Страница 29 из 45
As Mary A
"I'll cut her down," Alien said, and pointed the heat-needle at his daughter's back. Mary A
The heat-needle jumped from Alien McClain's hand, climbed and reversed its flight. It smashed against the wall.
"Poltergeist effect," Alien said. "We can't stop her." Now the heat-needle in Patricia's hands quivered, struggled and tore loose from her fingers. "Rothman," he said, appealing to the highest authority in the organization present. "Ask her to stop."
"Leave my mind alone," Mary A
Pete Garden, on his feet, sprinted after Mary A
"No," Patricia called after her. "Don't!"
Rothman, his forehead bulging, concentrated on Mary A
"Mary A
At the door, Mary A
he possessed on her, was trying to persuade her. She saw that, too. And—
"Thank god," Alien McClain said, and sagged. From the wall, Pete Garden tumbled back out, fell in a heap on the floor, intact; he got up almost at once and stood shaking, facing Mary A
'I'm sorry," Mary A
"I'm trying," Patricia said. "But it's in Pete Garden's mind that we'll find the most."
"He's going to leave," Alien and Dave Mutreaux said, almost at once. "With her, with Mary A
Rothman rose to his feet and walked toward Pete Garden. "You see our situation; we're in a desperate match with the Titanians and losing ground to them steadily. Prevail on Mary A
"I can't make her do anything," Pete said, white and trembling, almost unable to speak.
"Nobody can," Patricia said, and Alien nodded. "You p-ks," Rothman said to Mary A
"Come on, Pete," Mary A
Pete said to her, "Maybe they're right, Mary A
"They don't really want me," Mary A
I foresee a vug detective moving toward you; its name is—" Mutreaux hesitated.
"E. B. Black," Alien McClain, also pre-cog, agreed, finishing for him. "Wade Hawthorne's partner, attached to their West Coast division of the national law-enforcement agency. One of the best they have," he said to Mutreaux, and Roth-man nodded.
"Let's do this carefully," Rothman said. "At what point in time did the vug authority penetrate our organization? Last night? Previous to last night? If we could establish that, maybe we'd have something to go on. I don't think they've gotten very deep; they haven't touched me, haven't reached any of our telepaths and we have four of them in this room and a fifth on the way here. And our pre-cogs are free, at least so it would seem."
Mary A
To Pete Garden, Rothman said, "I'm the main bulwark against the vugs, Mr. Garden, and it'll be a long time before they penetrate me." His leatherlike face was impassive. "This is a dreadful discovery we've made here today, but our organization can surmount it. What about you, Garden? You're going to need our help. For an individual it's different."
Somberly, Pete nodded.
"We must kill E. B. Black," Patricia said.
"Yes," Dave Mutreaux said, "I agree."
Rothman said, "Go easily, here. We've never killed a vug. Killing Hawthorne was bad enough, sufficiently dangerous but necessary. As soon as we destroy a vug—any vug—it'll become clear to them not only that we exist but what our final intentions are. Isn't that so?" He looked around at the organization for confirmation.
"But," Alien McClain said, "they obviously know about us already. They could hardly penetrate us without knowing of our existence." His voice was sharp, edged with exasperation.
The telepath Merle Smith spoke up from her seat in the
corner; she had taken no part in the colloquy so far. "Roth-man, I have been sca
At once Patricia turned her attention on Dave Mutreaux.
Merle, she discovered, was correct; there was an anomaly in Mutreaux' mind and she felt at once that it implied a situation unfavorable to the interests of the organization. "Mutreaux," she said, "can you turn your thoughts to—" It was difficult to know what to call it. She had, in her hundred years of sca
Now she was in a region of ambivalent drives, and of nebulous and stillborn wishes, anxieties, doubts interwoven with regressive beliefs and libido wishes of a fantastic nature. It was not a pleasant region but each person had it; she was accustomed to it, by now. This was what made her existence so rife with difficulty, ru
He could not be held responsible for these, and yet there they were anyhow, semi-autonomous and—feral. Opposed to everything Mutreaux consciously, deliberately believed in. In opposition to all his life aims.
Much could be learned about Mutreaux' psyche by this examination of what he chose to—or had to—reject from consciousness.
"The area in question," Patricia said, "simply will not open up to sca
Mutreaux said haltingly, a bewildered expression on his face, "I don't understand what's being discussed. Everything
in me is open to you, as far as I know; I'm certainly not deliberately holding back."