Hot Sleep: The Worthing Chronicle

1

JAS WORTHING was being kept alive by State Paper FN3xxR5a, and he knew it. He didn't need an assistant professor of education to tell him that. But once Hartman Tork had begun a lecture, he was unstoppable.

"There's no way, Jas Worthing, that you could have made a perfect score on that test. The information is classified, it was only bumped onto the computers by a mistake in the program —"

"Your mistake," Jas pointed out.

"Maybe not a mistake at all," Tork said, his face turning red with anger. "Maybe we've found out something about you that we desperately wanted to know. You couldn't possibly have copied off anyone else's paper —"

"Are you accusing me of cheating? Because the juvenile code requires a proper hearing and substantiating evidence —"

Tork whirled around on his swivel stool and stood up. He walked around the glowing teacherboard until he stood only a meter or less away from Jas. Again, as a hundred times before, Jas felt the vertigo of childhood, realizing that everything is up, that only when he tumbled into the future would he be as large as those who manipulated him today — or tried to, anyway.

"I've had enough," Tork said, softly, trying to be menacing; and though Jas knew that the menace was a facade worn to intimidate the small and weak, he also knew that behind the facade the threat was very, very real. "I've had enough of your cocky smartass self–assurance. Now you're going to take that test over again."

And in spite of himself Jas was trembling, though he kept the quaver out of his voice. "Unless you can prove malfeasance —"

"I know the juvenile code, Jas. And I don't have to prove malfeasance if I can prove something else."

His look of triumph was disconcerting. Jas gripped the sides of the nearest console. "I didn't cheat, Mr. Tork, and unless you have a witness —"

"The law, boy, is a lot more open when it comes to the question of the Swipe." Tork pounded his finger on the teacherboard for emphasis.

"Are you calling me a Swipe, Mr. Tork?" Jas asked. This time the quaver came into his voice.

"That's slander, Mr. Tork, unless you can prove —"

"I'm working on that, boy. Now get out."

Jas got out. But at the door he heard Tork call after him, "You got those answers out of my head and I'm going to prove it! You passed that test by picking my brains!"

Jas turned around and said, "Assistant professor Tork, no one in his right mind, given a choice, would pick your brains." Tork didn't answer, just smiled savagely. But Jas felt a little better for having said it.

He was shaking and weak all the way home.

His mother met him at the door of their flat. "What happened?" she asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice, as if it couldn't be read on her face.

"Tork yelled a lot."

"What about the proof? Did you have the proof?"

"Your bloodiest came out okay, mom." Jas sat down on the bed that doubled as a sofa in the living room. "Sorry you had to get jabbed."

His mother sat next to him and took his hand. Her palms were clammy. "I was so afraid. They were so sure."

"I guess they can't cope with somebody outsmarting their stupid tests." Jas lay back on the bed and breathed deeply, "I need to rest, mom," he said. His mother nodded and got up and went to the kitchen–dining–bathroom to ring up dinner.

Jas lay on the bed, his heart still pounding. He had been stupid, not to realize that they'd know. But it had been so easy — the test in front of him, and then just by looking at Tork the answers so clear, sitting right behind Tork's eyes. It was as if for a moment Jas had forgotten that telepathy was a capital crime. In fact, of course, he hadn't really realized, not for sure, that what was happening was telepathy. It had grown so gradually, his gift — beginning when he turned twelve — fleeting glimpses at random of what people thought, what they felt. And then in the room last week, just as a child might discover a new muscle that let him wiggle his ears or twitch his scalp, Jas had realized he could control it. Not just random glimpses, but a deep, hard, long look into their minds.

The Swipe? Swipes were monsters, Swipes were planet–wreckers, Swipes weren't kids in" schoolrooms taking calculus tests.

He stared at the picture of his father on the ceiling. The tiling had been there since their last authorized remodeling, when Jas was seven, and he had instantly seen the picture. That squiggle was the nose; the dark space his eye; the lips the gentle curves just below. It was a benign face, kind if monstrous, trustworthy if incredible. How had he decided that it was his father? Jas knew. After all, he had seen no other picture.

He wanted the face to smile, but it always just smirked, as if just about to laugh, or as if it had just tired of laughter. Or as if it knew that a meal was coming. Jas shuddered.

And as he did his mind gave his body a reason for the fear. How was I to know, he asked himself. How was I to know that the last three questions were cross–programmed from another classroom, a classified, advanced, damn–it–but–it–all–made–so–much–sense classroom, and Jason rolled over and dug his hand into his mattress, partly because it felt good, and partly because his mother had told him, "When you muck up the mattress it has to be replaced early, and if it has to be replaced early, the government gets angry."

Advanced astrodynamics. Well, it just felt like more math, how was I to know I was playing little games with stars and planets? And I understood it, once I got the answer. Jas rumpled the bed again. Once he got the answer: that was the problem. He couldn't show them any figuring. He couldn't show them how he arrived at the correct answer. "I figure in my head," he said, and they showed him the paper where he had done some other figuring, and Jas had smiled and said, "Sometimes, anyway."

If only Tork had been a moron and had remembered astrodynamics wrong.

If only God were still alive and not just a face on the ceiling.

"I'm a Swipe," Jas said under his breath, trying out the words.

Suddenly a hand was fiercely clamped over his mouth. Startled, he opened his eyes to see his mother glaring down at him.

"Fool!" his mother hissed. "An intelligence that can't be measured and you talk as if the walls weren't listening!"

"I was joking," Jas stammered, "I didn't think —"

"In this world, boy, don't ever not think. Why do you suppose your father died?" She wheeled and left the room.

Jas looked after her. "Father didn't have a chance!" he shouted.

"Shut up and eat your dinner," his mother snapped, surly again. Again? Still.

The answers had just been sitting there, like a disc ready to be played, a book ready to be read, waiting for him behind Tork's eyes. Jas looked up and saw his mother watching him. He looked at her tightly–set lips, glanced at her wrinkled forehead, and saw (just behind the eyes) that she would suffer any torture if it would bring Homer Worthing back to her for one bright day, for one penetrating touch, for one last kind, delicate, ravishing night.

"I wish I looked more like him, mother," Jas said, wanting the wrinkles on the forehead to go away.

She just narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't," she whispered, and then pushed a plate of the stiff gel that was called soup in the catalog across the table toward him. Jas sat for a moment, then leaned across the table, took his mother by the shoulders, and pulled her close. His mouth by her ear, he spoke so softly that he could barely hear his own voice, and said, "It's true."

She tried to pull away, shaking her head.

"Mother," Jas insisted, pulling her closer still, "I'm a Swipe. I got the answers from the teacher's mind."

She shuddered. "Impossible," she said softly.

"I know."

She got up from the table and took him by the hand. Together they left the flat and walked down corridors and ramps to the tube. At that hour it wasn't crowded. She dragged him along until they got to a women's lavatory. She started to pull him in.

"I can't go in there," Jas whispered.

"You're sure as hell going to," she hissed back, her face ugly with fear.

He went in. It was empty. His mother leaned against the door, facing him.

"Maybe," she said, "this place isn't bugged. But if it is, we won't be known."

"Voiceprints."

"Whisper, then," she whispered. "I said it's impossible. I've had two blood tests. Once before your father's trial, and this time for you. I do not have the Swipe on any of my lousy DNA. My X chromosomes are clean. Do you understand that?"

"I know what I did."

"You couldn't have gotten the trait from your father," she said, holding tightly to the boy's arm, "because it's carried on the X and he only gave you a Y."

"I've taken genetics."

"Then why did you say what you did?"

"Separate mutation," Jas said, and she clenched her grip on his arm. It hurt, but he was afraid to try to pull away. He had never seen her this angry and afraid at the same time.

"Do you think they didn't check that? It's the first thing they check. Your cells don't show any mutation."

"Then it's magic," Jas said, and she relaxed just enough that he felt safe in trying to pull his arm free. She let him.

"Magic," she said, and then she covered her face with her hands, digging her fingers into her eye sockets so fiercely that Jas worried, fleetingly, that she might be trying to blind herself, even though the cost of a transplant would wipe out her earnings and her pension for years. He gingerly reached for her arms, to pull her hands down, but when he touched her she erupted, shouted at him, forgetting the danger that one of Mother's Little Boys might be listening. "Listen to me! It's impossible! You're just hallucinating because of your father. They warned me it might happen, that children of Swipes sometimes react this way, pretending to be Swipes because of guilt feelings about the way their parent died. But whether it's real or not, it can get you killed if you go around claiming to be a —"

"I don't feel guilty about my father's death!" Jas said angrily. "I wasn't even born when he died. I wasn't even conceived. If you didn't want a crazy child, why did you go to the sperm bank —"

"I wanted him to have a son —"

"Well, he's got one! But don't try to transfer your psychoses onto me!"

She fell silent, her jaw slack. And as Jas leaned against the washbasin he again had a flash; but this time not a thought, this time a picture: A man smiling — not a handsome man, but a man used to power, a man sure of himself, a man with huge, powerful, sweet hands that reached out and touched —

"No!" his mother shouted at him, and she pushed his hand away, and he realized that he had touched her just as she was remembering his father's touch, that he had been acting out her memory.

"Don't touch me!" she said. "Not like that."

"I'm sorry. I just — I couldn't help it — mother, why do you remember him laughing, when he —"

His mother shook her head violently. "You didn't see," she hissed, more to herself than to him. "You didn't know, you didn't see." She was not looking at him. Is she even sane, Jas wondered for a moment. And then realized that the answer to his question was no, had always been no.

Suddenly his mother relaxed and smiled. "Of course," she said. "You're just insightful. It's a family trait. Your grandfather was just like that. As if he could see into your soul." She laughed. "Little Jason Worthing, just like your father's father."

"And my father."

"No!" she said fiercely. "He was a Swipe. But your grandfather. He just looked at me the first time Homer brought me home, just looked at my eyes and then he smiled and he said to me, ‘Nita, you're a good woman, you're right for my son.'

And from then on it was like he'd known me all my life. He knew he could trust me. And he could, he could."

Somebody pushed on the door, trying to get in.

"We've got to leave, mother," Jas said.

"Not until you promise me," she said.

"What."

"That you'll never say that again. To anyone. About being a —"

"I promise. Do you think I want to get killed?" Jas lunged for the doorknob. His mother backed away, and the door slid open as Jason twisted the knob.

A woman with a little girl who was dancing up and down shot them a dirty look as they came out. Then she did a double take when she realized that Jas was a boy.

"Perverts!" the woman spat as they hurried through the cars to the exit.

The next day at school they tried to trap him. Tork wasn't in the test room. Jas went in for his regular weekend quiz, and an empty–headed woman with thoroughly observable décolletage greeted him in a whispery voice and told him his test was ready. Jas guessed what they were going to do. To make sure, he looked into her head. Behind her eyes? A love life. No answers to tests.

And sure enough, the test was not on the topology of speed–of–light motion, the study topic for the week. It was, once again, astrodynamics. All new questions, of course. But the same topic.

Jas had to work on this one. Of course, his mind being what it was, he remembered perfectly everything he had taken from Tork's mind the week before. Now he had to apply the principles, think them through. But his logic kept up with the questions on the test.

He did miss one question. But ninety–nine was close enough to a hundred to be statistically insignificant.

When the computer printed out his score, Jas stood up and announced to the woman, "All right, lady. When you see Tork again, tell him for me I'm going to press charges. This test was illegal."

The woman was genuinely surprised. "What could be illegal? I just pressed the button and —"

"I know, I know. Just tell Tork for me. Can you remember that long?"

She sniffed her disdain. "You boy geniuses all seem to think you're the only ones with minds."

When Jas left the school he had every intention of going straight to the CRL for a lawyer to press his case — it was airtight, there'd be no way to hide their tampering with the computer program to put the wrong test on it. And without a writ they had no right to double–check his score.

But then he realized that he didn't want to attract too much attention with this. Because if rumor got around that he was suspected to be a Swipe, the doors would start to close to him. His unmeasurable intelligence would be worth as much as a moron rating.

No, let them sweat, but don't make too many waves.

Somehow the tests had all come out negative. But Jas knew he had the Swipe. And they might have other tests that would discover it.

"Insightful," his mother had said, "just like your father's father."

Father. And me. And grandfather?

But grandfather was dead.

Jas went to a directory and found the listing: "Genealogical program, G55Nxy3. He put his credit card (nearly worthless for purchasing, but good enough for this) into the computer outlet and punched in the program.

"Genealogy: Name research, 4n; inheritance tie–ins, 4i; name similarities..." Finally Jas found what he wanted, punched in his own name and birth date, and waited for the reading.

"Male relatives of common descent by male lines only." and then came a list of names that threatened to go on all day. Jas interrupted the readout and punched in a new instruction. Now the screen flashed, "Five nearest male relatives by common descent by male lines only."

First on the list was Talbot Worthing. He lived on a planet only forty–two light–years away.

Next on the list was Radamand Worthing. GE–44h rating government employee on the district management level.

Again he put his credit card into the slot, and this time asked only for an address. His fifth cousin Radamand was supervisor of District Napa–3. A good position not more than an hour by tube from Jas's home district.

Nice to know that a relative had done well with himself.

It was 1600, and Jas figured he'd have time to get there before the man left work — and get back before his mother had Mother's Little Boys out looking for him. So he got on the tube, wondering all the time if this wasn't a wild goose chase. And then in the part of his mind that always took over when he was worried, he free associated, and tried to calculate what in the world the phrase wild goose chase meant.

Radamand Worthing had his name on the outer door of the office complex, and no name at all on his private door. Jas was aware enough of status symbols to be impressed.

The secretary was also impressed — by Radamand, not by Jas.

"Do you have an appointment, little boy?"

"I don't need one," Jas said, putting on his most irritating voice.

"Everyone needs one," she said, getting just as irritated as he wanted her to get.

"Tell him his blue–eyed cousin Jason is here to see him," Jas said, sneering — a facial expression he had long since learned infuriated adults.

"I have instructions not to bother him."

"Tell him or you'll have new instructions to be out of here with your desk left empty behind you."

"Listen, little boy, if you've disturbed me unnecessarily —"

"The noise of the disturbance opened Radamand Worthing's door. "What's going on out there?" the portly, middle–aged man with bright blue eyes demanded. Bright blue eyes, Jas noted. His grandfather's holo had blue eyes. His mother's memory of his father had those same bright blue eyes. "Uncle Radamand," Jas said affectionately. At the same moment he focused on the spot just behind Radamand's eyes.

What he read there was Radamand's immediate fear — and the fact that Radamand was also seeing Jas's fear. Their bright blue eyes locked.

"You're impossible," the older man said. "You can't be."

"Apparently you're hallucinating," Jas said.

"He just broke in here and demanded —" the secretary said, righteously indignant.

"Shut up." Radamand was sweating.

So was Jas. Because he could hear in the man's mind the decision that Jas had to die.

"Is that the way to greet a long–lost relative?" Jas asked.

"Get out of my —" Radamand stopped, but Jas knew he had been about to say —

"Mind?" Jas asked.

"Office." Radamand bit the word, and then Jas heard/saw/felt Radamand's panic, his rage —

"Why are you afraid, Uncle Radamand?" Jas asked in his sweetest voice.

In the older man's mind he found the answer: Because you have it too, and if they catch you, they might catch on, they might realize it's hereditary on the male line, and they'll trace the genealogies and find me —

And as Jas heard Radamand's thoughts, he realized that Radamand had heard what leaped into Jas's thoughts: that assistant professor Hartman Tork already suspected he was a Swipe, was laying traps for him.

"I'm afraid for you," Radamand said sweetly, through gritted teeth. "I'm afraid you might fall into a trap somewhere."

"I'm smarter than they are," Jas said.

But not smarter than me, Radamand thought loudly, fearfully, angrily.

Jas saw the laser in Radamand's mind before Radamand could find it in his pocket. Jas dropped to the floor, rolled. The laser seared the floor behind him. A moment while the weapon recharged, and in that moment Jas was out the door, running down the corridor.

An alarm sounded somewhere in the complex.

The door ahead of him slammed shut. A guard stood in front of it. Jas stopped and frantically searched the man's thoughts for another way out, another exit. Where were the doors? He found them just behind the guard's eyes, even as the guard noticed Jas's fugitive appearance. The gun raised — Jas was already gone.

Through this? No, this door. Out and down the stairs. And through this last door and into corridors branching off into the endless underground city of Capitol , which stretched in an unplanned and unplannable labyrinth from pole to pole to — Home? Not home, Jas thought, because the plan already forming in Radamand's mind was to arrest Jas on some charge or other — breaking and entering? Resisting inquiry? For someone at Radamand's level, and with his obvious influence and prestige, it shouldn't be hard to get Jas put away forever behind bars.

Or in a little plastic box in the cemetery.

Jas's mind kept wandering as he loped down corridors, losing himself in the turns and the rises, putting as much as possible of three dimensions between him and his cousin. He smiled to think of how Radamand had probably acquired his influence and prestige: for he could easily spot a superior's guilty secrets and then drop subtle hints — not enough for blackmail and the subsequent murder, just enough to let the superior know that Radamand shared his secret. And understood. Would never tell; could be trusted; was a friend who knew all and loved anyway.

And so promotion. And so power. And so all of the wealth and position that Radamand was afraid he would lose because now someone shared his guilty secret.

Jas came to the tube and got on going away from his home.

Then he got off at the second stop and changed to the first tube leaving for anywhere.

Then got off and caught another.

And another.

And then left the tubestop and went to a computer terminal and pushed in his card. Dangerous? Perhaps — but access to the master files of the computer was closely guarded by Mother's Little Boys, and Jas doubted that Radamand's consider able influence was quite that considerable. No, it would be the constables that Radamand had on his trail, not the computer police, not the listeners in the walls.

So probably the computers were safe.

Jas punched for a readout on criminal law. He specified. And specified again. "Exemptions from all class 2–8b felonies and all misdemeanors."

Then Jas specified for exemptions accessible to juveniles. There were only two: the Service and the Colonies.

Never the Colonies. Not the one shot of somec, and then waking up fifty light–years away on an empty planet, doomed to live out the normal hundred or so years of life and then die, with neither fame nor power nor hope of the somec doses of immortality. Colonies were for the despairing, not for the merely desperate. Jas still had hope.

Had to be the Service. There at the end of the somec sleep through space the captains awoke, fought a battle or did a short term of duty and then went back under the somec to return to Capitol, where they were heroes — at least the successful ones — and wealthy, whether spectacularly successful or not; and, most important, the captains were on somec, waking only one year out of every thirty or forty or fifty, watching the centuries slip by and laughing at time —

The Service then. And it would be ironic, too; for his father had been a ship captain, before the Swipe crisis that killed him. It would be somehow appropriate to follow in his father's footsteps.

And then Jas remembered his mother's warning that sons of Swipes tried to expiate guilt. Maybe, he thought. Maybe after all I'm just trying to relive my father's —

A hand gripped his shoulder.

"Jason Worthing, age thirteen, number RR3njw–4, status juvenile, state your business in this district."

Jason leaned limply against the wall, and the man made sure he wouldn't leave the wall abruptly. The man's voice sounded official, but he wasn't in uniform. A constable not in uniform? Behind the man's eyes Jas learned that he was one of Mother's Little Boys. Then he must have guessed wrong, and Radamand did have that much influence.

"Well, little boy, your mother's worried about you. Seems you didn't come home after school."

"I just went — I went exploring," Jas said, using his young voice, his unintelligent voice. "I was trying to find my way home."

"Your mother asked us to run a missing persons check. You shouldn't stick your credit card into computer outlets if you want to run away," the man said.

"I don't want to run away," Jas said, longing to run away.

"Good thing," the man answered with a smile, "because you can't."

They rode in the closed compartment of the tube back to the station only a few corridors away from Jas's flat. The man didn't let go of his iron grip until Jas's mother opened the door.

"Jas, you're all right." She hugged him, acting for all the world like a parent who had been worried that her little boy might be hurt. But Jas knew what the real fear had been. Though he was already a little tired of looking into people's thoughts, it was almost reflex already, and he saw his mother's flashing memory of a visit from Hartman Tork.

"Thank you, officer," she said, tears of joy in her eyes.

"Any time, ma'am." The man left. Jas's mother closed the door. She looked at Jas in fear.

"Hartman Tork came," Jas said. She nodded, biting her lip in an exaggerated show of fear. Again, Jas was convinced for a moment that she was mad.

"Looking for you," she said. "He has proof. He said you had passed the second test, that it was proof positive —"

"Proof when I passed it?" Jas asked, surprised.

"He said it contained information that had only been fed into the computers this week, completely and totally restricted, there was no way you could have studied the information, so obviously you got the answers by —"

"But I didn't look into anyone's mind, mother. I just used logic, I just figured it out —"

"Apparently," she said bitterly, "your logic has just caught up with the latest advances in astrodynamic theory."

Jas leaned against the wall. "I thought the test went the other way. I thought that if I failed it they'd think it was proof that I'd cheated, or something else. I thought I had to get a good score."

years ago, seven–year–old Jason leading her from the park to the zoo to the dome to the cave, all the sights; and she proud, happy, following where he led, devoted to him.

But he was no longer seven years old. He was thirteen. He was frightened. He was leading his mother on an excursion that had no destination, whose only goal was escape. Where to, on a planet where there was no outside except the thin sky, no away except on starships —

Colonies.

The sign blinked. Colonies were one of the few projects the government considered important enough that they could be allowed a lighted sign.

Colonies put people on starships and sent them far beyond the reach of Mother's Little Boys. Colonies asked few questions, and answered none. To go with the Colonies was the next thing to dying.

But it was only the next thing. And when dying was the alternative... Jas stood for a moment, looking at the sign. He had the option of joining the Service. His mother didn't.

So Jas led his meekly following mother through the impressive archway leading into the plush Colonies reception room. Lighted panels on the walls depicted huge fields of a golden plant, extending to the horizon, with blue sky and a yellow sun. "Earth Colony," the panel said, in a muted, feminine whisper. "Return home again." Another panel was in motion — hundreds of tiny human beings scrambling over red rocks and black cliffs, raising a mesh of fine metal strands. The mesh began to glow. "Catch stars on Manookin," the virile masculine panel–voice said, "and bring them home as frozen light."

Bring them home — Jas laughed silently, bitterly. No one came home from a colony. A hundred years just to get established with any degree of security. Another two hundred or so before anything worth exporting could be developed in exportable quantities. And without the somec sleep, who would still be alive? None of the original colonists. None of their great–great–grandchildren, either.

"A new home," sang a chorus of children's voices, "where children have room to run and play under the sun. Carter. The children's dream planet."

And they were at the desk. "Both of you?" the woman asked.

"Just her," Jas answered. "A place where you can walk around in the open."

The woman pretended to think hard. "Capricorn? It's a yellow sun planet, just like Capitol."

Jas wasn't taken in. Obviously Capricorn was what they were pushing today. "What do they export?"

"Oh, exciting things."

"Excite me," Jas said.

"Aluminum," she said. "And platinum. And chrome."

Jas smiled wanly. "You don't do much walking in the open when you're down a mine shaft, ma'am. A planet that exports food."

"Duncan , then. Sol–type planet, they didn't even have to terraform it. She'll love it."

"Papers?"

And the papers appeared on the desk. Jas insisted that the receptionist write in Duncan as the legal contract destination, and in the preferred work space Jas wrote, "Clerical." The chances of anyone getting a clerical assignment on a colony world were very slim, but there was no harm in asking. And then the papers were in front of his mother, and she meekly picked up the pen and signed, writing the name very, very carefully, as if for the first time, though she was a legal scribe, both longhand and punching.

"You have a few minutes for good–byes," the receptionist thoughtfully said. "And then these nice men will take you with them." These nice men were two blond, blue–eyed gorillas with cheerful smiles on the front of their microcephali. Jas felt a strange lightness in his stomach, a gentle twisting that he recognized as guilt, though he had never felt much guilt before.

He turned to face his mother. She was looking at the two guards.

"You selfish bastard," she whispered gently, "I'm not crazy enough not to know what you just did."

"I had to," Jas said, not believing himself.

"I would have done it gladly if you had asked."

Jas took her hand. It was lifeless as it lay in his. "I'm sorry," he said. "I love you."

And in his mother's mind he saw his father, heard him say, "I'm sorry. I love you."

His mother's face contorted. "Selfish," she said loudly. Then she screamed: "Selfish bloody flaming Swipe bastard, you're your father's son, you're no son of mine!"

Jas had made a gesture as if to stop her when she said the word Swipe, and she noticed it. "That's right, Jas, boy, look out for number one, the old lady's going crazy, but all you care about is who can overhear us, well I can shout it out, you know —" and her voice rose to a high–pitched scream — "I can yell to the whole world that you're a stinking —"

"Sedation?" asked the receptionist. Jas didn't answer, but one of the gorillas came over with a needle anyway. Jas's mother tried to back away, but there was no retreat. The needle dug into her back, and in less than a minute she was smiling sweetly. "Hi," she said to the gorilla. "I'm Nita Worthing. Are you coming to Duncan , too?"

The gorilla smiled and patted her shoulder.

Nita turned to her son and smiled again. "Thank you, son. Good–bye. Wish me a happy voyage."

"Have a happy voyage, mother."

"It'll be happy because at the end of it, I'll have memories of you."

The gorillas led her away. She was telling them a joke as they went through the doors to the inner complex.

The receptionist leaned forward over the counter. "Your mother signed on as a volunteer, didn't she? No legal problems, right?"

Jas nodded, shook his head. "Volunteer. She's not wanted for anything."

"Don't worry about her," the receptionist said kindly. "They often react that way. The minute the papers are signed they're frantic to change their minds. Silly, isn't it? You'd think they'd just

signed their own death warrant or something. Why, they're absolutely lucky to get away from this tin can of a world."

Jas smiled. "You're right. No doubt you've already signed onto a colony ship."

The woman's smile disappeared. "Get out of here, smartmouth," she said. As Jas left he heard her muttering, "Some people, you try to get friendly and they get so..."

Jas took another tube and ended up in one of the huge parks that were placed in every borough by some politicians who had visited Earth and had thought it would be wonderful to spend tax money duplicating it on Capitol. Live trees growing out of real lawns. The residents were unimpressed, by and large — most of them had never seen a tree, and chlorophyll smelled dirty, somehow. Green growing things were just large forms of mold, and mold meant you had to have your humidifier adjusted.

But Jas had been drawn to the parks since childhood, and as he stepped onto the lawn he remembered coming to this very park with his mother, several times. She had sat on the grass, spooning beef out of a dish, as Jas had climbed that rock, and jumped onto the lawn, laughing and laughing.

Well, I don't feel like laughing now, Jas reminded himself. And then wondered what it would be like on a colony world — green, like this? Only without the ceiling. Without the walls. Without the crowded corridors leading off in six directions.

The park was nearly empty, as always, and Jas hoped that though cameras monitored the comings and goings here as everywhere else, such an unfrequented place might not be too well monitored. He crept into the middle of a large clump of bushes and curled up around the base of the tree that grew out of the middle. It was shady, and so darker than everywhere else in the open corridors. In the darkness of the shade he tried to think. Had to decide what to do.

He daren't be caught by the constables because of Radamand. And only the constables could offer him any protection from Hartman Tork and the mobs that would form if word got out that a Swipe had been found. Mother's Little Boys? Jas shuddered. You just don't go to Mother's Little Boys. For finding missing persons, yes. For protection? Who would protect you from the Little Boys?

If he used the computers he could be found, and yet the computers were the only way he could get into the Service. And the other escape route, the Colonies, he wouldn't do that. Jas had dreams of an impressive and important future for himself. People on Colony ships didn't have impressive and important futures.

He thought of his mother, and the future she had, and again felt the twist of guilt; maybe she wouldn't have been caught, maybe they wouldn't have tortured her and got the answer, maybe —

There were no maybes. And when they had proved that Jas was a Swipe and killed him, they would have executed her, too, because the trait is passed from mother to son. That's all they know,

Jas thought. Mother to son indeed. I'm like my father. He thought the words again and again. I'm like my father.

He woke about six hours after he had crept into the bushes. And when he woke he knew what to do. How long had it taken Mother's Little Boys to find him when he had used the computer terminal the last time? Not long — three minutes, perhaps. But that would be long enough, if he hurried.

For a moment he wondered what he was so worried about. For all he knew, Mother's Little Boys weren't even looking for him — just the constables and the school.

But it was too easy to file a missing persons query, and the constables and the school would have little trouble proving right–to–know. Mother's Little Boys would be looking for him, all right.

He walked to the nearest public terminal. Five specifications got him an application form for entry into the Service. Then he punched memory and coded it to his private number, snapped on a cover code, and then retrieved his card and hurried away from the terminal. Mother's Little Boys wouldn't find him there — it had taken only one minute.

Jas took the tube (did they monitor the credit cards at the tube stations? Probably — but not even the Little Boys could board a moving tube), and switched at the first station. Then he got off again, went to another terminal, punched in the memory code and the cover code, and started filling out the application.

After a minute, the same thing — a dash through the tubes, a new terminal, and a few more items on the application. And since the application wasn't long, that finished it; Jas punched the send button, and left.

Another tube, another terminal, and he requested an answer.

Fifteen seconds, and the screen said, "Reject."

He queried.

"Personal."

He queried again. Specify.

"Personal. Father killed in Swipe Wars."

He quickly punched in, desperately punched in a rebuttal, a request for voice contact. It was an agonizingly long wait. Then a face came on the screen, and immediately Jas said, "Can you hold? For just a minute?"

"I'm busy," the woman said, irritated.

"Please," Jas said, acutely aware that he had been at the terminal for nearly three minutes.

"All right, hurry," she said.

Jas ran from the terminal, bumping into a man, and behind the man's eyes Jas discovered in a moment that the man was one of Mother's Little Boys, coming to fetch him from the terminal. No doubt now — they were after him.

This time Jas didn't bother with the tube. He ran to the nearest terminal, only a few ramps away, and punched in. The woman's face reappeared.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"I'm sorry." Jas didn't have time to explain. "I need to know" breath "why my application" breath "was rejected."

"Your father was killed in the Swipe Wars," she said, as if that explained everything.

"But I don't have the Swipe. Telepathy isn't passed from father to son!" he insisted, wondering if she could possibly guess that it was a lie, that she was talking to a member of the one family in which the Swipe was, in fact, inherited on the male line.

"Of course the Swipe isn't hereditary," she said. "We aren't the least bit worried about that. In fact," she said, as Jas inwardly urged her to hurry, "in fact, you're a remarkably bright young man, widely educated, ridiculously high test scores on your record, and ordinarily we'd accept you in a moment."

"Thanks. Then accept me."

"The Swipe isn't hereditary. But revenge is. Sorry."

"I don't want revenge!" Jas shouted.

"If you're going to shout, please turn your volume control down. I'm not deaf."

"I won't try to get revenge —"

"Of course you'd say that, but our statistics make it almost a probability that —"

"Dammit, my father burned three planets and killed eight billion people, do you think I'm going to try to avenge his death?"

She shrugged. "We have the psychological profiles, and I'm afraid the policy can't be reversed without a lengthy process of appeal. Go ahead and try. It'll take only two weeks, and maybe you can change somebody's mind, though I doubt it. I wish you luck, young —"

An iron hand gripped Jas's shoulder. Involuntarily he cried out. The woman smiled. "Do you have him, officer? Very well then. Out."

The screen went blank.

The iron hand turned Jas around to face the man. Jas looked behind his eyes.

Amusement. That warm feeling of success. "You've been leading us a merry chase, boy," the man said.

Jas smiled weakly. "Tag I'm it?"

It worked. The man smiled back. "You're from Rockwit?"

"I'm from Capitol. But I know the game. I studied it."

"Then I'll feel a little worse turning you in. How did you guess I was from Rockwit?"

I saw it in your mind, of course, Jas thought. But he said, "Your accent."

"That bad, huh?"

"I study accents. It's a hobby."

"Accents and archaic games," the man said. "Come along now, boy. I don't know why, but somebody important wants you real bad."

Radamand, then. No one could call Hartman Tork important. But Jas went along peacefully enough. No sense struggling and increasing the man's vigilance. Just wait for an opportunity.

The opportunity was the commuter traffic in the tubes. The rush hour was starting, and as with commuters in all times and places, the signs saying enter and exit were regarded as mere decoration. Those getting off the tube rushed out, making rivulets around those struggling forward to get on. Of course there were dozens of people who stopped, greeted each other, blocked traffic — others, caught in the rush, desperately trying to reach a destination different from that of the crowd that swept them along. Three times a day the shifts changed, as the night boroughs, morning boroughs, and afternoon boroughs in each district lived their separate and rarely interconnecting days.

In the shoving and elbowing at the door, Jas lurched into the secret policeman who was holding him, then tripped and fell, ripping his shoulder painfully away from the man's hand. Someone tripped over him; someone else stepped on his leg; the crowd pulled Mother's Little Boy away from Jason. In a moment friendly hands helped Jas to his feet, and he began moving away in the crowd.

"He's cut!" shouted the security policeman. "Get him!"

He's cut? Jas realized as he threaded through the crowd that the security policeman wasn't alone. There had been more of Mother's Little Boys close enough to call to. Who?

For a moment Jas tried identifying people as they passed, before they came near him, but he couldn't — it was too dizzying, darting from mind to mind. And moving that quickly, impressions became vague, too fleeting to catch.

A hand grabbed at his hip. Jas lurched away. Again the hand was stronger than he expected, and pulling away took so much force that Jas fell to the ground. Someone stepped on his hand, hard, and Jas cried out in pain, but pulled his hand out from under the heavy boot. Blood leaped from torn–open veins, but Jas ignored it, scrambling to his feet. Hands reached for him. He swerved away, ducked, and then spotted a break in the crowd, ran through, and shoved his way into the mass of people piling up around the station doors.

Now the crowd that had helped him escape helped Mother's Little Boys to catch him. Where the people had been moving fast, his small size let him dodge through much faster than the police could. But with the crowd moving slowly, shoulder to shoulder, his small size was a disadvantage. He couldn't shove people out of the way, and Mother's Little Boys could. In a moment rough hands gripped him everywhere, and he was lifted off the ground and tossed into the air. When he came down there were six men around him.

He panted for breath. So did they. They looked angry. Wary, too, waiting for Jas to try something, to move. Jas didn't move. Blood dripped from his hand.

"What do you guys think I am?" he finally said. "Six of you to take a thirteen–year–old kid?"

The one who had first caught him smiled. "For a minute there, we were wishing for an even dozen."

"Well, you've got me," Jas said, still panting from the chase. "What now?"

But they just watched him, and the exhilaration of flight and pursuit gave way to the despairing knowledge that he was, indeed, caught, and there was no way he could stop them from doing whatever they wanted. Would it be the school, and facing charges as a Swipe? Or Radamand, and death to protect a rising politician?

Jas waited several minutes before it occurred to him that he didn't have to wait for answers to questions. He looked behind their eyes, and...

Just then a short stout man dressed in thirty year–old styles that looked brand new came up to their group.

"I'm amazed that you haven't hog–tied him," the man said.

Jas tried to find the meaning of the archaism, but hog–tied wasn't catalogued in his memory.

"Let him go," the man said. "And fix his hand, he's bleeding."

"If we let him go," one of Mother's Little Boys said, "we might never catch him again."

The stout man pushed his way into the circle, and looked at Jas with soft, kind eyes. He was so short that Jas looked down at him a little. Someone wrapped the injured hand. "Dale Carnegie cringes at their methods," the man said. This time the allusion rang a bell, and Jas smiled, reciting back: "You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with a gallon of gall."

"Actually," the stout man interrupted, "Carnegie was only quoting someone else. Odd that you should know Carnegie and not Aesop." The man turned back to Mother's Little Boys. "He's in my custody now."

The policemen looked at each other uneasily. The man pulled out a little card and showed it to them. They nodded obsequiously and moved away.

The man turned back to Jas. "You have a name," he said.

"Jas Worthing."

"Jason Harper Worthing, a most remarkable young man. Jason Harper Worthing, don't get any clever ideas about escaping from me. Because where Mother's Little Boys trust to brute strength, I rely on technology." The cockle flashed momentarily in his hand, safety off.

"Who are you?" Jas asked.

"A question I've been trying to answer ever since adolescence. Shall we walk?" They walked. "I finally decided I was neither God nor Napoleon. I was so disappointed I didn't try to narrow it down any further."

The stout man escorted Jas to the officials — only door in the station and they went down the lift to the private cars. They got into one that looked rather old and shabby. And ridiculously out of date.

"I'm an archaist," the man said. "Like you. I collect old things. The difference is that you, being poor, can only collect ideas. I, being rich, can collect things. Things are worth much more money than ideas."

The man chuckled gently, and as the car took off, skimming the tube on its delicate magnetic balance, he laid a kind hand on Jas's knee. A good, strong hand, though small, and the gesture of affection was all it took to push Jas over the edge. The tension before had been too great — the relief now too sudden. Jas began to tremble and his breath came in short gasps like sobs.

"Please try to avoid hysteria," the man said, and then continued his pleasant conversation. "I also collect new things. But new things are hard to judge. One never knows if they'll last. One never knows if they'll appreciate or depreciate. Quite a risky investment, new things. Here we are."

The car stopped. It hadn't traveled far. The man led Jas to a door and they stepped into a lift and rose for a long time. When the ceiling was right above their heads they stepped onto a bare wooden floor.

Wood. Jas realized that it didn't feel like wood. He said so.

"Ah, your curiosity is beginning to function again. Good. It doesn't feel like wood because you've never touched wood in your life, you've touched plastic. This, Jason Worthing, is wood. From trees. I needn't tell you that you can't buy any of it on your credit allowance."

And then they were through a door and Jas gasped.

At first, for a moment, he had thought it was a park. But it was too large, and there was no ceiling. Instead the walls just ended, and a dazzling bright blue arch crested over him, just like the pictures of sky. The trees seemed to go on forever. The grass underfoot was real. Something living moved in the branches of a tree.

"I collect old things and new things," the man said. "But mostly I collect living things. Like you."

Jas turned to look at him and suddenly realized that the eyes were no longer soft and kind — had they really been before? And the man seemed to be staring past Jas's clothing and his skin and into his soul. Jas realized he had trusted this man without reason, and he looked behind his eyes.

The man's name was Abner Doon. (Silly name — never heard of him.)

His job was assistant minister of colonization. (Colonies again. Mother.)

He honestly believed he ruled the world. (Crazy? Or am I?)

And he knew Jas was a Swipe.

"I'm dead," Jas said, suddenly feeling despair. Why had he thought he was no longer in danger with this man?

"Very nearly," Doon said. "It depends on some decisions you make in the next few hours. You know my name, of course."

Jas shook his head to say no.

"You know my name, you know my title, you know my real function, and you know that I know what you are."

Jas took a step back. Abner Doon only smiled. "Surely you don't fear any kind of physical attack?"

"You're insane," Jas said.

"That's been said before," Abner answered mildly, "by men and women with better credentials than yours."

"I often wondered who really ruled Capitol and the Empire, but I really never supposed it was the assistant minister of colonization," Jas said, wondering how quickly he could get the door open again. He decided that he couldn't possibly do it faster than Doon could get the cockle into action.

"Well, it all depends on what you mean by rule. Mother rules us, officially. But everyone knows that the Cabinet rules Mother, and they're right. She's just a figurehead. But who rules the Cabinet?" Doon took off his jacket and tossed it to the ground. "And even more important, who owns the people who carry out the Cabinet's orders?"

Abner Boon took off his shoes.

"Walking in grass with shoes on is a waste of an opportunity," he told Jas. "Take your shoes off. Join me in a swim. Hmmm?"

Jas took his shoes off, and they walked deeper into the park. A large white bird flew nearby, then skimmed the surface of a lake, stopped, dipped its head, and flew off with something silver dangling from its mouth.

"A fish!" Jas shouted, and he hurried past Boon to the edge of the water.

"Clever deduction. What else did you learn from the bird?"

Jas turned around. The assistant minister of colonization was taking off his clothing.

"Is this a test?"

"Oh, no, not at all," Abner Boon answered. "I just thought you might have guessed from the species of bird what planet this park is modeled after." Jas watched him undress to the skin, and was mildly surprised to discover that the man wasn't stout at all — just wore layers of protective clothing.

"The water's relatively warm," Doon said. "Swim with me."

"I don't know how to swim."

"Of course not. I'm going to teach you."

Jas undressed and followed the man uncertainly into the water. They stopped when it was up to Jas's neck.

"Water is actually a very safe medium of locomotion," Doon said. Jas only noticed that it was cold. Numbing. If this was what Boon called relatively warm, Jas wondered what in the world he called cold.

"Now here, my hand is against your back. Lean back against my hand. Now let your legs just come loose from the ground, just relax, I can hold you up."

Suddenly Jas felt very light, and as he relaxed he felt his body bobbing lightly on the surface, only the gentle pressure of Boon's hand under him to remind him of gravity.

Then the world turned upside–down, Abner Boon had a back–breaking hold on him, and Jas's face suddenly plunged underwater. He gulped, swallowed water. His eyes, when he opened them, stung in the water. He hadn't taken a breath, needed one desperately. He struggled to come up, but couldn't break the hold. He struggled, he twisted, and tried to strike with his hands and feet, but he couldn't get free, and not breathing became agony.

Then he felt himself pulled to the surface. He gasped for air. Coughed.

"Don't cough, it splashes water everywhere."

"Let go!" Jas cried out, still gasping. "Let me go —"

"Never," said the man. "I'll never let you go, Jason Harper Worthing. I have collected you. I never break up my collections."

Jas looked behind his eyes, struggling to find a motive, but found only an emotion of — love? Kindness? The man was threatening his life, and yet all Jas could find in his mind was kindness.

"This," Doon said, "was an object lesson. May I assure you that you are in over your head? A figure of speech that you may not have known."

"I knew it," Jas said. "Me Gook system."

"Much older than that," Doon said, "but of course that's where it's still current. Very good. You get the point, I'm sure, even if you haven't read Aesop. Even when we step out of my lake, you'll still be deep in water, and believe me, in that water you don't know how to swim. I have only to flick a wrist —" suddenly Jas found himself dipping into the water again, and Doon's sentence was muffled and yet strangely clarified by the water " — and you will certainly drown."

This time Abner Doon let him up almost immediately, and Jas coughed and spluttered only because he knew it annoyed the man. "What are you arresting me for?"

"I'm not arresting you. Whatever gave you that idea? I said I have collected you. Like the Cabinet. Like Hartman Tork. Like Radamand Worthing. The only difference is that I'm telling you. You should be flattered — very few people know."

"I would have known anyway, Mr. Doon," Jas

Said, and that was his surrender, admitting that he had the Swipe, that Doon therefore had control over him. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Why, teach you how to swim, of course," Doon answered. "May I suggest you start by swimming on your back? Much easier, and you don't have to fuss with learning how to breathe. Just kick lightly with your legs — that's right, shallower kicks and more rapidly, very good. Arch your back. The other way. Yes, yes, very good. I'm going to let go."

Jas felt the hand go out from under him, and for a moment he felt himself sinking. But he kicked harder, and arched his back more, and floated.

"Now, one at a time, raise your arms in front of your head and draw them back down to your side, through the water. That's right, Jas. Very good. Not a champion, but you'll float." And then there was a splash, and Jas felt the water shift violently as Abner Doon swam past him, not on his back, but on his stomach in the water, breathing under his arm. Jas turned his head to watch, and was rewarded with an eyeful of water and a dunking as he lost flotation. Sputtering, he tried to find bottom with his feet, and couldn't — his swimming had carried him out where the water was deeper than his head. But his instincts were right — he splashed his way to the surface, and kicked violently, bringing himself back up into a backfloat.

A bright, golden sun passed slowly overhead. Jas saw to his surprise that it moved detectably. All the books said you couldn't see the motion of the sun. And besides — he could look right at the sun. And suddenly his vision shifted, and he realized that the sky was just what it seemed to be — a dome of blue — and the sun followed a track across it — a dazzling disc, not a sphere millions of kilometers away.

When the swim ended, the sun was nearly set, though it had barely been an hour. The man and the boy lay on the grass, drying. The sky grew dark, and reddened in the "west." The sun set.

"I've never seen a sunset before," Jas said. "Is this anything close to what a real one looks like?"

"At least on the world this park imitates. My home world, in fact," Doon answered. "It certainly isn't this way on the surface of this planet. The sky of Capitol is absolutely greasy with the filth of our planet. Just looking at it makes me want a bath. Sunset topside is downright purple. Pink is noon. Blue sky is impossible."

"Garden," Jas said.

"That's right," Doon answered softly. "The most perfect place in the universe. So far, anyway. I was a fool to leave Garden. But I had visions of being great. One does not pursue greatness in a beautiful setting. Only peace is possible where things are invariably beautiful. Greatness only comes in ugly settings. And that made Capitol seem the best place to go."

"Is it ugly here?"

Doon laughed. "Oh, my. My, oh, my. To think a human being should even have to ask that question. But you aren't exactly a normal human being, are you?"

"Count the arms and legs," Jas said. "Even the right number of heads."

"The only difference is that you can leave your head and walk around for a while in mine. The Swipe," Doon said, "is such a strange thing. Such a great power that for a time most ship captains in the Empire fleet and among our illustrious Enemy were Swipes. Instantaneous communication. No need for spies. Too bad that Swipes couldn't teach the gift to others, you know? But that little X chromosome modification just can't be transferred. Only passed from mother to children, and the gift only crops up in boys, whose pathetic little Y doesn't have the dominant to block out the telepathy link. How we do dance with the helixes, yes?"

Jas pulled a tuft of grass and sprinkled it on his naked chest and abdomen. It prickled. He brushed it off.

"But I don't have that chromosome. Neither did my mother."

"Irrefutable. You are correct. You are clinically not a Swipe. Bravo. Too bad the mob takes blood tests after they tear reputed Swipes to little pieces."

"Can't the law protect me?"

"If the law knew about you, my small, brilliant, naive friend, the law would certainly be stretched to include you. No, Jas. Your only safety lies in being part of my collection. If you should leave it — well, I simply couldn't stop them, could I?"

A breeze passed over them in the starlit darkness. Jas shuddered.

"Cold? Or merely afraid?"

"Cold," Jas said.

"Actually, the temperature is quite comfortable. Don't be afraid, Jason."

"I can't help it," Jas said, his teeth chattering a little.

"All your life you've been completely under other people's control. Your mother, the school, the constables. Now, suddenly, it isn't they who rule you anymore, it's one man, it's I, and that makes you afraid."

"I don't know what you're going to do with me."

"Why don't you look in my mind and see?"

Jas wondered why he didn't. But he didn't. "No."

"Do it. Test me. See what you find out."

Jas shook his head. "I don't want to."

"Why not? I'm asking you to. Or do you only like to peer in people's minds when they don't know you're looking?"

Jas shivered now with the cold he felt. "I don't want to look."

Abner Doon sighed. "I suppose my mind isn't all that lovely a place to visit, anyway. Never mind."

He got up and dressed. Jas still lay on the ground, except that he curled up on his side. His back was cold as the air touched it. Why don't I look in his mind? I'm afraid, Jas decided. I'm afraid I'll find my own death there.

"Tired?" Doon asked.

"Yes."

"Does your hand hurt?"

Jas nodded.

"Do you feel weak?"

Jas smiled. "No. I feel like ripping a tree into toothpicks."

Doon, dressed again in the steel and asbestos protective clothing, the stuffy, out–of–date suit, knelt beside Jas in the grass. "Jas, you've done a lot of studying over the years. Your teachers seem to feel that you never forget what you've read. Ever heard of the Estorian twick?"

Jas's mind reflexively found the reference. "Yeah. Deadly little animal. Wiped out the first colony on Estoria."

"What else do you know about it?"

"Marsupial mammal. Teeth like razors. Small, but it hangs on with its claws while it bores with its teeth. Once it gets on a person he has maybe thirty seconds to get it off. If it lands near something vital, you've got only five seconds or so. Could cause nightmares."

"Very good, Jas. How do you kill it?"

Jas laughed. "A laser. A cockle. I remember reading a story where somebody tried beating it with a rock and it just jumped on and started eating his hand."

Jas watched uncomprehendingly as Doon gathered all of Jason's clothing from the ground and held it in a bundle under his arms. "You don't happen to have a laser or a cockle, do you?" Doon asked.

"Yeah," Jas said. "I hid ‘em both in my mouth. I was only waiting for an opportunity to get you."

"In other words, no."

"I don't even have a toothpick," Jas said. "What are you doing with my clothes?"

"Getting them out of the way," Doon said. "Good luck."

"Good luck for what?"

"Good luck in the upcoming battle. In a few seconds an Estorian twick will be turned loose at the other end of my little garden here. He'll be headed your way."

And then Doon took off at a run.

Jas jumped to his feet, started after Doon, but only got a few feet when he realized that Doon was too far, already at the door, already closing it behind him. Jas turned back and looked into the darkness around the lake. The moon was rising, but there wasn't enough light. And if there was, Jas wasn't sure if he could tell what a twick was. Had he ever seen a picture? Yes — and as he remembered what it looked like, he saw a living one crouched on a tree branch about thirty feet away.

Weapon? Unlikely. Doon wasn't the kind to leave spare lasers lying around.

The twick darted forward on the branch. So quickly that Jas could hardly see the movement — it was simply a few meters nearer. The twick didn't take its eyes off Jas.

The words of the book flashed back. "Toys with its victims. Tries to seem harmless. Many fatalities among children who try to pet it." Useless information. What Jas needed to know was how to kill one without a laser.

I should have looked in Doon's mind, Jas told himself. At least I would have known the method he planned to use to kill me. Some kind of pervert, Jas decided. Likes to watch bloody death. Have fun, Doon. This one's on me.

Jas's injured hand throbbed.

The twick wasn't on the branch. One minute it was on the branch and the next minute it wasn't.

Jas looked down at the ground. Two meters away the twick crouched in the grass. It was absolutely motionless. Jas couldn't remember seeing any movement. Was the animal smiling? Jas wondered if an animal was capable of gloating over a victim. Its fur glistened. Apparently Abner Doon groomed his assassins well.

And suddenly Jas felt an excruciating pain in his right calf. He reached down to pry the animal off. For a moment the twick clung, still boring into Jas's leg. Then it wriggled out and in less than a second was burrowing into Jas's upper arm. The leg gushed blood.

With the twick tearing at his right arm, Jas could only strike at the animal with his left hand. It did no good.

I'm going to die, Jas shouted in his mind.

But his survival instinct was still strong, despite the terrible pain and the worse fear. Like a reflex he realized that the twick would simply jump from target to target on Jas's body. It was only a matter of time until it hit a vital artery, or until if found the boneless cavity of his abdomen and devoured his bowels. But Jas could delay. Jas could force it to move.

He threw himself to the ground, trying

(hopelessly) to crush the animal under the weight of his body. Of course the twick was uninjured. But the maneuver had won Jas a moment's respite — the animal wriggled out and away, and it crouched two feet from where Jas lay on the ground.

Jas leaped to his feet and started to run. Of course the twick struck, but Jas's back was turned, and the animal only dug into the muscles under the shoulder blade.

Jas threw himself violently to the ground, backward. This time the twick made a sharp sound (pain?) and scurried a little further away. Jas tried to run again. He knew he couldn't outrun the twick, especially now with his back ripped open and his calf torn up so that every step was agony. But at least he was doing something.

The twick landed on his buttocks and tore at him. Jas broke stride, fell to one knee. Then he noticed that the lake was only twenty feet away, parallel to his line of flight. He had instinctively been avoiding the water. But maybe —

He got up again and staggered toward the water. The twick kept boring into him, tearing at the great muscles that controlled Jas's left thigh. The animal struck bone just as Jas hit the water.

I can't swim, Jas thought.

Oh well, the coldly intellectual part of his mind answered. Maybe the twick can't either.

It was impossible for Jas to relax enough to float. He just crouched under the water, holding his breath forever, trying to ignore the agony pulsing upward from his buttocks, from his leg, from his arm, from his back. He could feel the twick burrowing along the edge of his pelvic bone. His analytic mind noted the fact that this was taking the animal away from the vulnerable anal areas. Muscles can heal. Muscles can heal. The repetition kept him underwater despite the agony, despite his lungs bursting for air. He concentrated on the rhythm of the words muscles can heal muscles can heal muscles can heal.

And then the twick stopped burrowing. A moment later it dropped off Jason's body.

Jas lunged for the surface. He gasped air. He gasped again. A few inches away from his face floated the twick. It was moving feebly, also gasping. Jas grabbed it and forced it underwater again. It wriggled, but it didn't get free, and after forever it stopped moving at all. Jas threw it (with his left arm) out into the deeper part of the lake, breathed again, then felt irresistibly weak and sank back into the water. The water closed over his eyes.

He woke in a gel bath. Only his head and his knees broke the surface of the green slime. He was vaguely aware of throbbing in his leg and arm and buttocks, a tightness in his back. But the gel kept the pain away, kept pressure off the wounds. Jas closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

When he woke the next time he was in a conventional bed, and his wounds hurt more. He groaned with pain,

"Ouch," agreed a pleasant voice. "Well, that's it. Conscious and almost no chance of coma now."

"Very good." Jas recognized the second voice. Doon.

Someone got up and walked away. Someone else didn't. Jas was aware of breathing near him. He opened his eyes. The light was dazzling. He closed them again.

"Abner Doon," Jas said.

"Feeling better?" the man asked cheerfully.

"Than what?" Jas asked. Abner laughed. It was as if he hadn't tried to have Jason killed in the garden. As if they had last met at a cocktail party. As if they both shared a very good joke. "Why?" Jas feebly asked, because he was too tired and enervated to say what was really on his mind.

"You're a survivor all right," Abner Doon said, patting Jason's hand. "So many people never use their heads. Even people with fine minds. You'll do. You'll do very well."

Jas didn't ask what he'd do very well for. He knew that in the opinion of an Estorian twick, he'd do very nicely for supper. Jas disregarded the vague fear and anger he felt in his stomach and turned his head away.

"I'll come visit you later," Doon said, still cheerful.

"Don't bother," Jas mumbled. Then he slept again. He dreamed of tearing Boon with his teeth, burrowing into his throat and ripping out his voice and then opening the jugular vein. The hot blood leaped from the throat. Then, suddenly, the blood was coming from the picture of his father on the ceiling in his mother's flat, and Jas felt the blood warm on his face. He woke up, grief stricken and guilt–ridden.

Boon was washing his face with a warm cloth.

"Quite a dream," the man said. "You were sweating quite a bit."

Jas pulled his head away from the cloth. His wounds didn't feel as painful as they had before. Tight, though, and Jas still felt weak and sleepy.

"Don't pull away, Jas," Doon said. "I'm only trying to wash your face."

Jas turned his back, holding on to the opposite side of the bed.

"Don't be absurd," Doon said. "You're acting like an adolescent."

Jas turned back over, and the quick motion made him grimace with a sharp pain from his hip. He looked at Doon, who again seemed to be kindness personified.

"Sorry that I didn't die on schedule," Jas said.

"Schedule? I have you scheduled for several centuries from now."

"You tried to kill me, you bastard!"

"Oh, that," Doon said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "That's not worth arguing over. Come along."

Doon beckoned to an orderly, who brought over a wheelchair. The orderly helped Doon lower Jas into the chair. Then Doon himself pushed Jas out of the room.

They went down corridors whose doors didn't open, until the corridor itself opened into a large room. Prominent at one end of the room was a desk. Behind it the wall was an elaborate computer terminal.

Doon wheeled Jas over to the computer terminal.

"Here's where I found you, Jas."

But Jas studiously did not look at the terminal. Instead he gazed at his injured upper arm. Of course the bandages had long since been removed, while he was under the healers' sleep, and the connective tissue now looked purple and disgusting. Doon didn't seem to mind that Jas wasn't paying attention, though, and soon the boy gave up and looked where he was supposed to.

"I have two basic files here — they hold everything I need to know. One is the nonsense file. The other is the contradiction file. If found you in nonsense, of course."

A code. Jas noticed, too, that Doon had a double cover code on the program, besides the basic search and specify. The screen flashed: "All left–handed blue–eyed women with an IQ of 97 who eat more than two pounds of meat a week and who have more than three lovers." The list took three flashes to read out fully on the screen. "You'll be amused to know, Jas, that the list you just saw includes not just one, but two mistresses or former mistresses of Cabinet members. Incredible, isn't it, that they could both meet that description. Amazing things in this computer."

"And you found me under the program for all blue–eyed thirteen–year–old orphans with telepathic gifts," Jas said.

"No. You were part of a much more random search. Everyone knows the computer knows everything — the trouble is that you have to have the keys to find what you want. I have the keys. And here's the program that found you."

The screen flashed: "All children IQ greater than measurable, PQ above 3.8, health excellent, with unfavorable reports from at least two teachers."

Jas's curiosity was stirred. "Why the unfavorable reports?"

"It's possible to be brilliant and utterly uncreative," Doon said. "But brilliant and creative people always antagonize the merely bright, who lack, shall we say, originality. Your odds of running into such unoriginal persons in the school system of Capitol are about 8,000 to one — a reasonably good guide, then, to creativity. Better than any test I've seen."

"And you had unfavorable reports from two of my teachers?"

"Actually, Jas, you stuck out on this list because you've never had a teacher who didn't file an unfavorable report on you, despite the fact that your PQ shows you adjusted at the 3.9 level, which is neurotic but certainly not antisocial. Why the reports? I could only conclude that you were exceptionally creative. So I had the computer file you and gather all data. Merely routine, of course, but I was aware of you. That was five years ago. Between then and now I've been asleep on somec. Normally I take twenty years —" which, Jas realized, meant that Doon was getting more somec sleep than was legally permitted outside the service " — but because of you I came out only three weeks ago."

"I didn't mean to wake you. I'll be quieter next time."

"I had the computer set to wake me when a certain kind of contradiction came up. The contradiction that triggered it was, of course, your score on the astrodynamics test."

"I wish I'd flunked it."

"No you don't. I don't mean the first astrodynamics test. That was routine. It merely identified you as a Swipe, and the computer would have been content to let you die. Luckily for me and the Empire — and you, of course — you're a survivor. You lived long enough to take the second test."

Jas remembered how he had labored over the answers to that one. "I didn't pass that one by checking in on anybody's mind, Doon."

"I know. After all, whose mind would you check in on, as you so colorfully put it? There isn't a single mind — or computer, for that matter — in the Empire or out of it that could have given you all the answers. You missed one test question, of course. But there were three questions on that test for which we didn't have an answer."

Doon paused. Jas slowly realized the implications of that.

"You mean I moved beyond —"

"I mean," Doon said, "that you are a reasonably bright young fellow with prospects for a satisfactory career in astrodynamics. My engineers assure me that they can now construct a ship that moves not the piddling triple–light–speed that our scouts now muster, but rather a dazzling eleven lights. Nothing, my young friend, goes eleven lights. And you twisted up the physicists' understanding of mass somehow, though they despaired of trying to explain the difference to me. I'm not mathematical. I hardly need tell you what this does for the Empire."

"I suppose it will speed up the mail."

"You have a very flippant attitude today," Doon said.

"I always antagonize the merely bright," Jas retorted.

"You might recall that I can have you killed if I like."

"You might recall that I have already faced about the worst you can do to me. Kill me if you like. I hardly give a damn."

Doon punched something else on the computer, and in the space over a large table in the middle of the room, a star map formed. The stars were fairly dense. Another code, and most of them disappeared. Now all that were left were pale blue stars and bright red stars. "Us," said Doon, "and Them."

"They surround us," Jas said, surprised.

"Colonies all around, yes indeed. We're hemmed in. And much as we hate to admit it publicly, this war is all about colonies. Whoever has room to expand will eventually win. Whoever is hemmed in will eventually lose."

"Too bad for Mother, then, I suppose," Jas said, though such an unpatriotic attitude jarred even him — one didn't forget one's entire upbringing in a single fit of pique over a mere attempted murder.

"Too bad until now, anyway. With the new eleven–light drive, my young friend, we shall soon be colonized far beyond them — and before they can steal the drive and duplicate it, we'll be firmly entrenched. It will remove the whole question of encirclement forever, I am quite confident."

"So play the national anthem and give me a medal, Mr. Doon. Don't have me eaten alive by little animals. It doesn't feel like a suitable reward."

"Does that still bother you? Surely you understand that it was a test."

"What were you testing for, how good I taste? Or how long I can hold my breath underwater?"

"Actually, I was testing to see if your clever and creative mind would keep you alive in a situation of high pressure. You're a survivor."

"And what if I had failed the test?"

"You'd be dead. I was willing to risk my whole waking on that one test."

"A whole waking. While I merely risked the rest of my life."

"You are annoyingly egocentric, Jas. What difference would it make to the world if you dropped dead right now? An infinitesimally smaller daily food demand for Capitol. In this universe you don't amount to horse manure — you recall what horses are? No matter how bright you are, my boy, you are worthless and trivial to the universe until and unless you get into a position where you can make a difference."

Doon walked behind Jas and abruptly began pushing the chair toward the door.

"I spent the first thirty years of my life, Jason, just getting where I am. For thirty years I manipulated and connived and sacrificed — I passed up five chances to go on somec before I was finally satisfied that I had the organization that I needed. I let myself reach thirty physical years of age, in order to get the position I have."

"Assistant minister of colonization."

"I had that at twenty–two. The rest of the time was spent getting control of the computers, winning Mother's Little Boys to my group, getting men and women who ultimately reported to me in every level of the bureaucracy. And I had to keep it all secret so that someone didn't pull the plug while I was under somec."

Jas involuntarily started to laugh at the juxtaposition of the archaic phrase "pull the plug," but caught himself, and merely smiled. "The ultimately efficient megalomaniac," he said.

"Of course. Megalomaniacs are simply people who know damn well they can run the universe better than God or the present governors."

"You've been doing a super job," Jas said. "Everybody's happy."

"What the hell do I care if anybody's happy?" Doon asked. "Least of all you. Heredity has dealt you a full deck, my boy. So you're going to play cards until you win or go broke. You're in my collection, and if you do as you're told, you'll eventually reach a position where you can make a difference to humanity. But if you decide to do things on your own, you'll step outside my protection. Do that, and if Radamand Worthing doesn't get you, Hartman Tork will."

Doon pushed the chair quickly down the corridor. And as Doon's last statement hung in the air, Jas felt a tremendous vertigo. The chair was not moving forward, it was falling down the corridor, and he was powerless to stop it. He wasn't afraid of hitting the end — it was the falling itself, the powerlessness itself that made him throw his hands out in front of him and shout, "Stop me! Let me stop!"

And Doon stopped pushing the chair. A sudden silence fell in the corridor. The rhythm of Doon's running steps made the stillness shout deafeningly. Jas covered his face with his hands.

"What's wrong, Jas?" Doon whispered. "Why are you afraid?"

Jas just shook his head.

"Brilliant or not, Jason, you are still a child, I suppose. If you would only talk like a child, people would remember to treat you like one."

"I don't want to be treated like a child."

"Well, you sure as hell don't want to be treated like an adult. Remember that you applied for the Service?"

"They turned me down."

"They've already reconsidered. You'll begin pilot school as soon as your skin is healed."

"Pilot school?" Jas was surprised. "That was just my escape, to save my life — I never really wanted to be a pilot."

"Too intellectual for the Space Service, is that it? Well, consider it a lifesaver anyway, boy. Pilots live longer than anybody. If they don't get killed, of course — but you're a survivor, right? On all their twenty– and thirty–year flights, they're only awake for a few months at the most. The rest of the time, somec. Pilots are on a somec level that will keep you young and alive for five hundred years."

"And after that?" Jas asked, trying to be sarcastic.

"Why, further instructions, of course," Doon answered with a bland smile. "There are only a few people in the Empire who are on the somec level that pilots take for granted. The whole Cabinet will die before you. Only I will stay alive. And the head of the Little Boys. And a few of my most needed assistants."

Jas stared. "The somec usage is determined strictly by law!"

"And once upon a time there was a little girl with long blond hair that got involved with three talking bears. I control the people who control the somec, and that means I have control over life and death everywhere in the Empire. Rather a secure position to be in."

"I don't want to be a pilot."

"Then you want to be a corpse. That's the choice."

"I thought you said you didn't think you were God!" Jas shouted.

"I don't."

"Then get out of my life!"

"Why? Just because I want to make you great, whether you like it or not?"

"If I'm going to be great, I'm going to do it on my own. And I don't know if I even care about ‘greatness'. Not everybody's a would–be worldmaker, Doon."

"You have no vision, Jas."

"I see better than anybody I know."

"Better, but not very far. Your father's dead."

"You think I didn't know that?"

"He died because he and some other Swipe ship captains weren't content to serve. They went into business for themselves, and so they lost the protection of the Empire. They thought they didn't need it. So they took a dozen ships and made war with the universe. They were heroes for a while, of course. Everybody loves a rebel — from a distance, and as long as the rebel loses gracefully. But when they were about to lose, they burned over some planets as a last–ditch effort. Then suddenly the Swipe heroes became Swipe bastards, and Swipes were hunted down and killed all over the Empire. And do you know why your father burned those planets?"

"No." Jas was grinding his teeth and couldn't stop.

"Because they wouldn't let him land. He requested permission to land and refuel, and they turned him down. He had to teach them a lesson."

"That's not true. They fired on him."

"You know that there's no weapon that can be fired in an atmosphere that can possibly do damage to a ship, Jas."

"My father burned them in self–defense."

"He was angry, and he had to teach them a lesson."

"No!"

"Like father, like son," Doon said.

Jason half–rose from the wheelchair, until the pain stopped him. "That's not true, you bastard! I'd never burn a planet, I never would —"

"You would, Jason. Right now you would, if they got you angry enough. Because you have no vision. You have nothing important to accomplish, no magnificent goal that keeps you from destroying yourself to achieve petty, transitory objectives. You don't even have a right to be free until you have vision and purpose. And so I'll rule you, Jason, and keep you safe until you're able to rule yourself."

They moved again down the corridor. Jas tried to look into Doon's mind, to see, if he could, what Doon eventually planned to do with him — having been betrayed once in the garden, he didn't plan to be betrayed again. But he couldn't twist around to see Boon's eyes, and whether that really stopped him from seeing into the man's mind or whether he simply couldn't control the gift well enough to see a person's thoughts without looking at him, Jas found nothing, could tell nothing.

They got back to the hospital room, which was still empty. Without a word Jas gingerly lifted himself out of the chair, and though he wanted to refuse Boon's help, he had to lean on the man as he made his way to the bed.

"Thirteen years old," Boon whispered. "Well, heaven knows you're ready for pilot school, anyway. They'll undoubtedly bend the rules and make you a pilot before you turn twenty–one — why they chose that age anyway is beyond me to fathom. You should go on two or three voyages, and then sometime, say a century or a hundred and twenty years from now, when you return to Capitol from a voyage, come to the Ministry of Colonization and ask for an appointment with me.

They'll know that they should wake me then. I'll look forward to seeing you again, my boy."

"Going back to sleep now, Mr. Doon?" Jas asked.

"In a few days. I've spent far too much time with you as it is, and I'm behind schedule on all my other work. You'd better be worth it."

"I hope I'm not."

"You like being excellent too well, Jas. You won't be able to stop yourself."

"I will not be part of your bloody vision!"

"How do you know that your resistance to me isn't exactly what I want from you?" Doon asked, amused.

In despair Jas threw himself back on the pillow, staring at the ceiling. There was no picture there. Through gritted teeth he said, "There isn't a damn thing I can do."

"You can trust me," Doon suggested. Jas laughed bitterly. Doon sighed. "Why don't you just look, and see who I am?"

"Look inside you?" Jas asked.

"Or are you afraid that if you knew me, you couldn't hate me anymore?"

And so Jas leaned up on his left elbow and looked behind Abner Doon's mind. It wasn't just a glance this time, as it had always been before. This time he looked deep, looked far, found the hidden places, found the lies and the lies behind them and finally came down to the truth. He held it in his mind — the basis on which Abner Doon thought, decided, acted — and was amazed. And then he stopped being amazed, and only with drew from Doon's mind. Painfully, reluctantly removed himself, and then, because he had left, he wept. Doon went away. Finally Jas slept.

When he woke, he remembered vague words that Doon had said, but whether Doon had actually said them or Jas had only dreamed them, he didn't know. He remembered them, though, and over the next few weeks, as bureaucrats processed him into the Service, tested him, trained him, as he consented to everything done to him, he stopped despising himself for the memory of Doon's words, and began, instead, to call them back, to listen to them again in his dreams, and in his daydreaming.

One day they came to him and told him he was ready for his first Service assignment. It was on the other side of Capitol, a long journey, and at the end of it he was assigned a tiny cubicle in a far corner of the officers' section of the command center. It was lowest in the hierarchy of privilege and perks, but it was a private room all the same, and in officers' quarters, too. And there was a full–length mirror on the wall.

"Ha," Jas said when he saw himself in it.

He was surprised to see that he was still only thirteen years old, still only a little over 165 centimeters in height, his main growth still ahead of him. Somehow during the last week he had stopped thinking of himself as a child. He was surprised at how young the face was. How slight the body.

He grinned, and the boy in the mirror smiled slightly back at him.

Then Jas turned and unpacked his few belongings, then began memorizing the list of command center rules and regulations that had been given him upon arrival. He was going to be the best damned new officer they'd ever had. Because the sooner everyone was happy with him, the sooner he'd become a pilot. And the sooner he became a pilot, the sooner he'd be on somec, and then he could sleep through most of the years until he could wake up at the end of a century and come back to see Doon.

He knew it was ironic that he should look forward to seeing the man who had tried to kill him, but Jas understood that a little better, now. For he had seen Abner Doon as no other living person had seen him. From the inside. And inside Abner Doon, behind the memories and pain, Jas had found what no other man could show him.

Peace. Utter discontent, but peace with his vision of the possibility, peace with his commitment to fulfilling that vision.

And Jas remembered the words he had heard Doon say. "I love you, son."

He set the list aside, closed his eyes, and recalled, or tried to recall, the face on the ceiling in his mother's flat. He couldn't. It was gone from his memory. When he tried to remember his father's face, all he could see was Doon, smiling.