Fred Saberhagen - The Golden People

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2024-12-23 0 0 454.93KB 208 页 5.9玖币
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The Golden People
by Fred Saberhagen
PART ONE
Chapter One
Fourteen-year-old Ray Kedro was backed up against one of the
mural-painted walls in the Middle Boys' recreation yard doing
what he could to defend himself, when twelve-year-old Adam
Mann first saw him. Adam glanced up from the electronic pages
of Space Force Adventures, and watched for a few moments
with a playground veteran's indifference. Then he realized that
the six kids facing Ray had more in mind than the routine
taunting and roughing that they were likely to hand out to any
newcomer. This time some of the guys were really hot about
something.
Most of the angry bunch were a year or two older than Adam,
and all but one of them were taller. But he was widely respected
on this territory. He folded the comic book, the electronic
pictures on the thin plastic pages darkening into lifeless-ness as
he did so, and stuffed it into his pocket. Moving in the slightly
swaggering gait that he had recently developed to what he
considered near-perfection, he walked toward the group.
"What goes on?" Adam demanded. He had dark eyes that were
often, as now, belligerent, medium brown hair with a slight curl
in it, and a nose that had not been broken—not yet at least—but
looked as if it might have been.
"He's a snooper." Big tough Pete swung out a long arm and
slapped the new kid again. "He can read your mind. He's gonna
be singin' for the bosses here—"
"I'm not!" The new kid was tall for the age-group of this yard,
but thin, with incongruously good clothes that were dusty and
rumpled now from his being pushed around. Mussed blond hair
fell over blue eyes that looked scared but still didn't blink at
being slapped. He had a handsome face, almost delicate, and
bleeding now a little along one cheekbone and from the nose. But
he didn't look to Adam like a sissy, only like a guy who couldn't
understand what it was all about.
"He made them dice move!" another guy standing beside Big
Pete put in. The tone made it a deadly accusation.
"You wanted me to play with dice!" the new kid shouted back
at them. To Adam he still looked more angry than afraid. "I had
to show you first what I can do. If I play dice with you, you'll have
to trust me—"
"Play dice, play dice!" Pete mimicked, in a changing, cracking
voice. Whenever Pete's voice betrayed him in that way, making
him sound funny, he got mad, and now it made him madder
than ever. "You goddam fairy!"
The guys were all yelling now, and waving fists. Adam was
suddenly scared, in a cold, clear way. Not so much afraid of
getting hurt, but that these guys he knew could get so wild over
something like this. Some stupid nonsense that didn't matter. It
didn't sound like the new guy had really done them any harm.
Adam was beginning to understand, vaguely, or he thought he
was. There were, there had always been, a few people in the
world who could move dice in more subtle ways than with their
fingers, move dice or other small objects using their minds alone.
The same people, or others with unusual mental powers, could
perform other tricks, equally unsettling. Parapsych talents, the
books in the Home library called such abilities. Up until only a
few years ago hardly any scientists had believed that such things
existed. And Adam had never to his knowledge met any of the
rare folk who were so gifted.
The little mob was surging forward, bent on destruction. On
impulse, Adam shoved his own strong and stocky body in front of
the new kid, and knocked down big Pete's upraised arm. "Let 'im
alone!"
Big Pete halted, gaping. "Why?"
"Because I say so!"
Pete gave an angry grunt, and swung. Adam's reflexes and
timing were already superb; his head moved safely out of harm's
way, and his own right fist was already in a good position to hit
back. He got enough weight behind his counterpunch to flatten
Big Pete's nose.
Furious and clumsy, the little mob closed in on Adam and the
new kid. Something hit Adam, hard, on the side of his head. In a
daze, he found himself flat on his back on the playground's
genegineered grass, looking up at a ring of faces filled with hate
and excitement. In a way, though he knew better, it seemed to
Adam that they were all playacting, they couldn't be serious
about this great stupidity they were engaged in. A part of his
mind kept wanting to laugh at the foolishness of it all, even while
he kicked and struck up at the lowering faces, and feet kicked
back at him.
Then the recreation yard monitors came, running and
shouting threats, from wherever they had been goofing off. They
were older teenagers, full of strength and energy once they got
started, and they arrived just in time to break up the fight before
anyone was killed or crippled.
Half an hour later, sitting on a cot in the infirmary, waiting to
get his lumps patched up, Adam listened with some satisfaction
to the moans and curses coming from the next cubicle. That was
where they were working on Big Pete, and from the snatches of
the medics' talk that Adam could hear, it sounded like maybe
Pete's nose was really broken.
Beside Adam sat the new kid, holding a coldpack to his head.
His battered and dirty face was still handsome, but an empty,
stunned look occupied it now. He was quivering faintly.
Adam asked him: "What's your name, guy?"
"Ray Kedro." The kid pulled in a deep breath, that helped him
regain a measure of steadiness. He looked at Adam. "You may
have saved my life today—I won't forget it." He tested a loose
tooth gingerly with his fingers. "You're name's Adam? I hope this
doesn't mean a lot more trouble for you."
Adam tried to laugh with a split lip. "Hey, they won't do much
to us for fighting. Long as nobody got killed. Some extra duty
probably is all. I was about due to hang one on Pete anyhow.
Hey, was all that true, about you being a parapsych?" It was the
first time Adam had ever tried to pronounce that fancy word,
but he felt pretty sure that he had it right.
Ray hesitated, looking at him closely, then nodded. "I
have—some of those—talents."
"Dice?"
"I could if I tried, I suppose."
"What about reading minds?"
The other shook his head. "You just don't reach into someone
else's thoughts, for no good reason. It'd be like… well, like doing
the dirtiest thing you can imagine. I mean, I wouldn't like it any
more than the person I was reading would."
"Huh." When Adam heard it put that way, it sounded more
intriguing and at the same time more repulsive than before.
As if encouraged by Adam's reaction, or lack of one, Ray went
on: "Maybe you can do it, but you don't. Of course if the other
person wants you to get into their mind, and tells you so, that's
different."
"Huh." Adam considered. "Hey, you know, I read somewhere
once that any parapsych who could move dice with his mind
could kill people too, just as easy. You know, just grab a little
valve or something in their heart—"
"No." Ray's voice was flat and certain. "The talents don't work
like that, they won't kill."
"They won't, huh?"
"They never have. There've been people who have tried it, but
they just make themselves sick. Oh, someone might find a way to
do it someday. Someone who was evil enough and worked at it.
There are a few very rare cases—but those are spontaneous
combustion—" The blond boy broke off, smiling suddenly,
wincing as he did. "If I had any kind of a knockout punch, I'd
have used it out there today."
"Hey, yeah, I guess."
Adam's prediction about the degree and type of punishment
for fighting in the recreation yard was proven accurate. All those
who had been involved in the playground brawl were given extra
work, beginning the next day after school.
Assigned to work together, using ,a sonic machine to clean the
walls and floor of a long corridor tiled in white and green, Adam
and Ray talked again.
Adam asked his new acquaintance: "You know anyone else
who's a parapsych?"
"Yes. Ninety-nine of them, to be exact."
"Ninety-nine!"
Ray paused thoughtfully. "Ever hear of a doctor, a medical
researcher, named Emiliano Nowell?"
Adam tried to remember the name. He looked through daily
news printouts sometimes, on days when he didn't use up all his
reading time on library books and adventure comics. And he
read news magazines when he could find them. "Emiliano
Nowell. Isn't he the guy who bought out an old Space Force
installation way out on Ganymede, and set up a place there to do
research? Why'd he go way out there?"
"He wanted privacy. Not to be bothered."
Adam could understand that. "And he was raising kids there
out of bottles, until the government found out about it, and…
Hey. Are you—"
Ray was mechanically guiding the cleaning machine along, not
really looking where it was going, but not looking at Adam
either. "Yes, I'm one of his kids. The law took us all away from
him and
Regina—that's his wife—and split us up, put us all in different
Homes while they try to figure out what to do with us next. We
can still touch minds with each other, now and then."
"You were raised way out on Ganymede? Wow."
"Not for very long. We were all brought to Earth about ten
years ago. Doc owns quite a bit of real estate here too."
Adam was fascinated. He stared at Ray. "You look—human,
like everyone else."
In the blue eyes deep pain was visible for just a moment. "We
came from human seed, from human cells."
"Then what's the difference? I mean…" Adam was confused.
Somehow he would have expected anyone he met with parapsych
talents experts to be around three meters tall, and look like
either the hero or the villain of a hologram thriller. Of course if
he thought about it, that was crazy.
Adam was still curious, but he didn't know what to say now.
He realized that he had just given offense by implying that Ray
might not be human, and he was trying not to do so again.
Ray asked him: "Do you know what genes are?"
"No. Oh, wait, maybe…"
"They're little parts in the center of a living cell. Of all the
human cells that make up your body. They decide everything you
inherit from your parents: the way you look, your potential
intelligence, and your parapsych potential too. What Doctor
Nowell did was find a way to make forcefield manipulators small
enough and controllable enough to use them to work on genes
directly. Get right in and move the molecules and even the parts
of molecules around. He experimented first on animal cells, and
then on human. When he thought he had the technique
perfected, he rebuilt a hundred fertilized human egg cells. And
then he stopped."
"Why?"
"He says he wants to wait a quarter of a century, to see how
his first batch turns out—that's us— before he does any more.
Meanwhile he's keeping his techniques a secret, and some people
are unhappy about that."
"Then you're what they call Jovians, in the news sometimes."
"That's right."
"He rebuilt you to be perfect, huh? You don't sound too happy
about it."
"I wouldn't say perfect… I don't think Doc tried for that. What
does perfect mean? Anyway, if we were, I don't think the world
would like it. Whatever he tried for, Adam, we're very lucky. A lot
of people are still born crippled."
Adam was silent for a while, working away with the cleaning
nozzle, attacking stubborn stains on battered tile. This new kid
Ray gave him a lot to think about. Ray talked with fancy words
and a kind of accent that Adam supposed meant he had been
brought up a long way from public Homes. But that way of
talking sounded natural, for him.
Ray too was silent, as if he were thinking something out. Then
he suddenly spoke up again. "Look, Adam, if things go right, the
way I think they will, and I get out of here pretty soon… how'd
you like to come to Doc's place for a visit?"
Adam almost dropped the cleaning nozzle. "You mean to
Ganymede?" For Adam at twelve the Space Force and its
activities were a holy cause; but space travel of any kind seemed
to exist only in an alternate universe from the one he really lived
in, something to be glimpsed only in stories and dreams.
Ray smiled. "No, no, none of us have been out there for years. I
meant come to Doc's place here on Earth. That's where we've
been living most of our lives. It's mostly one huge building, a
little like an expensive boarding school. There are legal reasons
why Doc doesn't want anyone but his own kids to live there
permanently, but you'd be a welcome visitor."
"Gee, I'd like to see it. You sound like you're sure he's going to
win all this court stuff and get you kids back with him again."
Ray's smile broadened. "I know him pretty well."
Chapter Two
The windows of the big laboratory room were wide, and open,
and unbarred, and they framed Virginia mountains blue with
distance. The giant chair in the middle of the room looked quite
a bit like one that Adam had seen, and occasionally occupied, in
the Home's infirmary. In that chair at the Home all the kids were
tested once a year, and those with suspected brain damage
sometimes received treatment. It, like everything else at the
Home, looked worn and scrubbed, while this chair, like all the
other equipment here in Doc Emiliano Nowell's laboratory,
looked modern and expensive.
There were other and still more drastic differences between
the two establishments. Here, the unbarred windows looked out
from every room, onto what seemed to Adam like kilometers of
green trees and grass and gardens. It was hard to believe that
one man owned it all, even though Ray and the other kids had
assured Adam that the boundary of the estate fell short of
including those blue distant mountains.
At the moment Adam was sitting in the giant chair himself,
trying to get comfortable under a huge metal helmet that had
been let gently down until the probes it carried inside it sank
through his brown hair, just to the point where they began to
tickle his scalp.
"Doc, can I ask you something?" he wondered aloud, a little
timidly.
"Sure. As long as I don't have to guarantee an answer."
Doc—everyone around the place, children, servants, lab
technicians, seemed to call him that— was a tall, lean, graying
man, presently wearing a laboratory coat. He was seated halfway
across the large room, in front of the psych-chair's control panel.
He had, with Adam's ready permission, begun to put the young
visitor through a series of physical and mental tests. Doc wanted
to do this, as he had said, just out of curiosity. The two were
alone, for the moment, in the lab.
Adam hesitated once more, then put his question: "About how
much money have you got?"
Doc Nowell had a contagious laugh. "I thought you might be
getting worried about the machine. Or wondering what position
emission tomography meant." A little earlier, Adam had been
reading those words aloud, from the equipment used in the last
test. "How much money, huh? Well, Adam, let's just say that I'm
too rich to be pushed around in court. My wealth is sufficient for
my purposes. Which makes me a rarity among scientists… or
among human beings in general, I suppose."
"That's neat, Doc."
"Yes, it is." Watching the panel in front of him, Doc paused to
make a note on paper. "Oh, I haven't earned my money from
society by probing for the secrets of life. No. It's mine by
inheritance. Candy and chewing gum, mostly, a couple of
generations back."
Halfway down one of the room's long walls, a door slid open,
and a girl entered the laboratory. Merit Creston was a year
younger than Adam, which made her by about three years the
baby of Doc's hundred genengineered children. The ages of most
of the others were clustered closely together, and ranged up to
seventeen. Adam was, at least by strict chronology, a visiting
child among adolescents. But he, who had come as an infant to
the public Home, could scarcely remember ever thinking of
himself as a child. His teen-age hosts had obviously enjoyed a
vastly different upbringing than his, and they impressed him as
being mentally more grown-up than any group of adults he had
ever encountered. Still, they were all so good at saying and doing
the right thing that the visiting twelve-year-old rarely felt out of
place.
Merit stood there in the doorway of the psych lab, wearing
white shorts and a white blouse and a kind of footgear that
Adam had learned were called tennis sandals. Merit's slender
figure was developing already. Her face, in Adam's opinion,
was—well, beautiful. And her hair had a kind of glint in it that
made it really unlike the color of any other girl's hair that Adam
had ever seen…
He knew that in a year or so he would start wanting girls in a
physical way, like the older guys at the Home. What he felt about
Merit now wasn't really that. It was something more—or maybe
something less, Adam didn't know which. All he knew for sure
was that he felt something powerful, and felt confused and
strange whenever he tried to think about it.
Eleven-year-old Merit greeted him now with a giggle. "Hi, Ad.
You look like you're getting your hair set."
Adam grunted. The problem was that he wanted desperately
to say something witty, to show he didn't mind if she teased him
a little, but he could think of no words at all. Suddenly he
remembered there were a hundred telepaths, or at least potential
telepaths, within a few hundred meters of him. Now he could feel
his face getting warm. Why in hell did she have to stand there
giggling at him—
"I think you'd better leave, young lady," said Doc, raising his
head from his control panel. "You're a disturbing influence just
now."
"All right, Grouchy Doc," said Merit. She spoke as if humoring
some elderly and harmless relative— but she didn't argue. "Call
me if he's mean to you, Adam." She winked at the boy in the
chair, and gracefully closed the door behind her.
摘要：

ScannedbyGarth-Aut—ProofedbyHighrollerfor#bookzTheGoldenPeoplebyFredSaberhagenPARTONEChapterOneFourteen-year-oldRayKedrowasbackedupagainstoneofthemural-paintedwallsintheMiddleBoys'recreationyarddoingwhathecouldtodefendhimself,whentwelve-year-oldAdamMannfirstsawhim.Adamglancedupfromtheelectronicpages...

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