
Don got so fond of the Blue Ox that he took to spending evenings there even when there were no head-lessons scheduled. Sunny was sorry about that but she never reproached him. She did cook especially fine meals for him on the nights that I visited, and kept urging him to stay with us and see what Denis had learned. When Don refused, as he almost invariably did, she kissed him lovingly goodbye. When he returned two hours later in a haze of alcohol, she kissed him lovingly hello. His drinking became heavier as the months went by and the baby made spectacular progress.
At Remillard family gatherings, Don boasted to one and all that he was proud as hell of his son, the genius. Denis, carefully coached by me, let the relatives see him as a child who was plainly above average — yet not so advanced as to appear bizarre. We let him start speaking in public when he was thirteen months old, three months after he had actually mastered speech. He learned to walk when he was a year old; in this and in other purely physical developments he was very nearly normal. In his appearance he favored the Fabré side of his family, having Sunny's fair skin and intensely blue eyes but lacking her beauty. He was never sick, even though he had a deceptively frail look about him. His temperament was shy and withdrawn (which was a vast disappointment to Don), and I believe that he was by far the most intellectually gifted of all the Remillards, not even excluding such metapsychic giants as Jack and Marc. There are some Milieu historians, I know, who mistook his gentleness for weakness and his innate caution for vacillation, and who say that without the psychic impetus furnished by his wife, Lucille Cartier, Denis's great work might have remained unaccomplished. To counter these critics I can only present this picture of the young Denis as I knew him, surmounting the emotional trials of his youth with quiet courage — and almost always facing those problems alone, since I was only able to aid him during his earliest years, and circumstances conspired to separate us during his latter childhood and adolescence.
I must not minimize the role that Sunny played. Denis learned to read before he was two, and she saved her housekeeping money in order to buy him an encyclopedia. Since the child had a never-ending thirst for novel sensations and experiences, she wheeled him all over Berlin in a stroller during the warm months and toted him on a sled in the winter. Later, she drove him about the countryside in the family car, until the rising cost of gasoline and Don's precarious financial situation put an end to her expeditions, and their growing family left her less and less time to spare.
The metapsychic training of Denis was left almost entirely to me. I worked hard, if inexpertly, in the development of his farsenses and wasn't surprised when his abilities quickly surpassed my own. He learned the art of long-sight amplification all by himself — and tried in vain to pass the skill on to me. His mental screening function very early became so formidable that neither Don nor I could penetrate it; aside from that, Denis seemed untalented in coercion. Psychokinesis didn't interest him much either, except as an adjunct to manipulation when his little fingers were inadequate for handling some tool, or for supporting books too heavy to be held comfortably. It was an eerie thing to come upon the child, not yet three years old, still sucking his thumb as he perused a levitated volume of the World Book E
ncyclopedia; or perhaps sitting in unconsidered wet diapers, studying a disassembled transistor radio while a cloud of electronic components and a hot soldering iron floated in thin air within easy reach.
But I had even more disquieting experiences in store for me.
One February night in 1970 Don returned from the tavern a bit early. He was no drunker than usual, and unaccustomedly cheerful. He said he had a surprise for me, and admonished me and Sunny to stay right where we were with Denis. He went into the kitchen and closed the door.
Denis was deeply engrossed in a new book on the calculus that I had just bought, thinking we might learn it together. Sunny was knitting. Outside the little house on School Street a frigid wind from Canada howled down the Androscoggin Valley and solidified the old snowdrifts into masses like dirty white styrofoam. I hated to think of walking home.
Don came back into the living room sans outdoor wear, carrying a cup of steaming hot cocoa. Grinning, he held it out to me. "Just what you need, Rogi mon vieux, to warm you up on a truly rotten night. "
My brother making a cup of cocoa was an event about as unprecedented as me doing a tap dance on the bar at the Blue Ox. I probed his mind, but the usual barriers were in place. What was he up to?
Little Denis looked up from his differentiation formulas. His eyes went first to his father, then to his mother. His expression was puzzled.
Sunny gasped.
Don held out the cup to me.
"No!" Sunny cried. She sprang from her chair and slapped the cup from Don's hand. It made an ugly brown splash on the wall. I was flabbergasted.
Denis asked me gravely, "Uncle Rogi, will you tell me why lysergic acid diethylamide makes cocoa taste better?"
Don started to giggle. Sunny regarded him with a terrible expression of outrage. His mind-screen, shaken by her unexpected action, wavered just enough to let me see what kind of joke he had intended to play on me. Little Denis had had no trouble penetrating Don's psychic barricade when it was still firm, and he had perceived the name of the drug emblazoned on his father's short-term memory trace as on a lighted theatre marquee.