Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Reign of the Brown Magician

The daylight seemed brighter ahead-was that a clearing? Were the trees thinning?

He beckoned to the others, muttered, “Come on,” and picked up the pace.

* * * *

“I guess we won’t need the chopper,” Johnston said, staring at the rope ladder that hung from empty air, swaying in the breeze, its bottom rung bumping gently against the side of the spaceship that covered half of Amy Jewell’s back yard. He turned to one side for a moment and said, “There you go, Mr. Hitchcock-your way home. You get up there and tell them that we’re ready to talk, and that they don’t get their other men back until we do.”

Hitchcock nodded, smiling happily as he stepped forward. He already had his space suit on. “Will do, Major,” he said. He lifted his bubble helmet into place and began securing the seal.

“Major Johnston,” someone called.

Johnston turned to locate the speaker.

“Got a call for you.” The voice came from the back door of the house, where a lieutenant was leaning out, the receiver of Ms. Jewell’s phone in one hand.

Johnston blinked, then frowned. “This better be important,” he said.

“It’s Thorpe,” the lieutenant replied.

Hitchcock had his helmet in place; he gave Johnston a questioning look, and the major waved him on toward the ladder.

“I still say we should’ve suited up some of our own men and sent them along,” someone muttered.

Johnston shook his head as he started toward the house. “Too dangerous,” he said as he walked. “Could be construed as hostile. Trespassing. Invading. We don’t know how rough they play.” He took the receiver from the lieutenant. “Ms. Thorpe?” he said. “Johnston here.” He turned to watch as Hitchcock started up the ladder.

“Sir,” Prossie Thorpe’s voice said unsteadily, “I tried to talk to Carrie-to Registered Telepath Carolyn Hall. She contacted me.”

“Go on,” Johnston said. Hitchcock was moving quickly, but it was a long climb, a good hundred feet at least, probably more.

“She…she questioned me, but I…”

The Imperial telepath’s tone penetrated Johnston’s focus on Hitchcock’s ascent. He looked down at the kitchen floor, at the toes of his shoes, and concentrated on the voice in his ear.

“Take your time, Thorpe,” he said.

* * * *

Prossie drew a deep breath and tried to compose herself.

It shouldn’t hurt this much, she told herself. She had already known she was a rogue, an outlaw; she had already known that Carrie was turned against her.

Still, she hadn’t felt it until she had taken up direct mental contact with Carrie again.

Then she had felt it, all right-that tense loathing and anger, not just from Carrie, but through her from the entire network of telepaths, the entire extended family.

In fact, most of it came from the four hundred, not from Carrie-but then, Prossie knew that Carrie hardly had any real existence apart from the network. All her life she’d lived in the family’s web of thought and feeling, just the way Prossie had before Ruthless came through the warp.

And much of what the family felt they picked up from the normals around them, the non-telepaths. Carrie was working with John Bascombe and General Hart and people who hated and feared telepaths; it was easy for her to direct that fear and hatred at her traitor cousin.

Still, it was a shock to feel it.

And it was a shock to learn why it was so intense.

Bascombe had sent those men to Earth after her.

Carrie hadn’t meant to let that slip, but she had. She hadn’t meant to tell Prossie anything.

And Prossie hadn’t meant to tell Carrie as much as she had, either, but any time telepaths communicated directly there would be leakage, there would be things that slipped out. A telepath couldn’t completely hide anything without breaking contact.

Hell, even when there was no conscious contact, things tended to leak through; telepathy wasn’t limited to conscious thought. Anything one telepath knew, they all did, on some level-though they might not all remember it.

Prossie swallowed and gripped the phone, the strange Earthly gadget that was almost like a mechanical telepath, that could transmit voices for hundreds of miles.

“Major Johnston,” she said, “I found out what those men were sent after.”

“Yes?”

“They think…they suspect that you and your people have joined forces with Shadow, that you’re plotting together against the Empire, and that I came here as Shadow’s liaison. They came to capture or kill me, and to see whether such an alliance actually exists. I told Carrie that it doesn’t, and that Shadow is dead, and she should know I wasn’t lying, but I can’t be sure.”

For a moment Prossie heard nothing, and she wondered whether the phone had broken, or whether some part of its mysterious mechanical workings needed extra time to transmit this particular message, but then Johnston asked, “Can you relay to her for us?”

Prossie shook her head before she remembered that Johnston couldn’t see her.

“No,” she said. “She and I…we can’t communicate any shy;more.”

“Damn. You’re sure?”

Prossie took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

“Is there anyone else she can communicate with, then? Did they send any telepaths with that bunch we have locked up? And please, don’t tell me it’s Hitchcock, because he’s two-thirds of the way up the ladder out here.”

“No, sir. Not Hitchcock or any of the others, so far as I know-none of them are telepaths, and I don’t think any of them can receive.” Prossie blinked. “But there are some possibilities, sir-you know, we sort of made contact with some of your own people before Ruthless came through. There were six…no, five of them, because one died.”

She didn’t really listen to what Johnston said to her next, because she knew what it was going to be. She closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering.

“Their names…there are three men and a woman, and a little girl. The men are named Oram Blaisdell, and Carleton Miletti, and Ray Aldridge, and the woman is Gwenyth, I don’t know her last name, and the little girl’s name is Angela Thompson, I talked to her sometimes. I think Carrie’s brother Brian was the last one assigned to contact them…”

* * * *

Pel stared at the object in dismay as he wiped blood and bits of fat and skin from his hands. A thick, soapy smell filled the room.

The thing on the table was made of human flesh, or a reasonable approximation. It had the shape of a woman. He thought he could force it to live, if he wanted to.

But it wasn’t Nancy.

He had thought he remembered her every feature, every inch, every detail, but the thing he had created, had grown and gathered and shaped into a semblance of humanity, was not Nancy. The face was wrong. The proportions were wrong.

“I was never a sculptor,” he said, flinging down his washrag in disgust.

Behind him stood two fetches and three others; two of the others, the two wizards, stirred at his words.

“Your pardon, O Great One,” Athelstan said, looking quickly from Pel to the inanimate body and back, “but I see no flaw in this homunculus. Surely, it…”

“It’s not Nancy,” Pel shouted at him, wheeling to face the wizard. The air crackled with anger, and red light blazed from the walls; Boudicca backed away a step.

“Nay, ’tis not,” Athelstan admitted hurriedly, “nor did I say it might be. Yet you’ve created here a woman-is that not a fair start? To make so fine a semblance as you desire, one needs must have better to work from…”

“I don’t want a semblance,” Pel barked. “I want Nancy. And Rachel. My wife and daughter.”