The Right Time Page 4

_will_!" she cut in.

  "Sure. I even know a PC who agrees with you, in a misty sort of way.Now, think. You're a healer. If you can heal what you predict, itwould make a big hit. Can you?"

  Pheola's pointed features focused in a frown. "I'm sorry, Lefty," sheadmitted, "I don't even know what a heart attack is."

  "That's what I thought," I said, getting up to switch on the hi-fi. Itgave out soft music--lover's music, I guess it was meant to be. "ButI'm a surgeon, you know that, don't you? And I can teach you somethingabout hearts. The question in my mind is whether you can learn tohandle what you know."

  "I don't understand, Lefty," she said, holding out a hand to draw meback to her side on the sofa. I let her have me back.

  "That's what I meant by our kind of love," I grinned at her. "Rememberwhen you cured my arm the other night? You said you found a weak placein my head."

  "That's what I did, darlin'."

  "Can you find that place again, now that it's not weak?"

  "Maybe," she decided.

  "Try to," I suggested. I swung my feet around on the sofa and lay withmy head in her lap. Pheola bent down over me and stroked my foreheadwith her fingers.

  "Darlin' Billy!" she whispered. "Yes! _Yes!_ I _can_ feel it!"

  I'll say she could. My thrashing right arm pretty near knocked herbuck teeth out, and she retreated from my nervous system.

  "You know what you did?" I asked, when the pain inside my headsubsided.

  "Not really, Lefty," she admitted.

  "You have a kind of telekinesis. It's the lightest touch of all, butyou applied it directly to my nerves. Perhaps you have someunconscious way of stimulating my synapses, making my nerve centersfire. I can't figure it out exactly. But my question is this, can youfeel your way all around inside my body?"

  She recoiled a little. "That sounds awful," she said.

  "I thought you were in love with me," I insisted, looking up at herdown-bent features. "Do you really have reservations about me?"

  "No, Lefty. I love all of you."

  "All right," I said, reaching up to stroke her cheek in time with themusic. "See if you can feel your way--lightly, now--down the same pathin my left arm."

  She could, but not quite as lightly as I would have liked. We playedwith it until nearly midnight, by which time she had used what I canonly call her sense of perception to feel her way through a good partof my nerves and viscera. Some of it was exquisitely painful, but fromobserving my flinching when she hurt me, Pheola pretty quickly foundout how to ignore the synapses that fired pain through my brain.

  At last I raised my head from her lap. "You're doing great," I said."Do you feel tired?"

  She shook her head. "Just excited," she breathed. "What a funny way toget to know you!"

  "Then we'll try one more thing, baby," I said. "Come on next door tomy place. There's some stuff over there I want you to work with."

  * * * * *

  I thought Pheola might boggle about going into my apartment, but shecame readily enough. I guess a PC has some pretty strong notions aboutwhat is going to happen next.

  Just to keep the mood the same, I turned on my hi-fi and drew theloveseat up in front of the desk in my study. Pheola found a way tosit closer to me than I would have imagined possible while I fished aset of weights out of a drawer and laid them on the polished teak.

  "Here's how it goes," I said to her, and TK'd the weights off the woodone at a time. Anybody else would have gotten bug-eyed, but Pheolajust squinted to see better. Finally I made the big weight cross theroom, go behind us, and then come back to its place on the desk. Shehad never seen a demonstration of trained ability, and to her it wasso much magic.

  "You've been doing the same thing, Pheola," I told her as I put an armaround her shoulder. "Only you've been doing it first to my nerves andlater to my insides. Now let me see you do it to this little ball."

  She looked at the little sphere of pith, similar to the ones thatEvaleen Riley had used for practice, but nothing happened.

  "I can't feel it," she protested, "It ... It isn't you, Lefty. I'llnever feel anything that isn't _you_!"

  "Don't get mystical," I snapped. "You did some healing before you metme, and I don't suppose you were in love with every one you helped,were you?"

  "Of course not."

  "Try again."

  "Nothing," she said, and the pith ball did not budge.

  "Now watch this," I said, and popped the little ball into my mouth."Feel for it," I insisted, pushing it into one cheek where it did notinterfere with my speech.

  She closed her eyes. "Where is it?" she demanded. "Did you swallow it,Lefty?"

  "I either swallowed it or I kept it in my mouth," I said. "Feel forit!"

  "There!" she gasped. "It's in your mouth!"

  I rolled the piece of pith on to the top surface of my tongue andopened my mouth so that she could see it. "Agh!" I said, pointing atmy tongue. I gestured again, and her face paled as the little ballleft my tongue and floated in the air before my face. Suddenly herlift broke and it fell wetly onto my hand, in my lap.

  I leaned over, put an arm around behind her neck and kissed her. Itwas a most sedate embrace. "There," I said, "that performance alonewill get you into the Lodge. Now do you believe you're a TK?"

  She gave a little shriek. A ladylike "Eek!"

  "It's not that awful," I said. "A lot of Psi's can do it."

  "You _kissed_ me!" she said, paying no attention to my question.

  "Sure," I agreed. "And you managed your first lift." I picked thepith ball up in my fingers, showed it to her, and laid it on my palm.

  "Feel my hand first," I suggested. "Then lift it over onto the desk."

  She looked, wild-eyed, at the pith, shaking her head.

  "I'll kiss you again," I suggested.

  The little ball came away from my palm, floated erratically around,crossed over to my desk and dropped with a soft smack to the teak. Shecame to me like a tigress. I don't know why I expected a repetition ofour first innocent kiss--I knew she had been married once.

  I claim good marks for getting her back to her own apartmentimmediately.

  * * * * *

  For the balance of the week I saw very little of Pheola during theday. The hospital kept me busy with TK surgery, and I was practicingscalpel work with my newly-strong right arm, now that I had two handsto use. I'd be something more than a TK surgeon yet.

  Pheola had a couple more sneaky sessions with Norty Baskins in thedata-processing center, but for most of the time, she told me, shewandered around the part of the building the Lodge had retained forits own uses, meeting Psi's of various powers and more or less soakingup the flavor of life in the Manhattan Chapter. In the evenings wefound a new place for dinner each night, and then came back to herplace or mine to practice with the weights. Pheola would never be thebruiser that I was--so very few are--but she worked her grip up toseveral grams, which is quite respectable.

  By that time I felt she was ready for a course of sprouts in the humanheart. I used my drag at the hospital to bring her over with me for acram course. We had a plastic model of a heart there, about four timeslife size, that was built in demountable layers for lecture anddemonstration purposes. By the end of the second week, Pheola was ableto work her sense of perception around inside my heart, based on whatshe had learned from the model, in surprisingly good shape.

  "I guess you are in good health, Lefty," she told me late one night inher apartment. "Your valves feel just like the model, and yourarteries are clear and good. I'm so glad for you."

  "Clean living," I assured her. "And careful choice of grandparents.Now, my fat and sassy friend," I said. "I want some of yourwitchcraft." That fat part was something of a joke, for she wouldalways be lean and rangy. But Pheola had put on a good ten poundssince we had first met. The weight was going to some rather pleasantspots to observe, and outside of her mess of buck teeth, she wasn'tturning out to be such a bad-looking chicken
. For one thing, she hadrace-horse legs, and that's never bad.

  "Witchcraft, Lefty?" she said, getting up to go into her kitchen topour some more coffee.

  "You said Maragon was going to have a heart attack," I reminded her asI followed her in to where the cooking was done. "O.K., my skinny PC.How soon? Exactly when?"

  She stopped pouring, set the percolator down and looked at mesolemnly.