Pegasus in Flight

by Anne McCaffrey

  Boris: Did you really expect to find one?

  Loufan: Yes, sir.

  It was Boris’s turn to be surprised.

  Loufan: She could have been a runaway or a kidnap.

  Boris: Okay. File the data, Loufan, and give the hair to Bertha. Ask her—in your ineffably polite style—if this artifact sparks anything off in her mind?

  Moments later Bertha came storming back to him. “Oh, the poor thing! Hair torn right out of her scalp! Commish, who did it?”

  “Possibly Bulbar. Sense anything?”

  Bertha pressed the lock against her ample bosom, closed her eyes, and concentrated. “Not a thing, but it’s there in my mind now.” She grimaced in sudden revulsion and thrust it back to him. “Take it away!”

  Sascha intercepted the lock. “Black, good length,” he murmured. “Some of those women never cut their hair. Healthy, and much cleaner than you’d expect. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a juvenile with a hunk torn out of her scalp.”

  “I’d rather you give it to Carmen,” Boris told him. Ranjit thinks quite a few of the older illegal kids eluded the search teams, he added. Could she be one of them? She might lead us to the rest.

  Carmen Stein laid the lock across her thighs and stroked it flat, using her long fingernails to separate the tangled hairs. For several more minutes she fingered them, softly coaxing a sense of their grower’s whereabouts. Carmen always looked so placid and imperturbable when she was evoking her Talent as finder. Better than most, Sascha knew just how much activity her brain was generating at such moments. She was one of the best searchers he had ever encountered and, because her Talent was intense and exhausting, he protected her as much as he could, limiting her assignments.

  “The incident occurred how long ago?” she asked without taking her eyes from the hair.

  “Approximately sixty-two minutes.”

  “Ah, she is hiding. That accounts for the darkness. I cannot see where. There is no light. A constricted space.”

  “A conduit?”

  “That’s possible.” Carmen sounded dubious. “I think she sleeps.”

  “That’s a cool one.”

  “No,” Carmen said, taking him literally. “Not cool. Tired.” She offered him the hair.

  “No, keep it, Carmen, for now. We’ll need to know if she moves.”

  Calmly Carmen leaned forward, took a clip from the brightly enameled jar on the table, and fastened the tress, the scalp end now coated with a protective film, high on the right side of her head.

  Sascha had relayed Carmen’s comments to Boris.

  A conduit, huh? There’s so few of those in a Linear. The LEO Commissioner’s mental tone was facetious. We’re flushing kids out of every available space. I hate this, Sascha, I hate it. Sascha sent quick soothing thoughts to ease the turmoil in his brother’s mind, but Boris went on. The miracle of life should be a blessing, not a curse. How can people be so irresponsible as to produce countless unwanted children and waste them?

  Even illegal kids have rights, Sascha responded, gently quoting his brother his own words. See that even the least of them get that much.

  Illegals go to the space station. Boris sounded defeated.

  They don’t go as grunts. They’re trained to do something a lot more constructive than their parents ever did. Leave it, brother.

  I scratch your back, Bro, not your nose, Boris said wryly. Now, I’m putting in an appearance to scare some sense out of those flipping focus females!

  No one better. By the way, when you have a spare moment, listen to a news update. Then you’ll know why we twisted your arm with a G and H.

  I congratulate the triumph I sense in your mind, but I’ll have to wait on a replay of the event, Boris said as he entered the rehearsal hall, thinking what a scarce commodity time was right then.

  He crossed the threshold, assuming his most awe-inspiring official manner. Tall, handsome, the strength in his powerful frame shown off even by the bulky action uniform, he succeeded in scaring the gaggle of women silent, a silence that did not last too long, though the renewed bursts of argumentative crosstalk were considerably subdued.

  I just got something, Commissioner, Ranjit told him. A flash from the woman fourth on the left, the plump young one with the caste mark. “It’s all Tirla’s fault.” Tirla is, I think, a feminine name.

  “Translate for me, Lieutenant,” Boris said, striding imperiously in front of the women, his tone haughty. “I am LEO Commissioner Boris Roznine. Where is the girl child you had with you this evening?”

  Boris had no trouble picking up the reactions of resentment, envy, anger, dismay, and fear as he gave Ranjit time enough to repeat his words in the various languages. The women had had time to realize that they were in deep trouble with Authority. Several had vivid worries about their children, left too long alone in their squats. Others concentrated on nursing their sense of grievance. He caught occasional variations on the phrase Ranjit had twigged, but no one else volunteered a name. “It was all her fault.” They contented themselves with impersonal malice.

  “Let me reassure you that the children in your homes are being cared for until you can return to them,” he said, smiling kindly.

  As the import of his sentence was understood by each group, the wailing, breast-beating, and pulling of hair began, and more recriminations were spewed. Boris was well aware of fury, loss, resignation, and relief in one case, but he could not understand any actual linguistics used in the varied emotional reactions.

  Ranjit: This Bilala says that it is all her fault for resisting the Lama’s choosing. Ranjit was restraining the plump caste-marked virago from rushing at the haughty, hawk-nosed older woman on the other side of the room. She says Mirda Khan brought all this on herself. Mirda Khan replies that—ah, the name again, Tirla—would not have been able to translate for any of them up on the stage. She had done little enough to earn baksheesh, a tip.

  Boris: Lieutenant, ask them who is Tirla’s mother.

  The question shut the women up and briefly closed down their mental perturbations. Then they all launched into personal lamentations again. The answer was also quick. None of them was Tirla’s mother, and without exception, just as Boris had hoped, every one of them flashed a quick mental image of the girl in question.

  Got it, Ranjit and Norma told him in unison.

  As I did. With a gesture to signify that the women could be processed or released as their condition warranted, the LEO commissioner hurried back to the Incident Room.

  Loufan awaited him there in front of the graphics pad, stylus ready. For this sort of transference, Boris grasped the technician’s thin shoulder and concentrated on the vivid image of the Tirla child. Loufan sketched quickly, capturing in a few clever lines the intense face—remembered by most in its panic at being stranded—the wide-set, slightly tilted huge dark eyes above prominent cheekbones, the abundant waving dark hair framing it, the fine straight nose, the small cautious mouth, the long sweep of a determined jawline, the odd cleft in the chin. A charming face, if one discounted the fright, intelligent despite the fear. Tirla looked no more than eight or nine, but some wisp of thought—from the fat old woman—suggested that she was older.

  The woman’s memory of her went back quite a few years.

  “Is that her?” Loufan asked, transferring the sketch to the screen.

  The LEO commissioner allowed himself a good long look, matching the image on the screen to the consensus in the minds of twenty women. “Yes, that’s it. Print it, circulate it to all officers and Talents. I think we should find that child. Cass might be right about latent Talent. And if Flimflam was after her, there may be more to her than we realize. I also need to file an intelligent reason why a RIG damned near turned into a full-scale riot, and she just might provide the answer,” he concluded. Sascha, could someone be an instantaneous translator?

  Sascha considered that. I’d say that she displayed more than a mere language facility—quite possibly Talent. Anyone who could translate t
en different languages as she apparently could would be valuable to either or both of us. He grinned at his brother. First we’ll have to find her. Then we can evaluate her abilities.

  Tirla!

  Tirla woke suddenly, jolted out of her exhausted sleep by someone calling her name softly and appealingly.

  Tirla did not move, or so much as open her eyes.

  Clever little trinket, isn’t she? Call her again.

  Won’t work, Boris. She’s alert now.

  It had to have been part of a dream. She often dreamed that she heard her mother calling her name. It had to be a dream, because no one could know where she was, despite LEOs searching the main conduits and sending drone units down the smaller ones. On her way home from the debacle of the meeting, she had escaped all types of earnest hunters. She had seen the numbers of children being flushed from hidey-holes.

  Her hunch about the meeting had been correct. It had served as an excuse to sweep down on the pads, collect illegal children, and check all IDs. No one, absolutely no one, had ever known where she squatted. She did not even think to herself where she was. And no one was likely to discover her even in this intensive search.

  Somewhat reassured, Tirla nestled back into the warmth of her sleep sack. Suddenly she heard noises nearby and froze. She heard the doors into the closed section being opened. This search was unusually thorough. Not even she had been able to get into the engineering space, and yet it was being checked.

  Not even Yassim’s men could find her, and they knew all the ducks and dodges that any subbie had ever figured out. She had been so lucky not to be caught by Bulbar. He was wicked dangerous. Her head still throbbed where the hair had been torn away. She had dabbed on some dis-wipe. Bulbar could have been carrying any kind of ‘mune to infect her, scabby old scuz.

  Her problem with Yassim remained. She had not washed the tieds. How would he expect her to when he, and every trader, had been lucky to escape the bust? Not that he took excuses. What awful luck to be singled out by the Lama-shaman! Which of the women had he really been after? And why? It made no sense to Tirla.

  None of them was pretty or young, or even on the lay—not with their husbands!

  The noise of search was diminishing, and carefully Tirla reached unerringly for the water jug and food that she kept for such emergencies. Chewing the dry-eat made terrible noises in her head. She had heard about the wide-range ultrasensitive gear that was said to pick up breathing in a radius of five klicks, but there should be enough minor noises from the generators and air-conditioning units to mask her chewing, and she was terribly hungry. Finally, thirst and hunger assuaged, Tirla snuggled deeper into her sack and went to sleep again.

  Take a break, Carmen,” Sascha told the finder. “She won’t venture out until night. If then.”

  Carmen rubbed delicately at her temples and sighed. “You’re right. I’ll rest. She’s unusual, isn’t she, Sascha?”

  “We believe so, even if we don’t know specifically why.”

  Carmen regarded him with some surprise. “It’s a lovely clear mind. Like a bell—when she’s asleep. She’s wary and cautious awake, that one. I can touch her but not read her. And with her in the darkness, I can’t even help you home in on her.”

  “She’ll come out in good time.”

  Carmen shot a look that suggested that Sascha Roznine might—this once—be wrong. He grinned and winked as he turned to leave her quarters.

  “Frankly, Sascha, we’ve run everything we got on the people Flimflam fingered for Yassim,” Boris Roznine said, tossing a sheaf of hard copy onto the desktop, “and we can’t find a common denominator. They’re mostly able-bodies, doing enough work to keep away from Conscriptive Work Services, only minor misdemeanors on their sheets, none of ’em known to gamble or dip.”

  Sascha smiled knowingly and felt his brother poke at his mind, but he kept his shield in place. He could do that to Boris, whereas Boris could not keep him out at all. “You’ve had a hard thirty hours, so I’ll tell you. They were all fathers.”

  “What?” Blood suffused Boris’s face.

  “Flimflam had accessed ordinary info on residents of the Linear. Mind you, it was so simple we didn’t see it at first. Bertha’s sensitive to females and children, Auer to the blacker side of life.”

  Boris scrubbed at his head. “Sometimes it is the simple things we miss. So Flimflam was fingering fathers with likely youngsters, and the girl was a bonus?”

  “I guess, and we’re still in the dark about her,” Sascha added, aware of his brother’s next query. “Carmen’s latched, but the girl’s cautious and hasn’t moved since she went to ground.”

  “Scared?”

  “Strangely enough, no. I’d hazard that she’s had to keep a low profile before. She’s a preteen and illegal.”

  “That will sharpen the senses.”

  “How’re you doing with Yassim’s operation?”

  “We figure he picked up at least nineteen children, maybe a few more.” Boris grimaced. “We collected eight hundred and three illegal kids from Linear G. If what Harv believes is possible—that every one of the related mothers has been having a kid a year—we’re minus a possible forty. We located eighteen of that forty in a storage basement, but they’ve got the entry jammed. We’re working on it.” Boris shook his head. “They really will be better off in hostels.”

  “And in space?” Sascha asked wryly.

  “Even in space they have a better chance than stalemated in a Linear.”

  “But they won’t be able to reproduce themselves.” Sascha had never approved of the law that required the sterilization of illegal offspring.

  Boris raised his hands in resignation. “I don’t make the laws, Sascha. I only enforce them.” Then he leaned forward and tapped up a new program on his big screen. “All right. Now, we have to find Yassim in his warren and save nineteen kids or more from him.”

  “She’s moved, Sascha,” Carmen said, her tone half-triumphant, half-anxious.

  Sascha consulted his watch. “This time of day?”

  “Linear will be crowded with those coming off work.”

  “Keep as close as you can to her.”

  “It’s very difficult, Sascha. It’s almost as if she isn’t seeing the things she’s looking at. I can’t get a real fix, except that there are people all around her. Wait! She’s stopped. No, that’s no good. All I get is a mass of standard-issue clothing. She’s still in a crowd.”

  “I’m in touch with our teams on the main levels of G. Just give us a direction, Carmen. Any direction.” Alert to our quarry! he added in a mental call to Cass and Suz.

  Tirla was relieved that it had been Mirda Khan she first came across. Mirda was full of the whole affair, her black eyes snapping with indignation and a certain sly malice that she had not suffered at the hands of the Public Health—it had been a long time since her womb had borne fruit. But she had the grace to mourn her friends’ losses, of both their existing children and their hope of more.

  “They will see how hard it is for those of us who have no children to sell.”

  “Was that why Yassim was there? To buy children?”

  “Why else?” Mirda lifted her shoulders in an eloquent shrug. “He would have no interest in spiritual things.”

  “Did he get them all?” Tirla was aghast. Yet if a big score put Yassim in a very good mood, he would be easier for her to deal with over the matter of the tieds she had been unable to wash.

  “No, they got most of them. Yassim cannot have many, but those he got he got for nothing!” Mirda was indignant. “No price was paid to their grieving mothers and fathers. They ran into his arms to escape the LEOs. Ran! And no credits exchanged, not even a bargain made. Oh, he will not dare to enter G again.” Then suddenly Mirda latched steely fingers into Tirla’s shoulder. “What was the Lama-shaman saying? You didn’t tell us. Aiiiye, and to increase insult, you did not even have the grace to accept the strand that chose you. You have earned the undying hatred of Bilala and
Pilau for not accepting his choice.”

  Tirla wrenched herself free. “Choice? I am nothing—why would he choose me? I think he missed. Tell Bilala that I think he was aiming for her and missed. But, as for what he said, you missed nothing. That Lama-shaman spewed stupid syllables only. Not a proper word in any language. Even in his head he wasn’t using real words. He didn’t mean to. He is a sham man, not a shaman. It was all set up for the Public Health to raid Linear G.”

  “How could that be?” Mirda was startled. “No, it could not be. Not with traders there with all their goods and some of it not things the LEOs should discover on them. And certainly not when Yassim, and every ladrone, hitter, and sassin he employs, were also present. They would have known. Perhaps the strand was meant for Bilala, as you said. She felt that was proper for her, too, you understand, for she has been worthy. A woman who has borne a child every year for her husband. Aiyyee, and they have taken that from her now, and his pride from him. He will reproach her until the day of her death.” Mirda began to beat herself across her breasts, and Tirla used the distraction to slip away.

  So, Yassim had children from G and had not paid for them. And she had tieds that she could not deal for him, which she had better return. If he had enough children, then with luck he would not take her.

  It was wrong of Bilala to hate her. Tirla wished that she had asked Mirda if any more of her clients did. It was essential for Tirla to stay on good terms with everyone in Linear G. She was just as illegal. Bilala or Pilau could be spiteful enough to turn her in, as a token revenge for the loss of their own children. Unless . . .

  Unless Tirla could get a price for the children who had run into Yassim’s clutches. She knew where he kept such merchandise. It would depend on who he had taken.

  She skipped down a side aisle where, looking around to be sure she was not observed, she yanked at a conduit grille. It resisted, and she saw that the screws had been replaced. She felt inside the grille to be sure there were no wires or eyes, but this was a small opening, one only a very small or thin child could have used, and had not been staked out. She got out the vibro-blade she had earned for some long-forgotten favor and sheered off two screws. Then she climbed into the dark conduit.