Plot Bunny Release part 4
Nov. 14th, 2004 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenAnd here's the last released plot bunny. This is several bunnies in one, actually, because I tried a number of approaches and couldn't get any of them to work. The basic idea is the same in all of them: a OS Tomorrow People / Champions crossover where Tricia Conway returns to Earth and gets mixed up with The Champions (one way or another).
(approach #1)
It was a rare day. The sky was a perfect blue, without a single cloud. Through the blinds, the plume of the water column turned the lake into a fountain for giants. Beyond were city buildings, and rising above them, the mountains.
The office was large, dominated by a map of the world on one wall. A small window peeked out between it and the intrusion of the security entranceway. Comfortable chairs clustered in front of a long desk, with Venetian-blinded windows behind it.
Standing before these windows was a slight woman in conservative clothes, and straight, unbound light brown hair. She should have been sitting decorously in one of those chairs, waiting. Or, indeed, waiting outside. Waiting for her new boss to arrive. But she wanted to see the view. And think about what brought her to this place. To Geneva. To Nemesis.
"How did you get in?"
She came to herself with a start, and turned. "Through the door," she replied. It was a half-truth.
The man confronting her was grey-haired but vigorous, dapper in his beard and grey suit, the picture of disconcerted authority. "It's locked. It was locked," he corrected himself. "The alarms should have gone off."
"Since when is that a problem for a good Nemesis agent?"
"A good Nemesis agent does not go barging in to their head's office."
"I wanted to impress you, Mr. Tremayne," she explained. "I'm Patricia Conway, your newest recruit." She held out her hand. He shook it rather bemusedly.
"How did you get in?" he asked, putting his briefcase down and coming up to his chair.
"Have you read my file?" she asked. "I used to work in Special Projects for Colonel Masters [of the SIS]."
Recognition dawned. "You're the telepath."
"Among other things. Not all of them are on my record." A light on the desk flickered. "Somebody at the door," she pointed out.
"In a minute. Why aren't they on your record?"
"I've become a bit more talented since then. And I'm not sure I trust records - they can be stolen."
"And used against one? I see."
"It's happened before."
"Our security is tighter since then - well, it was." He smiled ironically.
"That wasn't exactly what I meant."
"And what did you mean, exactly?"
"Actually, your example is better than mine - though my talents are probably more valuable than Richard Barrett's."
"How did you - I see. More valuable... Can you do that all the time?"
"It varies," she shrugged. "And I think you'd better open the door." She reached over and flicked a switch on Tremayne's desk. The security door opened, to reveal a suited man with jet black hair and an aura of supreme self-confidence. Tremayne frowned at Tricia, but decided not to pursue the matter.
"Patricia Conway, meet Craig Sterling."
"Charmed, I'm sure," the American said, taking her hand.
"Call me Tricia."
"You two will be working together on this next case." At this, Craig looked questioning. Tremayne added wryly, "Don't worry, she won't break your remarkable record. She's quite remarkable herself."
"What Mr. Tremayne is trying to avoid saying is that I'm a telepath."
"Can you bend forks as well?"
"With my bare hands."
"Now, children, you can quarrel later. We have serious things to consider." He gestured at the chairs and they both sat down.
Tricia reached out with her mind to get a feel of her soon-to-be partner, but she met a wall. A natural shield. Interesting. And rather disturbing. What was she getting herself into?
[assignment]
"What about Richard or Sharon?"
"I can't spare them at the moment - that's why Miss Conway is going with you."
...
"A word, if you please, Miss Conway." The man who gestured to her was of medium build, dark curly hair with touches of grey, thinning at the side. Tricia couldn't help noticing the hostility with which Craig eyed him. She followed the man down a corridor to an empty office, as he continued "I'm Alexander Kyle, head of internal security." He waved her to a chair. "Do sit down."
"What did you want to talk to me about?" Tricia said, well aware that her own activities of the past several months would not be very explainable to someone who had never been off the planet. But what he actually said took her completely by surprise.
"I have reason to believe that Craig Sterling is not, shall we say, completely above board in his work for us."
"You mean he's a double agent."
"With your abilities, it should be easy to determine the truth."
"I can't read his mind, Mr. Kyle," Tricia replied. "He has a natural shield. Some people do."
"A pity. Conventional investigation has proved ineffective."
"You interrogated him, and got nothing." She paused, regarding his stony face. "You see, I *can* read your mind, Mr Kyle."
"And maybe you can read Craig Sterling's anyway and won't cooperate? Maybe you're both working for the same people. You haven't been in circulation recently, Miss Conway. Perhaps Internal Security would like to know where you've been."
"Alfirk. Advanced training." In psi abilities. The Trig had its own form of covert operations, needed often enough that some were trained in it. "You already know that."
"So you said. We can't seem to find any Alfirk."
In other circumstances, she might have smiled. "It's not on most maps." Star maps, yes, but he wouldn't have been looking at them.
"Most maps in the Western World?"
"And the Eastern," she added calmly, meeting the challenge in his eyes.
"I expect you to cooperate, Miss Conway."
"I would have to look at his file -"
"No time now."
"I could look at it later." If she could find out - yes, the main files were kept in Tremayne's office. In the section behind the map partition.
"You have a plane to catch."
"Tremayne doesn't know about this, does he? And you don't want him to find out."
"Tremayne is blinded by sentiment."
"Some people would call it friendship, I think." She stood up. "Do you have any friends, Mr. Kyle?"
"I only have the best interests of Nemesis at heart."
"I know," Tricia replied. "Mysteries make you nervous. But some secrets are best left buried."
She left the office, glad it was far enough away that no-one had heard the conversation, particularly Craig. But it wasn't far enough away for someone with his abilities. He had heard every word.
...
Craig was lounging where she had left him. "What was that about?"
"Beastly beaurocracy," Tricia grimaced. "What was your grandmother's maiden name, that sort of thing."
"I'm surprised Kyle bothered you with it at this time." Craig was curiously tense, but she passed it off as his understandable hostility towards the man who had interrogated him.
"So am I."
They continued along the corridor. *It's a good thing you can't read my mind.* The thought came winging like an arrow in her direction.
Tricia stopped and looked at Craig. "Did you say something?"
"Me? No."
He was genuinely surprised. Of course he would be. But it was him, she'd swear. A latent telepath? Or something. That could explain the shield. But not the content. It's a good thing you can't read my mind. And how could he know that? Bugs in Kyle's office? Maybe he was a double agent after all.
...
When they arrived at the airport, Tricia excused herself and made a phone call. Yet again, Craig heard things that were not meant for his ears. Only her side of the conversation, but it was enough to worry him.
Kyle. You'd better sweep your office. I think he overheard our conversation....
Something he let slip...
Yes, yes, I will. I don't approve of traitors.
She thinks I'm a traitor. Because I let something slip? What the hell did I let slip? She doesn't know that I know that she knows that I know what they said. How does that help?
...
Heathrow airport was grey with the usual English drizzle.
They started toward the group when suddenly Craig yelled "Get down!"and sprinted towards the Bey. Tricia looked around wildly for a moment, and spotted a man, pointing his umbrella in the direction of the Bey. She started after Craig, belatedly wondering, in that odd way that you keep on thinking in emergencies, whether he'd ever been a sprinter in the Olympics, he was so far ahead of her. He was just up to the Bey's group when he stumbled and fell. Funny he should trip, she thought, then she realized he must have been hit by whatever was meant for the Bey. In a few more steps she was pushing away the people around Craig and knelt by his body. No blood, she couldn't see any blood, but he was unconscious, breathing shallowly. One part of her mind skittered like a trapped mouse - there wasn't a bullet, what could have done this? Then she saw the small dart on the floor, and picked it up. "Poison," she said aloud, and set her healing abilities to flushing it out of his system. His face broke out in sweat
"So, once again you save my life, Craig Sterling," said the Bey.
"I hadn't planned on doing it from the floor," Craig groaned, staggering to his feet. "What hit me?"
"This," Tricia said, holding up the dart. You should be dead.
"I have a hardy constitution," Craig answered.
"Did anyone get the man with the umbrella?"
"What man? There must be hundreds of men with umbrellas!"
"The man who shot the dart."
"Obviously he's the man who got away."
"You can be sure he'll be back. He hasn't done what he came here for."
"And we'll make sure he won't succeed."
...
"So why didn't you go after the man with the umbrella?"
"Oh, you normally expect your associates to leave you for dead, do you?"
"I was only knocked out."
"And how was I to know that? Not everybody has the constitution of King Kong."
...
"So, how did they get you from Rome to El Hamin?"
"Under protest!"
"Really?"
"I was young and irresponsible in those days. El Hamin could rot as far as I was concerned. After all, they had exiled my family."
"And you were more interested in wine, women and... song."
The Bay laughed lightly. "I see I can hide nothing from you."
Tricia smiled lightly in return. "Indeed not."
...
A notebook was lying open on the bed, upside down from where he was standing, but that didn't make too much of a problem for him. He pretended to look elsewhere, but still burned the page into his memory. They were working notes, and it didn't take too much to figure out they were about him.
born 1939, joined Nemesis in 1965
The Bey says he shot the assassin through the door - how is that possible?
Himalayas
Barrett & McCready & Sterling - just lucky?
Gold robbery
-- didn't drown
radar jammer airoplane -- didn't drown again
Nuclear test, Australia
Barrett disarmed bomb. Sterling saw plans. Telepathy?
President Drobnic;
bypassed scrambler. Telepathy again?
Del Marco suicides - how did he survive?
the Retford case --- unexplained gaps in continuity
this is where Kyle got the bee in his bonnet
resistance to drugs. pulled the door off its hinges (!)
'nobody can lie consistently.' So he just left gaps.
So what is the shape that fits that hole?
not treachery - that is a gap of a different colour. Maybe.
Anna Maria Martes
see in the dark? All three of them.
Westerman
well we already know he can resist interrogation.
Barkar
How did they find him?
Not as reliable as our telepathy.
...
"No hardware."
"What?"
"It's obvious enough. We don't want awkward questions, not from the people you'd be mixing with. We can't risk them analysing a jaunting belt, can we? Or stunguns. If you want to make it out there on your own, that's what you will be - on your own. Don't expect us to help you out of every hole you dig for yourself."
"Jaunting belts are like training wheels. I can look after myself, thank you very much."
(approach #2)
"Oh my g-" exclaimed Professor Cawston as he entered his office. "Tricia! What are you doing here?'
The person be addressed was a woman of average height, mid-length mid-brown hair, medium-pretty - not particularly striking in any respect, until you saw her eyes, whose brown depths were so penetrating they seemed to see right through one, as if one were made of glass.
"I came to see an old friend," she said dryly.
"Were we friends?" he said doubtfully. He also was a nondescript brown sort of person - right down to the brown corduroy jacket that seemed the hallmark of certain branches of academia.
"You still don't hold all *that* against me, do you?" Tricia asked. "I'm not working for *them* any more - they wouldn't have me, even if I wanted to go back."
"Why on earth not?" he asked. "I would think that the government would still be eager to use someone with your special talents - champing at the bit, I would think."
"Exploit, yes," Tricia replied. "Work with - no. A long unexplained absence does not look good on one's security record."
"When did you get back from...Out There?" He pointed vaguely at the ceiling.
"Very recently," she said. "The others can back much sooner - those that were coming. Haven't you seen them?'
He frowned. "No, I didn't know they were back. But why should an absence look bad on your record?"
"They're hardly likely to believe me if I told them I'd been visiting alien planets, would they? There will be no record of me being anywhere on Earth, and as far as they're concerned, that could only mean one thing - I must have been behind the Iron Curtain. Or the Bamboo Curtain, which is just as bad."
"Why are you so worried about what they think," he asked, "if you don't want to work for them?"
"Well, they're unlikely to give me good references," she said depreciatingly.
"References?" he said. "Who do you want to work for?"
"I don't know!" she returned. "But I'd like to do some good. I don't want to huddle in the Lab waiting for the sky to fall. What's the use of having special powers if you don't *use* them?"
"John doesn't agree," Professor Cawston guessed.
"Indeed not," Tricia said. "We just had a flaming row."
"I'm sorry," he said. Then he noticed something. "What happened to your jaunting belt?'
"I don't need it," she said defensively.
"But?"
She dropped her eyes. "But it's one of the things we argued about. Technology," she explained. "Jaunting belts are like training wheels - helpful to start with, but it is possible to learn to do without them. Of course it isn't as easy, and the analogy isn't perfect; it takes much more effort to do without them than it does to learn to balance a bicycle properly."
"And you think John should throw away his training wheels?"
"No," Tricia returned. "As I said, it's not that easy. Perhaps a better analogy would be learning to ride a unicycle. You don't expect people to do so, even though they could if they wanted to," she explained. "No, the argument was more like 'If you're going to throw yourelf at the Saps, then you're not taking any of my gizmos with you. Never darken my door again.' and so on," she said darkly.
"I could always use a good assistant," Professor Cawston said.
"Thanks, but no thanks," she smiled at him.
He smiled back. "I didn't really think you would."
"I-" she began, and put her hand to her temple, frowning. "Pen," she said . "Paper. Please."
Professor Cawston sensibly gave some to her, and she wrote smething down, concentrating. Then her face cleared, and she frowned over what she had written.
"What is it?" Prof. Cawston asked.
She tuned the pad around and showed it to him. "What does it look like to you?"
"It looks like a telephone number," he said.
"But that doesn't make sense," she said. "I recieved this as a strong visual impression - telepathically. It does *seem* like a telephone number - but why would a telepath be transmitting a telephone number?"
"Maybe they need someone to contact someone who isn't a telepath," Prof. Cawston suggested. "Or maybe it wasn't conscious. He could hue been concentrating on the number, but they don't know that they're telepathic. That's common enough."
Tricia capped her chin in her hand. "One of many possibilities. How can I find out which?"
"Why don't you ring the number?" Professor Cawston suggested. "You can use my phone."
"Thank you - I believe I will," she said, picked up the phone and dialed the number.
It was answered on the first ring.
"Sharon? Do you know where Craig is?" A man, educated, English, and urgent.
He had been expecting the call. How interesting. She wanted information, she had better ask for it.
"Who is this?" she asked.
"Richard Barrett," came the autmatic answer. "Who might you be?" he demanded in return.
"Tricia Conway," she replied, not consideing it worth making up some other answer.
"Do you wish to speak to Mr. Fisher?"
"No, I believe I wish to speak to Mr. Barrett," she said. If he vas not the telepath she was looking for, then why had he been expecting the call? And a particular person to ring? Particularly since it appeared to be the number for Mr. Fisher, whoever he was.
"Who gave you this number?" he asked suspiciously.
"You did," she answered.
"No, I did not," he drawled.
"Perhaps not," she conceded. "It might have been someone else. But I would like to know who did."
"So would I," he said grimly.
"Would you care to discuss it in person?" she asked.
"I'm rather busy," he said.
"And expecting an important call," she said. From someone called Sharon, she thought. It might have been Sharon who had sent out the number.
"Indeed," he said. "Do you know where the Pembrook Inn is?"
"I can find out," she said.
"Meet me there tonight at nine o'clock," he said. "I'll be at the front corner table on the right."
"Agreed," she said.
"How will I know you?" he asked.
She paused, and then smiled to herself. "I'll be wearing an orchid," she said. "You're not likely to mistake that."
"You have expensive tastes, Miss Conway," Richard Barrett said with a smile in his voice.
"Oh no," she said. "I know a very good place to get them."
"Until then, Miss Conway."
"Goodbye, Mr. Barrett," Tricia said.
Her only answer vas the burring of the phone.
"Well?" Professor Cawston asked. "I gather you're going to met this Mr. Barrett. Is he the telepath?"
Trica shook her head. "I don't know. He was expecting a call from someone called Sharon, but that doesn't mean that he was the telepath I picked up on. The odd thing was, he seemed surprised and concerned that I wasn't the person he was expecting *and* that I wasn't asking for the person who was normally there. Seems that was not his own phone number. So why was be expecting a call? I'd like to know where that number was-"
"Directory assistance?" Prof. Cawston suggested.
Another phone call revealed that the number was one of a block assigned to the Patent Office. "It's an office phone - probably the absent Mr. Fisher," Tricia said. "I could pop over there, I suppose but I don't really wish to frighten him away. After all, he has agreed to meet me."
"You're going to a lot of trouble to track down this telepath, aren't you?" Professor Cawston said. "This Mr. Barrett may not know anything."
Tricia shrugged. "Well, it's not as if I've got anything better to do. A little amateur detection might be just the thing to take my mind off things."
"Just so long as it doesn't get you into trouble," he said.
"Oh, don't be an old woman, Professor," she said. "I can take care of myself." She stood up. "Pembrook Inn, nine tonight. I'd better get ready. First stop, Bangkok."
"Bangkok?" Professor Cavston said with surprise. "What for?"
"I'm going to buy an orchid," she said, and vanished.
"I hate it when they do that," Professor Cawston said to himself.
***
Richard Barrett frowned at the phone he had just hung up. Who was this Tricia Conway?. Why had she rung this number? But he had very little time to brood, for the phone rang just a few minutes later.
"Patent Office, Mr. Fisher's office," he said, not about to make the same mistake twice.
"Richard?" It was Sharon. "You're very proper. The phone was engaged."
"Yes, I just got a rather odd call. I'll tell you about it later," he said. "Do you know where Craig is?"
"No," she said. "He's in trouble, isn't he?"
"Did you feel it enough to get a direction?"
"No, I'm afraid not," she said.
"Damn," Richard said in frustration. "If we'd had two directions we might have triangulated a fix. I'm afraid he's on his own for now. He'll just have to manage."
"I know," Sharon sighed. "It's very frutrating knowing that there's something wrong and not being able to do anything about it."
"What's the progress at Farnham Labs?" Richard asked.
"Not enough, I'm afraid," Sharon replied. "The one good sign is that they have found one way to pick out the unstable diamonds before they start deteriorating -"
"If they've found a way of picking them out, what's the problem?"
"It requires the use of an electron microscope."
"Ah, I see," said Richard. "Expensive, non-portable and very rare."
"They are working on other methods, but they all seem equally non-portable," said Sharon. "How about you?"
"No luck so far," Richard said. "It was a bit of a long shot, hoping they had attempt to patent the process, but it was worth checking. When I'm finished here, I'll go meet you at the labs - and tell you about my call."
"I hope we hear from Craig soon," Sharon said.
"Yes, I hope so too," Richard said, and hung up the phone. He cast his mind back to the briefing they had had for this mission...
"Diamonds?" Sharon McCready asked.
The sun was shining on the lake at Geneva, the column of water spouted as if the lake were a fountain for giants, and in his office in the headquarters of Nemesis, Tremayne was briefing his top three agents.
"Diamonds," Tremayne confirmed. "Over the past few months there has been an increase in the number of diamonds on the market. That in itself appeared to be no great cause for alarm - new mines do get discovered from time to time, and that was the assuption that most people made. "
"But why would someone keep quiet about discovering a diamond mine?" Craig Sterling asked.
"Security, obscurity," said Tremayne. "There could be any number of reasons - if it is a new mine."
"If it is? You mean it isn't?" Richard Barrett asked.
"I mean we don't know," Tremayne snapped. "What we do know is that recently a number of new diamonds have been developing flaws."
"*Developing* flaws?" Sharon echoed. "But gems don't *develop* flaws - they either have them or they don't."
"Nevertheless, they have," Tremayne said. "A few have developed cracks, but more have simply gone cloudy, and as the deterioration continues, turned almost black."
"Didn't they pick up the ringers earlier?" Craig asked. "These sound like some sort of failed imitation."
"These *diamonds*," Tremayne said, "passed every standard test."
"But the discolouration would indicate some impurity, surely?" Richard said.
"According to the tests," Tremayne indicated a thick folder on his desk, "the dark colour is caused by graphite."
"An allotrope of carbon, as is diamond," Sharon remarked.
"So there weren't any impurities, because it was still carbon," said Richard, enlightened.
"Just a different crystaline structure," Sharon added.
"But why would it change from one form to another?" Craig asked.
"That is what some very talented scientists are trying to find out," said Tremayne. "Your job is to find the source of these diamonds - whether they are natural, artificial, or whether the instability is induced. Stop it, whatever it is. Plug up the source."
"But why us? It could be just some get-rich scheme - a job for Interpol - " Craig began, but Tremayne interupted him.
"It is not just some scheme - don't you see the international ramifications? Not every country keeps its wealth reserve in gold. Some use diamonds -"
"And if the bottom falls out of the diamond market -" Richard began.
"Which it will if this goes on much longer," Tremayne continued.
"Then you have widespread economic collapse," Craig said. "I get it."
"So long as you do," Tremayne frowned. "Now you, Craig, are going to pose as an international diamond merchant. Some of the tainted stones have been traced to the House of George, London."
"I'll go and sniff around," said Craig.
"Richard, you and Sharon will try more official methods - also in London."
"Chasing a paper trail?" Sharon said.
"Someone has to do it," said Richard.
...and here be was, right in the dusty thick of it. And it wouldn't go any faster for daydreaming.
...
Major Turner frowned at the transcript. "This is all of it?" she asked her aide.
"No other sensitive conversatims have been made from Professor Cawston's telephone, Ma'am."
Tricia Conway. So she'd surfaced at last. But who was this Richard Barrett? Some sort of contact? But what government was she working for?
"Let's kill two birds with me stone, shall we?" Major Turner said. "Pick them both up at their renedzvous. Use sonaptril for her, so she can't teleport. And quietly - it's a very public place."
"Will you be leading the raid, ma'am?"
"No," Major Turner said. "Conway could recognise me. We don't want to tip her off-" She tapped the transcript. "Has a copy of this been sent to cryptography?"
"Yes Ma'am."
"Very well. Dismissed."
The aide saluted and left.
(approach #3)
It was a rare day. The sky was a perfect blue, without a single cloud. Through the blinds, the plume of the water column turned the lake into a fountain for giants. Beyond were city buildings, and rising above them, the mountains.
The office was large, dominated by a map of the world on one wall. A small window peeked out between it and the intrusion of the security entranceway. Comfortable chairs clustered in front of a long desk, with Venetian-blinded windows behind it. At the desk sat Tremayne, the head of the international agency of Nemesis. In the chairs sat three of his best agents.
[ insert previous approach's flashback about the diamonds assignment...]
"I'll go and sniff around," said Craig.
"Richard, you and Sharon will try more official methods."
"Chasing a paper trail?" Sharon said.
"Someone has to do it," said Richard. "And I know just the place to start."
***
"Scientific American?" Sharon exclaimed.
"An article on the synthesis of gems," Richard said. "I'm sure it was in there somewhere."
Richard had dragged Sharon into this back room full of back-issues of everything, before he explained. They started turning the pages as rapidly as if they were merely skimming, but each page was read and remembered in the time it took to glance at it. Such were some of the powers that Richard, Craig and Sharon had returned with after that fateful crash in the Himalayas.
"On the Synthesis of High-pressure Molecules," Sharon read aloud. "By Schumann and Nader. Is that it?"
"Yes," Richard nodded, and came over to her table. "There was a follow-up letter an issue of so later that was even more interesting."
"*More* interesting?"
"Disagreed with some of their findings," Richard said. "Ah, here it is," he pointed to the page. "John Green. 'Such molecules would exhibit perforations in the crystalline structure...' In other words, he said they would be unstable."
"So you think that whoever it is, they are using the Schumann-Nader synthesis -"
"And either doesn't know or doesn't care about the instability," Richard finished.
"So we need to talk to Schumann and Nader," said Sharon. "This article is only a general outline; whoever it is would need more to go on."
"It could conceivably be Schumann or Nader themselves," Richard said. "Remember what happened with the Ghost Plane."
"Or maybe not," Sharon said. "But we need to find out."
"We need to talk to Green as well," Richard said. "Either he can help us, or he knows suspiciously too much."
***
Richard walked quietly up the empty driveway. This was the address he had managed to track down for John Green. The man was supposed to be an inventor. No car - maybe no one was home. He listened, discerning things that no ordinary human ear could pick up. Voices. Someone was home after all.
"Why did you come back, Tricia?" A man's voice.
"I was homesick." And a woman.
"Really? We couldn't drag you away, before."
"I was too busy to be homesick, then. Too busy to notice my isolation."
"On the Trig? Don't be ridiculous. With so many other telepaths -"
Richard had made his way to the door by this time, and had been about to knock, when that one little word brought him up short. Telepaths? He and Craig and Sharon shared a kind of telepathy, given to them along with their other gifts and powers, by a lost civilization in Tibet, who had rescued them when their plane crashed almost on their borders. In the years since then, they had not encountered anyone else with anything like their gifts.
"They weren't human, John. I'd rather be a freak here on Earth than a freak a thousand light years from home!"
What? Not human? Light years? What on earth were they talking about? This had to be nonsense. Fiction. He lifted his hand to the knocker.
"Are you expecting anyone?" The woman's voice. Tricia.
"No," said the man.
(approach #1)
It was a rare day. The sky was a perfect blue, without a single cloud. Through the blinds, the plume of the water column turned the lake into a fountain for giants. Beyond were city buildings, and rising above them, the mountains.
The office was large, dominated by a map of the world on one wall. A small window peeked out between it and the intrusion of the security entranceway. Comfortable chairs clustered in front of a long desk, with Venetian-blinded windows behind it.
Standing before these windows was a slight woman in conservative clothes, and straight, unbound light brown hair. She should have been sitting decorously in one of those chairs, waiting. Or, indeed, waiting outside. Waiting for her new boss to arrive. But she wanted to see the view. And think about what brought her to this place. To Geneva. To Nemesis.
Why did you come back, Tricia? I was homesick. Really? We couldn't drag you away, before. I was too busy to be homesick, then. Too busy to notice my isolation. On the Trig? Don't be ridiculous. With so many other telepaths - They weren't human, John. I'd rather be a freak here on Earth than a freak a thousand light years from home! A freak? But we belong there - Belong? So why didn't you stay? I wanted to be here to help others who break out. That's your official reason. But I bet you were as sick as I was, of explaining to the seventeenth alien in a row that 'yes I do come from a Closed World, and no, Earth isn't a member of the Galactic Federation yet' and so on and so on. Why didn't you come with us then? It was new, then. I thought I could do some good. What are you going to do now? You certainly can't work in your old position. No. Colonel Masters is dead. That isn't what I meant. I mean you can't use your powers for the military. And who are you to say what I can and can't do? But you can't let yourself be used as a secret weapon! I won't let myself be used as anything. Don't worry, I have no intention of upsetting the balance of power. But I am not going to just sit back and do nothing. What's the point of having special powers if we're not going to use them? If the Saps find out about us - I am not going to cower in a corner waiting for the sky to fall! Don't you think I am more aware of the dangers than any of us? But don't forget the dangers of doing nothing. To refuse to fight evil is the same as helping it. Do you know how long your precious isolationist policy would last in Russia? Spare me the political rhetoric. We can't afford to be involved. We can't afford not to. You can't afford not to. It's the only thing you know. It's better than peddling Galactic technology and calling yourself an inventor!
"How did you get in?"
She came to herself with a start, and turned. "Through the door," she replied. It was a half-truth.
The man confronting her was grey-haired but vigorous, dapper in his beard and grey suit, the picture of disconcerted authority. "It's locked. It was locked," he corrected himself. "The alarms should have gone off."
"Since when is that a problem for a good Nemesis agent?"
"A good Nemesis agent does not go barging in to their head's office."
"I wanted to impress you, Mr. Tremayne," she explained. "I'm Patricia Conway, your newest recruit." She held out her hand. He shook it rather bemusedly.
"How did you get in?" he asked, putting his briefcase down and coming up to his chair.
"Have you read my file?" she asked. "I used to work in Special Projects for Colonel Masters [of the SIS]."
Recognition dawned. "You're the telepath."
"Among other things. Not all of them are on my record." A light on the desk flickered. "Somebody at the door," she pointed out.
"In a minute. Why aren't they on your record?"
"I've become a bit more talented since then. And I'm not sure I trust records - they can be stolen."
"And used against one? I see."
"It's happened before."
"Our security is tighter since then - well, it was." He smiled ironically.
"That wasn't exactly what I meant."
"And what did you mean, exactly?"
"Actually, your example is better than mine - though my talents are probably more valuable than Richard Barrett's."
"How did you - I see. More valuable... Can you do that all the time?"
"It varies," she shrugged. "And I think you'd better open the door." She reached over and flicked a switch on Tremayne's desk. The security door opened, to reveal a suited man with jet black hair and an aura of supreme self-confidence. Tremayne frowned at Tricia, but decided not to pursue the matter.
"Patricia Conway, meet Craig Sterling."
"Charmed, I'm sure," the American said, taking her hand.
"Call me Tricia."
"You two will be working together on this next case." At this, Craig looked questioning. Tremayne added wryly, "Don't worry, she won't break your remarkable record. She's quite remarkable herself."
"What Mr. Tremayne is trying to avoid saying is that I'm a telepath."
"Can you bend forks as well?"
"With my bare hands."
"Now, children, you can quarrel later. We have serious things to consider." He gestured at the chairs and they both sat down.
Tricia reached out with her mind to get a feel of her soon-to-be partner, but she met a wall. A natural shield. Interesting. And rather disturbing. What was she getting herself into?
[assignment]
"What about Richard or Sharon?"
"I can't spare them at the moment - that's why Miss Conway is going with you."
...
"A word, if you please, Miss Conway." The man who gestured to her was of medium build, dark curly hair with touches of grey, thinning at the side. Tricia couldn't help noticing the hostility with which Craig eyed him. She followed the man down a corridor to an empty office, as he continued "I'm Alexander Kyle, head of internal security." He waved her to a chair. "Do sit down."
"What did you want to talk to me about?" Tricia said, well aware that her own activities of the past several months would not be very explainable to someone who had never been off the planet. But what he actually said took her completely by surprise.
"I have reason to believe that Craig Sterling is not, shall we say, completely above board in his work for us."
"You mean he's a double agent."
"With your abilities, it should be easy to determine the truth."
"I can't read his mind, Mr. Kyle," Tricia replied. "He has a natural shield. Some people do."
"A pity. Conventional investigation has proved ineffective."
"You interrogated him, and got nothing." She paused, regarding his stony face. "You see, I *can* read your mind, Mr Kyle."
"And maybe you can read Craig Sterling's anyway and won't cooperate? Maybe you're both working for the same people. You haven't been in circulation recently, Miss Conway. Perhaps Internal Security would like to know where you've been."
"Alfirk. Advanced training." In psi abilities. The Trig had its own form of covert operations, needed often enough that some were trained in it. "You already know that."
"So you said. We can't seem to find any Alfirk."
In other circumstances, she might have smiled. "It's not on most maps." Star maps, yes, but he wouldn't have been looking at them.
"Most maps in the Western World?"
"And the Eastern," she added calmly, meeting the challenge in his eyes.
"I expect you to cooperate, Miss Conway."
"I would have to look at his file -"
"No time now."
"I could look at it later." If she could find out - yes, the main files were kept in Tremayne's office. In the section behind the map partition.
"You have a plane to catch."
"Tremayne doesn't know about this, does he? And you don't want him to find out."
"Tremayne is blinded by sentiment."
"Some people would call it friendship, I think." She stood up. "Do you have any friends, Mr. Kyle?"
"I only have the best interests of Nemesis at heart."
"I know," Tricia replied. "Mysteries make you nervous. But some secrets are best left buried."
She left the office, glad it was far enough away that no-one had heard the conversation, particularly Craig. But it wasn't far enough away for someone with his abilities. He had heard every word.
...
Craig was lounging where she had left him. "What was that about?"
"Beastly beaurocracy," Tricia grimaced. "What was your grandmother's maiden name, that sort of thing."
"I'm surprised Kyle bothered you with it at this time." Craig was curiously tense, but she passed it off as his understandable hostility towards the man who had interrogated him.
"So am I."
They continued along the corridor. *It's a good thing you can't read my mind.* The thought came winging like an arrow in her direction.
Tricia stopped and looked at Craig. "Did you say something?"
"Me? No."
He was genuinely surprised. Of course he would be. But it was him, she'd swear. A latent telepath? Or something. That could explain the shield. But not the content. It's a good thing you can't read my mind. And how could he know that? Bugs in Kyle's office? Maybe he was a double agent after all.
...
When they arrived at the airport, Tricia excused herself and made a phone call. Yet again, Craig heard things that were not meant for his ears. Only her side of the conversation, but it was enough to worry him.
Kyle. You'd better sweep your office. I think he overheard our conversation....
Something he let slip...
Yes, yes, I will. I don't approve of traitors.
She thinks I'm a traitor. Because I let something slip? What the hell did I let slip? She doesn't know that I know that she knows that I know what they said. How does that help?
...
Heathrow airport was grey with the usual English drizzle.
They started toward the group when suddenly Craig yelled "Get down!"and sprinted towards the Bey. Tricia looked around wildly for a moment, and spotted a man, pointing his umbrella in the direction of the Bey. She started after Craig, belatedly wondering, in that odd way that you keep on thinking in emergencies, whether he'd ever been a sprinter in the Olympics, he was so far ahead of her. He was just up to the Bey's group when he stumbled and fell. Funny he should trip, she thought, then she realized he must have been hit by whatever was meant for the Bey. In a few more steps she was pushing away the people around Craig and knelt by his body. No blood, she couldn't see any blood, but he was unconscious, breathing shallowly. One part of her mind skittered like a trapped mouse - there wasn't a bullet, what could have done this? Then she saw the small dart on the floor, and picked it up. "Poison," she said aloud, and set her healing abilities to flushing it out of his system. His face broke out in sweat
"So, once again you save my life, Craig Sterling," said the Bey.
"I hadn't planned on doing it from the floor," Craig groaned, staggering to his feet. "What hit me?"
"This," Tricia said, holding up the dart. You should be dead.
"I have a hardy constitution," Craig answered.
"Did anyone get the man with the umbrella?"
"What man? There must be hundreds of men with umbrellas!"
"The man who shot the dart."
"Obviously he's the man who got away."
"You can be sure he'll be back. He hasn't done what he came here for."
"And we'll make sure he won't succeed."
...
"So why didn't you go after the man with the umbrella?"
"Oh, you normally expect your associates to leave you for dead, do you?"
"I was only knocked out."
"And how was I to know that? Not everybody has the constitution of King Kong."
...
"So, how did they get you from Rome to El Hamin?"
"Under protest!"
"Really?"
"I was young and irresponsible in those days. El Hamin could rot as far as I was concerned. After all, they had exiled my family."
"And you were more interested in wine, women and... song."
The Bay laughed lightly. "I see I can hide nothing from you."
Tricia smiled lightly in return. "Indeed not."
...
A notebook was lying open on the bed, upside down from where he was standing, but that didn't make too much of a problem for him. He pretended to look elsewhere, but still burned the page into his memory. They were working notes, and it didn't take too much to figure out they were about him.
born 1939, joined Nemesis in 1965
The Bey says he shot the assassin through the door - how is that possible?
Himalayas
Barrett & McCready & Sterling - just lucky?
Gold robbery
-- didn't drown
radar jammer airoplane -- didn't drown again
Nuclear test, Australia
Barrett disarmed bomb. Sterling saw plans. Telepathy?
President Drobnic;
bypassed scrambler. Telepathy again?
Del Marco suicides - how did he survive?
the Retford case --- unexplained gaps in continuity
this is where Kyle got the bee in his bonnet
resistance to drugs. pulled the door off its hinges (!)
'nobody can lie consistently.' So he just left gaps.
So what is the shape that fits that hole?
not treachery - that is a gap of a different colour. Maybe.
Anna Maria Martes
see in the dark? All three of them.
Westerman
well we already know he can resist interrogation.
Barkar
How did they find him?
Not as reliable as our telepathy.
...
"No hardware."
"What?"
"It's obvious enough. We don't want awkward questions, not from the people you'd be mixing with. We can't risk them analysing a jaunting belt, can we? Or stunguns. If you want to make it out there on your own, that's what you will be - on your own. Don't expect us to help you out of every hole you dig for yourself."
"Jaunting belts are like training wheels. I can look after myself, thank you very much."
(approach #2)
"Oh my g-" exclaimed Professor Cawston as he entered his office. "Tricia! What are you doing here?'
The person be addressed was a woman of average height, mid-length mid-brown hair, medium-pretty - not particularly striking in any respect, until you saw her eyes, whose brown depths were so penetrating they seemed to see right through one, as if one were made of glass.
"I came to see an old friend," she said dryly.
"Were we friends?" he said doubtfully. He also was a nondescript brown sort of person - right down to the brown corduroy jacket that seemed the hallmark of certain branches of academia.
"You still don't hold all *that* against me, do you?" Tricia asked. "I'm not working for *them* any more - they wouldn't have me, even if I wanted to go back."
"Why on earth not?" he asked. "I would think that the government would still be eager to use someone with your special talents - champing at the bit, I would think."
"Exploit, yes," Tricia replied. "Work with - no. A long unexplained absence does not look good on one's security record."
"When did you get back from...Out There?" He pointed vaguely at the ceiling.
"Very recently," she said. "The others can back much sooner - those that were coming. Haven't you seen them?'
He frowned. "No, I didn't know they were back. But why should an absence look bad on your record?"
"They're hardly likely to believe me if I told them I'd been visiting alien planets, would they? There will be no record of me being anywhere on Earth, and as far as they're concerned, that could only mean one thing - I must have been behind the Iron Curtain. Or the Bamboo Curtain, which is just as bad."
"Why are you so worried about what they think," he asked, "if you don't want to work for them?"
"Well, they're unlikely to give me good references," she said depreciatingly.
"References?" he said. "Who do you want to work for?"
"I don't know!" she returned. "But I'd like to do some good. I don't want to huddle in the Lab waiting for the sky to fall. What's the use of having special powers if you don't *use* them?"
"John doesn't agree," Professor Cawston guessed.
"Indeed not," Tricia said. "We just had a flaming row."
"I'm sorry," he said. Then he noticed something. "What happened to your jaunting belt?'
"I don't need it," she said defensively.
"But?"
She dropped her eyes. "But it's one of the things we argued about. Technology," she explained. "Jaunting belts are like training wheels - helpful to start with, but it is possible to learn to do without them. Of course it isn't as easy, and the analogy isn't perfect; it takes much more effort to do without them than it does to learn to balance a bicycle properly."
"And you think John should throw away his training wheels?"
"No," Tricia returned. "As I said, it's not that easy. Perhaps a better analogy would be learning to ride a unicycle. You don't expect people to do so, even though they could if they wanted to," she explained. "No, the argument was more like 'If you're going to throw yourelf at the Saps, then you're not taking any of my gizmos with you. Never darken my door again.' and so on," she said darkly.
"I could always use a good assistant," Professor Cawston said.
"Thanks, but no thanks," she smiled at him.
He smiled back. "I didn't really think you would."
"I-" she began, and put her hand to her temple, frowning. "Pen," she said . "Paper. Please."
Professor Cawston sensibly gave some to her, and she wrote smething down, concentrating. Then her face cleared, and she frowned over what she had written.
"What is it?" Prof. Cawston asked.
She tuned the pad around and showed it to him. "What does it look like to you?"
"It looks like a telephone number," he said.
"But that doesn't make sense," she said. "I recieved this as a strong visual impression - telepathically. It does *seem* like a telephone number - but why would a telepath be transmitting a telephone number?"
"Maybe they need someone to contact someone who isn't a telepath," Prof. Cawston suggested. "Or maybe it wasn't conscious. He could hue been concentrating on the number, but they don't know that they're telepathic. That's common enough."
Tricia capped her chin in her hand. "One of many possibilities. How can I find out which?"
"Why don't you ring the number?" Professor Cawston suggested. "You can use my phone."
"Thank you - I believe I will," she said, picked up the phone and dialed the number.
It was answered on the first ring.
"Sharon? Do you know where Craig is?" A man, educated, English, and urgent.
He had been expecting the call. How interesting. She wanted information, she had better ask for it.
"Who is this?" she asked.
"Richard Barrett," came the autmatic answer. "Who might you be?" he demanded in return.
"Tricia Conway," she replied, not consideing it worth making up some other answer.
"Do you wish to speak to Mr. Fisher?"
"No, I believe I wish to speak to Mr. Barrett," she said. If he vas not the telepath she was looking for, then why had he been expecting the call? And a particular person to ring? Particularly since it appeared to be the number for Mr. Fisher, whoever he was.
"Who gave you this number?" he asked suspiciously.
"You did," she answered.
"No, I did not," he drawled.
"Perhaps not," she conceded. "It might have been someone else. But I would like to know who did."
"So would I," he said grimly.
"Would you care to discuss it in person?" she asked.
"I'm rather busy," he said.
"And expecting an important call," she said. From someone called Sharon, she thought. It might have been Sharon who had sent out the number.
"Indeed," he said. "Do you know where the Pembrook Inn is?"
"I can find out," she said.
"Meet me there tonight at nine o'clock," he said. "I'll be at the front corner table on the right."
"Agreed," she said.
"How will I know you?" he asked.
She paused, and then smiled to herself. "I'll be wearing an orchid," she said. "You're not likely to mistake that."
"You have expensive tastes, Miss Conway," Richard Barrett said with a smile in his voice.
"Oh no," she said. "I know a very good place to get them."
"Until then, Miss Conway."
"Goodbye, Mr. Barrett," Tricia said.
Her only answer vas the burring of the phone.
"Well?" Professor Cawston asked. "I gather you're going to met this Mr. Barrett. Is he the telepath?"
Trica shook her head. "I don't know. He was expecting a call from someone called Sharon, but that doesn't mean that he was the telepath I picked up on. The odd thing was, he seemed surprised and concerned that I wasn't the person he was expecting *and* that I wasn't asking for the person who was normally there. Seems that was not his own phone number. So why was be expecting a call? I'd like to know where that number was-"
"Directory assistance?" Prof. Cawston suggested.
Another phone call revealed that the number was one of a block assigned to the Patent Office. "It's an office phone - probably the absent Mr. Fisher," Tricia said. "I could pop over there, I suppose but I don't really wish to frighten him away. After all, he has agreed to meet me."
"You're going to a lot of trouble to track down this telepath, aren't you?" Professor Cawston said. "This Mr. Barrett may not know anything."
Tricia shrugged. "Well, it's not as if I've got anything better to do. A little amateur detection might be just the thing to take my mind off things."
"Just so long as it doesn't get you into trouble," he said.
"Oh, don't be an old woman, Professor," she said. "I can take care of myself." She stood up. "Pembrook Inn, nine tonight. I'd better get ready. First stop, Bangkok."
"Bangkok?" Professor Cavston said with surprise. "What for?"
"I'm going to buy an orchid," she said, and vanished.
"I hate it when they do that," Professor Cawston said to himself.
***
Richard Barrett frowned at the phone he had just hung up. Who was this Tricia Conway?. Why had she rung this number? But he had very little time to brood, for the phone rang just a few minutes later.
"Patent Office, Mr. Fisher's office," he said, not about to make the same mistake twice.
"Richard?" It was Sharon. "You're very proper. The phone was engaged."
"Yes, I just got a rather odd call. I'll tell you about it later," he said. "Do you know where Craig is?"
"No," she said. "He's in trouble, isn't he?"
"Did you feel it enough to get a direction?"
"No, I'm afraid not," she said.
"Damn," Richard said in frustration. "If we'd had two directions we might have triangulated a fix. I'm afraid he's on his own for now. He'll just have to manage."
"I know," Sharon sighed. "It's very frutrating knowing that there's something wrong and not being able to do anything about it."
"What's the progress at Farnham Labs?" Richard asked.
"Not enough, I'm afraid," Sharon replied. "The one good sign is that they have found one way to pick out the unstable diamonds before they start deteriorating -"
"If they've found a way of picking them out, what's the problem?"
"It requires the use of an electron microscope."
"Ah, I see," said Richard. "Expensive, non-portable and very rare."
"They are working on other methods, but they all seem equally non-portable," said Sharon. "How about you?"
"No luck so far," Richard said. "It was a bit of a long shot, hoping they had attempt to patent the process, but it was worth checking. When I'm finished here, I'll go meet you at the labs - and tell you about my call."
"I hope we hear from Craig soon," Sharon said.
"Yes, I hope so too," Richard said, and hung up the phone. He cast his mind back to the briefing they had had for this mission...
"Diamonds?" Sharon McCready asked.
The sun was shining on the lake at Geneva, the column of water spouted as if the lake were a fountain for giants, and in his office in the headquarters of Nemesis, Tremayne was briefing his top three agents.
"Diamonds," Tremayne confirmed. "Over the past few months there has been an increase in the number of diamonds on the market. That in itself appeared to be no great cause for alarm - new mines do get discovered from time to time, and that was the assuption that most people made. "
"But why would someone keep quiet about discovering a diamond mine?" Craig Sterling asked.
"Security, obscurity," said Tremayne. "There could be any number of reasons - if it is a new mine."
"If it is? You mean it isn't?" Richard Barrett asked.
"I mean we don't know," Tremayne snapped. "What we do know is that recently a number of new diamonds have been developing flaws."
"*Developing* flaws?" Sharon echoed. "But gems don't *develop* flaws - they either have them or they don't."
"Nevertheless, they have," Tremayne said. "A few have developed cracks, but more have simply gone cloudy, and as the deterioration continues, turned almost black."
"Didn't they pick up the ringers earlier?" Craig asked. "These sound like some sort of failed imitation."
"These *diamonds*," Tremayne said, "passed every standard test."
"But the discolouration would indicate some impurity, surely?" Richard said.
"According to the tests," Tremayne indicated a thick folder on his desk, "the dark colour is caused by graphite."
"An allotrope of carbon, as is diamond," Sharon remarked.
"So there weren't any impurities, because it was still carbon," said Richard, enlightened.
"Just a different crystaline structure," Sharon added.
"But why would it change from one form to another?" Craig asked.
"That is what some very talented scientists are trying to find out," said Tremayne. "Your job is to find the source of these diamonds - whether they are natural, artificial, or whether the instability is induced. Stop it, whatever it is. Plug up the source."
"But why us? It could be just some get-rich scheme - a job for Interpol - " Craig began, but Tremayne interupted him.
"It is not just some scheme - don't you see the international ramifications? Not every country keeps its wealth reserve in gold. Some use diamonds -"
"And if the bottom falls out of the diamond market -" Richard began.
"Which it will if this goes on much longer," Tremayne continued.
"Then you have widespread economic collapse," Craig said. "I get it."
"So long as you do," Tremayne frowned. "Now you, Craig, are going to pose as an international diamond merchant. Some of the tainted stones have been traced to the House of George, London."
"I'll go and sniff around," said Craig.
"Richard, you and Sharon will try more official methods - also in London."
"Chasing a paper trail?" Sharon said.
"Someone has to do it," said Richard.
...and here be was, right in the dusty thick of it. And it wouldn't go any faster for daydreaming.
...
Major Turner frowned at the transcript. "This is all of it?" she asked her aide.
"No other sensitive conversatims have been made from Professor Cawston's telephone, Ma'am."
Tricia Conway. So she'd surfaced at last. But who was this Richard Barrett? Some sort of contact? But what government was she working for?
"Let's kill two birds with me stone, shall we?" Major Turner said. "Pick them both up at their renedzvous. Use sonaptril for her, so she can't teleport. And quietly - it's a very public place."
"Will you be leading the raid, ma'am?"
"No," Major Turner said. "Conway could recognise me. We don't want to tip her off-" She tapped the transcript. "Has a copy of this been sent to cryptography?"
"Yes Ma'am."
"Very well. Dismissed."
The aide saluted and left.
(approach #3)
It was a rare day. The sky was a perfect blue, without a single cloud. Through the blinds, the plume of the water column turned the lake into a fountain for giants. Beyond were city buildings, and rising above them, the mountains.
The office was large, dominated by a map of the world on one wall. A small window peeked out between it and the intrusion of the security entranceway. Comfortable chairs clustered in front of a long desk, with Venetian-blinded windows behind it. At the desk sat Tremayne, the head of the international agency of Nemesis. In the chairs sat three of his best agents.
[ insert previous approach's flashback about the diamonds assignment...]
"I'll go and sniff around," said Craig.
"Richard, you and Sharon will try more official methods."
"Chasing a paper trail?" Sharon said.
"Someone has to do it," said Richard. "And I know just the place to start."
***
"Scientific American?" Sharon exclaimed.
"An article on the synthesis of gems," Richard said. "I'm sure it was in there somewhere."
Richard had dragged Sharon into this back room full of back-issues of everything, before he explained. They started turning the pages as rapidly as if they were merely skimming, but each page was read and remembered in the time it took to glance at it. Such were some of the powers that Richard, Craig and Sharon had returned with after that fateful crash in the Himalayas.
"On the Synthesis of High-pressure Molecules," Sharon read aloud. "By Schumann and Nader. Is that it?"
"Yes," Richard nodded, and came over to her table. "There was a follow-up letter an issue of so later that was even more interesting."
"*More* interesting?"
"Disagreed with some of their findings," Richard said. "Ah, here it is," he pointed to the page. "John Green. 'Such molecules would exhibit perforations in the crystalline structure...' In other words, he said they would be unstable."
"So you think that whoever it is, they are using the Schumann-Nader synthesis -"
"And either doesn't know or doesn't care about the instability," Richard finished.
"So we need to talk to Schumann and Nader," said Sharon. "This article is only a general outline; whoever it is would need more to go on."
"It could conceivably be Schumann or Nader themselves," Richard said. "Remember what happened with the Ghost Plane."
"Or maybe not," Sharon said. "But we need to find out."
"We need to talk to Green as well," Richard said. "Either he can help us, or he knows suspiciously too much."
***
Richard walked quietly up the empty driveway. This was the address he had managed to track down for John Green. The man was supposed to be an inventor. No car - maybe no one was home. He listened, discerning things that no ordinary human ear could pick up. Voices. Someone was home after all.
"Why did you come back, Tricia?" A man's voice.
"I was homesick." And a woman.
"Really? We couldn't drag you away, before."
"I was too busy to be homesick, then. Too busy to notice my isolation."
"On the Trig? Don't be ridiculous. With so many other telepaths -"
Richard had made his way to the door by this time, and had been about to knock, when that one little word brought him up short. Telepaths? He and Craig and Sharon shared a kind of telepathy, given to them along with their other gifts and powers, by a lost civilization in Tibet, who had rescued them when their plane crashed almost on their borders. In the years since then, they had not encountered anyone else with anything like their gifts.
"They weren't human, John. I'd rather be a freak here on Earth than a freak a thousand light years from home!"
What? Not human? Light years? What on earth were they talking about? This had to be nonsense. Fiction. He lifted his hand to the knocker.
"Are you expecting anyone?" The woman's voice. Tricia.
"No," said the man.
