Music Makers by Kate Wilhelm Page B

security. Of course, Dad got the hell out of there, but the security firm was alarmed. Apparently it happened at least one other time. Anyway, we suspect that they are trying to find out how he shows up in places where they are responsible for security. Their reputation is at stake. They want to keep track of him and his possible contacts if we’re right about the pill.”
    He said that some of his ancestors had been tried as witches, that one had been burned at the stake, and another one imprisoned. Since no prison could hold any of them, he had left and headed west where he vanished. They, the family, had kept as much of the past a secret as possible, one reason for the big farm in Tennessee, where they had isolation to a point and felt safe. But, he added a bit lamely, a really good investigation might uncover some other events that were not easily explained. I assumed he referred to some of his own travels.
    “Why did Dad go to Tennessee now? What’s he up to?”
    “He wants to make sure the house is ready for all of us if we decide it’s time to go there,” he said reluctantly. “Only if we think it’s necessary,” he added, when I shook my head.
    “Why would it be necessary?” I demanded. “What else are you leaving out?”
    He got up and poured himself a glass of wine, returned and we both took long drinks. “Dad’s afraid he might have to take off for a while,” he said. “He doesn’t want to leave you and Jason with just me. It’s too hard for you. The farm is safe, a one story house, big and comfortable, with some very loyal employees who accept that the family is a little peculiar. He can come and go there easily. No one can sneak up on him, or slip something into his pocket, keep him under surveillance all the time.”
    “So the dog will have the embedded tracking thing,” I said after another drink of wine. It was getting better. I might take it up with dinner, too. “They’ll think Dad is at home most of the time while he’s free to go wherever he wants to. And so are you.”
    Vernon nodded. He was turning into a regular bobble head, I thought and giggled.
    “I need a little time,” I said then. “This is all too much for one sitting. I’m going to take a walk.”
    He nodded.
    I walked through the empty subdivision, and even got a little lost a time or two. The streets all wind about, change their names in a capricious manner, and there are few landmarks. But I did need to walk and think. It was crazy, but that didn’t mean it was untrue. I could well understand why it had to be kept a closely guarded secret. What a prize they would be to a research neurologist. Not just a scientific goldmine, but for corporations, the military . . . Geneticists would go crazy over them. Isolate the gene or genes responsible, and go on from there. To what end? Too many possibilities to contemplate.
    One thought persisted regardless of how many others swam to the surface. I had to protect Jason. Little else mattered. If the farm was the best place to do that, we’d move to the farm. Vernon had grown up there, and he had been safe there. I suspected that we lived in the leased house instead of the farm because that’s where Vernon lived when his mother took off. He was afraid I’d get lonely or something. But I had already decided she was a twit. That was not a consideration. Jason’s safety was.
    Our house unexpectedly came into sight and I went home.
    Vernon and Dad were both vastly relieved when I told them I agreed that we should move to the farm as soon as possible. Dad had been moving his belongings most of the day, and they both worked well into the night taking things they didn’t want movers to handle. We should keep everything as normal appearing as we could, Vernon said that night, not raise any suspicions, and that meant that I should follow my usual routine, keep going to the park and playground and so on. He would arrange for a moving company to come and pack up whatever was left, and