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  “Now, it’s not as bad as that,” op Owen said firmly. “In fact, stop feeling guilty and look at the very positive side—Ruth actually has been able to suppress your strong Talent.”

  “And that’s positive?”

  “Yes. The underlying problem is Ruth’s lack of Talent. We now can prove conclusively that she has one. She has demonstrated it superbly. Severe frustration often breaks down blocks. And she’s had that.”

  “Of course.” Lajos’s face began to light up. “Whoa. You said she doesn’t know she’s doing it?”

  “I’ve proof for her. And the further proof will be the renewal of your precogs. I’ll have a talk with her and straighten this out today.”

  He made the call as Lajos left. There was more to the problem of Ruth Horvath than touched the little family. If you don’t tell all you know, how much is enough? op Owen wondered.

  “All right I’m forced to believe you,” Ruth said, her defensiveness waning under op Owen’s gentle redirection, because she also could not deny the evidence of the graphs: of that remarkable, infinitesimal variation that had to be an Incident.

  Daffyd op Owen felt himself begin to relax with her admission. He had known it would be a stormy confrontation: one reason why he had not delayed it. Ruth had been appalled by the knowledge that she had subconsciously blocked Lajos. She finally admitted that Dorotea scared her: that she had lost all joy in her daughter and was terrified of predisposing the child towards her.

  “Yes, I have to believe you,” she repeated, not bothering to stifle resentment “but it’s a pretty poor excuse of a Talent” she added bitterly, “if all I can do is block my husband’s, and not even know I’m doing that.”

  “On the contrary,” op Owen replied with a laugh, “it’s exactly the one you need the most … applied properly.”

  Ruth glared at him, waiting pointedly for an explanation.

  “You’ve a strong moral code, Ruth. You would not permit yourself to act against your daughter, though her Talent frightened you. But you will have to waive that most laudable principle. Until Dorotea has developed sufficient discretion to handle her mental gift, you are going to have to block it.”

  Ruth blinked in surprise and then her eyes brightened, her mouth formed an “O” of astonishment as she began to understand.

  “Of course. Of course, I understand.” Tears of relief welled in her eyes. “Oh, of course.”

  Op Owen smiled at her. “Yes, Dorotea cannot be permitted to dip into any mind she chooses. You must restrict her by your ability to block. You won’t need much pressure to dissuade her from broadcasting or eavesdropping.”

  “But won’t Dorotea resent it? I mean, she’ll feel me doing it, won’t she?”

  “All children require limits. Want them. As long as those limits are consistent and reasonable, a child as aware as Dorotea of her parents’ approval and affection won’t resist. In any event, by the time she could, or would, we shall have been able to instill discretion and your moral code. Right now, Ruth, you have all that’s required to keep Dorotea from becoming a nuisance and a brat.”

  Ruth instantly reacted with indignation to his calculated insult and then laughed as she recognized the bait. She left his office considerably reassured, once again at harmony with her situation.

  Op Owen envied her that carefree assurance. He still didn’t know what to call what she’d done. Yes, she had suppressed Lajos’s precog over the last six weeks, but in the four months prior to that Lajos’s abilities had increased in strength and efficiency and, except for duration and width, by a similar application of psionic effort on Ruth’s part. What did her Talent actually affect? And would it, as he had so blithely assured her, be able to “block” Dorotea?

  Well, if she thinks she can, she will. At least she is no longer afraid of her precocious child, he thought He swung his chair round, gazing out at the peaceful view of the grounds of Beechwoods, seeing the city beyond with its spires, towers and living blocks.

  Was I right in my analogy that Talent is in its infancy, and the public is the parent? With the duty to block the undisciplined child? The Talents are more disciplined than the average citizen we often have to search out and rebuke, protect and cherish. It would be catastrophic for the parent to fear the child. How much of the whole truth would reassure, as it had Ruth?

  Those who truly understand psionic powers need no explanation. Those who need explanation will never understand.

  Two mornings later, while reviewing contracts covering institutions holding government research grants, Lajos experienced one of his strongest Incidents. So powerful was the flame-fear that it was all he could do to pull the Goosegg recording web to his skull and depress the key that would relay the reading back to the Center.

  “Flames!” he said, gasping; his mind reeled with the panoramic intense preview.

  “Where?” he was prompted.

  “A sheet, in front of a huge window, overlooking … the grounds. Rhododendrons. Red ones. The clock in the church tower … nearly twelve. Too much heat! The converter is flawed. It’ll blow. There are so many people watching. They don’t belong there.” Lajos was abstractedly curious at the sound of indignation in his voice. “They caused the fire. Meddling. I know him!” Lajos struggled to get a clear picture of that face.

  “You don’t like him. Who is he?”

  “Ahhh … the flames. Obscuring everything.” Lajos fell back in his chair, shaken and sweating.

  “Can you make it to the Center? I’ll send transport,” the duty officer said.

  By the time Lajos reached the computer room in the Center, the system was already chuckling away at the details, locating which laboratories had scheduled visitors in the a.m.: laboratories using heat converters. The church clock tower suggested a college so that data was added as well as the planting of red rhododendrons.

  Op Owen greeted Lajos with a grin of approval. “That was the most intense pattern you’ve ever projected. Have you any idea why that premonition should affect you so?”

  “None, sir,” Lajos replied, taking the seat op Owen indicated. He was still shaken.

  “The man you knew: he was someone you obviously dislike. Do you have the impression that you’ve met him personally?”

  “No. I recognized his face, that’s all. Then the flames leaped up.”

  “We don’t have much time,” and op Owen’s eyes glanced towards the wall clock, registering quarter to eleven. “Your precog came at 10:12. Unfortunately this appears to be appropriation time and every lab in the country is having its share of visitations. I want to play back your answer, Lajos. I was struck by two things and if you can pinpoint them also, we’ll have the ‘where’ at least.”

  “Anything.” Lajos could see the vivid overprint of the flames in his mind and tried to see beyond their obscuring curtain. “And one day, figure out why I have a pyro-affinity.”

  “Keeps insurance rates low, Horvath,” Welch said drily as he rewound the tape. “Don’t knock small favors.”

  Lajos listened as objectively as he could, appalled at the odd wooden quality of his voice, the fear when he mentioned the flames.

  “I’ve got it, sir,” he said. “The converter, the lab, the church tower. Knowing that the people didn’t belong there. Wherever it is, is familiar to me.”

  “Charlie,” Welch spoke over his shoulder to the programmer, “add Horvath’s place and travel card.”

  Almost immediately a print-out appeared.

  “Sir, it’s North East University. Checks out, clock in church tower, visible from research laboratory which uses a heat converter.”

  “Any visitors scheduled today?”

  “No report on that yet, sir, but they do have a government funded research project in neo-protein and subcellular engineering.”

  “Check the university direct,” Welch said after a nod from op Owen.

  “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 arbitrari
ly 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.