(Conviction)

T’sung: That’s true. Nevertheless I’m reluctant to authorize the Mass Cathexis Measure. You will recall that the MCM has invariably destroyed the human energy canal in past attempts. You’re too valuable to be destroyed, Powell.

Powell: I must be permitted to run the risk, Reich is one of the rare Universe-shakers… a child as yet, but about to mature. And all reality… Espers, Normals, Life, the earth, the solar system, the universe itself… all reality hangs precarlously on his awakening. He cannot be permitted to awake to the wrong reality. I call the question.

Franion: You’re asking us to vote your death.

Powell: It’s my death against the eventual death of everything we know. I call the question.

@kins: Let Reich awaken as he will. We have the time and the warning to attack him at another crossroad.

Powell: Question! I call the question!

(Request granted)

Meeting adjourned

Clock face

Hour hand at 9

Minute hand at 01

Second hand at Demolition

Powell arrived home an hour later. He had made his will, paid his bills, signed his papers, arranged everything. There had been dismay at the Guild. There was dismay when he came home. Mary Noyes read what he had done the instant he entered.

“Linc—”

“No fuss. It’s got to be done.”

“But—”

“There’s a chance it won’t kill me. Oh… One reminder. Lab wants a brain autopsy as soon as I’m dead… if I die. I’ve signed all the papers, but I wish you’d help in case there’s trouble. They’d like to have the body before rigor. If they can’t get the corpse they’ll settle for the head. See to it, will you?”

“Linc!”

“Sorry. Now you’d better pack and take the baby up to Kingston Hospital. She won’t be safe here.”

“She isn’t a baby any more. She—”

Mary turned and ran upstairs, trailing the familiar sensory impact: Snow / mint / tulips / taffeta… and now mixed with terror and tears. Powell sighed, then smiled as a highly poised teen-ager appeared at the head of the stairs and came down with grand insouciance. She was wearing a dress and an expression of rehearsed surprise. She paused halfway down to let him take in the dress and the manner.

“Why! It’s Mr. Powell, is it not?”

“It is. Good morning, Barbara.”

“And what brings you to our little domain this morning?” She came down the rest of the stairs with her fingertips brushing the bannister and tripped on the bottom step. “Oh Pip!” she squawked.

Powell caught her. “Pop,” he said.

“Bim.”

“Bam.”

She looked up at him. “You stand right here. I’m going to come down those stairs again and I bet I do it perfect.”

“I’ll bet you don’t.”

She turned, trotted up and posed again at the top step. “Dear Mr. Powell, what a scatter-brain you must think me…” She began the grand descent. “You must re-evaluate your opinion of me. I am no longer the mere child I was yesterday. I am ages and ages older. You must regard me as an adult from now on.” She negotiated the bottom step and regarded him intently. “Re-evaluate? Is that right?”