To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
“I suppose so,” she said, sinking wearily into the armchair of their private suite in the main house. “But I wish we had more Gooseggs or a surer way of spotting the live ones.”
“Any today?” Henry fixed Molly a stiff drink.
“Yes,” and she brightened as if she’d temporarily gotten the event. “One very strong receiving telepath out of forty-five aspirants.” She accepted the drink, turning the glass in her hand as if the amber liquid held some other answer.
“Henry, they come in so hopeful…and some of them leave so angry and disappointed. As if we ought to be able to find what doesn’t exist…”
“Not your fault, love. Everyone wants to be, in some way, unique, and can’t realize that being unique is a responsibility as well as a privilege. You can’t cure that How strong’s the telepath?”
Molly brightened. “I think he’s very strong, but he’s been blocking thoughts, the way they all do. Out of fear. He may need a lot of training.”
“No, not too much,” Henry said easily, pulling his chair close to Molly and clasping her free hand. “Young fellow, isn’t he? Welsh extraction, Welsh name.
Right?”
“I just sent the report in…” Molly began, startled, and stopped mid-sentence, arrested by Henry’s knowing look. “Not another one, Henry?”
“They do seem to appear right on schedule,” Henry grinned at her but there was a shadow in his eyes. “Right on schedule. One day I’ll be wrong.”
“Don’t, Henry.” She clasped his hand tightly, reassuringly, knowing the strain of his unfortunate infallibility, knowing that some of the events he foresaw he’d rather not have seen. “And, he is, as you predicted, Welsh,” she went on in a light voice, “by name, Daffyd op Owen. Very likeable chap. He’s important?”
Henry nodded. “He won’t need more than some basic pointers and a few quiet weeks here to wash the ‘noise’ out of his mind and learn to project as well as receive.”
“Well, that’s one on the plus side of the ledger.” She rotated her shoulders to ease the day’s strains but Henry’s disclosure about young op Owen made her feel much better about her labors.
“When is he moving in?”
“Don’t you know?” she asked in a bantering fashion,
“What I know I wish I didn’t. What I’d give anything to know, I have to wait and see.”
She smiled at him lovingly. “You mean, if we retain Beechwoods?” When he nodded, she chided him gently. “How often have you been wrong in the merest detail?”
“It’s not how often I’m right, Molly luv, it’s will I be wrong this time, this once? This important, crucial, critical once? Such a terrible gift, luv.
Terrible when your knowledge means the loss of a friend…”
“Henry, your recognition, the very challenge of the Center,” and her arm gesture encompassed all of Beech-woods, “have kept George Henner alive…and kicking.” She peered into Henry’s face, reassuring him by touch, word and look.
“He’s determined to do you out of Beech-woods, if only by a minute. That determination alone has strengthened his hold on life. I’ve seen his medical reports, Henry. I know.” She leaned back in her chair. “You’ve done him quite a favor and he knows it. I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t left the Center Beechwoods anyway.”
“He hasn’t. He showed me the will.”
Molly opened her mouth to say something then thought better of it.
“All right,” Henry went on, catching her look of mischief, “so he could write a second one in secret…No, we’ve a wager on and…”
“I know what you mean, hoping to win the wager loses a friend.”
“I can see horizons wider than mortality but I cannot always see the sparrow fall.”
“So young op Owen will be your successor?” George Henner was in a very testy mood that morning. “Yes, but of course, not for some time yet…” “You’ve got it all foreseen, have you?” “Certainly the basic problems…”
“Ha! I thought you’d already solved the basic problems…”
“By no means, my friend,” and Henry’s laugh was mirthless. “I’ve had the easy part. No, really. The establishment of the Center-and others in time in strategic parts of the globe…is only the first bit: scarcely the worst,
“Once we’d elevated parapsychic Talents to a demonstrable, scientific basis, it was only a question of some decent organizational effort to make us self-sufficient and independent. We did dodge the governmental attempt to take control because we operate more efficiently as a private agency and because you could imagine the tax payers’ shrieks about funding tea-leaf readers? Funding was no real problem once we could prove Talent. Training, now…that is a long term program. We’ve got to develop more efficient techniques in recognizing and training Talent and that takes Talented personnel. Getting industry and the government to accept our workers was child’s play with what we can offer.” Then Henry sighed. “The suspicions of the general public can’t be totally allayed but with the help of a discreet PR program, people can become accustomed to the Talented.
“No, George, some of our biggest problems are yet to be solved. The knottiest one is establishing legal protection for Talent. Without that, all we’ve carefully built could be wiped away in legal fees, damages and law suits…particularly against the precogs. Oh, I see that we’ll get professional immunity sooner or later. I’m greedy. I want it sooner. And that’s why a telepath like Dai op Owen is required as Director. He’s more sensitive to the immediate situation. By God, the times I’ve wished I were a telepath…”
George snorted.
“It’s easier for a man who can delve into thoughts, not the future. That’s assured.”
“Ha!” Light flittered from George Henner’s sunken eyes, “Not yet. You’ve three days, four hours and five minutes to go.”
“No,” Henry replied gently, “no, old friend, you’ve three days, four hours and five minutes to go. And I shall miss you.”
“Ha to that as well! See any new signs of decay?” George jerked his head this way and that.
Henry shook his head slowly. “I will miss you, you old bastard.”
“Will you? Will you when I defy your prediction and you and your Talents are thrown out into the mass noise again?”
Henry summoned a laugh. “Then why haven’t you died long ago?”
George glared at him. “I intend to make you sweat, Henry Darrow. Sweat. Bleed.
Die a little.”
“AW you wonder I want a telepath as a Director?” He gripped George firmly by the shoulder and gave him an affectionate shake. “Play the enemy if it pleases you: if the choler makes the blood continue to run in your veins. You’re more our friend than enemy. And I know it.”
“Ha! You are nervous. You’re worried that you’re wrong. That this time you’re wrong! I’ll prove you wrong if it’s the last thing I do.”
Henry cocked his head at George, grinning ironically. “You may at that, you old bastard. I’ve never claimed infallibility, George. And you’ve heard me state time and again that fore-knowledge of the future can alter it…”
“Cop out! Rationalization!” Henner shook with triumph. “You’re admitting defeat!
Ha!”
“Have I made your day, George? Fair enough! I’ve got to go placate that tax man again. See you later.”
“Don’t waste your time with him. He’s stupid. No way they can tax the Talents with the structure I helped you build. And don’t miss the party! The Death Party!”
“Christ, Hank,” Gus Molnar complained to Darrow, “he’s had me checking him over on the hour all day! And then that gaggle of ‘impartial physician witnesses’ check on me.” Molnar ran his hand nervously through his long fair hair, his eyes restless with anxiety and irritation. “And suddenly he won’t let Molly out of his sight.