Psion by Joan D. Vinge

sure I’m so good?”
    “The obvious: Your shield ability. Your eyes. That clumsy trauma-barrier you’ve built can be broken down. These incompetents have hardly breached it. And then your mind will shine like a star.”
    My eyes. . . . I rubbed the scar above my left eye, feeling my body tense again.
    His face changed, and so did the subject. “You’re currently on probation of sorts, from Corporate Security: you didn’t welcome the attention of Contract Labor’s recruiters. Would it really have been so bad, compared to Oldcity? They say ‘Contract Labor builds worlds.’ That it teaches you skills, and gives you a stake. That it’s a chance to escape from a place like Oldcity, a choice-“
    “They say you’re better off dead than living in Oldcity, too. But that don’t mean I want to find out the hard way. At least in Oldcity I knew what to expect.”
    “I see.” He-understood, somehow I knew it. I could feel it. “And what did you do there?”
    “Steal things, mostly; I was a slip. But now I’m just the mental pickpocket around here.” My mouth twitched.
    And then for the first time I felt his mind make contact-not to intrude on me, not to take anything, but only to give: pictures slipped loose somewhere in his memory and he showed me why he understood. . . . I caught images of a ragged, hungry kid with psi burning inside his head like fire, cursed by the Gift, like too many other psions in too many slums, in too many cities on too many worlds. But not like all the rest-not a loser, not a weakling; selling what he could do with his psi to anyone who’d pay, for anything they wanted. Anything. And they always paid, plenty, or they were sorry they didn’t. Until before long he was out of the slum and rich, he didn’t need to sell his talent anymore. But he still hired out, on his own terms, if the offer was right; because he was the best and he enjoyed proving it.
    And he was sitting there across from me, with his arrogance licking at us like a colorless flame, the sky weeping behind his back: Quicksilver. This was Quicksilver himself-suddenly I knew it couldn’t be anyone else. He’d come here to choose us personally, not even hiding his face or name, making fools of Corporate Security without even realizing it. He was that sure of himself.
    His cold green eyes held me, and I wondered what he could see in my face; but I didn’t feel him touch my mind again. “Are you interested in what I have to offer?”
    “Yeah.” My voice hardly carried to my own ears, but I let him read it in my thoughts. Jule nodded too, but she was only answering the question he’d spoken out loud.
    “Good.” Rubiy stood up. The audience was over, and somehow it was more like he was dismissing us than leaving. “I’ll be in touch with you again.” And then he disappeared. A sigh of air rushed in to fill the space where he’d been.
    We sat looking at the emptiness and at each other for a long time before either of us said anything. Finally I said, “Quicksilver. That was him, Jule. Right here.”
    “Quicksilver himself? You mean he- “ Jule broke off, glancing from side to side, groping with her mind.
    “You might as well finish it, even if he’s listening. If he’s gonna find out what we’re really doing here, it’s better if he finds out now,” almost wishing that he would. “Before it’s too late-for us.” I pulled a finger across my throat.
    She grimaced. “He . . . he could kill without a thought, couldn’t he?”
    I nodded. Or with one. But the memory of what I’d seen in his mind made the words stick in my throat. He was an iceman; he could do anything to anybody and never feel a twinge. Maybe he’d had feelings once-too many feelings: I’d seen his kind snap under Oldcity’s weight and turn into something that wasn’t even human. Alike . . . were we really so alike?
    “I think I’ve met a truly inhuman being for the first time.” Jule wrapped her arms around her like she felt cold.
    “Then