Starblood

had created with it. Now he wondered whether it would have even remotely the same effect. He was beginning to believe that he might not become addicted at all—that it might, instead, free the psionic portion of his mind, develop his talent to the logical extreme, or at least increase it. If it could be permanently brought even to the level it had attained for a short moment this afternoon, he could easily break out of this prison, would no longer have a need to fear any weapon no matter whether it was a throwing knife or a tiny narcodart.
    He hoped there would be no beating this time. He wanted to lie down, to be docile, to play the part of the converted user who just wants his junk and his subsequent high and is willing to play along with the opposition to get it.
    The night passed in eons.
    The darkness seemed eternal, deep, and unremitting, as it always does when one is waiting impatiently for morning.
    Then the first light shone through the barred window, cresting the ridges and distant peaks of higher mountains, a fluid orange that became crimson, then red, and finally burst across the sky in yellow fingers.
    When they finally arrived, some two hours after daybreak, they had Polly London with them. She was disheveled, though still beautiful, and there was a bruise along the lovely line of her right jaw. She fell to her knees on the floor, dazed, gasping for breath like a landed fish.
    "You've got a cell partner," Margle said. It was evident that both he and Baker had worked out a little of their sadistic nature on her—and that he had sampled the sensuality she was famous for on the senso-film screen.
    "Why this?" Ti asked, suddenly miserable. He had been angered by her childlike inability to see evil in the world, but he had not wanted to be a witness to her education in the ways of ugliness.
    "She's a bleeding heart," Margle said. "Got very restless about you. Pities you. A little too much pity and restlessness to be trustworthy any longer."
    "What are you going to do to her?" Timothy asked, giving her one of his servos to help her get to her feet.
    "Addict her," Margle said. "Medium range, like you. Not only will she give up these childish attempts to go to the police, but she'll be a nice little piece of woman to have under one's thumb, don't you think?"
    "You're sick," Ti said contemptuously.
    "No, no," Margle said. "I'm perfectly healthy. I've never taken junk and never will. It's the two of you who are soon to be addicted, friend."
    Margle ordered the girl onto the second bed in the room where he would give her her first dose. When she stood and refused—out of incomprehension of his ruthlessness more than out of bravery—he sighed and ordered Baker to manhandle her onto the mattress. She kicked at the brute's shins and struck him with her small and ineffective hands. She bit his fingers, making him howl in fury. At last he chopped her viciously alongside the neck, and took her weight as she collapsed against him. By the time she had regained her, senses a few moments later, Jon Margle was slipping the PBT needle into her slim brown arm.
    Timothy winced as the stuff disappeared from the syringe's glass tube.
    Polly arched her back as the first taste of PBT brought her bad dreams rather than good ones. Ti was glad she had not had to suffer a massive dose as he had. She looked miserable, thrashing on the cot, fighting to hold onto her humanity, being sucked deeper and deeper into unreality despite herself. Her eyes glazed, and she slumped against the mattress, lost to the delusions that rose out of her own mind and swallowed her.
    As Margle prepared a needle for Timothy, the mutant almost thought of resisting. But the Other was waiting…
    "Glad to see you're reasonable now," Margle said.
    "Bastard."
    "Cliche," Margle noted. "I really expected more from someone as literate as yourself."
    Ti said nothing more, but watched the needle slide into his puncture-marked hip. He felt the drug hit him faster than ever before. That would have worried him if he had not been looking forward to meeting the Other. Now addiction was secondary to what he might be able to achieve through PBT.
    "Sweet dreams," Margle said, turning and leaving with the battered Baker, who cast Ti a chilling ugly look that swore a permanent revenge for what had been done to him the previous day.
    The door clanged.
    The key turned in the lock.
    A chain fell in place.
    Then quiet.
    Then dreams…
    This time he was lying in a field where