A Gift From Earth

The mechanic turned and ran toward an office. Jesus Pietro used his handphone to issue instructions regarding a possible stolen car.

Jansen came back on the line. "One rebel dead, sir. That leaves five missing." He listed them.

"All right. It's begi

"They'd have reported it, sir."

"I'm not so certain. Find out."

"Sir, the carport was attacked. The guards had to report five prisoners stealing an aircar during a mob attack!"

"Jansen, I think they might have forgotten to. You understand me?" There was steel in his voice. Jansen signed off without further protest.

Jesus Pietro looked up at the sky, rubbing his moustache with two fingers. A stolen car would be easy to find. There were no crew pleasure-cars abroad now, not in the middle of Millard Parlette's speech. But they might have landed it. And if a car had been stolen in full view of the wall guards, it had been stolen by ghosts.

That would fit admirably with the other things that had been happening at the Hospital.

CHAPTER 8

POLLY'S EYES

GEOFFREY EUSTACE PARLETTE's house was different inside. The rooms were big and comfortable, furnished in soft good taste. They were i

Lydia had threatened force to get Matt to return to the living room. He wanted to explore. He'd seen incredible bedrooms. Hobbyists' bedrooms ...

In a living room two stories tall, before a vast false fireplace whose stone logs showed red electrical heat where they touched, the five survivors dropped into couches. Harry Kane still moved carefully, but he seemed almost recovered from the stu

Matt slumped in the couch. He wriggled, adjusting his position, and finally put his feet up. It was good to feel safe.

"Tiny hearts and livers," said Hood.

"Yah," said Matt.

"That's impossible."

Harry Kane made a questioning noise.

"I saw them," said Matt. "The rest of it was pretty horrible, but that was the worst."

Harry Kane was sitting upright. "In the organ banks?"

"Yes, dammit, in the organ banks. Don't you believe me? They were in special tanks of their own, makeshift-looking, with the motors sitting in the water next to the organs. The glass was warm."

"Stasis tanks aren't warm," said Hood.

"And Implementation doesn't take children," said Harry Kane. "If they did, I'd know it."

Matt merely glared.

"Hearts and livers," said Harry. "Just those? Nothing else?"

"Nothing I noticed," said Matt. "No, wait. There were a couple of tanks just like them. One was empty. One looked ... polluted, I think."

"How long were you in there?"

"Just long enough to get sick to my stomach. Mist Demons, I wasn't investigating anything! I was looking for a map!"

"In the organ banks?"

"Lay off," said Laney. "Relax, Matt. It doesn't matter."

Mrs. Hancock had gone to find the kitchen. She returned now, with a pitcher and five glasses. "Found this. No reason we shouldn't mess up the place, is there?"

They assured her there wasn't, and she poured for them.

Hood said, "I'm more interested in your alleged psychic powers. I've never read of anything like you've got. It must be something new."

Matt grunted.

"I should tell you that anyone who believes in the so-called-psi powers at all usually thinks he's psychic himself." Hood's tone was dry, professional. "We may find nothing at all."

"Then how did we get here?"

"We may never know. Some new Implementation policy? Or maybe the Mist Demons love you, Matt."

"I thought of that, too."

Mrs. Hancock returned to the kitchen.

"When you tried to sneak up to the Hospital," Hood continued, "you were spotted right away. You must have run through the electric-eye net. You didn't attempt to run?"

"They had four spotlights on me. I just stood up,"

"Then they ignored you? They let you walk away?"

"That's right. I kept looking back, waiting for that loudspeaker to say something. It never did. Then I ran."

"And the man who took you into the Hospital. Did anything happen just before he went insane and ran back to the gatehouse?"

"Like what?"

"Anything involving light--"

"No."

Hood looked disappointed. Laney said, "People seem to forget about you."

"Yah. It's been like that all my life. In school the teacher wouldn't call on me unless I knew the answer. Bullies never bothered me."

"I should have been so lucky," said Hood.

Laney wore the abstracted look of one tracing an idea.

"The eyes," said Harry Kane, and paused for thought. He had been listening without comment, in the attitude of The Thinker, jaw on fist, elbow on knee. "You said there was something strange about the guards' eyes."

"Yah, I don't know what. I've seen that look before, I think, but I can't remember--"

"What about the one who finally shot you? Anything odd about his eyes?"

"No."

Laney came out of her abstraction with a startled look. "Matt. Do you think Polly would have gone home with you?"

"What the Mist Demons does that have to do with anything?"

"Don't get mad, Matt. I've got a reason for asking."

"I can't imagine--"

"That's why you called in the experts."

"All right, yes. I thought she was going home with me."

Then she suddenly turned and walked away."

"Yah. The bitch just--" Matt swallowed the rest of it. Not until now, when he could feel his pain and rage and humiliation in bearable retrospect, did he realize how badly she'd stung him. "She walked away like she'd remembered something. Something more important than me, but not particularly important for all that. Laney, could it have been her hearing aid?"

"The radio? ... No, not that early. Harry, did you tell Polly anything by radio that you didn't tell the rest of us?'p

"I told her I'd call for her speech at midnight, after everyone had gone home. They could hear it through the radios. 'Otherwise, nothing."

"So she had no reason to drop me," said Matt. "I still don't see why we have to dig into this."

"It's strange," said Hood. "It can't hurt to look at anything strange in your young life."

Laney said, "Did you resent it?"

"Damn right I did. I hate being left flat like that, toyed with and then dropped."

"You didn't offend her?"

"I don't see how I could have. I didn't get drunk tell afterward."

"You told me its happened before like that."

"Every time. Every damn time, until you. I was virgin until Friday night." Matt looked belligerently around him. Nobody said anything. "That's why I can't see how it helps to talk about it. Dammit, it isn't unusual in my young life."

Hood said, "Its unusual in Polly's young life. Polly's not a tease. Am I wrong, Laney?"

"No. She takes her sex seriously. She wouldn't make a play for someone she didn't want. I wonder...