Free To Save a World by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page A

common denominator and hope it won't offend anyone too much."
    David chuckled. "In hospitals that's standard, I guess. As a matter of fact, I've gotten used to eating whatever they put in front of me and hoping I'll have time to finish it before somebody yells for me. If you were to ask me what I just ate, I probably couldn't tell you under oath." He looked curiously at Danilo. "Are you on the hospital staff?" The kid didn't look old enough to be a doctor but you never could tell with some planetary types.
    Danilo, however, offered no explanation of his status beyond a negative gesture. "Come along and meet the others on the project."
    "Are—they—all here already?"
    "Most of them. The Darkovan ones are lodged in the city, but at least at first, they felt that the facilities here might be more helpful. Jason—" Danilo raised his voice and a young doctor, hurrying past through the halls, came toward them. He was sturdy and dark-haired. David liked his looks at once. He said, "Dr. Hamilton? How was the trip? I've never been off Darkover myself—born here. I'm Jason Allison." He offered his hand and David shook it, realizing suddenly that this was what had been lacking in Danilo's greeting. Darkovan custom? "I see Danilo's introduced himself. I'm a liaison man between Darkovan medical staff and trainees and Empire medical people. Incidentally, I'm a doctor myself, though I don't have time to practice 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