Hot Sleep- The Worthing Chronicle - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,3
a double take when she realized that Jas was a boy.
"Perverts!" the woman spat as they hurried through the cars to the exit.
The next day at school they tried to trap him. Tork wasn't in the test room. Jas went in for his regular weekend quiz, and an empty - headed woman with thoroughly observable decolletage greeted him in a whispery voice and told him his test was ready. Jas guessed what they were going to do. To make sure, he looked into her head. Behind her eyes? A love life. No answers to tests.
And sure enough, the test was not on the topology of speed - of - light motion, the study topic for the week. It was, once again, astrodynamics. All new questions, of course. But the same topic.
Jas had to work on this one. Of course, his mind being what it was, he remembered perfectly everything he had taken from Tork's mind the week before. Now he had to apply the principles, think them through. But his logic kept up with the questions on the test.
He did miss one question. But ninety - nine was close enough to a hundred to be statistically insignificant.
When the computer printed out his score, Jas stood up and announced to the woman, "All right, lady. When you see Tork again, tell him for me I'm going to press charges. This test was illegal."
The woman was genuinely surprised. "What could be illegal? I just pressed the button and - "
"I know, I know. Just tell Tork for me. Can you remember that long?"
She sniffed her disdain. "You boy geniuses all seem to think you're the only ones with minds."
When Jas left the school he had every intention of going straight to the CRL for a lawyer to press his case - it was airtight, there'd be no way to hide their tampering with the computer program to put the wrong test on it. And without a writ they had no right to double - check his score.
But then he realized that he didn't want to attract too much attention with this. Because if rumor got around that he was suspected to be a Swipe, the doors would start to close to him. His unmeasurable intelligence would be worth as much as a moron rating.
No, let them sweat, but don't make too many waves.
Somehow the tests had all come out negative. But Jas knew he had the Swipe. And they might have other tests that would discover it.
"Insightful," his mother had said, "just like your father's father."
Father. And me. And grandfather?
But grandfather was dead.
Jas went to a directory and found the listing: "Genealogical program, G55Nxy3. He put his credit card (nearly worthless for purchasing, but good enough for this) into the computer outlet and punched in the program.
"Genealogy: Name research, 4n; inheritance tie - ins, 4i; name similarities..." Finally Jas found what he wanted, punched in his own name and birth date, and waited for the reading.
"Male relatives of common descent by male lines only." and then came a list of names that threatened to go on all day. Jas interrupted the readout and punched in a new instruction. Now the screen flashed, "Five nearest male relatives by common descent by male lines only."
First on the list was Talbot Worthing. He lived on a planet only forty - two light - years away.
Next on the list was Radamand Worthing. GE - 44h rating government employee on the district management level.
Again he put his credit card into the slot, and this time asked only for an address. His fifth cousin Radamand was supervisor of District Napa - 3. A good position not more than an hour by tube from Jas's home district.
Nice to know that a relative had done well with himself.
It was 1600, and Jas figured he'd have time to get there before the man left work - and get back before his mother had Mother's Little Boys out looking for him. So he got on the tube, wondering all the time if this wasn't a wild goose chase. And then in the part of his mind that always took over when he was worried, he free associated, and tried to calculate what in the world the phrase wild goose chase meant.
Radamand Worthing had his name on the outer door of the office complex, and no name at all on his private door. Jas was aware enough of status symbols to be impressed.