To Ride Pegasus
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #1
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «To Ride Pegasus». Краткое содержание книги:
Amalda just stood, her chin slightly raised, looking as regal and poised as she had on the Fact stage, so sure of herself that she almost fooled Vaden.
The action was all slow motion: the picketers, real and bogus, discarding their all too heavy signs, inexorably sinking to the ground, sprawling in poses of utter exhaustion. It affected the LEO men though they tried hard to resist the pressure, falling to their knees and hands, faces down on the ground.
Then only she, Bruce and Roznine were standing. She took a deep breath and looked straight at Roznine’s eyes: the first time she had done so.
And Bruce was right that Vascha (she found his nickname easily: though he thought of himself, self-importantly, only as Vsevolod Roznine, the Vascha personality was there, too) was nice looking, with a strong body and sensitive hands. She liked long, well-shaped fingers on a man-she liked to have such hands on her body.
“All right, here I am,” she said out loud and dared him in her mind to overpower her.
His eyes seemed to eat her flesh hungrily, as if starved for the essence beneath the covering tissue.
“You’re mine. I, Vsevolod Roznine, say you are mine.” That was his thought, beating away at her. She wanted to laugh, to sing out because his thought couldn’t go any further than her mind. It couldn’t reach Bruce, standing not more than five feet away. Not unless she wanted it to go further!
“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked gently because the knowledge of such total power over another human being humbled her.
Some of his bully boys were getting to their feet for she’d turned off some of her blanketing projection to deal with Vascha. Through Vsevolod Roznine she sent a fleet-nig thought of nausea that instantly reduced them to retching bodies on the grass. And as abruptly, she deflected the actual illness. Then she turned off the empathetical broadcast completely, knowing its cessation would leave the victims disoriented enough to cause no further trouble.
“I think you’d better come with us, Vsevolod,” she said to Roznine and took his hand, turning and leading him toward the Center as if he had no other choice. He didn’t because Bruce fell in on the other side, their strides matching.
Roznine was dazed, his lips compressed into a thin line. He glared down at Amalda as she led him, at arm’s length, like a mother dragging an errant child home.
The gateman nodded to the trio as they passed into the Center’s Grounds.
“What’n’hell has happened to your common sense, op Owen?” Frank Gillings demanded. “Letting not only Amalda and Vaden but Roznine into the City Council?
For Chrissake that’s what he wanted Amalda for…”
“Easy, Frank. The team’s on assignment, completely legitimate.”
“Council isn’t a riot situation…”
Daffyd raised his eyebrows in polite surprise. “No? According to Roznine, the tempers get so hot no constructive work is ever done. Each ethnic group insists that its members are being discriminated against with accusations and counteraccusations until the mediator adjourns the hearing with nothing accomplished except exhibitions of parliamentary bad manners. Sorry. The team is going to cool things long enough for common sense to prevail. Roznine’s reason for wanting Amalda’s Talent in City Hall was valid.” Daffyd also neglected to add that that was the bargain he’d struck with Roznine to join the Center. All the man wanted was to be certain the employment allotments were impartially assigned. Well, not all, Daffyd amended to himself, but Roznine had gone about it the wrong way.
Daffyd grinned reassuringly at Gillings’s image in the comset. “He’s part of the team now and she follows orders.”
“But does Roznine?” asked Gillings sarcastically.
“As I’ve explained to you, Frank, Roznine is parapsychically dead to anyone else. Oh, Brace Vaden empathizes with him to some extent now they’ve both had training, but Roznine’s is a one-way Talent, right to Amalda. She’s the focus of the gestalt. You might say, he’s been check-reined.”
Frank Gillings grunted, somewhat mollified. Then, jutting out his chin, he glared at the Director. “You going to start lobbying for a rider on that Talent Immunity Law?”
“Immediately. In fact,” and Daffyd’s smile broadened with sheer malice, “Senator
Greenfield is helping us get an interim rider through the State Senate on a Bill he has coming up on the Agenda next session.”
“ Greenfield?”
“Yes. Roznine invited him here at the Center for a chat. The Senator was most amenable to the suggestion.”
The LEO Commissioner’s frown was partially perplexity. “What’d you guys do to Greenfield? Blanket him with loving kindness?”
“Good heavens, no. It was merely pointed out to him that the Center is not a minority, but a collection of minorities since all ethnic groups are represented. He took a tour of the grounds and instantly perceived that the housing was by no means as luxurious as he’d been previously led to believe, with swimming pools or wasted space that might house additional families. In fact, he complimented us on our planning and thrifty use of facilities.”
Frank Gillings was by no means taken in by Daffyd op Owen’s bland manner. He growled something under his breath.
“What did Roznine have on him, Dave?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Frank.”
The LEO man made a gesture of disgust.
“Dave, don’t give me any more problems for a while, will you?”
“Nothing’s coming up in the foreseeable future.”
The screen went blank on Gillings’s incredulous expression.
“Daffyd, that was highly unmoral, unethical and downright dirty,” said Sally, half scolding as she rose from the couch where she’d been sitting out of line-of-vision of the comset. She walked in under his arm, linking him around the waist. He nuzzled her curls and kissed her forehead.
“Probably. Les is always reminding me that it’s bad policy to tell all.”
“It’s a shame about Vascha though.” Sally sighed.
“Why?”
“Oh, it’s rather sad, his being a psychic mule, her Pegasus.”
“Thank God he is,” Daffyd said so fervently she looked up, startled. “With the ambition and drive that young man has, he’d rule the world in half a year if
Amalda and Bruce weren’t there to stop him.”