Primary Inversion Read Online Free PDF Page B

psion’s strength. Ninety-nine percent of all humans are between zero and two. The weakest empaths are three, or one in a thousand. What most people call telepaths are six. One in a million. Or above that.”
           Tiller looked from Rex to me. “You’re both sixes?”
           Neither Rex nor I answered. After a moment, Tiller said, “Is something wrong?”
           “What would you do,” I said, “if I asked you how many times you made love last night?”
           He reddened, and suddenly I felt mortified, as if I had peeked into his bedroom. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so private.”
           “It’s all right,” Rex said. “I rate as a ten.”
           What possessed him to reveal that? I knew the ratings for my squad: Taas was seven, Helda six. At ten, Rex was that one in ten-billion telepath. But knowing their ratings was part of my job as squad leader. I doubted Rex had told Taas, maybe not even Helda.
           Tiller looked at me—and I caught it. Feedback. He was feeding my surprise back to me.
           Are you getting it, too? Rex thought. I was trying to draw him out.
           We could ask him, I thought.
           Too personal.
           I think he wants to know. To put it mildly. He was bursting with his curiosity. He seems more comfortable with you.
           Rex turned to Tiller. “How long have you known you were an empath?”
           I almost groaned. He could have tried a little more tact.
           Tiller turned red. “I never claimed—”
           “You’re in a feedback loop with us,” Rex said. “You’re picking up our emotions and sending them back to us.”
           Tiller gaped at him. “You’re kidding. ”
           “Not at all,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”
           “Of course not.” He hesitated. “Well, I mean, I’ve always thought—but you don’t say things like that. People laugh at you.” A breathless feeling came over me, fear and hope together. At that exact moment Tiller said, “You really think I’m an empath?”
           Rex smiled, the lines around his eyes crinkling. “Yes. You should get tested.”
           “I’ve thought of it. That’s why I learned Skolian. But I can’t afford it.” He looked from me to Rex. “I’m probably fooling myself, anyway. I don’t see any evidence I’m different.”
           “It’s not something you see,” Rex said. “It’s in your brain.”
           “Something is wrong with my brain?”
           “Not wrong,” I said. Though I supposed that depended on your point of view. “It contains two extra organs.”
           Tiller laughed. “In my skull? There’s no room.”
           “They’re microscopic,” I said. “The Kyle Afferent Body and the Kyle Efferent Body. Most people just say KAB and KEB, though.”
           “When you think, neurons fire in your brain,” Rex said. “My KAB picks that up.”
           Tiller squinted at us. “How could your brain know that my, um, neurons fired?”
           “The molecular configuration of your brain has a quantum probability distribution—” Rex stopped when Tiller winced. Then Rex said, “Imagine an invisible hill centered on your brain.”
           “Okay.” Tiller looked relieved.
           “That’s the distribution,” Rex said. “Its ‘foothills’ fan out in all directions. They get smaller so fast that they’ve dropped to almost nothing a few hundred meters away from you. When you think, it changes the shape of those hills. You and I are close enough to each other that the distributions of our brains are overlapping right now. So my KAB can pick up changes in your distribution.”
           Tiller squinted at him. “So why doesn’t this overlap thing happen with everyone?”
           “It does,” Rex said. “But without a KAB, a person