Free Infinity One by Robert Hoskins (Ed.)

been brought into the emergency ward, picked up unconscious and already in active labor. The interne who delivered Maria had expressed doubts that the infant would survive, due to prenatal malnutrition.
    Maria’s mother had died in the same hospital two years later. The cause was neglect, but not on the part of the hospital. She had had tuberculosis, diabetes and a coronary condition. She had been severely beaten about the abdomen and died of internal hemorrhaging before they could operate.
    Pete took to talking to Wizard on the beat at night, hoping Maria would overhear him. He told Wizard all about Maria’s mother, about her father’s record, about how Maria could use her great gift to help people. He told her all he knew about paranormal powers, his guesses that she must conserve her energies; and he repeatedly cautioned her to call Wizard or Pirate if she felt endangered. Sometimes he had the feeling she listened to him. He knew she often talked to Wizard.
    Then Al Finch stepped up his operations to include narcotics. Pete and the police went quietly berserk. No known pushers were in contact with Finch; all were clean when they were picked up. Not a sniff on them. But the stuff was circulating in greater quantities than had ever reached Wilmington before.
    “Maria,” Pete called resolutely to her from the comer opposite Al’s apartment. “Do you know what narcotics do to people?”
    Sure. They have the coolest dreams to read.
    “Do you take it?” he gasped, frightened.
    I don't need to, laughed Maria with a mirth that no longer chimed. Her voice—the essence of the voice she sent—was hard and brassy. I dig it from other's. It's boss, •man.
    “Then dig what happens when they can’t pay to get it, Maria. Dig that and see how most it is!”
    But, Pete honey; you gave me the idea yourself. It's much easier to grab the stuff from . . . well, never mind where. Her voice was sickeningly smug. Easier than reading numbers out in Chicago. You said I was to take care of myself. I am.
    “I don’t know why I bother with you. You know you’re doing wrong, Maria. And when you get hurt, it’ll be your own fault.” Then ...
    He didn’t know what hit him. When he came to, he he was in the emergency ward with Joe bending over him anxiously.
    “Brother, you’ve been out three hours and there isn’t a mark on you.”
    Pete carefully touched his sore head with exploratory fingers. He hurt all over: every nerve edge felt twisted, his head half unscrewed.
    “I got clobbered.” The phrase had never seemed so apt.
    “Yeah, I know,” Joe replied drily. “But with what?”
    “Would you believe a girl telepath?” asked Pete plaintively.
    “Right now,” Joe replied wearily, “I’d believe an invasion of little green men.”
    Pee looked up at him, startled by the credulous bitterness in the young doctor’s voice.
    “What’d you mean, Joe?”
    Joe grimaced, annoyed with himself, then swore under his breath. He stepped to the door, looked up and down the hall. Closing the door tightly, with one final cautious look through the small glass insert, he asked, “Do you know where Al Finch is getting narcotics, Pete?”
    Pete groaned. “From the locked pharmacy cabinets of the hospitals.”
    Joe’s eyes widened in stunned amazement. “How in hell did you know? Hahlgren didn’t report it until noon and you’ve been in dreamland since then.”
    It was a relief to Pete to be able to tell someone his secret. When he finished, Joe shook his head slowly from side to side.
    “Believe you I must. The drug cupboard was bare at 8:00 this morning. The question is, what do we do now?”

    A few days later Hector Barres was admitted to the hospital, striken with paralysis of the spine. Some of the drugs Maria had lifted from the hospital shelves were not pure opium. One was a thebaine compound which acted like strychnine and commonly caused spinal paralysis. Her father died of a heart attack shortly after his