Had she imagined it? Andie put the pop in her mouth. It tasted stickily sweet. She really didn’t want it after all. She looked for a trash receptacle and disposed of the cloying thing. Did that boy really have golden eyes?
Confused, she left the beach, put her shoes on, and walked across the street, nimbly dodging manic taxi drivers. She passed several cafés, blinds drawn, chairs upended on tables. Where was this legendary hedonistic culture? Even the shops were closed. At the comer of Avenida Rio Branco, she saw one small café open, with a waiter idly polishing glasses behind the bar. As she passed, she caught his eye. He smiled gently and she nodded. Had his eyes gleamed with gold? Perhaps it was just a reflection, she told herself as she entered the Cesar Park. Whatever it was would have to wait. It was time for the briefing.
Eleanor Jacobsen got down to business immediately, as usual.
“As you know, we are here, unofficially, to investigate the rumors of next-step mutants. Personally, I don’t believe any of them. However, I will discount nothing until the end of this trip. We will begin with a visit to the gene-splicing laboratories of Dr. Ribeiros this morning. Of course, officially, we represent American-Japanese medical research interests looking for more laboratory space. After lunch, Mr. Craddick, the Reverend Mr. Horner and I will meet with Dr. Ribeiros to interview him about his laboratory’s capacity for contract work. Meanwhile, I encourage the rest of you to utilize the lab’s library and research as time permits. Remember, we can’t risk offending the Brazilians. Be careful. We will meet again at four to compare our notes. Questions?”
* * *
Melanie tried to balance the armload of discs she was carrying, but she shifted too much to the left, and the first ten volumes of The History of Civilization clattered to the floor of the school library, followed by her purse, coat, and discpack. She looked down at the pile at her feet and sighed loudly.
“Can’t you be more careful?” the librarian said, glaring from the monitor in the corner, by the door.
Mel’s face grew hot. She tried to brush her bangs out of her eyes. The librarian hated her. She might be two rooms away, but she was watching her every move and she hated her.
“Yeah, Ryton. For a mutant, you’re pretty clumsy. Why don’t you just float yourself and your stuff out of here? To Marsbase,” Gary Bregnan, fullback for the Piedmont Eagles, said in a piercing whisper. Two of his football buddies sitting nearby snickered. Led by Bregnan, they began chanting, sotto voce, “Mutie, mutie, mutie.” Mel’s eyes began to sting with tears of frustration. Everybody hated her. Well, she hated them, too. She’d send them all to Marsbase, if she could.
She gathered up the discs with her belongings and found an empty PC booth. The April rain drummed against the clerestory windows, a cold, depressing tattoo. She could hear Bregnan still laughing behind her. So he hated mutants, did he? Well, soon he’d have to find some other target. Meanwhile, the least she could do was return his contempt. Oh, her mother was always talking about trying to understand normals. But her mother didn’t have to face Gary Bregnan and his friends each day.
Mel spent forty-five minutes taking notes for her humanities presentation, “Comparing the Impact of Sea Travel on Ancient Spain and Space Travel on Contemporary America.” She rubbed her eyes, tired of staring at the white letters on the screen.
Thank God for Kelly McLeod, she thought. If she hadn’t agreed to work with her on this report, it would have become a nightmare. Kelly had suggested using maps and even constructing a gameboard. Without her, Melanie would have given a flat, two-minute talk. In her opinion, the Spanish empire had come about because of Spain’s naval superiority, and then been destroyed by the results of its voyages. She didn’t want to draw any similar conclusions about things now. Melanie yawned, made a backup disc and turned off the PC. At least the rain had stopped.
On her way out, she stopped by the front desk. Bregnan’s laughter still echoed in her ears. Scanning the catalog, she stopped at “Perverse Human Sexual Practices Throughout History” and “Venereal Diseases,” then checked out both files under Bregnan’s name. It was easy to fake his ID with the dumb, old-fashioned computer. On the way home, she dropped the discs off in a Salvation Army chute not far from school. Serve Bregnan right if he has to pay to replace them, she thought. She might not have mutant power, but she wasn’t entirely helpless.
“Mel, wait a minute!”
Melanie froze in horror. She’d been discovered. She couldn’t even get revenge without being caught. In despair, she turned to confront her accuser.
Jena Thornton hurried up the street. “Hi! I’ve been looking for you.”
“You have?” Melanie said, voice quavering. Had Jena seen her deposit the discs?
“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you. Want to get something to drink?” Jena smiled, her long blond hair dancing gently around her face in the wind. She didn’t seem very suspicious.
Melanie’s heart stopped pounding. She was safe. But what did Jena want? At clan meetings, she’d rarely done more than nod at her. And at school, Melanie might as well have been invisible for all the attention Jena paid to her. While the football players teased and tormented Melanie, they whistled whenever Jena swayed past them.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Oh, you know. School. Clan stuff. C’mon, let’s get a chobashake.” She took Melanie’s arm and drew her toward a choba and sushi shop.
Once inside, Jena ordered two shakes and maguro rolls from the mechwaiter.
“How’re your classes?” she asked.
Melanie swallowed a mouthful of tuna and rice. “Okay. I’ll be glad to graduate next month. All my credits are in.”
“Are you going to State in the fall?”
“I don’t know. My folks want me to. I might just work for my father.”
Jena smiled. “He’s got a good business going. And Michael works with him?” She seemed to linger on the name, savoring it.
“Yeah. They just got back from a trip to Washington, to see Eleanor Jacobsen.”
Jena shivered. “She’s so fine. The thought of her makes me float.” She levitated a few inches off her seat, then sat down on the blue banquette, giggling. “I’d love to meet her. Maybe Michael will tell me about her at the next clan meeting.”
“Ask him about it.” Melanie was beginning to feel uneasy. What was Jena getting at?
“Oh, I’m having a party on the seventeenth. I wondered if you and your brother would like to come.”
“Sure. I mean, I’d love to, but you’ll have to ask Michael.”
“All right, I will. And you can bring a date if you want. He can too. I guess he’ll bring Kelly McLeod. It’ll be interesting to have a nonmutant at the party.”
“What makes you say that?”
Jena’s eyes were wide, innocent. “Well, I saw Michael and Kelly at the movies last week. They are going out, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, they’d better be careful,” Jena said. Her smile had faded. “If the clan finds out, Michael could regret it.”
Melanie bristled. “Is that a threat?”
“Of course not,” Jena said smoothly. “Just an observation. Well, I guess it’ll be a good experience for your brother to taste forbidden fruit.” Her laugh was hard-edged.
“Look, Jena, it’s getting late—”
“You know Stevam Shrader?”
“He’s Tela’s cousin, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. I’ve been seeing him. Nice muscles.” Jena giggled. She glanced down at her wristchron. “Oh, God, I’ve got to go. Promised to get the skimmer home, and I’m meeting Stevam in an hour. Stay and finish. See you on the seventeenth.” A blur of blond hair and blue jumpsuit, and she was gone.
Melanie gathered up her discpack. Jena made her jittery. What was she getting at about Michael and Kelly? Sometimes mutants were as difficult to figure out as nonmutants, she thought. But she wouldn’t have to worry about that much longer.
Jena pressed the acce
lerator of the vermilion skimmer to the floor. The highway was a concrete ribbon beneath the skimmer, the passing landscape a yellow-green blur of budding trees.
She told herself she hadn’t lied to Melanie Ryton. Of course she’d invite both Mel and Michael to the party, even if they both knew whom she was really after. And she was dating Stevam, although he bored her silly.
If only she could forget what she’d seen last night, Michael with his arm around Kelly McLeod. The two of them laughing together as they walked out of the theater. Happy together, ignoring the stares they received as a “mixed” couple.
At the word “couple,” a knot grew in Jena’s stomach. Those two had seemed very much coupled last night, glowing with a special intimacy that made her worst nightmares pale by comparison.
From the age of twelve, Jena had adored Michael Ryton. At each clan meeting, she’d watched him play floatball or leaper with their cousins, loving the way he moved, the way he smiled shyly at her. She’d hoped that, with time, he’d come to feel the same way about her. After all, she was close enough to him in age. A suitable choice. And his choosing time was upon him. Why not her?
She’d realized early on that her looks were a potent tool, effective even on nonmutants, not that she cared about those silly, boring normals. At clan meetings, she saw the way the men looked at her. Even men her father’s age allowed their gaze to linger as she walked by. She’d considered it a pleasing game. But the only man with whom she really wanted to play seemed to have his mind on other things. Nonmutants.
Jena gripped the steering wheel tighter. She’d missed her exit. Damn.
She’d taken Michael’s rebuff at the clan meeting last winter as a sign that he just wasn’t ready to settle down. Fine, she’d told herself. He’ll come around. Give him time and space. His rejection had hurt her, but she’d shown no one, not even her mother, just how deeply the scars extended. Sooner or later, she vowed, he’d be hers.
How could Michael be interested in dating a nonmutant? Kelly was all right, but she was a normal. An outsider! To go against clan custom, Michael must feel more than a gentle infatuation for her. Possibly even enough to risk clan censure by marrying her.
No. No. No.
Jena told herself that it couldn’t happen. Wouldn’t. She’d waited long enough. Now she knew that she had to do something, and soon. She took the next exit off the freeway, turned the skimmer around and headed home, a plan forming in her head.
“James, you can’t just wrap Michael up with Jena and expect things to take. They’re not sushi,” Sue Li said. She watched her husband pace the room, moving restlessly in and out of the pools of blue and green light, a sure sign the mental flares were bothering him. “Besides, betrothals are old-fashioned.”
“I don’t give a damn about fashion. It worked with us, didn’t it? If you give these young fools too much choice, they make dangerous decisions.”
“Oh, those were different times. You can’t generalize.” She wished the topic hadn’t come up, but James had asked about the missing skimmer, and, reluctantly, she’d told him about Michael’s date with Kelly. Now he was raging. With a sigh, she turned away from Art History Monthly, leaving the screen on, and sank back against the cushions of the couch.
“Trying to force Michael to your will won’t work,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll chase him away.” And I’ll never forgive you if that happens, she thought, wondering if he could read her clearly. His clairaudience was a quirky, uncertain gift.
Ryton stopped pacing, a look of dismay on his face. She felt a small tingle of triumph. Hers had always been the superior telepathic power.
“I’d never force my son away from home,” he said softly.
“I don’t think you know how hard you push him,” she said, pulling the plum-colored kimono more snugly around her.
“He has no idea of the kind of force that could be brought to bear upon him,” Ryton said harshly.
Sue Li stared at him in horror. “You aren’t thinking about petitioning the groupmind? Against our son?”
“It’s been done before. Infrequently, of course. Only for the good of the clan. There’s been talk of calling for a censure against Skerry. Bring him in line. I’m tempted to vote for it. Michael likes him. This might be a good lesson.”
“A group censure could destroy Skerry’s telepathic gifts!”
Ryton shrugged. “What good is it to us? He’s abandoned the community. If nothing else, we could still use his contribution to the gene pool.”
“And of course, you’d compel that as well. Is that all you think about?”
“Of course not. But you know this is important, Sue Li. Always has been. We’re so few. And now that we’ve revealed ourselves, our young ones only think about mixing with the normals.” Ryton rubbed his temples wearily. “Crazy idea. Dangerous. Nothing good will come of it. The normals are no more ready for it than we are.”
“You make it sound like they’re prehistoric apes.”
“In certain ways, compared to us, they are.”
“You know I hate it when you start saying things like that.” Sue Li turned toward the computer screen. For the second time that evening, she longed for telekinesis, just enough to shove her husband into the wall and knock these hostile, paranoid ideas out of him.
“Encouraging him in this infatuation with the McLeod girl will only make it worse,” he said. “And I don’t want my son to be so exposed to irrational normals, where he can be hurt. Or worse.”
“He’s managed to survive so far,” Sue Li said drily. “Even college didn’t kill him. And he was surrounded by thousands of normals there.” She snapped off the screen’s power switch. “We can’t keep him locked away forever, James. He’s already chafing to move out, live on his own. And he should. If we try to separate him from Kelly, this could all backfire on us. Be patient. They’re both very young. Maybe it will just run its course.”
“Well, I hope you’re right.” He settled into a chair and began to fill his pipe with tobacco, a sign that the discussion was over.
Sue Li gave a mental sigh of relief and keyed up the power again on her scanner. Turning back to her magazine, she congratulated herself on avoiding the issue of her son’s sex life. She would have to talk to Michael about that later.
7
ANDIE SWITCHED OFF THE OLD-FASHIONED microfiche machine.
“Damn!”
Her hunch had not paid off. There was a small mutant population in Rio, maybe two thousand people, barely a noteworthy percentage of the ten million Brazilians packed into the city. Not enough to fill every café with the golden-eyed waiters and clientele. The size of the mutant population here didn’t support the bizarre theories she’d been formulating. Perhaps she’d imagined that beach vendor’s golden eyes.
Most of a day wasted chasing down a wild hunch. What was she going to tell Jacobsen? This investigation was turning into a fiasco, one with which the General Accounting Office would have a field day. Not to mention how many votes this might cost Jacobsen come election time. She had to turn something up.
Around her, the Rosario do Madrona medical school library hummed. Monitors at regular intervals in the white circular wall stared out at her somberly. Well, there was nothing here to support her suspicions. Maybe it was time to be more direct.
She turned to Catalina Jobim, the reference librarian.
“Can you recommend additional resources concerning unusual eye pigmentation? Golden eye pigmentation?”
The green-clad librarian looked confused.
“But Miss Greenberg, what are these golden eyes you speak of?” she asked.
“Oh, just people I’ve seen on the street,” Andie said. “I thought their eyes were, uh, so beautiful. I was curious. After all, your mutant population is rather small.” She paused, watching Jobim carefully. “Surely there’s some documentation of this?”
“No,” the woman replied in crisp tones. “Nothing. What you’ve seen are probably contact lenses. I’m sure of it.”
She smiled. “You would be amazed by the crazy fashions we see here. Last year, everybody had red hair. Everybody. Now, golden eyes. And tomorrow, something different.”
Andie wanted to believe her, but the odd way she looked at her only increased her suspicions. She thanked the librarian and excused herself. It was almost noon.
At lunch, Jacobsen seemed more remote than usual.
“Any leads?” she asked, toying with a dish of orange melon.
“None,” Andie said. “I’m beginning to pray for a clue, a hint, even concrete proof of supermutants. Just so we’ll have something to go home with.”
“I know what you mean.”
Andie wondered if her boss had hit a snag in her investigations. Somehow, she couldn’t believe it. If anybody could slice through smoke screens, it was Eleanor Jacobsen. But the senator looked tense and preoccupied. Over dessert, Andie questioned her.
“It’s nothing, Andie,” Jacobsen said. “And spare me that Jewish mother look. The tropics are just not my ideal climate. That’s all.”
Reluctantly, Andie let the subject drop. With a free hour after lunch, she considered taking a walk on the beach, then decided against it; the midday sun was too hot. But she felt restless cooped up in the air-conditioned hotel. She had to get out, even if it was just for a walk around the block.
The Mutant Season Page 8
