To Ride Pegasus

Julian Pennstrak continued, “the Professional Immunity Law is now, as of yesterday, programmed into Federal Books and State Law Machinery. What’s your problem now, Frank?”

“It’s this: if renegades like Solange Boshe can exist, how do we smell ‘em out before they cause trouble? Now,” and he held up his hand as Daffyd op Owen opened his mouth to speak, “I know you’ve got a subliminal TRI-D program going,

Dave, but just how successful is it in routing out the odd-balls?”

Op Owen winced at Gillings’s phraseology.

“Unfortunately only tune will tell. We do have Bill Jones, Maggie O’s cousin, and he’ll be a first rate precog. Sally Iselin at the Testing Clinic has upwards of fifty applicants a day.” He sighed. “Most are wishful thinkers, I’m afraid, but occasionally a live one does come in. You can’t make people get Talent tested.”

“What we need,” the LEO Commissioner said in a deadly voice, “is enforced testing.”

“Of nine million people?” asked Pennstrak, good-humoredly aghast.

Gillings grunted. “The mavericks cost us more.”

Pennstrak agreed to that.

“Better still, early testing would be a tremendous help,” Daffyd op Owen said.

“Our sensitives in the maternity wards do catch the occasional strong one at birth. But we lack adequate facilities and more important, the personnel. It takes a special kind of Talent, in itself, to spot embryo Talents. Sally Iselin is acutely sensitive in this area and I thank Providence for her presence in the Clinic. She’s never been wrong in her assessments. But she’s the only one

Eastern has and she’s overworked as it is.” Daffyd smiled and decided against what he’d been about to confide. The dour face of Lester Welch leered at him: For Christ’s sake, Dave, don’t tell everybody everything you know. They don’t always want to hear it. For instance, Daffyd doubted that Frank Gillings would take kindly to the notion that Sally Iselin’s chief assistant at the moment was the two-year-old Dorotea Horvath, the extraordinarily Talented daughter of two of his people. Dorotea came every morning and afternoon to the Clinic, to “play” in the room full of applicants. She’d instinctively approach anyone with the least vestige of Talent so that Sally could give the deeper testing. The others could be dismissed after the routine examinations, none the wiser for the pre-selection. Dorotea was blissfully unaware of what she could do-she simply did it.

“Talent is sometimes latent,” Daffyd told Gillings, “as it was in Solange Boshe, springing into maturity under pressure. But different minds react to different stimuli and the powerful Talent, such as Solange’s, to another set entirely.

Talent can also be consciously or subconsciously suppressed since any Talent singles one out for the unwelcome attentions of the less gifted. We do try to alleviate that envy with our public information broadcasts on what Talent does to relieve…”

Gillings cut him off with a brusque wave of his hand. As much, Daffyd op Owen thought wryly, because Gil-lings was a latent who had no wish to be trained or reminded of this defection.

“Sorry for the lecture,” op Owen said with an apologetic grin, “but you must realize that we are limited in what we can do even with all the Talent at our disposal. Nor can we foresee the stray maturing of Talent. Your LEO operatives,

Frank, have all the information we’ve collated on how to spot the latent or unconscious Talent What more can we do?”

“Get your Senator friend to write a rider on that Immunity Law,” said Gillings in a growl, “that it’s illegal to be Talented and conceal it.”

Daffyd returned Gillings’s half guilty glare with a wide-eyed look of surprise.

Gillings’s perception was not dulclass="underline" he knew what was behind op Owen’s grin and he scowled fiercely at him.

“I’ll suggest it to Joel Andres when next we meet,” op Owen said politely. “It’s a point well taken.”

“How in hell could you implement such a statute under the conditions you’ve just cited, Daffyd?” demanded Pennstrak with understandable disgust. “No facilities, not enough Talent. Besides, latents wouldn’t know and therefore wouldn’t register, and a Talent who knew of his ability could claim he didn’t.”

“Well, it’d be a help to me,” Gillings said, still in a growling mood. Yet he glanced at op Owen with less choler. Obviously the telepath hadn’t mentioned

Gillings’s latent abilities to the City Manager. The man knew when to keep his mouth shut. “I could shut up suspects and keep them from running amok like that gypsy girl.”

Op Owen’s smile faded.

“You can’t suppress or contain Talent, Frank. That’d put exactly the sort of pressure on them we’d want at all costs to avoid. There’s so much we don’t know about the parapsychic, so much.”

“Like what for instance?” asked the LEO Commissioner, steeling himself for unwelcome information.

Op Owen spread his hands wide. “I can’t tell you. I’m not a precog.” To which he added a devout and silent “Amen!”

Gillings unloosed another grunt. “Now, on that score, have your Talents come up with anything on this ethnic employment allocation nonsense? You guys are, I sincerely trust, pan-ethnic?”

“Demonstrably.”