The High Ones and Other Stories

by Poul Anderson

  "But how can you tell?" objected Holloway. "It happens in a matter of microseconds."

  "You can, somehow," Gerrold reassured him. "You keep your hand on the tactual indicator dial. When trouble shows up … well, there's some kind of reflex. You stop the reaction. A moment later your brain registers a chill in your hand. A moment after that, the meters tell you what might have happened. It's like driving; if you see a car nose out of a blind intersection, you slap on your brakes without losing time in thinking about the matter."

  Holloway nodded. He had acquired a great deal of respect for his body in the past months.

  He dropped in on Wojcek before leaving for the holiday. The director was in his laboratory, surrounded by haywired pieces of meaningless apparatus. A chart on the wall held an odd set of symbols: Holloway recognized a pentagram and a mandala, and wondered what they were for. Probably the old guy still had this psychic bug—though why he did, when a new world of authentic science was open to him, was hard to understand. Well, Newton had been a mystic too.

  "Good to see you, Dan." Wojcek wrung his hand. "In a few months, maybe, you'll join me here. I need a good assistant, or if my line of work doesn't interest you you can try something else. Anything that appeals to you. And the hell with whether there's money in it or not. We just want to learn."

  "What are you working on?" asked Holloway curiously.

  "The communications aspect. We can already use the Wobbly to transmit vocal messages, or operate a teletype, but why not brain-to-brain? After all, when you perceive a message, what's really happening is a physical process in your head. Why shouldn't we generate the process directly, without going through the ear or the eye?"

  Holloway laughed. "Telepathy yet!"

  "That's not a respectable word." Wojcek grinned back. "We'll call it something like encephalic resonance, then we can't be slandered. Have you been studying the Harvard hypothesis about the effect?"

  "Yes. Frankly, I don't think much of it. Too many postulates."

  "Me, too," said Wojcek. "But if it makes them happy, what the hell?"

  As he rode to Des Moines, Holloway felt a curious depression. Not that he didn't want to see his wife and kids—Lord, it seemed like forever!—but there was something about the school.

  Maybe just the fact that he didn't have to wear a tie and didn't have to call one solitary living soul "chief."

  IV

  Damon knocked the ash from his cigar with great care. "So you really can do it," he murmured.

  "Uh-huh." Holloway looked out at the iron-gray winter sky of New York. Mass-production Christmas blinked at him from a hundred store windows. "It took me a while to get the knack, before then I was positively dangerous to have around, but now it's easy. As far as I've gone with it, anyway."

  "What does it feel like? I've heard it's supposed to feel odd."

  "It does. I can't really describe it. You can't operate a machine at all till you're so skilled that you don't have to look at the meters … consciously, anyhow. You just do what's right without thinking about it. I'll give you a for instance, one of my lessons. I used a Wobbly—"

  "A what did you say, boy?"

  "Wobbly. That's what we … they call it."

  "I knew they were subversive! Go on, Dan. Give it to me straight from the shoulder."

  "Well, the idea was, we had a small winged missile, with no engines, and I was supposed to fly it by remote control, out of visual range. There was a TV camera in its nose, giving me a view. But as long as I watched that screen, I couldn't do a thing. Finally I got mad, cussed it … and all of a sudden realized I had it in the air. My eyes went back to the screen, and I lost control. Regained it, though, before there was a crash, and put the missile through its paces. Those included looping it around a set of pylons. The screen showed them to me, but I swear I wasn't watching the screen … somehow, I felt those pylons, like a blind man feels a hand in front of his face, only more clearly. I had a sense of vector relationships, as if I were part of the missile— There's no word to describe the feeling. But I wasn't watching that screen!"

  "You must have been, off and on," said Damon doubtfully. "Eyes flickering back and forth."

  "Well, I suppose so."

  "Take it from me, Dan. The good old subconscious. Just turn it loose. Someday when you sit in on a conference, you'll know what I mean."

  Holloway started.

  Damon smiled. "Well, I can't say yet, Dan. There'll be a nice big bonus for you in all events and there might, there just might be an executive vacancy when you wind up this little chore."

  Holloway wondered why he didn't feel happier about it.

  "Tell you what, boy," said Damon chummily. "J. B. is giving a party Saturday night. I won't hide it from you, he's got his eye on you. You and your wife come too. You know the place? Eight o'clock."

  "Thanks." Holloway calculated rapidly. He'd have to cancel the neighborhood poker party he'd figured on. Rent a tux … damn, but he hated stiff collars! He thought Joan would pass muster; she was only a little Oregon girl and didn't know all the latest, and a wife could make or break a young executive, but he thought she would get by. Trouble was, he didn't know the current rules. Did eight o'clock mean eight on the nose if you stood at the bottom of the pecking order? He'd have to find out—

  Damon watched him narrowly. "You've changed, Dan," he said. "I know you've got a lot to chew over, but don't lose the old enthusiasm. Keep your eye on the big picture. We want men who can fit on the Team."

  Holloway mumbled something ending in "chief" and got away. His Buick was waiting at the garage, and he threaded a way between Santa Clauses toward his home. Better get rid of this car; Damon drove the same model. Might start looking at the real estate ads, too … right address, very important—

  In Iowa they didn't give a damn where you lived.

  * * * *

  Holloway took the bus from Des Moines and got off at the school. A number of his fellow students were with him, but he gave their greetings a short reply. He couldn't understand the sullenness within himself. Maybe it was just leaving Joan. She had tried not to cry, but hadn't quite made it.

  Well, in another six months or so he'd finish this miserable business and return home for good.

  He unpacked and spent a lonesome evening reading in a corner of the lounge. Gerrold came up to him and said hello, and though the man's manner was affable enough, Holloway had a sudden impression of hostility.

  Probably nothing but his own overworked imagination. Nerves.

  But the next day, and the following week, he could not see why his assignments were merely repetitious of what he already knew. And he grew increasingly certain that for some reason, Tom Gerrold had it in for him.

  * * * *

  The payoff came in mid-January. On a morning of frost and gloom, after a night, with small sleep, Holloway lost his temper. He had been told to fly around that day, practicing the techniques of soaring and of maintaining an envelope of warm air next to his skin. It must be man's oldest dream, this flying, born with the first half-ape who watched a bird and knew wistfulness, still alive in the present day when you outpaced the birds but were locked in metal. Ordinarily its realization soothed and exalted him. But not today.

  He hovered above the clouds, seeing their gray turned to a blinding blue-shadowed white, alone with sky and silence. But it was not for him, not now. He was no angel, he was a man with a man's work to do, and Gerrold was keeping him in kindergarten.

  Holloway blasphemed and twirled the controls of his Wobbly. Down through the clouds, a moment of whirling mist and then the plains barren with snow, the school buildings rushing to meet him—in through the window!

  Wojcek started, almost dropping a piece of blown glass. "Hey, there!" For the first time, Holloway saw him annoyed. "What the hell's going on? I'm busy."

  "And I'm not. That's exactly the trouble." Holloway set the Wobbly down and went stiff-legged across the floor.

  "Oh … it's you, Dan. You look like the
wrath to come. What's the matter?"

  "I came here to learn. Nobody's teaching me."

  "I'd say you've learned quite a bit," answered Wojcek dryly.

  "Sure, sure. But there's more. A hell of a lot more. And ever since I got back, all I've been allowed to do is go over and over what I already know. What's the big idea?"

  Wojcek scratched his head. "Don't ask me," he said defensively. "Maybe Tom feels you're not quite ready to start something new. He's in charge of instruction, you know. Not my department at all."

  "I don't have anything against practice," said Holloway. "But this stupid business is something else again. It's like making me say the multiplication table every day. I'll take any test you want to give me—but damn and blast it, there's no point in my staying here under these conditions!"

  Wojcek looked puzzled and worried. "Frankly, Dan, I believe you—and I don't understand it either. Why not talk to Tom? If there's some argument—well— " He seemed almost frightened, a little man dismayed at the idea of being kicked from his orderly world of inanimate energies into the riotous plane where humankind lived. Hell of a judge he'd make, thought Holloway.

  "All right," he mumbled. "I'll see him. Sorry to have bothered you."

  He picked up his Wobbly and went out. Gerrold was standing in the muddy snow just beyond the door.

  "I—" began Holloway.

  "I know. You don't like the way you're being treated." Gerrold's lip lifted. There was no mistaking the hatred in his eyes. "I was wondering how long it'd take you to get up the nerve."

  He turned on his heel. "This way. We'll find a private spot."

  Holloway followed in bewilderment. The Wobbly dragged at his arm. They went behind a dormitory, no one in sight, ten miles of open white plain on the other side. Gerrold stopped.

  "I was just marking time," he said. "Trying to decide what to do with you. I'm still not sure—except that you're certainly not going to be taught anything more!"

  "What are you talking about?" The quiet, persistent cold seemed to gnaw under Holloway's jacket.

  "What do you think?" Gerrold jammed his fists into his pockets as if afraid of what they might do. "You've already got too much knowledge to take back to that filthy outfit you're spying for."

  Holloway felt as if he had been hit in the stomach. "Look here—" he stuttered.

  "I have looked." Gerrold laughed with scant mirth. "There were a lot of things about you that didn't add up. And of course I never expected the other side to take this lying down. You aren't the first spy they've sent here. But all the others flunked out. You didn't, worse luck! I scanned your movements when you went back to New York. I looked into your friend Damon's mind. The whole scheme is there, the faked experiments and faked accidents to come. Don't bother denying it."

  * * * *

  For a moment, the only thing that registered was one chance phrase. I looked into your friend Damon's mind. It smashed a universe.

  Gerrold shook his head. "No. I can't read yours. You're a high-potential psionicist … something in your genes, we don't know yet what it is, but you've got a powerful talent. And your psychological blocs weren't strong enough to nullify it, as they do for so many people."

  His eyes would not let go of Holloway's. He spoke tonelessly. "Yes, the inherent ability varies. But we believe every human has it to some degree. A new mutation, perhaps, the next step upward … that's the real purpose of this group, to give everybody the power. And you'd hold up the program for the next hundred years, if you can. And by that time civilization may very easily have broken under its own weight, there won't be any analytical techniques to force the development of psi, man may have to wait half a million years for natural evolution to bring it out. And perhaps he won't be given that much time."

  "But then—" Holloway lifted his hands, as if to fend off a blow. "But look here—why—"

  "The old man has had enough troubles," said Gerrold. "Can you comprehend the idea of a decent human being? That's what Steve Wojcek is. It nearly broke him, ten years ago, when he was called a liar to his face. I don't want him to know that his most promising student actually is a liar and a thief. That's why I've been stalling, trying to think of some way out of this mess. And now you've brought it to a head, and I'm just as glad!"

  Holloway straightened himself. "All right," he said woodenly. "I'll go."

  "It's not that easy, mister," replied Gerrold. "You already have enough technique to do your boss' work for him. I've never killed a man before, but—

  Holloway snatched up the Wobbly. "Take it easy!" he gasped.

  Gerrold chuckled. "Go ahead. Fly away if you can."

  V

  His heart was thunder and fury, sweat was cold in the cold windless air, the thing which was Tom Gerrold had too much mystery to be faced. Holloway spun the dials. He lifted a yard, and something like a troll's invisible hand closed on him and pressed him back to earth.

  "You see," said Gerrold mildly, "the Wobbly is a fake. Hold still!" Holloway tried to run, and found he could not, it was like being caught in a mesh of rubber.

  "Don't get scared," said Gerrold scornfully. "I'm not going to murder you after all. Too many inhibitions, I suppose."

  Reaction set in. The nervous system can stand only so many shocks, then it protects itself by apathy … or by responding to some wholly different stimulus. Odd, thought Holloway, all at once his only emotion was an overwhelming curiosity.

  "The Wobbly is a fake," he repeated.

  "Sure. Ever hear about Maelzel's chess-playing machine? Turned out that there was a man inside it. Same thing." Gerrold smiled, almost amiably. "That was Steve Wojcek's stroke of genius."

  He leaned against the wall and spoke in a casual, drawling voice. "You see, as far as we've been able to discover, psi works much as the Wobbly is supposed to, by tapping energies and applying them. Except that it's not a machine, but a nervous system, which is the agent. Don't ask me how; that's one thing we're still trying to understand.

  "But being essentially a psychological phenomenon, psi follows psychological laws. And one of those laws is this: if you really, sincerely believe you can't do something, if you've hypnotized yourself into believing you're unable—then you can't. Consider hysterical paralysis, or any psychosomatic disorder."

  "I begin to see—" whispered Holloway.

  "I thought you would," nodded Gerrold. "Now ten years ago, Wojcek was pretty well convinced that such phenomena do exist. And they do, you know. Therefore his experiments worked—for him. But the scientists who tested his claims … well, they probably were open-minded enough, tried to be fair, but subconsciously they had too strong a conditioning. Psi had too bad a name, smacked too much of charlatanism. If true, it would be too hard to fit into their concept of natural law. And a nice, tidy universe with all the loose ends put up in pretty bows is necessary to the emotional security of some people.

  "So the experiments did not work for them. Nor would they work for Steve in the presence of the others; so much negation was bound to swamp his own psi output. So he was bounced out on his can.

  "But now, when he makes no claims about psionic effects, when he merely shows a machine which is alleged to work on some new physical principle, nobody gets rattled. We're used to new discoveries in physics.

  "The Wobbly is not an absolute fake. It's a useful teaching tool. It helps you focus your mind, instills the conviction you must have to use your psionic ability. And it helps to get emotionally upset the first few times you use that talent—see all the accounts of poltergeist phenomena. So the Wobbly's controls are designed to be infuriating. Therefore, if your subconscious hasn't been too bridled and blinkered, if you aren't too afraid of newness, your own powers are released.

  "We'll reveal the fraud later, when the Wojcek Effect has been accepted. When it's so commonplace that an explanation in terms of psychics rather than of physics won't shock anyone, will in fact merely bore the average man. But right now we can't."

  * * * *

&n
bsp; There followed a stillness. Winter crackled in the air. Holloway found himself thinking of coal. Every year, millions of tons were burned just to heat houses, coal which ought to be used as a starting point for organic syntheses. With psionic powers, you wouldn't need a furnace, you could draw sunlight from the Sahara region and—

  And he was still Gerrold's prisoner.

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "An experiment." Gerrold spread his hands. "Go on, I'm not holding you. Fly away—if you can!"

  Holloway looked at the Wobbly. Fake, fake, fake, a useless clutter of tubes and wires; an hour ago he had been sitting on empty air with nothing between him and the ground but the power of his own mind. Suppose he had made a slip?

  "I thought so." Gerrold's smile broadened, still without humor. "Go on home. Tell 'em what I've told you, if you like. Nobody will believe it."

  He turned and walked out of sight, around the building.

  Holloway stood for a while, shaking.

  No, wait … what was he afraid of?

  If he'd been able to fly, or move matter, or scan objects a thousand miles removed—if he could do that once, burdened with a crutch, why not now, when he knew the crutch was not needed?

  How do you fly?

  He stood with teeth jammed together, hands slippery from sweat, and willed himself into the air. There was not a sound, not a stirring, the earth gripped him and would not let go.

  Remembering himself alone under the sun was like a knife.

  Goddam Tom Gerrold!

  When the mist of rage cleared from his eyes, he realized that he was a good fifty, feet above ground.

  For a moment fear was terrible within him, and he turned end over end and fell toward extinction. Then, somehow, from somewhere, the knowledge came back and he was moving alone. He did not will himself above the clouds, any more than he would will himself to walk up a flight of stairs. He simply decided to rise, and his body rose. When a feeling of chill warned him that he was draining his own metabolism too fast, his senses ranged out, found a power line, and drew the energy to lift him further.