Babylon 5 10 - Psi Corps 01 - Dark Genesis - Birth Of Psi Corpus (Keyes, Gregory)

by Birth Of Psi Corpus (Keyes, Gregory)

  "Don't point that at me, son," Lee said. "In fact, don't point it at anything. Do you understand what will happen if you rupture the coach wall?" The young man nodded solemnly. He had a softly rounded face and a thin mustache, very black hair. A faint accent-Eastern European? "Yes," he said, "the train will stop and emergency membranes will close the tube so they can pump air in. That will make things tricky for me, but I can deal with it. Did you expect I thought the car would explode, or something?" "What do you want with me, son?" "It's not really important that you know that, Senator, only that you do what I say. Right now, we're going to change our destination , but you have to do it. If you don't, I will shoot Dr. Kimbrell, and if you still refuse, I will shoot you, too." "Why can't you do it yourself? You faked my personal code, so= Then he understood. He leaned up to the retinal scanner. "Fine. Train, personal code Crawford-" "Stop," the man snapped, stepping quickly to Lee and placing the muzzle of the weapon against his head. "Don't do that." "I was doing what you said." "No you weren't, you were going to order an emergency stop. If you do that, I'll shoot you." "You're going to kill us anyway!" Lee retorted. "That's why you want me to make the destination change, so it'll go on record." He paused a moment, and then said, "Why me, son? I'm only trying to help your kind." The man smiled indulgently. "Yes, of course you are. Change the destination." "To where?" 36 "Not far different. Malibu Station. And now that you know what I am, you know not to try and trick me." Lee changed the destination, and eyed the man speculatively. "What's it like?" he asked. "Can you hear all of my thoughts? Can you feel my emotions? How will it feel to you when you kill us?" The young man's face changed, then, quite without his consent. "Shut up," he demanded. "You see, you do intend to kill us, but you want to make it look like an accident, am I right? So you aren't a terrorist." "He was in the restaurant," Alice said. "Across the room." Lee nodded. "He's been following me for months. I thought he was a reporter." "So you `overheard' us," Alice said. "You know about the genetic marker." "Yes." "Then surely you know this information can't be suppressed for long." "Oh, but it can, Dr. Kimbrell. The people I work for can do it, and they will. I already know from you who the authors were. They will be dealt with, and the paper will quietly vanish." "Nonsense. Even if you succeed, someone else will come up with the same results any day now." "Yes," Lee said, nodding thoughtfully, "And I think I know who. Am I right?" "Sorry, Senator. Go fish." "Sure, son. Sure I'm wrong. You can read my mind, so you know how much you've convinced me." "I know you're bluffing." But his face was pinched in irritation. He sat back against the wall, the gun quite level. "I know you still hope to escape by upsetting me. But here we are." The doors slid open. "Get out." Lee looked around hopefully as they exited the car, but the man and woman waiting for them did not look like ice miners-they looked like Vikings. Lee mentally dubbed them Hans and Greta. Their captor-one of the newcomers called him Piotr-spoke to the two in a language Lee did not know, then motioned them down the corridor toward one of the industrial-sized air locks. "You're gonna space us?" Lee asked. "Heck, that won't look suspicious at all, will it? `Senator and noted doctor take stroll on Moon without pressure suits.' That'll make a plausible headline. Grissom is a small place. We'll be missed fast, and you'll be found fast." "Give me a little credit," Piotr said. "That's why the two of you are going hiking. Regrettable accident, of course, but then you were never known for your caution, Senator. And the record will say you reserved both of these early this morning." He motioned at the two bright yellow sport-hiking pressure suits Hans was pulling from a nearby locker. "If you would now be so kind as to put them on. . : ' Lee pursed his lips angrily, and then began unbuttoning his shirt. Blushing, Alice did the same. When she was down to her underwear , Hans gave an appreciative whistle. She slapped him, hard. He never saw it coming, but only reddened and frowned. Lee tensed, but Piotr's gun never wavered from him. "Enough," Piotr said, quietly. Grumbling, Hans began donning his own suit-heavy mining armor, much heavier than their lightweight climbing suits. As Alice Kimbrell put on her helmet, she shot Lee a small triumphant smile. He smiled back, to let her know he understood. "Put on your helmet, Senator," Piotr said. "What's the matter?" Lee asked. "Aren't you comin' along? Can't stomach `hearing' us die? Or will you hear it anyway?" He stepped toward the gun muzzle. "Look at me, boy. Look me in the eye." Piotr had some difficulty doing that. "You tell me why I have to die, why Dr. Kimbrell has to die. We deserve that. And while you're at it, why don't you tell us what lab you were made in? Who created you? Just to satisfy my curiosity." The young man's dark eyes flashed with some anger, then. "I was born of man and woman just like you, Senator. I have no more idea why I can do this than you do, nor did I ask for it. And as for the rest-I don't feel compelled to explain anything to you. Good day." And then, to Hans, "We'll wait for you here." The big man nodded, and once they were suited and pressurized , motioned them into the lock. They cycled through it into a bowlful of night. The sky was ink sprinkled with powdered sugar, and the sickle Earth stuck up in the south like a blue horn. But of the Sun, there was no sign, nor would there ever be, day or night. Over a billion years, a lot of water had fallen on the Moon, ephemeral oceans of ice, but it only stayed where the Sun never came to lick it up. It was here, beneath his feet, the stuff of life-water, oxygen, hydrogen for fusion engines. A thin powder in the regolith at the Moon's north pole. Hans flipped on his lamp and gestured toward the crater rim, maybe a mile away, visible thanks to light generated by Grissom colony. And they trudged in silence. The links had been disabled, of course. Hans stayed behind them, armed. And so the Earth pulled across the near horizon like God's own plow, and after a while they began to climb, higher and higher. They would, Lee supposed, have a fall of some sort. The rim was nearly sheer toward the top-perhaps having shattered in some geologically recent moonquake. A trail had been worked up a talus slope, though, and they went up that. Hans' light shone occasionally through Alice's helmet and Lee saw her face. Not frightened, but determined, and he felt a hard knot of admiration form. They reached the ridge of the crater, which rose and fell in an irregular line around the mines. South, the jagged silhouettes of mountains rose, as if cut from the star field by a deranged god with a razor. North, more shadowed ranges, except that the summit of a single, high peak blazed in the light of the unseen Sun, giving the eerie impression of an island in low orbit. On the Moon, the line between light and dark was never blurred. Where would Hans do it? Would he shatter their faceplates with something first, or simply march them up the ridge until the drop was enough to kill them? He looked down at a straight drop of perhaps two hundred feet. Don't think about it. He didn't. He jumped. On the way down he worked on the math. On Earth, one fell about thirty-two feet per second squared. Multiply that by mass, and that told you how much force you hit the ground with. He was falling with maybe a sixth that acceleration, so it was as if he had jumped only fifty feet. With the recreational suit he probably massed two hundred pounds. He weighed less here, but the mass was all still there ... He hit, flexed his legs, and rolled, just like a parachute drop. It felt just like a parachute drop, too, except with a skeleton almost twenty years older than when he had last done that. His helmet cracked against a rock, sounding a sharp note in his ear-as if someone had thumped a champagne glass. But it did not break. A light fell from above, hit the ground, bounced, creating a crazy cone in the dust his fall had kicked up, now this long, now that long, and finally it stopped, spotlighting a boulder as if it were some piece of found art or geological specimen. Cursing, he went for it. And got it. Holding it well out to one side, he turned it around, sweeping it over the ground. Light didn't bleed on the Moon, of course, so he could see only just where the spotlight shone. He broadened the beam. There was Alice, slowly standing up, looking unsure. There was Hans, crumpled on the ground, one leg obviously sporting several more joints then it had had when last Lee saw him. Something in Hans' hand made a little red spark, and Alice sprawled comically backward. Then the hand sparked at him. Hans was maybe ten feet away.
Lee turned off the light, waited for the next silent spark of gunfire and leapt. The fall and the broken leg had made Hans as weak as a kitten. Lee got the gun away and shot him. Dumb bastard. In his mining suit, he probably massed four hundred pounds, and he had jumped after Lee. People always thought they were supermen in low-g. Alice was thrashing, trying to get a patch over the hole in her suit. Hans had hit her in the arm. As Lee approached, her movements grew more feeble. In the light, he could see her face clearly-she couldn't see his at all. She might not even know it was him. He considered. Her nose was starting to bleed. She looked desperate , angry, young. And she knew something she shouldn't know. He hesitated an instant longer, as her eyes rolled back. Sighing, he bent, finished patching her suit, and then went to Hans to get his air supply. To his surprise, he found that Hans was still alive, big finger jammed into the bullet wound, blood frozen around it like a gasket. He looked up wildly at the light, lips moving , either cursing or begging. Lee detached the cylinders and opened the suit to space. He turned away rather than watch the rather messy thing that happened to Hans then. After that, he moved as if in a dream just like before, when the dome cracked. He walked until he found one of the big mining tractors, drove it to the pod where he thought Piotr and Greta were, and using the vehicle's plasma torch, blew a hole in the pod's side. A gale came rushing out, and when it had slowed enough, he went in, found Greta struggling toward a pressure suit, and shot her. Piotr was bleeding from his eyes and mouth, but Lee dragged him into the air lock and pressurized it. The telepath sat, blinking away sanguine tears, shivering uncontrollably. "Now," Lee said, using the suit PA. "You and I are gonna have a little chat. If you give me an answer I don't like, the air lock door goes open. Capische?" The telepath nodded. and they spoke. After a time, Lee got an answer he didn't like. "Thank you for saving my life," Alice Kimbrell said. Her face was bruised from shattered capillaries, but she managed a weak smile. "Joint effort," he said. "Once you proved to me that the big fellow wasn't a telepath-or at most was a very weak one-I knew we had a shot. And you picked up on what I was doin' fast enough to jump, too." "I figured if I didn't, he would kill me first and then go after you, maybe in a smarter way." "Probably right." He pulled the flowers from behind his back and set them next to her bed. Her eyes widened. "I'm not even going to try to guess what flowers cost you on the Moon." "Not nearly enough. I wonder if you can tell me something, though." "Of course." "I still don't know why you came to me. Why didn't you go to Senator Tokash, or someone else?" Her eyes drooped closed. "I suppose I ought to confess. When I was a little girl, I had a terrible crush on you. The hero of the Grissom colony. I suppose part of me still needed that hero. You didn't disappoint." "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long while." He paused. "Much as I hate to cash in on hero worship, Dr. Kimbrell , I'd like to see you again. Without the thugs and the secrets and so forth." "I think that can be arranged," she replied, eyes steady on him. Back in his room, Lee opened the link and entered a number. After a few moments, an angry-looking Senator Vladmir Tokash appeared. His thin hair was mussed, and he seemed to be wearing a dressing robe. "Crawford?" he said. "What possesses you to call me at this hour?" Lee smiled. "That's no way to talk to your best friend, Vlad." The senator's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. "What on earth are you talking about? If it's about the committee-" "Oh, rest assured, Vlad-it is about the committee. It's about how you're gonna withdraw from it. You see, I just had a little talk with a friend of yours-a soul mate, you might say-and he told me quite a lot about you." "I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about." "Do you have your signal scrambled at your end, Vlad? Because I've got some big news." Tokash nodded. "Good. You see, I've got a way to detect telepaths. Turns out there's a genetic marker. Now things get interesting, don't they? I'm going to announce it tomorrow. So there're two ways we can play this, and both involve the Senate being the first ones to get tested. But how the tests get reported-that can make a difference." Tokash pursed his lips. "I see." "With me or against me, Vlad? You've tried playing against me, and three people are dead as a result. We can be buddies, you and I. How many of our colleagues are telepaths, do you think? Politics probably draw them-after all, half of politics is knowing what the other guy is thinkin'. Now, I personally believe it would be good to have a telepath point of view in the Senate-one and only one-but I'm afraid the voters won't see it that way. Still, what the voters don't know won't hurt 'em, will it? So. With me or against me, Vlad?" Tokash put his head in his hands, and then looked back up, tiredly. "With you, Senator Crawford." "Call me Lee. First thing in the morning, I want a list of every telepath you know, most especially those in your employ. They work for me now." "Very well." "Another thing, just in case you're still thinking about some sort of stunt. You realize that you are the product of genetic engineering?" "What?" "The genetic analysis makes it pretty obvious. I think it's best that that news not be made public, don't you?" "Good God, yes." "See? We think alike. Together, I think we can keep this little fact from getting out-that we can identify telepaths is one thing. How we do it is best kept a question of global security, one best controlled by the Committee on Metasensory Regulation. So while you won't be head, I'd of course like to have you as my right-hand man." He grinned. "Right where I can see you, that is. "And get some rest, Vlad-you look like hell."

  Chapter 4

  Publishers Weekly, 6 February 2117 In Senate hearings today, a spokesperson for Random House, Inc., alleged that telepathic literary agents may have done "incalculable damage" to the publishing industry as a whole, urging immediate genetic testing of all licensed and aspiring agents, with stiff penalties for offenders. Overseeing the Committee on Metasensory Regulation, Senator Lee Crawford said, "The implications are clear, and we appreciate the thoughtful testimony from all involved. This matter must be handled with intelligence and sensitivity, but hopefully not until we're done negotiating the advance for my biography." The senator later explained that this last was "just a joke." The Boston Globe, 21 May 2117 Thana Neesom of Perth, Australia, today filed suit against her dentist, Graham McKay, D.D.S., for invasion of privacy. McKay- recently identified as a telepath---indignantly denied the allegation that he had "picked Neesom's bloody brains" while the plaintiff was under general anesthesia for root canal surgery. Weekly World News, 15 June 2117 THEY WEREN'T ALONE IN BEDI Ladies, take warning! A young woman from Manchester, U.K. (at her request we withhold her name), recently experi- enced what might be the worst first date in history-at the hands-and we do mean "hands"-of telepaths. A model student and virgin, Georgia (not her real name) celebrated her twenty-first birthday with some friends at a local nightspot. Noticing that she had drawn the attention of a handsome young man, her girlfriends urged her to break her long bedroom fast. Encouraged by strong drink, the young woman relented to peer pressure and at the end of the night found herself in the young man's apartment. All seemed to be going well, when-at that tenderest of moments--she heard lascivious groans, moans, and even applause from the next room. On peeking through the bedroom door, she discovered five men and women, whose applause doubled when they saw her. To her horror, she realized that they---and the young man she had been with--were all telepaths, and had all taken part in her sexual initiation, seeing and feeling all in intimate, graphic detail . She had been the victim of a telepathic gang rape! Lee sat back in the uncomfortable chair and watched the monitor . DiPeso was just starting his monologue, draped across an antique couch and twirling a martini glass. " . . . so he says, how does a telepath feed a dog? And I said, pretty well, if you grind him up fine enough." He sipped his martini languidly as the crowd howled. There were a few boos, but they were of the "what a bad joke" variety. "Oh, come on," DiPeso said, rolling his eyes at the audience. "My ex-wife was a telepath-when I wanted sex she gave me the headache. "Anyway, we have a great big show for you tonight. We've got Anna Keck, here to talk about her most recent movie, Arkansas Traveler. Kuan Ping is going to play you his hit song `Zoomorphia ,' and basketball great
Joel Transom will tell us all about slam dunks and sex--or is that redundant?-on the Moon. "But first, we'll have a word with Senator Lee Crawford, hero of the Grissom colony and head of the Committee on Metasensory Regulation. " He paused and lifted his martini again, cocking his head thoughtfully. "You know, it's been said that the senator never met a censoring he didn't like-but we'll ask him about that in just a minute, after a few words from your local-" "Senator, you're on in three," a sprightly young woman in a bellhop uniform informed him. "So I am," Lee said, straightening his collar. The chairs onstage were uncomfortable, too, and Lee had to repress an urge to reach over and tweak DiPeso's ample nose- or better yet, punch it. Despite ... all that, he grinned and extended his hand. "Well, Senator. You've been quite the man in the news lately. Let me start with the question that surely is preying on all of our minds. Considering that you and your committee control the fates of hundreds of people-and knowing how careful you boys in Geneva are about abusing your power-well, what is sex like with a telepath?" "Well," Lee drawled, "I can't comment on that personally, but my experts tell me it would be a lot like being interviewed by you." "How's that, Senator-a sort of cosmic experience?" "Not exactly. More like doing all of the work while the other person has twice the fun." "Ho-well, there's an image!" DiPeso said. "And not a pleasant one for our audience, either. Now, seriously. How is this Metasensory thing going?" "Pretty well, now that we can identify telepaths-" "Not all of them, though." "No, but up to about seventy percent of them can be identified through a brief medical exam. This is a substantial number-and a high percentage of others come forth voluntarily." DiPeso put on his "serious face." "Well, that's pretty good, isn't it? But are you saying that you can't protect us from that other thirty percent?" Lee rubbed his hands together. "Actually, if you don't mind, I'd like you to meet a few of these people I'm `protecting' you from." DiPeso's face showed a hint of dismay before he managed to cover it with an "oh, really?" expression. "Well, I'm sure that if they're with you, I've nothing to worry about. Bring 'em out. But folks, repeat after me--' He then began rubbing his temples and murmuring, "Ibink clean thoughts-think clean thoughts--no thoughts about Anna Keck-" The audience was laughing, booing, and ribbing its collective temples as the five telepaths came out. But a hush settled when they saw the first two. DiPeso was the first to recover. "Anna, sweetie, you're jumping the gun a little. Your segment "It's right now, dear," Anna replied In early middle age, Anna Keck still had the same grace and quiet sensuality that had made her, first, the world's sweetheart, and then, one of its most respected actresses. "I've been on your shoves-what is it, thirty times now-,end never really had anything important to say. Now I do." For perhaps the first time in front of an audience, DiPeso was clearly flabbergasted. He actually stuttered. "Are-are you saying-" Lee stood up and let her have his seat. Anna took it, swept back her luxuriant black hair, and gave DiPeso a little kiss on the cheek. "Just keep thinking those clean thoughts, dear." "Good Lord o'mighty!" DiPeso said, recovering. "It's a miracle you haven't slapped me thirty times by now. You've been--this whole time?" She shrugged and smiled at the audience. "I didn't know until I took the new screening test. I always knew I was good at understanding people--at knowing how they felt-but I've never heard words or anything. Most telepaths can't, really-it's a false stereotype. I can't read your mind, Alex." "Well, thank Buddha for small favors. Whew. 'Cause I'm sure there must be some sort of law. Well, this is-' 'This isn't about me," Anna interrupted "We still have a segment for that, right? Because I do want to talk about Arkansas Traveler. But first I'd like to let the senator introduce everyone else." "Well, by all means--but I think I know this young man," he said, gesturing at the twenty-something fellow with the Apollonian profile. "Aren't you that fireman ... T, Lee clapped the young man on the shoulder. 'This is Guy Guillory . Most of your viewers will remember him as the young man who saved thirty people in the San Francisco earthquake last year. Guy came to us voluntarily when-well, I'll get to that in a moment . Guy's telepathic ability enabled him to find those trapped on the collapsed sixth floor of Trombles. I might add that Guy is just now able to walk again-his body was covered with third- degree burns on his fifth trip in, two trips after the building caught fire." Guy nodded nervously. Lee patted him on the back and moved down the line to a slight blonde with a pleasant, but not beautiful, face-the girl next door, the kid sister. "This is Clara Suarez. She used to be a stock trader until she voluntarily quit when she learned she had metasensory powers. She now uses her abilities for the International Trade Commission to find less honest telepaths still trading." He moved to a boy of perhaps thirteen with flaming red hair. "Stephen Campbell. Stephen didn't know he was a telepath either, just that he had a lot of luck hitting what the pitcher threw. Steve was beaten within an inch of his life and left to die on the street in Edinburgh. And this-come here, sweetheart." He held out his arms, and the last of the five ran into his arms, to the awwwing of the crowd. "This is Constance. Constance is five, and last year she watched her whole family slaughtered execution style. She herself was shot, hacked with a machete, and left for dead. We found her under the corpse of her mother." Constance looked around the room. She was a living doll with huge, dark-bright eyes and brown hair done up in a little bob. She whispered something in Lee's ear, and he laughed. "She wants to know if she can sit by you, Alex." "I-yes, of course. I never turn a lady down." Anna gave the little girl a hug as she came by. Then Constance hopped up into the seat and looked at Alex DiPeso with those huge eyes. There were some gasps from the audience, for on her left profile, a fading white scar started in her hairline, passed through her ear, and vanished at the neckline of her dress. "Hello, Constance," DiPeso said. "What do you think of Los Angeles?" She just looked at him and smiled, a bit sadly. "You're a nice man," she said. "I can tell you're a nice man. How come you say such mean things?" DiPeso worked his jaw, and a profound silence stretched in the studio. Finally, finally, he reached over and took her hand, and his voice seemed caught in his throat as he said, "I don't know, honey. I can't explain it, can IT' And upward of six billion viewers saw a teardrop glitter at the corner of his eye before the cut to commercial. "Okay, we're back, and we're still talking to Senator Lee Crawford of the Committee on Metasensory Regulation. Frankly, I planned to have moved him off by now and brought someone entertaining on, but during the break he told me he had something important to tell us. So I think I'll just shut up for a moment and see what it is." Lee nodded. "Thank you, Alex. I first want to thank you and your audience for giving me the chance to show you these special young people. Look, the face of the unknown is the face of a monster , and for most people telepathy is unknown. It's frightening. In our hearts, I think we all know that that doesn't excuse some of the things that have happened-certainly not the way people like Constance and Stephen have been treated. So I wanted to show you the face of the unknown, so you can see that there is no monster , no alien, just us. "Now, my committee has gotten a lot of criticism from both ends of the spectrum. I've been criticized for taking away the rights of telepaths-an untrue accusation-and for not being `hard enough' on them, which I'm happy to say is true. They don't deserve punishment simply for being born different. But they are different, aren't they-if not in most ways, then in this one special way. He clasped his hands. "I'm being long-winded, so I'll try to get to the point, because I know you all want to hear more from Anna and the other guests Alex has lined up tonight. The point is this: over the past year or so, I've had contact with a lot of telepaths, and one thing I know is that most of them have a strong desire to serve, to use their powers not for the good of themselves, not for the good of a single nation, but for the good of all humanity. "To that end, I would like to announce that the president has given me the go-ahead to form a new government organization, made up of telepaths like Anna, Guy, Stephen, Clara, and Constance . We're all agreed that this is the best, most sensitive way to handle both the needs of telepaths and of the world at large. What people are really afraid of is not telepaths, I'm
convinced, but the fear of not knowing who is a telepath. Most of us don't mind being naked, so to speak, but we don't want just anyone seeing us naked without our consent. The MRA-Metasensory Regulation Authority-will prevent that. We can identify seventy percent of all telepaths medically, but I think most people who know that they are telepaths will come to the MRA of their own free will, where they can be useful without fear of persecution." "But what about those who don't want to join?" "Well, naturally there will be some who want to continue with their normal lives. I'm happy to announce that Halotech has developed a new drug that shows great promise in inhibiting psionic abilities. It's still in the testing stage, but it looks good and, once approved, will be offered as an option for telepaths who want to preserve a normal lifestyle. Beyond that w ell, there are criminals in every demographic. Just as in any group of people you choose to look at, there will be some minor fraction who simply have no social conscience, who will always take the easy way out. This is not a trait of telepaths, my friends-it is a trait common to humanity. "However, as you might imagine, telepaths present special problems in incarceration. Because of this, we've proposed a set of separate rehabilitation facilities specially designed for the needs of telepaths, which will be overseen by MRA-which will, of course, all be overseen in turn by the Earth Alliance Senate . In short, it's high time that people step back and see what's being done. "The Earth Alliance is the first true world government, and in just over thirty years look what we've accomplished. We have thriving colonies on the Moon, plans to move on to Mars, and we've detected what might be the first real murmurings of an alien civilization. All it took for those things was a little faith, a lot of ingenuity, and sweat. "It's the same with the so-called telepath problem. In a hundred years, people will look back at this as the beginning of something wonderful." He spread his hands. "Of course, this is all pending Senate approval, so if you like what you hear today, I urge you to message your senator." DiPeso nodded as if in agreement and then did his famous double take. "Well, that's about as serious as my contract allows this show to get. I'd like to thank you, Senator, as I'm now marked for death by all of the news shows. I don't suppose you could spare a few of your, er, `regulators'-to keep me safe?" Lee shook his head dolefully. "I don't know-the Senate would likely deem that a misallocation of personnel-but I promise to look into it if you'll promise to invite me back sometime." "Senator-that's an abacus. You can count on it." "You have nice hands," he told Alice that evening in the Delacorte lounge. Onstage, the band was playing some oh-twenties revival piece, haunting and brisk all at once. Servers drifted by, ghostly in the pale veils and long dresses so popular along the Pacific Rim. She dimpled, but skeptically. "You make weak spots in me where I had none," she said. "Hmm. Tell me where they are so I can poke at 'em." "You do a good enough job of that already. I sometimes wonder if you aren't a telepath." "Not me, darlin'. You saw me get tested." "Uh-huh. You did a good job on the DiPeso show, too. The man's never shown an honest feeling aside from disdain in twenty years, and you made him weep. That's bound to go down in the history books." She laid her hand on top of the one caressing hers. "Why did you break the news about the MRA on his show, though? Why not one of the news shows?" "How many news shows do you know that have a viewership of six billion? Live. Twice that saved. When word gets around, everybody in the solar system will have seen it by tomorrow." He stopped. "God, I love sayin' that. The solar system. Ours is the first generation in history to really be able to say that." "I don't know if I would go so far as to say we're in the same generation," she said, doubtfully. "Am I an old man robbin' the cradle, Alice? Is that what you think of me?" She looked surprised. "I must be naive. I didn't realize you were trying to steal anything." He shrugged. "You are naive, then. I'd like to take you for everything you've got." "Really." "Really." She avoided his eyes. "I can't be her, you know." "You don't even look like her. When have I ever made you feel that way?" "Never-never on purpose. But there's something-even when we're close, there's distance, Lee." "Anything we can't build a bridge over?" "I don't know." "Well, why don't we get married and give it a go?" "What?" "You heard me." She looked back up at him, as if he were one of those ancient inkblot things she kept as objets d'art in her office. "Okay," she said, softly. "If you love me, okay." "I love you." "I love you, too, Lee." She took a sip of her drink, still looking a bit troubled. Then she smiled. "But what kind of honeymoon can compare to our first date?" "Darlin', I'll do my best." He left Los Angeles feeling good, but that sensation vanished on the red-eye back to Geneva, as the reactions started pouring in. All the usual stuff about his grandstanding-they all wished they could grandstand as well as he. That was trivial. But some of the responses to the MRA were troubling. Not unexpected, but troubling. It was morning when he arrived in Geneva, and he went straight to work--best way to deal with jet lag. Tom Nguyen was waiting for him. "I thought you'd be in today." "Yep. What's up?" "The party called again." "Screw 'em. What else is up?" "I have a feeling you know." Lee yawned, poured himself a cup of coffee, and rubbed the grit out of his eyes. "Yeah, but my brain's a little run-down. I imagine you've been on this with your usual efficiency. The vote?" "Ten percent better than expected, our sources say." "See'? I told you I should go on DiPeso." Tom nodded reluctantly. "It could have gone bad, though- well, it didn't. The tear made the top of the news everywhere." Lee sipped his coffee. "Constance, God bless 'er. It's her gift. Not that she really needs it-she's so adorable and pathetic all at once anyway-but our tests put her at P12, powerful enough to nudge a tear out of anyone, if need be." Tom shook his head. "What did you tell her?" "I told her to make 'im cry, and damned if she didn't. Hell, I got misty-eyed, too-I guess I was within the field of affect or whatever." "This is really dangerous, Lee. If anyone suspects-" "They won't suspect because they don't want to. The real bigots will say it, of course, and thereby set themselves apart. See, opinion wasn't really polarized, not most places. People were ambivalent about telepaths, now they aren't. They feel ashamed of themselves. They want to help. And best of all, they can help and keep the mind readers away from them all at the same time. They call their senators. The vote will go our way." "The nonmember nations want your head. They say they won't give up their telepaths." "We'll see about that-it's a human rights issue. What about the members?" "Everybody wants to make their own policy. The Russian Consortium and Amazonia are being real pains. Both are going to vote against you-maybe China, too. You'll squeak by with a majority, but the MRA is on shaky ground. We can't afford to make a mistake here." Lee studied his aide for a moment. "Tom, you gettin' any sleep at all?" Tom blinked. "Not much." "Take care of yourself. I need you." He took another sip of his coffee. "Any movement on the other front?" "Vacuum. There were some experiments by various militaries trying to develop exploitable psionic powers in the twentieth, but none of them went anywhere. For the last hundred years, nothing." "Damn it, somebody did it. If not a country, then a corporation. There has to be some evidence other than the telepaths themselves . Tokash's telepaths haven't come up with anything?" "Nothing. Every telepath they've scanned had a normal enough childhood, their powers aside, and no connections other than what one would normally suspect. If they are part of some larger conspiracy , it's very well hidden." "We're missing something." "No doubt." "This is important, Tom. I want to ride the tiger, not discover ten years down the road that I have my head in its mouth." "You and me both, Senator."