Pegasus In Space
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Pegasus In Space». Краткое содержание книги:
For an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. But there are those who, for motives of their own, want Padrugoi to fail. Standing in their way are the Talented, men and women gifted with extraordinary mental powers that have made them as feared as they are respected--and utterly indispensable to the colonization effort. Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who is going to save the Talented?
Pegasus in Space is the tale of Peter Reidinger, first Tower Prime!
Is there anyone on the estate who didn't hear it? Dorotea countered wryly.
It's gone now, Sascha said, making eye contact with Rhyssa from the other end of Amariyah's garden bed. Not a trace of telepathy from her now. He ran a frustrated hand through his thick hair.
Did you have a chance to assess it, Dorotea ? Rhyssa asked.
Dorotea shook her head. Might only occur for protection.
Peter said, She sure tore hair out of a bigger and older girl's scalp at the orphanage. The nuns were amazed at her reaction. Is there anything we can do about the bush and the bulbs? He reached out to pick up a narcissus bud and couldn't. He shoved his fingertips against the barrier and it dissolved. She's got a barrier around it. So protective yes, but I don't feel any 'pathing. And the barrier just went away.
She trusts you, Peter, Dorotea said. And I get no hint of Talent right now. She is a bit young. She started to get down on her knees by the child.
"Don't," Amariyah said sharply, but her voice was low and dispirited. "I'll fix it."
"Can you?" Peter asked, putting a world of sympathy and encouragement in his voice.
"I can, you can't. Go away!" Then Amariyah seemed to realize that she was speaking to the most important adults of the Center. "Please!"
"If you need any help, Maree," Ted said, "lemme know. I'll go put up a fence so it can't happen again."
"We'll find out who was playing," Rhyssa began.
"No!" There was no "please" to that sharp reply. "Go away while there is still time."
Time for what? Sascha asked.
Go away, she said, Peter added and, with an apology, 'ported everyone out of the immediate area, including himself.
Peter! Rhyssa, Dorotea, and Sascha said in surprise, finding themselves back where they had been only a few minutes before.
He's right, Dorotea said to forestall rebuke. As well she was back in her kitchen. She rescued the cookies she'd been baking before they were crisped.
When Amariyah came in for her supper, she was unusually silent. To be expected under the circumstances, Dorotea thought, and didn't remark on it. Peter kept watching the child across the kitchen table. Her eyes were swollen from crying despite the fact that she had washed her face. She hadn't quite got all the dirt from under her nails.
She's not unhappy, Peter remarked, but she sure is tired.
Amariyah finished her dinner, thanked Dorotea, rinsed her plate and utensils and put them in the dishwasher. Then she went to her room. She was in bed, fast asleep, ten minutes later when Dorotea surreptitiously checked.
It was Ted who came knocking on Dorotea's door early the next morning, before anyone else was awake.
"You better see this, Miz Horvath," he said, his eyes wide in their sockets and his whole body tense.
Dorotea flung a jacket over her dressing gown and followed him across the lawn and to Amariyah's garden.
"What?" Dorotea stared, as amazed as Ted. The marigold seedlings that she had seen smashed were upright and whole. The Azalea indica had not a trace of broken boughs. The narcissus sported intact buds.
"She could have replaced the marigolds," Dorotea told herself and Ted. "She might have also changed bushes, though I can't imagine where she got another orange azalea on short notice."
"It's the same one, missus. She didn't change it," Ted said, slowly shaking his head from side to side. "And bulbs don't transplant well when they're ready to bloom. They'd wilt."
"You're right about that."
Without a thought for grass or dirt stains on her elegant burgundy velvet housecoat, Dorotea knelt down and peered at the resurrected plants.
"And I sensed nothing at all. But then she murmured, fingers on her lips, "I was busy with the cookies and then supper." Peter? Wake up. Do you remember the state of Amariyah's garden in the orphanage when you saw it?
HUM What?
Dorotea repeated her question.
I didn't see it. Or rather, I saw where it had been; all neatly raked as if nothing had ever grown there.
Oh. That's a pity.
Why?
Well, and Dorotea accepted Ted's hand to help her to her feet, I'll see if I can winkle it out of Amariyah.
Why? Peter's tone was stronger, wider awake.
I think she resurrected her garden.
So that's why she wanted everyone to go away. Before it was too late. But I didn't feel anything. Did you?
No. Did you know that's what she was going to do?
No, but it's what she did, isn't it? Plants would wilt real fast in Bangla weather. Here there'd be more of a lag. Wouldn't there?
Did you help her? Dorotea asked, trying to solve the puzzling resuscitation logically.
Me? No. I'm no help in a garden. Except for 'porting things. There was amusement in his voice. Did she fix everything?
As near as makes no never mind. "Thank you, Ted " she said out loud, patting the bemused man's arm placatingly. "Just one more psychic mystery. Let's make no more of it, shall we?" She smiled brightly at the head gardener. "And do put up that fence." Or maybe, she added to herself in her innermost mind, almost ashamed of such a thought, that's what we shouldn't do so we'll find out what Amariyah does when her precious garden is threatened. Strange, I didn't feel any output. I must be getting old or something.
Dorotea told Rhyssa as soon as she sensed that her chief was in the office.
Well, I had one ear open for her, so to speak, Rhyssa said. I perceived nothing. Though, come to think of it, later she was very tired but not at all as miserable as she had been when she gave that shriek. And that was very definitely telepathed. In extremis!
Then there's my mother, Dorotea said, her eyes thoughtful.
Your mother?
Yes, Ruth Horvath was a micro-Talent, you know, and never did know what she was doing because she did it on a subconscious level. When she tried to manipulate on the microcellular level, she couldn't. It was spontaneous or it wasn't.
What could Amariyah have done? To restore plants to life?
Probably just as elemental. Ah, well, I don't think we should interfere.
I agree completely, Rhyssa said firmly.
Ted's putting up the fencing today, Dorotea said.
Under the circumstances, is that right?
Morally right, Dorotea replied irritably. I'm not sure I could live through another such incident. That'd be carrying research a shade too far.
Right. How are we going to explain it, though?
You mean the garden? I'm not going to try, Dorotea said.
Good idea! Especially since we can't. Have a good day! Rhyssa advised in a bright, overly cheerful mental tone.
When the boys came to apologize, and they were sincere to their toenails, Amariyah was just finishing her breakfast. Dorotea "heard" the boys approaching: two were promising empaths and Scott a possible kinetic since he always made many more baskets than his peers. They had reached their decision to come independently. Drew Norton was the spokesperson, his eyes anguished as he led the trio into Dorotea's kitchen when she opened the door for them.