d in
human history. The _first_. Others in the past have shown potential,
maybe, but nothing they could ever learn to control. You've got control,
you're fully developed. You're _here_, and you're _the only one there
is_."

"So I happened to be unlucky," I snapped. "My genes got mixed up."

"That's not true, and you know it," Lambertson said. "We know your
chromosomes better than your face. They're the same as anyone else's.
There's no gene difference, none at all. When you're gone, you'll be
_gone_, and there's no reason to think that your children will have any
more psi potential than Charlie Dakin has."

Something was building up in me then that I couldn't control any longer.
"You think I should go along with Aarons," I said dully.

He hesitated. "I'm afraid you're going to have to, sooner or later.
Aarons has some latents up in Boston. He's certain that they're latents.
He's talked to the directors down here. He's convinced them that you
could work with his people, draw them out. You could open the door to a
whole new world for human beings."

I lost my temper then. It wasn't just Aarons, or Lambertson, or Dakin,
or any of the others. It was _all_ of them, dozens of them, compounded
year upon year upon year. "Now listen to me for a minute," I said. "Have
any of you ever considered what _I_ wanted in this thing? _Ever?_ Have
any of you given that one single thought, just once, one time when you
were so sick of thinking great thoughts for humanity that you let
another thought leak through? Have you ever thought about what kind of a
shuffle I've had since all this started? Well, you'd better think about
it. _Right now._"

"Amy, you know I don't want to push you."

"Listen to me, Lambertson. My folks got rid of me fast when they found
out about me. Did you know that? They hated me because I _scared_ them!
It didn't hurt me too much, because I thought I knew _why_ they hated
me, I could understand it, and I went off to Bairdsley without even
crying. They were going to come see me every week, but do you know how
often they managed to make it? _Not once_ after I was off their hands.
And then at Bairdsley Aarons examined me and decided that I was a
cripple. He didn't know anything about me then, but he thought psi was a
_defect_. And that was as far as it went. I did what Aarons wanted me to
do at Bairdsley. Never what _I_ wanted, just what _they_ wanted, years
and years of what _they_ wanted. And then you came alon