Pegasus in Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

the boys chasing him.
Why
had he turned into the forbidden area, anyhow? He’d had a choice at the end of the alley: over the wall, only it seemed very high to him and he had nothing to give him a leg up; to the right, only that took him back into the Alley Cats’ territory and possible ambush; or to the left, weaving his way through the ruins, making it more difficult for them to know which way he would go.
Why?
    Negative! Negative! Peter screwed up all his face muscles and then made them relax, group by group. Then he smiled, slowly and consciously spreading his lips and bringing the corners of his mouth up, stretching them until his cheeks lifted, his chin dropped, and his lips parted over his teeth; willing the nerve impulses in his face to change the limbic system. As Sue had taught him, he pulled his most happy moment out of his mind: his eleventh birthday, when his father had come home on leave from the space station in time for the party.
    Planting that memory firmly in front of “why,” Peter rehearsed the details of that happy experience until he could relive the entire scene from the moment the door chime had announced that his father had made it home until Dad had tucked him into his bunk. He had gotten so he could even feel the touch of his father’s hand on his forehead.
    Good thing Dad had touched him there—one of the only places he still had feeling. Peter sighed again and refelt the touch. Then he closed his eyes and “heard” his father leave the room, “heard” the muffled sounds of his parents talking and laughing. He expelled another deep sigh.
    He was lucky. He could breathe on his own now. Sue had been so proud of him when that autonomic reflex had returned. He filled his lungs, knowing that his chest was rising, his diaphragm tightening. He
could
feel the air in his windpipe. He held his breath until spots came in front of his eyes; then he expelled it.
    Immediately he heard the steps of the duty nurse. Miz Allen did not like to be disturbed, especially when he knew that they had a critical case on Pie 12. He counted ten steps and then she was peering down at him, making eye contact. She then peered at the wall panel that displayed the readings from his monitors.
    “Why was there a respiratory fluctuation, Peter?”
    “Aw, I was just doing my breathing exercises.”
    “You were not. “Miz Allen glared at him a moment, and then her long thin face relaxed. She laid a light hand on his forehead and then drew one finger down his cheek to press it against his lips. “You were fooling. Don’t fool with your breathing, Peter. Your brain needs oxygen. And it needs sleep, too. It’s quarter of four. You should sleep. You know how to achieve relaxation, Peter. Do your progressives, there’s a good boy.”
    They both heard the sudden whimpering of the burn girl on the other side of the circular ward.
    Miz Allen, reproving smile and all, disappeared, and Peter counted her steps, twenty-one, to get to the critical case. Then he counted to thirty, and the whimpering ceased. He knew burns hurt. He wished he felt
something,
even burns!
    He immediately put his mind to the few progressives available to him: the relaxation of every muscle in his face, head, and neck. He could not move his head, but he had sensation in his neck. He reached total slack and thought carefully of
his
place, feeling the spring of grass under his feet, hearing the shimmer of leaves as a wind soughed through them, smelling the fragrances of the garden, gazing up at the sky above, the sun warm on his back. He began to float again. He had the sensation of drifting up, out of the supine body resting on its cushion of air, amazed and annoyed at the various tubings and wires shunted into him that he never felt.
    The garden of his dreams was miles away from Jerhattan. It had been part of the vacation farm to which his parents had taken him when he was eight. For someone raised in Linear Jerhattan, surrounded constantly by the noise