Marc's asymmetrical smile broadened. "Come in-if you're sure you're not afraid of being compromised by a.s.sociating with a scandalous character."

Her laughter bubbled richly. "That's ridiculous. No one was scandalized by your speech except a few dreary archconservatives. And they're just envious because the Lylmik named a brand-new magnate to be the one and only Paramount Grand Master of the Human Polity."

He lifted a dismissive shoulder. "The honor and two bux will buy me a tall latte at an Alpenland deli. It isn't as though a paramount has any real political status."

As he helped her off with her black velvet evening cape, she looked at him mischievously over her shoulder. "Oh, but he does, you know. When the most powerful metapsychic mind in the human race expresses an opinion strongly, people listen. When you spoke against the outlawing of the Rebel faction, it tipped the balance in the Concilium and helped defeat the First Magnate's bill of attainder. Dirigent Castellane told us staffers that the gag bill might have squeaked through if it hadn't been for you."

Marc only shrugged.

She unb.u.t.toned the wrist slits of her long black kidskin gloves and slipped her hands out, then fluffed up the extravagant corkscrew curls of her gorgone hairstyle. "I'm not a Rebel myself, but there are a good many people on my planet who are. They should be able to speak their minds freely. Calling an honest difference of opinion treasonous-trying to outlaw open debate-is an outrage. We might as well be back under the Simbiari Proctorship. The First Magnate made a serious mistake cosponsoring that bill."

She was dressed in an Empire gown of white silk gauze, high-waisted, with short puffed sleeves and floating panels embroidered in silver and red. A black ribbon centered with a tiny silvery Medusa encircled her pale throat.

Together they went to the fire. Before Marc could pull up another chair Lynelle Rogers sank down gracefully onto the hearthrug, pulled off her red dancing slippers, and arranged them so that the snow-dampened soles would dry. "You should keep your walk shoveled," she chided him, "or turn on the melting grid. Does summer ever come in Alpenland Enclave?"

"Sorry. For that, you have to go to Edelweiss on the other side of our fake Swiss mountains. Would you like something hot to warm the c.o.c.kles?"

"I'd love it. Alcoholic, please. It's cold out there." She drew off the gloves and set them aside.

He got two clean mugs and added sweet b.u.t.ter, cinnamon sticks, and Jamaica rum, then swung the crane away from the flames and tipped the spout of a steaming cast-iron teakettle with his bare fingers.

She gave a cry of warning. "Look out! You'll burn yourself!"

"No, I won't" He added boiling water, stirred with his PK, and handed the cup to her.

"Oh ..." Her laughter was apologetic. "How silly of me. Of course a little thing like a red-hot iron teakettle wouldn't faze a Paramount Grand Master Creator. I suppose you could pick up the flaming logs in the fireplace if you felt like it."

"You must forgive my momentary breach of decorum. The potholder was accidentally burnt up when my little brother was messing around here last week and I forgot to order another. I try to conform to civilized operant behavior most of the time."

"What a shame," she murmured slyly. He was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and a pair of beaded moccasins over bare feet. When he had finished making his own drink she patted the rug beside her. "Sit down here with me and tell me what you'll be doing now that the Concilium session is over. Someone said you were thinking of leaving academia and taking your E15 project into the private sector."

He settled himself so he could look into the fire and sipped the aromatic drink. "I may as well tell you. It won't be a secret for long. I'm resigning my professorship at Dartmouth College. The trustees and faculty have always regarded me as a maverick who doesn't play by the rules-and that's almost a hanging offense at an Ivy League Earth college. They've been scared to death by the political implications of high creativity enhancement. The fact that creativity is the most fundamental of the metapsychic powers, able to influence all of the others and embracing an enormous spectrum of faculties, shivers their livers. They're afraid my E15 might be misused by some galaxy-cla.s.s nutcase bent on causing a new Ice Age or a modification of continental drift or some such thing."

Her eyes widened. "Does the equipment have that potential?"

"Hardly. Not even an augmented paramount mind could do those things-if it was mad enough to want to. It's true that the E15 might be abused, but so might any number of other sophisticated devices or processes."

"You'd find a very different att.i.tude toward your project on my world," Lynelle Rogers said softly. "Dirigent Patricia Castellane was fascinated when she learned about it. Okanagon is one of those planets with anomalous crustal plates-like Caledonia and Eskval-Herria and Satsuma. As I understand it, high-creative CE might eventually provide a way of stabilizing the planetary lithosphere and preventing seismic disasters-if enough grandmaster operators learn to use the equipment properly and focus shaped energies in metaconcert."

Marc eyed her with surprise. "You're right-but I don't recall anything published in the literature that mentions metaconcerted CE. My own paper on the subject is still going the rounds of the journal editors and being viewed with jaundiced eyes."

"We aren't hicks on Okanagon. We have an outstanding science establishment and we keep a close watch on research topics that are likely to be of critical interest to our survival. Including yours."

"I had no idea your spies were on to me," he teased.

But Lynelle was deadly serious. "Metaconcerted creativity is obviously the next step once the limits of individual enhancement of the faculty are reached. One presumes that you don't intend to limit the E15 to Paramount Grand Masters."

"Certainly not. A grandmastercla.s.s creator would be able to use it safely even now. The only serious hazard would be to an operator who lacked focusing ability or badly misjudged his creative talent. But it will be years before metaconcert programs can be designed for CE equipment. Even bare-brain operants are still fumbling around, trying to get the hang of choral thinking. In theory, a genuinely efficient combination of minds would produce a synergistic effect: a whole greater than the sum of the individual parts."

Lynelle was staring at the leaping flames. "Yes. I understand that."

"But even without multiple operators, CE creativity shows great promise for minor geophysical applications. Seismic forces are delicate and subtle. No conventional energy-beam or explosive that we have is fine enough or immediately variable enough to exert the tuned and shaped pressures needed to avert dangerous earthquakes or change the devastating nature of volcanic or diatrematic eruptions. But an enhanced mind, working like an intelligent, large-scale laser scalpel, just might do the job. Of course that's only one possible application of creative CE. Uses for the equipment are virtually unlimited."

"I wonder why the exotic races never developed cerebroenergetic enhancement."

"G.o.d knows. Lack of imagination, perhaps. I'll tell you another of my disreputable opinions: I think the Milieu is rather stodgy, and the Lylmik who run it are a senile race of mystics on a downhill slide. Maybe their motive for dragging humanity into their confederation was to give it a well-needed shot of elan vital."

She nodded slowly. "It's plausible. They've said often enough that they need us. But I wonder if we really need them? So much of the Galactic Milieu smacks of well-intentioned tyranny. The Rebel faction believes that humanity is actually being r.e.t.a.r.ded in its psychosocial evolution by exotic restrictions. It's true that the exotics probably saved us from self-destruction fifty years ago and gave us a great scientific leg up. But by now our science and technology have pa.s.sed theirs in almost every area, our social problems are nearly solved, and our larger colonial planets are completely self-sufficient. Is the Milieu still good for us now? I don't know the answer."

Marc did not offer an opinion. They were both silent for several minutes, savoring the fragrant rum. Finally she said: "Here's just one example of Milieu bungling: Our world Okanagon is really a great place-provided that you don't look too deep underground. It never should have been granted cosmop status and made a main focus of colonization because it has an unstable crust. The Krondaku team that checked it out four thousand years ago were incompetents. A whole group of other worlds in the same stellar region-Satsuma, Yakutia, Eskval-Herria, Caledonia-were also improperly surveyed and suffer the same kind of instability. Of course we humans never doubted the Milieu evaluation when they told us to colonize those planets. Serious anomalies on Okanagon weren't discovered until 2058, when a comprehensive geological survey was done with new equipment developed on Earth. By then our population had mushroomed to over a billion. Okanagon is a Sector Base and the home of the Twelfth Fleet and one of the most highly developed human colonies. It would be economically disastrous to abandon the planet and start all over. n.o.body seriously suggests that we should ... yet. Most exotic Milieu geophysicists think that the likelihood of a truly catastrophic incident is small. Our late Dirigent, Rebecca Perlmutter, accepted that judgment and was inclined to minimize the danger. But a significant minority of planetologists-all human, of course-believe there's room for real concern. Dirigent Castellane takes their opinion extremely seriously. I'm certain that your research would receive unlimited funding if you'd relocate to our planet."

"Castellane told you to sound me out." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes. Even though we knew nothing of your problems with Dartmouth College." Lynelle set her cup down. She examined one of her drying shoes, then moved both of them further from the heat. "You'll be receiving an official invitation once we return home. As a senior member of the Dirigent's staff and an acquaintance of yours, I was asked to introduce the idea to you before you left Orb."

"I'm sorry, but I can't accept. I've made other plans."

"Please reconsider! We'd appreciate your genius on Okanagon, Marc. There'd be no irksome academic or political restrictions. You'd have an unlimited budget, carte blanche in facilities and personnel-"

"You probably know that I come from an affluent family. I have abundant funds of my own in trust that are available, and the Remillard Foundation is one of the wealthiest on Earth. I intend to ask the Foundation to help fund the new independent research inst.i.tute that I'll head." He hesitated, then added, "When the time comes to test the E15 equipment on geophysical applications, I promise to give Okanagon top priority."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you so very, very much ..." She flung her arms around him and kissed his lips. He was momentarily taken aback, but then laughed and gently extricated himself from the embrace. But she insisted on nestling close beside him and somehow he could not find it in himself to object. For a time they discussed technicalities of the crust-modification process, but then they sat quietly together staring into the flames. Her head with the ma.s.s of gleaming ebony curls rested against his shoulder. The firelight had turned her filmy gown and pale skin to gold.

"Dearest Marc," she said finally. "I knew you'd be willing to help us. The people of my planet will express their grat.i.tude later. But I-I wish you'd let me show my own appreciation now."

Her hand began to move along his thigh. It was caught by his psychokinesis and held immobile. She gave a soft moan of frustration.

"Marc, I want you so very much! More than any man I've ever known. I've felt an attraction from the first moment we met. We'd be so good together! You know we would."

"You're a lovely woman, Lynelle, and very appealing. But I think not."

She sighed, withdrawing her hand reluctantly as his mind released it. "Are you gay, then, like your brother Luc?"

"No. But I'm different from the other men you've known. With very different needs. Perhaps someday I'll welcome the physical pleasures of s.e.x, but not now. It would be a distraction, a diversion of vital energies needed elsewhere."

She rounded on him sharply. "Paramount Grand Masters can't be bothered with vulgar f.u.c.king! Is that the way it is? Or are you like Merlin-the greatest wizard of them all unless you succ.u.mb to a woman?"

Marc only tossed off the last of his rum and climbed to his feet. He did not offer to help her up. "Thanks for coming to say goodbye. And I appreciate your telling me about Okanagon's support of my work. No hard feelings?"

Her voice was tremulous now as she looked up at him, forcing a smile. "No hard feelings. I'm sorry I barked at you. I hope we can say au revoir rather than goodbye. I-I'd like to show you Okanagon someday. As a friend." Still seated on the rug, she began to put on her shoes. Suddenly she halted, as if struck by a thought, and gazed up at him in eager hopefulness. "Marc, there is one other thing you could do, if you would. A consolation prize."

One winged eyebrow lifted quizzically.

"Show me your new E15 helmet," she pleaded. "All Orb was buzzing about it after you did your demonstration before the magnates of the Science Directorate. Would you-could you- show me just a little of how it works?" Say you will do it!

Say you will do it!

SAY YOU WILL DO IT.

Marc's deep-set gray eyes seemed to glaze for an instant. When he spoke, the words came haltingly. "It ... might be ... possible ... if you're really interested."

She was standing now, charged with excitement. "It would be thrilling to see you demonstrate it. I could give my own confidential report to the Dirigent."

"That might be ... useful."

He turned away and went to the other side of the little hut's main-floor living area, rooting among a stack of luggage awaiting transfer to the Human Terminal. A moment later he returned carrying an impressive-looking transport pod with a prominent label:

CAUTION-INTERNAL SIGMA SHIELD.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO OPEN THIS POD WITHOUT CODE.

OR CONTENTS WILL BE DESTROYED.

He gently bit his lower lip to dislodge a few cells, then licked his finger and poked it into the code aperture. There was a ping and the container cracked open like a clamsh.e.l.l. A small puff of smoke confirmed that the decoder had sterilized itself and awaited the next DNA sample.

Lynelle said, "You protect your valuables well. But what if someone simply ran off with the entire pod? There are surely ways of breaking the code or deactivating a sigma that small, given time and resources."

"Not in this setup. I designed it myself. It responds to my DNA, my fingerprint, and my mental signature. The sigma itself has fifteen backup levels-and five are programmed to micronuke at the least hint of tampering. Illegal to ship a pod like this on a civilian transport. It'll go home to Earth on a diplomatic courier."

"Oh, my," she whispered.

Marc opened the pod fully. Inside the padded interior was the prototype CE helmet, a grotesque golden thing with portions of its operating systems mounted nakedly on the exterior for ease in experimentation. The container also held a small fusion power generator with cables, and a device resembling a handheld computer. Marc carried the equipment to his chair by the fire, plugged the helmet into its energy source, and fiddled with the handset. When he was satisfied he sat down and donned the helmet. It engulfed all of his head except the facial area below the eyes and was nearly as bulky as an old-fashioned hard-hat diving helmet.

"d.a.m.n prototype still weighs a ton. When it's perfected it'll be more comfortable."

"What does the handset do?" She crept over and knelt beside him. A fine dew of perspiration had dampened the fine tendrils of raven hair in front of her ears and at her brow. Her lips, painted blood red, were tongue-dampened and the pupils of her eyes had become enormous.

"It's a systems monitor that a.n.a.lyzes this and that and backs up the brainboard controls. It also has a deadman switch. If I drop it or if my hand pressure exceeds a preset level, the CE rig shuts down and a medic-alert squeal goes out."

She reached out tentatively to touch the handset but he moved it out of reach. In spite of having his eyes covered, he was not at all blind inside the awesome golden casque. "Don't be concerned about my safety. The thing works beautifully. Ready for a demo?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Here we go. Remember that what you see is no illusion, such as I might project with my ordinary gray cells, but an actual modification of matter and energy. I'll need to concentrate. You sit still and just watch."

She sank back onto her heels, her hands folded tightly over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The nipples were prominent and aching. She felt herself swelling and becoming moist as the antic.i.p.atory tension grew. Could he detect it? Probably not. His mind was completely rapt in his marvelous machine- Oh my G.o.d.

Something was climbing out of the fire.

It was doll-sized, less than half a meter high, human in shape, but apparently composed entirely of flames. She could see its tiny features, its fingers, even its miniature male s.e.x. It glided over the fender, not touching the floor, and bowed with comical gravity toward the two human beings. Then it turned about and lifted both fiery arms like a dancer posing. A charred chunk of wood some ten centimeters square popped out of the grate and floated above the manikin's hands. Rapidly, the charcoal shrank, glowing strangely blue as it hissed and smoked. When it resembled a black pea the fiery homunculus plucked it from mid-air and held it in both diminutive hands.

"Now for the difficult part," Marc said.

The flame-being appeared to be compressing the ball of carbon, squeezing it and kneading it until it shrank further and was lost to sight within the little hands. Then the manikin bent down, placed something very small on the floor in front of the hearth, bowed again, and whisked back into the fireplace where it disappeared.

The log fire burned as usual. Marc took off the CE helmet, exhaled a deep breath, and ran his fingers through sweat-dampened curls. A line of b.l.o.o.d.y pinp.r.i.c.ks was st.i.tched across his forehead. On the floor, something crystalline sparkled.

"It's quite cool now," he said. "You can pick it up."

In spite of herself, Lynell Rogers cried out, "It can't be! You couldn't possibly have done it." She knelt and retrieved the glittering thing, a sharp-edged octahedron less than two millimeters long that flashed rainbow colors in the firelight. "Good Lord-it is!"

Marc shrugged, grinning. "It's a diamond, all right. Very strange internal structure because I wanted it large enough for you to pick up easily. Take it and have it a.n.a.lyzed. Show it to your Dirigent. You might leave out the fiery sorcerer's apprentice, though. I got a bit carried away."

He set the helmet on the floor upside down, crouched beside her, and pointed out the crown-of-thorns electrodes inside the apparatus that had penetrated his brain. The wounds on his head were fast fading, healed by his redaction. At his suggestion, Lynelle opened her mind to his concise mental diagrams of the cerebroenergetic enhancer. Although Marc withheld critical technical details, the images were explicit in showing the CE rig's mode of operation.

"It's absolutely incredible," she breathed. "What do you estimate is the maximum energy output you might generate at a macro level?"

"That kind of testing will have to wait until the prototype is completed. This hat is only a crudely built demonstration model. It wasn't even operating at full capacity."

Lynelle Rogers shook her head in wonderment, studying the little diamond in the palm of her hand. "Incredible," she repeated in a whisper.

The Hydra struck with its coercion again: Marc the fire is burning low. Put more wood on it. Now!

He arose, pulled an armful of logs from the caddy, tossed them into the grate, and bent down with the poker to restore a brisk blaze. When he was satisfied that the fresh fuel had caught fire, he turned back to Lynelle.

And found her wearing the helmet.

"Christ!" he exclaimed. "What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?"

Her graceful, elegantly attired figure was incongruously crowned and blinded by the heavy metal headpiece. She held the controller in one hand and the diamond in the other. Her lips were slightly parted and her mind said: Marc darling come to me this way.

MyG.o.d NO you crazyfool you can't- Her natural creativity must have been enormous. Enhanced, it took possession of every extracerebral neuron in his body, paralyzing him, rendering him speechless. Momentarily, at least, he was unable to utter a farspoken cry or touch her with his psychokinesis. He might have broken the spell if he had called on the brute force of his coercion. Even creatively enhanced, her mind was no real match for his. But he held back. She offered no threat. What she wanted was glaringly clear, depicted in a dizzying series of erotic images that flooded his senses and ignited his imagination. What he had repressed, what he had denied now came alive with overpowering intensity. There was no anger or fear in his response, only tremendous excitement and need.

You see? she said, laughing. You are human after all. This will be very instructive very humbling and even though you are to forget the details of the catalysis the resultant will remain with you always!

Now come to me Marc.

Even at that point he might have withdrawn, sealing his mind behind a safe, impermeable barrier until he was able to regroup his faculties and regain self-control; something deep inside him was shouting a warning and urging him to do just that. But still he hesitated.

She lifted the tiny crystal.

The diamond, held before his eyes by two slender fingers tipped with gleaming scarlet lacquer. The diamond ... seeming to expand until it filled the world with hot scintillation, the prismatic rays bathing him with exquisite pleasure.

He felt a delicious pain swell in the root of his being. Vital energies began surging up his spine in slow, ever-amplifying waves. His brain seemed to catch fire within a fierce, thundering rainbow. The crystalline lattice of the diamond was alive, piercing him, trapping him, becoming him. Crucified in light, his entire nervous system burned and screamed and sang, ultrasensitized to the point of torture. She was re-creating him and it hurt and it was marvelous and he wanted it more than anything in the world.

She was with him inside the diamond's kaleidoscopic colors. They were twinned crystals, conjoined and vibrating to inhuman harmonies. The anguish and joy were consuming him, bringing him willingly to the edge of death.

Why are you doing this? he groaned. How do you know me so well to use me to torment me to make me want this?

I love you, she said. I hate you. And some day my dearest I'll kill you in just this way.

Yes! he said. Oh, yes. Please.

Fool, she said from amidst the dreadful light, separating herself from him and abandoning him at the very brink. Someday, but not now. This is only to teach you who you are.