To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
“Let him go. He wants to go,” Daffyd op Owen was saying.
Molnar looked first towards Henry whose face was expressionless, then at the other physicians staring at the monitor readings.
“That means the brain’s dead, doesn’t it?” asked LEO Commissioner Mailer, pointing to the Goosegg graph now scribing straight lifeless lines.
Two of the medical men nodded.
“Then he’s dead,” said Mailer, glancing towards the Governor who nodded accord.
“I’d say you won the bet, Darrow.”
“The wager said ‘minute’, I trust, not second?” asked one of the Senators.
“He shouldn’t’ve excited himself like that,” a doctor muttered. “This party was a mistake. Of course we weren’t consulted on that. But it set up circumstances which would obviously result in overstimulation, certain death for a man in Henner’s condition.”
“Or, there’s the voodoo element in this,” another physician said without rancor.
“Tell a victim often enough that he’ll be dead at such and such a time and the subconscious takes over and kills the man.”
“Not in this instance,” said Gus Molnar, loudly and belligerently. “And there’s ample medical substantiation, including your own remarks,” he added, pointing at the voodoo adherent, “that the stimulation provided by the original bet kept George Henner alive long past his own medical men’s estimate. The bet did not cause his death, it caused his life.”
No one ventured to refute that statement.
“I believe,” spoke up one of the attorneys present, “that the autopsy was to be performed immediately?”
As if on cue, two men appeared from the hallway, wheeling a stretcher. Silently they approached, their passage unimpeded as guests stepped aside hastily. The body was laid on the stretcher in silence. But, as the men took their positions to leave, Molly broke from Henry’s embrace. With gentle fingers, she closed the dead man’s eyes. The tears streamed down her face as she kissed George on the forehead. The stretcher glided out of the room. No one spoke until the last sound of footsteps in the hall was gone.
“Mr. Darrow,” said the attorney, his voice sounding abnormally loud after the requiem silence, “I was enjoined by Mr. Henner to make a few announcements at this time usually reserved until several days hence. I was to tell you that this was one wager he didn’t wish to win and hoped he wouldn’t: no matter what indication he gave to the contrary. He said that you were sportsman enough, Mr. Darrow, to appreciate the fact that he had to try to win.” The attorney turned to the physician who had brought up the voodoo insinuation. “He also ordered me to counteract any attempt to bring charges resulting from a misinterpretation of today’s sad occasion. He empowered me to say that he had implicit trust in the integrity of all members of the Parapsychic Center. We,” and he gestured towards his colleagues, “are to be the executors of Mr. Henner’s estate, the bulk of which, excluding a few behests and excluding these grounds now the irrevocable property of the North American Center for Parapsychic Talents, is to go into a
Trust Fund, providing legal assistance to anyone registered with the Center who may be imprisoned or charged with damages or lawsuits following the professional use of their Talent, until such time as specific laws are promulgated to give the Talents professional immunity.”. The lawyer gave Henry a wry grin. “He said, and
I quote, ‘If you ride a winged horse, you’d better have a wide net when you fall. And that takes money!’
“He also said that after he was dead,” and the lawyer faltered, embarrassed by the inadvertent rhyme, “he said the party was to begin. That this was to be considered a joyous occasion…”
“He was glad,” Daffyd op Owen said, and his rather homely face lit with happiness. “That was so astonishing. His mind, the thoughts were happy, so happy at the moment of death. He was happy, I tell you. I know he was glad!”
“Thank God!” was Henry Darrow’s fervent prayer. He raised his untouched drink.
“A toast, ladies and gentlemen.” Glasses obediently were lifted. “To those who ride the winged horse!”
One after another the glasses followed Henry’s into the fireplace of Beechwoods to preserve the tribute to George Henner’s memory.
A Womanly Talent
“If you were one whit less honorable, Daffyd op Owen,” exclaimed Joel Andres heatedly, “you and your whole Center could go…go fly a kinetic kite.”
The passionate senator was one of those restlessly energetic men who gave the appearance of continuous motion even in rare moments of stasis. Joel Andres was rigid now-with aggravation. The object of his frustration, Daffyd op Owen, Director of the East American Parapsychological Research and Training Center, was his antithesis, physically and emotionally. Both men, however, had the same indefinable strength and purposefulness, qualities which set them apart from lesser men.
“I can’t win support for my Bill,” Andres continued, trying another tack and pacing the thick-piled green carpeting of op Owen’s office, “if you consistently play into Mansfield Zeusman’s hands with this irrational compulsion to tell everything you know. If only on the grounds that what you ‘know’ is not generally acceptable as reliable ‘knowledge.’
“And don’t tell me that familiarity breeds contempt, Dave. The unTalented are never going to be contemptuous of the psychic abilities, they’re going to continue being scared stiff. It’s human nature to fear-and distrust-what is different. Surely,” and Andres flung his arms wide, “you’ve studied enough behavioral psychology to understand that basic fact.”
“My Talent permits me to look below the surface rationalizations and uncover the…”
“But you cannot read the minds of every single one of the men who must vote on this Bill, Dave. Nor can you alter their thinking. Not with your thinking and your ethics!” Joel was almost derisive as he pointed a nicotined finger accusingly at his friend. “And don’t give me that wheeze about lawmakers being intelligent, thoughtful men!”
Op Owen smiled tolerantly at his friend, unaffected by the younger man’s histrionics. “Not even when Senator Zeusman steals a march on us with that so apt quotation from Pope?”
Andres made a startled noise of exasperation, then caught the look in the other’s eyes and laughed.
“Yeah, he sure caught me flatfooted there.” He deepened his voice somewhat to mimic the affected bass of Mansfield Zeusman:
“ ‘Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall…’
“What a rallying cry that is! Why didn’t I think of it first? Mind you,” and
Andres was deadly serious again, “that quote is pure genius…for the opposition. Spikes our pitch in a dozen places. The irony is that it would be just as powerful for us if we’d only thought of it first. Dave, won’t you reconsider,” Joel asked, leaning across the table to the telepath, “eliminating the precogs from the Bill? That’s what’s hanging it up now in Committee. I’m sure I could get it put on…”
“The precogs need the legal protection most of all,” op Owen replied with unusual vehemence, a momentary flash of alarm crossing his face.
“I know, I know,” and Andres tossed a hand ceiling-ward in resignation. “But that’s the facet of the parapsychic that scares-and fascinates-people most.”
“And that is exactly why I insist we be as candid as possible on all phases of the extrasensory perception Talents. Then people will become as used to them as to finders,’ ‘ports’ and ‘paths.’ Henry Darrow was so right about that.”
Joel Andres whirled back to the desk, gripping the edges fiercely. “The prophet Darrow notwithstanding, you don’t tell suspicious, frightened people everything. They automatically assume you’re holding something back because they would. No one dares to be so honest anymore. Therefore they are sure that what you’re withholding is far worse than what you’ve readily admitted.” He caught the adamant gleam in Daffyd’s eye and unexpectedly capitulated. “All right. All right. But I insist that we continue to emphasize what the other Talents are already able to do…in their narrow specialized ways. Once people can stomach the idea that there are limits on individual psionic Talents, that all Talents are not mind readers cum weight throwers cum fire dowsers cum crystal-ballseers, all rolled up into one frightening package, they’ll start treating them as you want Talents treated: as professional specialists, trained in one area of a varied profession and entitled to professional immunity in that area if they are licensed and registered with the Centers. Don’t,” and the hand went up again as Daffyd tried to interrupt, “tell them you’re experimenting to find out how to broaden every Talented mind. Don’t ask for the whole piece of bread with jam on it, Dave! You won’t get it, but you will get protection for your people in the practice of their speciality, even your precogs. I’ll bear down heavily on the scientific corroboration of authentic foresights,” and Andres began to pace a tight rectangle in front of op Owen’s desk, his dark head down, his gestures incisive, “the use of computers to correlate details and estimate reliability of data, the fact that sometimes three and four precogs come up with the same incident, seen from different angles. And most importantly-that the Center never issues an official warning unless the computer agrees that sufficient data coincides between Incident and reality…”