To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
Lester Welch snorted, looking up from the map he was annotating with search patterns. “A man’ll use any tool that works…until it scratches him, that is.”
“But you could prove that no registered Talent was responsible for that theft.”
“ ‘A man convinced “against his will, is of his own opinion still,’ “ Lester chanted.
“Les!” Op Owen didn’t need sour cynicism from any quarter, even one dedicated to Talent. “No registered Talent was responsible.”
Pennstrak brightened. “You did persuade Gillings that it’s the work of an undiscovered Talent?”
Welch made a rude noise. “He’ll be persuaded when we produce both missing person and missing merchandise. Nothing else is going to satisfy either Gillings or Cole’s.”
“True,” Pennstrak agreed, frowning thoughtfully. “Nor the vacillating members of my own Council. Oh, I know, it’s a flash reaction but the timing is so goddamned lousy, Dave. Your campaign bore down heavy on the Integrity and good citizenship of the Talented.”
“It’s a deliberate smear job…” Welch began gloomily.
“I thought of that,” Pennstrak interrupted him, “and had my own expert go over the scanner films. You know the high security risk set-up: rotating exposures on the stationary TV eyes. One frame the model was clothed; next, exposed in all its plastic glory. It was a ‘lift’ all right. No possibility of tampering with that film.” Pennstrak leaned forward to Dave, though there was scarcely any need to guard his statements in this company. “Furthermore, Pat came along. She ‘read’ everyone at the store, and Gillings’s squad. Not Gillings, though. She said he has a natural shield. The others were all clean…at least of conspiracy.”
Pennstrak’s snide grin faded quickly. “I made her go rest. That’s why there’s no one with me.”
Op Owen accepted the information quietly. He had half-hoped…it was an uncharacteristic speculation for him. However, it did save time and Talent to have had both store and police checked.
It had become general practice to have a strong telepathic receiver in the entourage of any prominent or controversial public figure. That Talent was rarely identified publicly. He or she usually performed some obvious service so that their constant presence was easily explicable. Pat Tawfik was overtly
Pennstrak’s chief speech writer.
“I have, however,” Pennstrak continued, “used my official prerogative to supervise the hunt. There’re enough sympathetic people on the public media channels to play down the Talent angle-at my request-but you know what this kind of adverse publicity is going to do to you, this Center and the Talented in general. One renegade can discredit a hundred honest injuns. So, what can I do to help?”
“I wish I knew. We’ve got every available perceptive out on the off-chance that this-ah-renegade happens to be broadcasting joy and elation over her heist.”
“Her?”
“The consensus is that while a man might lift furs and jewels, possibly the dress, only a woman would take the shoes, too. Top finders are coming in from other Centers…”
“A ‘find’ is reported, Boss,” said Charlie over the intercom. “Block Q.”
As Pennstrak and op Owen reached the map, Welch announced with a groan. “Gawd, that’s a multi-layer apartment zone.”
“A have-not,” added op Owen.
“Gil Gracie made the find, Boss,” Charlie continued. “And the fur is not all he’s found but he’s got a problem.”
“You just bet he has,” Les said under his breath as he grimaced down at the map coordinates.
“Charlie, send every finder and perceptive to Block Q. If they can come up with a fix…”
“Boss, we got a fix, but there’s one helluva lot of similarities.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Pennstrak.
“We’ll simply have to take our time and eliminate, Charlie. Send anyone who can help.” Then op Owen turned to Pennstrak. “In reporting a ‘find,’ the perceptive is aware of certain particular spatial relationships between the object sought and its immediate surroundings. It isn’t as if he has seen the object as a camera sees it. For example, have you ever entered a room, turned down a street, or looked up quickly and had the feeling that you had seen just (and Daffyd made a bracket of his hands) that portion of the scene before, with exactly the same lighting, exactly the same components? But only that portion of the scene, so that the rest was an indistinguishable blur?”
Pennstrak nodded.
“ ‘Finding’ is like that. Sometimes the Talent sees it in lucid detail, sometimes it’s obscured or, as in this case, there are literally hundreds of possibilities…apartments with the same light exposure, same scene out the window, the same floor plan and furnishings. Quite possible in this instance since these are furnished, standard subsistence dwellings. Nothing to help us single out, say Apartment 44E, Building 18, Buhler Street.”
“There happens to be a Building 18 on Buhler Street, Boss,” Les Welch said slowly, “and there are 48 levels, 10 units per floor.”
Pennstrak regarded op Owen with awe.
“Nonsense, this office is thoroughly shielded and I’m not a precog!”
“Before you guys took the guesswork out of it, there were such things as hunches,” Pennstrak suggested.
For op Owen’s peace of mind and Lester’s pose of misogyny, it was neither Building 18 nor Buhler Street nor Apartment 44. It was Apartment 1E, deep in the center of Q Block. No one had entered nor left it-by normal means-since Gil Gracie and two other finders had made a precise fix. Gil handed op Owen the master key obtained from the dithering super.
“My Gawd,” Pennstrak said in a voice muted with shocked surprise, as they swung open the door. “Like an oriental bazaar.”
“Indiscriminate pilfering on a wholesale basis.” Op Owen corrected him, glancing around at the rich brilliant velvet drapes framing the dingy window to the wildly clashing pillows thrown on the elegant Empire loveseat. A marble-topped table was a jumble of pretty vases, silver boxes and goblets. Priceless china held decaying remains of food. Underneath the table were jaggedly opened, empty cans bearing the label of an extremely expensive caterer. Two empty champagne bottles pointed green, blind eyes in their direction. A portable color ‘caster was piled with discarded clothing; a black-lace sheer body stocking draped in an obscene posture across the inactive screen. “A magpie’s nest rather,” he sighed, “and I’d hazard that Maggie is very young and has been poor all her life until…” He met Pennstrak’s sympathetic gaze. “Until our educational program gave her the hints she needed to unlock her special Talent.”
“Gillings is going to have to work with you on this, Dave,” Pennstrak said reluctantly as he reached for the intercom at his belt. “But first he’s going to have to apologize.”
Op Owen shook his head vigorously. “I want his cooperation, Julian, grudged or willing. When he really believes in Talent, then he will apologize voluntarily…and obliquely.”
To op Owen’s consternation, Gillings arrived noisily in the cowlike lab copter, sirens going, lights flashing.
“Don’t bother now,” op Owen said to Pennstrak for he could see the City Manager forming a furious reprimand,
“She might have been warned by the finders’ activity anyhow.”
“Well, she’s certainly been warned off now.” Pennstrak stalked off, to confer with one of his aides just as Gillings strode into the corridor with his technicians.