Get Off the Unicorn (33 page)

“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?”

“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 of himself. The fear and hatred burst out in such a wave that Charlie Moorfield, caught unaware, erupted out of his chair toward Gillings in an instinctive defense reaction.

“Gillings!” “Charlie!” Les and Daffyd shouted together, each grabbing the whilom 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 . . .” Then Les dropped Gillings' 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 and 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-southeast 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 would ever plague Daffyd op Owen: that they must 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
.”

Gillings looked at the director for a long moment, his jaw set stubbornly. Then, slowly, he settled into the seat and handed op Owen a remote com-unit.

“Thanks, Gillings,” he said, and left the copter. He signaled to the ambulance to release Harold Orley and then strode across the grass to the waiting officers.

The two biggest men were as burly as he could wish. Being trained law enforcers, they ought to be able to handle Orley. Op Owen “pushed” gently against their minds and was satisfied with his findings. They possessed the natural shielding of the untemperamental which made them less susceptible to emotional storms. Neither Webster nor Heis was stupid, however, and they had been briefed on developments.

“Orley has no useful intelligence. He is a human barometer, measuring the intensity and type of emotions which surround him and reacting instinctively. He does not broadcast. He only receives. Therefore he cannot be harmed or identified by . . . by Maggie O. He is the only Talent she cannot ‘hear' approaching.”

“But, if he reaches her, he'd . . .” Webster began, measuring Harold with the discerning eye of a boxing enthusiast. Then he shrugged and turned politely to op Owen.

“You've the double-strength tranks? Good. I hope you'll be able to use them in time. But it is imperative that she be apprehended before she does more harm. She has already killed one man . . .”

“We understand, sir,” Heis said when op Owen did not continue.

“If you can, shoot her. Once she stops broadcasting, he'll soon return to a manageable state.” But, Daffyd amended to himself, remembering Harold sprawled on the ground in front of the building, not soon enough. “She was last seen on the east side of the boulevard, about eight blocks from here. She'd be tired, looking for someplace to hide and rest. But she is also probably radiating sufficient emotion for Harold to pick up. He'll react by heading in a straight line for the source. Keep him from trying to plow through solid walls. Keep your voices calm when you speak to him. Use simple commands. I see you've got hand units. I'll be airborne; the copter's shielded but I'll help when I can.”

Flanking Harold, Webster and Heis moved west along Oriole at a brisk even walk: the two officers in step, Harold's head bobbing above theirs. His being out of step was a cruel irony.

Daffyd op Owen turned back to the copter. He nodded to Gillings as he seated himself. He tried not to think at all.

As the copters lifted from the park and drifted slowly west amid other air traffic, op Owen looked sadly down at the people on the streets. At kids playing on the sidewalks. At a flow of men and women with briefcases or shopping bags, hurrying home. At snub-nosed city cars and squatty trucks angling into parking slots. At the bloated cross-city helibuses jerking and settling to disgorge their passengers at the street islands.

“He's twitching,” Heis reported in a dispassionate voice.

Daffyd flicked on the handset. “That's normal. He's beginning to register.”

“He's moving faster now. Keeps wanting to go straight through the buildings.” Reading Heis' undertone, op Owen knew that the men hadn't believed his caution about Orley plowing through solids. “He's letting us guide him, but he keeps pushing us to the right. You take his other arm, Web. Yeah, that's better.”

Gillings had moved to the visual equipment along one side of the copter. He focused deftly in on the trio, magnified it, and threw the image on the pilot's screen, too. The copter adjusted direction.

“Easy, Orley. No, don't try to stop him, Web. Stop the traffic!”

Orley's line of march crossed the busier wide north-south street. Webster ran out to control the vehicles. People turned curiously. Stopped and stared after the trio.

“Don't,” op Owen ordered as he saw Gillings move a hand towards the bullhorn. “There's nothing wrong with her hearing.”

Orley began to move faster now that he had reached the farther side. He wanted to go right through intervening buildings.

“Guide him left to the sidewalk, Heis,” op Owen advised. “I think he's still amenable. He isn't running yet.”

“He's breathing hard, Mr. Owen.” Heis sounded dubious. “And his face is changing.”

Op Owen nodded to himself, all too familiar with the startling phenomena of watching the blankness of Orley's face take on the classic mask of whatever emotions he was receiving. It would be a particularly unnerving transition under these conditions.

“What does he show?”

“I'd say . . . hatred.” Heis' voice dropped on the last word. Then he added in his usual tone, “He's smiling, too, and it isn't nice.”

They had eased Orley to the sidewalk heading west. He kept pushing Webster to the right and his pace increased until it was close to a run. Webster and Heis began to gesture people out of their way but it would soon be obvious to the neighborhood that something was amiss. Would it be better to land more police to reassure people and keep their emanations down? Or would they broadcast suppressed excitement at police interference? She'd catch that. Should he warn Heis and Webster to keep their thoughts on Harold Orley? Or would that be like warning them against all thoughts of the camel's left knee?

Orley broke into a run. Webster and Heis were hard put to keep him to the sidewalk.

“What's in the next block?” op Owen asked Gillings.

The Commissioner consulted the map, holding it just above the scanner so he could keep one eye on the trio below.

“Residences and an area parking facility for interstate trucking.” Gillings turned to op Owen now, his heavy eyebrows raised in question.

“No, she's still there because Orley is homing in on her projection.”

“Look at his face! My God!” Heis exclaimed over the hand-unit. On the screen, his figure had stopped. He was pointing at Orley. But Webster's face was clearly visible to the surveillers; and what he saw unnerved him.

Orley broke from his guides. He was running, slowly at first but gathering speed steadily, mindlessly brushing aside anything that stood in his way. Heis and Webster were after him but both men were shaking their heads as if something were bothering them. Orley tried to plunge through a brick store wall. He bounced off it, saw the unimpeded view of his objective, and charged forward. Webster had darted ahead of him, blowing his whistle to stop the oncoming traffic. Heis alternately yelled into the hand unit and at startled bystanders. Now some of them were afflicted and were grabbing their heads.

“Put us on the roof,” op Owen told the pilot. “Gillings, get men to cover every entrance and exit to that parking lot. Get the copters to hover by the open levels. The men'll be spared some of the lash.”

It wouldn't do much good, op Owen realized, even as he felt the first shock of the girl's awareness of imminent danger.

“Close your mind,” he yelled at the pilot and Gillings. “Don't think.”

“My head, my head.” It was Heis groaning.

“Concentrate on Orley,” op Owen advised, his hands going to his temples in reaction to the knotting pressure. Heis's figure on the scanner staggered after Orley, who had now entered the parking facility.

Op Owen caught the mental pressure and dispersed it, projecting back reassurance/ help/ protection/ compassion.
He
could forgive her Gil Gracie's death. So would any Talent. If she would instantly surrender, somehow the Centers would protect her from the legal aspects of her act. Only surrender now.

Someone screamed. Another man echoed that piercing cry. The copter bucked and jolted them. The pilot was groaning and gasping. Gillings plunged forward, grabbing the controls.

Op Owen, fighting an incredible battle, was blind to physical realities. If he could just occupy all the attention of that overcharged mind . . . hold it long enough . . . pain/ fear/ black/ red/ moiled-orange/ purples . . . breathing . . . shock. Utter disbelief/ fear/ loss of confidence. Frantic physical effort.

Concrete scraped op Owen's cheek. His fingers bled as he clawed at a locked steel exit door on the roof. He could not enter.
He had to reach her
FIRST!

Somehow his feet found the stairs as he propelled himself down the fire escape, deliberately numbing his mind to the intensive pounding received. A pounding that became audible.

Then he saw her, fingers clawing for leverage on the stairpost, foot poised for the step from the landing. A too thin, adolescent figure, frozen for a second with indecision and shock; strands of black hair like vicious scars across a thin face, distorted and ugly from the tremendous physical and mental efforts of the frantic will. Her huge eyes, black with insane fury and terror, bloodshot with despair and the salty sweat of her desperate striving for escape, looked into his.

She knew him for what he was; and her hatred crackled in his mind. Those words—after Gil Gracie's death—had been hers, not his distressed imagining. She had known him then as her real antagonist. Only now was
he
forced to recognize her for what she was, all she was—and regrettably, all she would not be.

He fought the inexorable decision of that split-second confrontation, wanting more than anything else in his life that it did not have to be so.

She was the wiser! She whirled!

She was suddenly beyond the heavy fire door without opening it. Harold Orley, charging up the stairs behind her, had no such Talent. He crashed with sickening force into the metal door. Daffyd had no alternative. She had teleported. He steadied the telempath, depressed the lock bar, and threw the door wide.

Orley was after the slender figure fleeing across the dimly lit, low-ceilinged concrete floor. She was heading toward the down ramp now.

“Stop, stop,” op Owen heard his voice begging her.

Heis came staggering from the stairway.

“Shoot him. For Christ's sake, shoot Orley, Heis,” op Owen yelled.

Heis couldn't seem to coordinate. Op Owen tried to push aside his fumbling hands and grab the frank gun himself. Heis's trained reflexes made him cling all the tighter to his weapon. Just then, op Owen heard the girl's despairing shriek.