Pegasus in Flight

by Anne McCaffrey

  He also had an impenetrable natural shield. With all her skill, she could not read his mind.

  “Now,” he said, hauling a spare chair up beside hers and spreading out hard copy of advertisements and graphics, “we get in there before Barchenka even thinks of crowing in triumph, so the public will see that Talents are graciously mobilizing all available personnel to be sure Padrugoi Platform is finished on schedule—with phrases that imply she can’t make it on her own without Talented help.”

  “That’s true enough,” Rhyssa said grimly.

  “Ah, but there are ways and ways of saying the same thing,” Dave Lehardt said with a truly malicious smile. “I tangled briefly with the Barchenka Stonewall for another client, and believe me, I’m on your side!”

  Rhyssa smiled to herself. Dave Lehardt did have something like a Talent—a self-confidence that radiated from him like an aura. She had never met someone like him before: someone whose mentality she could not delve into, however discreetly. It was a new experience, and she found herself watching his expressive face, noting the way his hands emphasized points and how he occasionally added a shoulder movement that reinforced what he said. He also kept glancing at her, meeting her eyes as few non-Talents would. Clearly he was not the least bit in awe of being in the presence of one of the top telepathic Talents.

  Oblivious to her reactions, he went on. “I’ve been yearning to score on our gracious ‘Milla.” A flicker of some quickly suppressed emotion shot across his face, but Rhyssa could not decipher it. “All-out Talent assistance, even at the expense of long-established links with the public sector, at considerable personal sacrifice—‘Milla doesn’t pay the going rates, since hers is a priority contract and has worldwide backing.”

  “She will not believe that money is not a consideration . . .”

  “Are you aware of the size of her bonus if she gets the station fully operational on time?”

  Rhyssa grinned. “One of the best-kept secrets of the Talents. We also know the percentage she has to cough up if she doesn’t.”

  “You are well informed!” He paused with a hopeful expression and then sighed as she merely smiled. “No, I didn’t think you’d tell me.” He snagged the corner of a graphic sheet from the pile and spread it out. “To address your two points: six-hour shifts and shielding—very alliterative. I’m going to be able to use that as a slogan, you know . . . Have you demonstrated the problem?”

  “How do you mean ‘demonstrated’?”

  “Time and motion studies, energy expenditures—that sort of recordable data. Remember, I’ve seen your kinetics in action, but I doubt that Ludmilla or even Per Duoml have taken the trouble to watch them work. They’ve been too busy bitching about weightlessness and the silence of space to appreciate the effort kinesis actually takes. I thought you might not have thought of that gimmick. So I had a chat with a Talent I know who was up on the platform, and he gave me some remarkable insights into the actual shift mechanics. If the day’s matériel was properly organized, the kinetic could put everything in place for the grunts to lock on and weld.

  “Then, the noise element. Samjan ran some of the ‘noises’ past me—” He grimaced and crossed his eyes in sympathy. “—and I think if we did a tape simulation of what a sensitive hears in unshielded quarters and played it back . . .”

  “Not to Ludmilla. She insists there is no noise in space.”

  “She’s more of a Mute than I am.”

  “But I take your point. I hadn’t thought of a trick like that.”

  “No trick, my dear, just presentation—and that’s where I’m the expert.” His grin was a mixture of impudence and malice.

  For the first time in her Talented life, Rhyssa found herself fascinated by a Mute, and half of that fascination was due to the fact that she could not predict what he would do or say next. It was fun matching wits with him during subsequent interviews, giving the onerous task an unexpected exhilaration.

  Dave Lehardt was at her side for the initial meeting with a Barchenka who oozed smug satisfaction that she made no attempt to disguise. Rhyssa was hard put to remain civil. Dave Lehardt talked so fast that the engineer had to listen attentively to catch his points. Per Duoml was, as usual, with her, but Rhyssa had been spared another confrontation with Prince Phanibal.

  “All we have had is talk, empty talk,” Ludmilla Barchenka said when Dave had explained the dual problems of short shifts and shielding. “Even the physically impaired are able to work proper shifts in space: no gravity, no sound!” She shot an accusatory look at Rhyssa.

  “Ah, but it is not gravity which is a problem, nor the vacuum. Ludmilla Ivanova, I have arranged a demonstration . . .”

  “I have no time for demonstrations,” the Exalted Engineer stated dismissively. “I must return to the platform. Already there are delays which must be rectified.”

  “Understood, Engineer Barchenka,” Dave said soothingly, with just the right amount of respect and understanding. “Perhaps Per Duoml will attend. This demonstration is likely to put the basic problems into proper perspective, and thus help us all resolve the main problems with the maximum benefit to your project.”

  Duoml would be much easier to deal with—his mind was not totally closed, although he was as dedicated to the project as Barchenka. If they could prove their points to him, they would be halfway to victory.

  “I think she’s disappointed she didn’t have to invoke that wretched statute,” Rhyssa told Sascha later.

  “D’you think we gave in too easily?” he asked.

  “The news quotes Barchenka calling it the ‘cowardly capitulation of the effete.’ ”

  “Let her. If we can just swing Duoml to our side.” Rhyssa frowned. “I don’t see what else we could have done. Dave Lehardt is running public-opinion polls. One point is clear: Everyone wants Padrugoi to be finished, everyone wants someone else to work up there, and everyone thinks people who volunteer for anything are crazy.”

  The next day, Dave Lehardt and Rhyssa Owen took Personnel Manager Per Duoml to the most prestigious exercise complex in Jerhattan, a facility that occupied the first nine floors of a Residential ziggurat near Central Park. The largest gymnasium was set up with three sets of stress-monitoring paraphernalia and technicians, three pyramids of standard-size packages, a forklift, a bevy of impartial observers, and the Complex director, Menasherat ibn Malik, who had been a multiple Olympic gold medalist for four times running.

  Per Duoml was suitably impressed by ibn Malik. So was Rhyssa, for the man exuded physical vitality and competence. He also had no more Talent than Dave Lehardt, who appeared well acquainted with him. Dave stood by, a slight smile on his face, while ibn Malik accepted Per Duoml’s homage and conversed amiably with him.

  “Now, Manager Duoml,” the Complex director said, gesturing to the three men who entered from the side. Stripped down to their shorts, they were all festooned with wires, which were in turn hooked up to the machines. “Let me introduce you to Pavel Korl, bronze medalist in heavyweight boxing; Chas Huntley, a forklift operator with International Canning; and Rick Hobson, the kinetic.”

  Rhyssa was almost as bemused as Per Duoml as ibn Malik made the introductions. Korl and Huntley were big men, towering over Duoml and certainly making Rick Hobson, who was average in height and build, look insignificant.

  “Now, if you would care to check the movables in each pile, Manager Duoml, to assure yourself that they are equal in weight . . .”

  Duoml complied, and it was clear that he had to struggle to lift any of them.

  “Then once our guinea pigs’ wires are double-checked, we can start the test—which is rather simple. By muscle, by machine, and by mind, our subjects will transfer their piles across the floor. The energy levels required, the stress factors, and calories consumed will be displayed on the monitors. Now,” ibn Malik said, moving to the big screen set in the wall for use at sporting events, “on Padrugoi, three men will be doing exactly the same in Q hangar.” He spoke into his collar mik
e. “If you’re ready up at Padrugoi?” The big screen lit up with a scene not dissimilar to the one around them, except that all the men wore space suits. “In space, our hand shifter is Jesus Manrique, the lifter is operated by Ginny Stanley, and the kinetic is Kevin Clark. Are you all ready? On your marks—” The gold medalist raised his arm. “Get set—go!” His arm came down, and the activity on the gym floor and in Q hangar commenced. “This test will last an hour,” he informed Per Duoml, gesturing for the observers to take seats to one side.

  After the first few minutes, Per Duoml stopped watching the burly figure of Korl manhandling the packages down the floor, or Huntley zipping back and forth on the loader. He kept his eyes either on Rick, who had seated himself at a table and, with no visible effort, kept a steady stream of packages flowing, or on the platform kinetic, who was doing his work while leaning against a stanchion. Occasionally Duoml flicked a look at the monitors chattering out their hard copy.

  Both Talents worked their way through their piles in half the time it took the others. The instrumentation proved that they had expended half again as much energy and used up twice as many calories.

  When the test had been completed, Dave Lehardt stripped the hard-copy sheets from all six printers. Neatly folding them, he handed the sheaf to Per Duoml, who took it without a word. The test subjects were all thanked and left the gym, Rick Hobson throwing Rhyssa an impudent wink as he walked by.

  “You will, of course, wish to analyze the results of this test with your own motion experts, Manager Duoml,” Dave Lehardt said, “but I’m sure you recognized the fact that weightlessness grants no bonuses to the kinetic. As to the noise factor . . .” The publicist took a compact recorder from his hip pocket and thumbed it on.

  At the babel and squeaks and metallic groans, Per Duoml covered his ears in defense and stared in shock at Rhyssa.

  “That is what a sensitive ‘hears’ on the station,” Dave said, raising his voice and inserting his words in between the worst of the noise. It was a fair selection, representing the streams of consciousness of eighty mentalities: resentments, complaints, shouts, pains, angers, and myriad metallic noises that some of the kinetics endured. “With ten thousand people living up there already, the mental noise is never-ending. So all that garbage is a constant secondary drain on their nerves, reducing their efficiency if they have no respite from it in shielded quarters.”

  Having set the decibel rate herself, Rhyssa knew that covering his ears gave Duoml frail protection, but she did not reduce the volume until Dave had finished his little speech.

  “I see that you hadn’t realized just what we meant by noise,” she said finally. “But the cost of shielding personnel quarters for the kinetics is going to be less than the cost of materiel lost or damaged due to tired minds.”

  “You have made your points,” Per Duoml said with a grim expression. “I shall present them to Ludmilla Barchenka.”

  “Present them and insure their implementation, Per Duoml, and you will have the kinetic assistance you require. Oh, and one other minor point,” she added, smiling to take the sting out. “Barchenka is to relay all orders to the kinetics through the regular channels. We will have no more of her rousting Talents out of their quarters at inappropriate hours and insisting on ‘extra duty’ because her schedule is two minutes out of line! Have I made myself clear on that point?”

  He nodded, his expression solemn.

  Rhyssa hoped he could convince Barchenka.

  CHAPTER 6

  “No, please!” Peter Reidinger cried as the electrician was about to disconnect the tri-d in the ward. His cry was echoed by the other children.

  “Look, kids, there’s some kind of freaky drain on the hospital’s power supply, and we’ve finally traced it to this ward. I gotta fix it, or some of your support systems will go down when they shouldn’t,” the electrician said with a hint of exasperation in his tone.

  “No, wait, please,” Peter said. “The program’s all about the space platform and the Talents.”

  “Huh?” The electrician took a better look at the monitor.

  “It’ll only be a few minutes! Just the newscast!”

  Peter pleaded.

  “Wal, I guess—”

  “Shhhh,” Peter interrupted, straining to hear the commentator. Not that he really needed the voice-over to identify the scene as the estate of the late George Henner, one of the earliest supporters of the parapsychics. As the camera panned across the trees and lawns, the boy was startled by the place’s eerie familiarity. This was the place he had sought—a place of tranquil greenery and huge old trees and vine-covered buildings. The place that had scared him away. And now he knew why. They would not want to have their precinct invaded. They needed their privacy to do all the wonderful things they did. Like help to finish the last three spokes of the Padrugoi Platform so that mankind could, at last, reach for the stars.

  “It’s not only the Talented who are making a sacrifice,” the commentator went on, still standing in that marvelous oasis, “for Industry and Commerce have granted leave of absence to their Talented employees to assist with this final push out to space. Platform Manager Ludmilla Barchenka announces that the most ambitious world project yet undertaken will be completed on schedule. And now to other news in the Jerhattan district . . .”

  “Okay, mister,” Peter said, relaxing against his frame. “That’s what we wanted to see.”

  “You’re not looking for a career in space, are you?” the electrician asked, half-teasing. He was always a little nervous around kids who were so badly injured.

  Peter cocked his head at him. “Why not? With no gravity, I wouldn’t be stuck in this frame, and a push of my toe or my little finger—” He waggled the two extremeties, which were, after months of therapy, all he could move. “—I could float about.”

  “Yeah, I guess you could. Now, nurse, can I start with this frame?” the electrician asked, gesturing to the multiple-tasking device that gave Peter what independence he had in his condition.

  “Yes, it’s time for Peter’s body-brace session anyway,” Sue Romero said. “C’mon, Peter.”

  “Aw, do I have to? Couldn’t I watch what he does?”

  “No, the moment for positive thinking has come. Let me see that limbic-system smile on your face.”

  Peter hated the body brace and the morning’s ‘torture session,’ as he mentally categorized the therapy. He felt heavy in the frame, his body more lifeless than ever. “But see, I can move my big toe and my little finger. Please . . .”

  “Hey, what the—?” the electrician exclaimed. The diagnostic reader he had just hooked up had unexpectedly registered a blip.

  While Peter gamely concentrated on his body-brace drills, the electrician checked out the bed’s wiring, but except for that one brief blip, he could find no short, no dysfunction in any of the circuitry. By the time an exhausted Peter was back in his bed, the electrician had done a thorough test of all the specialized treatment electronics in the ward. Baffled by the continual surges on the ward’s circuits, the man left a small monitor attached to the one piece of equipment that had registered an abnormality, slight though it had been, and left.

  Peter knew by her face that Sue Romero was disappointed in him. He did try to make his body remember how to move. The frame sent electrical impulses into his atrophied muscles, the theory being that the little jolts would restimulate neural and muscular activity. He hated that intrusion into his body even more than he hated being paralyzed.

  “Peter, if you would only stop resisting the mechanism,” Sue said reproachfully. “If you would only go with it, instead of denying the help it could give you. You could, you know, even get to the platform. Your schoolwork was excellent—there’d be no problem with the educational end . . .” She trailed off, fighting her own dispiritedness. Sometimes with the very badly damaged children, she felt she was pounding at the well-known immovable object—generally, as in Peter’s case, the child itself.

  The boy w
as exhausted, eyes closed, arms and legs sprawled just as he had been rolled out of the body brace. Sue Romero could not afford to pity him—it was unprofessional and helped neither of them in his rehabilitation—but she did. As she turned away, she thought he was sleeping. She would have been amazed to learn that he was reviewing that vision of the Center, with its trees and lawns and . . . Rhyssa Owen.

  That night, Rhyssa was wakeful, going over and over that telecast. She had felt good about it during filming. Dave Lehardt had done his job well. They would, of course, have to wait until opinions had been sampled, but Rhyssa felt that Barchenka was coming out a poor second at the moment, despite her apparent triumph at the cowardly capitulation of the effete Talents. Rhyssa fretted that she had somehow weakened the consolidated strength of Talents and wondered how she could rectify what was still, in the minds of most Talented, an untenable position with Barchenka getting her way.

  She felt then the gossamer touch—envious, yearning, wistful, and so terribly sad that a sob clogged her throat. Wait, little friend, she murmured in the softest of tones.

  Say what? With the voice came mixed impressions of startlement, sense of apology-denial-rejection, and an astringent smell. And then the touch—timorous and reluctant—was gone.

  Rhyssa tried to follow, her touch feather soft, but the retreat had been too swift, like a flicker of shadow across the moonlight outside her window. She made a quick note of the time: 3:43. Then she lay there savoring that touch, examining it, letting her perception analyze it.

  Such swiftness suggested a young mind—no old thoughts or experiences to slow the instantaneity of action. A boy on a prank . . . A boy? Doing an out-of-body maneuver? A boy in a hospital—yes, a hospital would account for the astringent odor—his movement constrained so that only his mind could travel?

  That fit the pieces together so perfectly that Rhyssa got out of bed and paced over to the console.

  “Bud, I want a call out to all hospital Talents,” she said, unable to keep the elation out of her voice.