Mute by Piers Anthony Page A

closing in on prey.
    Knot was startled. “Hermine sends pictures, too!”
    “Of course she does,” Finesse snapped, giving up on her hair. “Where is this cover we’re headed for?”
    “Just coming into sight ahead.”
    They ran on, each person radiating fat sparks. The whole landscape was blazing with the electrical discharges, and small lightning forks were jumping from the trees high into the sky before petering out in umbrella-like spreads. Knot was a good deal more alarmed than he cared to admit.
    Me too, the weasel thought. But Mit says we’ll make it. The cave is safe.
    They did make it. They bundled into the cave mouth as if taking shelter from hail.
    No farther! Hermine warned. Mit says it is safe only here at the edge.
    “Thanks,” Knot said aloud. It was easier to focus his thoughts when he engaged the vocalizing mechanism, and it let Finesse know what he was thinking. Though he had no doubt he could learn readily enough to project without vocalizing or subvocalizing, at such time as he needed to. “The leadmuter gets excited by storms and things and tries to transmute other substances—such as people—into lead. Doesn’t work, but it’s not too healthy either—for him or the subjects.”
    Finesse looked out at the electrical display, then into the passage leading to the leadmuter. She shuddered. “I’m not used to this sort of danger.”
    She’s pretending, Hermine thought mischievously. She’s tough as rats.
    You’re helping me against her? Knot thought, nicely managing to avoid vocalization.
    It doesn’t matter. There is no help for you.
    Hm. “If I understand the situation correctly, there’s no danger as long as we heed Mit,” he said, uncertain himself.
    “Yes, we must stay right here,” she agreed.
    “Of course—until the threat passes. But you know, it is hardly in my interest to keep you safe. What you have already recorded is enough to damn me.”
    “I didn’t come here to damn you!” she protested. “CC needs your help.”
    What is her real interest? Knot asked Hermine, who had climbed from Finesse’s pocket and was prowling the cave.
    She means to seduce you into joining CC.
    Just as he thought. Finesse’s first visit had been exploratory. The second was recruitment, and she had an obvious weapon. He recognized that, but remained vulnerable. She was really his enemy, but he would do a lot to obtain her good will. Ask Mit whether she will succeed.
    Knot expected no direct answer to that. He was wrong. She will succeed.
    The seduction or the conversion to CC?
    Both.
    Don’t I have anything to say about it? Knot demanded.
    Nothing.
    Nothing?
    It has been determined. Mit knows.
    Knot experienced a sudden firm resolve. He would see about that! He had little faith in precognition, especially as it might relate to himself. A storm might be predicted accurately enough; it had no free will. A man was different.
    Finesse was making herself comfortable, arranging her limbs attractively, setting up for her effort. Knot tried to ignore her.
    Other psi powers were remarkable but basically sensible. They merely accomplished by mental means what could also be done by physical means. His own talent was an example: there were drugs and treatments that could cause people to forget recent events, temporarily or permanently. They interfered with the intermediate process of memory fixation, so that the short-term memories never made the necessary transition to long-term memories. Electric currents applied to certain sections of the brain could erase established memories. The leadmuter’s ability was another example. Transmutation of substances could be accomplished in the laboratory, with extraordinary effort and expense; this was not worthwhile economically, but it was possible. Clairvoyance was merely the awareness of surrounding landscapes and events, and extension of the normal perceptions. Telepathy was like a built-in intercom.
    But precognition—that was essentially fortune telling.