第46节

Maybe. What was your story?"

'I just gave 'em the few things Steve told me about the way you and

him, uhh..."

Roz turned to face him as the group in front reached the appointed

lecture room and began to file in. 'AboUt connecting?"

'Yeah,' said Chisum hurriedly. 'Stuff like that. Thing is, they want

to see you. Ask questions."

'So why didn't they just pick me up? Why send you, John?"

'Maybe they thought you might not co-operate. When it comes to thought

transfer, I don't know from shit but it seems to me that it would be

pretty difficult to prove one way or the other. You could tell 'em

anything you liked."

Roz treated him to a cold-eyed glance. 'What makes them think I'll

talk just to save your skin?"

Chisum shrugged. 'You don't have to do anything, but - ' A new,

sharper note of desperation entered his voice. 'Be fair, Roz. The

only reason why I'm mixed up in all this is because I stuck my neck out

to bring you and Steve together."

'Yeah." Roz glanced over her shoulder and saw that they were alone in

the corridor. 'Gotta go." She backed off. 'You sure know how to make

a girl feel good, John.

Have a nice day."

'Listen ' The door to the lecture room swung shut in his face.

Chisum turned away with a quiet smile and made his way down to Level

One-1. It shouldn't be as easy as this - especially with someone who

was supposed to be telepathic.

Despite her mental bond with her kin-brother, they had both proved soft

targets. After the meeting Chisum had set up between them, Steve had

lost his coveted wingman status and had been transferred to the

A-levels. Steve had been told it was as punishment for expressing

sympathetic concern for Mutes - his former captors and the perpetual

enemies of the Federation but, in reality, it was part of a

softening-up process to get Steve in the right frame of mind for his

next 'assignment'.

Near the end of the third month of his three-year sentence, Chisum had

dressed up as an A-level medic and contrived a 'chance meeting'. When

Steve had asked the reason for his demotion, Chisum had put the blame

on Roz. He had swallowed the story hook, line and sinker.

And later, when Karlstrom, the head of AMEXICO, had told Steve that Roz

had come forward voluntarily and confessed everything he had told her

about his time with the Mutes, he had believed that too.

But none of it was true. Roz had said nothing to anyone. She didn't

need to: her meeting with Steve at Santanna Deep had been videotaped.

All the lies were part of a plan evolved by the faceless puppet-masters

in the Black Tower. Roz and Steve were just two of an unknown number

of Trackers whose lives had been manipulated from birth and who would

probably die without ever knowing they were on the Special Treatment

List.

Steve Brickman was a strange young man. When Chisum had been softening

him up prior to the meeting with Roz, he had been bursting with tales

of Mute magic, yet he seemed wilfully intent on neglecting the mental

powers that he and his kin-sister possessed. Perhaps that was why it

had been possible to play them off against each other. Roz's mind was

open and eager to communicate, whereas Steve had pulled the shutters

down.

And who was to say he was wrong? thought Chisum.

With the First Family telling you what to think every moment of the

waking day it was hard enough just trying to get your own mind sorted

out, without having someone else roaming around inside your head.

Chisum was an undercover agent of AMEXICO, the top-secret organisation

that Steve had joined at the beginning of March. With only four

months' service under his belt, Steve was still what the organisation

called a 'wet-back', and would be for some time yet. Chisum had been a

fully fiedged mexican for years but, unlike Steve, he had never been