himself to it, but accepting the reason for it and cherishing his memories. Mischa began to trust him, though not quite enough to tell him everything about herself, until she knew how he felt about people not quite normal. Reading alone, she searched for explanations of her differences, and found only theories and new words that all had the same uncertain meanings.
Every subject she studied came easily. She seldom forgot anything she read. She was happiest with mathematics and theoretical physics: each level of study pulled more facets of reality into an elegant and intricate and consistent system of natural laws. The new knowledge pleased her in a way few things ever had, speaking to a sense of beauty and order that she had perceived, yet never had a means of expressing, as Chris had, in his work, before he changed.
Mischa had neither forgotten nor abandoned her brother, but she could not ask another concession from Subtwo so recently after winning the first. She knew she must prove herself here; she could not fail as she had failed before. If she did, Chris would have no chance at all. She put her concern into a separate part of her mind.
She discovered in herself a talent for making valid connections between diverse and apparently unrelated bits of information. She had no idea how she did it, and the ability sometimes startled her a little, inexplicable as it was. As her studies continued and the subjects became more complicated, more esoteric, she occasionally found herself pointing out the way to Jan. The reversal troubled her, but she could not say why.
And then one day, looking pleased but a little bemused that Mischa had explained a mathematical proof to him, Jan said, 'I read that over last night, and I didn't really understand it. But you're right—what's the matter?'
Stricken, she stared at him. She suddenly realized why some of her intellectual jumps came so easily, so quickly, with intuitive understanding of the intervening steps. It only seemed that the information had always been there, locked up without framework or terminology. It had never really been there at all. Somehow, despite not being able to sense Jan's feelings through his self-control, Mischa decided that she must be transferring his knowledge to herself, stealing insights on the edge of his subconscious and claiming them as her own. She was no better than Gemmi, a relay for words meaningless to herself. She was worse than Gemmi: she pretended to understand, even to herself, which Gemmi did not and could not do.
Mischa dropped the library extension on the carpet and fled to her room.
She flung herself face down on the bed and pillowed her forehead on her arms. Perhaps every insight she had ever had was drawn from another person. Utterly empty, she could think only that she would have to keep up the deception, even in front of Jan, whom she had begun to think of as a friend. She would have to continue draining him, as Gemmi drained her, long enough to get Chris away from Center. Just that long. Though practiced in deception, she had never betrayed a friend.
As she lay in cool darkness, a slow and just perceptible change occurred around her, as though a soft sound, the flow of a quiet stream, the whisper of air, had stopped. She finally noticed it, turned over, and sat up.
It took her a few minutes to recognize what was wrong. She jumped up and ran across the hallway and flung aside the curtain to Jan's room. 'Jan—' She approached him, silent. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed, his hands palms up, resting on his knees, in a relaxed but deliberate position.
Finally he opened his eyes.
'Are you all right?'
'Yes,' he said. 'Of course. What's the matter?'
'I couldn't.' He had closed in on himself so far that she could no longer sense him, even as his usual deep and quiet presence. She had grown used to his stability; he was very different from other people, with their changing moods and feelings. It was the changes that disturbed her.
'I thought—there was something wrong.' It was a crippled excuse.
'There is something wrong,' Jan said, 'but I don't know what. I was. thinking. trying to understand what I said that upset you so.'
She sat down in front of him. 'It isn't you, it's me.'
'You're doing fine,' he said. 'Beautifully.'
'No.'
'Do you want to do something else?'
'It isn't that at all—' She cut herself off, hesitated, took a deep breath, and plunged ahead. 'It's too easy. It's because of this. this trick I can do. I didn't mean to, I didn't know I could use it this way. I didn't know that must be what was happening until something you said a couple minutes ago.' She tried to explain what she thought she was doing, and Jan's frown deepened.
'No,' he said. 'No, that's not what's going on at all.'
'But I really do know when people are near, I can feel them. I—'
'Wait, I believe you about that.' He smiled. 'I can accept it—that's easier than trying to pretend you're nothing but a data-processing machine.'
'What other explanation is there?'
'Tell me what you like most.'
'Mathematics. You know that.'
'I always hated it. Well—I didn't really hate it, but I never had any ability at it. You're farther along than I ever was before. I've been keeping half a step ahead of you for a week and I really can't do it any longer.'
'So?'
'It seems to me, if you were lifting anything out of my mind, it would be something I'm passably good at.'
She rested her chin on her fist, thinking. What he said made sense, and she wanted to believe it. 'Then how do I do what I do? I get from one idea to another and sometimes I don't even know how.'
'With a very few subjects—and math is one of them—a few people can do that. It's a rare ability, and a valuable one. No one has ever quite figured out how it happens. Gods, don't worry about it—accept it and use it.'
'Maybe I don't get it from you. Maybe I get it from somebody else.'
'Such as?'
'Subtwo?'
Jan laughed. 'He has talents, but intuitive mathematics isn't one of them. He's intelligent and he has an encyclopedic memory, but he's essentially methodical. He takes one step at a time—very fast, but it's still plodding.'
'You're sure? Whatever I'm doing, I'm doing myself?'
'Yes. You're much too consistent to be dragging this gift out of other people's minds. As consistent as intuition ever is, anyway.'
Mischa chewed on her thumbnail, distractedly, feeling her self-confidence renew itself from Jan's assurance. 'There's one thing. what I told you—'
'That you can sense what people feel? I'd like to talk about it sometime.'
'All right. But only with you. Don't tell anyone else, will you? Please?'
'If you'd rather I didn't.'
'Maybe it wouldn't matter in the Sphere, but it does in Center.'
'Okay.'
'Thanks.'
Jan Hikaru's Journal:
Mischa's one of those rare, strange prodigies, who know music or
mathematics without being taught, and need only tools—an
instrument, or an introduction to notation—with which to express their talent. Because there are concepts that can't be expressed otherwise. Once we were talking about rotation—lines around points, planes around lines, n dimensions as a pivot for n+I. 'And a solid around a plane,' she said. I agreed, and said that of course that situation couldn't be visualized.
'But it can—!'
She tried to explain to me what she could see in her mind, but finally shrugged and spread her hands. 'There aren't any words.' I think she really can visualize a situation in four dimensions. I've heard of people who could, but
