Slan

Davy Dinsmore snapped: "Think you're smart, don't you? Well, you won't feel so smart when they're killing you tomorrow. Maybe you don't know it yet, but Mamma says the word is going around the palace now that when they first brought you here, Mr. Kier Gray had to promise the cabinet that he'd have you killed on your eleventh birthday. And don't think they won't do it, either. They killed a slan woman in the street the other day. That shows! What do you think of that, smarty?"

"You're – crazy!" The words were forced from her lips. She hardly realized she had uttered them, because they weren't what she thought. Somehow, she did not doubt that he spoke the truth. It fitted in with their mass hatred. It was so logical that she seemed, suddenly, always to have known it.

Oddly enough, it was the mention of his mother having told Davy that held Kathleen's mind. It took her memory back three years to a day when this boy had attacked her under the benevolent eyes of his mother, thinking to bully a small girl. What a surprise, what a screaming and kicking with fear there had been as she held him aloft, until his outraged parent had rushed forward, uttering threats of what she was going to do to "a dirty, sneaking little slan."

And men, suddenly, there had been Kier Gray, grim and tall and powerful, and Mrs. Dinsmore cringing before him.

"Madame, I wouldn't lay a hand on that child if I were you. Kathleen Layton is a property of the State, and in due course the State will dispose of her. As for your son, I happened to observe the entire proceedings. He got exactly what every bully deserves, and I hope he has learned his lesson."

Surprisingly, it was the day after she had beat him up that Davy had sought her out, and made friendly advances. That was nearly three years ago. Ever since he had been her only youthful ally – until he had turned on her so abruptly two months before.

With a start, she emerged from her bitter reverie and saw that in the city below a change had taken place. The whole great mass had do

"Ya– a-ah!" came Davy's discordant voice again. "Take a good look. It's the last time."

Kathleen shivered. She couldn't stand the presence of this... this wretched boy another second. Without a word, she turned and went down into the palace, down to the loneliness of her bedroom.

Sleep would not come, and it was late. Kathleen knew it was late, because the clamor of outside thoughts had dimmed, and people were long gone to bed, except for the guards, the nervous, and party-goers.

Fu

Kathleen stirred restlessly. The slan tendrils (thin strands like burnished gold glinting dully in the semi-light against the dark hair that crowned her finely molded, childish face) lifted clear of her hair and waved gently, as if a soft breeze had caught them. Gently yet insistently.

Abruptly, the menacing thought those sensitive ante

The thought lingered in her mind for an instant, distinct, cruel, cold-bloodedly murderous, shocking the sleep from her like a douche of ice water. And then it was gone, as completely as if it had never existed. There remained only a dim confusion of mind pictures that washed in a never-ending stream from the countless rooms of the vast palace.

Kathleen lay very still, and from the depths of her own mind there came the realization of what this meant. Somebody was not waiting until tomorrow. Somebody doubted that her execution would take place. And he intended to present the council with an accomplished fact There could be only one such person, powerful enough to face any consequences: John Petty, the head of the secret police, the fanatic antislan – John Petty, who hated her with a violence that, even in this den of antislans, was dismaying. The assassin must be one of his henchmen.

With an effort, she quieted her nerves and strained her mind out, out, to the limit of her powers. The seconds dragged, and still she lay there groping, searching for the brain whose thoughts had for a brief flash threatened her life. The whisper of outside thoughts became a roar that shook her brain. It was months since she had explored that world of uncontrolled minds. She had thought the memory of its horrors had not dimmed. Yet the reality was worse than the memory. Grimly, with an almost mature persistence, she held herself in that storm of mind vibration, fighting to isolate each individual pattern in turn. A sentence came:

"Oh, God, I hope they don't find out he's cheating. Today, on the vegetables!"

That would be the wife of the assistant chef, wretched God-fearing woman, who lived in mortal terror of the day when the petty thievery of her husband would be discovered.

Briefly, Kathleen felt sympathy for the tortured little woman lying awake beside her husband there in the darkness. But not too much sympathy, for that little woman had once, on sheer, vicious impulse, paused as Kathleen was passing her in a corridor and without preliminary mental warning slapped her hard in the face.

Kathleen's mind pressed on, driven now by a mounting sense of urgency. Other pictures flitted through her brain, a veritable kaleidoscope, brushed aside almost at the moment of entry as unwanted, unrelated to the menace that had awakened her. There was the whole world of the palace with its intrigues, its countless personal tragedies, its hard ambitiousness. Dreams with psychological implications were there, from people who tossed in their sleep. And there were pictures of men who sat scheming far into the night.

Abruptly, then, it came, a wisp of crude purpose, the hard determination to kill /her!/ Instantly, it was gone again like an elusive butterfly, only not like that at all. The deadliness of it was tike a spur that roweled her to desperation. For that second flash of menacing thought had been too powerful for it to be anything but near, terribly, dangerously near.

Amazing how hard it was to find him again. Her brain ached, her body felt cold and hot by turns; and then a stray picture came for a third time – and she had him. And now she understood why his brain had evaded her so long. His thoughts were so carefully diffused, deliberately flashing to a thousand different subjects, seeming simply overtones to the confusion of mind noises all around. He must have practiced it, but even so, he wasn't a John Petty or a Kier Gray, either of whom could hold rigidly to a line of reasoning without once slipping up. Her would-be assailant, in spite of all his cleverness, had given himself away. As soon as he entered the room she would – The thought broke off. Her mind soared toward disintegration with the shock of the truth that showered in upon her. The man was inside her bedroom, and was at this very instant creeping on his knees toward her bed.

A sense of time suspension came to Kathleen as she lay there. It grew out of the darkness, and the way the blankets held her down, covering even her arms. There was the knowledge that the slightest move would rustle the stiff sheets. He'd rush her then before she could move, pin her down under the blankets and have her at his mercy.