Trapped

Beside me, Impervia moved. I'd expected it sooner than this, but perhaps she'd needed time to figure how to board the ship. The Dinghy was a sizable vessel, not a modest yacht or pleasure craft. Its deck was two stories above us; its hull was a solid wood wall along the side of the pier, and there was no gangplank to welcome guests. There were no rope ladders either, nor chains, nor any other accoutrements someone might scurry up. Even the ropes securing the boat to the dock had big wooden fu

Impervia was going to find out. She crossed the dock and whispered into Myoko's ear. Myoko nodded. Pelinor and the Caryatid stepped back to give more room-they knew what was coming. While Gretchen and Zunctweed continued their verbal fencing, Myoko's hair rose… and a moment later, Impervia rose too, lifted by telekinesis for the second time that night.

Zunctweed didn't notice until she was level with the deck. The captain only had time to say, "Bother!" Then Impervia was over the railing and landing with a thunk.

"Good evening, si

Zunctweed ran. It was futile, considering he was stuck on a ship with nowhere to go… but he gave it his best, fleeing from Impervia with the inhuman speed of his overlength legs. Impervia chased him anyway, both of them disappearing from view, their footsteps echoing across the timbers. I could track the sound as they raced below decks, then a door slammed: probably Zunctweed locking himself inside the captain's cabin. Five seconds later came another slam, which I took to be Impervia kicking the door off its hinges. Squeals ensued, then bumps and thumps.

A fight. Impervia had got into a fight. How astonishing.

"Perhaps," said Pelinor, drawing his cutlass, "I'd better go up there too. Myoko, if you'd please…"

With a ru

I had a split-second to glance at Myoko. Her hair had returned to normal since lifting Impervia-no static-electric spread, just a little residual puffiness. She growled in exasperation, "Pelinor!" Then the knight soared upward, over the Dinghy's side-rail, and onto the deck's solid planks.

Myoko's hair didn't move at all.

Pelinor disappeared in the direction Zunctweed and Impervia had gone. I ignored him. Instead I stared at Myoko. "You just lifted Pelinor, but your hair didn't-"

"Shush! Just shush." She glanced furtively at the others. The Caryatid, Gretchen, and Oberon were busy trying to see up to the deck; A

Myoko looked at them all for a few moments, then turned back to me with a scowl. The scowl lasted a long ten seconds… then faded into a sigh. In the cold night air, the sigh billowed clouds of steam.

"What's on your mind, Phil?" Myoko asked.

"Your hair," I murmured. "You use your TK to lift it, don't you? You lift your hair whenever you lift anything else. To make a big show, so people will think you're safe; they don't have to worry about you pulling some sneaky TK trick because the hair always gives you away. But you do the hair deliberately. And you flipped Pelinor onto the deck without even wrinkling your brow. All that hard concentration you usually do is just another show."

Myoko said nothing. Her eyes were lost in darkness.

"You're hiding," I said. "Pretending to be a low-talent nothing, useless for anything but teaching in a mediocre school like Feliss. When really-"

She put her hand to my lips. "Yes. When really."

When really it was a clever ruse to protect herself from people who enslaved psychics. After all, if Myoko's powers were what she pretended, how could she be used to someone's devious benefit? She supposedly couldn't do her tricks quickly; she couldn't work without people noticing the levitating hair; and she demonstrated only modest lifting strength, about the same as a muscular man. So why would anyone kidnap her? There was nothing she could do psionically that couldn't be done more simply by a common laborer.

"So," I whispered, "bad guys leave you alone and you can have a real life."

"No. If I had a real life, I wouldn't lie in bed every night making a mental list: the few people I couldn't bring myself to kill if they ever learned the truth."

Silence. A chill went through me. Myoko turned away. "Relax, Phil-you're on the list."

She walked stiffly back toward the others… as if I'd somehow injured her deeply and she was pretending the wound didn't hurt.

A

I couldn't answer. I'd gone speechless.

Sometime in the past few minutes, the Dinghy had fallen silent: no more fighting, no noise of any kind. Now, a thump, thump, thump came from the ship, accompanied by footsteps and grunting. The sound was moving upward: someone carrying something heavy up a flight of steps. By the time the thumping moved onto the deck, the Caryatid had sent her flame to the height of the railing. "Hello," she called, "who's there?"

Pelinor's head appeared over the rail. "Not to worry. We're all in one piece." He paused. "Some of us more than others."

"What does that mean?"

"Give me a minute."

Pelinor disappeared. Part of the railing opened like a gate and a gangplank slid down to the dock. Oberon scrambled up at once, his mass making the plank bend and creak… but the plank's reinforced wood was designed to hold rum barrels and other heavy cargo being rolled aboard, so Oberon made it to the deck without mishap. Myoko and the Caryatid hurried close behind; Gretchen followed at a more sedate pace, but she was clearly eager to see what was happening.

I was not quick to join the procession: my brain had slipped a gear, detached from the world. (A