Chapter 1

“I would not repeat myself if it were not for the urgency of this matter.” Dr. Haenlingen’s voice hardly echoed in the square small room. She stood staring out at the forests below, the coiling gray-green trees, the plants and rough growth. A small woman whose carriage was always, publicly, stiff and erect, whose iron-gray eyes seemed as solid as ice, she might years before have trained her voice to sound improbably flat and formal. Now the formality was dissolving in anger. “As you know, the mass of citizens throughout the Confederation are a potential source of explosive difficulty, and our only safety against such an explosion lies in complete and continuing silence.” Abruptly, she turned away from the window. “Have you got that, Norma?”

Norma Fredericks nodded, her trace poised over the waiting pad. “Yes, Dr. Haenlingen. Of course.”

Dr. Haenlingen’s laugh was a dry rustle. “Good Lord, girl,” she said. “Are you afraid of me, too?”

Norma shook her head instantly, then stopped and almost smiled. “I suppose I am, Doctor,” she said. “I don’t quite know why—”

“Authority figure, parent-surrogate, phi factor—there’s no mystery about the why, Norma. If you’re content with jargon, and we know all the jargon, don’t we?” Now instead of a laugh it was a smile, surprisingly warm but very brief. “We ought to, after all; we ladle it out often enough.”

Norma said: “There’s certainly no real reason for fear. I don’t want you to think—”

“I don’t think,” Dr. Haenlingen said. “I never think. I reason when I must, react when I can.” She paused. “Sometimes, Norma, it strikes me that the Psychological Division hasn’t really kept track of its own occupational syndromes.”

“Yes?” Norma waited, a study in polite attention. The trace fell slowly in her hand to the pad on her knees and rested there.

“I ask you if you’re afraid of me and I get the beginnings of a self-analysis,” Dr. Haenlingen said. She walked three steps to the desk and sat down behind it, her hands clasped on the surface, her eyes staring at the younger woman. “If I’d let you go on I suppose you could have given me a yard and a half of assorted psychiatric jargon, complete with suggestions for a change in your pattern.”

“I only—”

“You only reacted the way a good Psychological Division worker is supposed to react, I imagine.” The eyes closed for a second, opened again. “You know, Norma, I could have dictated this to a tape and had it sent out automatically. Did you stop to think why I wanted to talk it out to you?”

“It’s a message to the Confederation,” Norma said slowly. “I suppose it’s important, and you wanted—”

“Importance demands accuracy,” Dr. Haenlingen broke in. “Do you think you can be more accurate than a tape record?”

A second of silence went by. “I don’t know, then,” Norma said at last.

“I wanted reaction,” Dr. Haenlingen said. “I wanted somebody’s reaction. But I can’t get yours. As far as I can see you’re the white hope of the Psychological Division—but even you are afraid of me, even you are masking any reaction you might have for fear the terrifying Dr. Anna Haenlingen won’t like it.” She paused. “Good Lord, girl, I’ve got to know if I’m getting through!”

Norma took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I’ll try to give you what you want—”

“There you go again.” Dr. Haenlingen shoved back her chair and stood up, marched to the window and stared out at the forest again. Below, the vegetation glowed in the daylight. She shook her head slowly. “How can you give me what I want when I don’t know what I want? I need to know what you think, how you react. I’m not going to bite your head off if you do something wrong: there’s nothing wrong that you can do. Except not react at all.”