“She…she questioned me, but I…”
The Imperial telepath’s tone penetrated Johnston’s focus on Hitchcock’s ascent. He looked down at the kitchen floor, at the toes of his shoes, and concentrated on the voice in his ear.
“Take your time, Thorpe,” he said.
* * * *
Prossie drew a deep breath and tried to compose herself.
It shouldn’t hurt this much, she told herself. She had already known she was a rogue, an outlaw; she had already known that Carrie was turned against her.
Still, she hadn’t felt it until she had taken up direct mental contact with Carrie again.
Then she had felt it, all right-that tense loathing and anger, not just from Carrie, but through her from the entire network of telepaths, the entire extended family.
In fact, most of it came from the four hundred, not from Carrie-but then, Prossie knew that Carrie hardly had any real existence apart from the network. All her life she’d lived in the family’s web of thought and feeling, just the way Prossie had before Ruthless came through the warp.
And much of what the family felt they picked up from the normals around them, the non-telepaths. Carrie was working with John Bascombe and General Hart and people who hated and feared telepaths; it was easy for her to direct that fear and hatred at her traitor cousin.
Still, it was a shock to feel it.
And it was a shock to learn why it was so intense.
Bascombe had sent those men to Earth after her.
Carrie hadn’t meant to let that slip, but she had. She hadn’t meant to tell Prossie anything.
And Prossie hadn’t meant to tell Carrie as much as she had, either, but any time telepaths communicated directly there would be leakage, there would be things that slipped out. A telepath couldn’t completely hide anything without breaking contact.
Hell, even when there was no conscious contact, things tended to leak through; telepathy wasn’t limited to conscious thought. Anything one telepath knew, they all did, on some level-though they might not all remember it.
Prossie swallowed and gripped the phone, the strange Earthly gadget that was almost like a mechanical telepath, that could transmit voices for hundreds of miles.
“Major Johnston,” she said, “I found out what those men were sent after.”
“Yes?”
“They think…they suspect that you and your people have joined forces with Shadow, that you’re plotting together against the Empire, and that I came here as Shadow’s liaison. They came to capture or kill me, and to see whether such an alliance actually exists. I told Carrie that it doesn’t, and that Shadow is dead, and she should know I wasn’t lying, but I can’t be sure.”
For a moment Prossie heard nothing, and she wondered whether the phone had broken, or whether some part of its mysterious mechanical workings needed extra time to transmit this particular message, but then Johnston asked, “Can you relay to her for us?”
Prossie shook her head before she remembered that Johnston couldn’t see her.
“No,” she said. “She and I…we can’t communicate any shy;more.”
“Damn. You’re sure?”
Prossie took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”
“Is there anyone else she can communicate with, then? Did they send any telepaths with that bunch we have locked up? And please, don’t tell me it’s Hitchcock, because he’s two-thirds of the way up the ladder out here.”
“No, sir. Not Hitchcock or any of the others, so far as I know-none of them are telepaths, and I don’t think any of them can receive.” Prossie blinked. “But there are some possibilities, sir-you know, we sort of made contact with some of your own people before Ruthless came through. There were six…no, five of them, because one died.”
She didn’t really listen to what Johnston said to her next, because she knew what it was going to be. She closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering.
“Their names…there are three men and a woman, and a little girl. The men are named Oram Blaisdell, and Carleton Miletti, and Ray Aldridge, and the woman is Gwenyth, I don’t know her last name, and the little girl’s name is Angela Thompson, I talked to her sometimes. I think Carrie’s brother Brian was the last one assigned to contact them…”
* * * *
Pel stared at the object in dismay as he wiped blood and bits of fat and skin from his hands. A thick, soapy smell filled the room.
The thing on the table was made of human flesh, or a reasonable approximation. It had the shape of a woman. He thought he could force it to live, if he wanted to.
But it wasn’t Nancy.
He had thought he remembered her every feature, every inch, every detail, but the thing he had created, had grown and gathered and shaped into a semblance of humanity, was not Nancy. The face was wrong. The proportions were wrong.
“I was never a sculptor,” he said, flinging down his washrag in disgust.
Behind him stood two fetches and three others; two of the others, the two wizards, stirred at his words.
“Your pardon, O Great One,” Athelstan said, looking quickly from Pel to the inanimate body and back, “but I see no flaw in this homunculus. Surely, it…”
“It’s not Nancy,” Pel shouted at him, wheeling to face the wizard. The air crackled with anger, and red light blazed from the walls; Boudicca backed away a step.
“Nay, ’tis not,” Athelstan admitted hurriedly, “nor did I say it might be. Yet you’ve created here a woman-is that not a fair start? To make so fine a semblance as you desire, one needs must have better to work from…”
“I don’t want a semblance,” Pel barked. “I want Nancy. And Rachel. My wife and daughter.”
“And surely, with patience, you’ll have them,” Athelstan said. He gestured at the woman who stood stolidly to the side. “Have you not brought this one back from the dead? Can any doubt that you have the power to wreak whatever you will?”
Pel turned and looked at Susan. She gazed calmly back, and he relaxed slightly. He had brought her back without any problem.
But he hadn’t had to create a body for her.
“Doesn’t look much like Nancy, does it?” he asked her.
Susan looked at the lifeless homunculus. “It’s a good try,” she said slowly, “but it isn’t quite right, no.”
Pel turned to Athelstan again. “If we had some of Nancy’s hair, would that help?”
“Oh, most assuredly! By the Law of Contagion we derive the Law of Parts, and see thereby that the part can be made equal to the whole-from a single hair, in time, we can surely recreate all the pattern of your wife’s flesh.”
“Do you know how to do it?”
Athelstan hesitated, then glanced at Boudicca.
“I do,” the female wizard said.
“Good,” Pel said. He looked at Susan, then away.
If he sent Susan back to Earth, why would she return? It was, perhaps, cruel to keep her here, but so far she hadn’t asked him to send her home, and it was so good to see her alive again, to have the company of a fellow Earthman.
Maybe she wasn’t sure the magic that had revived her would hold back on Earth-and for that matter, Pel wasn’t entirely certain, either, but Shadow’s fetches had lived in the Galactic Empire, and Prossie had said simulacra had lived there; why not a revenant on Earth, then? Susan had left Earth alive, and would return alive, and what difference did it make what had happened in between?
But he wanted her here.
He would open a portal to Earth, and send someone to bring him back Nancy’s hairbrush, and Rachel’s, and the bedroom and bathroom wastebaskets, and anything else that might have hairs or fingernail clippings in it.