To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
Move! To the right The right! Ahhhh.” The woman’s voice choked off in an agonized cry.
Daffyd pushed Charlie out of the way, to get to the speaker.
“Gil, this is op Owen. Do not pursue. Do not pursue that girl! She’s aware of you. Gil, come in. Answer me, Gil…Charlie, keep trying to raise him.
Gillings, contact your men in the station. Make them stop Gil Grade.”
“Stop him? Why?”
“The precog. The baggage on the handcart,” shouted Daffyd, signaling frantically to Lester to explain in detail. He raced for the emergency stairs, up the two flights, and slammed out onto the roof. Gasping physically for breath, he clung to the high retaining wall and projected his mind to Gil’s.
He knew the man so well, had trained Gil when an employee brought in the kid who had a knack for locating things. Op Owen could see him ducking and dodging through the trainward crowds, touching suitcases, ignoring irate or astonished carriers; every nerve, every ounce of him receptive to the “feel” of a dense, dark sable fur. And so single-minded that Daffyd could not “reach” him.
But op Owen knew the instant the loaded baggage cart swerved and crushed the blindly intent Talent against an I-beam. He bowed his head, too fully cognizant that a double tragedy had occurred. Gil was lost…and so now was the girl.
There was no peace from his thoughts even when he returned to the shielded control room. Lester and Charlie pretended to be very busy. Gillings was. He directed the search of the railway station, arguing with the station-master that the trains were to be held and that was that, The drone of his voice began to penetrate op Owen’s remorse.
“All right, then, if the Talents have cleared it and there’s no female of the same height and weight, release that train. Someone tried the Johns, didn’t they? No, Sam, you can detain anyone remotely suspicious. That girl is clever, strong, and dangerous. There’s no telling what else she could do. But she damn well can’t change her height, weight and blood type!”
“Daffyd. Daffyd.” Lester had to touch him to get his attention. He motioned op Owen towards Charlie who was holding out the handunit.
“It’s Cole’s, sir.”
Daffyd listened to the effusively grateful store manager. He made the proper responses but it wasn’t until he had relinquished the handunit to Charlie that the man’s excited monologue made sense.
“The coat, the dress and the necklace have reappeared on the store dummy,” op Owen said. He cleared his throat and repeated it loud enough to be heard.
“Returned?” Gillings echoed. “Just like that? Why, the little bitch! Sam, check the ladies rooms in that station. Wait, isn’t there a discount dress store in that station? Have them check for missing apparel. I want an itemized list of what’s gone, and an exact duplicate from their stock shown to the sensitives.
We’ve got her scared and running now.”
“Scared and running now.” Gillings’s smug assessment rang ominously in Daffyd’s mind. He had a sudden flash. Superimposed over a projection of Maggie’s thin face was the image of the lifeless store dummy, elegantly re-clad in the purloined blue gown and dark fur. “Here, take them back. I don’t want them anymore. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to. See, I gave back what you wanted. Now leave me alone!”
Daffyd shook his head. Wishful thinking. Just as futile as the girl’s belated gesture of penance. Too much too soon. Too little too late.
“We don’t want her scared,” he said out loud. “She was scared when she toppled that baggage cart.”
“She killed a man when she toppled that baggage cart, op Owen!” Gillings was all but shouting.
“And if we’re not very careful, she’ll kill others.”
“If you think I’m going to velvet glove a homicidal maniac…”
A shrill tone issuing from the remote unit forced Gil-lings to answer. He was about to reprimand the caller but the message got stunned attention.
“We can forget the paternal bit, Owen… She knocked down every one of your people and mine at the Oriole Street entrance. Your men are unconscious. Mine and about twenty or more innocent commuters are afflicted with blinding headaches. Got any practical ideas, Owen, on catching this monster you created?”
“Oriole? Was she heading east or west?” He had to stop that line of talk.
“Does it matter?”
“If we’re to catch her it does. And we must catch her. She’s operating at a psychic high. There’s no telling what she’s capable of now. Such Talent has only been a theoretic possibility…”
Gillings lost all control on himself. The fear and hatred burst out in such a wave that Charlie Moorfield, caught unawares, erupted out of his chair towards Gillings in an instinctive defense reaction.
“Gillings!” “Charlie!” Les and Daffyd shouted together, each grabbing the wild combatants. But Charlie, his face white with shock at his own reaction, had himself in hand. Sinking weakly back into his chair, he gasped out an apology.
“You mean, you want to have more monsters like her and him?” Gillings demanded. Between his voice and the violent emotions, Daffyd’s head rang with pain and confusion.
“Don’t be a fool,” Lester said, grabbing the Commissioner by the arm. “You can’t spew emotions like that around a telepath and not get a reaction. Look at Daffyd! Look at Charlie! Christ man, you’re as bad as the scared, mixed-up kid…” and then Les dropped Gillings’s arm and stared at him in amazement.
“Christ, you’re a telepath yourself!”
“Quiet, everybody,” Daffyd said with such urgency he had their instant attention. “I’ve the solution. And there’s no time to waste. Charlie, I want
Harold Orley airbound in the Clinic’s copter heading south to the Central Station in nothing flat. We’ll correct course en route. Gillings, I want two of the strongest, most stable patrolmen on your roster. I want them armed with fast-acting, double-strength trank guns and airborne to rendezvous near Central Station.”
“Harold?” Les echoed in blank astonishment. Then relief colored his face as he understood Daffyd’s intentions. “Of course. Nothing can stop Harold. And no one can read him coming.”
“Nothing. And no one,” op Owen agreed, bleakly.
Gillings turned from issuing his orders to see an ambulance copter heading west across the sky.
“We’re following?”
Daffyd nodded and gestured for Gillings to precede him to the roof. He didn’t look back but he knew what Les and Charlie did not say.
She had been seen running east on Oriole. And she was easy to follow. She left people doubled up with nausea and crying with head pains. That is, until she crossed Boulevard.
“We’ll head south, south east on an intercept,” Gillings told his pilot and had him relay the correction to the ambulance. “She’s heading to the sea?” he asked rhetorically as he rummaged for the correct airmap of the city. “Here. We can set down at Seaman’s Park. She can’t have made it that far…unless she can fly suddenly.”
Gillings looked up at op Owen.
“She probably could teleport herself,” Daffyd answered, watching the
Commissioner’s eyes narrow in adverse reaction to the admission. “But she hasn’t thought of it yet. As long as she can be kept running, too scared to think…” That necessity plagued Daffyd op Owen. They were going to have to run her out of her mind.
Gillings ordered all police hovercraft to close in on the area where she was last seen, blocks of residences and small businesses of all types.
By the time the three copters had made their rendezvous at the small Park, there were no more visible signs of Maggie O’s retreat.
As Gillings made to leave the copter, Daffyd op Owen stopped him.
“If you’re not completely under control, Gillings, Harold will be after you.”