[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"You can't change your genes, girl."
"What makes you so certain about me?" asked Jedro.
Granny's old eyes searched him. "Who do you think unlocked the lion cage?"
"What do you mean?" he stammered.
"You unlocked it," she asserted. "Both times. And let me tell you, boy, that's
a nasty habit. You'll drive Jason Hart stark raving mad. He's got the only
key."
"But I didn't," he protested. "I know I didn't."
"Oh, you opened it, all right, even if you didn't consciously intend to.
Why do you think Clement gave you the stone?"
"I've wondered," he admitted diffidently.
"He came all the way from Earth to find you, Jedro."
"He told me that."
"You have the power."
"To do what?" He couldn't believe the cage-opening bit.
"Make the stone respond, for one thing."
"But why me?"
"It requires a certain kind of sensitive."
"What kind?" he challenged.
"Psychokinesis." She scrutinized him wonderingly. "It's an extremely rare
talent. Aside from that, the talent had to be operative at a certain time. Oh,
there have been PK's before -- they say Ganymede was leaping with them -- but
they lived in the wrong age. You've hit the jackpot, Jedro."
"But I never..." He floundered for words.
"You unlocked the lion cage," she reminded primly.
Awed, he asked, "Why would I need that kind of power?"
"Perhaps Holton Lee realized it would take that kind of power to retrieve the
colonists' ship."
"From Jupiter?"
She nodded. "The task would be all but impossible through any other
means."
Page 77
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
He considered it. "Then Holton Lee didn't have that kind of power," he stated.
"Doesn't have," she corrected. "He's still alive."
"Doesn't have," he amended.
"Apparently not, Jedro."
"What does all this have to do with immortality?"
"Immortality." Granny sniffed.
"What's the connection?"
"None, I suspect." Granny's eyes got a faraway look. "Perhaps that's the prize
Holton Lee dangled to the colonists' descendants to make certain he wasn't
forgotten that someday he'd be revived. That's powerful bait, Jedro."
"Then the secret's not in the stone," he reflected.
"Immortality? No, it's only in Holton Lee's mind."
"How did Faust hope to get the secret?"
"He had the silly idea of hypnotizing Holton Lee as he awakened him. A
very stupid man, Jedro."
He looked into the ancient eyes for a long moment, then asked haltingly,
"Where did I come from? Do you know?"
"Earth, Jedro."
"Earth!" Somehow he wasn't surprised.
"Five or six years ago," she affirmed. "Of course you wouldn't remember.
Your mind was blanked out."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because of your youth. They couldn't take a chance on your saying or doing
something that might give you away."
"I don't understand."
"You have the power," she explained. "You were already beginning to exhibit
it. That made it extremely dangerous for you -- the reason they had to blank
your memory, your talent with it, spirit you away."
"Dangerous in what way?" he asked.
"Destiny -- or perhaps I should say genes chose you as the person to awaken
Holton Lee," she explained. "But the Superminds, as you might gather, weren't
all pillars of virtue. A few of them were ready to grab you on the off-chance
of getting the secret, and they wouldn't have let a little thing like murder
stand in their way. Some people can't be trusted, Jedro."
"I guess not."
Granny eyed him musingly. "Anyone who got you under his control, as
Faust tried to do, would be but a step from immortality."
He asked hesitantly, "Do you know who my parents were?"
"They were Superminds, Jedro."
"Were?" He felt a quick pain.
"They're dead now, God rest them." Granny examined her veined hands.
"When...how did they die?"
She raised her eyes. "They were killed by people who thought they had the
stone. Fortunately, they'd arranged for its safekeeping earlier."
"Dead," he repeated numbly.
"I'm sorry," whispered Kathy.
He felt a stillness inside him, thinking that, like Kathy, he was an orphan.
They were both orphans. "Why did they send me to a mean person like
Mr. Krant?"
"A mixup, I suppose." Granny eyed him kindly. "The arrangement was made in an
awful hurry, just before they died."
"How did Mr. Clement get the stone?"
"The arrangement I mentioned. He was to deliver it to you at an age when he
thought you'd be old enough." She considered her words. "Actually, as a
downthrough, he knew all along exactly when he would deliver it to you" -- she
flicked a glance at Kathy -- "and under what circumstances. Of course, your
mother knew that, too."
"She was...?" He waited expectantly.
Page 78
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"A downthrough."
"And my father?" he asked humbly.
"A clairvoyant, among other things. Oh, he was quite the telepath and, I
suspect, a levitator."
"What's that?"
"He could lift his body from the ground, whisk it around through mental
effort. It's a form of psychokinesis."
"How do you know all that?" he challenged.
"I was your mother's aunt."
"Aunt?" he exclaimed incredulously. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]