ohn the friendly orderly will come in," Rainbird said, smiling a little. "He will greet her, and talk to her, and make her smile. John the friendly orderly will make her feel happy because he's the only one who can. And when John feels she is at the moment of greatest happiness, he will strike her across the bridge of the nose, breaking it explosively and driving bone fragments into her brain. It will be quick... and I will be looking into her face when it happens."

He smiled-nothing sharklike about it this time. The smile was gentle, kind... and fatherly. Cap drained his brandy. He needed it. He only hoped that Rainbird would indeed know the right time when it came, or they might all find out what a steak felt like in a microwave oven.

"You're crazy," Cap said. The words escaped before he could hold them back, but Rainbird did not seem offended.

"Oh yes," he agreed, and drained his own brandy. He went on smiling...

20

Big Brother. Big Brother was the problem.

Andy moved from the living room of his apartment to the kitchen, forcing himself to walk slowly, to hold a slight smile on his face-the walk and expression of a man who is pleasantly stoned out of his gourd.

So far he had succeeded only in keeping himself here, near Charlie, and finding out that the nearest road was Highway 301 and that the countryside was fairly rural. All of that had been a week ago. It had been a month since the blackout, and he still knew nothing more about the layout of this installation than he had been able to observe when he and Pynchot went for their walks.

He didn't want to push anyone down here in his quarters, because Big Brother was always watching and listening. And he didn't want to push Pynchot anymore, because Pynchot was cracking up-Andy was sure of it. Since their little walk by the duckpond, Pynchot had lost weight. There were dark circles under his eyes, as if he were sleeping poorly.

He sometimes would begin speaking and then trail off, as if he had lost his train of thought... or as if it had been interrupted.

All of which made Andy's own position that much more precarious.

How long before Pynchot's colleagues noticed what was happening to him? They might think it nothing but nervous strain, but suppose they connected it with him? That would be the end of whatever slim chance Andy had of getting out of here with Charlie. And his feeling that Charlie was in big trouble had got stronger and stronger.

What in the name of Jesus Christ was he going to do about Big Brother?

He got a Welch's Grape from the fridge, went back to the living room, and sat down in front of the TV without seeing it, his mind working restlessly, looking for some way out. But when that way out came, it was (like the power blackout) a complete surprise. In a way, it was Herman Pynchot who opened the door for him: he did it by killing himself.

21

Two men came and got him. He recognized one of them from Manders's farm.

"Come on, big boy," this one said. "Little walk."

Andy smiled foolishly, but inside, the terror had begun. Something had happened. Something bad had happened; they didn't send guys like this if it was something good. Perhaps he had been found out. In fact, that was the most likely thing. "Where t0?"

"Just come on."

He was taken to the elevator, but when they got off in the ballroom, they went farther into the house instead of outside. They passed the secretarial pool, entered a. smaller room where a secretary ran off correspondence on an IBM typewriter.

"Go right in," she said.

They passed her on the right and went through a door into a small study with a bay window that gave a view of the duckpond through a screen of low alders. Behind an old-fashioned roll-top desk sat an elderly man with a sharp, intelligent face; his cheeks were ruddy, but from sun and wind rather than liquor, Andy thought.

He looked up at Andy, then nodded at the two men who had brought him in. "Thank you. You can wait outside."

They left.

The man behind the desk looked keenly at Andy, who looked back blandly, still smiling a bit. He hoped to God he wasn't overdoing it. "Hello, who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Captain Hollister, Andy. You can call me Cap. They tell me I am in charge of this here rodeo."

"Pleased to meet you," Andy said. He let his smile widen a little. Inside, the tension screwed itself up another notch.

"I've some sad news for you, Andy."

(oh God no it's Charlie something's happened to Charlie)

Cap was watching him steadily with those small, shrewd eyes, eyes caught so deeply in their pleasant nets of small wrinkles that you almost didn't notice how cold and studious they were.

"Oh?"

"Yes," Cap said, and fell silent for a moment. And the silence spun out agonizingly.

Cap had fallen into a study of his hands, which were neatly folded on the blotter in front of him. It was all Andy could do to keep from leaping across the desk and throttling him. Then Cap looked up.

"Dr. Pynchot is dead, Andy. He killed himself last night."

Andy's jaw dropped in unfeigned surprise. Alternating waves of relief and horror raced through him. And over it all, like a boiling sky over a confused sea, was the realization that this changed everything... but how? How?

Cap was watching him. He suspects. He suspects something. But are his suspicions serious or only a part of his job?

A hundred questions. He needed time to think and he had no time. He would have to do his thinking on his feet. "That surprises you?" Cap asked.

"He was my friend," Andy said simply, and had to close his mouth to keep from saying more. This man would listen to him patiently; he would pause long after Andy's every remark (as he was pausing now) to see if Andy would plunge on, the mouth outracing the mind. Standard interrogation technique. And there were man-pits in these woods; Andy felt it strongly. It had been an echo, of course. An echo that had turned into a ricochet. He had pushed Pynchot and started a ricochet and it had torn the man apart. And for all of that, Andy could not find it in his heart to be sorry. There was horror... and there was a caveman who capered and rejoiced.

"Are you sure it was... I mean, sometimes an accident can look like-"

"I'm afraid it was no accident."

"He left a note?"

(naming me?)

"He dressed up in his wife's underwear, went out into the kitchen, started up the garbage disposal, and stuck his arm into it."

"Oh... my... God." Andy sat down heavily. If there hadn't been a chair handy he would have sat on the floor. All the strength" had left his legs. He stared at Cap Hollister with sick horror.

"You didn't have anything to do with that, did you, Andy?" Cap asked. "You didn't maybe push him into it?"

"No," Andy said. "Even if I could still do it, why would I do a thing like that?"

"Maybe because he wanted to send you to the Hawaiians," Cap said. "Maybe you didn't want to go to Maui, because your daughter's here. Maybe you've been fooling us all along, Andy."

And although this Cap Hollister was crawling around on top of the truth, Andy felt a small loosening in his chest. If Cap really thought he had pushed Pynchot into doing that, this interview wouldn't be going on between just the two of them. No, it was just doing things by the book; that was all. They probably had all they needed to justify suicide in Pynchot's own file without looking for arcane methods of murder. Didn't they say that psychiatrists had the highest suicide rate of any profession?

"No, that's not true at all," Andy said. He sounded afraid, confused, close to blubbering. "I wanted to go to Hawaii. I told him that. I think that's why he wanted to make more tests, because I wanted to go. I don't think he liked me in some ways. But I sure didn't have anything to do with... with what happened to him."

Cap looked at him thoughtfully. Their eyes met for a moment and then Andy dropped his gaze.

"Well, I believe you, Andy," Cap said. "Herm Pynchot had been under a lot of pressure lately. It's a part of this life we live, I suppose. Regrettable. Add this secret transvestism on top of that, and, well, it's going to be hard on his wife. Very hard. But we take care of our own, Andy." Andy could feel the man's eyes boring into him. "Yes, we always take care of our own. That's the most important thing."

"Sure," Andy said dully.

There was a lengthening moment of silence. After a little bit Andy looked up, expecting to see Cap looking at him. But Cap was staring out at the back lawn and the alders and his face looked saggy and confused and old, the face of a man who has been seduced into thinking of other, perhaps happier, times. He saw Andy looking at him and a small wrinkle of disgust passed over his face and was gone. Sudden sour hate flared inside Andy. Why shouldn't this Hollister look disgusted? He saw a fat drug addict sitting in front of him-or that was what he thought he saw. But who gave the orders? And what are you doing to my daughter, you old monster?

"Well," Cap said. "I'm happy to tell you you'll be going to Maui anyway, Andy-it'san ill wind that doesn't blow somebody good, or something like that, hmmm? I've started the paperwork already."

"But... listen, you don't really think I had anything to do with what happened to Dr. Pynchot, do you?"

"No, of course not." That small and involuntary ripple of disgust again. And this time Andy felt the sick satisfaction that he imagined a black guy who has successfully tommed an unpleasant white must feel. But over this was the alarm brought on by that phrase I've started the paperwork already.

"Well, that's good. Poor Dr. Pynchot." He looked downcast for only a token instant and then said eagerly, "When am I going?"

"As soon as possible. By the end of next week at the latest."

Nine days at the outside! It was like a battering ram in his stomach.

"I've enjoyed our talk, Andy. I'm sorry we had to meet under such sad and unpleasant circumstances."

He was reaching for the intercom switch, and Andy suddenly realized he couldn't let him do that. There was nothing he could do in his apartment with its cameras and listening devices. But if this guy really was the big cheese, this office would be as dead as a doornail: he would have the place washed regularly for bugs. Of course, he might have his own listening devices, but

"Put your hand down," Andy said, and pushed.

Cap hesitated. His hand drew back and joined its mate on the blotter. He glanced out at the back lawn with that drifting, remembering expression on his face.

"Do you tape meetings in here?"

"No," Cap said evenly. "For a long time I had a voice-activated Uher-Five thousand-like the one that got Nixon in trouble-but I had it taken out fourteen weeks ago."

"Why?"

"Because it looked like I was going to lose my job."

"Why did you think you were going to lose your job?"

Very rapidly, in a kind of litany, Cap said: "No production. No production. No production. Funds must be justified with results. Replace the man at the top. No tapes. No scandal."

Andy tried to think it through. Was this taking him in a direction he wanted to go? He couldn't tell, and time was short. He felt like the stupidest, slowest kid at the Easter-egg hunt. He decided he would go a bit further down this trail.

"Why weren't you producing?"

"No mental-domination ability left in McGee. Permanently tipped over. Everyone in agreement on that. The girl wouldn't light fires. Said she wouldn't no matter what. People saying I was fixated on Lot Six. Shot my bolt." He grinned. "Now it's okay. Even Rainbird says so."

Andy renewed the push, and a small pulse of pain began to beat in his forehead. "Why is it okay?"

"Three tests so far. Hockstetter's ecstatic. Yesterday she flamed a piece of sheet metal. Spot temp over twenty thousand degrees for four seconds, Hockstetter says."

Shock made the headache worse, made it harder to get a handle on his whirling thoughts. Charlie was lighting fires? What had they done to her? What, in the name of God?

He opened his mouth to ask and the intercom buzzed, jolting him into pushing much harder than he had to. For a moment, he gave Cap almost everything there was. Cap shuddered all over as if he had been whipped with an electric cattle prod. He made a low gagging sound and his ruddy face lost most of its color. Andy's headache took a quantum leap and he cautioned himself uselessly to take it easy; having a stroke in this man's office wouldn't help Charlie.

"Don't do that," Cap whined. "Hurts-"

"Tell them no calls for the next ten minutes," Andy said. Somewhere the black horse was kicking at its stable door, wanting to get out, wanting to run free. He could feel oily sweat running down his cheeks.

The intercom buzzed again. Cap leaned forward and pushed the toggle switch down. His face had aged fifteen years.

"Cap, Senator Thompson's aide is here with those figures you asked for on Project Leap."

"No calls for the next ten minutes," Cap said, and clicked off:

Andy sat drenched in sweat. Would that hold them? Or would they smell a rat? It didn't matter. As Willy Loman had been so wont to cry, the woods were burning. Christ, what was he thinking of Willy Loman for? He was going crazy. The black horse would be out soon and he could ride there. He almost giggled.

"Charlie's been lighting fires?"

"Yes."

"How did you get her to do that?"

"Carrot and stick. Rainbird's idea. She got to take walks outside for the first two. Now she gets to ride the horse. Rainbird thinks that will hold her for the next couple of weeks." And he repeated, "Hockstetter's ecstatic."

"Who is this Rainbird?" Andy asked, totally unaware that he had just asked the jackpot question.

Cap talked in short bursts for the next five minutes. He told Andy that Rainbird was a Shop hitter who had been horribly wounded in Vietnam, had lost an eye there (the one-eyed pirate in my dream, Andy thought numbly). He told Andy that it was Rainbird who had been in charge of the Shop operation that had finally netted Andy and Charlie at Tashmore Pond. He told him about the blackout and Rainbird's inspired first step on the road to getting Charlie to start lighting fires under test conditions. Finally, he told Andy that Rainbird's personal interest in all of this was Charlie's life when the string of deception had finally run itself out. He spoke of these matters in a voice that was emotionless yet somehow urgent. Then he fell silent.

Andy listened in growing fury and horror. He was trembling all over when Cap's recitation had concluded. Charlie, he thought. Oh, Charlie, Charlie.

His ten minutes were almost up, and there was still so much he needed to know. The two of them sat silent for perhaps forty seconds; an observer might have decided they were companionable older friends who no longer needed to speak to communicate. Andy's mind raced.

"Captain Hollister," he said.

"Yes?"

"When is Pynchot's funeral?"

"The day after tomorrow," Cap said calmly.

"We're going. You and I. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand. We're going to Pynchot's funeral."

"I asked to go. I broke down and cried when I heard he was dead."

"Yes, you broke down and cried."

"I was very upset."

"Yes, you were."

"We're going to go in your private car, just the two of us. There can be Shop people in cars ahead and behind us, motorcycles on either side if that's standard operating procedure, but we're going alone. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes. That's perfectly clear. Just the two of us."

"And we're going to have a good talk. Do you also understand that?"

"Yes, a good talk."

"Is your car bugged?"

"Not at all."

Andy began to push again, a series of light taps. Each time he pushed, Cap flinched a little, and Andy knew there was an excellent chance that he might be starting an echo in there, but it had to be done.

"We're going to talk about where Charlie is being kept. We're going to talk about ways of throwing this whole place into confusion without locking all the doors the way the power blackout did. And we're going to talk about ways that Charlie and I can get out of here. Do you understand?"

"You're not supposed to escape," Cap said in a hateful, childish voice. "That's not in the scenario." "It is now, "Andy said, and pushed again. "Owwwww!" Cap whined... "Do you understand that?" "Yes, I understand, don't, don't do that anymore, it hurts!" "This Hockstetter-will he question my going to the funeral?" "No, Hockstetter is all wrapped up in the little girl. He thinks of little else these days."

"Good." It wasn't good at all. It was desperation. "Last thing, Captain Hollister. You're going to forget that we had this little talk." "Yes, I'm going to forget all about it."

The black horse was loose. It was starting its run. Take me out of here, Andy thought dimly. Take me out of here; the horse is loose and the woods are burning. The headache came in a sickish cycle of thudding pain.

"Everything I've told you will occur naturally to you as your own idea."

"Yes."

Andy looked at Cap's desk and saw a box of Kleenex there. He took one of them and began dabbing at his eyes with it. He was not crying, but the headache had caused his eyes to water and that was just as good.

"I'm ready to go now," he said to Cap.

He let go. Cap looked out at the alders again, thoughtfully blank. Little by little, animation came back into his face, and he turned toward Andy, who was wiping at his eyes a bit and sniffing. There was no need to overact.

"How are you feeling now, Andy?"

"A little better," Andy said. "But... you know... to hear it like that..."

"Yes, you were very upset," Cap said. "Would you like to have a coffee or something?"

"No, thanks. I'd like to go back to my apartment please."

"Of course. I'll see you out."

"Thank you."

22

The two men who had seen him up to the office looked at Andy with doubtful suspicion-the Kleenex, the red and watering eyes, the paternal arm that Cap had put around his shoulders. Much the same expression came into the eyes of Cap's secretary.

"He broke down and cried when he heard Pynchot was dead," Cap said quietly. "He was very upset. I believe I'll see if I can arrange for him to attend Herman's funeral with me. Would you like to do that, Andy?"

"Yes," Andy said. "Yes, please. If it can be arranged. Poor Dr. Pynchot." And suddenly he burst into real tears. The two men led him past Senator Thompson's bewildered, embarrassed aide, who had several blue-bound folders in his hands. They took Andy out, still weeping, each with a hand clasped lightly at his elbow. Each of them wore an expression of disgust that was very similar to Cap's-disgust for this fat drug addict who had totally lost control of his emotions and any sense of perspective and gushed tears for the man who had been his captor.

Andy's tears were real... but it was Charlie he wept for.

23

John always rode with her, but in her dreams Charlie rode alone. The head groom, Peter Drabble, had fitted her out with a small, neat English saddle, but in her dreams she rode bareback. She and John rode on the bridle paths that wove their way across the Shop grounds, moving in and out of the toy forest of sugarpines and skirting the duckpond, never doing more than an easy canter, but in her dreams she and Necromancer galloped together, faster and faster, through a real forest; they plunged at speed down a wild trail and the light was green through the interlaced branches overhead, and her hair streamed out behind her.

She could feel the ripple of Necromancer's muscles under his silky hide, and she rode with her hands twisted in his mane and whispered in his ear that she wanted to go faster... faster... faster.

Necromancer responded. His hooves were thunder. The path through these tangled, green woods was a tunnel, and from somewhere behind her there came a faint crackling "and

(the woods are burning)

a whiff" of smoke. It was a fire, a fire she had started, but there was no guilt-only exhilaration. They could outrace it. Necromancer could go anywhere, do anything. They would escape the foresttunnel. She could sense brightness ahead.

"Faster. Faster."

The exhilaration. The freedom. She could no longer tell where her thighs ended and Necromancer's sides began. They were one, fused, as fused as the metals she welded with her power when she did their tests. Ahead of them was a huge deadfall, a blowdown of white wood like a tangled cairn of bones. Wild with lunatic joy, she kicked at Necromancer lightly with her bare heels and felt his hindquarters bunch.

They leaped it, for a moment floating in the air. Her head was back; her hands held horsehair and she screamed-not in fear but simply because not to scream, to hold in, might cause her to explode. Free, free, free... Necromancer, I love you.

They cleared the deadfall easily but now the smell of smoke was sharper, clearer-there was a popping sound from behind them and it was only when a spark spiraled down and briefly stung her flesh like a nettle before going out that she realized she was naked. Naked and

(but the woods are burning)

free, unfettered, loose-she and Necromancer, running for the light.

"Faster," she whispered. "Faster, oh please."

Somehow the big black gelding produced even more speed. The wind in Charlie's ears was rushing thunder. She did not have to.breathe; air was scooped into her throat through her half-open mouth. Sun shone through these old trees in dusty bars like old copper.

And up ahead was the light-the end of the forest, open land, where she and Necromancer would run forever. The fire was behind them, the hateful smell of smoke, the feel of fear. The sun was ahead, and she would ride Necromancer all the way to the sea, where she would perhaps find her father and the two of them would live by pulling in nets full of shining, slippery fish.

"Faster!" she cried triumphantly. "Oh, Necromancer, go faster, go faster, go-"

And that was when the silhouette stepped into the widening funnel of light where the woods ended, blocking the light in its own shape, blocking the way out. At first, as always in this dream, she thought it was her father, was sure it was her father, and her joy became almost hurtful... before suddenly transforming into utter terror.

She just had time to register the fact that the man was too big, too tall-and yet somehow familiar, dreadfully familiar, even in silhouette-before Necromancer reared, screaming.

Can horses scream? I didn't know they could scream-

Struggling to stay on, her thighs slipping as his hooves pawed at the air, and he wasn't screaming, he was whinnying, but it was a scream and there were other screaming whinnies somewhere behind her, oh dear God, she thought, horses back there, horses back there and the woods are burning-

Up ahead, blocking the light, that silhouette, that dreadful shape. Now it began to come toward her; she had fallen onto the path and Necromancer touched her bare stomach gently with his muzzle.

"Don't you hurt my horse!" she screamed at the advancing silhouette, the dream-father who was not her father. "Don't you hurt the horses. Oh, please don't hurt the horses!"

But the figure came on and it was drawing a gun and that was when she awoke, sometimes with a scream, sometimes only in a shuddery cold sweat, knowing that she had dreamed badly but unable to remember anything save the mad, exhilarating plunge down the wooded trail and the smell of fire... these things, and an almost sick feeling of betrayal...

And in the stable that day, she would touch Necromancer or perhaps put the side of her face against his warm shoulder and feel a dread for which she had no name.

ENDGAME

1

It was a bigger room.

Until last week, in fact, it had been the Shop's non-denominational chapel. The speed with which things were picking up could have been symbolized by the speed and ease with which Cap had rammed through Hockstetter's requests. A new chapel-not an odd spare room but a real chapel-was to be built at the eastern end of the grounds. Meanwhile, the remainder of the tests on Charlie McGee would be held here.

The fake wood paneling and the pews had been ripped out. Both flooring and walls had been insulated with asbestos batting that looked like steel wool and then covered over with heavy-guage tempered sheet steel. The area that had been the altar and the nave had been partitioned off: Hockstetter's monitoring instruments and a computer terminal had been installed. All of this had been done in a single week; work had begun just four days before Herman Pynchot ended his life in such grisly fashion.

Now, at two in the afternoon on an early October day, a cinderblock wall stood in the middle of the long room. To the left of it was a huge, low tank of water. Into this tank, which was six feet deep, had been dumped more than two thousand pounds of ice. In front of it stood Charlie McGee, looking small and neat in a blue denim jumper and red and black striped rugby socks. Blond pigtails tied off with small black velvet bows hung down to her shoulder blades.

"All right, Charlie," Hockstetter's voice said over the intercom. Like everything else, the intercom had been hastily installed, and its reproduction was tinny and poor. "We're ready when you are."

The cameras filmed it all in living color. In these films, the small girl's head dips slightly, and for a few seconds nothing happens at all. Inset at the left of the film frame is a digital temperature readout. All at once it begins to move upward, from seventy to eighty to ninety. After that the figures jump up so rapidly that they are just a shifting reddish blur; the electronic temperature probe has been placed in the center of the cinderblock wall.

Now the film switches to slow motion; it is the only way that the entire action can be caught. To the men who watched it through the observation room's leaded-glass viewing ports, it happened with the speed of a gunshot.

In extreme slow motion, the cinderblock wall begins to smoke; small particles of mortar and concrete begin to jump lazily upward like popping corn. Then the mortar holding the blocks together can be observed to be running, like warm molasses. Then the bricks begin to crumble, from the center outward. Showers of particles, then clouds of them, blow back as the blocks explode with the heat. Now the digital heat sensor implanted in the center of this wall freezes at a reading of over seven thousand degrees. It freezes not because the temperature has stopped climbing but because the sensor itself has been destroyed.

Set around this testing room that used to be a chapel are eight huge Kelvinator air conditioners, all running at high speed, all pumping freezing air into the testing room. All eight kicked into operation as soon as the room's overall temperature passed ninety-five.

Charlie had got very good at directing the stream of heat that somehow came from her at a single point, but as anyone who has ever burned his or her hand on a hot skillet handle knows, even so-called nonconductable surfaces will conduct heat-if there is enough heat to conduct.

With all eight of the industrial Kelvinators running, the temperature in the testing room should have been minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, plus or minus five degrees. Instead, the records show a continued climb, up over a hundred degrees, then a hundred and five, then a hundred and seven. But all of the sweat running down the faces of the observers cannot be accounted for by the heat alone.

Now not even extreme slow motion will give a clear picture of what is happening, but one thing is clear: as the cinderblocks continue to explode outward and backward, there can be no doubt that they are burning; these blocks are burning as briskly as newspapers in a fireplace. Of course, an eighth-grade science book teaches that anything will burn if it gets hot enough. But it is one thing to read such information and quite another to see cinderblock blazing with blue and yellow flame.

Then everything is obscured by a furious blowback of disintegrating particles as the whole wall vaporizes. The little girl makes a slow-motion half turn and a moment later the calm surface of the icy water in the tank is convulsed and boiling. And the heat in the room, which has crested at a hundred twelve, (even with all eight air conditioners, it is as hot as a summer noontime in Death Valley), begins to go back.

There's one for the sweeper.

2

INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMO

From Bradford Hyuck

To Patrick Hockstetter

Date October 2

Re Telemetry, latest C. McGee Test (No. 4)

Pat-I've watched the films four times now and still can't believe it isn't some sort of special effects trick. Some unsolicited advice: When you get before the Senate subcommittee that's going to deal with the Lot Six appropriations and renewal plans, have your ducks in a row and do more than cover your ass-armor-plate it! Human nature being what it is, those guys are going to look at those films and have a hard job believing it isn't a flat-out shuckand-jive.

To business: The readouts are being delivered by special messenger, and this memo should beat them by no more than two or three hours. You can read them over for yourself, but I'll briefly sum up our findings. Our conclusions can be summed up in two words: We're stumped. She was wired up this time like an astronaut going into space. You will note: 1) Blood pressure within normal parameters for a child of eight, and there's hardly a jog when that wall goes up like the Hiroshima bomb. 2) Abnormally high alpha wave readings; what we'd call her "imagination circuitry" is well engaged. You may or may not agree with Clapper and me that the waves are rather more even, suggesting a certain "controlled imaginative dexterity" (Clapper's rather fulsome phrase, not mine). Could indicate she's getting in control of it and can manipulate the ability with greater precision. Practice, as they say, makes perfect. Or it may mean nothing at all. 3) All metabolic telemetry is within normal parameters-nothing strange or out of place. It's as if she was reading a good book or writing a class theme instead of creating what you say must have been upwards of 30,000 degrees of spot heat. To my mind the most fascinating (and frustrating!) information of all is the Beal-Searles CAT test. Next to no caloric burn! In case you've forgotten your physics-occupational hazard with you shrinks-a calorie is nothing but a unit of heat; the amount of heat necessary to raise a gram of water one degree centigrade, to be exact. She burned maybe 25 calories during that little exhibition, what we would burn doing half a dozen sit-ups or walking twice around the building. But calories measure heat, damn it, heat, and what she's producing is heat... or is she? Is it coming from her or through her? And if it's the latter, where is it coming from? Figure that one out and you've got the Nobel Prize in your hip pocket! I'll tell you this: if our test series is as limited as you say it is, I'm positive we'll never find out. Last word: Are you sure you want to continue these tests? Lately I just have to think about that kid and I start to get very antsy. I start thinking about things like pulsars and neutrinos and black holes and Christ knows what else. There are forces loose in this universe that we don't even know about yet, and some we can observe only at a remove of millions of light-years... and breathe a sigh of relief because of it. The last time I looked at that film I began to think of the girl as a crack-a chink, if you like-in the very smelter of creation. I know how that sounds, but I feel I would be remiss not to say it. God forgive me for saying this, with three lovely girls of my own, but I personally will breathe a sigh of relief when she's been neutralized.

If she can produce 30,000 degrees of spot heat without even trying, have you ever thought what might happen if she really set her mind to it?

Brad

3

"I want to see my father," Charlie said when Hockstetter came in. She looked pale and wan. She had changed from her jumper into an old nightgown, and her hair was loose on her shoulders.

"Charlie-"he began, but anything he had been meaning to follow with was suddenly gone. He was deeply troubled by Brad Hyuck's memo and by the supporting telemetry readouts. The fact that Brad had trusted those final two paragraphs to print said much, and suggested more.

Hockstetter himself was scared. In authorizing the changeover of chapel to testing room, Cap had also authorized the installation of more Kelvinator air conditioner around Charlie's apartment-not eight but twenty. Only six had been installed so far, but after Test No.4, Hockstetter didn't care if they were installed or not. He thought they could set up two hundred of the damned things and'not impede her power. It was no longer a question of whether or not she could kill herself; it was a question of whether or not she could destroy the entire Shop installation if she wanted to-and maybe all of eastern Virginia in the bargain. Hockstetter now thought that if she wanted to do those things, she could. And the last stop on that line of reasoning was even scarier: only John Rainbird had an effective checkrein on her now. And Rainbird was nuts.

"I want to see my father," she repeated.

Her father was at the funeral of poor Herman Pynchot. He attended with Cap, at the latter's request. Even Pynchot's death, as unrelated to anything going on here as it was, seemed to have cast its own evil pall over Hockstetter's mind.

"Well, I think that can be arranged," Hockstetter said cautiously, "if you can show us a little more-""I've shown you enough," she said. "I want to see my daddy." Her lower lip trembled; her eyes had taken on a sheen of tears. "Your orderly;" Hockstetter said, "that Indian fellow, said you didn't want to go for a ride on your horse this morning after the test. He seemed worried about you."

"It's not my horse," Charlie said. Her voice was husky. "Nothing here is mine. Nothing except my daddy and I... want... to... see him!" Her voice rose to an angry, tearful shout.

"Don't get excited, Charlie," Hockstetter said, suddenly frightened. Was it suddenly getting hotter in here, or was it just his imagination? "Just... just don't get excited."

Rainbird. This should have been Rainbird's job, god-dammit.

"Listen to me, Charlie." He smiled a wide, friendly smile. "How would you like to go to Six Flags over Georgia? It's just about the neatest amusement park in the whole South, except maybe for Disney World. We'd rent the whole park for a day, just for you. You could ride the Ferris wheel, go in the haunted mansion, the merry-go-round-"

"I don't want to go to any amusement park, I just want to see my daddy. And I'm going to. I hope you hear me, because I'm going to!"

It was hotter.

"You're sweating," Charlie said.

He thought of the cinderblock wall, exploding so fast you could see the flames only in slow motion. He thought of the steel tray flipping over twice as it flew across the room, spraying burning chunks of wood. If she flicked that power out at him, he would be a pile of ashes and fused bone almost before he knew what was happening to him.

Oh God please-"Charlie, getting mad at me won't accomplish anyth-""Yes," she said with perfect truth. "Yes it will. And I'm mad at you, Dr. Hockstetter. I'm really mad at you." "Charlie, please-"

"I want to see him," she said again. "Now go away. You tell them I want to see my father and then they can test me some more if they want. I don't mind. But if I don't see him, I'll make something happen. Tell them that."

He left. He felt that he should say something more-something that would redeem his dignity a little, make up a little for the fear

("you're sweating")

she had seen scrawled on his face-but nothing occurred. He left, and not even the steel door between him and her could completely ease his fear... or his anger at John Rainbird. Because Rainbird had foreseen this, and Rainbird had said nothing. And if he accused Rainbird of that, the Indian would only smile his chilling smile and ask who was the psychiatrist around here, anyway?

The tests had diminished her complex about starting fires until it was like an earthen dam that had sprung leaks in a dozen places. The tests had afforded her the practice necessary to refine a crude sledgehammer of power into something she could flick out with deadly precision, like a circus performer throwing a weighted knife.

And the tests had been the perfect object lesson. They had shown her, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who was in charge here.

She was.