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the tube.

Given the no-nonsense character which he had adopted for his role as a

renegade, the agent code-named HIGH-SIERRA was put into some difficulty

by the revelation of the telepathic link between Roz and Steve. As

'Malone' he couldn't just let it pass without comment; on the other

hand, as Steve's covert ally, he didn't want to make a big deal out of

it. Having talked to Karlstrom, he had anticipated this topic entering

the conversation and had been searching for a way to deal with it since

boarding the Sky-River for the return trip. He decided to maintain a

healthy scepticism bordering on the dismissive, tempered with a spirit

of enquiry.

'You telling me you can speak to each other without a radio?"

'Well, we don't actually speak but we can communicate specific items of

information. It's like hearing a voice inside your head, but that

voice isn't real. The sound doesn't physically travel through the

air.

It's the same principle as a radio transmitter, but these are thought

waves. The voice I've mentioned - you don't actually hear it, you just

imagine you do - like when people speak to you in dreams. You can see

their lips moving; what you are saying to each other makes sense, you

are conscious of their voices but there is no sound. Because, by

itself, your brain can't make a noise. It needs a tongue, lungs and a

larynx to tell you what it's thinking, and it can't decipher external

noise without filtering it through an ear."

'I think I've got the message,' said Malone.

'On the other hand,' continued Steve, 'If you're transmitting a feeling

- joy, pain, terror - or the image of a particular place, you don't

need words. You experience the same sensation, images registered by

their mind are transmitted simultaneously into your own. You see what

they see - as it happens. The way part of your mind can picture all

kinds of things while you're listening to somebody talk - the way

you're doing now."

'That's what bugs me,' said Malone. 'How d'you know it's someone

else's thoughts and not your own?"

Steve shrugged. 'You just do. There's a kind of tingling, a

coolness.

I can't explain it, but if it happened to you, you'd know what I

mean."

'Could it happen to me? Can your kin-sister beam this junk to anyone

she chooses?"

'No. That would be like COLUMBUS trying to transmit data to someone

whose work-station wasn't equipped with a VDU. Your brain has to be

able to make the right connections. Just don't ask me what they are.

We discovered we had this ability because we were brought up

together.

I suppose I must have been about five or six years old when it

started.

To us then, it was just a game. There may be others but no one has

come through to us. Roz is my only contact and vice versa."

'So what's she doing now?"

'Can't tell you. The truth is, as I got older, I became scared about

what we'd been doing. In the Federation, it doesn't pay to be too

different from everyone else. Especially in that area. It's too much

like Mute magic. Besides - who could you tell without getting into

trouble? That's why I shut down that side of my mind, didn't answer

and tried my best not to let her through.

Eventually it worked. Either that or she gave up trying."

'So how come you're back in touch?"

Steve realized that Malone wasn't just extending this conversation for

the benefit of Cadillac and himself. He was quizzing him on behalf of

Karlstrom as well.

'It happened when I came up for my first overground solo and caught my

first glimpse of the blue-sky world.

The Shock reopened the link between us. But then a lot of strange

things happened to me that day."

'I know what you mean. It can be quite a moment." One which, given

his allegiance to the Federation, Malone was still trying to come to

terms with. 'Still no joy with Roz?"

He demanded.

'No. If she needs to come through, she will."