Mutant Star Read Online Free PDF

melodious. “I’m very grateful for this chance to talk with you. As some of you may know, I’ve made a specialty of space—exploration, development, colonization.”
    “How do you ‘develop’ space?” Rick said, sotto voce.
    Shhhh.
    Julian didn’t want to be distracted. This Hawkins had a magnetic personality, and he seemed deeply, deeply serious.
    “I believe the future of humanity lies in space,” Hawkins was saying. “And I’m devoting all of my time to making that belief come true. We can be twice as productive, twice as innovative. Already three satellite colonies are in orbit and we have plans for three more. I ask you to consider joining with me in the push to space. I appeal to those of you with an adventurous spirit and belief in the future.” He held out his hands to the group assembled in the Council chamber. “Join with me. Together we can be so very much more than we are separately. We can achieve a larger goal, a common good. Provide a legacy for future generations. I have no patience with pessimists who say that space is a vacuum, fit only for hobbyists and scientists.” Here his voice grew deeper. His eyes flashed. “I believe it will yield nothing less than the renaissance of the human spirit, of human achievement. But only if we work toward that goal. Together.”
    Stirring words, Julian thought. Why come to us, though? What good would mutants do in space? There was so much that needed to be done right here on Earth. Why run away to space?
    “Once before, we hesitated, and almost lost our legacy of space. Small minds and fears held sway,” Hawkins went on. “We must never allow that to happen again.”
    All around the hall heads were nodding agreement. Julian watched, fascinated. Even Rick, the eternal skeptic, seemed swayed by Hawkins’s rhetoric. Julian wanted to kick him. Hawkins was hypnotic, all right. But he obviously had some private agenda, one that required mutant assistance.
    “There is great opportunity for contribution, for participation. Particularly on the part of mutants,” Hawkins said.
    Here it comes, Julian thought. The pitch.
    “The well-known talents of your telekinetics are of inestimable worth in vacuum engineering. Your telepaths and multitalents may become the centers of communication and transport networks.
    “And, need I mention, the compensation for this is considerable. Salaries off-world are two to three times those of Earthbound compensation.”
    Julian saw a few frowns interspersed between the nods and smiles in the audience. Hawkins had hit a few nerves. So many people had private agendas for the mutants. So many lobbyists and greed-heads, government agents and generals. Please levitate this little suborbital nuclear device for us, please read this foreign leader’s mind, please set fire to this abandoned tenement for insurance purposes, please, please, please work your strange, wonderful mutant magic for us. Almost every Council meeting had featured some petitioner or other. But few had been as persuasive as Hawkins. If Julian hadn’t already committed his talents to the labs at Berkeley he might have been tempted to sign up with Hawkins. But he doubted it.
    ***
    Skerry watched Hawkins make his pitch with thinly disguised contempt. He remembered Hawkins as a starchy space ace, filled with the wonder of the void and all that jazz. Interesting, he thought, to see he hadn’t wavered over the years. But he was just another guy with his hat in his hand, begging for a little mutant involvement. Ask not what you can do for us, but what we can do for you. And isn’t Guindelle just eating it all up? Years ago on the East Coast, when Halden was Book Keeper, if someone like Hawkins had shown up at a Council meeting, Halden would have laughed him right out of there. And here in the West, Bekah Terling would never have allowed him in at all. But it’s the new Mutant Council now, and everybody’s welcome. Anything goes. I don’t mind that part, but I hate