To Ride Pegasus (8 page)

“He also said that after he was dead,” and the lawyer faltered, embarrassed by the inadvertent rhyme, “he said the party was to begin. That this was to be considered a joyous occasion …”

“He
was
glad,” Daffyd op Owen said, and his rather homely face lit with happiness. “That was so astonishing. His mind, the thoughts were happy, so happy at the moment of death. He was happy, I tell you.
I know
he was glad!”

“Thank God!” was Henry Darrow’s fervent prayer. He raised his untouched drink. “A toast, ladies and gentlemen.” Glasses obediently were lifted. “To those who ride the winged horse!”

One after another the glasses followed Henry’s into the fireplace of Beechwoods to preserve the tribute to George Henner’s memory.

“If you were one whit less honorable, Daffyd op Owen,” exclaimed Joel Andres heatedly, “you and your whole Center could go … go fly a kinetic kite.”

The passionate senator was one of those restlessly energetic men who gave the appearance of continuous motion even in rare moments of stasis. Joel Andres was rigid now—with aggravation. The object of his frustration, Daffyd op Owen, Director of the East American Parapsychological Research and Training Center, was his antithesis, physically and emotionally. Both men, however, had the same indefinable strength and purposefulness, qualities which set them apart from lesser men.

“I can’t win support for my Bill,” Andres continued, trying another tack and pacing the thick-piled green carpeting of op Owen’s office, “if you consistently play into Mansfield Zeusman’s hands with this irrational compulsion to tell everything you know. If only on the grounds that what you ‘know’ is not generally acceptable as reliable ‘knowledge.’

“And don’t tell me that familiarity breeds contempt, Dave. The unTalented are never going to be contemptuous of the psychic abilities, they’re going to continue being scared stiff. It’s human nature to fear—and distrust—what is different Surely,” and Andres flung his arms wide, “you’ve studied enough behavioral psychology to understand that basic fact.”

“My Talent permits me to look below the surface rationalizations and uncover the …”

“But you can
not
read the minds of every single one of the men who must vote on this Bill, Dave. Nor can you alter their thinking. Not with your thinking and your ethics!” Joel was almost derisive as he pointed a nicotined finger accusingly at his friend. “And don’t give me that wheeze about lawmakers being intelligent, thoughtful men!”

Op Owen smiled tolerantly at his friend, unaffected by the younger man’s histrionics. “Not even when Senator Zeusman steals a march on us with that so apt quotation from Pope?”

Andres made a startled noise of exasperation, then caught the look in the other’s eyes and laughed.

“Yeah, he sure caught me flatfooted there.” He deepened his voice somewhat to mimic the affected bass of Mansfield Zeusman:

“What a rallying cry that is! Why didn’t
I
think of it first? Mind you,” and Andres was deadly serious again, “that quote is pure genius … for the opposition. Spikes our pitch in a dozen places. The irony is that it would be just as powerful for us if we’d only thought of it first. Dave, won’t you reconsider,” Joel asked, leaning across the table to the telepath, “eliminating the precogs from the Bill? That’s what’s hanging it up now in Committee. I’m sure I could get it put on …”

“The precogs need the legal protection most of all,” op Owen replied with unusual vehemence, a momentary flash of alarm crossing his face.

“I know, I know,” and Andres tossed a hand ceiling-ward in resignation. “But that’s the facet of the parapsychic that scares—and fascinates—people most.”

“And that is exactly why I insist we be as candid as possible on all phases of the extrasensory perception Talents. Then people will become as used to them as to
‘finders,’ ‘ports’ and ‘paths.’ Henry Darrow was so right about that.”

Joel Andres whirled back to the desk, gripping the edges fiercely. “The prophet Darrow notwithstanding, you don’t tell suspicious, frightened people everything. They automatically assume you’re holding something back because
they
would.
No
one dares to be so honest anymore. Therefore they are sure that what you’re withholding is far worse than what you’ve readily admitted.” He caught the adamant gleam in Daffyd’s eye and unexpectedly capitulated. “All right. All
right
. But I insist that we continue to emphasize what the
other
Talents are already able to do … 
in their narrow specialized ways
. Once people can stomach the idea that there
are
limits on individual psionic Talents, that all Talents are not mind readers cum weight throwers cum fire dowsers cum crystal-ball-seers, all rolled up into one frightening package, they’ll start treating them as you want Talents treated: as professional specialists, trained in one area of a varied profession and entitled to professional immunity in that area
if
they are licensed and registered with the Centers.
Don’t
,” and the hand went up again as Daffyd tried to interrupt, “tell them you’re experimenting to find out how to broaden every Talented mind.
Don’t
ask for the whole piece of bread with jam on it, Dave! You won’t get it, but you will get protection for your people in the practice of their speciality, even your precogs, I’ll bear down heavily on the scientific corroboration of authentic foresights,” and Andres began to pace a tight rectangle in front of op Owen’s desk, his dark head down, his gestures incisive, “the use of computers to correlate details and estimate reliablity of data, the fact that sometimes three and four precogs come up with the same incident, seen from different angles. And most importantly—that the Center never issues an official warning unless the computer agrees that sufficient data coincides between Incident and reality …”

“Please emphasize that we admit to human fallibility and use computers to limit
human
error.”

Joel frowned at op Owen’s droll interjection. “Then I’ll show how the foresight prevented or averted the worst of the incidents. That Monterey Quake is a heaven-sent example. No heroes perished, even if a few sparrows did fall from gas discharges.”

“I thought it was the meddling with the sparrow’s fall that perturbs Senator Zeusman” Daffyd remarked wryly. “For want of that seed, the grain won’t sprout …”

“Hmmm, yes, it does! ‘What will be, will be,’ ” and Andres mimicked Zeusman’s voice again.

“Since he initiated Pope,” said op Owen, “I’d reply ‘Whatever is, is right.’ ”

“You want me to turn Papist now, huh?” Joel grinned wickedly.

Daffyd chuckled as he continued, “Pope also advises, ‘Be candid where we can but vindicate the ways of God to man!’ ”

The gently delivered quote had an instant effect on the senator, comparable to touching a match to a one-second fuse. Midway to explosion, Andres snapped his mouth shut, sighed extravagantly and rolled his slightly yellowed eyes heavenwards.

“You are the most difficult man to help, Daffyd op Owen!”

“That’s only because I’m aware how carefully we must move in the promulgation of this Bill, Joel. I don’t want it backfiring at the wrong time, when some of the basic research now in progress becomes demonstrable. The Talents can’t be hamstrung by obsolete statutes imperfectly realized on a scrabbling compromise basis.”

“Dave, you want to run before you can walk?”

“No, but trouble has been foreseen.”

“Darrow again, huh? Or are you hoist on your own petard?” Joel waggled a finger triumphantly. “Trouble stemming from current non-protection. Go cast up a precog
after
the Bill is passed.”

“Ah-ha” and Daffyd mimicked Joel now, “but we don’t see the Bill passing!”

That rendered Andres speechless.

“And we are hoist on our own petard,” the telepath continued with a hint of sorrowful resignation in his voice, “because all our preventive methods
are
affecting the future, unfortunately, much as Senator Zeusman presented the syndrome in his Sparrow’s Fall peroration. That was such a masterful speech,” op Owen said with rueful envy. “Valid, too, for as surely as the Center issues a warning, allowing people a chance to avert or prevent tragedy, they have already prejudiced the events from happening as they were foreseen. That’s the paradox. Yet how,
how
can an ethical man stand aside and let a hero perish, or even a sparrow fall, when he
knows
that he can prevent unnecessary or premature loss.”

“The Monterey Quake could
not
have been prevented,” Joel reminded him, then blinked in amazement. “You’re not holding out on
me
, are you? You haven’t found a kinetic strong enough to hold the earth’s surface together?”

Dave’s laughter was a spontaneous outburst of delight at his friend’s discomposure.

“No, no. At least … not yet,” he said just to watch the outraged expression on Andres’s mobile face.

There were few people with whom Daffyd op Owen could relax or indulge in his flights of humor and hyperbole. “Seriously, Joel, the Monterey Quake is a spectacular Incident and a prime example of the concerted use of Talent, minimizing the loss of life or property. We have never had so many precogs stimulated in their separate affinities. And it’s the most concrete example of why precogs need legal protection. Do you realize that the Western Center was deluged with damage suits for the tsunami that followed?”

“
That
was predictable.”

“But
we
issued no warnings. And it’s against such irrational attitudes that precogs need legal protection more than any other Talent. Theirs is stimulated by mental perceptions
as erratic as a smell in the morning air, a glance at a photo, the sound of a name. In a sense, precog is tremendously unreliable because it cannot be used as consciously as telepathy, teleportation and telekinesis. And to protect the Talent as well as the Center, we insist on computer corroboration when details are coherently specific. We never issue a public warning until the computer admits reliability … and we get damned because we have ‘heard’ and not spoken. Of course, a number of our precogs have become absorbed into business where peculiar affinities place them. For instance,” and Daffyd held up a tape-file, “this young man, who’s applying for progeny approval, is a fire-conscious. But he’s one reason this city has such low fire-insurance rates: his Talent prevents them—a blessing indirectly passed on to every resident …”

“Hmmm, but scarcely spectacular enough to register with the average egocentric Joe Citizen,” said Andres sourly. He was restless with Daffyd’s earnest review of facts he knew well. “However, every little bit helps, Dave, and the public moves a lot faster pro bona pocketbook.”

“True, exactly true, and they get rather nasty when we try to save them money and will not understand that a legitimate forewarning automatically alters the future, even to the point of preventing the foreseen Incident which will have cost old publican money, or time, or effort he
then
feels was unnecessary.”

“And there we are, right back at square one,” said Joel in flat disgust. “That is what Mansfield calls ‘meddling’ and what makes him fight this Bill with every ounce of his outraged moralistic, neo-religious, mock-ethical fibre. Remember, he’s backed by the transport lobbies, and every time one of your precogs hits that jolly little brotherhood, causing delays, hurried inspections, the whole jazz—you got a number-one headache. Because, when the predictions don’t happen as predicted, Transport swears your meddling is superstitious interference,
uncalled for, unnecessary and nothing would have happened anyway.”

Daffyd sighed wearily. “How many times have we found bombs? Fuel leaks? Averted hijacks? Metal fatigue … mechanical justifications?”

“Doesn’t signify, Dave, not if it touches the pocketbook of the Transport Companies. Remember, every precog implies fault: human or mechanical, since the Companies will not recognize Providence as a force. And human or mechanical, the public loses faith in the Company thus stigmatized. When Company profits are hit, Company gets mad, sues the precog for defamation of character, interference, et cetera.”

“Then we are to allow the traveling public to fry in their own juice or be spread across the fields because a precog has seen a crash but doesn’t want to offend a Company? For want of a screw the nail was lost!” op Owen’s usually soothing voice was rough with asperity. “Damn it, Joel, we have to preserve impartiality, and warn any one or anything that is touched by the precognitive Talent, or we do usurp the position of the Almighty by withholding that evidence. I don’t care if the transportation companies then decide to disregard the warning—that’s their problem. But I want my people protected when, in good faith and based on computer-accepted detail, they issue that warning. We have no ax to grind, commercially, thanks to the Darrow endowment and member support, but we must continue to be impartial.”