Golden Torc - 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

failures?"
    "There aren't too many among us grays. The Tanu have worked out a fairish battery of tests to sort out the go and no go. Human psychotechnicians working under Lord Gomnol try to make sure that no normal human gets a gray torc unless his or her PS profile shows that the device will be generally beneficial to the individual's functioning. They don't want to waste the torcs because they're not easy to make. If your psychosocial tests show that you're a maverick, likely to whack out unless you're allowed to stew in your own independent juice, then you don't get a gray collar. They'll coerce you in more conventional ways to make you a productive member of their society, or else give up and toss you into the discard. But the real winners here in Exile are the torc wearers. The Tanu know they can trust us because they can share our thoughts and control our rewards. So we're allowed positions of responsibility. Look at me! Tanu are lousy swimmers. But I've had members of the High Table, the top Tanu administration, riding in my boat."
    "With never a qualm, I trust."
    "Okay-laugh. But I'd never do anything to endanger the lives of the exotics and they know it. It would be unthinkable!"
    "But you're not free."
    "Nobody is ever free," the skipper said. "Was I a goddam lily of the field back in the Milieu, piloting my ferryboat on Tallahatchie with Lee driving me crazy jealous? Here in this world, with this torc, I follow Tanu orders. And in return I get a share in the kind of mind-pleasures that only the metapsychics got in our twentysecond century. It's like seeing with a thousand eyes. Or going high with a thousand bodies all at once. I can't tell you how it is. I'm no poet. No psychologist, either."
    "I'm beginning to understand, Johnny. The torcs are certainly more complex than I first thought."
    "They make life a lot easier for the people who can stand up to 'em. Just take the matter of language. In our Milieu, the exotic sociologists knew how vital it was for each single race to have a single language. That's why we humans had to agree to become monolingual as a condition to Milieu acceptance, and Standard English won hands down. But with this mental speech, any kind of verbal misunderstanding is impossible! When another person mindspeaks to you, you know exactly what the message is."
    Half to himself, Bryan murmured, "Barbaric. That's why the Milieu places such strict limitations on the metas. Especially the human metas."
    "I don't get your point there, Bry. See what I mean? If you wore a torc, I'd know exactly what you were trying to say."
    "Forget it, Johnny. Just my cynicism showing its fangs."
    "To me, the mental unity seems ideal. But then, I'm just a dumb sailorman whose lover went over to another. Now if the two of us had been able to understand each other from the start... aw, the hell with it. Now there are thousands of people who love me. In a manner of speaking."
    The skipper waved at the procession of riders. Almost all of them immediately waved back. Bryan felt something cold clutch at his bowels.
    "Johnny?"
    The skipper broke out of his reverie. "Mm?"
    "Not all of the time-travelers are tested for psychocompatibility before being torced. Stein wasn't. They collared him when he became a menace."
    Highjohn shrugged. "You can understand why. The torc can be used to subdue rebellious people on a short-range or longrange basis. Since your pal is still with us, I presume they have some plans for him. Certain types, medics and some other specialists who rarely come through the gate, they get collared willy-nilly, too. Essential occupations."
    "And the metapsychic latents, people such as Aiken and Sukey and Raimo? They were apparently put into silver collars as soon as their latency was detected, without consideration of any adverse mental consequences."
    "Well, the silvers are a special case," Highjohn admitted.
    "There's the matter of the genes."
    Bryan looked at him.
    "The Tanu use human women in their