line from the 4.5-kpm generator in the garden shed and bring it right into the room with Peter,
Dorotea requested.
What
is
this all about?
Rhyssa demanded.
I told you,
Dorotea said, then added aloud since they were now alone, “he seems to tap into the electrical system and use
that
for power. Some sort of a gestalt. I want some of our engineer Talents to link with me when he’s rested enough for us to do some testing. But it’ll have to be you and me for a while, Rhyssa. He’s had such a terrible time.”
Dorotea’s eyes welled with tears, and automatically Rhyssa gathered the older woman into her arms, smothering her with love, affection, and admiration.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Dorotea said with a little sniff, pulling herself away. “You’ve had a lot to cope with now, and you don’t need me turning into a watering pot, but—” She poured into Rhyssa’s mind the jumble of pain/despondency/anguish/guilt, the self-accusation, and the soul-destroying terror that Peter had been enduring.
Easing Dorotea to the couch, Rhyssa sat beside her, shaken by that accounting despite years of dealing with the bizarre mental states of emergent Talents.
“I think a spot of tea would go down well right now,” Dorotea said, and Rhyssa gave a weak little laugh at Dorotea’s ever practical mind.
Peter? A cup of tea? Lemon, milk, sugar?
Yes, please,
was Peter’s answer, surprising Rhyssa.
You see? He needed only a little help to project his thoughts instead of squashing them down.
Dorotea’s face wore an exaggeratedly smug smile.
They were all enjoying a cup of tea when Rick Hobson bounced in, festooned with an electrician’s belt and heavy-duty cable.
“I don’t know what kind of an outlet or receptacle you need, Dorotea,” he said, winking at her, nodding to Rhyssa, and then waving a hand at Peter, who was watching it all from his bunk.
“Well, Peter, what do you think you need?” Dorotea asked. “He’d just been sort of hooking in to the electronic gadgets of the bed,” she told Rick.
Both women caught Peter’s hesitation and concern.
“Oh, well, it’s as easy to sort the specifics out later,” Rick said easily, catching Rhyssa’s warning look. “At any rate, the generator’s right outside and powered up. Any time you need it, it’s there.” With a cheery wave to all, he left.
“It’s all a bit much, isn’t it, Peter?” Rhyssa said gently.
“I don’t know what I did that makes you think I’m any good at all,” Peter said in a voice as pale as his complexion just then.
“Dorotea thinks you used available electrical power to assist those dawn visits you made to me,” Rhyssa told him. She gave him a mischievous smile to reassure him. “I’m honored that it was my mind you linked with to bring you where you wanted to be.”
“You are?” Peter turned his head away from the drinking straw in his teacup so that he could look down at Rhyssa.
“I don’t get many men invading my bedroom, I assure you.”
Subtly Dorotea was supporting her, increasing for Peter the sense that his intrusion had been clever and original. Both women generated subliminal thoughts to bolster his perception of himself, reversing the low self-esteem that was currently inhibiting any forward progress.
“I didn’t
mean
to intrude.”
“You will soon understand that among telepaths a midnight knock on the door isn’t considered an intrusion.”
“But all those lights . . .”
Rhyssa let her thoughts echo the annoyance she had felt at that proprietary supervision. “You didn’t hear me chewing them out for scaring you off, either.”
“Ooooh, Rhyssa was angry,” Dorotea added.
“You were doing what many have tried and failed at miserably,” Rhyssa went on.
“I was?”
“It’s what we call an out-of-body experience,” Rhyssa went on. “Very few people ever achieve that degree of mental control.”
“They don’t?” Peter was wide-eyed in awe. “But it’s not hard.”
Dorotea and
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