“I’m not sure,” he said uneasily. “It hurt my eyes.”
Then he had at least latent laran. Arousing it, though, might be a difficult and painful business. Perhaps a catalyst telepath could have roused it. They had been bred for that work, in the days when Comyn did complex and life-shattering work in the higher-level matrices. I’d never known one. Perhaps the set of genes was extinct
Just the same, as a latent he deserved further testing. I knew he had the potential. I had known it when he was twelve years old.
“Did the leronis test you with kirian?” I asked.
“She gave me a little. A few drops.”
“What happened?”
“It made me sick,” Regis said, “dizzy. Flashing colors in front of my eyes. She said I was probably too young for much reaction, that in some people, laran developed later.”
I thought that over. Kirian is used to lower the resistance against telepathic contact; it’s used in treating empaths and other psi technicians who, without much natural telepathic gift, must work directly with other telepaths. It can sometimes ease fear or deliberate resistance to telepathic contact It can also be used, with great care, to treat threshold sickness—that curious psychic upheaval which often seizes on young telepaths at adolescence.
Well, Regis seemed young for his age. He might simply be developing the gift late. But it rarely came as late as this. Damn it I’d been positive. Had some event at Nevarsin, some emotional shock, made him block awareness of it?
“I could try that again,” I said tentatively. The kirian might actually trigger latent telepathy; or perhaps, under its influence, I could reach his mind, without hurting him too much, and find out if he was deliberately blocking awareness of laran. It did happen, sometimes.
I didn’t like using kirian. But a small dose couldn’t do much worse than make him sick, or leave him with a bad hangover. And I had the distinct and not very pleasant feeling that if I cut off his hopes now, he might do something desperate. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, taut as i a bowstring, and shaking, not much, but from head to foot. His voice cracked a little as he said, “I’ll try.” All too clearly, what I heard was, I’ll try anything.
I went to my room for it, already berating myself for agreeing to this lunatic experiment. It simply meant too much to him. I weighed the possibility of giving him a sedative dose, one that would knock him out or keep him safely drugged and drowsy till morning. But kirian is too unpredictable. The dose which puts one person to sleep like a baby at the breast may turn another into a frenzied berserker, raging and hallucinating. Anyway, I’d promised; I wouldn’t deceive him now. I’d play it safe though, give him the same cautious minimal dose we used with strange psi technicians at Arilinn. This much kirian couldn’t hurt him.
I measured him a careful few drops in a wineglass. He swallowed it, grimacing at the taste, and sat down on one of the stone benches. After a minute he covered his eyes. I watched carefully. One of the first signs was the dilation of the pupils of the eyes. After a few minutes he began to tremble, leaning against the back of the seat as if he feared he might fall. His hands were icy cold. I took his wrist lightly in my fingers. Normally I hate touching people; telepaths do, except in close intimacy. At the touch he looked up and whispered, “Why are you angry, Lew?”
Angry? Did he interpret my fear for him as anger? I said, “Not angry, only worried about you. Kirian isn’t anything to play with. I’m going to try and touch you now. Don’t fight me if you can help it.”
I gently reached for contact with his mind. I wouldn’t use the matrix for this; under kirian I might probe too far and damage him. I first sensed sickness and confusion—that was the drug, no more—then a deathly weariness and physical tension, probably from the long ride, and finally an overwhelming sense of desolation and loneliness, which made me want to turn away from his despair. Hesitantly, I risked a somewhat deeper contact.