Amaryllis (15 page)

“I haven't had a chance to finish the questionnaire,” Lucas lied.

“No problem,” Hobart assured him. “A lot of clients get bogged down in the middle of the questionnaire. It's somewhat lengthy, but that's only because we here at Synergistic Connections pride ourselves on being thorough.”

“Yeah, sure. Thorough.” Lucas opened a drawer and
slowly withdrew the thick questionnaire. He gazed at it with a sense of deep foreboding.

“A properly filled out questionnaire gives us a good basis to begin the matchmaking process,” Hobart continued briskly. “The results will, of course, be supplemented by the extensive personal interview. At that time we'll also administer a revised MPPI.”

“MPPI?”

“The Multipsychic Paranormal Personality Inventory. The standard syn-psych test used with high-class talents such as yourself.”

“Do you use it with strong prisms, too?”

“Certainly,” Hobart said. “We're all accustomed to thinking of prisms and talents as being quite different from each other, but technically speaking, the ability to focus a talent through a psychically generated prism is itself a talent.”

Lucas cleared his throat. “Do you ever match full-spectrum prisms and high-class talents? I mean, I know it must be a very rare occurrence, but I just wondered if it happens once in a while.”

“Almost never. Everyone knows that full spectrums are rarely compatible with very strong talents,” Hobart said.

“Because the prisms are so damn picky?”

Hobart chuckled. “Well, yes, in a sense. They prefer to think of themselves as extremely selective. But, then, so are powerful talents. Once in a great while we get a match, though. As I recall, the last one that we did at this firm was some five years ago. Why?”

“Just asking.”

“How far into the questionnaire are you, Mr. Trent?”

Lucas flipped open the first page and gazed moodily at the array of questions. “I'm still on the first section.”

“Preferred physical characteristics?” Hobart made a tuttutting sound. Distinct disapproval this time. “My, we aren't making much progress, are we?”

“We?”

Hobart coughed slightly. “Say, what if I drop by your office this morning and give you a hand.”

“Never mind, I can do this myself.”

“Exactly which question are you stuck on, Mr. Trent?” Hobart asked suspiciously.

Lucas scanned the list. “Eye color. I'm doing eye color even as we speak.”

“You haven't gotten past eye color?”

“I had to do some thinking on the subject, but I've reached a conclusion. Whoever she is, she'll have to have green eyes.” Lucas picked up a pen and circled the word
green
on the questionnaire.

“Green eyes? I thought you told me when you came to the office that you weren't too particular about physical characteristics. You said you wanted to emphasize compatibility, intelligence, and temperament.”

“Call me shallow, but I've decided I want a woman who is compatible, intelligent, good-tempered, and who also has green eyes. Is there a problem with that, Batt? Because if so, I can always go to another agency.”

“No, no, it's not a problem, Mr. Trent,” Hobart assured him quickly. “I just hadn't realized that you were so particular about that sort of thing. Now, then, if you need any help with the questionnaire, please remember that, as your personal syn-psych counselor, I'm available for consultation at any time.”

“Given the size of the fee that Synergistic Connections charges, I think that goes without saying,” Lucas muttered. “You'll have to excuse me, Batt. I've got an appointment.”

“Certainly, certainly. I'll call you in a couple of days to see how you're getting along.”

Lucas hung up the phone. The sense of doom thickened. Registering with an agency was the smart thing to do, he reminded himself. No doubt about it. Five years ago he had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that, while he was very good at finding jelly-ice, he was remarkably incompetent when it came to the business of finding a life mate.

He had been searching for something besides jelly-ice for years. It was only recently that he had finally put the need into words. He was tired of being alone. He longed for what most people took for granted, a family of his own. He
wanted to feel connected. He wanted to look in his children's eyes and see the future.

He had no clear memories of his parents. He only knew that, like so many others who did not fit into the conventional routine of life in the city-states, they had ended up in the Western Islands. The frontier attracted the drifters, the loners, those with shadowed pasts, and those without family ties the way honey-syrup attracted bee-flies.

In the islands a man or a woman could start a new life with no questions asked. Lucas sometimes wondered if it was the burden of an off-the-scale talent that had driven his father to the edge of civilization. Psychic power was an inherited characteristic.

His parents had not survived long enough for Lucas to ask them why they had moved to the islands. Both Jeremy and Beth Trent had been killed in a violent windstorm when their son was three.

There had been no relatives to take Lucas in and raise him. That task had been shouldered by a dour old jelly-ice prospector named Icy Claxby.

Claxby had been as alone in the world as Lucas. In addition to teaching his young charge everything he knew about finding jelly-ice and survival in the jungle, Icy had taught him how to get by without the cushioning network of an extended family.

But the one thing that Icy Claxby had not been able to teach Lucas was how to control the unpredictable flashes of the powerful talent that had made its first appearance shortly after Lucas hit puberty. Icy, an untrained prism, had done the next best thing. He had given Lucas some important advice.

“If you ever get yourself tested, boy, you're gonna go right off the scale,” Claxby said. “That ain't good. It ain't good at all.”

“Why not?” Lucas asked. He was only thirteen, and he was still having fun with the process of discovering his erratic psychic abilities. “I thought you said high-class talents are respected in the city-states. They get good jobs and stuff 'cause they're usually smart.”

“A powerful talent gets respect, but too much talent scares folks. I'm just a medium-spectrum prism, kid, untrained to boot, but I can tell you that you've got more talent than those fancy lab techs will be able to measure. If they figure out that you don't fit into their notion of what's normal, they'll get spooked. Word will get out, and you'll have nothin' but trouble.”

“I wouldn't mind throwing a scare into Kevin Flemming,” Lucas said, thinking of the bully who was making life miserable for him and his classmates at the small school in Fort LeConner
.

Icy's alarm was immediate and plain. “Five hells, boy, you ain't tryin' to use your talent at school, are you? Damn it, I warned you not to ever fool around with it in front of anyone except me.”

“No, sir,” Lucas said. “I haven't tried to use it at school.”

Icy's expression relaxed slightly. “There's other ways of dealin' with a bully. Find one.”

“Yes, sir.”

Icy gripped Lucas's shoulder with hands that bore the scars of a lifetime spent on a harsh frontier. His faded eyes glittered beneath his shaggy brows. “Listen, boy, I'm serious about this. If folks find out that you've got a powerful talent, there'll be hell to pay.”

“Like what?”

“People will call you a psychic vampire.”

“So?” The possibility held distinct appeal
.

“So you'll have problems gettin' a job, for starters. Men won't want to hire you. Others will refuse to work with you or for you. Lots of ice miners are superstitious, you know that.”

“Yes, but—”

“You won't be able to date any decent females 'cause their parents will think you're a freak. You been talkin' lately about havin' a real family of your own someday. Well, you'll never find a wife because no matchmaking agency will register you. See what I'm sayin'?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said. Being a psychic vampire was apparently not as exciting or as useful as it sounded. It could prevent him from having a family of his own. Bad synergy. “I see.”

Lucas had found another way to deal with Kevin Flemming, a method that had involved a large bucket of garbage and a pair of small, harmless twin-snakes.

Dealing with the erratic bursts of talent had proved to be much more complicated. Icy Claxby was an untrained prism. He could provide only limited guidance.

Psychic power made its own demands on a growing boy, just as all the other natural human needs and abilities did. The inborn urge to use the talent, to control it, and to understand it drove Lucas to seek solitude for extended periods of time. Icy Claxby had always been a loner himself. He didn't ask many questions about Lucas's absences.

With increasing frequency, Lucas took refuge in a small, hidden grotto he had discovered deep in the jungle. There, secure in the knowledge that no one could come upon him without warning, Lucas had spent endless hours teaching himself to deal with the strong spikes of psychic energy that his mind produced. The realization that he might never be able to work with a prism who could focus his full spectrum of talent had made him struggle all the harder to learn to control it himself.

He'd had some limited success, much to Icy's surprise. Lucas taught himself enough to conceal the extent of his talent from others, including prisms and synergistic psychologists. If he concentrated, he could force his psychic energy to obey his will for a few seconds at a time without using a prism. The hard-won skill had saved his life and the lives of others on more than one occasion during the Western Islands Action.

It was in the course of cleaning out the pirates that Lucas had discovered there were other powerful talents with secrets living in the islands. The knowledge that he was not the only freak in the world had reassured him. But Rafe Stonebraker and Nick Chastain valued their privacy as much as he valued his. The three men became friends and allies, but they rarely discussed the subject of their off-the-chart talents.

Icy Claxby died the year Lucas turned eighteen. Work, study, and the search for jelly-ice had filled the void for a time, but in the end a cold, dark well of loneliness had
opened up somewhere deep inside Lucas. He spent long hours in his hidden grotto, gazing into the fathomless jungle pool. His dream of having a family of his own returned to haunt him.

Eventually he had formed a partnership with Jackson Rye, and for a time the fantasy of belonging to the Rye clan had kept the old dreams at bay, but Lucas had never lost sight of his goal to have his own family.

Five years ago he had met Dora. She had been as alone in the world as he. It seemed to him that they had a lot in common.

The runaway marriage had been a disaster, just as everyone had predicted. It took Lucas less than six weeks to realize that he had been married for his money. Family law being what it was, divorce was not a possibility, so Lucas spent the next eighteen months hoping that his beautiful, sexy, vivacious wife would learn to be happy with him. There were times when he thought he was making progress.

But one day, in a low moment, he had made the mistake of telling Dora about his talent. Whatever affection she might have had for him evaporated in an instant.

“Five hells,” Dora whispered, horrified. “You're some kind of psychic vampire.”

“It's not like that,” Lucas said desperately. “It's harmless.”

“You're a freak, that's what you are. A damned freak. You should have told me before I agreed to marry you.”

Lucas looked into her eyes and knew that he had just destroyed any hope of having the relationship he had yearned for. He should have listened to Icy Claxby
.

“You can skip the outraged horror act.” Lucas smiled humorlessly. “We both know you would never have turned down the chance to be the wife of the owner of Lodestar Exploration, even if you had known that he was a freak.”

“You aren't the only owner of Lodestar,” she reminded him
.

In the end Lucas had learned the true meaning of being alone when he found himself sharing a home with a woman who wanted another man.

He pushed aside the old memories with the same ruthless control that he used to conceal his talent. He focused on the Synergistic Connections questionnaire.

Hair color. Did he really give a damn about hair color? What did it matter, anyway. A woman could dye her hair any color she chose.

A rich shade of amber brown would be nice, though.

He frowned when he noticed that the word
amber
did not appear on the list of hair colors. Light brown, dark brown, and reddish brown were offered, but not amber. Lucas picked up a pen and wrote in his selection.

Then he realized what he'd done.

“Damn.” Lucas flipped the questionnaire closed and shoved it back in the drawer. He reached for the phone and dialed swiftly, before he could give himself time to reconsider.

A plumy masculine voice answered. “Psynergy, Inc. We make it happen. How can I help you?”

“I'd like to speak to Amaryllis Lark, please.”

“One moment.”

There was a pause and then Amaryllis came on the line. “This is Amaryllis Lark.”

Lucas frowned at the tension in her voice. “Something wrong?” He thought he heard her breath catch. He didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one. Life was complicated for the intuitionally impaired.

“Is that you, Mr. Trent?”

“I'm not a client any longer. You can call me Lucas.”

“Is there a problem with your bill?”