Psion by Joan D. Vinge Read Free Book Online

tighter and tighter, weaving defenses to keep him from getting at me again.
    “When are you planning to be ‘ready’? Tomorrow? Next week? A month from now, a year? You don’t have that long, Cat!” Suddenly he was angry. “If you want to stay in this research program, you’ve got to show results. You have to be able to control your talent, not just ‘feel’ it-control it under pressure, in ways you never expected to. You have to learn when not to use it, and how to keep other psions from using it against you- “ He broke off.
    “Why?” I frowned, matching his own .
    “Because those are the rules; and if you want to get along, you learn to obey the rules.”
    “Not where I come from.” I pushed up out of my chair and moved away from him.
    “You’re not in Oldcity now. But you’ll be back there in a hurry, Cityboy, if you can’t learn to cooperate.”
    “What’s eating you?” I turned to stare at him. He sounded like a Corpse. He’d never called me that before, or threatened me.
    “Maybe that you don’t even bother to hide how little you care about all this, about what you’re doing here, or what I’m trying to do to help you.” He got up, following me but keeping out of my reach.
    “What do you mean?” Knowing what he meant, that he’d seen it in my thoughts. “I didn’t-“
    (The hell you didn’t!) His anger and frustration caught me from an unguarded angle, and hit me behind the eyes. (All right, shadow walker, you’ve been using my patience like a wall to hide behind; but you’ve finally used it up. No more camphs, no more questions, no more games until you show me some return.)
    “Lemme alone, you vermy bastard!”
    (No more being left alone! You’ll never be alone again unless you make me leave your mind-)
    “Get out, get out!” I pressed my hands against my ears, like that would do any good. He was through my defenses and on the inside, and I didn’t know what to do about it to get him out again.
    (Make me.) His words echoed through the circuits of my brain.
    “Damn you, damn you- “ I was half crazy with the fear that he really meant it, that he’d never get out of my head again. I groped for a weapon-not on the counter beside me, because my body couldn’t get at him; but somewhere in my mind, where I could. (Damn you! damn you!) Feeling the thought leap like a spark across the gap between my mind and his. Suddenly making the connection, holding onto it, I completed the link of thought, (You slad, you son of a bitch, get out of my mind before I burn you out!), with a jolt of white-hot rage. (Break, break!)
    He broke contact: in the same second my mind was suddenly all my own again, my eyes saw him sway and clutch at a chair for support.
    I swayed too, reaching out for the counter edge behind me. I swore softly.
    “Congratulations.” His own voice was barely more than a whisper. “Psion.”
    “God.” I gulped, and wiped my hand across my mouth. A few more words slipped out, more curses, as I stumbled back to the table and sat down.
    Cortelyou sat down across from me again. This time he tossed me the whole pack of camphs. “Here.”
    I pushed one between my lips with shaking hands. Disconnected filaments pulsed behind my eyes-signposts, beacons, patterns that had lain waiting for me to turn my own eyes inward and see them. . . . We sat there for a long time, not saying anything; while I tried to make myself believe what had happened, while the camph calmed me down.
    “How do you feel?” he said, finally. He was all solicitude, now.
    “You should know.” I glared at him.
    He shook his head. “I’m not reading you now; you know that.”
    “Then how do you think I feel?” I looked away, wishing this room had a window.
    “Proud . . . excited . . . like you’ve made a breakthrough?”
    “No. Dirty, lousy-like a freak! That’s how you’re supposed to feel, ain’t it?”
    “Did Goba tell you that?” His smile disappeared.
    “He didn’t have to. Every time I get