Robert Silverberg - Hidden Talent

The spaceport on Mondarran IV was a small one, as might be expected on the sort of fifth-rate backwater world it was. Rygor Davison picked up his lone suitcase at the baggage depot and struck out into the dry, windy heat of mid-afternoon. The sun—G-type, hot—was high overhead, and a dusty brown dirt road ran crookedly away from the rudimentary spaceport toward a small gray village about a thousand meters away.

There was no one on hand to greet him. Not an impressive welcome, he thought, and began to walk down the dirt road toward the village which would be his home for the next five years—if he survived.

After he had gone half a dozen steps, he heard someone behind him, turned, and saw a small boy, heavily tanned, come trotting down the road. He was about eleven, and clad in a pair of golden swim trunks and nothing else. He seemed to be in a hurry.

“Whoa, youngster!” Davison called.

The boy looked up questioningly, slowed, and stopped, panting slightly. “Just get here? I saw the ship come down!”

Davison grinned. “Just got here. What’s the hurry?”

“Witch,” the boy gasped. “They’re giving him the business this afternoon. I don’t want to miss it. Come on—hurry along.”

Davison stiffened. “What’s going to happen, boy?”

“They’re roasting a witch,” the boy said, speaking very clearly, as one would to an idiot or an extremely young child. “Hurry along, if you want to get there on time—but don’t make me miss it.”

Davison hefted his suitcase and began to stride rapidly alongside the boy, who urged him impatiently on. Clouds of dust rose from the road and swirled around them.

A witch-burning, eh? He shuddered despite himself, and wondered if the Esper Guild had sent him to his death.

The Guild of Espers operated quietly but efficiently. They had found Davison, had trained him, had developed his enormous potential of telekinetic power. And they had sent him to the outworlds to learn how not to use it.

It had been Lloyd Kechnie, Davison’s guide, who explained it to him. Kechnie was a wiry, brighteyed man with a hawk’s nose and a gorilla’s eyebrows. He had worked with Davison for eight years.

“You’re a damned fine telekinetic,” Kechnie told him. “The guild can’t do anything more for you. And in just a few years, you’ll be ready for a full discharge.”

“Few years? But I thought—”

“You’re the best tk I’ve seen,” said Kechnie. “You’re so good that by now it’s second nature for you to use your power. You don’t know how to hide it. Someday you’ll regret that. You haven’t learned restraint.” Kechnie leaned forward over his desk. “Ry, we’ve decided to let you sink or swim—and you’re not the first we’ve done this to. We’re going to send you to a psiless world—one where the powers haven’t been developed. You’ll be forced to hide your psi, or else be stoned for witchcraft or some such thing.”

“Can’t I stay on Earth and learn?” Davison asked hopefully.

“Uh-uh. It’s too easy to get by here. In the outworlds, you’ll face an all-or-nothing situation. That’s where you’re going.”

Davison had gone on the next ship. And now, on Mondarran IV, he was going to learn—or else.

“Where you come from?” the boy asked, after a few minutes of silence. “You goin’ to be a colonist here?”

“For a while,” Davison said. “I’m from Dariak III.” He didn’t want to give any hint of his Earth background. Dariak III was a known psiless world. It might mean his life if they suspected he was an esper.

“Dariak III?” the boy said. “Nice world?”

“Not very,” Davison said. “Rains a lot.”

Suddenly a flash of brilliant fire burst out over the village ahead, illuminating the afternoon sky like a bolt of low-mounting lightning.

“Oh, damn,” the boy said disgustedly. “There’s the flare. I missed the show after all. I guess I should have started out earlier.”

“Too late, eh?” Davison felt more than a little relieved. He licked dry lips. “Guess we missed all the fun.”

“It’s real exciting,” the boy said enthusiastically. “Especially when they’re good witches, and play tricks before we can bum ’em. You should see some of the things they do, once we’ve got ’em pinned to the stake.”

I can imagine, Davison thought grimly. He said nothing.

They continued walking, moving at a slower pace now, and the village grew closer. He could pick out the nearer buildings fairly clearly, and was able to discern people moving around in the streets. Overhead, the sun pelted down hard.

A shambling, ragged figure appeared and came toward them as they headed down the final twist in the road. “Hello, Dumb Joe,” the boy said cheerily, as the figure approached.

The newcomer grunted a monosyllable and kept moving. He was tall and gaunt-looking, with a grubby growth of beard, open-seamed moccasins, and a battered leather shirt. He paused as he passed Davison, looked closely into his face, and smiled, revealing yellow-stained teeth.

“Got a spare copper, friend?” Dumb Joe asked in a deep, rumbling voice. “Somethin’ for a poor man?”

Davison fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small coin. The boy glared at him disapprovingly, but he dropped the coin into the waiting palm of the panhandler.

“Best of luck, mister,” the beggar said, and shuffled away. After a few steps he turned and said, “Too bad you missed the roasting, mister. It was real good.”

They proceeded on into the town. Davison saw that it consisted of a sprawling group of two-story shacks, prefabs, apparently, strung loosely around a central plaza—in the heart of which, Davison noticed, was a sturdy steel post with something unpleasant smouldering at its base. He shuddered, and looked away.

“What’s the matter, mister?” the boy asked derisively. “Don’t they roast witches on Dariak III?”

“Not very often,” Davison said. He found that his fingers were trembling, and he struggled to regain control over them.

He thought of Kechnie, comfortably back on Earth. While he was out here, on a fly-plagued dust hole of a world, doomed to spend the next five years in a two-bit village twiddling his thumbs. It was like a prison sentence.

No—worse. In prison, you don’t have any worries. You just go through your daily rock-crumbling, and they give you three meals and a place, of sorts, to sleep. No agonies.

Here it was different. Davison barely repressed a curse. He’d have to be on constant lookout, supressing his psi, hiding his power—or he’d wind up shackled to that steel gibbet in the central plaza, providing a morning’s entertainment for the villagers before he went up in flames.

Then he grinned. Kechnie knows what he’s doing, he admitted despite himself. If I survive this, I’ll be fit for anything they can throw at me .

He squared his shoulders, fixed a broad grin on his face, and headed forward into the town.

A tall man with a weather-creased face the color of curdled turpentine came toward him, loping amiably.

“Hello, stranger. My name’s Domarke—I’m the Mayor. You new down here?”

Davison nodded. “Just put down from Dariak III. Thought I’d try my luck here.”

“Glad to have you, friend,” Domarke said pleasantly. “Too bad you missed our little show. You probably saw the flare from the spaceport.”

“Sorry I missed it too,” Davison forced himself to say. “You have much trouble with witches down here?”

Domarke’s face darkened. “A little,” he said. “Not much. Every once in a while, there’s a guy who pulls off some kind of fancy stunt. We’ve been pretty quick to send them to their Master the second we spot them. We don’t want none of that kind here, brother.”