Part 2

She had only to spread the gossamer fabric of her mind like vast butterfly wings, shimmering and iridescent with her exalted sensations, and Tom would be there, as he so often was in the moon-bathed stillness of the night. Tom, so patient, so earnest and kind, his quiet strength the foundation upon which the structure of her own being had come to rest.

But she did not reach out to him. She slumped, and the surging loveliness in her faded. Her small face turned wistful. Tom would be there--but reserved as always, somehow withdrawn from her. It was as though he kept a barrier between them, a sort of immaterial wall that made the intimacy of their mental contact an almost purely one-sided thing. It hurt and puzzled her, and the hurt had grown as Tom's importance to her had grown.

She wondered if the wall would always be there. Didn't Tom sense her disappointment and the reluctance of her own restraint?

* * * * *

Her eyes caught a flicker of movement across the yard, and she looked up to see Sammy and Davey walking toward her from the direction of the barn. She retreated back into her shell of caution.

Sammy had bothered her very little of late. He seemed to sense the change in her, to be aware of a greater strength and resistance. She had often noticed him watching her with a kind of wondering calculation, and it was almost entirely for his benefit that she maintained her secrecy and watchfulness.

Only once in the past weeks had he attempted to annoy her. They had been momentarily alone in the kitchen, and Sammy had caught at her arms from behind. She had whirled and broken free with the swiftness of a wildcat, to face him with a knife snatched from the table. Sammy had gaped at her for a second or two, and then had left the kitchen without a word.

She regarded Sammy as the greatest danger, but even Davey's dim mind appeared to have grasped the change in relationships. And he had somehow seized on it to widen his break from Sammy's control. As if in defiance of his brother, Davey favored Fran with small, clumsy kindnesses, but she knew Davey could not be depended upon. His moods were mercurial, ranging from swift, hysterical excitement to long intervals of sullen gloom.

Sammy came to a stop several feet away, his pale eyes fixed on Fran and a somehow startled expression on his wizened face. The intentness of his gaze held her for an instant as she turned away to avoid him.

He blurted, "Golly, Fran, you're pretty!"

She felt a shocked dismay. Looking at herself in the stained mirror in her bedroom, she had unselfconsciously noticed a ripening and softening, and it was unpleasant to discover that Sammy had noticed it too. She caught the blurred, cloudy movement of his thoughts and shuddered as she sensed the impulses from which his admiration sprang. She was only dimly sensitive to ordinary minds; there was too great a difference--a lack of harmony. For the most part she avoided the murky, alien contact. But in that instant she understood Sammy and saw his motivations in a new light.

"You tend to your chores and leave me alone!" she told him sharply, breathless and upset. She hurried away from the porch, toward the chickens in the yard, clutching the plate of scraps and crumbs she had brought with her from the kitchen.

"Aw, Fran, don't be mad," Sammy called after her, his voice cajoling and his eyes sly. "Let's be friends."

* * * * *

She indicated her contempt by remaining coldly silent. Davey giggled suddenly, and Sammy spat a curse at him and whirled to stalk into the house.

The air grew warmer and lost its dewy freshness. Big Luke returned from a horseback trip to town with an earthenware jug, his eyes bleary and lidded and his sagging face with the shine of drunkenness. He tramped heavily into the house, and a short time later Fran heard him snoring.

She busied herself with the small tasks that remained to be done before the noonday meal. She drew water from the well, and then, a basket in one hand, set out for the barn.

The interior was shadowed and still cool, filled with the vague sounds made by the chickens. As she searched in the hay for eggs, she saw a shaft of sunlight blocked off by a movement behind her and heard a rustle of sound. She whirled startledly to discover Sammy standing a short distance away. She had been certain he was nowhere about when she started for the barn.

He made a placating gesture. "I wish you'd stop being mad at me, Fran. I don't want you to be mad at me no more." He was breathing fast. "You ... you're nice, Fran. You're pretty ... so pretty."

She drew back, alarm a sudden frantic drumming in her. "Keep away from me!" she spat. "Keep away from me with your lies and nasty tricks!"

"Aw, Fran...." He was sidling closer.

"Keep away, Sammy! Don't you touch me!" She moved backward over a deep, uneven carpet of hay.

He followed her for a few steps, his pale eyes glittering at her and his hands splayed and tense. And then he lunged. He caught at her shoulder as she darted aside. She heard the wash-worn fabric of her dress rip and felt Sammy's arm circle her throat. Then his full weight thrust against her and she was borne down into the hay.

For a nightmare instant Sammy's breath panted against her cheek. And then, like a wild thing, she heaved, twisted, scratched. In violent, whip-like movement, she pulled partly away, kicked out with strong, supple legs. She succeeded in thrusting Sammy aside and scrambled erect, floundering through the deep, spongy surface under her feet.

Her panicky flight took her deeper into the barn. Abruptly one foot plunged through a gap in the hay and she fell. Before she could rise again, Sammy had reached her and was pressing her back with a savage eagerness.

She knew anger, then. Hatred and disgust swept her in a wave of scalding fury, drowning all caution, all thought of hiding. The virulence in her leaped out in a blast of mental force. Sammy shrilled with pain and convulsively jerked back, and for a stunned instant he stared at her, his pale eyes bulging and his mouth loose with almost mindless fright.

A glow radiated from her. It shone from her eyes, her skin, her hair. It lay over her like a supernal cloak. She was suddenly something more than a girl, something more than human.

Sammy drew away from her in superstitious dread, trembling, his mouth working futilely. "Monster!" he gasped at last. "You ... you're a monster! _A monster!_"

Staggering drunkenly with panic, he ran from the barn.

Fran surged erect, starkly and coldly aware of a new and greater danger. She listened for a moment to Sammy's hoarse cries, and knew only one course lay open to her. She would have to flee. In what little time remained she would have to put as much distance between the Beckers and herself as was possible.

* * * * *

Far away across the rolling field she heard the baying of hounds. She whirled to a stop within a grove of trees, listening. She breathed rapidly and deeply from the steady pace she had maintained well into the afternoon. Her dress had been shredded into rag-like strips by clutching branches, and her legs and arms were scratched and bleeding.

The distant baying held a note of eagerness. The dogs unmistakably were hot on her scent. Behind them, she knew, would be men on horseback, armed and merciless. Sammy, of course, had alerted Big Luke, who in turn had rounded up a group of neighboring farmers, always hungry for sport of any kind as an escape from their drab and near-primitive existence.

She knew her lead was swiftly being cut down. A kind of instinct had taken her toward the hills, which in more pleasant times she had seen bulking darkly against the horizon and had watched with the yearning to know what lay beyond. Once they had promised adventure; now they offered refuge. In the hills she hoped to find rough ground that would make the use of horses impossible and hinder the progress of men and dogs.

Her pulses raced with the awareness of dwindling time and distance, but she delayed a moment longer. Again, as she had done twice before, she sent her mind reaching out in an urgent, pleading call.

"Tom! Tom--can't you hear me? Where are you, Tom? Why don't you answer?"

As never before, she needed the comfort of his presence, needed his help. But he was not there. He was gone--gone as though he had never been.

She was alone. And in the distance the dogs bayed eagerly, drawing nearer, always nearer.

She drew a sobbing breath and turned to resume her flight....

The hills towered around her in rocky grandeur. She stood on a narrow ledge and looked down a long, broken slope toward a fringe of trees. Shapes were moving there--the shapes of dogs and mounted men.

Horses were useless now, but their riders would be fresh and their guns would bring her within easy reach. She glanced despairingly at the setting sun, aware that darkness was her only hope.

* * * * *

A strength and endurance beyond the ordinarily human had brought her this far, a power she had never known lay in her slender limbs. Time and again it had seemed impossible that she could continue further, but always she had drawn upon some new fount of energy. But even that, she realized, had its limit.

A faint shout mounted to her on the breeze. One of the men was gesturing upward--and she knew she had been seen. In another instant a gun sent crashing echoes through the stillness.

The muzzles of other weapons were raising toward her as she slid around a shoulder of rock and lost herself from view. She resumed her climb upward, a slender, nymph-like figure, her gold-glinting hair tumbled about her small, pale face, her dress little more than a handful of tatters.

The baying of dogs and the shouts of men followed her.

She wound her way up rocky terraces and across stretches of gravelly soil. She worked around huge masses of rock and through narrow V-shaped clefts. Once she was able to tumble a precariously balanced boulder into a passage behind her to win a slight gain of time. But the sounds of pursuit seemed always closer.

Shadows were spreading and deepening over the hills as she reached a narrow, rushing stream among the rocks. She dropped gratefully to drink, and the deliciously cold water seemed to flood her with new strength. A little more time, she thought pleadingly. Just a little more time. Soon it would be dark. And then--

The touch of the water against her face brought a flash of inspiration. If she were to walk through the stream, she might succeed in throwing the dogs off the scent. She could hear them not far off, no longer so eager or so loudly vocal, but still determined.

The water was numbingly cold against her legs and stung where sharp rocks had cut the flesh. Her path lay upward and her progress was made slow and difficult by the tumbling rock surface over which the stream flowed. But a current of triumph quickened in her. Ahead lay darkness--and escape.

The rocks under her feet were smooth and slippery from the constant rush of water. She was thinking how easy it would be to fall when one foot suddenly slid from a glass-like stone. Her ankle twisted with a tearing sensation and a burst of pain, and outlines tilted crazily as she plunged sidewise into the stream.

* * * * *

For a moment she lay utterly still, paralyzed with pain and horror. It couldn't have happened, she told herself frantically. Not now of all times! But when she finally rose and tried to walk, it was to find that the ankle would not support her weight. Sick with agony from her experiment, she dragged herself to the edge of the stream and lay with her face in her arms.

It was all over, she knew. There would be no escape after all....

Tom, she thought, then. _Tom!_ I need you, Tom! _Why don't you answer?_

Silence--and the baying of dogs. Close, now, so horribly close.

"_Fran!_"

Her heart leaped incredulously. That familiar presence ... rushing nearer across some awful gulf.

"Fran, where are you? I know what has happened, but I couldn't reach you before this. Your being discovered so suddenly forced me to complete certain preparations ahead of schedule.... But now, Fran--think carefully. Carefully. Picture the spot where you're located, the route you took reaching it. Picture it, Fran."

She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating, thinking over in split seconds what had taken so many hours of toil and effort, of suffering and fear. Yet even as she thought, doubt and hopelessness weighted her. How could Tom possibly reach her in time?

"It _can_ be done, Fran! Our abilities include the power to send ourselves instantaneously through space--teleportation. But an objective must be clearly visualized, or supplied by the mind of another. Your thoughts made a path for me."

A voice. Not a silent mental voice--but an audible voice that ended in a soft chuckle.

Unbelieving, she looked up. She saw a figure standing beside her and knew instinctively that it was Tom. But--

It wasn't Tom. Tom was an identity, a label for someone she had never seen.

This was--Davey.

_Davey!_ The realization exploded in her, sent alternate waves of fire and ice crashing against the walls of reason.

_Davey!_ But a changed Davey, taller and straighter, with a firmness in his face and a brightness in his eyes that had never been present before. He was somehow majestic--god-like.

* * * * *

Dazedly she realized that Davey was different, just as she was different. Behind the outward dullness of Davey, so carefully hidden that she had not suspected it, had been the flashing intelligence she had known as Tom.

He smiled again. "Yes, Fran. I'm a little surprised that you didn't connect Tom with Davey before this. You should have remembered that Davey was two years younger than Sammy--around the same age as yourself--which meant Davey had been born after the atom raids, just as you were, and was just as likely to have been ... changed. Maybe Davey seemed a bit too empty--and he was, in more ways than one. He was never all there mentally until now.

"You see, Fran, an important part of Davey's mind was away most of the time. He was in contact with other changed children--gathering information, making plans for the future, developing his own abilities. And he had to be careful not to let Sammy or Big Luke discover his true nature. The difference between Davey and themselves was so great that even family ties would have meant nothing. For that reason Davey pretended to be a simple-minded tool who helped Sammy in teasing you. But he wouldn't have done anything that meant actual harm."

"But why did you call yourself Tom?" Fran asked. "Why didn't you tell me you were different, too? We could have gone away--out of danger."

Davey shook his head. "You needed time to develop your full abilities, Fran, and that's done most quickly under pressure. If you knew Davey was like yourself, that pressure would be gone. There was also the chance that we might give each other away. And as for leaving, Fran, for a long time there seemed no place at all we could go to where men would not find us eventually. I and the others had to find an answer to that."

He hesitated, his gaze suddenly anxious. "It was really necessary for you to think of me as Tom, Fran. I'm sorry I had to hurt you by being secretive and on guard against you. And ... well, I hope you're not disappointed that I turned out to be Davey."

"No," she said quickly, smiling. For whether Tom or Davey, the kindness and quiet strength, the comfort and peace she drew from them, was the same.

* * * * *

The clamor of the pursuing dogs had drawn close. Now their lithe shapes came bounding out of the deepening shadows. They splashed across the stream, leaped forward with triumphant buglings. Fangs were bared, muscles gathering for the attack.

A soft, pale light glowed from Davey. It touched the dogs, and they plunged to a stop, frozen. And then they were yelping, tumbling over each other in panic as they whirled to flee. The shadows swallowed them.

The pale light touched Fran, touched her ankle--and the pain was gone. Pain would always go like that, she knew.

"Come," Davey said. "We're going to a place that has been waiting for us, Fran--a place none of us ever thought of until a while ago.... Follow the pattern in my mind. Carefully, now. Carefully."

The voices of men, puzzled and angry. The footsteps of men, grating on rock, rushing nearer.

"Quick, Fran! Quick!"

A bright thread that seemed to run endlessly through an awesome darkness. The hills around her vanished, and she felt herself whirl dizzily across an unimaginable void.

Then--The city took shape around her, glowing and spectral in the dusk. She and Davey stood on a deserted street, littered with wreckage. Ruin lay everywhere, but many of the buildings still stood.

Davey said softly, "The radiation here would kill ordinary people, Fran. But it gave birth to us and is a part of us. We of the new race draw life and not death from it. The cities are home to us, for only we can live in them. And we will live in peace, safely and without being disturbed. In the cities we will build again, more wisely and strongly than those before us."

A group of figures appeared up the street, tall boys and slender girls. They hurried forward, laughing and dancing, and their friendly welcoming thoughts reached out.

"Home...." Fran murmured. She drew closer to Davey and felt a deep content.