Mute

  Except for being influenced by looking up a leg.

  Go! Knot sprang at the nearest trooper, using his trained combat technique to wrest the laser rifle from the man’s grasp. Simultaneously, the gross one exploded into action. Troopers were hurled away from him as he whirled and charged toward the truck.

  The troopers had expected action from Knot, not the blind max-mute. They concentrated on Knot. Two laser beams speared out, striking him in thigh and side. Agony exploded. Knot tried to continue fighting, but already someone was heaving a stun-bomb at him. It puffed into vapor under his nose, and suddenly he was in a kind of stasis.

  But Hermine was still in touch. She continued relaying Finesse’s sending.

  “News has just reached me,” Piebald said, “that a min-mute has been apprehended half a kilometer from these premises. I presume that is your anonymous assistant, the one we chased into the chasm enclave,” He looked at her face, watching for some reaction. She gave none. “He must have more psi than anonymity, to accomplish the escapes he did. I should think clairvoyance and telepathy are the least that would be required. I know of no case in which a single individual possessed three discrete psi-powers—but of course I do not have the Coordination Computer’s resources. If such a person was your assistant, what would your own psi be?”

  Still Finesse made no response.

  “I must admit that man has made a valiant effort to reach you, performing the amazing feat of escaping from the enclave. That had not been accomplished in twenty years, and we sealed off the avenue used then. But as it happens, we were ready for him. You will be glad to know that he will be the next subject for our program of evocation. Perhaps for him you will do what you seem unwilling to do for the child.”

  Something snapped in Finesse. It was as though a long-blocked conduit had been reamed out, and gas was rushing through at last. She looked at the snake pit—and suddenly the reviving reptiles hissed and recoiled, giving Klisty the widest possible berth. It was as though they had suddenly developed a terrible fear of her.

  Knot remembered again how the fighting cocks of Chicken Itza had abruptly become afraid of blood. Could this be—?

  “Marvelous!” Piebald breathed. “I believe that was indeed the key. It has manifested at last! CC must have programmed you to evoke it only when your friend was in direct peril that you could thus abate. He must be more than an assistant, for with the powers he evidently possesses he could have escaped the planet with news of our program. Instead he sought you out—and you evidently return his interest. What an excellent team the two of you make, he with his powers of escape and anonymity, you with—”

  Finesse turned her gaze on him, but Piebald was unperturbed. “You are fastened in your chair, my dear, and I am as I said no reptile. You can neither free yourself nor instill fear in me.”

  She concentrated—and suddenly he danced away from her. “Oh my lord!” he cried. “You can! Suddenly I am deathly afraid of you! What a rare psi talent that is, fully worth the effort I have made to evoke it!” His fear was tempered by his delight at his success, much as a breeder of a unique species of deadly viper might be when attacked by his hatchling.

  And Knot thought: Piebald had been right. Finesse was no normal, but a potent psi-mute. CC had made a team of them, together with the animals. His anonymity and her subtle attack capacity—both aspects of mind-affecting psi—complemented by the informational capacity of the two animals. A potent, well rounded, well-concealed unit of investigation.

  Yet he had asked Mit whether Finesse could in fact be a psi-mute, and Mit had denied it. How could the little crab have been mistaken? Or had Hermine lied?

  CC put a geis on him, Hermine thought. Mit could not reveal Finesse’s condition. Even I did not know. I never lied to you, angry man. I thought she was normal too.

  Knot had to accept that. It was the way CC worked, and this was part of the information the machine had concealed from him. Knot was indeed angry—but he also appreciated the infernal cleverness and misdirection of the computer.

  This team had done the job, discovering the nature of the threat to CC. But the fiendishly clever and ruthless lobo, a proper match for CC, had nullified them by using their own unity against them. Knot could and should have left the planet with his information; Finesse herself had urged that course on him, via her sendings to Hermine. But the same emotional attachment that unified the team had drawn him inexorably to Finesse even when the situation had changed, and finally made him captive to the lobos. CC had not realized that Knot would learn the truth about the lobos while separate from Finesse.

  Yet how had the lobos been so apt at countering him? Piebald, by his own admission, had not known Knot was escaping the enclave chasm, and he still did not know about Hermine and Mit. Was it mere luck—or was something else involved? This tied in with the unity and precision and discipline the lobos showed generally; they always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, as though governed by a sophisticated electronic network—which they did not use—or psi, which they did not have.

  Finesse concentrated again—and Piebald’s hand shied away from the door. “Now I am afraid of doors!” he cried, again with mixed delight. “Oh what a terror I have loosed this time! No verbal directives, no hypnosis, just a direct psi-line to my mind. Definitely a Class A talent! Can you make me fear anything?”

  “I believe I can,” Finesse said, feeling slightly giddy from the realization of her new power. All her life she had wanted psi, and suddenly she had it. “I suggest you free me from this chair, or I shall make you afraid of the floor you stand on.”

  “That I will not do, my dear. Once I free you, I have no remaining control over you.”

  She focused—and suddenly he was dancing, trying to get away from the floor. In a moment he had scrambled atop a cabinet, where he perched ludicrously. “Already we begin to define the limits,” he gasped. “Your talent is negative, not positive. You can drive me away from things, but you cannot drive me toward them. You can make me flee you, but not come to you to release you. I think we are at an impasse—and of course my men do control your boyfriend.”

  Finesse left him there and tried to act for herself. Her head and upper torso were free, with her arms locked to the armrests and her feet to the footrests. But the chair itself was not anchored. She hunched forward quickly—and when she jerked back, the chair slid a centimeter forward. She could move it! She repeated the action until she reached the control panel for the snake pit. Then she touched the communication button with her healing nose.

  “Klisty!” she called. “Can you hear me?”

  The little girl looked around. “Oh, Finesse, where are you? I’m so frightened!”

  “Don’t worry. The snakes are more frightened of you than you are of them. They will not touch you. In a moment I will free you; then you must come and free me.”

  “This has gone far enough,” Piebald said. “Security—”

  He stopped. She had made him afraid of the sound of his own speech.

  Finesse experimented with the buttons of the panel. First she turned the hot air off, then she stilled the moving floor, then she found the regular illumination system. Finally she located the door-release mechanism. The door opened, and the little girl stepped out unharmed, and mounted the catwalk to the main arena floor.

  Klisty came and hugged Finesse in the chair. “I was so scared. Not since my parents died—I thought I was going to be killed, same as Lydia and NFG.”

  “See if you can release me from this chair,” Finesse said. “Quickly, before lobo reinforcements come.”

  “Oh, sure. It’s just straps and things.” Klisty bent to it, her little hands tugging at fastenings.

  The picture faded out. Hermine had retreated beyond her broadcast range. Knot was alone, still stunned and helpless, suffering from his two wounds. His captors were not unkind to him, in fact they seemed to be normals, rather than lobos, despite what Piebald had intimated to Finesse. They restrained him befo
re the drug wore off, put medication on his wounds, and made him as comfortable as possible.

  There was a delay, however, while a new truck was requisitioned. It seemed the gross one had absconded with the first truck. Knot imagined how the eyeless mutant might drive it, with Hermine giving directives mentally and Mit anticipating hazards. The gross one had been resistive to psi communication, but had gotten to know Hermine and to trust her; he should be sufficiently receptive to her thoughts now. Knot hoped that impromptu team would fulfill its missions. Those might not relate directly to CC, but did relate to Knot’s sense of honor. He would lie and kill, it had turned out, to accomplish his designs; he would not deliberately renege on a commitment to a friend. Strella’s friend, and the gross one’s brother: they at least could benefit by this excursion, even if Knot’s primary mission failed.

  Before the normals’ truck arrived, a contingent of lobos came from the villa. “We shall take charge of the prisoner,” their leader announced.

  There was the confirmation: the lobos had not captured him. Normals had done it—and now the lobos wanted to derive the benefit. Knot made a mental note: always verify what Piebald said. It might be truth, half-truth or lie.

  The leader of the normals frowned. “This man stole and almost wrecked a private aircraft. What concern of yours is this?”

  “Our records show he sabotaged the solar generating plant we operate under planetary license. We have a warrant for his arrest.”

  The normal was polite, but it was evident he shared the Macho aversion to lobos. “Your warrant will be taken under advisement by the appropriate office,” he said. “We have this man in custody, and will process him according to protocol relating to non-native physical mutants who violate Macho laws. In a few days, when this is complete, we may under due process remand him to you.”

  “I regret we can’t wait for that,” the lobo said. His men’s laser rifles began to swing down. The normals reacted more swiftly. “Kindly desist, lobo,” the normals’ second in command said, pistol in hand. “This man is our responsibility, and we intend to see that he is processed properly and given medical attention.” Knot was reminded of the attitude of the farm hand, Batton, when confronting the lobo party at the fence post. Knot liked to feel he was without such prejudice, but after what Finesse’s sendings had shown of Piebald, Knot disliked lobos too. He might deplore the mutilation they had been subjected to, but still did not want to associate himself with them, and certainly did not want to become a lobo himself. He felt much easier in the company of birth-mutants such as those of the enclaves: his type of people.

  The lobo leader was grim. “There may be a political shift soon,” he said meaningfully.

  “Well, you be sure to let us know when it comes,” the normal said. “We should be through with this man by then.”

  The truck arrived. Men debouched—and they were lobos. Suddenly control had shifted.

  “Thank you for holding this man for us,” the lobo leader said as the rifles of his new men covered the normals. “We really appreciate such interforce cooperation.” He scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “Here is a receipt for him. You will be welcome to present it when you make your application for extradition through channels.”

  Knot did not like this. He knew what the lobos had in mind for him. They would lobotomize him, removing his psi power—and his knowledge of their plot against CC—and make him one of them. Like fabled vampires, converting their victims to their own kind. He would much prefer to be in the hands of the normals. But it seemed he had no choice. Extradition? It was a mockery.

  They loaded him onto the truck and drove toward the volcano. A panel opened in the igneous face of its base, and they drove into a lighted tunnel. Deep in the mountain they debouched, and carried Knot on a litter to an elevator. It rose a considerable distance, smoothly.

  What was this place? More than a villa, certainly. This was a considerable lobo stronghold, honeycombing the cone of the volcano, probably drawing power from what fading subterranean fires remained. Perhaps this was the center of the lobo operations on this planet, with the villa being only the visible tip of the berg. Innocent-seeming camouflage. CC should be really interested in this—if CC could get the report.

  At the moment, this seemed unlikely. Knot should have gotten his report to CC first, instead of foolishly trying his rescue. Perhaps by this time there would have been a far more formidable rescue operation. In trying to be a hero, he had placed his whole mission in peril. Why hadn’t he been able to see that before fouling things up?

  The elevator stopped. They emerged into the villa.

  Finesse stood there, poised and lovely. “Thank you, men,” she said coolly. “Please store your rifles and enter that cell.” She indicated a barred chamber where a number of other lobos stood. They were evidently prisoners.

  “Take her!” the lobo leader cried.

  The lobos started toward Finesse. Suddenly all of them hurled their rifles down and retreated with exclamations of dismay. “I have given them a fear of weapons,” Finesse said to Knot. “How are you?”

  “I’m afraid I need hospitalization,” Knot said. With this abrupt rescue, he relaxed—and his injuries became overwhelming.

  “We’ll see that you get it.” She looked at the disarmed lobos. “Now move into that cell!”

  They hesitated. There were many of them, and only one of her. Then they seemed to become afraid of the open apace outside the cell, and crowded into it.

  Piebald had been wrong about Finesse’s lack of positive control; she could force people into the desired actions by making all alternatives frightening. There seemed to be no limit to the number of phobias she could induce simultaneously, or to the number of people she could handle. What a psi talent!

  She closed the gate behind the lobos and locked it in place. Now at last she too could relax. “Oh, Knot, I was so worried! I couldn’t remember when I’d seen you last, but I knew I must have sent you back for Hermine and Mit. Then I was picked up, and—” She touched her nose, which was still somewhat swollen. “That awful beast of a man! Did Hermine receive my thoughts?”

  “She did,” Knot said. “She guided me.”

  “Hermine!” she exclaimed. “Where—?”

  “On a mission outside. She’s all right. I had a hard time getting here, and we decided that I alone would risk entry.”

  Finesse smiled, looking down at him as he lay on the pallet. “You surely did. But all’s well now, or it will be, once I ransack the lobos’ files and get you to competent medical care. Klisty’s getting her things organized now. You don’t know her; she’s a little girl.”

  “Hermine told me about her. Dowsing.”

  Finesse sobered. “One thing that monster turned out to be right about. I am not a normal after all. I am a psi mutant, like you. I did not know it myself. Obviously CC knew.”

  “I should have guessed. You made me afraid to leave, when I first interviewed CC, and you stopped those chickens from shedding more blood.”

  “That was unconscious. No one knew—” Her brow furrowed “Mit! He should have known!”

  “CC put a block on him, preventing him from telling,” Knot said. “So that no one could betray the secret prematurely. Until we were in the heart of the enemy camp, and needed your psi to escape. CC is ruthlessly disciplined about such things. And CC was right; I was questioned under drug, and did not give away any secrets, since I did not know them.” He paused, thinking of another secret. “One other thing CC blotted from your memory—”

  She kneeled beside him. “Oh, Knot—does it make a difference?”

  “Of course it does!” he exclaimed. How could he steal a married woman from her family? “You—”

  There were tears in her eyes. “I hardly remember our most recent contacts, but I think I love you, Knot. If you don’t—”

  “You can’t love me! You have a—”

  “I know you wanted a normal.”

  In the midst of telling her abou
t her husband, Knot found he could not. She thought it was her psi that balked him. Knot knew he had no right to let her remain deceived—yet he wanted her so much, he had to let the lie stand. “I—feel the same,” he said. “I love you too.” That much was no lie.

  “Even though I’m not normal?”

  “Let me find out. Kiss me.”

  She kissed him. He felt transported, as though he had just sipped milk-of-paradise. He seemed to rotate on his pallet, end over end as the two of them had in her dream of love. His body tingled as if recovering from stun—which it was.

  Knot moved his lips as though savoring fine wine, “I think I’m afraid of kisses,” he said.

  She raised her small normal fist as if to strike him, then dissolved into weak laughter. “You beast! Come on—we’ll close down this place and co-opt a truck.”

  “I think not,” Piebald’s voice came from a speaker.

  Finesse concentrated visibly, but the lobo only laughed “I believe I am now beyond your range, psi-girl. I felt only the mildest apprehension just then, no real fear. You have fallen into a common trap for the novice, failing to ascertain the limits of your power. When you left me, your effect on me faded and then abated entirely—and I think you shall not again get within range of me until I am ready for you.”

  There was the noise of doors slamming, all over the villa. “I have now secured the premises. You are confined to the region you are in. I have a master key that will allow me to pass freely between chambers, but you are not so fortunate. It is true you have a good many of my men in your power—but these are expendable. You, my dear, are the crucial one—now that we have uncovered your talent. Shall we negotiate?”

  Knot made a signal to Finesse. She silenced the prisoners as she had done before with Piebald, so that they could not yell warning. Then she dragged Knot on his pallet to the elevator door. It was closed, just as the others were, and locked, but it represented access to a far larger portion of the establishment than any other door did.

  Knot’s wounds were weakening him, despite his effort to hold on. He had lost some blood, and could be bleeding internally, though probably most of the effect was from shock: the body’s own withdrawal of blood from circulation. Laser wounds were normally clean, self-cauterized, with bleeding minimized, but holes in large muscles or gut were serious. “Tools,” he murmured. “I know how to short—”