Free The World Wreckers by Marion Zimmer Bradley

much."
    He led the way along the corridor, Danilo easily keeping pace. Now that the meeting with the others on
    the project was imminent, David's unease became palpable again. A crew of freaks — and he was one of them.
    "Dr. Allison—"
    Jason Allison grinned. "Jason will do. And I'll call you David, if you don't mind. Darkovans don't use honorifics unless they're way up at the top of the caste hierarchy; any title below Lord simply doesn't exist. No misters, ma'ams, doctor, this or that. It simplifies things, anyhow."
    Swept away. Even that gone. "David's okay," he said listlessly. "I—I've never met another telepath—"
    Danilo laughed. "Now you have," he said, and grinned. "We don't bite. Or go around casually reading minds. And you aren't a telepath anyhow as far as I can tell. You're an empath and probably have some
    other psi talents."
    David stared at the kid and shook his head slightly, abruptly revising a lot of preconceived notions.
    Danilo said, "I'm sorry. I was brought up around Darkovans with laran and I spot it automatically. I take you for granted because I feel comfortable around you, that's all; you feel like one of us."
    David felt bewildered. Jason said, "Slow down, Dani. David, believe it or not, I know how you feel;
    remind me to tell you sometime about my first clash—and it was really a clash—with the Hasturs. Here
    we are."
    It was a long room, filled with light and hung about with translucent draperies in pale and lightly varying rainbow colors. David took it in at a glance, the talent he had never recognized because he took it so
    much for granted that he believed everyone had it and didn't consider it worth mentioning:
    —impact of fear/ brilliance/ fear from a tall girl at the far end, tall gird/no, boy/no, girl, with masses of long, loose, fair hair, slender, sexless figure—human?
    —slight, authoritative young man with white hair and young gray eyes—wizened small man in his
    forties, Earth-type, tanned, shifty-looking: dark-skinned nonentity, trembling, spaceman's uniform
    —tall, commanding old woman, old to decrepitude but with the same air of command and dominance as
    if she were young and queenly
    —slight, sensual-looking, sullen girl slouched in a deep chair with her eyes moving, in little quick
    glances like a mouse's, all round the room and among the men
    —and yet again: fear/brilliance/fear from the tall girl/boy with the light hair, in the long tunic…
    Is this all?
    "You are David Hamilton," said the slight young man with the hair which David somehow knew to be prematurely white. "I am Regis Hastur. I'm very glad you are with us, Dr. Hamilton. Nothing of this
    sort's been done before; ordinary medical men may be all at sea. The people who know about telepaths
    don't seem to develop medical sciences; for all I know, don't need them. We didn't, especially. And the
    Terran medics aren't even sure we exist. They've had to admit it but they don't like it—present company
    excepted," he added, with a friendly look at Jason Allison.
    "I'm being brought here as a doctor?"
    "Oh, yes. Once you get this thing, this talent of yours, in hand, it should make you an especially good one, you know," Regis said; "and it won't take you long to learn how to shut out contacts you don't want; every Comyn teenager manages to learn it within a few weeks. You will too, being around other
    telepaths. That was your problem, you know; no one to help you handle it. Lucky we found you young
    enough. A lot of isolated telepaths in non-telepath cultures go psychotic and are no use to anyone. We
    found that out when the HQ was hunting for them for this project. So, as you can see, having one who's
    also a well-qualified doctor—well, we were ready to fall on your neck and hug you!"
    It was like the sudden lifting of a black cloud. David never wondered how Regis had known of his deep
    encompassing fear. He didn't even try to hide the smile of wondering delight that replaced his strain and fear. It