To Ride Pegasus

by Anne McCaffrey

  Lester Welch snorted, looking up from the map he was annotating with search patterns. “A man’ll use any tool that works … until it scratches him, that is.”

  “But you could prove that no registered Talent was responsible for that theft.”

  “ ‘A man convinced against his will, is of his own opinion still,’ ” Lester chanted.

  “Les!” Op Owen didn’t need sour cynicism from any quarter, even one dedicated to Talent “No registered Talent was responsible.”

  Pennstrak brightened. “You did persuade Gillings that it’s the work of an undiscovered Talent?”

  Welch made a rude noise. “He’ll be persuaded when we produce both missing person and missing merchandise. Nothing else is going to satisfy either Gillings or Cole’s.”

  “True,” Pennstrak agreed, frowning thoughtfully. “Nor the vacillating members of my own Council. Oh, I know, it’s a flash reaction but the timing is so goddamned lousy, Dave. Your campaign bore down heavy on the integrity and good citizenship of the Talented.”

  “It’s a deliberate smear job …” Welch began gloomily.

  “I thought of that,” Pennstrak interrupted him, “and had my own expert go over the scanner films. You know the high security risk set-up: rotating exposures on the stationary TV eyes. One frame the model was clothed; next, exposed in all its plastic glory. It was a ‘lift’ all right. No possibility of tampering with that film.” Pennstrak leaned forward to Dave, though there was scarcely any need to guard his statements in this company. “Furthermore, Pat came along. She ‘read’ everyone at the store, and Gillings’s squad. Not Gillings, though. She said he has a natural shield. The others were all clean … at least of conspiracy.” Pennstrak’s snide grin faded quickly. “I made her go rest. That’s why there’s no one with me.”

  Op Owen accepted the information quietly. He had half-hoped … it was an uncharacteristic speculation for him. However, it did save time and Talent to have had both store and police checked.

  It had become general practice to have a strong telepathic receiver in the entourage of any prominent or controversial public figure. That Talent was rarely identified publicly. He or she usually performed some obvious service so that their constant presence was easily explicable. Pat Tawfik was overtly Pennstrak’s chief speech writer.

  “I have, however,” Pennstrak continued, “used my official prerogative to supervise the hunt. There’re enough sympathetic people on the public media channels to play down the Talent angle—at my request—but you know what this kind of adverse publicity is going to do to you, this Center and the Talented in general. One renegade can discredit a hundred honest injuns. So, what can I do to help?”

  “I wish I knew. We’ve got every available perceptive out on the off-chance that this—ah—renegade happens to be broadcasting joy and elation over her heist.”

  “Her?”

  “The concensus is that while a man might lift furs and jewels, possibly the dress, only a woman would take the shoes, too. Top finders are coming in from other Centers …”

  “A ‘find’ is reported, Boss,” said Charlie over the intercom. “Block Q.”

  As Pennstrak and op Owen reached the map, Welch announced with a groan. “Gawd, that’s a multi-layer apartment zone.”

  “A have-not,” added op Owen.

  “Gil Grade made the find, Boss,” Charlie continued. “And the fur is not all he’s found but he’s got a problem.”

  “You just bet he has,” Les said under his breath as he grimaced down at the map coordinates.

  “Charlie, send every finder and perceptive to Block Q. If they can come up with a fix …”

  “Boss, we got a fix, but there’s one helluva lot of similarities.”

  “What’s the problem?” asked Pennstrak.

  “We’ll simply have to take our time and eliminate, Charlie. Send anyone who can help.” Then op Owen turned to Pennstrak. “In reporting a ‘find,’ the perceptive is aware of certain particular spatial relationships between the object sought and its immediate surroundings. It isn’t as if he has seen the object as a camera sees it. For example, have you ever entered a room, turned down a street, or looked up quickly and had the feeling that you had seen just (and Daffyd made a bracket of his hands) that portion of the scene before, with exactly the same lighting, exactly the same components? But only that portion of the scene, so that the rest was an indistinguishable blur?”

  Pennstrak nodded.

  “ ‘Finding’ is like that. Sometimes the Talent sees it in lucid detail, sometimes it’s obscured or, as in this case, there are literally hundreds of possibilities … apartments with the same light exposure, same scene out the window, the same floor plan and furnishings. Quite possible in this instance since these are furnished, standard subsistence dwellings. Nothing to help us single out, say Apartment 44E, Building 18, Buhler Street.”

  “There happens to be a Building 18 on Buhler Street, Boss,” Les Welch said slowly, “and there are 48 levels, 10 units per floor.”

  Pennstrak regarded op Owen with awe.

  “Nonsense, this office is thoroughly shielded and I’m not a precog!”

  “Before you guys took the guesswork out of it, there were such things as hunches,” Pennstrak suggested.

  For op Owen’s peace of mind and Lester’s pose of misogyny, it was neither Building 18 nor Buhler Street nor Apartment 44. It was Apartment 1E, deep in the center of Q Block. No one had entered nor left it—by normal means—since GO Gracie and two other finders had made a precise fix. Gil handed op Owen the master key obtained from the dithering super.

  “My Gawd,” Pennstrak said in a voice muted with shocked surprise, as they swung open the door. “Like an oriental bazaar.”

  “Indiscriminate pilfering on a wholesale basis.” Op Owen corrected him, glancing around at the rich brilliant velvet drapes framing the dingy window to the wildly clashing pillows thrown on the elegant Empire loveseat. A marble-topped table was a jumble of pretty vases, silver boxes and goblets. Priceless china held decaying remains of food. Underneath the table were jaggedly opened, empty cans bearing the label of an extremely expensive caterer. Two empty champagne bottles pointed green, blind eyes in their direction. A portable color ’caster was piled with discarded clothing; a black-lace sheer body stocking draped in an obscene posture across the inactive screen. “A magpie’s nest rather,” he sighed, “and I’d hazard that Maggie is very young and has been poor all her life until …” He met Pennstrak’s sympathetic gaze. “Until our educational program gave her the hints she needed to unlock her special Talent.”

  “Gillings is going to have to work with you on this, Dave,” Peanstrak said reluctantly as he reached for the intercom at his belt. “But first he’s going to have to apologize.”

  Op Owen shook his head vigorously. “I want his cooperation, Julian, grudged or willing. When he really believes in Talent, then he will apologize voluntarily … and obliquely.”

  To op Owen’s consternation, Gillings arrived noisily in the cowlike lab copter, sirens going, lights flashing.

  “Don’t bother now,” op Owen said to Pennstrak for he could see the City Manager forming a furious reprimand. “She might have been warned by the finders’ activity anyhow.”

  “Well, she’s certainly been warned off now.” Pennstrak stalked off, to confer with one of his aides just as Gillings strode into the corridor with his technicians.

  According op Owen and Gracie the merest nod, Gillings began issuing crisp orders. He knew his business, op Owen thought, and he evidently trusted these technicians for he didn’t bother to crowd into the tiny apartment to oversee them.

  “As soon as your men have prints and a physical profile, Commissioner, we’d like to run the data through our computer. There’s the chance that the girl did take advantage of the open Talent test the Center has been advertising.”

  “You mean you don’t know who it is yet?”

  “I could ‘find’ the coat only because I knew what it lo
oked like,” Gil Grade said, bristling at Gillings’s manner.

  “Then where is it?” and Gillings gestured preemptorily to the sable-less apartment.

  “These are the shoes, Commissioner,” said one of his team, presenting the fragile strap and jeweled footwear, now neatly sealed in clear plastic. “Traces of dirt, dust, fleck of nail enamel and from the ’scope imprint, I’d say they were too big for her.”

  Gillings stared at the shoes disinterestedly. “No sign of the dress?”

  “Still looking.”

  “Odd that you people can’t locate a girl with bare feet in a sable coat and a bright blue silk gown?”

  “No odder than it is for your hundreds of patrolmen throughout the city, Commissioner, to overlook a girl so bizarrely dressed,” said op Owen with firm good humor. “When you ‘saw’ the coat, Gil, where was it?”

  “Thrown across the loveseat, one arm hanging down to the floor. I distinguished the edge of the sill and the tree outside, the first folds of the curtain and the wall heating unit. I called in, you sent over enough finders so that we were able to eliminate the similarities. It took us nearly an hour …”

  “Were you keeping an ‘eye’ on the coat all the time?” Gillings demanded in a voice so devoid of expression that his contempt was all the more obvious.

  Gil flushed, bit his lip and only partially inhibited by op Owen’s subtle warning, snapped back, “Try keeping your physical eye on an object for an hour!”

  “Get some rest, Gil,” op Owen said gently. He waited until the finder had turned the corner. “If you are as determined to find this criminal as you say you are, Commissioner Gillings, then do not destroy the efficiency of my staff by such gratuitous criticism. In less than four hours, on the basis of photographs of the stolen objects, we located this apartment …”

  “But not the criminal, who is still in possession of a sable coat which you found once but have now unaccountably lost.”

  “That’s enough, Gillings,” said Pennstrak who had rejoined them. “Thanks to your arrival, the girl must know she’s being sought and is shielding.”

  Pennstrak gestured toward the dingy windows of the flat, through which the vanes of the big copter were visible. A group of children, abandoning the known objects of the development play-yard, had gathered at a respectful, but curiosity-satisfying distance.

  “Considering the variety of her accomplishments,” op Owen said, not above using Pennstrak’s irritation with his Commissioner to advantage, “I’m sure she knew of the search before the Commissioner’s arrival, Julian, Have any of these items been reported, Commissioner?”

  “That console was. Two days ago. It was on ‘find,’ too.”

  “She has been growing steadily bolder, then,” op Owen went on, depressed by Gillings’s attitude. And depressed that such a Talent had emerged twisted, perverted, selfish. Why? Why? “If your department ever gets the chronology of the various thefts, we’d appreciate the copy.”

  “Why?” Gillings tuned to stare at op Owen, surprised and irritated.

  “Talent takes time to develop—in ordinary persons. It does not, like the ancient goddess Athena, spring full-grown from the forehead. This girl could not, for instance, have lifted that portable set the first time she used her Talent. The more data we have on … the lecture is ill-timed.”

  Gillings’s unspoken “you said it” did reach op Owen whose turn it was to stare in surprise.

  “Well, your ‘finders’ are not novices,” the Commissioner said aloud. “If they traced the coat once, why not again?”

  “Every perceptive we have is searching,” op Owen said. “But, if she was able to leave this apartment after Gil found the coat, taking it with her, because it obviously is not here, she also is capable of shielding herself and that coat. And, until she slips that guard, I doubt we’ll find it or her.”

  The report on the laboratory findings was exhaustive. There was a full set of prints, foot and finger. None matched those on file in the city records, or Federal or Immigration. She had not been tested at the Center. Long coarse black hair had been found. Analysis of skin flakes suggested an olive complexion. Thermo-photography placed her last appearance in the room at approximately the time the four ‘finders’ fixed on her apartment thus substantiating op Owen’s guess. The thermal prints also revealed that she was of slender build, approximately 5′4″, weighing 105 pounds. Stains on a paring knife proved her to possess blood type O. No one else had occupied the apartment within the eight day range of the thermography used.

  From such records, the police extrapolator made a rough sketch of “Maggie O” which she was called for want of a better name. The sketch was taken around the neighborhood with no success. People living in Block Q didn’t bother people who didn’t bother them.

  It was Daffyd op Owen who remembered the children crowding the police copter. From them he elicited the information that she was new in the building. (The records indicated that the apartment should be vacant) She was always singing, dancing to the wall ’caster, and changing her clothes. Occasionally she’d play with them and bring out rich food to eat promising they could have such good things if they’d think hard about them. While the children talked, Daffyd “saw” Maggie’s face reflected in their minds. The police extrapolator had been far short of the reality. She was not much older than the children she had played with. She had not been pretty by ordinary standards but she had been so “different” that her image had registered sharply. The narrow face, the brilliant eyes, slightly slanted above sharp cheekbones, the thin, small mouth and the pointed chin were unusual even in an area of ethnic variety.

  This likeness and a physical description were circulated quickly to be used at all exits to the city and all transportation facilities. It was likely she’d try to slip out during the day-end exodus.

  The south and west airstrips had been under a perceptive surveillance since the search had been inaugurated. Now every facility was guarded.

  Gil Grace “found” the coat again.

  “She must have it in a suitcase,” he reported on the police-provided handunit from his position in the main railroad concourse. “It’s folded and surrounded by dark. It’s moving up and down. But there’re so many people. So many suitcases. I’ll circulate. Maybe the find’ll fix itself.”

  Gillings gave orders to his teams on the master unit which had been set up in the Center’s control room to coordinate the operations.

  “You better test Gil for precog,” Charlie muttered to op Owen after they’d contacted all the sensitives. “He asked for the station.”

  “You should’ve told me sooner, Charlie. I’d’ve teamed him with a sensitive.”

  “Look at that,” Charlie exclaimed, pointing to a wildly moving needle on one of the remotes.

  Les was beside it even as the audio for the Incident went on.

  “Not that track! Oh! Watch out! Baggage. On the handcart! Watch out. Move, man. Move! To the right. The right! Ahhhh.” The woman’s voice choked off in an agonized cry.

  Daffyd poshed Charlie out of the way, to get to the speaker.

  “Gil, this is op Owen. Do not pursue. Do not pursue that girl! She’s aware of you. Gil, come in. Answer me, Gil.… Charlie, keep trying to raise him. Gillings, contact your men in the station. Make them stop Gil Grade.”

  “Stop him? Why?”

  “The precog. The baggage on the handcart,” shouted Daffyd, signaling frantically to Lester to explain in detail. He raced for the emergency stairs, up the two flights, and slammed out onto the root. Gasping physically for breath, he clung to the high retaining wall and projected his mind to Gil’s.

  He knew the man so well, had trained Gil when an employee brought in the kid who had a knack for locating things. Op Owen could see him ducking and dodging through the trainward crowds, touching suitcases, ignoring irate or astonished carriers; every nerve, every ounce of him receptive to the “feel” of a dense, dark sable fur. And so singleminded that Daffyd could not “reach” hi
m.

  But op Owen knew the instant the loaded baggage cart swerved and crushed the blindly intent Talent against an I-beam. He bowed his head, too fully cognizant that a double tragedy had occurred. Gil was lost … and so now was the girl.

  There was so peace from his thoughts even when he returned to the shielded control room. Lester and Charlie pretended to be very busy. Gillings was. He directed the search of the railway station, arguing with the station-master that the trains were to be held and that was that. The drone of his voice began to penetrate op Owen’s remorse.

  “All right then, if the Talents have cleared it and there’s no female of the same height and weight, release that train. Someone tried the johns, didn’t they? No, Sam, you can detain anyone remotely suspicious. That girl is clever, strong, and dangerous. There’s no telling what else she could do. But she damn well can’t change her height weight and blood type!”

  “Daffyd. Daffyd.” Lester had to touch him to get his attention. He motioned op Owen towards Charlie who was holding out the handunit.

  “It’s Cole’s, sir.”

  Daffyd listened to the effusively grateful store manager. He made the proper responses but it wasn’t until he had relinquished the handunit to Charlie that the man’s excited monologue made sense.

  “The coat, the dress and the necklace have reappeared on the store dummy,” op Owen said. He cleared his throat and repeated it loud enough to be heard.

  “Returned?” Gillings echoed. “Just like that? Why, the little bitch! Sam, check the ladies rooms in that station. Wait isn’t there a discount dress store in that station? Have them check for missing apparel. I want an itemized list of what’s gone, and an exact duplicate from their stock shown to the sensitives. We’ve got her scared and running now.”