To Ride Pegasus (26 page)

She glanced casually around at her table mates, as pompous a crew of convention goers as she’d ever seen and she was now an authority. (Did they always use the same “masks” at conventions? Or could it be the same group of people as the Plastic Container Manufacturers last week, and the Fabric Finishers Association on Tuesday-week?) They responded to her prompting as rapidly as Harold, all grunting with pleasure as they ate their cardboard food. Amalda sighed. Too bad she and Bruce couldn’t get a kick-bade from the catering staff for “improving” their food beyond the call of duty.

Now there I go again
, she thought,
but it does seem that the Talented were letting an awful good thing go the way of Duty and Honor
.

She was rather pleased with her broadcasting today. She had begun to bother with such fine points in their assignments, more to amuse herself at first—like stopping all those kids from whining at the Boat Fair. But it had sounded like home, all her brothers and sisters whining at once, before they’d tied Ma off. If she never heard another child whine it would be soon enough. And making food at least “seem” tasty was in defense of her poor abused digestion. According to specifications, all the nutrients and vitamins were in the food and would be absorbed by her system. But she’d come to prefer “tasting” things. It made these convention luncheons bearable. What a way to earn a living!

And yet, Amalda reluctantly admitted, she didn’t dislike it. If only … She wouldn’t think about that. It’d ruin her appetite. After all, now she’d got the hang of this trick mind of hers, she could make whole bunches
of people feel what she wanted them to. When the time came, she could control him, too. Bruce was never far from her. She smiled, the warmth of his infinite love a presence to counteract any nibble of fear. Sometimes when Bruce made love to her, she wanted to embrace the whole world with its beauty, but that sort of broadcasting wasn’t even moral: that was private between her and Bruce and … 
He’d
thought things at her that night … Things she didn’t even dare to think about …

Harold was getting restless. She curbed her reminiscences.

And then, the jab. So sharp she gasped, so hard it was physical yet the prod was in her mind … and all too familiar.
He
was here.

Harold whimpered, empathizing with her. She hastily damped down her shock of fearful surprise.
He
was as abruptly gone from her mind. She shivered, unable to suppress the lingering sense of revulsion that that recognition touch evoked in her. She overcame the feeling, smiling inanely around at her table mates. She patted Harold soothingly on the arm. He grinned, restored to equilibrium. Good, she must keep this to herself.

But she couldn’t keep from glancing around for Bruce: he was at table 4, near the dignitaries. He glanced up, nodded at her, and was then required to make some answer to his partner, a female who simpered up at him.

Sometimes
, Amalda thought,
Red has the harder role to play
.

Part of her mind wanted to search for
him
, but her strongest desire was never to be touched by
him
again, ever. She scanned the room now, certain she’d be able to locate his evil self. She’d certainly studied his IDs long enough to spot him physically anywhere. Waiters were coming and going from the kitchens. He wasn’t one of them. He wouldn’t be one of the conventioneers. She’d’ve identified him long before now. She opened her mind, making it, as Dave had suggested, like the lens of a
camera, slowly widening. She didn’t really want to: too much of an appalling and revolting nature seeped in. She wondered how Dave, who was a full telepath and “heard” actual thoughts, not just emotions as she did, could bear it. She wondered how much he had “conditioned” her mind to accept her. Talent. She knew he had: he’d told her so. She didn’t mind … probably Dave had done that, too. But he was so kind. Now if only he’d …

No
, she told herself sternly,
these thoughts you may not have. Sally loves Daffyd op Owen
. She grimaced.
For a perceptive Talent, Dave could be awfully dense. For the Lord’s sake, you didn’t even have to be a telepath to see Sally Iselin was madly in love with him. Or maybe Dave knew and couldn’t do anything about it? Couldn’t someone condition Dave? Hmmm. Maybe I’ll get to work on it. No
, and Amalda gave her head a little regretful shake,
that would be tampering and that’s not ethical
.

She sighed. Being a Talent imposed certain rules and regulations which absolutely couldn’t be broken. In the first place, you got found out too fast. Not much of a bridle on that winged horse Dave’s always talking about but it kept you from falling off … morally. …

The waiter was bending over her. Amalda leaned toward Harold to permit the waiter to remove her plate. Instead he mumbled something.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you,” she said, smiling up at him.

He gave her a stare and said something in the same unintelligible mumble. She could, however, sense his urgency. He had something she must do?

“I’m really very sorry, but would you repeat your question?” She gestured at the chattering diners by way of explanation.

The little man looked angry. In a clear voice, he asked the waiter at the next table to join him.

“I ask her a simple question and she gives me this
so-sorry routine,” he said. But he was incensed about something. And his urgency intensified.

“Really, there’s so much noise,” Amalda said.

The second waiter, a burly man, gave her a fierce scowl.

“What’s your problem, miss? You got delusions? Ain’t you conventioneers satisfied with nothing? Do like he says and there’ll be no trouble.”

“I certainly don’t want to cause trouble.” And Amalda began to broadcast soothing thoughts.

Suddenly a third man was pulling her chair from under her and the first two had her by the aims.

“You just come with us, miss. You just come with us.”

They were scared: they were prompted by an urgency which was unnatural and artificially induced.
He
had instigated their actions.

She got Harold to his feet. The poor witless fool was momentarily as confused as she was. She felt Bruce reacting. But she was being physically manhandled away from the table by the two waiters. If they did get her out of the hall—it wasn’t that far to the kitchen entrance—Amalda tried to keep from panicking. The next thing she knew Harold reached out and grabbed the waiters by the shoulders, had torn their hands from her arms, and banged their heads together.

Then Bruce and two officials closed in on the knot of people and somehow the unconscious waiters were being whisked from the banquet hall.

“Calm ’em, Mally,” Bruce hissed at her and she began to pour out such sweetness and fight that everyone at her table stopped eating to beam at each other. She modified the broadcast, got Harold and herself reseated. She even managed to keep her trembling reaction inward so that none of it boiled over to erase the idiotic smile from Harold Orley’s face.

By the time the luncheon ended, however, the effort began to tell on her and was reflected in Harold’s nervousness. She felt physically drained. What if
he
had been able
to get her away before Harold could react? Before Bruce, on the other side of the hall, had been able to get to her? Supposing
he
had …

Bruce was at her side, his face set and determined. She knew that look. But now she was afraid of leaving the semi-protection of so many people. If he had actually tried to kidnap her in the middle of a convention.

A plainclothes LEO man was bearing down on them. She rose, smiling brightly. Harold twitched his hulk to his feet, but his brow was clouding with childlike anxiety.

Disgust at her spinelessness buoyed Amalda’s weakening knees. The instant Red put his arm around her protectingly, she almost crawled into him.

“Let’s get her out of here,” Red said and gestured the LEO man to lead Harold.

“Come this way,” the LEO man said, gesturing to the draperies at the side of the huge banquet hall. A door in the paneling gave onto a small anteroom. “The Waiters Union is screaming over those busted skulls. We got to get you out of here quietly. What’n’hell did happen, Amalda?”

“I don’t quite know,” she murmured, aware that exhaustion was overcoming mental resolve. “Is it all right to leave?” She looked back over her shoulder at the diners dispersing slowly.

“The hell with them,” Bruce said in a savage voice.

“I’m so sorry. So sorry.” Amalda had a sense of failure. The first time she came up against
him
she had fallen apart. She wanted to cry. She was a failure. Aftar an Daffyd and the others had done to help her … to swoon like any vapid female …

“I’ll get you. I’ll get you the next time.”
The voice was as loud in her ears as Brace’s exclamation.

“Bruce …”

Charlie Moorfield came through Daffyd’s door without bothering to knock.

“They did it,” he cried, halting his forward momentum just short of gouging his thighs on the desk edge.

Daffyd picked up the images so vivid in Charlie’s mind, and despite the fact that he could also perceive that the emergency was over, he sprang to his feet.

“Who did what?” demanded Sally, excitedly. She wasn’t accurate enough to ’path the sequence.

“They tried to snatch Amalda at the Morcam Convention luncheon,” Daffyd told her.

“Only she got Harold to bash their skulls in.”

Sally gasped.

“Gillings said the attempt and the arrest were handled so quickly that no one at the table with Amalda and Harold knew what happened,” Charlie went on. “Waiters Union is screaming over the quote unwarranted unquote arrest of three members. There’s hell to pay.”

“Not necessarily,” said Lester but he was glowering as he walked into the room and carefully closed the door behind him. “This is a clear case of professional immunity.”

“How do you construe that?” Daffyd asked.

Lester sighed as he regarded his boss with a tolerant expression.

“Amalda is a registered Talent, right? She was present at the Luncheon in a professional capacity. Therefore no one, not anyboody, has the right to interfere. The waiters did, by trying to remove her from the hall. They broke the law. Amalda hasn’t. Neither has Harold. Even if he was a little overzealous, he is now protected from the consequences of his Talent.”

“Wait a minute, Lester,” Charlie said, “that Immunity Law only means that you can’t get sued when …”

“It also means,” and Lester waggled a bony finger at Charlie and Daffyd in turn, “according to the way Senator Joel Andres and our legal eagles interpreted it to
me
, that any citizen attempting to interfere with a registered Talent’s performance of his duty is violating that law.”

“This would be the first time we’ve had to invoke the law,” Daffyd said.

Lester raised his eyebrows in surprised alarm. “So what’s wrong with that? Or did you break your …” he glanced abruptly at Sally who stifled her laugh … “your bones arranging protection
not
to use it.”

Op Owen made a cut-off gesture with one hand. Lester Welch muttered in disgust.

“I thought by this time you’d’ve learned the cost of idealism, Dave. We sweated out that Bill: it damned near cost us Joel Andres’s life; we have a deer case of an infraction and by God’s little chickens, you’re going to invoke it. If Gillings hasn’t already.”

The comset on Daffyd’s desk lit up, flashing red. He pushed the toggle down.

“Commissioner Gillings, sir, urgently.”

Daffyd nodded acceptance.

“Op Owen, we’re getting a lot of static from the Waiters Union, about Amalda, false arrest and all that crap,” Gillings stated with no preamble. “So far I’ve played it that their member was pushing a lust act and got told to bug off: that the lady-in-question is sufficiently upset to invoke female citizen’s rights. Then we got the honest-employees, good union men with clean sex records and she’s a pervert-after-the-damages claim.” Gillings sighed with heavy disgust. “You know, the usual convention static. Now, we can clear all this up by invoking the Professional Immunity Act but.…” and Gillings waggled a thick finger at Daffyd. “I’m not all that eager to break the team’s cover. Bruce Vaden told my men that something had scared Amalda and the only thing I know she’s scared about is what happened at the Fact Was there a repeat at the Morcam?”

“I haven’t talked to Amalda yet, Frank,” Daffyd said. “I assume she’s on her way back here with Vaden?” Gillings nodded. “Give me a little time.”

“Don’t take too much: That Waiters Union packs quite a wallop.”

As soon as the Commissioner’s face had faded from the screen, Daffyd asked for Ted Lewis in the LEO Block.

“Ted, you heard about the snatch attempt on Amalda?”

“It’s all over the place. Say, why don’t you just invoke the Immunity Act … No?” Ted was as perplexed as Lester.

“Is Roznine involved in any way in the Winters Union?”

“Hell yes. There isn’t one Union he isn’t involved with right now.”

“Any chance of finding out if he was at the Morcam Convention Hotel this afternoon?”

Ted Lewis held up a hand, flicked on another switch, his words and the reply indistinct, being off the receiver limit of the comscreen. He looked more confused.

“We’ve had Croner sort of keeping him under the eye/ear. Croner says he’s at a TRI-D on Market and Hall. Huh, how’s that, Croner? Hey, boss, Roznine has been watching a lot of TRI-D lately.”

“Then he suspects he’s been under surveillance and is ducking out the other exit of the TRI-D. Fine.” This was an unsettling development because it could mean that Roznine was developing as a Talent. If he got pushed too hard …. op Owen shuddered. “Let’s go see Amalda.”

“It was
him
,” Amalda told Daffyd. She looked white, shaken and small as she huddled against Red Vaden on the couch in the living room of their suite.

“How close to you?”

She shook her head. “He wasn’t in the room. I’d’ve seen him. But he was near enough to recognize me. My mind, I mean.” She gave a delicate shudder. Had he recognized her because she’d been thinking those thoughts about him? She wanted to ask Daffyd but she didn’t dare. She’d let him down enough already.