"Ye just felt the reaction in his mind?"

"I guess," he said. "I-I don't know how it happens, but I know that most people can't do it, can they?"

"No," she said gently, "most other people can't. And sometimes they become very upset if they think there's someone around like ye who can."

Flinx nodded solemnly. "Like the bad people?"

"Maybe," she said, considering that possibility. "Maybe like the bad people, yes. Ye can't control the power, you're sure?"

"I'm sure. I've tried. Sometimes it's just there, a burning inside my head. But most of the time it's not."

She nodded. "That's too bad, too bad. Ye have what's called a Talent, Flinx."

"A Talent." He considered that a moment, then asked uncertainly, "Is it a good thing?"

"It can be. It can also be a dangerous thing, Flinx. We must make a secret of it, your secret and mine. Don't ever tell anyone else about it."

"I won't," he murmured, then added energetically, "I promise. Then you're not mad at me?"

"Mad?" She let out a long, rolling cackle. "Now how could I be mad with ye, boy? I've regained my jewelry, and you've gained quite a bit of respect among our neighbors. In the marketplace, that can be a tradable commodity, as ye may discover someday. They think you've a sharp eye and a sharper tongue. The reality be something more, though I wouldn't argue ye can cut words with the best of them. Keep your Talent to yourself. Remember, our secret."

"Our secret," he repeated solemnly.

"Can ye do anything else?" she asked him, trying not to sound eager. "Anything besides feeling what others be feeling?"

"I don't think so. Though sometimes it feels like-I don't know. It burns, and it makes me afraid. I don't know how it happens to me, or why."

"Don't trouble yourself about it, boy." She didn't press the matter when she saw how it upset him. "There's nothing to be afraid of." She drew him close, held him next to her thin, warm frame.

"Ye utilize your mind and everything else ye own. That's what it all's been given to ye for. A Talent be no different from any other ability. If there be anything else ye want to try with yourself, ye go ahead and try it. 'Tis your body and brain and none other's."

Chapter Three.

The couple came from Burley. Mother Mastiff could tell that by their rough accents and by the inordinate amount of gleaming metal jewelry they wore. They were handicraft hunting. The intricately worked burl of black caulderwood in Mother Mastiff's shop caught their attention immediately. It had been finely carved to show a panoramic view of a thoruped colony, one of many that infested Moth's northern-hemisphere continents. The carving ran the entire width of the burl, nearly two meters from end to end. It was a half meter thick and had been polished to a fine ebony glow.

It was a spectacular piece of work. Ordinarily, Mother Mastiff would not have considered parting with it, for it was the kind of showpiece that brought pa.s.sers-by into the stall. But this couple wanted it desperately, and only the impossibly high price seemed to be holding them back.

Flinx wandered in off the street, picked at a pile of small bracelets, and watched while the man and woman argued. Quite suddenly, they reached a decision: they had to have the piece. It would complete their recreation room, and they would be the envy of all their friends. Hang the shipping cost, the insurance, and the price! They'd take it. And they did, though the amount on their credcard barely covered it. Two men came later that afternoon to pick up the object and deliver it to the hotel where the visitors were staying.

Later that night, after the shop had closed, after supper, Mother Mastiff said casually, "You know, boy, that couple who bought the caulderwood carving today?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"They must have been in and out of the shop half a dozen times before they made up their minds."

"That's interesting," Flinx said absently. He was seated in a corner studying a chip on his portable viewer. He was very diligent about that. She never thought of sending him to a formal school-rental chips had been good enough for her as a child, and they'd d.a.m.n well be good enough for him.

"Yes," she continued. "They barely had the money for it. I pressed them, I backed off, I did everything I could think of to convince them of its worth once I saw that they were really serious about buying the thing. Every time, no matter what I said, they left the shop and went off arguing between themselves.

"Then ye put in an appearance and stood there and watched them, and lo-de-do-de, sudden-like, their sales resistance just crumpled up and went aflight. Be that not interesting?"

"Not really," he replied. "Doesn't that happen lots of times?"

"Not with an item as expensive as the caulderwood, it doesn't. It hardly ever happens that way. Now I don't suppose ye had anything to do with the sudden change of heart on the part of those two? 'Tis not likely ye sensed their hesitation and maybe did something to help them along?"

"Of course not, Mother." He looked away from his viewer in surprise. "I can't do anything like that."

"Oh," she murmured, disappointed. "Ye wouldn't be lying to me now, would ye, boy?"

He shook his head violently. "Why would I do a thing like that? I'm just happy you made so much money on the sale. I'm always glad when you make money."

"Well, that be one thing we have in common, anyway," she said gruffly. "That's enough viewing for one night. You'll strain your young eyes. Be to bed, Flinx."

"All right, Mother." He walked over and bestowed the obligatory peck on her cheek before scurrying off to his own room. "G'night."

"Good night, boy."

She stayed awake in her own bedroom for a while, watching one of the rented entertainment chips on her own viewer. The show had been recorded on Evoria and benefited from the exotic location and the presence of thranx performers. It was late when she finally shut it off and readied herself for sleep. A quick shower, half an hour brushing out her hair, and she was able to slide with a sigh beneath the thermal blanket.

As she lay in the dark, waiting for sleep, a sudden disquieting thought stole into her mind. Why would would the boy lie to her about such a possible ability? the boy lie to her about such a possible ability?

He might do it, she thought, because if he could convince one couple to make an unwanted purchase, he probably could do it to others. And if he could do it to others, what about this past autumn when she had been hurrying past the government auction platform on her way across town, and something had brought her to a puzzling halt. Wasn't it possible that the purchase she had made then-the unwanted, inexplicable-to-this-day purchase that she had never looked at too closely-had been helped along its way by the mental nudging of the purchased? Why had she bought him? None, of her friends could quite understand it either.

Disturbed, she slipped out of the bed and walked across the resting and eating s.p.a.ce to the boy's room. A glance inside revealed him sleeping soundly beneath his cover, as innocent-looking a child as one could hope to set eyes upon. But now something else was there, too, something unseen and unpredictable that she could never be certain about. Never again would she be able to relax completely in the boy's presence.

Already she had forgotten her initial regrets and had begun to extend to him the love she had never before been able to give to his like. He was an endearing little twit and had been more than helpful around the shop. It was good to have such company in her old age. But for a while now, just for a while, she would pat and rea.s.sure him with one hand and keep the other close by a weapon. At least until she could be sure in her own mind that it still was her own mind she could be sure of.

Silly old fool, she thought as she turned back toward her own room. You've praised him for having a Talent, and now you're worried about it. You can't have it both ways. Besides, what need to fear a Talent its owner could not control? That confession of the boy's seemed truthful enough, to judge by his distress and bewilderment.

She was feeling easier by the time she slipped into her bed the second time. No, there was no reason to worry. It was interesting, his Talent, but if he couldn't control it, well, no need to be concerned.

Clearly, anyone unable to master such an ability would never amount to much, anyway.

"Haithness, Cruachan, come here!"

The woman seated before the computer screen had spent still another morning poring through reams of abstract data. She was trying to put together a chemical puzzle of considerable complexity. But that morning, as happens on rare occasions, an especially vital piece of the puzzle had unexpectedly fallen into place. Instead of a mora.s.s of figures and undisciplined graphics, the screen now beamed out an image of perfect symmetry.

The man who hurried over from the center of the room to glance over her shoulder was tall, the lines striping his face impressive. The dark-haired woman who joined him in staring at the screen was equally imposing.

The chamber in which the three of them worked was situated in a small, nondescript office building located in an unimportant city on a backwater world. For all that the equipment they hovered over had a cobbled-together appearance, most of it was still of a type requiring enormous expertise to operate and great expense to fund.

Both the knowledge and the money came from scattered, seemingly unrelated locations throughout the Commonwealth. To the men and women who practically lived in the room, isolation was their honored burden, obscurity their most potent weapon. For they were members of a uniquely despised and persecuted minority, at war with the tenets of civilized society. Truly were their hearts pure and their purposes of n.o.ble mien-it was just their methodology that the rest of civilization questioned.

The three staring intently at the computer screen certainly did not look like candidates for such special attention. The tall man, Cruachan, had the look of a kindly grandfather; the oriental lady seated before the console would have seemed more at home in an ancient era, clad in flowing silks and wooden shoes. Only the tall black woman standing opposite Cruachan showed some of her inner hardness in her face.

That hardness and cold resolve lived in each of them, however, fostered and intensified by two decades of persecution. They saw themselves as men and women apart from the common herd. Their aim was nothing less than the improvement of mankind in spite of itself. That their methods might result in damage to the innocent was something they had known from the beginning. They had put that and other conventionally moral beliefs aside, believing that such sacrifices were necessary that the majority might benefit. They called their group the Meliorare Society, an innocent-sounding name drawn to mask the intention of improving humanity via the artificial manipulation of genetic material.

Their troubles began when several of their less successful experiments came to light, whereupon the outcry over the revelations had been enormous. Now they were compelled to work in scattered outposts instead of in a single research installation, always barely a jump ahead of pursuing government authorities. They were looked down upon and viewed with horror by the general populace.

Many of their a.s.sociates had already vanished, having been discovered and taken into custody by the relentless minions of an ignorant officialdom: martyrs to science, the survivors knew-inhuman monsters, according to the media reports.

Of course, the aims of the Meliorare Society were dangerous! Improvement-change-was always viewed as dangerous by the shortsighted. The members had steeled themselves to that way of thinking, and it no longer affected them. What mattered were results, not the opinions of the ignorant ma.s.ses.

So they did not fear dying, did not fear the even more horrible punishment of selective mindwipe, because they believed in the rightness of their cause. If only one of their experiments turned out successfully, it would vindicate the work propounded on Terra some forty years earlier by the Society's founder. Then they would be able to re-emerge into the scientific community that had disowned them. They would be able to point with pride to a mature, noticeably improved human being.

The air of excitement that pervaded the room was restrained but clearly felt as they gathered around the computer screen.

"This had better live up to its readout, Nya.s.sa-lee," Cruachan warned. "I have half a volume of information to process from the Cannachanna system, and as you know, we're likely going to have to abandon this place and move on within the month. That means reset, breakdown of equipment, and all the difficulties moving entails."

"You know me better than that, Cruachan," said the woman seated in the chair. There was no feeling of triumph in what she had just done; they had progressed beyond such trivialities. "I've been feeding and cross-correlating records on dispersal and individual subject characteristics for months now. It's finally paid off. I've located Number Twelve."

The tall black woman leaned closer to the screen. "Number Twelve-that sticks in the mind. Male, wasn't it?"

Nya.s.sa-lee nodded and indicated the screen. "Here, I'll run the relevants back for you."

They refamiliarized themselves with the details of the case in question. It had been eight years since case interdiction. In the eight years since, they had encountered a number of other subjects. Most of them had grown into normal childhood. A few had even displayed tiny flashes of promise, but nothing worth a full-scale follow-up.

Then there had been those whose minds and bodies had been horribly distorted and twisted by the original surgical manipulations, for which they each shared the blame. Unfortunate failures such as those had been made public by the government and had raised such an emotional outcry among the scientifically unsophisticated public that the government had been able to legalize its witch hunt against the Society.

Most of the subject children had been recovered by the government, raised in special homes, and restored to normality. Where possible, the genetic alterations performed by the Society's surgeons had been corrected to enable all the children to live a normal life.

If we cannot improve upon the normal, thought Haithness, then we do not deserve to explore and master the universe. Nature helps those who help themselves. Why should we not employ our learning and knowledge to give evolution a boost?

From the far corner of the darkened room, a man called out. "Brora reports that a government shuttle has landed at Calaroom shuttleport."

"Could be the usual load of agricultural specialists," Cruachan said thoughtfully.

"Possible," agreed the individual manning the communications console, "but can we afford that risk?"

"I hate to order evacuation on such slim evidence. Any word on how many pa.s.sengers?"

"Hard to say," the man ventured, listening intently to his receiver. "Brora says at least a dozen he doesn't recognize."

"That's a lot of agricultural specialists, Cruachan," Haithness pointed out.

"It is." He called across to the communications specialist. "Tell Brora to pull back and prepare for departure. We can't take chances. Push evac time from a month to tonight."

"Tonight?" The voice of the communicator had a dubious ring. "I won't have half the equipment broken down by then."

"New communications equipment we can buy," Cruachan reminded him. "Replacements for ourselves are not available."

The man at the com console nodded and turned back to his station, speaking softly and hurriedly into the pickup. Cruachan returned his attention to the computer screen.

Information emerged. NUMBER TWELVE. MALE. PHYSICALLY UNDISTINGUISHED AS A CHILD NUMBER TWELVE. MALE. PHYSICALLY UNDISTINGUISHED AS A CHILD. Next were descriptions of cerebral index and figures for cortical energy displacement.

Oh, yes; Cruachan remembered now. Unpredictable, that Number Twelve. Patterns in brain activity suggesting paranormal activity but nothing concrete. Particularly fascinating had been the amount of activity emerging from the left side of the cerebrum, usually detected only in females. That by itself was not reason enough for excitement, but there was also continuous signs of functioning in at least two sections of brain that were not normally active, the "dead" areas of the mind. That activity, like the child himself, had also been unpredictable.

And yet, despite such encouraging evidence, the case history of Number Twelve was devoid of the usual promising developments. No hint of telepathy, psychokinesis, pyrokinesis, dual displacement, or any of the other mult.i.tude of abilities the Society had hoped to bring to full flower in its experimental children.

Still, Number Twelve at least exhibited a possible something.

"Well, this one certainly shows more promise than the last dozen or so," Haithness had to admit. "It's been so long since we had contact with him, I'd nearly forgotten those activity readings. We need to get to this one as quickly as possible. Where's he situated?"

Nya.s.sa-lee tapped keys below the readout, bringing forth answers. "Where in the Commonwealth is that?" Haithness grumbled.

"Trading world," Cruachan put in, thinking hard. "Centrally located but unimportant in and of itself. A stopover world, low in native population."

"You won't mind going there once you've seen this," Nya.s.sa-lee a.s.sured them both. Her fingers moved delicately over the keyboard a second time, and fresh information glowed on screen. "This is recent, from the local operative who relocated the subject. It appears that the child has definitely displayed one Talent, possibly two. Furthermore, he has done so in public and apparently without any specialized training."

"Without training," Cruachan whispered. "Remarkable, if true."

Nya.s.sa-lee tapped the screen. "This operative has been reliable in the past and particularly noteworthy for the accuracy of his observations. The Talent in question is a telepathic variant of some sort. The operative is not a scientifically trained observer, of course, and he is even less certain of the second one, though its potential value may be even greater."

"What is it?" Haithness asked.

"I've been hard put to find a name for it. Basically, it seems that the child may be an emolterator."

The other woman looked confused. "I don't remember that on the list of possible Talents."

"It wasn't there. It's an original. Original with this child, it seems," Cruachan said. Nya.s.sa-lee nodded. "It means that he may be able to influence the actions of others. Not mind control, nothing as strong as that. It would be more subtle. One possessing such an ability would have to utilize it very carefully. If this report is true..." His voice and thoughts drifted for a moment as he studied the readout.

"It seems the child's Talents have gone unnoticed by the authorities and that he has developed naturally. All without even the most rudimentary training. The signs certainly point to powerful potentials waiting to be unlocked."

"Either the child has grown up unaware of these Talents," Nya.s.sa-lee said, studying new information as it appeared on the screen, "or else he is precociously clever."

"It may be just natural caution," Haithness put in. "It will be interesting to find out which is the case."

"Which we will do," Cruachan said firmly. "It's been a long time since we've had a subject as promising as this one come back to us. He could be the one we've searched for all these years."

"It had better not be a repeat of the last time we located a subject with these figures," Haithness cautioned, then indicated the new figures materializing on the screen. "Look at those neurological potentials. Remember the only other child who showed numbers like that?"

"Of course, I remember," Cruachan said irritably. "We won't lose this one the way we lost that girl-what the devil was the little monster's name?"

"Mahnahmi," Nya.s.sa-lee reminded him. "Yes, if this boy's anything like that one, we're going to have to be extremely careful. I couldn't take a repeat of that experience."

"Neither could I, frankly," Cruachan admitted. "Our mistake was in trying to regain control over her directly. End result: the girl vanishes again, and two more of the society go to a premature end. And we're still not sure how she accomplished it."

"We'll run across her again someday, when our methods are improved," Haithness said coolly. "Then we'll deal with her properly."