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  Just as the normals preferred to ignore the mutants, the ship was ignoring the rest of the universe. Ah, well; the universe would re-manifest in due course.

  The passengers got up and stretched. “I hate that stasis,” the man behind Knot said, then glanced at him with mild surprise. “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  He had forgotten already? After only ten minutes? “I’m Knot,” Knot said. “With a sounded K.”

  “I’m Manfred. Pleased to know you.” The man moved on, mingling, satisfied with this one-minute depth of mutual knowledge. It occurred to Knot that wealthy normals probably traveled in space largely for the joy of socializing with others of their ilk, in the temporary isolation of deep space. Perhaps it helped them relinquish their inhibitions and opened a new universe of possibilities. Why should spouses be true to spouses when the universe no longer existed?

  Finesse looked at Knot, startled. “You’re here?”

  “Where else?”

  “But I don’t remember—”

  “I suspect the stasis served in lieu of separation,” he murmured. Could his psi have more direct ties to the universe than he had supposed?

  “I—it must have,” she agreed, catching on. “The episode of the pregnant woman must have helped distract me. Good thing you weren’t involved in that.”

  “Good thing,” Knot agreed. His psi power sometimes acted in marvelous ways.

  Ooo, naughty! Hermine chided him gleefully.

  How come you remember?

  Because I read your memory. Your mind is weasel-like.

  Oh, really not that good, he thought, chuckling mentally.

  Knot was tempted to introduce himself to Stenna, but resisted. The passengers’ memory of him should not yet be beyond recall. If he made an issue of it he could restore it. That would put him in bad repute, so seemed pointless. Of course, they would forget again when he left them at the conclusion of the voyage. Only by means of a key reminder from outside, such as Finesse’s recorder, or a call from Knot himself, could the forgetting be reversed. Anonymity pursued him always.

  Except for the CC record of his new number, he thought darkly. But CC had already known about him, he reminded himself; the CC number made no difference. It was merely symbolic. CC had sent Finesse to rout him out; he had been doomed from that moment. The fish had not been able to resist taking the bait.

  “We are now approaching the first right-angle turnabout,” the holo-Captain announced. “Stasis will re-establish momentarily; no need to resume your seats.”

  There was a brief freeze and wrench. “All done. We are now in maindrive, proceeding across the face of the galaxy at approximately one thousand light years per hour. This hop will last twenty hours. Please avail yourselves of the facilities aboard ship. We do not have tennis courts and swimming pool the way the larger liners do, but our ‘indoor’ entertainments should suffice for a while.”

  Finesse glanced at Knot, startled. “You’re here? I don’t remember—”

  “Ask Hermine,” he murmured. No doubt about it: a few minutes of stasis had the same effect as a few hours of ordinary time, with respect to his own psi power. The brief flash of stasis just now had been enough to wipe out the few minutes’ impression he had just made since the prior stasis. He would have to figure out ways to apply that effect to his benefit. Maybe if he obtained a portable stasis unit—

  “Ah, yes,” Finesse agreed, evidently in touch with the weasel. “You are very—interesting, Knot.”

  “I certainly am,” he agreed.

  The remainder of the voyage was uneventful, largely because Finesse did not have occasion to review her recording and refresh her memory on the initial episode with Stenna. They did avail themselves of the ship’s facilities, and these were indeed adequate. There was a fine gaming room in which the passengers wagered against machines, setting the risk levels wherever they chose. There were private compartments with very soft floors, where men could dally with other men’s women, or vice versa. There were also, as Mit warned, holo-pickups; for a price the neglected spouses could watch what their legal partners were doing in their supposed secrecy. It seemed the diskship had evolved very specialized tastes in amusement. The amazing thing was, the way all this was accepted; Knot saw one woman observing her husband in action via the holo, and when he emerged from his endeavor she acted exactly as though nothing at all had happened.

  Because she would have to confess to peeping, Hermine explained. She enjoyed the demonstration, but can’t admit that. It is a convention; they must never speak of what they know.

  Maybe telepathy had caused that convention to evolve. The uttering of something was a more grievous crime than the something itself. Maybe that was part of what had set Finesse off, when he had exposed Stenna. To be a bigot was all right; to expose someone as a bigot was not.

  There are lots of human things that don’t make much sense, Hermine agreed.

  When he tired of speculating on the nuances of human interaction, Knot turned to the machine. He wondered what the Coordination Computer would be like. He understood that CC occupied an entire planet, with a huge bureaucracy of normals and psi-mutants serving it, and galaxy’s busiest spaceport and communications center. He pictured the myriad domes and towers and buildings scintillating in the sunlight, with brightly colored antigrav vehicles flitting from one landing site to another, and subway rockets plunging through the planet, and bubbles rising and falling through the waters of the ocean, carrying important passengers to the mer-domes.

  But he really didn’t know what to expect. He was only a back-planet lout, somewhat at a loss out here in mainstream civilization, as his experience during this voyage showed. Without Finesse and Hermine, he would have been in a sorry state.

  They went back into stasis for the right angle turn toward the galaxy, and plunged back into the disk at the slow speed of light, or reasonable multiple thereof. He kept losing his perspective; even the comparatively trifling distance of five thousand light years would be prohibitive at lightspeed.

  At any rate, soon he would see the center of civilization. He remained anti-CC, but could not help being impressed by the magnitude of the empire the computer governed.

  “There will be a brief stop at a minor system for a fuel recharge,” the holo-Captain announced. “Please do not be concerned.”

  Finesse looked at Knot as they emerged from stasis, startled. “What—”

  Tell her, Hermine, he thought. She has forgotten I’m here again. Read the details in my mind and update her. It had become a game, this memory-tag with stasis.

  They went into stasis again for the final maneuvering and deceleration. Knot marveled that the diskships did not carry enough fuel for their full voyage, so that irregular pit stops like this were required. Was the fuel massive?

  No, it is small, Hermine thought. But strong. So it is kept on minor worlds in case of accident. Not on Coordination Computer Central.

  Can’t the precogs anticipate accidents, as they do for the ships?

  No. A planet is too big, and the time scale is too much. Also, there are a great many psis on CCC, interfering with the clear perception of such things. By the time the precog knew there was fuel trouble, it would be too late to stop it.

  Limitations of scale, Knot agreed, seeing it. One hop by one ship is small; one century on one planet is big. A ship is self-contained, almost immune from outside influences; a planet is the center of galactic interactions. I’m glad we’re not staying long.

  Your huge human brain can certainly generate strange thoughts, Hermine thought admiringly.

  Knot issued a mental laugh. He formed a mental picture of a man picking a weasel up by the tail and shaking it.

  Hermine retaliated with a picture of the weasel flipping its head up to nip the man’s thumb. We get off here.

  Knot froze—a natural reaction, since he was already in stasis. Here at the pit-stop refueling planet? We’re going to CCC! he thought in protest.

  The enemy wa
tches CCC. If the enemy sees you come, he will know you are a CC agent.

  I’m not a CC agent! I oppose CC!

  Mit says—

  To hell with Mit! My future is a complex planet, not a simple ship, and Mit is only a little crab.

  Uh huh, Hermine thought complacently.

  All right. You’ve had your little joke. We’re not really getting off at this rest-stop station, are we?

  We really are. Along with the chickens. Hermine licked mental chops. Delightful!

  Chickens?

  Delicious.

  The stasis lifted. “Do not wander far from your seats,” the Captain warned. “We shall be resuming travel in a few minutes. This is Planet Chicken Itza.”

  “Chicken Itza?” Knot asked.

  “A pun on an archaeological site back on Earth,” the Captain explained. He had evidently gone through this routine many times before. “A former Mayan city in the continent of Latin America, Chichen Itza, with many fine old temples. When the colonists here went into chicken farming, some historically minded wag among them suggested this name, and it stuck. Many of our worlds have names as random, such as Fitzgerald, named after a writer, and Nelson, after a navy person. Pretty foolish, don’t you agree?”

  “Uh, yes,” Knot said, disgruntled. He had never realized that his home planet had been named for a sailor.

  “He’s the one who said ‘England expects that every man will do his duty,’” the Captain continued. “I rather like him. We ship handlers must stick together.”

  Obviously Knot had run afoul of a pet subject. He was silent.

  The Captain probably had choice bits of information about every planet on his route.

  Now Finesse turned to Knot, her eyes widening. But Hermine, who had never been out of contact with him, so had never forgotten, was already filling her in.

  “Come on,” Finesse said. “Here’s a port where we can see the rendezvous with the fueling shuttle. That should be interesting.”

  “Oh, fascinating,” Manfred, the man behind Knot, muttered disdainfully. “Nothing like a routine docking for excitement.”

  The other passengers evinced similar disinterest. Knot agreed with them. “I don’t care about—”

  “She’s asking you for one last liaison, idiot,” someone in the group said sotto voce.

  “Be my guest,” Knot muttered back.

  Move! Hermine thought, relaying Finesse’s imperative. This is where we get off. We don’t want the other passengers to notice.

  Damned if I’ll cooperate with this! I came to see CC, not some chicken outfit!

  Finesse will think a nova at you, and I’ll relay it, the weasel warned.

  Knot laughed inwardly. You females are all alike! Go ahead with your nova.

  Suddenly there was a terrible burst of light in his mind. Knot felt as if he were being flung violently through space, stunned, his extremities burning, melting, vaporizing.

  CHAPTER 4:

  When Knot recovered, he was in a crate with several fat hens. “What—?” he asked, trying to stand. He banged his head; there was no room to stand. The hens squawked angrily.

  Then the stasis came, holding him and the chickens firm. You weren’t kidding about that nova! he thought to Hermine.

  The weasel was contrite. I did warn you. You did ask for it.

  So you did. So I did. I thought it was a figure of thought. Can you do that to anyone?

  No. I can’t generate novas. I only relay them, and they hurt me too, some. And some people shield their minds against such overloads.

  How do they do that?

  It is hard to explain. They just—do.

  Intriguing. What could be generated by an act of will could be blocked by another act of will. Had the ship’s original telepath developed such a mind-shield, she might not have suffered when Stenna exploded mentally. Maybe it was possible to bounce such attacks back to the sender. That would be a most fitting defense.

  Knot resolved to work on a similar defense for his mind. Hermine was all right; he liked her, liked her well. But he didn’t want stray telepaths peeping on his private processes.

  Will you help me develop a mind shield? he inquired.

  That would be fun!

  The stasis released. The chickens completed their squawking and fluttering. Feathers drifted in the crate. The shuttle was down.

  Finesse emerged from the adjacent crate. She looked neat and composed, despite a strand of straw on her shoulder. She also wore the perplexed expression that had become so familiar recently—until the weasel updated her. “I have the feeling there will be some interesting material in my recording,” she murmured. “Now let’s get on to the farm.”

  “I just came from a bucolic world,” Knot complained. “I wanted to see the high technology of CCC.”

  Finesse ignored him. Mit thinks you will see some medium technology in a few months, Hermine offered consolingly. He isn’t sure, though; it’s too far for him to precog well.

  “Medium technology,” Knot muttered, scowling.

  The shuttleport opened. Outside was a small spaceport whose buildings resembled chicken coops. “This really is a chicken planet!” Knot exclaimed, not pleased. The air wafting in was redolent of bird manure.

  “It really is,” Finesse assured him. “But don’t denigrate it. These are unique birds. Some lay eggs that are radiation resistant. Others’ eggs will store at ordinary temperatures virtually indefinitely. But the hens themselves are delicate, and need special conditions for laying. This planet is their ideal home. It has a broad temperate zone, and the soil and plant life and insects are all conducive to chicken raising.”

  “So they’re breeding them here and shipping out the eggs?”

  “Yes, mostly.” She led him outside, where robot machinery was moving up to pick up the crates of birds.

  “Then why are they shipping full-grown birds in?” he demanded. He hardly cared, but he was casting about for some way to express his irritation at being shanghaied down here.

  “Because the mutations develop all over the galaxy, the same as with human beings,” she said patiently. “The promising ones are shipped here for study and breeding, so that we can try to stabilize the best qualities. Some roosters are taken on space hops just to induce new mutations.”

  “But mutations don’t breed true. Their offspring revert to normal, if they can breed at all. Most mutants are mules, unable to propagate despite having the reproductive drive.” Which happened to be a sore spot with him, and with most mutants. To be normal was not merely to belong to the great central society, it was to be able to beget freely.

  “Most revert,” she agreed. “But in some few cases, the mutation affects the generative process. Then it is possible to come up with stable mutant breeds. Many generations, many trips in space—the chances increase. We have been developing fairly impressively here; we have many breeds of chicken that never existed before. Most new mutants are failures, of course, and must be destroyed; some are actually psi-mutes—useless in a chicken.”

  Hmph, Hermine thought. She knew psi-animals could be quite valuable.

  “Some of the grown birds,” Finesse continued blithely, “are shipped to planets where they may survive better than ordinary chickens could. There are generally a number of experimental breeds being shipped out at any given time; the galaxy is large.”

  Knot looked back at the shuttle. “What breed are those we were crated with? They looked ordinary to me.”

  “I think those are Moon Rocks. They’re an egg-mutation. Irregular shapes to the shells, like stones, but very special flavor, much in demand.”

  “So they get hauled from their homeworlds to this...outfit,” he said. “Just as I was.”

  She glanced at him in the way she had, obliquely. “Unique mutants, yes. You should feel right at home here.”

  “I understood I was going to chat with CC,” he grumped.

  “You are,” she assured him.

  “Is CC a big chicken, then?”
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  “Something like that.”

  He formed a mental picture of a huge robot chicken with shiny metal wings and gear-tooth eyes, clucking in binary-octal code, while the human galaxy scurried to obey the translated directives.

  Feathers flew when CC squawked. Hermine sent an appreciative thought.

  They were walking to the nearest building. “You are speaking metaphorically?” he asked at last.

  “I mean CC is wary of the ubiquitous enemy, so CC is very careful. In the ancient vernacular, that is termed chicken.”

  “I’m not too strong on ancient vernacular,” Knot admitted. “So now CC has in effect abducted me by promising me an interview, while instead trapping me on this wayside planet with the other unfortunate birds. No wonder CC has enemies!”

  “I thought you regarded yourself as an enemy.”

  “I thought CC was trying to convert me.”

  “Have we discussed this before? I don’t remember what I’ve told you, and until I review my recordings—”

  “No need for that! We agreed to go see CC so I could explain why I wasn’t interested in being a CC agent, and work out some suitable compromise for my enclave and the leadmuter. Had I known you were going to haul me to this hen-party planet, I would not have come. It would have been much easier for you to leave me where I was. I admit I’m now trapped here on Chicken Itza, since I can’t leave the planet without showing my new ID, and there’s not much I can do to interfere with CC here. But I really hadn’t been planning to mess with CC anyway. I was just minding my own business. Or had some precog discovered that I was about to do something obnoxious?”

  “I don’t think so,” she admitted. “There was no indication you were going to be any trouble at all. I’m sure CC ran an intensive precog check on you, and that if left alone you just kept anonymously helping your enclave and making time with the local girls who never remember what advantage you’ve taken. No ripples at all. That must be why CC wants you.”