Earthsmith Part 5

Smith looked around him, panting. The other contestants ceased their struggles, and the instructor said:

"Someone has used psi. I don't know who, but someone--"

Jorak pointed weakly, said, "Earthsmith!"

"Snap judgment," the instructor admitted. "Your word only. Still, you alone were bested, Jorak of Gyra--and, hah, that makes twice, doesn't it?"

"Once with psi," said Jorak.

"You sure?"

"I ought to know what hit me! He held me rigid, I tell you, and then he struck me. What could I do? I ask you, what?"

Smith knew that the instructor could read minds--with limitations. He knew the psi-power had been used, but he did not know who had used it.

Jorak wiped the blood from his face with the back of one hand. "Listen,"

he confided, "Earthsmith is a savage, really and truly, of the planet Earth. Terribly barbaric. Obviously, he'd have no compunctions against dirty fighting."

"Well--" said the instructor.

"There's only one thing wrong with all this," Smith told him. "n.o.body on Earth uses psi-power."

Jorak slapped his hand against the mat. "Then you admit that there are psi-powers on Earth?"

"Yes," Smith said. "There are psi-powers on Earth." Things were happening to Smith. He felt vague stirrings inside of him, and he dampered them.

"There. He admits it," Jorak said. "The men of Earth are not without their psi-powers, and Smith or Earthsmith--I still don't know the barbarian's name--used them on me." He shook his fist. "You just can't trust these barbarians."

The instructor still did not seem sure of himself, but there were angry mutterings in the crowd, and the albino woman who had almost but not quite joined the fighters said, "Let me try a fall with him. Probably I would lose, but we of Nugat can perceive the psi-powers readily."

Smith stormed away from her, felt hot anger rus.h.i.+ng through him. "I wouldn't fight with a woman."

Jorak taunted, "He's afraid she'll discover--"

"Nothing! I'm afraid of nothing, Jorak. I just won't fight a woman." He was shouting now, and he couldn't help it. Again, there was the odd feeling that part of his mind at least stood away from all this, observing, shaking its head and telling him to curb his temper.

A hand lay heavily on his shoulder, big gnarled, orange. "Kard of s.h.i.+lon would like a fall with you, Earthsmith of Earth. Perhaps I am not as subtle as the woman from Nugat, but still I think I could tell."

The instructor nodded, and Kard spun Smith around, kept him spinning with a short chopping blow to his jaw. Smith hardly felt it. But something told him deep inside his whirling brain to fall, fall, fall--and the faintest shadow of a smile flickered across Jorak's lips.

Win or lose--what was the difference? Those who could would feel the psi-powers, and Smith would be their man.

By crotch and collar he caught the huge man of s.h.i.+lon, lifted him.

Kard's arms and legs flailed air, helplessly. He bellowed as Smith began to whirl, slowly at first, but then faster. Up he raised the great orange hulk, held it aloft on outstretched arms for one moment--hurled it.

Arms and legs still flailing wildly, Kard struck the mat, seemed almost to bounce, landed in a heap atop Jorak.

Geria jumped up and down delightedly, but the woman of Nugat scowled.

"Psi," she said. "I felt it."

"As did I," admitted the instructor. "Faintly. Smith of Earth--"

"Don't tell me you didn't see me use my arms then, just my arms?"

"Kard appeared awful helpless--"

"I felt the psi," said the woman of Nugat.

"And I," a man agreed.

"As I said," Jorak declared smugly, "when you bring a barbarian to the school you must expect barbarous behavior. Oh well," he stifled a yawn, "I'll get my nose fixed, of course, but this sort of thing could continue. Unpleasant, is it not?"

The instructor nodded slowly, dismissed cla.s.s.

"Did you or didn't you, Smith?"

"What do you think, Geria?"

"I'd say no, but I did feel the psi when you threw Kard."

"That was Jorak--and he used it on me."

"Not very strong then, because I remember how readily I--"

"Look, Geria. What's the difference? They've made up their minds, and I can't do a thing about it. I didn't use the psi, I can tell you that and you'll believe me. But it doesn't matter, really. They're convinced.

What happens next?"

The woman of Bortinot frowned. "I don't know. They could expel you possibly. You forget I'm new at the school, too. Let's forget all about it. You will, anyway, in dream empathy."

It was easy for her to say that, but Smith couldn't forget. The more he had tried to convince them he had not employed the psi-power, could not employ it, the more they thought that he did. He was of Earth--primitive by their standards, a barbarian. They had said so. Culture had leaped past Earth in all directions, had leaped so far that he could not even recognize it as such, had encompa.s.sed the stars and broad new concepts as big as the pa.r.s.ecs of s.p.a.ce between the stars. How could he understand--ever?

Or was there anything to understand? If he could take everything at its face value, if he could trust his own judgment, this was not culture at all. But he had forgotten again: his judgment didn't matter. He was being judged, not the school.

"--be strictly a neophyte in dream empathy," Geria was saying. "But not me. I've had my share of it on Bortinot, and they'll be pairing us off, experienced and novice. I'll take you as a partner if you'd like, Smith."

"You bet I'd like it!" He felt genuinely cheerful again, quite suddenly.

Geria was the one bright spot at the school, and at least he had that.

And yet there was something he could not remember, something pus.h.i.+ng against the fringes of consciousness, and it concerned Geria. What actually had happened yesterday on the crags? He could remember, remember--but he couldn't at all, not really, and somehow he knew that the most important item of all remained tantalizingly close, yet just beyond his immediate reach.

He said, "Just what is this dream empathy?"

"Now you _are_ joking."

"No. I don't know a thing about it."