"Dr. Custer is trying to help. But he hasn't succeeded so far. If he
can, then it will be a different story. But I can't stall much longer,
Amy. Aarons has a powerful argument. You're psi-high. You're the first
full-fledged, wide-open, free-wheeling psi-high that's ever appeared in
human history. The _first_. Others in the past have shown potential,
maybe, but nothing they could ever learn to control. You've got control,
you're fully developed. You're _here_, and you're _the only one there
is_."
"So I happened to be unlucky," I snapped. "My genes got mixed up."
"That's not true, and you know it," Lambertson said. "We know your
chromosomes better than your face. They're the same as anyone else's.
There's no gene difference, none at all. When you're gone, you'll be
_gone_, and there's no reason to think that your children will have any
more psi potential than Charlie Dakin has."
Something was building up in me then that I couldn't control any longer.
"You think I should go along with Aarons," I said dully.
He hesitated. "I'm afraid you're going to have to, sooner or later.
Aarons has some latents up in Boston. He's certain that they're latents.
He's talked to the directors down here. He's convinced them that you
could work with his people, draw them out. You could open the door to a
whole new world for human beings."
I lost my temper then. It wasn't just Aarons, or Lambertson, or Dakin,
or any of the others. It was _all_ of them, dozens of them, compounded
year upon year upon year. "Now listen to me for a minute," I said. "Have
any of you ever considered what _I_ wanted in this thing? _Ever?_ Have
any of you given that one single thought, just once, one time when you
were so sick of thinking great thoughts for humanity that you let
another thought leak through? Have you ever thought about what kind of a
shuffle I've had since all this started? Well, you'd better think about
it. _Right now._"
"Amy, you know I don't want to push you."
"Listen to me, Lambertson. My folks got rid of me fast when they found
out about me. Did you know that? They hated me because I _scared_ them!
It didn't hurt me too much, because I thought I knew _why_ they hated
me, I could understand it, and I went off to Bairdsley without even
crying. They were going to come see me every week, but do you know how
often they managed to make it? _Not once_ after I was off their hands.
And then at Bairdsley Aarons examined me and decided that I was a
cripple. He didn't know anything about me then, but he thought psi was a
_defect_. And that was as far as it went. I did what Aarons wanted me to
do at Bairdsley. Never what _I_ wanted, just what _they_ wanted, years
and years of what _they_ wanted. And then you came along, and I came to
the Study Center and did what _you_ wanted."
It hurt him, and I knew it. I guess that was what I wanted, to hurt him
and to hurt everybody. He was shaking his head, staring at me. "Amy, be
fair. I've tried, you know how hard I've tried."
"Tried what? To train me? Yes, but why? To give me better use of my psi
faculties? Yes, but why? Did you do it for _me_? Is that really why you
did it? Or was that just another phoney front, like all the rest of
them, in order to use me, to make me a little more valuable to have
around?"
He slapped my face so hard it jolted me. I could feel the awful pain and
hurt in his mind as he stared at me, and I sensed the stinging in his
palm that matched the burning in my cheek. And then something fell away
in his mind, and I saw something I had never seen before.
He loved me, that man. Incredible, isn't it? He _loved_ me. Me, who
couldn't call him anything but Lambertson, who couldn't imagine calling
him Michael, to say nothing of Mike--just Lambertson, who did this, or
Lambertson who thought that.
But he could never tell me. He had decided that. I was too helpless. I
needed him too much. I needed love, but not the kind of love Lambertson
wanted to give, so that kind of love had to be hidden, concealed,
_suppressed_. I needed the deepest imaginable understanding, but it had
to be utterly unselfish understanding, anything else would be taking
advantage of me, so a barrier had to be built--a barrier that I should
never penetrate and that he should never be tempted to break down.
Lambertson had done that. For me. It was all there, suddenly, so
overwhelming it made me gasp from the impact. I wanted to throw my arms
around him; instead I sat down in the chair, shaking my head helplessly.
I hated myself then. I had hated myself before, but never like this.
"If I could only go somewhere," I said. "Someplace where nobody knew me,
where I could just live by myself for a while, and shut the doors, and
shut out the thoughts, and _pretend_ for a while, just pretend that I'm
perfectly normal."
"I wish you could," Lambertson said. "But you can't. You know that. Not
unless Custer can really help."
We sat there for a while. Then I said, "Let Aarons come down. Let him
bring anybody he wants with him. I'll do what he wants. Until I see
Custer."
That hurt, too, but it was different. It hurt both of us together, not
separately any more. And somehow it didn't hurt so much that way.
* * * * *
_Monday, 22 May._ Aarons drove down from Boston this morning with a girl
named Mary Bolton, and we went to work.
I think I'm beginning to understand how a dog can tell when someone
wants to kick him and doesn't quite dare. I could feel the back of my
neck prickle when that man walked into the conference room. I was hoping
he might have changed since the last time I saw him. He hadn't, but I
had. I wasn't afraid of him any more, just awfully tired of him after
he'd been here about ten minutes.
But that girl! I wonder what sort of story he'd told her? She couldn't
have been more than sixteen, and she was terrorized. At first I thought
it was _Aarons_ she was afraid of, but that wasn't so. It was _me_.
It took us all morning just to get around that. The poor girl could
hardly make herself talk. She was shaking all over when they arrived. We
took a walk around the grounds, alone, and I read her bit by bit--a
feeler here, a planted suggestion there, just getting her used to the
idea and trying to reassure her. After a while she was smiling. She
thought the lagoon was lovely, and by the time we got back to the main
building she was laughing, talking about herself, beginning to relax.
Then I gave her a full blast, quickly, only a moment or two. _Don't be
afraid--I hate him, yes, but I won't hurt you for anything. Let me come
in, don't fight me. We've got to work as a team._
It shook her. She turned white and almost passed out for a moment. Then
she nodded, slowly. "I see," she said. "It feels as if it's way inside,
_deep_ inside."
"That's right. It won't hurt. I promise."