To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
“All the more reason you should have reported it, Sally. That kind of manipulation is why mechanical amplification is strictly licensed to reputable and reliable technicians.”
“And not a clue about the girl?”
“Not yet.” The licensed owners of the Factory were among those drowsily helpless inside the office in the lobby of the building. They’d be questioned, of course, by Gillings’s men. Perpetrators of riots could expect scant mercy from the LEO office.
“We’ve got to get to the girl first, Sally.”
“If only I’d told you sooner…” Sally was floating in chagrin.
“I keep telling you, and every other member of my staff, I don’t mind being bothered with so called ‘trivia.’ Because it isn’t always as trivial as you might believe.”
“I know. I know. I simply wasn’t thinking clearly.” That was what she said, but what Sally was thinking, also for him to see, was that she hadn’t wanted to disappoint him, or herself, in case her initial impression about the singer had been wrong. The girl had been almost too good to be true.
“Was she afraid of that crowd, Daffyd? It was three times the size of the one the other night. In fact, the size alone put me off.”
“You first heard her…”
“Just two days ago. I tried to get backstage to see her…” Sally shrugged her failure.
“Muscle boys?”
“No.” Sally was astonished. “Everyone else wanted to get next to her. I’d never have had a chance to find out for sure with so much interference, much less suggest she come to the Center.”
Daffyd began to stroll about, his arms crossed over his chest, his head down.
“We both sensed her fright?”
Sally nodded.
“We are both agreed that she is a broadcasting em-path?”
Sally nodded again, more emphatically. “Could she also receive? I mean, that would account for that ‘echo’ phenomenon, wouldn’t it? She throws the emotions out and then magnifies them on retrieval?”
“That’s one explanation.”
“Hmm, but you don’t subscribe to it with any enthusiasm.”
Daffyd grinned at Sally. “It doesn’t fit all the circumstances. Besides, Roznine used a plural…‘those effing copouts.’”
Sally’s eyes rounded with surprise. “She links. That would account for the amplification and the echo.” Daffyd nodded. “Then who’s the other empath, or empaths?” Daffyd shrugged. “Doesn’t she realize what she is?”
“Probably not. We shall have to inform her.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“I think we ask for Frank Gillings’s help…”
“But…but…she started the riot. You know what happens to riot provokers.”
“Yes, but I also know that Frank wants all Talented people registered, trained and controllable. So when he’s had a chance to question the sleeping beauties…”
“We can trace Cinderella and fit her out with glass slippers…” Sally grinned saucily as she picked up the analogy.
“Before Pegasus flies away with her.”
“Pegasus? He’s a myth, not a fairy tale. That’s not fair, Daffyd!”
“But the analogy is most apt,” and op Owen was grimly serious. “And we’ve got to put a bridle on her Pegasus or she’ll end up with singed wings.”
Although the LEO Commissioner and the Director of Eastern American Parapsychic
Center were on good working terms, the Commissioner avoided coming to the
Center. Respecting this whimsy, Daffyd called through to Gillings’s office the next morning, asking for an appointment and specifying his business as the Fact riot.
“How did you happen to be there, Dave?” Gillings greeted him, rising from his chair as op Owen was ushered into his tower office.
Daffyd spent a moment admiring the 360° view of the sprawling hazed metropolis.
“Tracking a rather unique Talent.”
“That singer?” And Gillings swore when Daffyd nodded. “Do you know the toll on that caper?”
“No, but it’s one helluva lot cheaper than it would have been if we hadn’t alerted riot control.”
Gillings frowned. “She shouldn’t be allowed a public performer’s license.”
“I wanted to find out if she had one.”
Glaring, Gillings icily banged at his desk comset and demanded to be put through to ID. No license had been issued to anyone answering the description of the singer, Amalda: nor had there been a license issued to the Fact for solo entertaining. There were, however, specifications on record as to what mechanical amplification was permitted the management of the Fact, the frequency of the programming and the nights on which public gatherings could be held and the maximum number of people permitted to gather. Last night’s performance, it transpired, was completely illegal. Gillings issued a summons for the owners, brothers named Dick and Harry Ditts, who had told an entirely different tale the previous evening when they had recovered from sleepy gas. Five minutes later, Gillings was informed that neither Dick nor Harry Ditts could be located at their residences on record.
“Have they any known connection with Roznine?”
“Roznine?” Gillings regarded Daffyd with a combination of disgusted annoyance and startled concern which faded into deep reflection. “You saw him there?”
“Yes, he was at the Fact. When we were withdrawing from the scene of the imminent riot, he was deep in conversation with several types in the lobby.
Later he spotted the LEO copters on their way in and made his way out. Funny he didn’t suggest to the Ditts brothers that they leave with him.”
“Don’t be naive. Roznine looks after Roznine, first, last and always or I’d’ve had him cooled long ago. But Sector K is far from his bailiwick…” Gillings stared out across the city with narrowed eyes. “He’s been getting too damned powerful in the City and not just with the Slavs. A megalomaniac is what he is and they operate with a curious ability to avoid minor disasters…until they get overconfident. Roznine hasn’t made that mistake…yet…”
“I shouldn’t wonder that there’s some Talent in a megalomaniac, apart from his madness.”
“Talent?” Gillings erupted as Daffyd had known he would. “Christ, that’s all I need is a Talented pan-ethnic leader. Goddammit, why don’t you people get on the ball and round up all these goddamn freaking Talents before they go haywire.
We’ve got enough problems keeping that…” and his blunt-fingered hand described a circle at the panoramic metropolis outside the plexiglass, “…from exploding as it is without unnatural hazards like latent Talents…”
“…Then help us find Amalda. She can be immensely useful…”
“She’s a riot provoker…” Gillings’s eyes narrowed with a flash of vindictiveness.
“Are you going to help me, or hinder me, Frank? The girl is valuable to both of us but not in your cooler as an RP. She’s an intelligent broadcasting empath of tremendous range and power. I don’t think she realizes what she is…or didn’t until possibly last night. Something frightened her out of her wits halfway through her third song. She ran! I don’t know what it was nor do I know exactly how she can broadcast the way she does, but it’s imperative that the Center find and protect her.”
Gillings’s eyebrows rose in ironic surprise. “You and Iselin were there. Why didn’t you get her then? What happened?”
“Among other things, a riot. Some people shield automatically, Frank, and if you can’t trace the mind, you can’t catch the body.”