klick-always the worst-so he pushed himself faster and tried to occupy his mind with something other than the pounding of flesh and bone against duracrete.
Why would anyone go Blip? What did they hope to gain? Oh, men like Nielsson were easy to explain - they were just criminals using fellow criminals to help them stay out of jail. But what about the others? What could they possibly hope to find that Psi Corps couldn’t give them?
He tried to picture himself, outside the Corps, a later, raised like a normal. Say he was twelve when he got his psi - what would he do out there in the mundane world? Take the sleeper drugs? That way he could hide his abilities, keep leading the life he was accustomed to - except that Normals would find out, through personnel records, or official files.
He couldn’t get a job or even get housing without disclosing his nature, and the Normals would still hate him, sleepers or no. Or he could join Psi Corps, get a free education, room, board, job placement, protection from mundanes, the company of others like himself.
So rogues didn’t want the sort of life Normals had, and they didn’t want the opportunity to hone their powers to the utmost, to live and work as telepaths. They don’t want to be Normals and they don’t want to be teeps. What do they want?
Well, they blew things up. Maybe that’s all there was to it. They just wanted to cause trouble. There were certainly people like that. He mulled it over more, but he seemed to have hit a wall. The answer was probably something pretty obvious, he mused. The problem was, you didn’t want to go around asking questions like this about Blips-not if you wanted to be a Psi Cop. You were supposed to catch them, not understand them.
Yet - wouldn’t it be easier to catch them if you did understand them? He was starting to feel his second wind coming, and that was always nice. He shelved the internal discussion in favor of the view, as his trail reached the top of the hill.
He could see beyond the walls and wire that protected Teeptown to where the Rhone was leafed with sunset gold. A small smile on his face, he pushed himself into a sprint, felt like a galloping horse or a charging bull, invincible, immortal. Eventually he had to slow, but the feeling remained. And wedded to it, a pleasant - sounding name - Julia.
“Al! It’s good to see you. I’m glad you could make it.”
Brett’s smile was dazzling. Al smiled thinly and took the other boy’s glove in his own for a brief, firm handshake.
“I haven’t been hiking in a while,” he said.
“It sounded like fun.”
“Did Julia tell you where we’re going? Up near Mount Blanc. Ever been there?”
He paused.
“You did manage to get a pass, right?”
“Yes - to the pass. Not to Mont Blanc.”
“We aren’t actually going on Mont Blanc - but pretty near. You’ll like the hike. The place where we camp has a great view, and we might be able to catch a few fish.”
Al nodded, since that didn’t seem to require any other response.
Brett had grown in the bone - he was two heads taller than Al, with the sort of ruggedly handsome face one saw on Psi Corps recruitment posters. Al took note of the “we” and the past tense in Brett’s comment. These guys had made the hike before, maybe often. It wasn’t, as Julia said, a reunion. They were already unified; it was only Al Bester, the outsider, who was rejoining them.
But why? What did they want with him? The others - Mills, Azmun, Fkko - greeted him, but their enthusiasm was guarded, and this sharpened his suspicions, but Julia was all smiles. He allowed himself, reluctantly, to consider what he hoped to be the truth: that Julia liked him and had invited him on her own, even knowing that the others might not be all that happy about it.
“We’ll take the train up to Chamonix, and hike from there,” Brett was explaining, as they moved on line to purchase their tickets.
“When we come down, we can get another train back at
Why would anyone go Blip? What did they hope to gain? Oh, men like Nielsson were easy to explain - they were just criminals using fellow criminals to help them stay out of jail. But what about the others? What could they possibly hope to find that Psi Corps couldn’t give them?
He tried to picture himself, outside the Corps, a later, raised like a normal. Say he was twelve when he got his psi - what would he do out there in the mundane world? Take the sleeper drugs? That way he could hide his abilities, keep leading the life he was accustomed to - except that Normals would find out, through personnel records, or official files.
He couldn’t get a job or even get housing without disclosing his nature, and the Normals would still hate him, sleepers or no. Or he could join Psi Corps, get a free education, room, board, job placement, protection from mundanes, the company of others like himself.
So rogues didn’t want the sort of life Normals had, and they didn’t want the opportunity to hone their powers to the utmost, to live and work as telepaths. They don’t want to be Normals and they don’t want to be teeps. What do they want?
Well, they blew things up. Maybe that’s all there was to it. They just wanted to cause trouble. There were certainly people like that. He mulled it over more, but he seemed to have hit a wall. The answer was probably something pretty obvious, he mused. The problem was, you didn’t want to go around asking questions like this about Blips-not if you wanted to be a Psi Cop. You were supposed to catch them, not understand them.
Yet - wouldn’t it be easier to catch them if you did understand them? He was starting to feel his second wind coming, and that was always nice. He shelved the internal discussion in favor of the view, as his trail reached the top of the hill.
He could see beyond the walls and wire that protected Teeptown to where the Rhone was leafed with sunset gold. A small smile on his face, he pushed himself into a sprint, felt like a galloping horse or a charging bull, invincible, immortal. Eventually he had to slow, but the feeling remained. And wedded to it, a pleasant - sounding name - Julia.
“Al! It’s good to see you. I’m glad you could make it.”
Brett’s smile was dazzling. Al smiled thinly and took the other boy’s glove in his own for a brief, firm handshake.
“I haven’t been hiking in a while,” he said.
“It sounded like fun.”
“Did Julia tell you where we’re going? Up near Mount Blanc. Ever been there?”
He paused.
“You did manage to get a pass, right?”
“Yes - to the pass. Not to Mont Blanc.”
“We aren’t actually going on Mont Blanc - but pretty near. You’ll like the hike. The place where we camp has a great view, and we might be able to catch a few fish.”
Al nodded, since that didn’t seem to require any other response.
Brett had grown in the bone - he was two heads taller than Al, with the sort of ruggedly handsome face one saw on Psi Corps recruitment posters. Al took note of the “we” and the past tense in Brett’s comment. These guys had made the hike before, maybe often. It wasn’t, as Julia said, a reunion. They were already unified; it was only Al Bester, the outsider, who was rejoining them.
But why? What did they want with him? The others - Mills, Azmun, Fkko - greeted him, but their enthusiasm was guarded, and this sharpened his suspicions, but Julia was all smiles. He allowed himself, reluctantly, to consider what he hoped to be the truth: that Julia liked him and had invited him on her own, even knowing that the others might not be all that happy about it.
“We’ll take the train up to Chamonix, and hike from there,” Brett was explaining, as they moved on line to purchase their tickets.
“When we come down, we can get another train back at
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