To Ride Pegasus (13 page)

“Only limit it to a request about visitors,” op Owen added. “There was something else I want to check first.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Charles broke in as op Owen lifted his desk phone. “Several parties are expected during the course of the day. Dr. Rizor wishes to speak to you.”

“When your office puts in a guarded call, Daffyd op Owen, I’m curious. Come clean.”

“Henry, we are not alarmists …”

“Precisely. So …?”

“We’ve had a valid Incident that appears placed at North East. Several of the details have not coincided, however. We are fallible, you know.”

Rizor’s snort was derogatory. “What’s the rest of the precog?”

“It centers around the heat converter in the lab building opposite the church tower.”

“And? God, it’s like pulling nails from you, Dave.”

“The heat converter may be faulty. The precog was that it will blow due to a sudden hot lab fire, just before noon, while visitors are on the premises.”

“I’d hate for something to happen there now, Dave. We’re on the verge of a breakthrough in the neo-proteins. Running tests that are awfully good But no viators are expected there.”

“Then a variable has already altered the precog.”

“That’s too glib a dismissal, Dave. Why would a lab fire stimulate your precog? I didn’t think they usually worked out of their own area.”

“Our precog recognized one of the visitors.”

Welch signaled urgently to op Owen.

“Look, Dave,” Rizor was saying, “I’m taking no chances, I’ll have that converter checked and the building cleared. That’ll alter circumstances, too. Besides I don’t want visitors in that building until we complete the program. A breakthrough will warrant government funding all next year. I appreciate your calling, Dave. Let me know when I can help again.”

Welch was practically apoplectic before op Owen hung up.

“Washington sent in an urgent personal precog for Mansfield Zeusman!”

“That’s who I saw,” Lajos cried, jumping to his feet.

“Get Senator Zeusman’s office on the phone, Charlie, and don’t indicate the origin,” op Owen said.

“Dave,” and Les Welch had a peculiar expression on his long face, “he’s the last person to warn. One, he won’t believe you. Two, he’s our principal antagonist. Let that damned hero perish.”

“Lea, you have a dry sense of misplaced humor.”

“I’m practical as all hell, too,” Welch added.

“Can you tell me if Senator Zeusman is expected in the office this morning?” Charlie’s voice carried dearly in the tense silence. “Oh, I see. Can you tell me where he plans to be in the morning hours? But surely, he left an itinerary? Thank you.” Charlie’s voice was wooden and his face expressionless. “He is not in the office. The assistant is a very rude, uncouth bumptious twit.”

“If he’s not in the office,” op Owen said, “he’s college hopping—him and that Research Appropriations Committee of his. He’s the sly kind is Zeusman, loves to arrive unannounced.”

“He could be on his way to North East than,” Lajos said.

Op Owen told Charlie to get Rizor back on the line.

“Sir,” Charlie reported, concerned, “Dr. Rizor has left his office. Is there a message?”

Op Owen picked up an extension phone. “Miss Galt? Daffyd op Owen here. We have reason to believe that Senator Mansfield Zeusman will pay an unscheduled visit to your campus before noon. Will you please inform Dr. Rizor immediately? Good. Thank you. I can be reached at the Center on a priority call basis. Yes, the situation could be considered critical.”

Lajos felt himself unwind a trifle but his apprehension did not completely abate. He smiled weakly at op Owen.

“Paradox time.”

“How so, lad?”

“Dr. Rizor believes. He is already altering the circumstances I foresaw. We may have undone ourselves!”

Op Owen’s eyes flashed. “At the risk of Zeusman’s life, and that of how many others you saw in the precog?”

“No, sir, I didn’t mean it that way,” Lajos replied, stung by op Owen’s scorn. “I meant, that fire can’t happen now because Rizor will prevent Zeusman from entering the lab.”

“I’d still prefer to see that sparrow fall!” Welch’s mutter was clearly audible.

Op Owen swung his chair in idle half-arcs but his eyes remained on his dissident engineer.

“I am not in the least tempted, gentlemen,” he said in his usual easy voice. “We are not God. Nor are we trying to replace God. The psionic arts are preventive, not miraculous. We are fallible, and because of that fallibility we have to be scrupulously impartial, and try to help any man our senses touch, whoever he may be, whenever we can. Lajos is right. We have already …”

“Sir,” Charlie’s interruption was apologetic but determined, “two more danger precogs involving Mansfield Zeusman. One from Delta and one in Quebec. Neither could get through to Zeusman and are applying to us.”

Op Owen looked as if he might be swearing silently. He glanced up at the clock, its hands inexorably halfway past eleven.

“We haven’t altered the future enough,” Lajos said with a groan.

“Charlie, alert all rescue teams in the North East area,” op Owen said, his words crisp but calm. “I’ll try for Rizor. Les, get Lajos a sedative. Henry, I’m glad I could reach you …”

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Dr. Rizor replied cheerily. “I’ve a crew checking the converter and the building is completely off limits. What’s this Miss Galt says about Zeusman paying us an unexpected visit?”

“Evidence points in that direction, and we’ve new pro-cogs of danger for him.”

“Look, we’re all set here, Dave,” Rizor told him in an easy drawl. “No one can pass the gate without checking through my office and … Oh, no!
No!”

The connection went dead. Op Owen looked around at the others.

“That’s known as locking the barn when the horse is gone,” said Welch in a flat voice. “Lay you two to one and no previewing, Rizor just discovered that Zeusman uses a heli-jet for these jaunts of his.”

“Charlie, get me through to one of the mobile rescue team trucks.”

“Sir, they’re converging on the campus. Only they’ve been delayed at the gate,” Charlie said in a quiet sad voice after a moment of urgent cross-wire phoning.

Welch scratched his head, smoothing his hair back over his ears, trying not to stare at op Owen’s expressionless face. Lajos wondered how the Director could sit so calmly, but suddenly, not the tranquilizer but an inner natural composure settled Lajos’s tensions.

“Sir,” he said to op Owen, “I think it came out all right.”

Everyone glanced up at the clock which now ticked over to high noon. The secondhand moved forward again, and again, the sweep-second duly circumscribing its segments of time. The phone’s buzz; startled everyone. Op Owen depressed Recebe and Broadcast.

“I want to speak to the Director of this so-called Center,” a bass voice demanded authoritatively.

“Op Owen speaking, Senator Zeusman.”

“Well, didn’t expect to get
you.”

“You asked to speak to the Director, I am he.” Op Owen hadn’t switched on his visual.

The composed answer appeared to confound the Senator briefly. He had not activated the screen at his end either.

“You’ve outsmarted yourself, Owen, with this morning’s exhibition of crystal-balling. I thought you’d have better sense than to set one up and try to fool me into believing in your psionic arts bunk.” The senator’s voice was rich with ridicule and self-satisfaction, “Heat converter’s blowing, indeed! They’re constructed not to blow. Safest, most economical way of heating large institutional buildings. A
scientific
way, I might add.”

“I tell you, Senator,” Rizor interrupted, “there if a flaw in the bleed-off of that converter. My engineers reported it.”

“Get off the extension, Rizor. I’ll settle your hash later. Applying for funds to run a research program which you arbitrarily interrupt at a vital stage on the say-so of crackpots and witch doctors? Your university is unfit to handle any further public monies over which I have any control.” Zeusman was almost snarling.

“I won’t get off the extension, Zeusman. This is my college, in what is reputedly still a free country, and I don’t regret in any way having listened to Dr. op Owen. There was a flaw which would have exploded under conditions foreseen …”

“Don’t defend Owen, Rizor,” Zeusman said. “His meddling costs his defenders too damned much. How’s Joel Andres feeling these days, Owen? How’s his amyloidosis progressing? Just remember when you predict his death that the research your scheme interrupted here might have saved his life.”

There was a loud clack as Zeusman broke the connection.

“Dave?” Rizor sounded defeated.

“I’m still here,” op Owen replied. “What’s this abort Joel Andres?”

“You’ve had nothing? I thought you always kept a check on important men … like Zeusman.” The name was grated out.

“Nothing’s been reported on Joel. Precog is highly unpredictable, as you’ve just witnessed.”

“That damned converter
was
faulty,” Rizor was angry now and defiant “It would have blown in the next overload. You saved Zeusman—and you’ve also saved other people.”

“And Joel? Is it true about his liver?”

“So I understand,” Rizor said in a heavy voice. “And our research was for a neo-protein to replace the faulty endogenous protein and restore a normal metabolism. Don’t worry. The experiments can be reinitiated.”

“With Zeusman withholding funds?”

“There are other sources of funds and I intend to use your so-called ‘meddling’ to advantage. Damn it, the converter would have blown!” Rizor was muttering as he ended the call.

Lajos was utterly spent when he returned to his apartment Ruth took one look at his face and fixed him a stiff drink. He took it down, and with a weary smile flopped onto the bed.

“Dorotea asleep?” he asked hopefully. He was too disturbed not to generate emotional imbalance and too tired to suppress it.

“Fast asleep. Good for a couple of hours, honey,” Ruth replied, her strong fingers already at work on his tense muscles. She did not question his depression and weariness. Slowly she felt him relax as her massage and the stiff drink combined to bring surcease.

He woke in time for dinner and seemed in control again, laughing at Dorotea’s antics, playing with her on the floor until her bedtime. Only when the baby was
safely asleep in her shielded room did he tell Ruth all that had happened.

“Oh, no, not Mr. Andres,” she said when he finished. Lajos didn’t notice her quick flush as she recalled her one personal encounter with the magnetic Senator Andres. He’d been … so kind to her and she’d been so embarrassed.

“How could I guess that he’d be involved? It was the flames. And how could I know that Zeusman would be saved at Andres’s expense?”

“Why, you couldn’t, darling,” Ruth cried, alarmed at his self-castigation. “You couldn’t! You mustn’t blame yourself. You saved lots of lives today! Lots!”

Lajos groaned, miserable. “But why, Ruthie … 
why
does it have to ricochet off Andres? If Rizor hadn’t ordered the converter off, the experiment would have been concluded. All they had to do was keep visitors out.”

“No, that’s not quite true,” Ruth told him in stern contradiction. “You said yourself that the heat-converter proved to be flawed. That flaw would not have been discovered without your precog. It would have exploded during the next lab fire. Who knows who might have been killed then?”

“But Andres is the one who needed the neo-protein!”

“They’ll come up with a neo-protein somewhere else, then,” Ruth said, very positively to distract Lajos. “They’ve made so many strides in organ replacement …”

“Except livers! That neo-protein was supposed to correct some kind of abnormal protein growth … faulty endogenous protein metabolism … that’s what’s killing Senator Andres … stuff is cramming into his liver and spleen, enlarging them and there’s no known way to clear the amyloids. And when the liver doesn’t work, that’s it, honey. Ticket out!”

Ruth went on stroking Lajos’ forehead gently, knowing that he must find his own way out of this. He burrowed his face into her neck, entreating the comfort that she never denied him. Later her mind returned to the terrible
paradox, the tragic linkage of circumstance and the sorrow of the well-intentioned Good Samaritan.

God gives man stewardship of his gifts and the free will to use or deny them. Why must it be, that a man acting in good faith, finds himself reviled?

As sleep finally claimed her in the early morning hours, she wondered if she ought now to use her Talent to prevent Lajos from precogs like this. No, she drowsily realized, she had no right to take negative action. One must always think positively. One is one’s brother’s keeper; not his warder!

“I rather expected a call from you, Dave,” Joel Andres said, his grin on the vidscreen slightly waving from atmospheric disturbance. “And that’s no preoog. No indeed,” he rattled on, without permitting op Owen to speak. “The good senator from that great midwestern state called especially to warn me that I’m the next sparrow to fall because my pet witch doctor read the wrong crystal ball. Hey, that rhymes. Now, I don’t believe that for a moment, Dave, on account of I don’t think that that stupid mock-protein goop would have been jelled or curdled or what have you, in time to save my misspent life anyhow.” The words were lightly said but there was an edge to Andres’s voice that ruined the jovial effect.

“How long, Joel?”

“Probably long enough to get that Bill out of Committee, Dave, and I’ll count the time well spent Zeusman can’t put down the mass of evidence in favor of psionics, the tremendous saving of loss and life already effected by validated precogs. By the way, Welch told me that the precog came in at 10:12. Do you know the time when Zeusman gave his pilot orders to fly to North East?”

“10:12?”

“Right, man. And that’s in the record! Right in his flight log and a friend of mine impounded it because the pilot isn’t so contemptuous of the circumstances as Zeus
man. That pilot was scared silly by the coincidence. And don’t think I’m not going to ram that down Zeusman’s double-chins.”

“He’ll never admit our warning saved his life, Joel,” Daffyd said.