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What happened?
He sat at the edge of the grass on the hill above the Hospital. His eyes were fixed on its blazing windows. His heart beat softly against his knee.
What happened? They had me. They had me!
He had walked away. Bewildered, helpless, beaten, he had waited for the magnified voice to shout its orders. And nothing had happened. It was as if they had forgotten him. He had walked away with the feel of death at his back, waiting for the numbness of a sonic stun-beam or the prick of a mercy-bullet or the roar of the officer's voice.
Gradually, against all reason, he had sensed that they were not going to come for him.
And then he ran.
His lungs had stopped their tortured laboring many minutes ago, but his brain still spun. Perhaps it would never stop. He had run until he collapsed, here at the top of the hill, but the fear that drove him was not the fear of the organ banks. He had fled from an impossible thing, from a universe without reason. How could he have walked away from that plain of death with no eye to watch him? It smacked of magic, and he was afraid.
Something had suspended the ordinary laws of the universe to save his life. He had never heard of anything that could do that ... except the Mist Demons. And the Mist Demons were a myth. They had told him so when he was old enough. The Mist Demons were a tale to frighten children, like the reverse of a Santa Claus. The old wives who found powerful beings in the mist beyond the edge of the world had followed a tradition older than history, perhaps as old as man. But nobody believed in the Mist Demons. They were like the Belt miners' Church of Finagle, whose prophet was Murphy. A half-bitter joke. Something to swear by.
They had me and they let me go. Why?
Could they have had a purpose? Was there some reason the Hospital should let a colonist sneak to its very walls, then let him go free?
Could the organ banks be full? But there must be someplace they could keep a prisoner until there was room.
But if they thought he was a crew! Yes, that was it! A human figure on Alpha plateau of course they'd assume he was crew. But so what? Surely someone would have come to question him.
Matt began pacing a tight circle at the top of the low hill. His head whirled. He'd walked to certain death and been turned loose. By whom? Why? And what did he do next? Go back and give them another chance? Walk to the Alpha-Beta Bridge and hope nobody would see him sneaking across? Fly down the cliff, vigorously flapping his arms?
The awful thing was that he didn't know it wouldn't work. Magic, magic. Hood had talked about magic.
No, he hadn't. He'd practically turned purple denying that magic was involved. He'd been talking about ... psychic powers. And Matt had been so involved in watching, Polly that he couldn't remember anything Hood had said.
It was very bad luck. Because this was his only out. He had to assume that he had a psychic power, though he had not the remotest idea what that implied. At least it put a name to what had happened.
"I've got a psychic power," Matt a
Fine. So? If Hood had gone into detail on the nature of psychic powers, Matt couldn't remember. But he could fairly well drop the idea of flying down the Alpha-Beta cliff. Whatever else was true of man's unexplored mental powers, they must be consistent. Matt could remember the feeling that he wouldn't be noticed if he didn't want to be, he had never flown, nor even dreamed of flying.
He ought to talk to Hood.
But Hood was in the Hospital. He might be dead already.
Well ...
Matt had been eleven years old when Ghengis, or Dad, brought two charms home for gifts. They were model cars, just the right size for charm bracelets, and they glowed in the dark. Matt and Jea
One night they had left the charms in a closet for several hours, thinking they would grow brighter when they "got used to the dark." When Jea
Jea
He hung them next to a light bulb for an hour. When he turned off the light, they glowed like little blue lamps.
A tide of small, loosely packed clouds was spreading across the stars. In all directions the town lights had gone out, all but the lights of the Hospital. The Plateau slept in a profound silence.
Well ... he'd tried to sneak into the Hospital. He'd been caught. But when he stood up in the glare of spotlights, they couldn't see him. The why of it was just as magical as before, but he thought he was begi
He'd have to risk it. Matt began to walk.
He'd never pla
Strictly speaking, he should have been wearing something bright. A blue shirt with a tangerine sweater, iridescent green pants, a scarlet cape with an S enclosed in a yellow triangle. And ... rimmed glasses? It had been a long time since grade school. Never mind; he'd have to go as he was.
A good thing he liked flamboyant gestures.
He skirted the edge of the bare region until he reached the houses. Presently he was walking through dark streets. The houses were fascinating and strange. He would have enjoyed seeing them by daylight. What ma
But he noticed a peculiar thing about the houses. Heterogeneous as they were in form, color, style, building material, they had one thing in common. Always they faced away from the Hospital.
As if the Hospital inspired them with fear. Or guilt.
There were lights ahead. Matt walked faster. He had been walking for half an hour now. Yes, there was the supply road, lit bright as day by two close-spaced lines of street lamps. A broken white line ran down the curving middle.
Matt stepped out to the white line and began following it toward the Hospital.
Again his shoulders were u
Men had been released from the Hospital to tell of their trials. Not many, but they could talk. Matt could guess a little of what waited for him.
They would see him, they would fire mercy-bullets into him, they would carry him on a stretcher into the Hospital. When he woke, he would be taken to his first and last interview with the dread Castro. The Head's burning eyes would look into his, and he would rumble, "Keller, eh? Yes, we had to take your uncle apart. Well, Keller? You walked up here like you thought you were a crew with an appointment. What did you think you were doing, Keller?"
And what was he going to say to that?