Pegasus in Space (10 page)

He and his chair were put back in place with not so much as a jar to Johnny’s extended legs: the heels of his shoes fitting exactly back into the marks on Rhyssa’s thick carpet.

Sascha, Rhyssa, and Lance were grinning at his indignant reaction.

“One of these days, my young friend,” and the threat went unspecified. “Why didn’t you pick on him?” Johnny continued, sitting upright and pointing to Baden. “He outweighs me.”

“He’s my trainer,” Peter replied with an impudent grin.

“That’ll teach you, Johnny,” Rhyssa said, having thoroughly enjoyed his discomfiture.

“I don’t know about that,” Johnny replied, losing all trace of petulance before indolently shooting the cuffs of his tunic and resettling himself in the lounge chair. Then he favored Peter with a genuine smile. “Just caught me unawares. I’ll be very careful not to underestimate you again, young skeleteam.”

“Which reminds me, Lance,” Rhyssa said, putting her arms on her desk and leaning forward toward the Australian, “to tell you that Peter was fifteen just six weeks ago.”

“I take due note, Rhyssa, that he is not a working Talent yet,” Lance replied. “And with all kinetics and ’paths back on their jobs, I presume that you don’t intend to use the skeleteam.”

“Emphatically not. Now don’t argue, Peter,” she said to the boy, who was levitating out of his chair in protest. “Neither Sascha nor I would have condoned the use of your exceptional abilities under normal conditions.
Now that we are definitely back on-line, we are morally obligated not to abuse your good nature and Talent in any way.”

“But you’re letting Tirla work,” Peter began.

“Tirla is
in residence
”, Sascha broke in, scowling fiercely at the boy, who recoiled from his expression, “with Lessud, Shria, and their family in a Long Island Residential Linear that is not remotely like Linear G in Jerhattan. She is definitely
not
working,” and Sascha strung out the last three syllables to emphasize the point.

“She took you and me shopping,” Peter murmured.

“Tirla has never considered
shopping
to be work,” Rhyssa said, ’pathing tightly to Sascha,
Stay out of this
.

Sascha grinned broadly as if in response to her comment. “She’s putting in every other minute she’s awake studying.”

“I’d say she’ll need to do more shopping for you, skeleteam,” Johnny remarked, eyeing the bare leg of Peter’s now too-short everyday trousers.

“I could do with some duds myself,” Lance said. “You blokes ought to get your thermostats fixed. This city’s bloody cold.”

“It’s spring,” Rhyssa said in surprise.

“Not to my goosebumps it ain’t. C’mon, sprout,” Lance said, rising and nodding to Peter. “Now we got the ground rules laid out, we can have a good chinwag on the way to getting me some warmer stuff. Or should we call on this Tirla you mentioned?”

“She’s studying hard,” Sascha said firmly.

“With your permission, Rhyssa?”

“By all means, Lance. Begin as you mean to go on.” Rhyssa waved her hand toward the door.

Lance indicated that Peter should precede him to the door.

“Sascha and I have some schedules we must go over,” Rhyssa said, pulling some pencil files toward her. “Johnny, don’t you have someplace you have to be now?”

“Well, if you put it that way,” and clipping his hand toward his right eye in an airy salute, General John Greene disappeared, the generators humming slightly to indicate how he had effected his withdrawal.

Peter gave a little sniff of disdain as he exited. Behind him, Lance cocked an eyebrow at Rhyssa and Sascha and left.

“My private opinion,” Sascha remarked to his chief, “is that Pete could probably ’port himself anywhere without gestalt.”

“You’re probably right,” Rhyssa said with a sigh, and inserted the first file.

H
alfway through the second week of his training time with Peter, Lance was interrupted by a telepathic touch.

Lance Baden? Carmen Stein. I have found her
.

Found who?
Lance was so intent on observing Peter doing a lift of a half ton of scrap metal from a yard to a steel foundry that he couldn’t for the moment recall what “her” Carmen Stein might have found.

The Bantam child
.

I’m not usually this slow
, Lance said, not willing to direct any attention away from the screen that was graphing Peter’s use of power in gestalt.
Who?

The daughter of Tony and Nadezhda Bantam. You sent me a leather-bound journal, with a photograph of the three of them. The parents are dead. I have located the daughter
.

My God, you haven’t! Are you sure?

There was a brief pause.
I am as sure as I can be
.

Where?

She’s very far away. Still in Bangladesh. I can pinpoint her more accurately once I am there. I apologize for not getting back to this sooner but I have been busy with LEO
.

Of course you have, Carmen. We have both been occupied in other matters. If she is alive
.

She is very much alive
.

“Damn,” Lance said aloud, for the good news had cut his concentration on Peter’s kinetic switch.

“Did I do something wrong?” Peter asked, picking up the monitor to find the mistake.

“No, boy, you didn’t. But I just heard some very good news that put me off what we’re doing here. Sorry about that. Excuse me a sec.”
Carmen, are you free to travel right now?

Yes, since you could not find the child on your own
, and Lance caught amusement in her voice.
That picture is at least three years old. You might not recognize her
. Carmen subtly suggested that a male would not be able to make the leap of the child’s alteration.
I definitely will
.

Lance was suddenly so full of what he needed to do now that he failed to recognize the note in her voice.

D’you know Kayankira of the Delhi Center?
he asked Carmen.
She’d arrange for local guides, unless you’re fluent in Bangla, which I am not
.

Tirla is
.

Ah, yes, the shopping Tirla. Good idea
, and Lance grinned at the thought of finally meeting this young Talent whom Sascha was eager to protect and Rhyssa and Peter thought highly of. Peter usually saw his friend when he had an afternoon off while Lance attended to Adelaide Center business.
I’ll ask Rhyssa if we can take Tirla with us
.

Better you should ask Sascha
, Carmen said.

Whoever!
Lance brushed that remark aside. Fleetingly he remembered that Tirla, who had a phenomenal Talent in languages, was, like Peter, too young to be officially employed by the Center. Why should Sascha be asked? Ah, he was head of training. Well, Lance would have to clear all travel plans for Peter, as well as Tirla, with Rhyssa as Center head. The trip to a totally different culture could be educational for both youngsters.

Speak to Rhyssa
, Carmen said.
My time is clear for the next few days
.

Lance explained the circumstances to Rhyssa and her sympathy for an orphaned child was immediate. She granted permission for an expedition involving Peter, Tirla, and Carmen Stein.

I don’t think Sascha will object, if Carmen is along
.

Lance shook his head.
Why would Roznine object? I understand she’s not in active training yet
.

Ah! Sascha has a special interest in Tirla. He rescued her from Linear G
and
a kidnapping attempt. I’ll tell you the full story another time. Although don’t be surprised at anything Tirla says or does
.

I won’t then
, Lance promised without at all knowing what that might entail.

Will Peter be doing the kinetics?

Johnny’s been wanting a long-distance test of that new carrier he’s had designed. Lightweight, just a shell really, but suitable for longer-distance teleporting. I’d like to see Peter using it. Kayankira is meeting us in Dhaka
.

That’s right. You’re good friends. Have a nice trip
, and Rhyssa’s mental tone briefly bubbled with suppressed laughter.

“How would you like to take a short break from
our
studies?” Lance
asked Peter, grinning. While he regretted an interruption to this session, he realized that, since he’d been released from Padrugoi for weeks now, he hadn’t even thought to inquire of Carmen about her search for the Bantams’ child.

“To do what?” Peter asked, surprised.

Lance was a single-minded instructor, a much stronger telekinetic than his first teacher, Rick Hobson, had been. Peter felt he already had far more control over his energy than ever before. He certainly didn’t want to interrupt these lessons.

“Remember when you dropped me and the shuttle full of kinetics in Dhaka?”

Peter nodded.

“Well, I have some unfinished business over there. We can try Johnny’s carrier and some of your push-pull techniques, which we really haven’t been able to do here,” and Lance gestured around the old warehouse they were using as a schoolroom.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Peter admitted. “Though it’s more Johnny’s technique than mine.”

“Probably because Greene still doesn’t have the power you’ve got in your big toe.”

Peter didn’t like anyone criticizing his friend and averted his face from Lance. He knew he had a long way to go before he could control his expression.

“Not that I’m criticizing the general in any way, Pete. It’s just wise to recognize limitations, that’s all. We’re to be there at sunrise, their time.”

“Will we be using the new carrier he sent us? That’s awesome,” the boy said, his eyes gleaming. He and Lance had ’ported about Jerhattan but a long ’port would be a treat. “Back to Dhaka, huh? Zia Airport again?” Peter asked. He swiveled around to the monitor, asking it for the global coordinates and sighing with impatience at the time it took to access. He had a memory that was almost eidetic so he hadn’t had to call up a general map first. He’d practiced memory techniques while still in the hospital, inert on an A-frame bed with little else to occupy a busy mind. “It’d be nice to
be
there,” he remarked, placing his finger on the site.

“Call it education. You haven’t been many places yet on this ol’ Earth and it’s about time you did some traveling; to see how the other half lives.”

“Can we go to Australia, too, while we’re nearly there? You promised me I’d get to see kangaroos and wallabies and wombats,” Peter said eagerly. “And Ayers Rock and Alice Springs.”

“We can’t just take off and go sightseeing whenever we want to.”

“But—”

“I’ve got an errand in Bangladesh.”

They spent some time looking at the towns and cities of Bangladesh. Peter was fascinated by the flat landscape with not a single residential Linear or ziggurat on the flat, deltoid plains. Even Dhaka’s architecture was mainly in the traditional Bengali patterns.

T
he next day at the very early hour of four on a bright, crisp fall morning in early November, Lance and Peter waited by the new passenger carrier shell that General John Greene had had constructed for the purpose of kinetic transportation. It had windows, which Lance thought a definite improvement. Carmen arrived with a slight, coffee-skinned, black-haired youngster, dressed modestly but with great style.

“Hi, Tirla, whatcha need that for?” Peter asked, lifting his arm to indicate her backpack. “We’ll only be gone a few hours.”

“Stuff and junk,” the girl responded in a clear, faintly accented voice. “You’re the Lance that makes Peter work so hard,” she added, tilting her head and giving the tall Australian a searching look.

“Perhaps not as hard as he works me, Tirla.” Then Lance handed a towel-wrapped parcel to her. “Keep that safe for me, please?”

She considered his answer for a moment before giving a sharp nod of her head. “Sure.” She took the parcel and stowed it carefully in her backpack with a see-why-I-need-it glare at Peter. Then she pointed to the carrier. “We go in this? And Peter flies it?”

“I ’port it, Tir,” Peter corrected her. “Let’s go.” He glided forward.

The girl snorted and crossed his glide pattern so he’d have to halt. “Ladies first!” She gestured for Carmen to precede her.

Carmen shot an
Are you ready for this, Lance?
before she ducked her head and took the right-hand rear seat. Tirla insinuated her slender body into the starboard-side front row.

“Hey,” Peter protested. “Lance should be there.”

“Why?” Tirla said, regarding him for a long moment of condescension
and Lance ended a possible argument by taking the vacant place beside Carmen.

“I can watch from back here just as well,” he said.

“Oh, all right.” Peter was too eager to leave to delay over a minor detail. He placed an old-fashioned paper-filled notebook on the flat surface in front of him and opened it to the page he had drawn up the day before under Lance’s supervision. Peter had been studying air routes and coordinates of airports and, since he’d be traveling through some sort of space—just as he had kinetically flung shuttles to Padrugoi—he felt, and Lance agreed, that ordinary flight patterns could serve the purpose of orientation.

Tirla sat straight up, craning her neck to peruse his notations.

“Looks like gibberish to me.”

“You’ve never seen any flight plans so you wouldn’t know.”

Lance leaned forward. “Commercial airlines do not allow passengers to talk to the pilot in takeoff or landing modes.”

“I didn’t think Peter was commercial yet,” Tirla replied, swiveling around to stare at Lance with confident and very beautiful pansy-brown eyes.

“We’re working on it,” Lance replied.

Tirla continued to hold eye contact.

Be careful with this one
, Carmen said without looking at Lance.

She’s not telepathic?

She can hear when she wants to. But so far, only wants to hear Dorotea and Peter. And Sascha, of course
.

I see
.

I doubt it
, Carmen replied.