To Ride Pegasus

Apple

The theft was the lead morning ‘cast and ruined Daffyd op Owen’s appetite. As he listened to the description of the priceless sable coat, the sapphire necklace, the couture model gown and the jewel-strap slippers, he felt as if he were congealing to his chair as his breakfast cooled and hardened on the plate. He waited, numbed, for the commentator to make the obvious conclusion: a conclusion which would destroy all that the East American Para-psychic Center had achieved so slowly, so delicately. For the only way in which such valuable items could have been removed from a store dummy in a scanned, warded, very public display window in the five-minute period between the fixed TV frames was by kinetic energy.

“The police have several leads and expect to have a solution by evening.

Commissioner Frank Gillings is taking charge of the investigation.

“ ‘I keep my contractual obligations to the City,’ Gillings is reported to have told the press early this morning as he personally supervised the examination of the display window at Coles, Michaels and Charny Department Store. ‘I have reduced street and consensual crimes and contained riot activity. Jerhattan is a safe place for the law-abiding. Unsafe for law-breakers.’”

The back-shot of Gillings’s stern face was sufficient to break op Owen’s stasis.

He rose and strode toward the comunit just as it beeped.

“Daffyd, you heard that ‘cast?” The long, unusually grim face of Lester Welch appeared on the screen. “God dammit, they promised no premature announcement. Mediamen!” His expression boded ill for the first unwary reporter to approach him. Over Les’s shoulder, op Owen could see the equally savage face of Charlie Moorfield, duty officer of the control room of the Center.

“How long have you known about the theft?” Op Owen couldn’t quite keep the reprimand from his voice. Les had a devoted habit of trying to spare his superior, particularly these days when he knew op Owen had been spreading himself very thin in the intensive public educational campaign.

“Ted Lewis snuck in a cautious advice as soon as Headquarters scanned the disappearance. He also can’t ‘find’ a thing. And, Dave, there wasn’t a wrinkle or a peak between 7:03 and 7:08 on any graph that shouldn’t be there, with every single Talent accounted for!”

“That’s right, Boss,” Charlie added. “Not a single Incident to account for the kinetic ‘lift’ needed for the heist.”

“Gillings is on his way here,” said Les, screwing his face up with indignation.

“Why?” Daffyd op Owen exploded. “Didn’t Ted clear us?”

“Christ, yes, but Gillings has been at Cole’s and his initial investigation proves conclusively to him that one of our people is a larcenist. One of our women, to be precise, with a secret yen for sable, silk and sapphires.”

Daffyd forced himself to nullify the boiling anger he felt. He could not afford to cloud reason with emotion. Not with so much at stake. Not with the Bill which would provide legal protection for Talents only two weeks away from passing.

“You’ll never believe me, will you, Dave,” Les said, “that the Talented will always be suspect?”

“Gillings has never caviled at the use of Talents, Lester.”

“He’d be a goddamned fool if he did.” Lester’s eyes sparkled angrily. He jabbed at his chest. “We’ve kept street and consensual crime low. Talent did his job for him. And now he’s out to nail us. With publicity like this, we’ll never get that Bill through. Christ, what luck! Two bloody weeks away from protection.”

“If there’s no Incident on the graphs, Les, even Gillings must admit to our innocence.”

Welch rolled his eyes heavenwards. “How can you be so naive, Dave? No matter what our remotes prove, that heist was done by a Talent.”

“Not one of ours.” Daffyd op Owen could be didactic, too.

“Great. Prove it to Gillings. He’s on his way here now and he’s out to get us.

We’ve all but ruined his spotless record of enforcement and protection. That hits his credit, monetary and personal.” Lester paused for a quick breath. “I told you that public education program would cause more trouble than it’s worth.

Let me cancel the morning ‘cast.”

“No.” Daffyd closed his eyes wearily. He didn’t need to resume that battle with Les now. In spite of this disastrous development, he was convinced of the necessity for the campaign. The general public must learn that they had nothing to fear from those gifted with a parapsychic Talent. The series of public information programs, so carefully planned, served several vital purposes: to show how the many facets of Talent served the community’s best interests; to identify those peculiar traits that indicated the possession of a Talent; and most important, to gain public support for the Bill in the Senate which would give Talents professional immunity in the exercise of their various duties.

“I haven’t a vestige of Talent, Dave,” Les went on urgently, “but I don’t need it to guess some dissident in the common mass of have-nots listened to every word of those ‘casts and put what you should never have aired to good use…for him. And don’t comfort me with how many happy clods have obediently tripped up to the Clinic to have their minor Talents identified. One renegade apple’s all you need to sour the barrel!”

“Switch the ‘cast to the standard recruiting tape. To pull the whole series would be worse. I’m coming right over.”

Daffyd op Owen looked down at the blank screen for a long moment, gathering strength. It was no precog that this would be a very difficult day. Strange, he mused, that no precog had foreseen this. No. That very omission indicated a wild Talent, acting on the spur of impulse. What was it Les had said? “The common mass of have-nots?” Even with the basic dignities of food, shelter, clothing and education guaranteed, the appetite of the have-not was continually whetted by the abundance that was not his. In this case, hers. Daffyd op Owen groaned. If only such a Talent had been moved to come to the Center where she could be trained and used. Where had their so carefully worded programming slipped up?

She could have had the furs, the jewels, the dresses on overt purchase…and enjoyed them openly. The Center was well enough endowed to satisfy any material yearning of its members. Surely Gillings would admit that.

Op Owen took a deep breath and exhaled regret and supposition. He must keep his mind clear, his sensitivities honed for any nuance that would point a direction toward success.

As he left his shielded quarters at the back of the Center’s extensive grounds, he was instantly aware of tension in the atmosphere. Most Talented persons preferred to live in the Center, in the specially shielded buildings that reduced the ‘noise’ of constant psychic agitation. The Center preferred to have them here, as much to protect as to help their members. Talent was a double-edged sword; it could incise evil but it neatly separated its wielder from his fellow man. That was why these broadcasts were so vital. To prove to the general public that the psychically gifted were by no means supermen. Research had indicated there were more people with the ability than would admit it. There were, however, definite limitations to most Talents.

The Parapsychic had been raised, in Daffyd’s lifetime, to the level of a science with the development of the Goosegg, ultra-sensitive electroencephalographs which could record, and identify the type of “Talent” by the minute electrical impulses generated in the cortex by the application of psychic powers. Daffyd op Owen sometimes thought the word “power” was the villain in perpetuating the public misconceptions. Power means “possession of control” but such synonyms as “domination,” “sway,” “command” leapt readily to the average mind and distorted the actual definition.

Daffyd op Owen was roused from his thoughts by the heavy beat of a copter. He turned onto the path leading directly to the main administration building and had a clear view of the Commissioner’s marked copter landing on the flight roof, to the left of the control tower with its forest of antennal decorations.

Immediately he perceived a reaction of surprise, indignation and anxiety. Surely every Talent who’d heard the news on the morning ‘cast and realized its significance could not be surprised by Gillings’s arrival. Op Owen quickened his pace.

“Orley’s loose!” The thought was as loud as a shout.

People paused, turned unerringly towards the long low building of the Clinic where applicants were tested for sensitivity and trained to understand and use what Talent they possessed: and where the Center conducted its basic research in psionics.

A tall, heavy figure flung itself from the Clinic’s broad entrance, charged down the lawn, in a direct line to the tower. The man leaped the ornamental garden, plunged through the hedges, swung over the hood of a parked lawn-truck, straight-armed the overhanging branches of trees, and brushed aside several men who tried to stop him.

“Project reassurance! Project reassurance!” the bullhorn from the tower advised.

“Project happiness!”

“Get those cops in my office!” Daffyd projected on his own as he began to run towards the building. He hoped that Charlie Moorfield or

Lester had already done so. Orley didn’t look as if anything short of a tranquillizer bullet would stop him. Who had been dim-witted enough to let the telempath out of his shielded room at a time like this? The moron was the most sensitive barometer to emotion Daffyd had ever encountered and he was physically dangerous if aroused. By the speed of that berserker-charge, he had soaked up enough fear/anxiety/anger to dismember the objects he was homing in on.

The only sounds now in the grounds were those of op Owen’s shoes hitting the permaplast of the walk and the thud-thud of Orley’s progress on the thick lawn.

One advantage of being Talented is efficient communication and total comprehension of terse orders. But the wave of serenity/reassurance was not penetrating Orley’s blind fury: the openness dissipated its effect.

Three men walked purposefully out of the administration building and down the broad apron of steps. Each carried slim-barreled hand weapons. The man on the left raised and aimed his at the audibly-panting, fast approaching moron. The shot took Orley in the right arm but did not cause him to falter. Instantly the second man aimed and fired. Orley lost stride for two paces as the shot penetrated his thigh but incredibly he recovered. The third man-op Owen recognized Charlie Moorfield-waited calmly as Orley rapidly closed the intervening distance. In a few more steps Orley would crash into him. Charlie was swinging out of the way, his gun slightly raised for a chest shot, when the moron staggered and, with a horrible groan, fell to his knees. He tried to rise, one clenched fist straining towards the building.

Instantly Charlie moved to prevent Orley from gouging his face on the coarse-textured permaplast.

“He took two double-strength doses, Dave,” Moorfield exclaimed with some awe as he cradled the moron’s head in his arms.

“He would. How’n’hell did he get such an exposure?

- Charlie made a grimace. “Sally was feeding him on the terrace. She hadn’t heard the news ‘cast. Said she was concentrating on keeping him clean and didn’t ‘read’ his growing restlessness as more than response to her until he burst wide open.”

“Too much to hope that our unexpected guests didn’t see this?”

Charlie gave a sour grin. “They caused it, Boss. Stood there on the roof, giving Les a hard time, broadcasting basic hate and distrust. You should’ve seen the dial on the psychic atmosphere gauge. No wonder Orley responded,” Charlie’s face softened as he glanced down at the unconscious man. “Poor damned soul. Where is that med-team? I ‘called’ them when he got outside.”

Daffyd glanced up at the broad third floor windows that marked his office. Six men stared back. He put an instant damper on his thoughts and emotions, and mounted the steps.

The visitors were still at the window, watching the med-team as. they lifted the huge limp body onto the stretcher.

“Orley acts as a human barometer, gentlemen, reacting instantly to the emotional aura around him,” Les was saying in his driest, down-east tone. To op Owen’s wide-open mind, he emanated a raging anger that almost masked the aura projected by the visitors. “He has an intelligence factor of less than 50 on the New Scale which makes him uneducable. He is, however, invaluable in helping identify the dominating emotion of seriously disturbed mental and hallucinogenic patients which could overcome a rational telepath.”

Police Commissioner Frank Gillings was the prime source of the fury which had set Harold Orley off. Op Owen felt sorry for Orley, having to bear such anger, and sorrier for himself and his optimistic hopes. He was momentarily at a loss to explain such a violent reaction from

Gillings, even granting the validity of Lester Welch’s assumption that Gillings was losing face, financial and personal, on account of this affair.

He tried a “push” at Gillings’s mind to discover the covert reasons and found the man had a tight natural shield, not uncommon for a person in high position, privy to sensitive facts. The burly Commissioner gave every outward appearance of being completely at ease, as if this were no more than a routine visit, and not one hint of his surface thoughts leaked. Deep-set eyes, barely visible under heavy brows, above fleshy cheeks in a swarthy face that missed nothing, flicked from Daffyd to Lester and back.

Op Owen nodded to Ted Lewis, the top police “finder” who had accompanied the official group. He stood a little to one side of the others. Of all the visitors, his mind was wide open. Foremost was the thought that he hoped Daffyd would read him, so that he could pass the warning that Gillings considered Orley’s exhibition another indication that Talents could not control or discipline their own members.

“Good morning, Commissioner. I regret such circumstances bring you on your first visit to the Center.” This morning’s newscast has made us all extremely anxious to clear our profession.”

Gillings’s perfunctory smile did not acknowledge the tacit explanation of Orley’s behavior.

“I’ll come to the point, then, Owen. We have conclusively ascertained that there was no break in store security measures when the theft occurred. The ‘lectric wards and spy-scanner were not tampered with nor was there any evidence of breaking or entering. There is only one method in which sable, necklace, dress and shoes could have been taken from that window in the five minutes between TV scans.

“We regret exceedingly that the evidence points to a person with psychic talents. We must insist that the larcenist be surrendered to us immediately and the merchandise re turned to Mr. Grey, the representative from Cole’s.” He indicated the portly man in a conservative but expensive grey fitted.

Op Owen nodded and looked expectantly towards Ted Lewis.

“Lewis can’t ‘find’ a trace anywhere so it’s obvious the items are being shielded.” A suggestion of impatience crept into Gillings’s bass voice. “These grounds are shielded.”

“The stolen goods are not here, Commissioner. If they were, they would have been found by a member the instant the broadcast was heard.”

Gillings’s eyes snapped and his lips thinned with obstinacy.

“I’ve told you I can read on these grounds, Commissioner,” Ted Lewis said with understandable indignation. “The stolen…”

A wave of the Commissioner’s hand cut off the rest of Lewis’s statement. Op Owen fought anger at the insult.

“You’re a damned fool, Gillings,” said Welch, not bothering to control his, “if you think we’d shelter a larcenist at this time.”

“Ah yes, that Bill pending Senate approval,” Gillings said with an unpleasant smile.

Daffyd found it hard to nullify resentment at the smug satisfaction and new antagonism which Gillings was generating.

“Yes, that Bill, Commissioner,” op Owen repeated, “which will protect any Talent registered with a para-psychic center.” Op Owen did not miss-the sparkle of Gillings’s deep-set eyes at the deliberate emphasis. “If you’ll step this way, gentlemen, to our remote-graph control system, I believe that we can prove, to your absolute satisfaction, that no registered Talent is responsible. You haven’t been here before, Commissioner, so you are not familiar with our method of recording incidents in which psychic powers are used.

“Power, by the way, means “possession of control’, personal as well as psychic, which is what this Center teaches each and every member. Here we are. Charles Moorfield is the duty officer and was in charge at the time of the robbery. If you will observe the graphs, you’ll notice that that period-between 7:03 and 7:08 was the time give by the ‘cast-has not yet wound out of sight on the storage drums.”

Gillings was not looking at the graphs. He was staring at Charlie.

“Next time, aim at the chest first, mister.”

“Sorry I stopped him at all…mister,” replied Charlie, with such deliberate malice that Gillings colored and stepped towards him.

Op Owen quickly intervened. “You dislike, distrust and hate us, Commissioner,” he said, keeping his own voice neutral with effort. “You and your staff has prejudged us guilty, though you are at this moment surrounded by incontrovertible evidence of our collective innocence. You arrived here, emanating disruptive emotions-no, I’m not reading your minds, gentlemen.” Daffyd had all Gillings’s attention with that phrase. “That isn’t necessary. You’re triggering responses in the most controlled of us-not to mention that poor witless telempath we had to tranquillize. And, unless you put a lid on your unwarranted hatred and fears, I will have no compunction about pumping you all full of tranks, too!”

“That’s coming on mighty strong for a man in your position, Owen,” Gillings said in a tight hard voice, his body visibly tense now.

“You’re the one that’s coming on strong, Gillings. Look at that dial behind you.”

Gillings did not want to turn, particularly not at op Owen’s command, but there is a quality of righteous anger that compels obedience.

“That registers-as Harold Orley does-the psychic intensity of the atmosphere.

The mind gives off electrical impulses, Gillings, surely you have to admit that.

Law enforcement agencies used that premise for lie detection. Our instrumentation makes those early registers as archaic as space ships make oxcarts. We have ultra-delicate equipment which can measure the minutest electrical impulses of varying frequencies and duration.

And this PA dial registers a dangerous high right now. Surely your eyes must accept scientific evidence.

“Those rows of panels there record the psychic activity of each and every member registered with this Center. See, most of them register agitation right now.

These red divisions indicate a sixty-minute time span. Each of those drums exposes the graph as of the time of that theft. Notice the difference. Not one graph shows the kinetic activity required of a ‘lifter’ to achieve such a theft.

But every one shows a reaction to your presence.

“There is no way in which a registered Talent can avoid these graphs. Charlie, were any kinetics out of touch at the time of the theft?”

Charlie, his eyes locked on Gillings, shook his head slowly.

“There never has been so much as a civil misdemeanor by any of our people. No breach of confidence, nor integrity. No crime could be shielded from fellow Talents.

“And can you rationally believe that we would jeopardize years and years of struggle to become accepted as reliable citizens of indisputable integrity for the sake of a fur coat and a string of baubles? When there are funds available to any Talent who might want to own such fripperies?” Op Owen’s scorn made the Cole man wince.

“Now get out of here, Gillings. Discipline your emotions and revise your snap conclusion. Then call through normal channels and request our cooperation.

Because, believe me, we are far more determined…and better equipped…to discover the real criminal than you could ever be, no matter what your personal stake in assigning guilt might conceivably be.”

Op Owen watched for a reaction to that remark but Gillings, his lips thin and white with anger, did not betray himself. He gestured jerkily towards the one man in police blues.

“Do not serve that warrant now, Gillings!” op Owen said in a very soft voice. He watched the frantic activity of the needle on the PA dial.

“Go. Now. Call. Because if you cannot contain your feelings, Commissioner, you had better maintain your distance.”

It was then that Gillings became aware of the palpable presence of those assembled in the corridor. A wide aisle had been left free, an aisle that led only to the open elevator. No one spoke or moved or coughed. The force exerted was not audible nor physical. It was, however, undeniably unanimous. It prevailed in forty-four seconds.

“My firm will wish to know what steps are being taken,” the Cole’s man said in a squeaky voice as he began to walk, with erratic but ever quickening steps, towards the elevator.

Gillings’s three subordinates were not so independent, but there was no doubt of their relief as Gillings turned and walked with precise, unhurried strides to the waiting car.

No one moved until the thwapping rumble of the copter was no longer audible.

Then they turned for assignments from their director.

City Manager Julian Pennstrak, with a metropolis of some four million to supervise, had a habit of checking up personally on any disruption to the smooth operation of his city. He arrived as the last of the organized search parties left the Center.

“I’d give my left kidney and a million credits to have enough Talent to judge a man accurately, Dave,” he said as he crossed the room. He knew better than to shake hands unless a Talented offered but it was obvious to Daffyd, who liked Pennstrak, that the man wanted somehow to convey his personal distress over this incident. He stood for a moment by the chair, his handsome face without a trace of his famous genial smile. “I’d’ve sworn Frank Gillings was pro-Talent,” he said, combing his fingers through his thick, wavy black hair, another indication of his anxiety. “He certainly has used your people to their fullest capabilities since he became LEO Commissioner.”

Lester Welch snorted, looking up from the map he was annotating with search patterns. “A man’ll use any tool that works…until it scratches him, that is.”

“But you could prove that no registered Talent was responsible for that theft.”

“ ‘A man convinced “against his will, is of his own opinion still,’ “ Lester chanted.

“Les!” Op Owen didn’t need sour cynicism from any quarter, even one dedicated to Talent. “No registered Talent was responsible.”

Pennstrak brightened. “You did persuade Gillings that it’s the work of an undiscovered Talent?”

Welch made a rude noise. “He’ll be persuaded when we produce both missing person and missing merchandise. Nothing else is going to satisfy either Gillings or Cole’s.”

“True,” Pennstrak agreed, frowning thoughtfully. “Nor the vacillating members of my own Council. Oh, I know, it’s a flash reaction but the timing is so goddamned lousy, Dave. Your campaign bore down heavy on the Integrity and good citizenship of the Talented.”

“It’s a deliberate smear job…” Welch began gloomily.

“I thought of that,” Pennstrak interrupted him, “and had my own expert go over the scanner films. You know the high security risk set-up: rotating exposures on the stationary TV eyes. One frame the model was clothed; next, exposed in all its plastic glory. It was a ‘lift’ all right. No possibility of tampering with that film.” Pennstrak leaned forward to Dave, though there was scarcely any need to guard his statements in this company. “Furthermore, Pat came along. She ‘read’ everyone at the store, and Gillings’s squad. Not Gillings, though. She said he has a natural shield. The others were all clean…at least of conspiracy.”

Pennstrak’s snide grin faded quickly. “I made her go rest. That’s why there’s no one with me.”

Op Owen accepted the information quietly. He had half-hoped…it was an uncharacteristic speculation for him. However, it did save time and Talent to have had both store and police checked.

It had become general practice to have a strong telepathic receiver in the entourage of any prominent or controversial public figure. That Talent was rarely identified publicly. He or she usually performed some obvious service so that their constant presence was easily explicable. Pat Tawfik was overtly

Pennstrak’s chief speech writer.

“I have, however,” Pennstrak continued, “used my official prerogative to supervise the hunt. There’re enough sympathetic people on the public media channels to play down the Talent angle-at my request-but you know what this kind of adverse publicity is going to do to you, this Center and the Talented in general. One renegade can discredit a hundred honest injuns. So, what can I do to help?”

“I wish I knew. We’ve got every available perceptive out on the off-chance that this-ah-renegade happens to be broadcasting joy and elation over her heist.”

“Her?”

“The consensus is that while a man might lift furs and jewels, possibly the dress, only a woman would take the shoes, too. Top finders are coming in from other Centers…”

“A ‘find’ is reported, Boss,” said Charlie over the intercom. “Block Q.”

As Pennstrak and op Owen reached the map, Welch announced with a groan. “Gawd, that’s a multi-layer apartment zone.”

“A have-not,” added op Owen.

“Gil Gracie made the find, Boss,” Charlie continued. “And the fur is not all he’s found but he’s got a problem.”

“You just bet he has,” Les said under his breath as he grimaced down at the map coordinates.

“Charlie, send every finder and perceptive to Block Q. If they can come up with a fix…”

“Boss, we got a fix, but there’s one helluva lot of similarities.”

“What’s the problem?” asked Pennstrak.

“We’ll simply have to take our time and eliminate, Charlie. Send anyone who can help.” Then op Owen turned to Pennstrak. “In reporting a ‘find,’ the perceptive is aware of certain particular spatial relationships between the object sought and its immediate surroundings. It isn’t as if he has seen the object as a camera sees it. For example, have you ever entered a room, turned down a street, or looked up quickly and had the feeling that you had seen just (and Daffyd made a bracket of his hands) that portion of the scene before, with exactly the same lighting, exactly the same components? But only that portion of the scene, so that the rest was an indistinguishable blur?”

Pennstrak nodded.

“ ‘Finding’ is like that. Sometimes the Talent sees it in lucid detail, sometimes it’s obscured or, as in this case, there are literally hundreds of possibilities…apartments with the same light exposure, same scene out the window, the same floor plan and furnishings. Quite possible in this instance since these are furnished, standard subsistence dwellings. Nothing to help us single out, say Apartment 44E, Building 18, Buhler Street.”

“There happens to be a Building 18 on Buhler Street, Boss,” Les Welch said slowly, “and there are 48 levels, 10 units per floor.”

Pennstrak regarded op Owen with awe.

“Nonsense, this office is thoroughly shielded and I’m not a precog!”

“Before you guys took the guesswork out of it, there were such things as hunches,” Pennstrak suggested.

For op Owen’s peace of mind and Lester’s pose of misogyny, it was neither Building 18 nor Buhler Street nor Apartment 44. It was Apartment 1E, deep in the center of Q Block. No one had entered nor left it-by normal means-since Gil Gracie and two other finders had made a precise fix. Gil handed op Owen the master key obtained from the dithering super.

“My Gawd,” Pennstrak said in a voice muted with shocked surprise, as they swung open the door. “Like an oriental bazaar.”

“Indiscriminate pilfering on a wholesale basis.” Op Owen corrected him, glancing around at the rich brilliant velvet drapes framing the dingy window to the wildly clashing pillows thrown on the elegant Empire loveseat. A marble-topped table was a jumble of pretty vases, silver boxes and goblets. Priceless china held decaying remains of food. Underneath the table were jaggedly opened, empty cans bearing the label of an extremely expensive caterer. Two empty champagne bottles pointed green, blind eyes in their direction. A portable color ‘caster was piled with discarded clothing; a black-lace sheer body stocking draped in an obscene posture across the inactive screen. “A magpie’s nest rather,” he sighed, “and I’d hazard that Maggie is very young and has been poor all her life until…” He met Pennstrak’s sympathetic gaze. “Until our educational program gave her the hints she needed to unlock her special Talent.”

“Gillings is going to have to work with you on this, Dave,” Pennstrak said reluctantly as he reached for the intercom at his belt. “But first he’s going to have to apologize.”

Op Owen shook his head vigorously. “I want his cooperation, Julian, grudged or willing. When he really believes in Talent, then he will apologize voluntarily…and obliquely.”

To op Owen’s consternation, Gillings arrived noisily in the cowlike lab copter, sirens going, lights flashing.

“Don’t bother now,” op Owen said to Pennstrak for he could see the City Manager forming a furious reprimand,

“She might have been warned by the finders’ activity anyhow.”

“Well, she’s certainly been warned off now.” Pennstrak stalked off, to confer with one of his aides just as Gillings strode into the corridor with his technicians.

According op Owen and Grade the merest nod, Gillings began issuing crisp orders.

He knew his business, op Owen thought, and he evidently trusted these technicians for he didn’t bother to crowd into the tiny apartment to oversee them.

“As soon as your men have prints and a physical profile, Commissioner, we’d like to run the data through our computer. There’s the chance that the girl did take advantage of the open Talent test the Center has been advertising.”

“You mean you don’t know who it is yet?”

“I could ‘find’ the coat only because I knew what it looked like,” Gil Grade said, bristling at” Gillings’s manner.

“Then where is it?” and Gillings gestured pre-emptorily to the sable-less apartment.

“These are the shoes, Commissioner,” said one of his team, presenting the fragile strap and jeweled footwear, now neatly sealed in clear plastic. “Traces of dirt, dust, fleck of nail enamel and from the ‘scope imprint, I’d say they were too big for her.”

Gillings stared at the shoes disinterestedly. “No sign of the dress?”

“Still looking.”

“Odd that you people can’t locate a girl with bare feet in a sable coat and a bright blue silk gown?”

“No odder than it is for your hundreds of patrolmen throughout the city,

Commissioner, to overlook a girl so bizarrely dressed,” said op Owen with firm good humor. “When you ‘saw’ the coat, Gil, where was it?”

“Thrown across the loveseat, one arm hanging down to the floor. I distinguished the edge of the sill and the tree outside, the first folds of the curtain and the wall heating unit. I called in, you sent over enough finders so that we were able to eliminate the similarities. It took us nearly an hour…”

“Were you keeping an ‘eye’ on the coat all the time?” Gillings demanded in a voice so devoid of expression that his contempt was all the more obvious.

Gil flushed, bit his lip and only partially inhibited by op Owen’s subtle warning, snapped back, “Try keeping your physical eye on an object for an hour!”

“Get some rest, Gil,” op Owen said gently. He waited until the finder had turned the corner: “If you are as determined to find this criminal as you say you are,

Commissioner Gillings, then do not destroy the efficiency of my staff by such gratuitous criticism. In less than four hours, on the basis of photographs of the stolen objects, we located this apartment…”

“But not the criminal, who is still in possession of a sable coat which you found once but have now unaccountably lost.”

“That’s enough, Gillings,” said Pennstrak who had rejoined them. “Thanks to your arrival, the girl must know she’s being sought and is shielding.”

Pennstrak gestured toward the dingy windows of the flat, through which the vanes of the big copter were visible. A group of children, abandoning the known objects of the development play-yard, had gathered at a respectful, but curiosity-satisfying distance.

“Considering the variety of her accomplishments,” op Owen said, not above using

Pennstrak’s irritation with his Commissioner to advantage, “I’m sure she knew of the search before the Commissioner’s arrival, Julian. Have any of these items been reported, Commissioner?”

“That console was. Two days ago. It was on ‘find,’ too.”

“She has been growing steadily bolder, then,” op Owen went on, depressed by

Gillings’s attitude. And depressed that such a Talent had emerged twisted, perverted, selfish. Why? Why? “If your department ever gets the chronology of the various thefts, we’d appreciate the copy.”

“Why?” Gillings turned to stare at op Owen, surprised and irritated.

“Talent takes time to develop-in ordinary persons. It does not, like the ancient goddess Athena, spring full-grown from the forehead. This girl could not, for instance, have lifted that portable set the first tune she used her Talent. The more data we have on…the lecture is ill-timed.”

Gillings’s unspoken “you said it” did reach op Owen whose turn it was to stare in surprise.

“Well, your ‘finders’ are not novices,” the Commissioner said aloud. “If they traced the coat once, why not again?”

“Every perceptive we have is searching,” op Owen said. “But, if she was able to leave this apartment after Gil found the coat, taking it with her, because it obviously is not here, she also is capable of shielding herself and that coat.

And, until she slips that guard, I doubt we’ll find it or her.”

The report on the laboratory findings was exhaustive. There was a full set of prints, foot and finger. None matched those on file in the city records, or

Federal or Immigration. She had not been tested at the Center. Long coarse black hair had been found. Analysis of skin flakes suggested an olive complexion.

Thermo-photography placed her last appearance in the room at approximately the time the four ‘finders’ fixed on her apartment, thus substantiating op Owen’s guess. The thermal prints also revealed that she was of slender build, approximately 5’4”, weighing 105 pounds. Stains on a paring knife proved her to possess blood type O. No one else had occupied the apartment within the eight day range of the thermography used.

From such records, the police extrapolator made a rough sketch of “Maggie O” which she was called for want of a better name. The sketch was taken around the neighborhood with no success. People living in Block Q didn’t bother people who didn’t bother them.

It was Daffyd op Owen who remembered the children crowding the police copter.

From them he elicited the information that she was new in the building. (The records indicated that the apartment should be vacant.) She was always singing, dancing to the wall ‘caster, and changing her clothes. Occasionally she’d play with them and bring out rich food to eat, promising they could have such good things if they’d think hard about them. While the children talked, Daffyd “saw” Maggie’s face reflected in their minds. The police extrapolator had been far short of the reality. She was not much older than the children she had played with. She had not been pretty by ordinary standards but she had been so “different” that her image had registered sharply. The narrow face, the brilliant eyes, slightly slanted above sharp cheekbones, the thin, small mouth and the pointed chin were unusual even in an area of ethnic variety.

This likeness and a physical description were circulated quickly to be used at all exits to the city and all transportation facilities. It was likely she’d try to slip out during the day-end exodus.

The south and west airstrips had been under a perceptive surveillance since the search had been inaugurated. Now every facility was guarded.

Gil Grace “found” the coat again.

“She must have it in a suitcase,” he reported on the police-provided handunit from his position in the main railroad concourse. “It’s folded and surrounded by dark. It’s moving up and down. But there’re so many people. So many suitcases.

I’ll circulate. Maybe the find’ll fix itself.”

Gillings gave orders to his teams on the master unit which had been set up in the Center’s control room to coordinate the operations.

“You better test Gil for precog,” Charlie muttered to op

Owen after they’d contacted all the sensitives. “He asked for the station.”

“You should’ve told me sooner, Charlie. I’d’ve teamed him with a sensitive.”

“Look at that,” Charlie exclaimed, pointing to a wildly moving needle on one of the remotes.

Les was beside it even as the audio for the Incident went on.

“Not that track! Oh! Watch out! Baggage. On the handcart! Watch out. Move, man.

Move! To the right The right! Ahhhh.” The woman’s voice choked off in an agonized cry.

Daffyd pushed Charlie out of the way, to get to the speaker.

“Gil, this is op Owen. Do not pursue. Do not pursue that girl! She’s aware of you. Gil, come in. Answer me, Gil…Charlie, keep trying to raise him.

Gillings, contact your men in the station. Make them stop Gil Grade.”

“Stop him? Why?”

“The precog. The baggage on the handcart,” shouted Daffyd, signaling frantically to Lester to explain in detail. He raced for the emergency stairs, up the two flights, and slammed out onto the roof. Gasping physically for breath, he clung to the high retaining wall and projected his mind to Gil’s.

He knew the man so well, had trained Gil when an employee brought in the kid who had a knack for locating things. Op Owen could see him ducking and dodging through the trainward crowds, touching suitcases, ignoring irate or astonished carriers; every nerve, every ounce of him receptive to the “feel” of a dense, dark sable fur. And so single-minded that Daffyd could not “reach” him.

But op Owen knew the instant the loaded baggage cart swerved and crushed the blindly intent Talent against an I-beam. He bowed his head, too fully cognizant that a double tragedy had occurred. Gil was lost…and so now was the girl.

There was no peace from his thoughts even when he returned to the shielded control room. Lester and Charlie pretended to be very busy. Gillings was. He directed the search of the railway station, arguing with the station-master that the trains were to be held and that was that, The drone of his voice began to penetrate op Owen’s remorse.

“All right, then, if the Talents have cleared it and there’s no female of the same height and weight, release that train. Someone tried the Johns, didn’t they? No, Sam, you can detain anyone remotely suspicious. That girl is clever, strong, and dangerous. There’s no telling what else she could do. But she damn well can’t change her height, weight and blood type!”

“Daffyd. Daffyd.” Lester had to touch him to get his attention. He motioned op Owen towards Charlie who was holding out the handunit.

“It’s Cole’s, sir.”

Daffyd listened to the effusively grateful store manager. He made the proper responses but it wasn’t until he had relinquished the handunit to Charlie that the man’s excited monologue made sense.

“The coat, the dress and the necklace have reappeared on the store dummy,” op Owen said. He cleared his throat and repeated it loud enough to be heard.

“Returned?” Gillings echoed. “Just like that? Why, the little bitch! Sam, check the ladies rooms in that station. Wait, isn’t there a discount dress store in that station? Have them check for missing apparel. I want an itemized list of what’s gone, and an exact duplicate from their stock shown to the sensitives.

We’ve got her scared and running now.”

“Scared and running now.” Gillings’s smug assessment rang ominously in Daffyd’s mind. He had a sudden flash. Superimposed over a projection of Maggie’s thin face was the image of the lifeless store dummy, elegantly re-clad in the purloined blue gown and dark fur. “Here, take them back. I don’t want them anymore. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to. See, I gave back what you wanted. Now leave me alone!”

Daffyd shook his head. Wishful thinking. Just as futile as the girl’s belated gesture of penance. Too much too soon. Too little too late.

“We don’t want her scared,” he said out loud. “She was scared when she toppled that baggage cart.”

“She killed a man when she toppled that baggage cart, op Owen!” Gillings was all but shouting.

“And if we’re not very careful, she’ll kill others.”

“If you think I’m going to velvet glove a homicidal maniac…”

A shrill tone issuing from the remote unit forced Gil-lings to answer. He was about to reprimand the caller but the message got stunned attention.

“We can forget the paternal bit, Owen… She knocked down every one of your people and mine at the Oriole Street entrance. Your men are unconscious. Mine and about twenty or more innocent commuters are afflicted with blinding headaches. Got any practical ideas, Owen, on catching this monster you created?”

“Oriole? Was she heading east or west?” He had to stop that line of talk.

“Does it matter?”

“If we’re to catch her it does. And we must catch her. She’s operating at a psychic high. There’s no telling what she’s capable of now. Such Talent has only been a theoretic possibility…”

Gillings lost all control on himself. The fear and hatred burst out in such a wave that Charlie Moorfield, caught unawares, erupted out of his chair towards Gillings in an instinctive defense reaction.

“Gillings!” “Charlie!” Les and Daffyd shouted together, each grabbing the wild combatants. But Charlie, his face white with shock at his own reaction, had himself in hand. Sinking weakly back into his chair, he gasped out an apology.

“You mean, you want to have more monsters like her and him?” Gillings demanded. Between his voice and the violent emotions, Daffyd’s head rang with pain and confusion.

“Don’t be a fool,” Lester said, grabbing the Commissioner by the arm. “You can’t spew emotions like that around a telepath and not get a reaction. Look at Daffyd! Look at Charlie! Christ man, you’re as bad as the scared, mixed-up kid…” and then Les dropped Gillings’s arm and stared at him in amazement.

“Christ, you’re a telepath yourself!”

“Quiet, everybody,” Daffyd said with such urgency he had their instant attention. “I’ve the solution. And there’s no time to waste. Charlie, I want

Harold Orley airbound in the Clinic’s copter heading south to the Central Station in nothing flat. We’ll correct course en route. Gillings, I want two of the strongest, most stable patrolmen on your roster. I want them armed with fast-acting, double-strength trank guns and airborne to rendezvous near Central Station.”

“Harold?” Les echoed in blank astonishment. Then relief colored his face as he understood Daffyd’s intentions. “Of course. Nothing can stop Harold. And no one can read him coming.”

“Nothing. And no one,” op Owen agreed, bleakly.

Gillings turned from issuing his orders to see an ambulance copter heading west across the sky.

“We’re following?”

Daffyd nodded and gestured for Gillings to precede him to the roof. He didn’t look back but he knew what Les and Charlie did not say.

She had been seen running east on Oriole. And she was easy to follow. She left people doubled up with nausea and crying with head pains. That is, until she crossed Boulevard.

“We’ll head south, south east on an intercept,” Gillings told his pilot and had him relay the correction to the ambulance. “She’s heading to the sea?” he asked rhetorically as he rummaged for the correct airmap of the city. “Here. We can set down at Seaman’s Park. She can’t have made it that far…unless she can fly suddenly.”

Gillings looked up at op Owen.

“She probably could teleport herself,” Daffyd answered, watching the

Commissioner’s eyes narrow in adverse reaction to the admission. “But she hasn’t thought of it yet. As long as she can be kept running, too scared to think…” That necessity plagued Daffyd op Owen. They were going to have to run her out of her mind.

Gillings ordered all police hovercraft to close in on the area where she was last seen, blocks of residences and small businesses of all types.

By the time the three copters had made their rendezvous at the small Park, there were no more visible signs of Maggie O’s retreat.

As Gillings made to leave the copter, Daffyd op Owen stopped him.

“If you’re not completely under control, Gillings, Harold will be after you.”

Gillings looked at the director for a long moment, his jaw set stubbornly. Then, slowly, he settled into the seat and handed op Owen a remote comunit.

“Thanks, Gillings,” he said, and left the copter. He signaled to the ambulance to release Harold Orley and then strode across the grass to the waiting officers.

The two biggest men were as burly as he could wish. Being trained law enforcers, they ought to be able to handle Orley. Op Owen “pushed” gently against their minds and was satisfied with his findings. They possessed the natural shielding of the untemperamental which made them less susceptible to emotional storms.

Neither Webster or Heis were stupid, however, and had been briefed on developments.

“Orley has no useful intelligence. He is a human barometer, measuring the intensity and type of emotions which surround him and reacting instinctively. He does not broadcast. He only receives. Therefore he cannot be harmed or identified by…by Maggie O. He is the only Talent she cannot ‘hear’ approaching.”

“But, if he reaches her, he’d…” Webster began, measuring Harold with the discerning eye of a boxing enthusiast. Then he shrugged and turned politely to op Owen.

“You’ve the double strength tranks? Good. I hope you’ll be able to use them in time. But it is imperative that she be apprehended before she does more harm.

She has already killed one man…”

“We understand, sir,” Heis said when op Owen did not continue.

“If you can, shoot her. Once she stops broadcasting, he’ll soon return to a manageable state.” But, Daffyd amended to himself, remembering Harold sprawled on the ground in front of the building, not soon enough. “She was last seen on the east side of the Boulevard, about eight blocks from here. She’d be tired, looking for someplace to hide and rest. But she is also probably radiating sufficient emotion for Harold to pick up. He’ll react by heading in a straight line for the source. Keep him from trying to plow through solid walls. Keep your voices calm when you speak to him. Use simple commands. I see you’ve got handunits. I’ll be airborne; the copter’s shielded but I’ll help when I can.”

Flanking Harold, Webster and Heis moved west along Oriole at a brisk, even walk: the two officers in step, Harold’s head bobbing above theirs, out of step-a cruel irony.

Daffyd op Owen turned back to the copter. He nodded to Gillings as he seated himself. He tried not to think at all.

As the copters lifted from the Park and drifted slowly west amid other air traffic, op Owen looked sadly down at the people on the streets. At kids playing on the sidewalks. At a flow of men and women with briefcases or shopping bags, hurrying home. At snub-nosed city cars and squatty trucks angling into parking slots. At the bloated cross-city helibuses jerking and settling to disgorge their passengers at the street islands.

“He’s twitching,” reported Heis in a dispassionate voice.

Daffyd flicked on the handset. “That’s normal. He’s beginning to register.”

“He’s moving faster now. Keeps wanting to go straight through the buildings.”

Reading Heis’s undertone, op Owen knew that the men hadn’t believed his caution about Orley plowing through solids. “He’s letting us guide him, but he keeps pushing us to the right. You take his other arm, Web. Yeah, that’s better.”

Gillings had moved to the visual equipment along one side of the copter. He focused deftly in on the trio, magnified it and threw the image on the pilot’s screen, too. The copter adjusted direction.

“Easy, Orley. No, don’t try to stop him, Web. Stop the traffic!”

Orley’s line of march crossed the busier wide north- south street. Webster ran out to control the vehicles. People turned curiously. Stopped and stared after the trio.

“Don’t,” op Owen said as he saw Gillings move a hand towards the bullhorn.

“There’s nothing wrong with her hearing.”

Orley began to move faster now that he had reached the farther side. He wanted to go right through intervening buildings.

“Guide him left to the sidewalk, Heis,” op Owen said. “I think he’s still amenable. He isn’t running yet.”

“He’s breathing hard, Mr. Owen,” Heis sounded dubious. “And his face is changing.”

Op Owen nodded to himself, all too familiar with the startling phenomenon of watching the blankness of Orley’s face take on the classic mask of whatever emotions he was receiving. It would be a particularly unnerving transition under these conditions.

“What does he show?”

“I’d say…hatred,” Heis’s voice dropped on the last word. Then he added in his usual tone, “He’s smiling, too, and it isn’t nice.”

They had eased Orley to the sidewalk heading west. He kept pushing Webster to the right and his pace increased until it was close to a run. Webster and Heis began to gesture people out of their way but it would soon be obvious to the neighborhood that something was amiss. Would it be better to land more police to reassure people and keep their emanations down? Or would they broadcast too much suppressed excitement at police interference? She’d catch that. Should he warn Heis and Webster to keep their thoughts on Harold Orley? Or would that be like warning them against all thoughts of the camel’s left knee?

Orley broke into a run. Webster and Heis were hard put to keep him to the sidewalk.

“What’s in the next block?” op Owen asked Gillings.

The Commissioner consulted the map, holding it just above the scanner so he could keep one eye on the trio below.

“Residences and an area parking facility for interstate trucking.” Gillings turned to op Owen now, his heavy eyebrows raised in question.

“No, she’s still there because Orley is homing in on her projection.”

“Look at his face! My God!” Heis exclaimed over the handunit. On the screen, his figure had stopped. He was pointing at Orley. But Webster’s face was clearly visible to the surveillers and what he saw unnerved him.

Orley broke from his guides. He was running, slowly at first but gathering speed steadily, mindlessly brushing aside anything that stood in his way. Heis and

Webster went after him but both men were shaking their heads as if something were bothering them. Orley tried to plunge through a brick store wall. He bounced off it, saw the unimpeded view of his objective and charged forward.

Webster had darted ahead of him, blowing his whistle to stop the oncoming traffic.

Heis alternately yelled into the hand-unit and at startled bystanders. Now some of them were afflicted and were grabbing their heads.

“Put us on the roof,” op Owen told the pilot. “Gillings, get men to cover every entrance and exit to that parking lot. Get the copters to hover by the open levels. The men’ll be spared some of the lash.”

It wouldn’t do much good, op Owen realized, even as he felt the first shock of the girl’s awareness of imminent danger.

“Close your mind,” he yelled at the pilot and Gillings. “Don’t think.”

“My head, my head.” It was Heis groaning.

“Concentrate on Orley,” op Owen said, his hands going to his temples in reaction to the knotting pressure. Heis’s figure on the scanner staggered after Orley who had now entered the parking facility.

Op Owen caught the mental pressure and dispersed it, projecting back reassurance/help/protection/compassion. He could forgive her Gil Grade’s death.

So would any Talent. If she would instantly surrender, somehow the Center would protect her from the legal aspects of her act. Only surrender now.

Someone screamed. Another man echoed that piercing cry. The copter bucked and jolted them. The pilot was groaning and gasping. Gillings plunged forward, grabbing the controls.

Op Owen, fighting an incredible battle, was blind to physical realities. If he could just occupy all the attention of that over-charged mind…hold it long enough…pain/fear/black/red/moiled-orange/purples…breathing…shock. Utter disbelief/fear/loss of confidence. Frantic physical effort.

Concrete scraped op Owen’s cheek. His fingers bled as he clawed at a locked steel exit door on the roof. He could not enter. He had to reach her FIRST!

Somehow his feet found the stairs as he propelled himself down the fire escape, deliberately numbing his mind to the intensive pounding received. A pounding that became audible.

Then he saw her, fingers clawing for leverage on the stairpost, foot poised for the step from the landing. A too-thin adolescent figure, frozen for a second with indecision and shock; strands of black hair like vicious scars across a thin face, distorted and ugly from the tremendous physical and mental efforts of the frantic will. Her huge eyes, black with insane fury and terror, bloodshot with despair and the salty sweat of her desperate striving for escape, looked into his.

She knew him for what he was; and her hatred crackled in his mind. Those words-after Gil Gracie’s death-had been hers, not his distressed imagining. She had known him then as her real antagonist. Only now, was he forced to recognize her for what she was, all she was-and regrettably, all she would not be.

He fought the inexorable decision of that split-second confrontation, wanting more than anything else in his life that it did not have to be so.

She was the wiser! She whirled!

She was suddenly beyond the heavy fire door without opening it. Harold Orley, charging up the stairs behind her, had no such Talent. He crashed with sickening force into the metal door. Daffyd had no alternative. She had teleported. He steadied the telempath, depressed the lock bar and threw the door wide.

Orley was after the slender figure fleeing across the dimly lit, low-ceiling concrete floor. She was heading towards the down ramp now.

“Stop, stop,” op Owen heard his voice begging her.

Heis came staggering from the stairway.

“Shoot him. For Christ’s sake, shoot Orley, Heis,” op Owen yelled.

Heis couldn’t seem to coordinate. Op Owen tried to push aside his fumbling hands and grab the trank gun himself. Heis’s trained reflexes made him cling all the tighter to his weapon. Just then, op Owen heard the girl’s despairing shriek.

Two men had appeared at the top of the ramp. They both fired, the dull reports of trank pistols accentuated by her choked gasp.

“Not her. Shoot Orley. Shoot the man,” op Owen cried but it was too late.

Even as the girl crumpled to the floor, Orley grabbed her. Grabbed and tore and beat at the source of the emotions which so disturbed him. Beat and tore and stamped her physically as she had assaulted him mentally.

Orley’s body jerked as tranks hit him from all sides, but it took far too long for them to override the adrenal reactions of the overcharged telempath.

There was pain and pity as well as horror in Gillings’s eyes when he came running onto the level. The police stood at a distance from the blood-spattered bodies.

“Gawd, couldn’t someone have stopped him from getting her?” the copter pilot murmured, turning away from the shapeless bloodied thing half-covered by Orley’s unconscious body.

“The door would have stopped Orley but he,” and Heis grimly pointed at op Owen, “opened it for him.”

“She teleported through the door,” op Owen said weakly. He had to lean against the wall. He was beginning to shudder uncontrollably from reaction. “She had to be stopped. Now. Here. Before she realized what she’d done. What she could do.”

His knees buckled. “She teleported through the door!”

Unexpectedly it was Gillings who came to his aid, a Gillings whose mind was no longer shielded but broadcasting compassion and awe, and understanding.

“So did you.”

The phrase barely registered in op Owen’s mind when he passed out.

“That’s all that remains of the late Solange Boshe,” Gillings said, tossing the file reel to the desk. “As much of her life as we’ve been able to piece together. Gypsies don’t stay long anywhere.”

“There’re some left?” Lester Welch asked, frowning at the three-inch condensation of fifteen years of a human life.

“Oh there are, I assure you,” Gillings replied, his tone souring slightly for the first time since he had entered the office. “The tape also has a lengthy interview with Bill Jones, the cousin the social worker located after Solange had recovered from the bronchial pneumonia. He had no idea,” Gillings hastily assured them, “that there is any reason other than a routine check on the whereabouts of a runaway county ward. He had a hunch,” and Gillings grimaced, “that the family had gone on to Toronto. They had. He also thought that they had probably given the girl up for dead when she collapsed on the street. The

Toronto report substantiates that. So I don’t imagine it will surprise you, op Owen, that her tribe, according to Jones, are the only ones still making a living at fortune-telling, palm-reading, tea-leaves and that bit.”

“Now, just a minute, Gillings,” Lester began, bristling. He subsided when he saw that his boss and the Police Commissioner were grinning at each other.

“So…just as you suspected, op Owen, she was a freak Talent. We know from the ward nurses that she watched your propaganda broadcasts during her hospitalization. We can assume that she was aware of the search either when Gil

Gracie ‘found’ the coat, or when the definite fix was made. It’s not hard to guess her motivation in making the heist in the first place, nor her instinctive desire to hide.” Gillings gave his head an abrupt violent jerk and stood up. He started to hold out his hand, remembered and raised it in a farewell gesture.

“You are continuing those broadcasts, aren’t you?”

Lester Welch glared so balefully at the Commissioner that op Owen had to chuckle.

“With certain deletions, yes.”

“Good. Talent must be identified and trained. Trained young and well if they are to use their Talent properly.” Gillings stared op Owen in the eye. “The Boshe girl was bad, op Owen, bad clear through. Listen to what Jones said about her and you won’t regret Tuesday too much. Sometimes the young are inflexible, too.”

“I agree, Commissioner,” Daffyd said, escorting the man to the door as calmly as if he hadn’t heard what Gillings was thinking so clearly. “And we appreciate your help in the cover yarns that explained Tuesday’s odd occurrences.”

“A case of mutual understanding,” Gillings said, his eyes glinting. “Oh, no need to see me out. I can open this door.”

That door was no sooner firmly shut behind him than Lester Welch turned on his superior.

“And just who was scratching whose back then?” he demanded. “Don’t you dare come over innocent, either, Daffyd op Owen. Two days ago that man was your enemy, bristling with enough hate and distrust to antagonize me.”

“Remember what you said about Gillings Tuesday?”

“There’s been an awful lot of idle comment around here lately.”

“Frank Gillings is telepathic.” Then he added as Lester was choking on the news:

“And he doesn’t want to be. So he’s suppressed it. Naturally he’d be antagonistic.”

“Hah!”

“He’s not too old, but he’s not flexible enough to adapt to Talent, having denied it so long.”

“I’ll buy that. But what was that parting shot-‘I can open this door’?” Lester mimicked the Commissioner’s deep voice.

“I’m too old to learn new tricks, too, Les. I teleported through the roof door of that parking facility. He saw me do it. And she saw the memory of it in my mind. If she’d lived, she’d’ve picked my mind clean. And-I didn’t want her to die.”

Op Owen turned abruptly to the window, trying to let the tranquility of the scene restore his equilibrium. It did-until he saw Harold Orley plodding along the path with his guide. Instantly a white, wide-eyed, hair-streaked face was superimposed over the view.

The intercom beeped and he depressed the key for his sanity’s sake.

“We’ve got a live one, Boss,” and Sally Iselin’s gay voice restored him. “A strong precog with kinetic possibilities. And guess what?” Sally’s excitement made her voice breathless. “He said the cop on his beat told him to come in. He doesn’t want any more trouble with the cops so he…”

“Would his name be Bill Jones?”

“However did you know?”

“And that’s no precog, Sally,” op Owen said with a ghost of a laugh, aware he was beginning to look forward again. “A sure thing’s no precog, is it, Les?”