The Right Time Part 3

"You were never that mad when you were lifting, I guess," I said. "Big emotions make big lifts. Fall in love--you'll do better still."

"First decent argument for getting tangled with one of you men I've heard yet," she lied. Wild as her looks were, she'd been a favorite around the Chapter for years.

I patted her on the shoulder and went back to the table where the big weights were being lifted and showed off for a couple minutes. The inevitable hour of shop talk and demonstrations followed as soon as the out-of-towners found out who I was. They don't meet a Thirty-third every day, and face it, I'm a TK bruiser.

After enjoying some slaps on the back, I took my shower, changed back into my clothes and went to find Pheola.

She had just finished her shower and had gotten dressed as far as her slip when she let me in.

"What an awful man!" she greeted me.

"Norty?"

"Yes! He doesn't believe in me a _bit_!"

"I don't either," I grinned. "Remember, you're the fake who says we're getting married."

"We are, too!" she said, sulking. "He made me tell him a thousand things," she added, going over to her couch where three dresses were draped. "What should I wear?"

"The blue one," I said. "Blue-eyed blondes should wear blue." I was stretching a point. "What did he make you PC?"

"All about the weather," she said, somewhat m.u.f.fled as she slipped the dress over her head. I helped her with a zipper and a catch. "About thirty cities, Lefty. He made me tell him the temperature and the barometric pressure every hour for about a month! I never did anything like that before."

"Um-m-m," I said, as she fooled around getting her hair in some sort of shape with a clip. It was straight hair, and not much could be done with it. "Were you right, though?"

"Yes," she said, convinced. "I was very sure. Lefty, I _want_ to do it, for you!"

"Sure," I said. "Let's go."

The Lodge has good food, but you get tired of hanging around with a bunch of Psi's, so we went on the town and found a good spot for dinner. What with rubber-necking at the big city, it was some after ten o'clock before we got back to the Chapter House and rode up to her apartment.

Pheola was bubbling happily about our evening. As she keyed open her door, I pushed her into her place and came in with her.

"For a couple who are going to get married," I said, grinning at her, "it's time we made a little love, Pheola."

She squinted myopically at me, not sure if I were serious. "I thought you weren't going...." she started.

"I'm not," I a.s.sured her. "I'm talking about our special kind of love.

Know what I mean?"

She shook her head doubtfully as I took her wrap and hung it in the closet.

"Let's face a couple facts," I said, as I led her to the sofa and we sat down. She squeezed up close to me, so that our knees were touching. "I believe in you. I've told you that I have seen you predict the future. More than that, I have felt you cure me. But precognition is hard to prove, and if we are going to get you into the Lodge, I think we had better stick to Maragon's advice and work on your healing powers. It's Maragon you'll have to convince. He's the last word."

"I know," she said, wriggling her skinny knees against me. "And it scares me."

"Maybe it should," I said, trying to draw away a bit. "Your life won't be your own once your have been admitted to one of the degrees. But life in a Psi society has its compensations.

"Now, look at it this way," I went on. "Whether you meant to or not, you have staked your reputation as a PC on a prediction that our Grand Master will suffer a heart attack."

"He _will_!" she cut in.

"Sure. I even know a PC who agrees with you, in a misty sort of way.

Now, think. You're a healer. If you can heal what you predict, it would make a big hit. Can you?"

Pheola's pointed features focused in a frown. "I'm sorry, Lefty," she admitted, "I don't even know what a heart attack is."

"That's what I thought," I said, getting up to switch on the hi-fi. It gave out soft music--lover's music, I guess it was meant to be. "But I'm a surgeon, you know that, don't you? And I can teach you something about hearts. The question in my mind is whether you can learn to handle what you know."

"I don't understand, Lefty," she said, holding out a hand to draw me back to her side on the sofa. I let her have me back.

"That's what I meant by our kind of love," I grinned at her. "Remember when you cured my arm the other night? You said you found a weak place in my head."

"That's what I did, darlin'."

"Can you find that place again, now that it's not weak?"

"Maybe," she decided.

"Try to," I suggested. I swung my feet around on the sofa and lay with my head in her lap. Pheola bent down over me and stroked my forehead with her fingers.

"Darlin' Billy!" she whispered. "Yes! _Yes!_ I _can_ feel it!"

I'll say she could. My thras.h.i.+ng right arm pretty near knocked her buck teeth out, and she retreated from my nervous system.

"You know what you did?" I asked, when the pain inside my head subsided.

"Not really, Lefty," she admitted.

"You have a kind of telekinesis. It's the lightest touch of all, but you applied it directly to my nerves. Perhaps you have some unconscious way of stimulating my synapses, making my nerve centers fire. I can't figure it out exactly. But my question is this, can you feel your way all around inside my body?"

She recoiled a little. "That sounds awful," she said.

"I thought you were in love with me," I insisted, looking up at her down-bent features. "Do you really have reservations about me?"

"No, Lefty. I love all of you."

"All right," I said, reaching up to stroke her cheek in time with the music. "See if you can feel your way--lightly, now--down the same path in my left arm."

She could, but not quite as lightly as I would have liked. We played with it until nearly midnight, by which time she had used what I can only call her sense of perception to feel her way through a good part of my nerves and viscera. Some of it was exquisitely painful, but from observing my flinching when she hurt me, Pheola pretty quickly found out how to ignore the synapses that fired pain through my brain.

At last I raised my head from her lap. "You're doing great," I said.

"Do you feel tired?"

She shook her head. "Just excited," she breathed. "What a funny way to get to know you!"