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The desk inched forward. Danny s bleeding fingers slipped on the cold metal,
but this time the shutter gave a little.
Mall s eyes darted about the room. When he saw the fallen lamp, he cried out
hoarsely with triumph, and at the same time the desk charged at him like a
geometrical mastodon. He paid no attention; he looked at the lamp
The lamp bulb burst. A thin wedge of electrical green shot through the sudden
darkness. Sean cried out.
There was a heavy slam as the desk hit the floor. Something passed Danny in a
whisper, something he knew, something he knew he would never know again. Then
it was gone, and Danny felt tears streaming down his face. Sean Sean
The shutter screeched suddenly and swung open; at the same instant, the room
door was kicked back and Sir Lewis bulky shadow was cast into the dark room.
The green beam wavered and went out. Nearly blinded, Danny threw a shoe over
the windowsill and kicked the glass in.
 What the devil, Mall! Did you get him?
 I think s-so. B-but he s still alive. He s g-got a PK field in that desk yet
and I heard s-something go through the window.
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Danny ground his teeth and backed the resonator into neutral.
 I don t feel any PK field.
 It s g-gone now. It could have b-been residual. But watch out. He s
strong my god but he s s-strong!
 These high-minded idiots depend too much on themselves, Sir Lewis said.  He
could have been nine times as strong as you were, and still be a fool to
tackle us all single-handed. He kicked in the darkness until he hit Sean.
 There he is. Not a thought in his head; he s dead, Mall.
 I don t want him dead; maybe he s j-just out. I ve set up a nerve-block in
him. Get one of your t-teleports to move him out of here and into the
impedance field, and see that he g-gets medical attention. If he does die,
we ll have t-Taylor and all the rest of that crowd down on us.
 And Caiden, too.
 Caiden is d-dead. Don t bother your head over him.
 I wouldn t be too sure, Sir Lewis said.  He might not have gone to
Hennessy, after all.
 If he survived, he went to Hennessy, Mall said coldly.  The sequence would
admit of n-nothing else. And obviously he isn t w-with Hennessy. Next t-time
you have a crisis, you ll depend on my p-predictions and handle it
yourselves.
 I m still not satisfied, Sir Lewis grumbled.  But you re the Prytanis here.
If you say Caiden s dead, I suppose he has to be dead.
The two went out. Danny waited, scarcely daring to breathe, forgotten tears
drying on his face. His foot had been sticking through the broken glass into
the room throughout the whole conversation, but neither Sir Lewis nor Mall had
so much as looked toward the window.
After a short interval, a tall, spare shadow stuck its head around the door
jamb. Sean s body rose from the floor. The shadow disappeared. Sean s body
floated after it.
The room was deserted.
Cautiously, Danny withdrew his foot, and raised the sash. A piece of glass
tinkled, and he froze. But nothing happened.
He heaved himself up over the sill and clambered into the room. Mall and
Carter had thought Sean still alive partly because of Danny s ineffectual PK
field in the desk, but also because of the sound of the windowpane breaking;
they hadn t bothered to check on whether or not Sean had actually thrown or
telekineticized something through it from inside, or whether the breaking
glass had meant something else.
But Danny knew. The current from the burst bulb-socket had killed Sean; Danny
had felt it happen. It had been quick. He wondered what it had been like for
Sean to feel Cy Nevers death, which had been much slower . . .
It hit Danny suddenly, as he stood there in the tense darkness, that Sean had
expected just such an outcome; at least, he had anticipated it, for his odd
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parting speech about Danny s forthcoming  promotion could have meant nothing
else. And from the moment he had found himself confronting Mall instead of Sir [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]