To Ride Pegasus

by Anne McCaffrey

  Charlie Moorfield was on duty and he instantly patched Daffyd through to the office of Law Enforcement and Order as he was rousing the Center’s riot control people. If they could get enough telepaths to the site in time, they might dampen the incipient riot before LEO needed to resort to the unpopular expedient of gas control.

  “Tell Frank Gillings that Roznine is here, too,” Daffyd told the officer on the line.

  “Roznine? What’n hell would he be doing listening to a singer?” the man asked.

  “If you’d heard the effect this singer has on people, you’d understand.”

  The officer swore, at a loss for other words. Daffyd wished that swearing were as therapeutic for him.

  “Keep the band open, Charlie …”

  “Dave, you can’t stay there …” Charlie’s voice reached Daffyd’s ears even several yards from the copter. Daffyd wished he’d be quiet. He had to concentrate on “listening” for the girl. He could sense Sally’s direction but he was used to Sally’s mind; he could have “found” her at a far greater distance. But the singer was unknown: alarmingly unknown, Daffyd realized, because he ought to be able to “find” her. He’d been in her presence, in “touch” with her for over half an hour, long enough for him to identify most minds and contact them again within a mile radius. She couldn’t have got very far away in such a short time.

  The beat of heavy duty copters was audible now: coming in without lights and sirens. Daffyd looked east, willing the Center’s fast transports to get here before the riot control squads. It was generally impossible to get enough telepaths during the day to quell an imminent riot unless there’d been a precog of trouble. But, of an evening, there was the entire Center’s telepathic population … Now, if …

  He heard the beginning of a subdued murmur from the building. The customers were getting restless. He hoped they hadn’t yet realized that the singer wasn’t taking a short break.

  Someone opened a section of the big main doors, stood framed in the rectangle of light for a moment, peering out Daffyd identified the stocky figure as Roznine’s. Suddenly the figure of the ethnic leader froze. He stepped out, into the night head up. The man’s curses floated toward Daffyd as he slammed back into the building. Daffyd hurried in search of Sally, wondering what Roznine would do now he knew a LEO squad was on the way. Only … and Daffyd faltered midstride, how could Roznine know, if he did, that the big copters were LEO. Cargo firms used the same type. Yet op Owen knew with unarguable certainty that Roznine had properly identified the aircraft.

  Daffyd came round the corner of the old factory just as the personnel hatch in the huge rear door opened. He counted five of the muscle boys, each taking off in a different direction. Then a sixth man, Roznine, whose harsh urgent voice ordered them to find those effing copouts or they’d be subsistence livers for the rest of their breathing days.

  ‘Copouts.’ Plural, thought Daffyd. Who beside Amalda? No time now for speculation. Daffyd sent a quick warning to Sally to leave off the search and get back to the copter. She was there when he returned, easily eluding the searching muscle men who were as noisy mentally as they were physically.

  “That audience is losing patience fast,” Sally said, staring at the ominous black bulk of the building. She was hugging herself against shivers of fear.

  Daffyd looked eastward, saw the running lights of the slim Center transports.

  “Not long now.”

  But too far away. Disappointment and whetted appetite rocketed to explosive heights. All along their side of the factory, exits burst open as part of the audience swarmed out, in futile search of the singer. Inside the furnishings were being thrown about and broken, people were slugging and slugged, trampled and hurt as uncertain tempers erupted.

  Daffyd wasted no time. He half-threw Sally into the copter, jammed in the rocket-lift, warning Sally to hang on. The head LEO copter blared its summons before he could turn on his distinctive identity lights. As it was, he only just got out of stun range.

  Once clear of the busy altitudes, Daffyd hovered, calling an “abort” to the Center transports. The situation had gone beyond their capabilities. He’d only completed one circle before he saw that the LEO copters were laying gas. It was all they could do with such a mob starting to rampage. Sally was weeping softly as he veered eastwards toward the Center.

  “I wasn’t honestly certain, Daffyd,” Sally said, curled in a small contrite ball on the suspended couch in his quarters. She kept examining her glass as if the amber liqueur were fascinating. She’d the appearance of a small girl trying to get out of a scold. Actually her public mind was wide open to Daffyd’s, permitting him a review of her initial impressions of the singer. “I mean, while I couldn’t think what else she might be, there was the possibility that it was all sonic amplification. You know what a skilled operator can do.”

  “All the more reason you should have reported it, Sally. That kind of manipulation is why mechanical amplification is strictly licensed to reputable and reliable technicians.”

  “And not a due about the girl?”

  “Not yet.” The licensed owners of the Factory were among those drowsily helpless inside the office in the lobby of the building. They’d be questioned, of course, by Gillings’s men. Perpetrators of riots could expect acant mercy from the LEO office.

  “We’ve got to get to the girl first Sally.”

  “If only I’d told you sooner …” Sally was floating in chagrin.

  “I keep telling you, and every other member of my staff, I don’t mind being bothered with so called ‘trivia.’ Because it isn’t always as trivial as you might believe.”

  “I know. I know. I simply wasn’t thinking dearly.” That was what she said, but what Sally was thinking, also for him to see, was that she hadn’t wanted to disappoint him, or herself, in case her initial impression about the singer bad been wrong. The girl had been almost too good to be true.

  “Was she afraid of that crowd, Daffyd? It was three times the size of the one the other night. In fact, the size alone put me off.”

  “You first heard her …”

  “Just two days ago. I tried to get backstage to see her …” Sally shrugged her failure.

  “Muscle boys?”

  “No” Sally was astonished. “Everyone else wanted to get next to her. I’d never have had a chance to find out for sure with so much interference, much less suggest she come to the Center.”

  Daffyd began to stroll about, his arms crossed over his chest, his head down.

  “We both sensed her fright?”

  Sally nodded.

  “We are both agreed that she is a broadcasting empath?”

  Sally nodded again, more emphatically. “Could she also receive? I mean, that would account for that ‘echo’ phenomenon, wouldn’t it? She throws the emotions out and then magnifies them on retrieval?”

  “That’s one explanation.”

  “Hmm, but you don’t subscribe to it with any enthusiasm.”

  Daffyd grinned at Sally. “It doesn’t fit all the circumstances. Besides, Roznine used a plural … ‘those effing copouts.’ ”

  Sally’s eyes rounded with surprise. “She links. That would account for the amplification and the echo.” Daffyd nodded. “Then who’s the other empath, or empaths?” Daffyd shrugged. “Doesn’t she realize what she is?”

  “Probably not. We shall have to inform her.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  “I think we ask for Frank Gillings’s help …”

  “But … but … she started the riot. You know what happens to riot provokers.”

  “Yes, but I also know that Frank wants all Talented people registered, trained and controllable. So when he’s had a chance to question the sleeping beauties …”

  “We can trace Cinderella and fit her out with glass slippers …” Sally grinned saucily as she picked up the analogy.

  “Before Pegasus flies away with her.”

  “Pegasus? He’s a myth, not a f
airy tale. That’s not fair, Daffyd!”

  “But the analogy is most apt” and op Owen was grimly serious. “And we’ve got to put a bridle on her Pegasus or she’ll end up with singed wings.”

  Although the LEO Commissioner and the Director of Eastern American Parapsychic Center were on good working terms, the Commissioner avoided coming to the Center. Respecting this whimsy, Daffyd called through to Gillings’s office the next morning, asking for an appointment and specifying his business as the Fact riot.

  “How did you happen to be there, Dave?” Gillings greeted him, rising from his chair as op Owen was ushered into his tower office.

  Daffyd spent a moment admiring the 360° view of the sprawling hazed metropolis.

  “Tracking a rather unique Talent.”

  “That singer?” And Gillings swore when Daffyd nodded. “Do you know the toll on that caper?”

  “No, but it’s one helluva lot cheaper than it would have been if we hadn’t alerted riot control.”

  Gillings frowned. “She shouldn’t be allowed a public performer’s license.”

  “I wanted to find out if she had one.”

  Glaring, Gillings icily banged at his desk comset and demanded to be put through to ID. No license had been issued to anyone answering the description of the singer, Amalda: nor had there been a license issued to the Fact for solo entertaining. There were, however, specifications on record as to what mechanical amplification was permitted the management of the Fact, the frequency of the programming and the nights on which public gatherings could be held and the maximum number of people permitted to gather. Last night’s performance, it transpired, was completely illegal. Gillings issued a summons for the owners, brothers named Dick and Harry Ditts, who had told an entirely different tale the previous evening when they had recovered from sleepy gas. Five minutes later, Gillings was informed that neither Dick nor Harry Ditts could be located at their residences on record.

  “Have they any known connection with Roznine?”

  “Roznine?” Gillings regarded Daffyd with a combination of disgusted annoyance and startled concern which faded into deep reflection. “You saw him there?”

  “Yes, he was at the Fact. When we were withdrawing from the scene of the imminent riot, he was deep in conversation with several types in the lobby. Later he spotted the LEO copters on their way in and made his way out. Funny he didn’t suggest to the Ditts brothers that they leave with him.”

  “Don’t be naive. Roznine looks after Roznine, first last and always or I’d’ve had him cooled long ago. But Sector K is for from his bailiwick …” Gillings stared out across the city with narrowed eyes. “He’s been getting too damned powerful in the City and not just with the Slavs. A megalomaniac is what he is and they operate with a curious ability to avoid minor disasters … until they get overconfident Roznine hasn’t made that mistake … yet …”

  “I shouldn’t wonder that there’s some Talent in a megalomaniac apart from his madness.”

  “Talent?” Gillings erupted as Daffyd had known he would. “Christ, that’s all I need is a Talented pan-ethnic leader. Goddammit, why don’t you people get on the ball and round up all these goddamn freaking Talents before they go haywire. We’ve got enough problems keeping that …” and his blunt-fingered hand described a circle at the panoramic metropolis outside the plexi-glass, “… from exploding as it is without unnatural hazards like latent Talents …”

  “… Then help us find Amalda. She can be immensely useful …”

  “She’s a riot provoker …” Gillings’s eyes narrowed with a flash of vindictiveness.

  “Are you going to help me, or hinder me, Frank? The girl is valuable to both of us but not in your cooler as an RP. She’s an intelligent broadcasting empath of tremendous range and power. I don’t think she realizes what she is … or didn’t until possibly last night. Something frightened her out of her wits halfway through her third song. She ran! I don’t know what it was nor do I know exactly how she can broadcast the way she does, but it’s imperative that the Center find and protect her.”

  Gillings’s eyebrows rose in ironic surprise. “You and Iselin were there. Why didn’t you get her then? What happened?”

  “Among other things, a riot. Some people shield automatically, Frank, and if you can’t trace the mind, you can’t catch the body.”

  “All right, all right.” Gillings said, irritably waving aside Daffyd’s mild reproval. “But how come she doesn’t know what she is? All right all right I know the answer to that, too. All right, what do I do?”

  “I want a tracer on any young singer of her description applying for a performer’s license anywhere in the country. And I want to know where she has sung, where she trained, where she came from. She’s gone to cover and she won’t find easy. In the first place, she’s terrified of whatever hit her last night. And secondly, she’ll have a good idea what happened when the audience found out she wasn’t going to sing again. She has two very good reasons for being scarce. I also don’t want her frightened out of her wits so let me handle the actual search with my people. I’ll get my propaganda team to alter some of the public info broadcasts subliminally. We might get her to seek us out spontaneously which would be preferable,” Daffyd added, rising.

  “Okay, you handle it but I want that girl found and trained or whatever it is you do with them. And quick. I’ll shunt the report on her to your computer. Shouldn’t take long to trace her.”

  It took two days to trace the girl known as Amalda. And the print-out had many gaps.

  She’d been born and reared in a small Appalachian commune: educated to her sixteenth year in the County School system which she quit to “travel”… a not uncommon pattern for an undirected or unmotivated youngster. There was no record of formal music instruction but music was a feature in her environment: no official record of her for several years until she took work in a Florida food control complex. Two applications for performer’s license in Florida were denied by the Audition Board there. The third application was provisionally granted and lapsed without formal request for an extension, but several short term engagements were on record for her as an unamplified, string-instrumented folk singer. A new application as apprentice, non-singer, had been filed in Washington, D. C. four months before: one engagement was listed without a termination date. Then Daffyd had a check made on the play in which she had appeared. Amalda, who had started as a walk-on, had been abruptly promoted to an important supporting role. The play was scheduled for a metropolitan opening in three weeks.

  Although Daffyd had only a superfical acquaintance with the mechanics of the Performing Arts, there were several glaring contradictions in this report. And no explanation for Amalda’s sudden appearance as a self-accompanied soloist in a minority entertainment hall of dubious reputation.

  In the meantime, he and Sally worked with the propaganda department to include in the public information broadcasts a subliminal appeal for someone in Amalda’s situation. Daffyd also got in touch with the play’s producer.

  “I’ve had enough trouble with that flitting bird,” Norman Kabilov told op Owen. “If she does show up, I’ll tell her straight: she gets no more contracts and she shouldn’t ever hope to get a PP license approved. Not if I have any connection in the PA.”

  “What kind of trouble did you have with Amalda?” Daffyd asked, injecting placatory thoughts at the irritated little man.

  “Troubles, plural, not trouble singular,” and Norman Kabilov glowered at op Owen.

  Daffyd knew the man was considerably perplexed by the Center’s interest in his ex-actress.

  “First, she latches on to my stage manager, Red Vaden … good man, Vaden. Solid. Dependable. Only this little twit has him hopping to her tune like he’d never tried to brush off a stage-struck tail before. Red doesn’t ask many favors so when he wants this bird in the cast … so when the show travels, he’s not lacking what he’s been having regular … I say, yes. What harm? Suddenly I got Red begging me to give h
er an audition for one of the secondary leads. I already got a good PA picked out for the part …” Kabilov’s expression told Daffyd that his choice had been personal rather than professional “… but I gotta keep ’em happy so I audition the girl.” The little producer frowned now, his thoughts vivid to Daffyd. The man had been surprised out of boredom at the quality of the audition and immediately signed Amalda for the role, despite the fact that he’d known he’d be in for a heavy time with the disappointed candidate. “Mind you, it wasn’t that great a part until that kid reads it.” Another headshake of perplexity. “I dunno how she did it because she sure had no theatre arts credits but I couldn’t not give her the part. And then the author comes to rehearsal and hell, he’s rewriting the part to give her more. I damn near have a jeopardy action from Cada Jacobs who’s the name in the play. Only Red goes to work on her and she quiets down like a lily. And you gotta believe that Jacobs don’t handle that easy. She’s pushing fifty, y’see, and any new bird is a threat Funny thing,” and Kabilov stared off above Daffyd’s head, his mind taking up and discarding a hundred different glimpses of Carla Jacobs in high tantrum, Carla Jacobs soothed and very few snatches of Amalda. The man was unconsciously censoring those recollections. “Once La Jacobs got to working with the kid, things were okay. Wanta see the reviews we got?”

  Daffyd hastily assented but he was given no chance to do more than glance at the commendatory headlines in the fase sheets.

  “As long as we were in Washington, it was okay. But the minute we got to Jerhattan, troubles! La Jacobs storms in here with her lawyers and her current man and she won’t play with that creature anymore. In fact, she gets so absolutely violent we gotta trank her. Now I can’t lose La Jacobs or I lose the theatre and the play since that’s the contract So I tell Red to find his bird another nest. I can’t afford trouble. And they both walk!” He was indignant. “Just like that. He walks. A guy I’d sworn was 100% dependable walks out of the show two weeks before opening. On account of a scrawny bird!”

  If Norman Kabilov looked the picture of outraged innocence, he “sounded” like a man reprieved from an unknown ordeal. However, he did have publicity shots of Amalda and Red Vaden, which he appeared relieved to give Daffyd: as if by getting rid of everything reminding him of this unsettling episode he could erase it from his memory.