To Ride Pegasus

“Hmmm. Probably not. Say, you’re not funded on the Government Research Program, are you?”

“No, thank God. The Henner Bequest was reserved for that. Why?”

“Hmmm. Just that Zeusman is extending this argument against the Bill to all ‘specious’-as he terms it-forms of research, government funded. And spring is appropriations time, you know.”

“Fortunately, we’ve never had that kind of pressure.”

“Talented of you,” Joel said with a grin.

Behind him the elevator door slid open and a young woman, obviously in a hurry, ran out, right into the muscular frame of the young Senator.

She blurted out an apology, flushing with embarrassment as Andres reached out to steady her. Then her eyes opened wider as she saw op Owen and one hand flew to her mouth. “I’m awfully sorry, sir.”

Just as Daffyd recognized Ruth Horvath, he also identified the combined emotions of shame at her precipitous arrival into a distinguished champion of the Talented, regret for her impulsiveness in coming to the Tower at this hour, and the underlying hope and apprehension that had compelled her to come.

Instinctively, Daffyd touched her with soothing reassurances: but Joel Andres’s amiable and admiring glance was the tonic the pretty woman needed.

“No harm done, I assure you, Miss…?”

“Mrs. Horvath…Senator Andres,” Daffyd said and watched Joel’s expression change from delighted interest to flattering chagrin.

“I do apologize, Senator,” Ruth repeated, her cheeks blush-stained again.

“And I apologize for being in the wrong place at the wrong tune and…” an extravagant sigh “…too late.” He bowed deeply to Ruth, reluctantly stepping aside to let her pass.

Instead she fumbled with the elevator button.

“I’m on my lunch break,” she said with a stammer. “I’ve got to get back.”

The panel slid open and Andres stepped in beside her, one ringer jamming the “hold” button.

“Me, too,” he said, grinning down at her.

“Your file is on my desk right now, Ruth,” Daffyd said, suddenly comprehending the reason for her visit and her hesitancy in mentioning the subject in Andres’s presence. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Her face lit up, her eyes became eager and, as she glanced away, Daffyd thought he saw the shine of tears.

“Take care of yourself, Joel. You’re working too hard.”

“A pleasure, I assure you.” Joel’s laugh was cut off by the closing door.

Daffyd op Owen stood looking at the indicator panel for a few moments before he turned slowly back to his isolated tower office. He had much to think about. Not that he would deflect one centimeter from his course of action. Only his firm beliefs sustained him for it didn’t require precog, only intelligent extrapolation-which some uninformed people insisted was the essence of precog-to determine the difficulties still faced by the Talented all over the world. The

Bill was so vital a forward step, raising the Talents from the onerous category of “mental chiropractors,” (Senator Zeusman’s phrase, though chiropractic treatment had long been an accredited branch of medicine), to a creditable position among professional abilities. Mansfield Zeusman had already stalled the Bill in Committee for months, was capable of stalling it through the summer, and keeping it off the agenda next year. The senator was hoping to find some discrediting Incident that would forever banish hope of legal protection for the Talented.

The sheer genius of that Pope quotation was a measure of their opponent’s worth, op Owen mused as he turned to the mass of administrative files awaiting him. The pity of it was that the quote would have been much more applicable to the Talent side of the argument. Come to think of it, much of Pope’s “Essay on Man” was to the point.

Other pertinent lines came easily out of mental storage. Not much that Daffyd op Owen had once seen could elude his recall…a blessing as well as a handicap.

With too much knowledge for the Skeptic side, With too much weakness for the

Stoic’s pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest: In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast: In doubt his mind or body to prefer Born but to die and reasn’ning but to err…

“Enough!” and op Owen roused from introspection to direction. He flipped open the nearest tape case and slapped it into the playback. It seemed somehow meet that it was the Horvaths’s progeny application. Were op Owen a superstitious man he could have accounted it a good omen: a favorable auspice for the work he and his fellow directors around the world were inaugurating. Breed like to like, strengthen strong genetic Talent traits and develop, not the super race of omniscient, omnipotent superpeople Zeusman basically feared, but people trained and conditioned from childhood to use their Talents for the benefit of man. And, by such service, force the World to recognize the treasure that can be unlocked in the unused, untapped portion of the human brain.