Get Off the Unicorn (30 page)

Why?
asked the dragon again.
Don't you like me?
His eyes whirled with anxiety, and his tone was so piteous that Keevan staggered forward and threw his arms around the dragon's neck, stroking his eye ridges, patting the damp, soft hide, opening the fragile-looking wings to dry them, and wordlessly assuring the hatchling over and over again that he was the most perfect, most beautiful, most beloved dragon in the Weyr, in all the Weyrs of Pern.

“What's his name, K'van?” asked Lessa, smiling warmly at the new dragonrider. K'van stared up at her for a long moment. Lessa would know as soon as he did. Lessa was the only person who could “receive” from all dragons, not only her own Ramoth. Then he gave her a radiant smile, recognizing the traditional shortening of his name that raised him forever to the rank of dragonrider.

My name is Heth,
the dragon thought mildly, then hiccuped in sudden urgency.
I'm hungry.

“Dragons are born hungry,” said Lessa, laughing. “F'lar, give the boy a hand. He can barely manage his own legs, much less a dragon's.”

K'van remembered his stick and drew himself up. “We'll be just fine, thank you.”

“You may be the smallest dragonrider ever, young K'van,” F'lar said, “but you're one of the bravest!”

And Heth agreed! Pride and joy so leaped in both chests that K'van wondered if his heart would burst right out of his body. He looped an arm around Heth's neck and the pair, the smallest dragonboy and the hatchling who wouldn't choose anybody else, walked out of the Hatching Ground together forever.

 

The late Hans Stefan Santesson approached me at a party to see if I could contribute to his proposed Walker Anthology on crime prevention in the future. I had nothing completed but I'd just finished “A Womanly Talent,” in which parapsychics got made respectable. I'd proposed that there'd be such talents as ‘finders' employed by law enforcement officers to locate lost persons and objects. Happily, that background generated this story, almost in one sitting . . . rewarding me in many ways. Authors dream yearningly of stories that'll write themselves. It happens infrequently and is regarded, at least by me, as a minor miracle—the good apple in the barrel of imagination, juicy, tart, memorable.

 

 

Apple

T
HE THEFT WAS
the lead morning ‘cast and ruined Daffyd op Owen's appetite. As he listened to the description of the priceless sable coat, the sapphire necklace, the couture-model gown, and the jewel-strap slippers, he felt as if he were congealing in his chair as his breakfast cooled and hardened on the plate. He waited, numbed, for the commentator to make the obvious conclusion: a conclusion which would destroy all that the North American Parapsychic Center had achieved so slowly, so delicately. For the only way in which such valuable items could have been removed from a store dummy in a scanned, warded, very public display window in the five-minute period between the fixed TV frames was by kinetic energy.

“The police have several leads and expect to have a solution by evening. Commissioner Frank Gillings is taking charge of the investigation.

“ ‘I keep my contractual obligations to the City,' Gillings is reported to have told the press early this morning as he personally supervised the examination of the display window at Coles, Michaels' and Charny Department Store. ‘I have reduced street and consensual crimes and contained riot activity. Jerhattan is a safe place for the law-abiding. Unsafe for lawbreakers.' “

The back-shot of Gillings' stern face was sufficient to break op Owen's stasis. He rose and strode toward the com-unit just as it beeped.

“Daffyd, you heard that ‘cast?” The long, unusually grim face of Lester Welch appeared on the screen. “Goddammit, they promised no premature announcement. Mediamen!” His expression boded ill for the first unwary reporter to approach him. Over Les's shoulder, op Owen could see the equally savage face of Charlie Moorfield, duty officer of the control room of the Center.

“How long have
you
known about the theft?” Op Owen couldn't quite keep the reprimand from his voice. Les had a habit of trying to spare his superior, particularly these days when he knew op Owen had been spreading himself very thin in the intensive public educational campaign.

“Ted Lewis snuck in a cautious advice as soon as Headquarters scanned the disappearance. He also can't ‘find' a thing. And, Dave, there wasn't a wrinkle or a peak between 7:03 and 7:08 on any graph that shouldn't be there, with every single Talent accounted for!”

“That's right, boss,” Charlie added. “Not a single Incident to account for the kinetic ‘lift' needed for the heist.”

“Gillings is on his way here,” said Les, screwing his face up with indignation.

“Why?” Daffyd op Owen exploded. “Didn't Ted clear us?”

“Christ, yes, but Gillings has been at Coles and his initial investigation proves conclusively to him that one of our people is a larcenist. One of our women, to be precise, with a secret yen for sable, silk, and sapphires.”

Daffyd forced himself to nullify the boiling anger he felt. He could not afford to cloud reason with emotion. Not with so much at stake. Not with the Bill which would provide legal protection for Talents only two weeks away from passing.

“You'll never believe me, will you, Dave,” Les said, “that the Talented will always be suspect?”

“Gillings has never caviled at the use of Talents, Lester.”

“He'd be a goddamned fool if he did.” Lester's eyes sparkled angrily. He jabbed at his chest. “
We've
kept street and consensual crime low. Talent did his job for him. And now he's out to nail us. With publicity like this, we'll never get that Bill through. Christ, what luck! Two bloody weeks away from protection.”

“If there's no Incident on the graphs, Les, even Gillings must admit to our innocence.”

Welch rolled his eyes heavenward. “How can you be so naive, Dave? No matter what our remotes prove, that heist was done by a Talent.”

“Not one of ours.” Daffyd op Owen could be dogmatic, too.

“Great. Prove it to Gillings. He's on his way here now and he's out to get us. We've all but ruined his spotless record of enforcement and protection. That hits his credit, monetary and personal.” Lester paused for a quick breath. “I told you that public education program would cause more trouble than it's worth. Let me cancel the morning ‘cast.”

“No.” Daffyd closed his eyes wearily. He didn't need to resume that battle with Les now. In spite of this disastrous development, he was convinced of the necessity of the campaign. The general public must learn that they had nothing to fear from those gifted with a parapsychic Talent. The series of public information programs, so carefully planned, served several vital purposes: to show how the many facets of Talent served the community's best interests; to identify those peculiar traits that indicated the possession of a Talent; and, most important, to gain public support for the Bill in the Senate which would give Talents professional immunity in the exercise of their various duties.

“I haven't a vestige of Talent, Dave,” Les went on urgently, “but I don't need it to guess some dissident in the common mass of have-nots listened to every word of those ‘casts and put what you should never have aired to good use . . . for him. And don't comfort me with how many happy clods have obediently tripped up to the Clinic to have their minor Talents identified. One renegade apple's all you need to sour the barrel!”

“Switch the ‘cast to the standard recruiting tape. To pull the whole series would be worse. I'm coming right over.”

Daffyd op Owen looked down at the blank screen for a long moment, gathering strength. It was no pre-cog that this would be a very difficult day. Strange, he mused, that no pre-cog had foreseen this. No.
That
very omission indicated a wild Talent, acting on the spur of impulse. What was it Les had said? ‘The common mass of have-nots'? Even with the basic dignities of food, shelter, clothing, and education guaranteed, the appetite of the have-not was continually whetted by the abundance that was not his. In this case, hers. Daffyd op Owen groaned. If only such a Talent had been moved to come to the Center where she could be trained and used. (Where had their so carefully worded programming slipped up?) She could have had the furs, the jewels, the dresses on overt purchase . . . and enjoyed them openly. The Center was well enough endowed to satisfy any material yearning of its members. Surely Gillings would admit that.

Op Owen took a deep breath and exhaled regret and supposition. He must keep his mind clear, his sensitivities honed for any nuance that would point a direction toward success.

As he left his shielded quarters at the back of the Center's extensive grounds, he was instantly aware of tension in the atmosphere. Most Talented persons preferred to live in the Center, in the specially shielded buildings that reduced the “noise” of constant psychic agitation. The Center preferred to have them here, as much to protect as to help their members. Talent was a double-edged sword; it could excise evil but it neatly divided its wielder from his fellow man. That was why these broadcasts were so vital. To prove to the general public that the psychically gifted were by no means supermen, able to pierce minds, play ball with massive weights, or rearrange the world to suit themselves. The “Talented” person who could predict events might be limited to Incidents involving fire, or water. He might have an affinity for metals or a kinetic skill enabling him to assemble the components of a microscopic gyro, to be used in space exploration. He might be able to “find” things by studying a replica, or people by holding a possession of the missing person. He might be able to receive thoughts sent from another sensitive or those around him. Or he might be able to broadcast only. A true telepath, sender and receiver—Daffyd op Owen was only one of ten throughout the world—was still rare. Research had indicated there were more people with the ability than would admit it. There were, however, definite limitations to most Talents.

The Parapsychic had been raised, in Daffyd's lifetime, to the level of a science with the development of ultra-sensitive electroencephalographs which could record and identify the type of “Talent” by the minute electrical impulses generated in the cortex during the application of psychic powers. Daffyd op Owen sometimes thought the word “power” was the villain in perpetuating the public misconceptions. Power means “possession of control” but such synonyms as “domination”, “sway,” “command” lept readily to the average mind and distorted the true definition.

Daffyd op Owen was roused from his thoughts by the heavy beat of a copter. He turned onto the path leading directly to the main administration building and had a clear view of the Commissioner's marked copter landing on the flight roof, to the left of the control tower with its forest of antennal decorations.

Immediately he perceived a reaction of surprise, indignation, and anxiety. Surely every Talent who'd heard the news on the morning ‘cast and realized its significance could not be surprised by Gillings' arrival. Op Owen quickened his pace.

Orley's loose!
The thought was as loud as a shout.

People paused, turned unerringly toward the long low building of the Clinic where applicants were tested for sensitivity and trained to understand and use what Talent they possessed; and where the Center conducted its basic research in psionics.

A tall, heavy figure flung itself from the Clinic's broad entrance and charged down the lawn, in a direct line to the tower. The man leaped the ornamental garden, plunged through the hedges, swung over the hood of a parked lawn-truck, straight-armed the overhanging branches of trees, brushed aside several men who tried to stop him.

“Reassure Orley! Project reassurance!” the bullhorn from the tower advised. “Project reassurance!”

Get those cops in my office!
Daffyd projected on his own as he began to run toward the building. He hoped that Charlie Moorfield or Lester had already done so. Orley didn't look as if anything short of a tranquilizer bullet would stop him. Who had been dim-witted enough to let the telempath out of his shielded room at a time like this? The moron was the most sensitive barometer to emotion Daffyd had ever encountered and he was physically dangerous if aroused. By the speed of that berserker-charge, he had soaked up enough fear/ anxiety/ anger to dismember the objects he was homing in on.

The only sounds now in the grounds were those of op Owen's shoes hitting the permaplast of the walk and the thud-thud of Orley's progress on the thick lawn. One advantage of being Talented is efficient communication and total comprehension of terse orders. But the wave of serenity/ reassurance was not penetrating Orley's blind fury: the openness dissipated the mass effect.

Three men walked purposefully out of the administration building and down the broad apron of steps. Each carried slim-barreled hand weapons. The man on the left raised and aimed his at the audibly panting, fast-approaching moron. The shot took Orley in the right arm but did not cause him to falter. Instantly the second man aimed and fired. Orley lost stride for two paces from the leg shot but recovered incredibly. The third man—op Owen recognized Charlie Moorfield—waited calmly as Orley rapidly closed the intervening distance. In a few more steps Orley would crash into him. Charlie was swinging out of the way, his gun slightly raised for a chest shot, when the moron staggered and, with a horrible groan, fell to his knees. He tried to rise, one clenched fist straining toward the building.

Instantly Charlie moved to prevent Orley from gouging his face on the course-textured permaplast.

“He took two double-strength doses, Dave,” Moorfield exclaimed with some awe as he cradled the moron's head in his arms.

“He would. How'n'ell did he get such an exposure?”

Charlie made a grimace. “Sally was feeding him on the terrace. She hadn't heard the ‘cast. Said she was concentrating on keeping him clean and didn't ‘read' his growing restlessness as more than response to her until he burst wide open.”

“Too much to hope that our unexpected guests didn't see this?”

Charlie gave a sour grin. “They caused it, boss. Stood there on the roof, giving Les a hard time, broadcasting basic hate and distrust. You should've seen the dial on the psychic atmosphere gauge. No wonder Orley responded.” Charlie's face softened as he glanced down at the unconscious man. “Poor damned soul. Where is that med-team? I ‘called' them when we got outside.”

Daffyd glanced up at the broad third floor windows that marked his office. Six men stared back. He put an instant damper on his thoughts and emotions, and mounted the steps.

 

The visitors were still at the window, watching the med-team as they lifted the huge limp body onto the stretcher.

“Orley acts as a human barometer, gentlemen, reacting instantly to the emotional aura around him,” Les was saying in his driest, down-eastest tone. To op Owen's wide-open mind, he emanated a raging anger that almost masked the aura projected by the visitors. “He has an intelligence factor of less than fifty on the New Scale which makes him uneducable. He is, however, invaluable in helping identify the dominating emotion in seriously disturbed mental and hallucinogenic patients which could overcome a rational telepath.”

Police Commissioner Frank Gillings was the prime source of the fury which had set Harold Orley off. Op Owen felt sorry for Orley, having to bear such anger, and sorrier for himself and his optimistic hopes. He was momentarily at a loss to explain such a violent reaction from Gillings, even granting the validity of Lester Welch's assumption that Gillings was losing face, financial and personal, on account of this affair.

He tried a “push” at Gillings' mind to discover the covert reasons and found the man had a tight natural shield, not uncommon for a person in high position, privy to sensitive facts. The burly Commissioner gave every outward appearance of being completely at ease, as if this were no more than a routine visit, and not one hint of his surface thoughts leaked. Deep-set eyes, barely visible under heavy brows, above fleshy cheeks in a swarthy face missed nothing, flicking from Daffyd to Lester and back.