Psion by Joan D. Vinge Page B

of him. “But neither of those possibilities falls particularly close to the mark. My venture is on an entirely different scale.”
    I glanced at Jule, my skin prickling. Her look said that she was there way ahead of me. I drowned the realization in mind-static before it could form into conscious thought: that this was what we’d been waiting for. The messenger from Quicksilver, the psion who could make the whole Federation afraid of his shadow. I tried to make all my sudden jangling excitement feel like it belonged to what Rubiy had just said; not sure if he was trying to read us, or even whether we’d know it if he did.
    “Isn’t this happening too fast?” Jule sat forward, surprising me. “You don’t even know us.”
    “On the contrary.” He shook his head. “I’ve been observing you all, privately, for days-studying your talents and your resources, making inquiries . . . deciding who would fit in, and who would simply be a liability. I’ve already narrowed my list.”
    I wondered how much more he would have narrowed it if he’d dropped in on us a few weeks earlier, and overheard one of the “special sessions” we’d been put through. . . . I pushed it out of my thoughts again as fast as I could. I was realizing suddenly what it would mean to try to spy on a whole gang of psions. The thought made me sweat. But if Rubiy hadn’t seen the truth in my mind or somebody’s by now, it couldn’t be that simple, even for someone like him. The false images that we’d had put into our memories must be working; and besides, it wasn’t that easy to walk into another psion’s mind. I ought to know that, if anybody did. I began to relax, just a little.
    “You have both telepathy and telekinesis?” Jule was saying.
    Rubiy nodded. “As well as teleportation. I am something of a genetic freak, even among ‘freaks.’ . . .”
    I’d thought no human could do all that. Rubiy went on asking Jule questions, answering her own. Her voice was so small that it was hard to hear. I wondered why he’d choose somebody like her, someone so nervous that he could hardly count on her under pressure. . . .
    “. . . And you are, of course, one of the illustrious taMings,” he was saying. It wasn’t a question. “Your family controls Centauri Transport. It’s rare to find a psion of such distinguished lineage.”
    Jule frowned. “Most of them are strangled at birth.” The bitter sarcasm of it startled a laugh out of Rubiy. I looked at Jule, not really believing those words had come out of her mouth. Her hands twisted the worn black cloth of her shirt. “I’m only a country cousin.”
    But doors shut in her mind; even I knew she was lying. Rubiy had to know it, too; just like he had to know that whatever she’d been once, she was nothing and nobody now.
    But he said, “Nonetheless, for what we’ll be doing, it’s an excellent qualification.”
    She didn’t ask why. I did.
    Rubiy only smiled at me, gently.
    “Okay, then.” I pulled my feet up under me. “Why me? If you’ve really been watching what we do, you know I ain’t worth spitting on as a ‘path. I might as well be dead for all the good I’d be to you.” I wasn’t sure if I was just asking, or trying to talk him out of something.
    “You may want to think you’re the psionic idiot of this group, but believe me, your potential is greater than anything you’ll ever see here.” Suddenly his eyes were like spotlights, and my own were like window glass.
    No. I looked down and away, shaking my head. “That ain’t-that ain’t what Siebeling thinks.”
    “What Dr. Siebeling thinks, and what he really understands, are two different things.”
    Jule stiffened beside me; a tiny line formed between her brows. I said, “You ought to tell him that.”
    “I intend to. Because he is a doctor-and for other skills-he is also one of my ‘chosen.’” Rubiy nodded, dark humor twisting his face. His foot tapped a silent tattoo on the carpet.
    “What makes you