Laughing like rollicking imps, the whisperers closed in a hemisphere about and above her, dancing in weird joyous malicious rhythm and bottling up reason as effectively as a plastivial. All at once she found herself holding her head and screaming at them to go away....
Lynne woke up. She discovered herself already sitting erect on the plastomat, supported by hands that dug into its pneumatic surface. She looked wildly around her, noted the familiar tri-di picture of Victoria Falls on the wall, the blank vidarscreen on its stand beside the magnicloset entry, the picwindow with its familiar vista of morning sunlight and greenery outside Mother Weedon's.
Only then did she become aware that her headache was worse. It seemed to grow with each successive morning. During the day it lapsed at times to mere vague discomfort, and with the aid of a couple of syntholaud pills she was able to sleep. But when she awoke each following morning it seemed a trifle worse.
She stepped into the bathostall, which performed all functions of cleansing and elimination simultaneously, felt briefly better and got into sandals, clout and bolero, polarizing them to a gaudy scarlet, which clashed with her fair coloring but expressed her mood of defiance, not only at her own ailments but the personal treachery of Janet and the waverability of Ray Cornell.
Mother Weedon smiled approval of this gay gesture when Lynne took her place at the breakfast table. "I'm glad you're feeling better, Lynne," she said. "I've been worried about you lately."
"Really putting it on, aren't you, honey?" Janet asked with a trace of resentment. She had polarized her own costume to a soft pink, which was washed out by Lynne's bold color-scheme. Nor could she change it during the day without revealing her defeat.
"Delicious!" exclaimed Ray, ogling her with delight and pouring paprisal instead of sucral on his Helthplankton.
Lynne laughed as she hadn't laughed in days. She wondered why she felt so suddenly light-hearted and happy, especially after her waking nightmare. Then, suddenly, she realised she was utterly unaware of what the others were thinking. She was no longer telepathic. She was normal once more!
However, it required no telepathic powers to sense that Ray was in a sadly shattered state over whatever had happened between Janet and himself on their date the night before. Lynne surmised that her rival had enticed Ray into full courtship, that he was now suffering from remorse, revulsion and a resurgence of desire for herself.
She wondered why she didn't care, then realised that Janet was no longer her rival. Ray was a nice boy, a highly trained and talented boy—but she wasn't in love with him any more. There were, she thought, probably half a billion unattached males in the world at any given moment, many of them far more interesting and attractive than Ray Cornell. All she had to do was look for them....