hield fell. I seemed to
almost be you for a couple of seconds, just before you blacked out. I
glimpsed a lot of things, but I couldn't understand more than half of
them."

Corina was sitting unsupported now, with Medart squatting on his heels
facing her. She stared at him, then started searching intensively
through her memories of the last few minutes. Her shield was still
down, and Medart followed her thoughts with no difficulty.

*Eyes closed . . . five minutes, then . . . picture . . . What's he--*
Then an image of herself tangled in an exaggeration of Medart's
visualization, a confused jumble that reminded the Ranger of
multi-colored spaghetti. She started probing at it, using his actual
visualization to guide her as she finally tugged at what appeared to be
a key strand. That made the `spaghetti' disappear, releasing a flood
of concept/imagery/experience into her mind, understandable only in
fragments that seemed to flow past and through her.

"Pattern rapport," she breathed in wonder.

"Right, I got that much," Medart said. "But what is it? I'm not sure
I understand anything about it but its name."

"It is an extremely unusual stress phenomenon," Corina said, picking
her words with care. "It occurs when two very similar mind patterns
are in close physical proximity and under considerable stress.
Something--the Order is not sure what, but the most respected theory is
both underminds acting as one--apparently `decides' to relieve the
stress by combining whatever memories can be used to accomplish that
purpose."

"But aren't human and Irschchan patterns too different for that to
happen?" Medart objected. "That's what you seemed to think earlier, at
least."

"I believed so, yes," Corina said slowly. "Yet the Order's millennia
of experience cannot be totally wrong. It had to be pattern rapport."

"Then either human and Irschchan patterns are closer than anyone's ever
suspected . . ."

"Or it is our own two basic patterns which are in phase."

"Uh-huh, that could-- Hey! Remember, I told you I had more trouble
reading Sunbeam than I did reading you?"

"That must be the case, then, but I would like to know--" Corina cut
that thought off before it could go somewhere she didn't want to
follow.

Medart, though he wasn't about to broadcast it, had a pretty good idea
what the pattern rapport might mean. He wasn't at all familiar yet
with Talent, granted, but he did know what his problem was. Ap