is

telepathic link?!" 'I've already asked that question. And as usual

the psionics department doesn't have an answer. None of us know how

this telepathy business works, but that's only part of the mystery that

surrounds these two. We know of other telepaths, but what's happening

here is absolutely unique."

'I know that, but Roz is his sister, for crissakes! Doesn't she

realise she's killing him?!" 'She must do, but perhaps in a situation

like this the contact is involuntary,' said Karlstrom. 'I can't think

that either of them would make the other suffer deliberately.

We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that when she

dies, she doesn't take Brickman with her."

'So that's all we can do is it? "Keep our fingers crossed"?"

Karlstrom smiled. As their controller, Fran had been overseeing the

lives of Steve and Roz for the last five years. 'Look on the bright

side. If they both die, it'll lighten your case load."

Shrewd as he was, the head of AMEXICO was wrong.

With Steve's connivance, Roz had induced the progressive muscular

paralysis that was the hallmark of fatal food poisoning which often

arose from eating smoked, uncooked meats - a standard item in the diet

of the Plainfolk. In the small hours of the following morning, Steve's

condition deteriorated further. As the doctors and nursing staff

clustered round him, his body was shaken by a series of violent

convulsions, then he went completely limp and his eyes opened. When

they removed the oxygen mask and the tube from his throat, he was able

to speak and breathe normally, but was completely exhausted.

Fran, who had snatched a few hours sleep in an adjoining room, welcomed

him back to the land of the living with an exuberant kiss then shook

his wrists.

'Don't you ever do this to me again!" She sat down on the edge of the

bed and gave him a searching look. 'Roz is dead, isn't she?"

Steve nodded and made a show of mastering his grief.

Fran reached out a hand and gently brushed away the brimming tears.

'Never mind. You're safe. That's all that matters."

Steve gazed out at the view through the triple-glazed window of

Clearwater's hospital room. A well-kept stretch of red grass, broken

here and there by beds of flowering shrubs and trees in full leaf,

ended in a high wall of dressed stone.

The window didn't open, but a constant whispering stream of fresh

filtered air entered through louvred ducts in the walls. The room

itself was light and airy, part of a small suite consisting of the

treatment unit where Clearwater now lay, a tiny kitchen/utility room,

bathroom and a sitting room, where the sealed windows reached from

floor to ceiling.

From her sitting position on the high bed, Clearwater was able to see

the trees and grass, and glimpse the blue sky above the wall. Steve

could not help comparing her surroundings with the cell he had occupied

at Pueblo following his first adventures with the M'Calls. And the

A-Levels - which was one vast prison camp, where the air was filled

with smoke, dust and constant noise, in which there was no night or

day. Finding himself there, with a three-year sentence hanging over

him after those eye-opening, mind-expanding months on the overground

had been a hellish experience.

Never again ....

A female nursing orderly came in carrying two vases full of flowers

part of a bunch that Steve had selected with the help of one of the

Mute gardeners. It was a small token to help Clearwater keep in touch

with the overground. He had brought the first soon after being given

access to Cloudlands and had replaced them regularly ever since. The

nurse brought them over for Clearwater to touch and smell, then placed

one on the table and the other on the window sill. A third vase,

containing yellow roses - which Steve hadn't brought on his last visit

- stood on the bedside cabinet.

As he watched the nurse make a last adjustment to the floral displays,

Steve reflected on how much he had changed. Two years ago, before that

fateful journey aboard The Lady, he had had no interest in any kind of

plant life. He had viewed flowers as just part of the poisonous junk

that littered the overground.

And now ....

He closed the door as the nurse left. 'So... how are you feeling

today?"

'Much better. Look -' Clearwater extended her arm and aimed her

forefinger at the chair Steve was about to move from the table to her

bedside. It shot away from his outstretched hand, slammed against the

wall, then began to slide upwards as she raised her arm.

Steve leapt towards it and grasped the front legs. 'Are you crazy?!"

he hissed. The tubular metal chair remained glued to the wall with its

back rest touching the ceiling, resisting all his efforts to prise it

loose. 'Let go! I' Clearwater dropped her arm. Steve caught the