Balance of Power Read Online Free Page A

“Not all at once.”
    “Yes I do,” she answered. “All the conflicting theories—all the cute psychological analyses. I believe them all. I believe that I’ll have to lose my talent to stay sane. I believe that it will vanish away like a childhood neurosis once my formal initiation into the wonders of sex is over. I believe it all. And now you see why I can’t be sure that there’ll be another chance. Ever.”
    “If it does fade away,” I said, again awkwardly, “it won’t be the end of the world.”
    “It won’t be the beginning,” she said, bitterly.
    “Even if there was to be no other opportunity,” I said—slowly, because I was treading dangerous ground—”you wouldn’t have failed. What you did on Wildeblood...you’ll always have that. And that was important. That was the first. No one can ever take that away from you. You made contact— real contact —with an alien species. You got inside their heads, into their way of thinking. No one can deny you that one success. Maybe you’ll get a chance to repeat it, maybe you won’t. The situation here doesn’t look too good. But you mustn’t get into this state of bitter desperation. You mustn’t.”
    I had built up pace and intensity while I spoke. I watched her relax slightly. Her eyes, with the pupils gaping in the dim light, were fixed upon my face as she looked right into my mind. She could probably have offered a clearer description of what was there than I could.
    “Thanks, Alex,” she murmured.
    “For what?” I asked, uneasily.
    “For caring.”
    There were little tears in the corners of her eyes.
    I wished that Karen was with us. Or Linda. They, I felt sure, could have done a much better job of caring. It wasn’t really my line. It didn’t involve examination, analysis and taking census. They were my fortés. Empathy I was always short of.
    “Just fight it,” I said, feeling that something that sounded like advice was called for. “You have the power. Power to look inside people’s heads—and the power to support the power. It’s a matter of keeping it all straight. Don’t let it slip. Don’t let anything hurt you. I’ll do everything I can to get you another chance. Everything. But if it doesn’t work out...don’t hurt yourself.”
    She shut her eyes. It was a kind of signal. She was letting me alone...taking the pressure off. It was a chance to think something that she wouldn’t see, but I knew full well how meaningless that chance really was.
    Among the Salamen, I remembered, she’d been happy. Maybe the first and only time she ever had been happy. How comforting to be among aliens, when you can be free from the double vision that afflicts you among your own kind. She expected a lot from the aliens of Delta. Maybe far too much. Even after one success, there was no way to be sure that they wouldn’t have a bad effect on her...like the people of Dendra. The Salamen had been amphibians—remote from humanity. Maybe just remote enough.
    I stood up, and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “All right?” I asked.
    “Sure,” she replied.
    I closed the door quietly behind me, and went to my own cabin, next door. I had to pick my way very carefully to the bed—the floor was very cluttered. Once there, I sat down. Almost automatically, I took up a sample of seawater from the table and dipped in a pipette, to take droplets for a series of slides. It wasn’t really work—just something to settle my mind, and to make it change gear.
    It was very late when I finally went to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    If the findings of the first Daedalus mission were lumped in with our findings so far, then the Attica colony could be identified as “normal.” The others we had visited were, in one way or another, “aberrant”—affected by unique factors. The pattern of slow and steady decline—or, at least, failure to progress—which we found here was a repeat of something Kilner had found no less than four times. Forewarned of the