Soft come the dragons

here at AC, FBI agents, and I have unfailingly sorted out the traitors. But this isn't the same thing at all."
    "You don't have to sort," Morsfagen said. "I thought this had been made clear. He can formulate earth-shaking theories, but each time he fails to give us something vital in it. We've threatened and bribed," Morsfagen almost said tortured, but didn't finish. "You simply go in his head and make sure he doesn't hold anything important back."
    "How much did you say?" I asked.
    "Five hundred thousand pos-creds an hour."
    "Double that figure."
    "What? That's absurd!" He was breathing heavily, but the other generals didn't flinch. I esped them and knew the child had half-discovered a means of star travel. For the rest of that theory alone, a million an hour was not ridiculous. They gave it to me with an option to demand more if the work proved more demanding than anticipated.
     
     

 II
    The lights had been dimmed; the machines had been moved in.
    "The hex signs are part of the predrug hypnosis which the physicians must administer. After he is placed in a trancelike state, Cinnamide is hypoed to him."
    Across from me sat the child, and his eyes were dead—the sparkling, vibrant glistening gone from them. I had become accustomed to his face, and the dried, decaying look of it did not bother me as much as before. Still, within me was a fear. "What is his name?" I asked Morsfagen.
    "Funny, but we never thought to give him one."
    I looked back to the freak. And within my soul (some churches deny me one) I knew that in all the far reaches of the galaxy, to the ends of the larger universe, in the billion inhabited worlds that might be out there, no name existed for the child. Simply, Child.
    A team of doctors administered the drug.
    "Within the next five minutes," Morsfagen said.
    I nodded, looked over at Harry who had demanded to be there for this initial meeting. He was still nervous over the 'confrontation of the monsters. I turned back to Child.
    Stepping easily over the threshold, I fell through the blackness of his mind, flailing . . .
    I woke up to white faces with blurred, black holes where the eyes should have been. When my vision cleared, I could see it was Harry Morsfagen, and a strange physician who was taking my pulse and clucking his tongue against his cheek.
    "You all right, Sim?" Harry asked.
    Morsfagen pushed Harry out of the way, thrusting his face down at mine, "What happened? What's wrong? You don't get paid without results."
    "I wasn't prepared for what I found. Simple as that No need for hysterics."
    "But you were yelling and screaming—" Harry started.
    "Don't worry, Harry."
    "What did you find there you didn't expect?" Morsfagen asked, skeptical.
    "He has no conscious mind. It's like a pit, and I fell into it expecting solid ground. Evidentally, all his thoughts, or the great majority of them—at least those under drugs—come from what we 'consider the subconscious."
    "Then you can't reach him?"
    "I didn't say that. Now that I know what's there and what isn't, I'll be all right."
    I pushed to a sitting position, readied out and stopped the room from swaying. Looking at my watch, I said, "That will be roughly seven hundred and fifty thousand pos-creds. Put it on my earnings sheet."
    He sputtered. He fumed. He roared. He glowered. He quoted the Government Rates for Employees. He quoted Employer's Rights Act of 1986, paragraph two, subtitle three. He fumed a bit more. He pranced. He danced. He raved. He ranted. He demanded to know what I had done to earn pay. I didn't answer. He finished ranting. Started fuming again. But he put it down in the book and stormed out with a warning to be on time the following day.
    "Don't push your luck," Harry advised me later.
    "Not my luck, just my weight."
    When I left, they were wheeling Child out of the room, his empty eyes staring at the ceiling.
     
    The snow was still falling. Fairy gowns. Crystallized tears. I slid into the hovercar, lifted, and floated out toward the highway. The book was lying at my side, the jacket face down because it had her picture on it. Honey hair. Smooth lips. A picture that disgusted and intrigued.
    I turned on the radio and listened to the dull voice of the newscaster. "PEKING ANNOUNCED LATE TODAY THAT IT HAS DEVELOPED A WEAPON EQUAL TO THE SPHERES OF PLAGUE LAUNCHED YESTERDAY BY WESTERN ALLIANCE AND WILL USE IT IF PROVOKED. ACCORDING TO ASIAN SOURCES, THE CHINESE WEAPON IS A SERIES OF PLATFORMS ORBITING ABOVE THE EARTH'S