Sense from Thought Divide

by Mark Clifton

convinced by thechange in their perspective with the angles of the desk. Almost asslowly as the minute hand of a watch, they were creeping across the desktoward the door. They, too, were trying to escape from the room.

  I nudged them with my fingers. They hustled along a little faster, as ifappreciative of the help, even coming from me. I saw they were movingfaster, as if they were learning as they tried it. I turned one of themaround. Slowly it turned back and headed for the door again. I liftedone of them to the floor. It had no tendency to float, but it keptheading for the door. The other one fell off the desk while I wasfooling with the first one. The jar didn't seem to bother it any. It,too, began to creep across the rug toward the door.

  I opened the door for them. Sara looked up. She saw the two cylinderscome into view, moving under their own power.

  "Here we go again," she said, resignedly.

  The two cylinders pushed themselves over the door sill, got clearoutside my office. Then they went inert. Both Sara and I tried nudgingthem, poking them. They just lay there; mission accomplished. I carriedthem back inside my office and lay them on the floor. Immediately bothof them began to head for the door again.

  "Simple," Sara said dryly, "they just can't stand to be in the same roomwith you, that's all."

  "You're not just whistling, gal," I answered. "That's the whole point."

  "Have I said something clever?" she asked seriously.

  I took the cylinders back into my office and put them in a desk drawer.I watched the desk for a while, but it didn't change position.Apparently it was too heavy for the weak force activating the cylinders.

  I picked up the phone and called Old Stone Face. I told him about thecylinders.

  "There!" he exclaimed with satisfaction. "I knew all that fellow neededwas a good old-fashioned talking to. Some day, my boy, you'll realizethat you still have a lot to learn about handling men."

  "Yes, sir," I answered.

  * * * * *

  Sara asked me if I were ready to start seeing people, and I told her Iwasn't, that I had some thinking to do. She quipped something aboutmaking the world wait, meaning that I should be occupying my time withpersonnel managing, and closed the door.

  At that, Old Stone Face had a point. If he hadn't got in and riledthings up, maybe the Swami would not have been emotionally upset enoughto generate the psi force which had activated these new cylinders.

  What was I saying? That psi was linked with emotional upheaval? Well,maybe. Not necessarily, but Rhine had proved that strength of desire hadan effect upon the frequency index of telekinesis. Was there anything atall we knew about psi, so that we could start cataloguing, sketching inthe beginnings of a pattern? Yes, of course there was.

  First, it existed. No one could dismiss the mountainous mass of evidenceunless he just refused to think about the subject.

  Second, we could, in time, know what it was and how it worked. You'dhave to give up the entire basis of scientific attitude if you didn'tadmit that.

  Third, it acted like a sense, rather than as something dependent uponthe intellectual process of thought. You could, for example--I argued tomy imaginary listener--command your nose to smell a rose, and byautosuggestion you might think you were succeeding; that is, until youreally did smell a real rose, then you'd know that you'd failed tocreate it through a thought pattern. The sense would have to beseparated from the process of thinking about the sense.

  So what was psi? But, at this point, did it matter much? Wasn't the mainissue one of learning how to produce it, use it? How long did we workwith electricity and get a lot of benefits from it before we formed sometheories about what it was? And, for that matter, did we know what itwas, even yet? "A flow of electrons" was a pretty meaningless phrase,when you stopped to think about it. I could say psi was a flow ofpositrons, and it would mean as much.

  I reached over and picked up a cigarette. I started fumbling around inthe center drawer of my desk for a matchbook. I didn't find any. Withoutthinking, I opened the drawer containing the two cylinders. They werepressing up against the side of the desk drawer, still trying to get outof the room. Single purposed little beasts, weren't they?

  I closed the drawer, and noticed that I was crushing out my cigarette inthe ash tray, just as if I'd smoked it. It was the first overtindication I'd had that maybe my nerves weren't all they should be thismorning.

  The sight of the cylinders brought up the fourth point. Experimentalpsychology was filled with examples of the known senses being unable tomake correct evaluations when confronted with a totally new object,color, scent, taste, sound, impression. It was necessary to have a pointof orientation before the new could be fitted into the old. What wereally lacked in psi was the ability to orient its phenomena. Thevarious psi gifted individuals tried to do this. If they believed inguides from beyond the veil, that's the way they expressed themselves.On the other hand, a Rhine card caller might not be able to give you amessage from your dear departed Aunt Minnie if his life depended uponit--yet it could easily be the same force working in both instances.Consequently, a medium, such as the Swami, whose basic belief was ThereAre Mysteries, would be unable to function in a framework where theobvious intent was to unveil those mysteries!

  That brought up a couple more points. I felt pretty sure of them. Ifelt as if I were really getting somewhere. And I had a situation whichwas ideal for proving my points.

  I flipped the intercom key, and spoke to Sara.

  "Will you arrange with her foreman for Annie Malasek to come to myoffice right now?" I asked. Sara is flippant when things are going alongall right, but she knows when to buckle down and do what she's asked.She gave me no personal reactions to this request.

  Yes, Annie Malasek would be a good one. If anybody in the plant believedThere Are Mysteries, it would be Annie. Further, she was exaggeratedlyloyal to me. She believed I was responsible for turning her littleJennie, the little girl who'd started all this poltergeist trouble, intoa Good Little Girl. In this instance, I had no qualms about takingadvantage of that loyalty.

  * * * * *

  While I waited for her I called the lieutenant at his hotel. He was in.Yes, the Swami was also in. They'd just returned. Yes, the Swami wasranting and raving about leaving Los Angeles at once. He had said heabsolutely would have nothing more to do with us here at ComputerResearch. I told Lieutenant Murphy to scare him with tales of thesecret, underground working of Army Intelligence, to quiet him down. AndI scared the lieutenant a little by pointing out that holding a civilianagainst his will without the proper writ was tantamount to kidnapping.So if the Army didn't want trouble with the Civil Courts, all broughtabout because the lieutenant didn't know how to handle his man--

  The lieutenant became immediately anxious to cooeperate with me. So thenI soothed him. I told him that, naturally, the Swami was unhappy. He wasused to Swami-ing, and out here he had been stifled, frustrated. What heneeded was some credulous women to catch their breath at hisawe-inspiring insight and gaze with fearful rapture into his eyes. Thelieutenant didn't know where he could find any women like that. I toldhim, dryly, that I would furnish some.

  Annie was more than cooeperative. Sure, the whole plant was buzzing aboutthat foreign-looking Swami who had been seen coming in and out of myoffice. Sure, a lot of the Girls believed in seances.

  "Why? Don't you, Mr. Kennedy?" she asked curiously.

  I said I wasn't sure, and she clucked her tongue in sympathy. It must beterrible not to be sure, so ... well, it must be just terrible. And Iwas such a kind man, too. I didn't quite get the connection, until Iremembered there are some patterns which believe a human being would beincapable of being kind unless through hope of reward or fear ofpunishment.

  But when I asked her to go to the hotel and persuade the Swami to giveher a reading, she was reluctant. I thought my plan was going to befrustrated, but it turned out that her reluctance was only because shedid not have a thing to wear, going into a high-toned place like tha
t.

  Sara wasn't the right size, but one of the older girls in the outeroffice would lend Annie some clothes if I would let her go see theSwami, too. It developed that her own teacher was a guest of Los AngelesCounty for a while, purely on a trumped-up charge, you understand, Mr.Kennedy. Not that she was a cop hater or anything like that. She wasperfectly aware of what a fine and splendid job those noble boys in bluedid for us all, but--

  In my own office! Well, you never knew.

  Yet, what was the difference between her and me? We were both trying toget hold of and benefit by psi effects, weren't we? So I didn't comment.Instead, I found myself much farther ahead with my tentative plans thanI'd anticipated at this stage.

  Yes, my interviewer's teacher had quite a large following, and now theywere all at loose ends. If the Swami were willing, she could