Anne McCaffrey - Pegasus 2 - Pegasus in Flight

PROLOGUE

$# ^ During the late twentieth century's exploration

of space, a major breakthrough occurred in the validation

and recording of extrasensory perceptions, the so-called

paranormal, psionic abilities long held to be spurious. An

alternate application of the Goosegg, an extremely sensi-

tive encephalograph developed to scan brain patterns of

the astronauts who suffered from sporadic ' 'bright spots,''

temporarily diagnosed as cerebral or retinal malfunction,

was inadvertenfly discovered when the device was used

to monitor a head injury in an intensive-care unit of Jer-

hattan. The patient, Henry Darrow, was a self-styled

clairvoyant with an astonishing percentage of accurate

"guesses." hi his case, as the device monitored his brain

patterns, it also registered the discharge of unusual elec-

trical energy as he experienced a clairvoyant episode. For

the first time there was scientific proof of extrasensory

perception.

Henry Darrow recovered from his concussion to

found the first Center for Parapsychics in Jerhattan and

to formulate the ethical and moral premises that would

grant those with valid, and demonstrable, psionic tal-

ents certain privileges and responsibilities in a society

basically skeptical, hostile, or overtly paranoid about

such abilities.

Extrasensory perception--or Talent, as it came to be

called--came in varying strengths and forms. Simple,

short-range telepathy was fairly common, once inhibi-

tions were discarded. But there were also one-way tele-

1

2 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

paths, people who could send their thoughts but not

receive those of others, and people who could receive

thoughts but not send. Others were empaths, able to

adjust immediately to the moods of those around them,

sometimes quite unconsciously. Telempaths could sense

and react to extreme or more distant emotions; some of

these were able to redirect emotion, by broadcasting

other emotions or by neutralizing the negative--such

Talents proved to be invaluable in crowd control, for

they could keep a throng from turning into a senseless

mob. But the most valuable of the telepaths were those

who could both receive and broadcast thought, speaking

to other minds anywhere in the world.

Telekinetics-- Talents who could move physical ob-

jects by sheer mental power--were also invaluable, their

abilities ranging from lifting heavy machinery to ma-

nipulating on micro levels.

Clairvoyants or precogs could see future events, either

close at hand, or at some remove from their present. Very

often their visions allowed the future to be altered and

disasters to be averted. Some clairvoyants had special af-

finities: some sensed events revolving around fire, water,

or wind; others were more apt to perceive children, or

violence, or criminal intentions.

Finders also had affinities--some could locate people

or animals, while others were able to sense inanimate

objects--and their abilities could vary greatly in range.

Talent came in many forms and guises, and not all

of the viable types had, as yet, been recognized. The

various centers, worldwide, constantly searched for the

less dramatic gifts because the need had now far out-

stripped the supply. For those potential few, the train-

ing was arduous, and the rewards did not always

compensate for the unswerving dedication required by

their taxing positions.

And yet to be found Talented became the aspiration

of many, and the triumph of few.

They have been at a great feast of

languages, and stolen the scraps.

--William Shakespeare.

CHAPTER 1

V # Tiria took a quick look from the alley into the

Main Concourse of Residential Linear G, then pulled

back instantly, flattening her thin twelve-year-old body

against the plas-slab wall. Public Health officials were

swarming all over, rounding up the early-morning crowd

of able-bodied workers who had been scanning the em-

ployment board for a day's work, the mothers with their

handicapped kids making their way to the Rehab cen-

ters, and the legal children on their way to the Linear's

physical-training facility.

Cautiously she took another look, to see what the

PHOs were setting up on their tables: vials and the big

compressed-air bottles that operated the hyposprays. She

withdrew, having seen enough to recognize another

wholesale vaccination effort. Strange, she hadn't heard

of any new 'mune plagues. To give them their due,

PHO was swifter than rumor to avert disaster.

Rapidly Tiria ran through her head her current list of

those mothers of illegal children whom she should in-

form: first, because they would pay her for warning

them to hide the kids; second, because those who could

afford to would pay her for stealing whatever vaccine

was being administered. She counted on her fingers:

Elpidia, certainly; the old bouzma. Pilau; Bilala, and

Zaveta, Ari-san, and Cyoto--and she had better ask

Mama Bobchik if there were newboms, for they would

need the Five-shotter. She would want one for herself,

as well, and could possibly finagle a box, depending on

3

4

PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

how the current stuff was packaged. It all depended.

Mirda Khan, yes--she had best tell that old wagon right

after she warned Mama.

She would have to change into clean clothing issue--

she had washed, but this week's issue was five days old

and looked eight. Public Health were quick to notice

details like that. Mama Bobchik was always good for

fresh wear, especially if Tiria went to her first with her

news. This could be a very good day, Tiria thought

with a rise of spirits as she slipped back down the alley

for the center-shaft emergency stairs on her way down

to Mama Bobchik's pad.

Most of Tiria's twelve years had been spent in

scrounging a totally unofficial living in the multi-ethnic

thirty-storied community of the Linears. She could not

afford to miss a single trick, like today's unexpected

Public Health roundup, to escape the stringent controls,

clever obstacles, and little traps ingeniously set up by

the Jerhattan Complex Administration Council and the

Law Enforcement and Order Organization to identify

and control each member of the restless population.

Officially there had never been a record of Tiria's

birth. She was, however, the fifth child bom to Dikka--

only/the first, Tirla's brother, Kail, was legal. The gov-

ernment tied a woman off when she gave birth to a

second child. Consequently Pirza, Lenny, Ahmed, and

Tiria had all been bom in Dikka's single-parent squat

with the aid of Mama Bobchik, who had had an illegal

child every year until her womb had dried up. Kail had

been official until Dikka had sold him at ten. Firza had

had the use of Kail's wrist ID for two years until she

was profitably disposed of. In the next year, Dikka,

Lenny, and Ahmed died of one of the immune plagues

that sporadically flared up to decimate the Linears. In

the haste and confusion of body disposal, Dikka's death

had not been officially noted. So Tiria had been left

with two ID bracelets--a fine legacy. Self-sufficient and

resourceful, she had managed to retain the squat, draw-

Anne McCaffrey 5

ing two subsistence rations, until Dikka's ID was can-

celed after her failure to appear for a routine medical

examination.

Wise in the ways of her society, Tiria had not been

caught short by the lockout. She knew Tenancy Arti-

cles, Paragraphs, and Subsections by heart, so figuring

out the cancellation date had been no problem. Two

days prior to the eviction, she moved her few posses-

sions--hotter unit, the best of the sleep sacks, the 'cor-

der, and the pretties Dikka's men had given her from

time to time--into new quarters five levels below the

Main Concourse, in the maintenance segment of Linear

G, right beside the charged security grille that protected

the engineering section from unauthorized entry. Only

a slight and agile person like Tiria could reach the ey-

rie, where massive ducts formed a broad platform be-

fore bending up the inner wall. She patched her hotter

and 'corder wires into the overhead cables, certain that

her small use of electricity was unlikely to be discov-

ered, and settled in. She did miss the all-night infor-

mational programs on the squat's tri-d. The big public

tri-ds on the Concourse stopped 'casting at the midnight

curfew. Tiria, with her clever, shrewd, and organized

mind, was thirsty for knowledge. She even used Kail's

ID to log into school. One of Dikka's men had said that

one had to know the rules before one could break them.

Tiria had never forgotten.

For another two years. Kail's bracelet supplied his

small sister with daily subsistence, weekly clothing is-

sue, and other amenities until "Kail" failed to appear

at Evaluation Center within three weeks of his sixteenth

birthday. The cancellation caused Tiria no problem, for

by then she was well-established, almost indispensable

to most of the Residential clients and gang bosses in

the neighborhood industrial complexes. Her ability to

translate any of the nearly ninety dialects and languages

used in the subsistence-level Residential Linears saved

clients hours at official transspeech centers, or worse,

6 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

misunderstanding. She knew when to be ingratiating or

stand firm. She knew what courtesies were due whom

and never failed in performing them. Everyone who

knew her knew very well that she was illegal. Because

she was so useful to the residents of Linear G, as she

would be today with her warning about the Public

Healthers, and because officially she did not exist any-

way, there was no profit--yet--in reporting her illicit

existence.

The various errands she did--and she was scrupu-

lously silent about them--often brought in "floating"

credit chips. Floaters were legal tender--Pay to Bearer,

untraceable chips that changed hands frequently. Jer-

hattan Treasury and all the merchant and banking houses

wisely ignored the circulation of minor amounts of

floaters, just as they ignored the petty small traders as

long as they made no trouble and their merchandise was

harmless. Tiria, and others like her, relied on floaters

to support their illegal existences in the Linears.

Linear G thrust thirty massive levels above the squat,

featureless F and H commercial blocks where residents

of Linears E, G, and I worked. Once, on a Free Day,

while Tiria still had her brother's ID, she had gone with

Mama Bobchik to the Great Palisades Promenade,

where thousands upon thousands of people had swarmed

to enjoy a brilliant spring day, to overlook the exclusive

hives, platforms, and great cone complexes of Manhat-

tan Island, and to ooh and aah at the monorail cars,

large and small, that zipped along the tracks which gar-

landed the buildings like colored tinsel strands. That

was the first time Tiria had seen ships floating on water

or the great pleasure skycars. There had even been a

special issue of holiday food, yards above the standard

fare, at dispensing banks. Buril, Mama's son, had a

tripper key that he used on the dispers, so they had

managed to stuff themselves before the mechanism's

malfunction alarm was triggered. It had been a super

Anne McCaffrey 7

day for Tiria. She had never dreamed that the world

was that big.

That was the same day that Buril explained to her all

about the space platform that was being built, which

needed so many workers. When it was completed, he

said, all the people living on Manhattan who had enough

credit and were the "right kind" would be able to go

off into space and find other worlds to live on. Then all

those beautiful buildings would be empty and there

would be enough space for everyone crammed into Lin-

ear squats to live in proper big apartments with a bed-

room for each family member and no more Public

Health or LEO men and women tying men and women

off, shaming a virile man.

This morning, as Tiria scratched on Mama Bobchik's

door to tell her of the PH presence in the Linear, she

heard the old woman gasping and groaning as she strug-

gled off the bedshelf.

"Kto stuchitsya? Perestan'te udaryat'sya. Okh, kak

bolit golova!"

Tiria grinned. So Mama had a big head this morning,

caused by the vodka she had made from the potatoes

Tiria had nicked for her. In that state, she would be

easy to wheedle out of a credit.

"It's Tiria, and the Public Health are already on the

Concourse."

"Boje moil Eto tak? Have I not enough pain in my

life?" But the door was pushed open wide enough for

Tiria to slip inside. "What have you said? The Public

Health again? So soon? Why?"

"Another vaccination by the looks of it. They're

grabbing everyone, able-bodies, students, bandies and

their mothers."

"Ah, we must hurry. Elpidia, Zaveta ..." Mama

Bobchik began reciting the names of her usual mater-

nity patients.

Tiria tugged her arm.

"Nu, what do you want from me?"

8 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

"I cannot help unless I have clean issue," Tiria said,

managing to look piteous and sound efficient at the same

time.

Buril had fixed the clothing-issue slot in his mother's

squat so that it could be coaxed to extrude more than it

ought. His taking ways had been very useful until Yas-

sim--Tiria made the warding sign at just the thought of

that man--had paid Mama a huge sum for him. Buril's

unusual talent for "fixing" official equipment made him

quite valuable--he had not gone the usual route of Yas-

sim's purchases, and Mama had been paid enough float-

ers to keep her comfortable in her old age.

Mama Bobchik blinked her reddened and bleary eyes

and looked at the tiny girl. "Da, that is so!" She patted

Tiria's head before she went to the clothing slot and did

something that her heavy frame obscured from the girl's

sight. When she turned back, she had a packet in her

hand.

"I washed this morning," Tiria said, immediately

unfastening and stepping out of the old suit. She had to

roll up the sleeves and legs of the fresh issue, but when

she had neatly folded each roll over wrist and ankle and

pressed the edges to seal them, sleeve and leg bloused

out nicely to give her apparel more style. She retied the

pretty braided rope belt that she had inherited from her

mother and tucked the excess material neatly back.

"Now, I'll tell Mirda Khan, do this level, and then up

and down. That'll be all I think I have time for. What'll

I do for an ID? They'll grab me if my wrist's bare."

What Tiria wanted most in her life was a genuine,

valid ID bracelet that would allow her a squat right, the

use of a tri-d, three meals a day, and a fresh weekly

issue of clothing. An ID that was all her own and had

never been anyone else's! One that would allow her into

the school programs that so few of the kids she knew

seemed to care about at all.

Now she cocked her head at Mama Bobchik, know-

ing perfectly well that an ID was essential when the

Anne McCaffrey 9

PHOs were swarming the Linear. Mama Bobchik pre-

tended to consider, giving Tiria just a few moments of

anxiety.

"Eto tak! For PHOs, we use one." With a flounce

of her skirts, for Mama would not wear the single-piece

coverall without proper skirts to conceal her limbs, she

turned her back on Tiria again. No matter how hard

Tiria listened, she could not tell where Mama secreted

those precious counterfeit IDs that Buril had also con-

trived. They were good for one day's use only--one

day, because while the band would be accepted by a

portable reader such as the PHO would have to record

vaccinations, it would show up as a fraud later, when

the day's entries were checked.

Mama-Bobchik turned around, dangling the precious

ID band. "You split the take for the warning with me.

As usual."

Tiria nodded solemn agreement to the terms, her eyes

watching the swing of the band.

"And if you can steal enough vaccine, I will give

you thirty percent of that take," Mama added.

Tiria gave an incredulous snort. "Sixty. I could get

caught stealing."

"Forty, then. No one has caught you yet. After all,

I gave you the ID at no cost to you and have the ex-

pense of the spray gun."

"Forty-five!"

The two hagglers eyed each other, and then Mama's

broad face beamed down at Tirla's unyielding expres-

sion. She spit in her palm and engulfed Tirla's delicate

hand in her own to seal the arrangement.

"You are a clever one. You must huny now."

The girl was already slipping through the half-opened

door and down the hall to spread the warning.

Despite her speed, Tiria barely finished her route be-

fore the PH officers began to penetrate the levels,

checking the IDs of each squat's occupants and herding

10 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

them out and down to line up for their hypospray. She

soon learned that the health threat was not a 'mune

plague but a virulent intestinal disease that had started

in Linear B with devastating results. All Linears were

being vaccinated in an attempt to stem the spread of the

ailment. The PH public-address system droned on con-

stantly giving a short explanation in all the languages

registered in Linear G; Tiria did some rapid translations

of her own when requested by nervous mothers.

"It's only another food contamination," she assured

the skeptical. "They've isolated the source, who have

been heavily fined and lost their license."

"Huh!" Mirda Khan said, her dark eyes glistening

with skepticism. "That will be gone as long as it takes

to send in enough credit to reissue it. How long will

the protection last us?"

"Oh, this one'll do us for a year!"

"A year? They are improving."

Trudging forward step by step in the long line, Tiria

and Mama Bobchik finally reached the PH, dropped

their wrists across the reader, and received their shots.

Immediately Mama pretended to become faint and stag-

gered against the table. While the PH woman was cop-

ing with that, Tiria swept an entire tray of the vaccine

ampoules into the shopping sack Mirda Khan had ready

as she, too, came to Mama's assistance.

"Okh, kak bolit golova!" Mama said in an appropri-

ately wispy tone, the back of her fat hand against her

head. The pain in her voice was not entirely faked,

considering the hangover headache.

"What's she saying?" the PH officer asked, hovering

between concern and annoyance.

"Her head hurts," Tiria replied.

"Not from this injection," was the callous response

of the PHer. "Now move along!"

Solicitously Mirda Khan and Tiria propped up Mama

Bobchik as she made her way slowly toward the nearest

Anne McCaffrey 11

side aisle. Once safely out of sight, Mama immediately

reached for Mirda's sack and peered inside it.

"One whole tray? Miraculous, Tiria, truly miracu-

lous. There are more than enough. Run ahead and tell

them to come in small groups. The PHOs have already

checked our three levels. It will be safe."

In the course of her errands, Tiria tried her ID brace-

let on as many public dispensers as she passed, no mat-

ter what commodity emerged from the slot. She tucked

each purloined item into the extra material at the back

of her coverall, or into a sleeve or a trouser leg. It

became harder to move quickly, but she managed. By

evening, she had enough small floaters and illegally ac-

quired items to keep her well fed and content for the

next month. If she stretched a bit, it might even be six

weeks before she need bother about working again.

Anne McCaffrey 13

CHAPTER 2

#t #$# There was no aura of menace or threat," Rhyssa

Owen told Sascha Roznine as he stood glaring down at

her. To reduce his threatening glower to a more pro-

ductive, thoughtful mood, she touched his arm, rein-

forcing her statement with a mental See? Curiosity. An

impingement, not a threat.

Sascha subsided, but he continued to glare at the

graph recording of Rhyssa's eariy-moming sleep pat-

tern, where the wide black mark of the spoke showed

that she had been roused from an REM dream sequence

to full alertness by a mental intruder.

As the director of the Center for Parapsychic Talents

on the North American East Coast, Rhyssa Owen lived

on what had been the Henner estate, a reserve of trees,

lawn, and mature gardens above the Hudson River on

the Palisades. This archaic remainder of the twentieth-

century residential suburbs interrupted the flow of Lin-

ear structures that housed the millions who lived and

worked in the massive Jerhattan complex. Rhyssa's

quarters were undistinguished from any of the other

three-story apartment blocks set among the gardens and

trees. As with all dwellings for the Talented, these were

secured and shielded from unannounced entry. In fact,

even those who tenanted the Linear constructions run-

ning on the long sides of the Center's extensive grounds

did not know of its existence, so artful were its screens.

No one should have been able to intrude on Rhyssa,

much less in her sleep.

12

"Awkward, rousing you so thoroughly. You need all

the rest you can get." Sascha projected a vision of him-

self and Rhyssa curled together in her bed, the double-

thick duvet tucked around their spooned bodies.

Yes, yes, Rhyssa replied. She responded with a vision

of a firm foot pushing the Sascha body out of the bed. But

even if you had been there physically, you couldn't've

helped, Sascha-bear. It was all in my mind, in my dreams.

And that's your duvet, not mine. I never use plaids.

Rhyssa smiled up at him, fluttering her eyelashes to

mock his projection. He raised his brows in resignation.

They both enjoyed this game. They had been playing it

for years.

Picky, picky. Don't avoid the issue, Sascha said.

"Who, I'd like to know, could knock in on your mind?

And why?"

"Indeed!" Rhyssa crossed her arms and stared off

into a view of the lowering clouds and dismal rain that

obscured a usually breathtaking view of Jerhattan.

That's what perplexes me.

Don't range, Streaky. Sending your mind out search-

ing for him takes too much out of you. You're going to

need all your energy to deal with the Zealots. He pro-

jected the vision of three persons with limbs so entan-

gled they resembled an Oriental fetish, each caricatured

face wearing an expression of mixed intransigence and

skepticism.

Oh, don't! She laughed as her return image untangled

arms and legs and set each person upright, a whisk-

broom smoothing tunic and trousers while emblems of

rank were straightened. I can't remember that when I

have to deal soberly with their urgent requests for Tal-

ents I don't have. They 're laughable enough as it is.

"Good. That's all they deserve. Shall I have Sirikit

check back and see when this phenomenon first regis-

tered?" Sheer impudence! Sascha snorted his annoy-

ance.

"That's an idea." Rhyssa smiled ruefully as she

14 PEGASUS IN FLIGHT

Anne McCaffrey

15

pulled clothes from drawer and closet. She continued to

talk as she dressed in the bathroom. "I only thought of

checking my graph this morning. I really do need my

sleep."

"Probably some emergent Talent who doesn't under-

stand protocol. I do wish they didn't always feel required

to overreact to their newfound mind-powers.''

"Damned strong one!" Maliciously, Rhyssa pro-

jected an image of a very young Madlyn Luvaro, mourn

wide open, and the circle of people cringing away from

the waves of sound emanating from her.

Sascha grimaced. Madlyn Luvaro had a mental shout

that could penetrate to the space station and any of its

peripheral dockyards. It had been Sascha's task, as he

was nominally in charge of Training and Development,

to teach her how to focus and moderate her mental

voice. Madlyn adored him passionately and was em-

barrassingly possessive of him, an adulation he was

finding increasingly difficult to discount--it was the rea-

son that he assiduously cultivated the notion that he and

Rhyssa were on the brink of a total partnership. Kindly,

Rhyssa did not disclaim the rumor.

Anne McCaffrey - Pegasus 2 - Pegasus in Flight

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