“Go away,” he said firmly.
“No!”
“Well, come on,” he said. “We’ll just have to get by as well as we can. The only thing I can think of is getting out of the city. I should have done that at first, instead of playing spirit.” Now it was undoubtedly too late. The psi officers would be checking everyone on foot.
“Can you use that clairvoyance of yours?” he asked. “Is there anything you can see?”
“No,” she said sadly. “The future’s a blank to me.”
That was how Ecks saw it, too.
MARRIN SENSED that he had greater inherent strength than the man he was pursuing. He detected the signs of weakening and pushed harder.
The fugitive was visible now, a mile ahead of him doubling back toward the city. As he got closer, Marrin threw his telekinetic strength, pulling the man down.
He clung doggedly. The man was slowing, fighting spasmodically. Marrin overhauled him, brought him down and pinned him to the ground. Coming down himself, he probed for an identity thought.
And found one.
Krandall!
For a moment all he could do was stare.
“Did you get Ecks?” Krandall teleped. The exertion had drained the big man of everything. He lay, face down fighting for breath.
“No. You were his backer all along. Is that right?”
Krandall’s thought was affirmative.
“How could you! What were you thinking of? You know what the disease means!”
“I’ll explain later,” Krandall panted.
“Now!”
“No time. You have to find Ecks.”
“I know that,” Marrin said. “Bxit why did you help him?”
“I didn’t,” the fat man said. “Not really. I tried to kill him You must kill him.” He draggec himself to his feet. “He’s a far greater menace than you think. Believe me, Marrin. Ecks must b killed!”
“Why did you rescue him?” Marrin asked.
“In order to put him back into danger,” Krandall gasped. “I couldn’t let you capture and isolate him. He must be killed.”
“Go on,” Marrin said.
“Not now,” Krandall said. “I poltered the dagger at you, to make you consider Ecks a personal menace. I had to goad you to the point where you would kill him.”
“What is he?”
“Not now! Get him!”
“Another thing,” Marrin said. “You couldn’t handle that amount of telekinetic power. Who was doing it?”
“The girl,” Krandall said, swaying on his feet. “The girl Cari. I was posing as her uncle’s spirit She’s in back of it all. You must kill her, too.” He wiped his streaming face.
“I’m sorry I had to play it this way, Paul. You’ll hear the whole story at the right time. Just take my word for it now.”
Krandall tightened his hands into fists and shook them at Marrin.
“You must kill those two! Before they kill everything you stand for!”
The teleped thought had the ring of truth. Marrin took to the air again, contacting his agents. Briefly he gave his instructions.
“Kill both of them,” he said. “And pick up Krandall and hold him.”
ECKS TURNED down streets at random, hoping the lack of a plan would confuse the psi’s. Every shadow seemed to have a meaning of its own. He waited for the mental bolt that would drop him.
Why had the uncle tried to kill him? Impossible to answer. Why was he so seemingly important? Another unanswerable question. And the girl?
Ecks watched her out of the comer of his eye. Cari walked silently beside him. Her face had some color now, and some animation. She seemed almost gay; perhaps freedom from the uncle was the reason for that. What other reason could there be?
Because she was with him?
The air was thick with the usual day’s traffic. A load of ore was being brought in, tons of it, expertly shepherded by a dozen workers. Other cargoes were being flown in from Southern ports; fruit and vegetables from Brazil, meat from Argentina.
And psi officers. Ecks wasn’t especially surprised. The city was being watched too thoroughly for a fly to escape, much less a crippled man.
The psi officers dropped down, forming a tight mental linkage.
“All right,” Ecks called. “The hell with it, I give up.” He decided that it was time he bowed to the inevitable. He had the girl to consider also. The psi’s were probably tired of playing; this time, if he tried to escape, they might play for keeps.
A bolt of energy sheered him off his feet.
“I said I give up!” he shouted. Beside him, Cari fell also. Energy swept over them, twisting them, across the courtyard, increasing, building.
“Stop it!” Ecks shouted. “You’ll hurt—” He had time—an infinitesimal fraction of a second—to realize fully his own feeling about the girl. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. Ecks didn’t have time to consider how or why; the feeling was there.
A sad, bitter sensation of love.
Ecks tried to get to his feet. The linked mental energy smashed him down again. Stones and rocks were poltered at him.
Ecks realized that he wasn’t going to be allowed to surrender. They were going to kill him.
And Cari.
At first, it seemed as though it were a dream. He had become used to the possibility of death in the last few days. He tried to shield, aware of his nakedness, tried to cover Cari. She doubled up as a poltered rock caught her in the stomach. Rocks hummed around them.
Seeing Cari struck, Ecks could have burst with rage. He struggled to his feet and swayed two steps forward, hands outstretched.
He was knocked down again. A section of wall started to collapse, pushed by psi force. He tried to drag Cari out of the way. Too late. The wall fell—
In that moment Ecks bridged the gap. His tortured, overstrained mind performed the energy leap into the new potential. In that instant, contact and comprehension flooded his mind.
The wall thundered down. But Ecks and Cari weren’t under it.
“Marrin!”
Dully, the psi chief raised his head. He was back at his desk in Psi-Health. Again it had happened.
“Marrin!”
“Who is it?” the psi thief asked.
“Ecks.”
Nothing could surprise him now. That Ecks was capable of tight-beam telepathy just didn’t matter.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want to meet you. Name a place.”
“Wherever you wish,” Marrin said, with the calmness of despair. Then curiosity overcame him. “How are you able to telep?”
“All psi’s can telep,” Ecks said mockingly.
“Where did you go?” Marrin asked. He tried to get a location on the message. But Ecks was easily managing the tight beam, allowing only the direct message to go through.
“I want a little quiet,” Ecks said. “So I’m in the tomb of The Sleeper. Would you care to meet me there?”
“Coming,” Marrin said, and broke contact. “Leffert,” he said aloud.
“Yes, Chief?” his assistant said, coming over.
“I want you to take over until I get back. If I get back.”
“What is Ecks?” Leffert asked.
“I don’t know,” Marrin said. “I don’t know what powers he has. I don’t know why Krandall wanted to kill him, hut I concur in the judgement.”
“Could we bomb the tomb?” Leffert asked.
“There’s nothing faster than thought,” Marrin answered. “Ecks has discovered some form of nearinstantaneous transportation. He could be away before the bombs were dropped.” He paused. “There is a way, but I’m not going to say any more. He might be listening in on this conversation.”
“Impossible!” Leffert said. “This is direct-talk. He couldn’t—”
“He couldn’t escape,” Marrin reminded him wearily. “We’re through underestimating Mr. Ecks. Hereafter, consider him capable of anything.”
“Right,” Leffert said du
biously.
“Have you got the latest figures on the contagion rate?” Marrin asked, walking to the window.
“They’re way past epidemic. And the disease has jumped as far as the Rockies.”
“It can’t be checked now,” Marrin said. “We’ve been pushed off the cliff—on the wrong side. In a year we’ll be lucky if there are a thousand psi’s left in the world.” He tightened his hands into fists. “For that alone I could cut Ecks into little pieces.”
He levitated out the window.
THE FIRST thing Marrin saw when he entered The Sleeper’s chamber was Mycrowski himself, still unconscious. Ecks and the girl were standing beside him.
Marrin walked forward.
“I’d like you to meet Cari,” Ecks said, smiling.
Marrin ignored the dazed-looking girl. “I’d like an explanation,” he said.
“Of course,” Ecks said. “Would you like to know what I am, to begin with?”
“Yes,” Marrin said.
“I am the stage after psi. The para-psi.”
“I see. And this came—”
“When you tried to kill Cari.”
“We’d better start somewhere else,” Marrin said. He decided to hear the explanation first before taking the final step. “Why have you removed the nutrient pipes from The Sleeper?”
“Because Mycrowski won’t need them any more,” Ecks said. He turned to The Sleeper, and the room suddenly hummed with energy.
“Good work, Ecks.” For a moment Marrin thought it was the girl who had teleped. Then he realized that it was Mycrowski!
“He won’t be fully conscious for a while,” Ecks said. “Let me start at the beginning. As you know, thirty years ago Mycrowski was searching for the extra-psi powers. He split mind and body to find them. Then, having the knowledge, he was unable to get back in his body. It required a leap into a higher energy level to do that and, without a nervous system at his command, he couldn’t gather that power. No ordinary psi could help him, either. To attain the new level, all normal channels must be blocked and redirected, and a terrific strain is placed on the whole nervous system.
“That is, essentially, the same method by which the first true psi’s got their power.”
Marrin looked puzzled for a moment, then asked, “Then you’re not a mutation?”
“Mutations have nothing to do with this. Let me go on. Mycrowski couldn’t bridge the gap unaided. He had to have a para-psi bridge the gap for him. That’s where I come in.”
“It is also where you come in,” Mycrowski, conscious now, teleped to Marrin. “And the girl, and Krandall. I was in telepathic contact with Krandall. Together we chose Ecks for the experiment. It couldn’t be Krandall himself, because his nervous system was not suitable. Ecks was picked for his temperament and sensitivity. And, I might add, for his selfishness and suggestibility. Everything was predicted, including Cari’s role.”
Marrin listened coldly. Let them explain. He had an answer of his own. A final one.
“First, the rechanneling. Ecks’ psi senses were blocked. Then he was put in a position of stress; incipient capture and isolation, both repugnent to his nature. When he failed to bridge the gap, Krandall rescued him, with my help. With Krandall posing as Cari’s Uncle John we threatened his life, increasing the stress.”
“So that’s what Krandall meant,” Marrin said.
“Yes. Krandall told you that you had to kill Ecks. That was true. You had to try. He told you that the girl was the key to the whole thing. And that was true also. Because when Ecks’ life and the girl’s were threatened, it was the greatest stress we could bring to bear. He bridged the gap to the higher potential. Comprehension followed immediately.”
“And he gave you back your body,” Marrin added.
“And he gave me back my body,” Mycrowski agreed.
Marrin knew what he had to do, and he thanked God for the foresight of Psi-Health. Nevertheless, he delayed for a moment.
“Then if I understand correctly, all this—the infection of Ecks, his miraculous rescues, all the deviousness you used, was designed to create a force great enough to get you back in your body?”
“That’s a part of it,” Mycrowski said. “Another part is the creation, in Ecks, of another para-psi.”
“Very well,” Marrin said. “It will interest you to know that Psi Health has always considered, as one possibility, the return of The Sleeper—insane. Against that eventuality, this room is wired for atomic explosion. All four walls, ceiling and roof are keyed to me. Atomic explosions are not instantaneous, I realize.” He smiled humorlessly. “But then, I doubt if para-psi transit is, either.
“My thought-process are as fast as yours. I am going to explode this place.”
“You health men are a suspicious lot,” Mycrowski said. “But why on earth would you want to do a thing like that?” Marrin noticed that he seemed genuinely surprised.
“Why? Do you realize what you have done? You have regained your body. But the disease is uncontrollable now. Psi science and all it stands for is destroyed, because of your selfishness.” Mentally, Marrin reached for the key.
“Wait!” Ecks said. “Evidently you don’t understand. There’ll be a temporary disturbance, true. But it won’t affect everyone at once. Diseased persons can be trained.”
“Trained? To what?”
“Para-psi, of course,” Ecks said. “A complete rechanneling is necessary to reach the next para-psychological step. The disease is the initial point. The present level of psi is unstable, anyhow. If I didn’t set it off, someone else would in a few years.”
“It’ll be easier when we get a few more people to bridge the gap,” Mycrowski said. “As in the first development of psi, the rest is relatively easy after the initial gain has been made.”
Marrin shook his head. “How can I believe you?”
“How? Look!”
Telepathy transmits delicate shades of meaning quite lost in spoken language. A ‘true’ statement, teleped, reveals immediately how ‘true’ the sender believes it to be. There are an infinite number of gradations to the ‘truth.’
As Ecks had, Marrin read Mycrowski’s belief in the para-psi—read it clear down to the subconscious level. An unimaginably ‘true’ truth! There was no possible argument.
Suddenly Cari smiled. She had had one of her flash premonitions—a pleasant one.
“Help me up,” Mycrowski said to Marrin. “Let me outline my training program.” Marrin walked over to help him.
Then Ecks grinned. He had just read Cari’s premonition.
• • • THE END
HANDS OFF!
Endeavor I was a space jalopy. Endeavor II was a dreamboat—with built-in nightmares!
THE ship’s mass detector flared pink, then red. Agee had been dozing at the controls, waiting for Victor to finish making dinner. Now he looked up quickly. “Planet coming,” he called, over the hiss of escaping air. Captain Barnett nodded. He finished shaping a hot patch, and slapped it on Endeavor’s worn hull. The whistle of escaping air dropped to a low moan, but was not entirely stopped. It never was.
When Barnett came over, the planet was just visible beyond the rim of a little red sun. It glowed green against the black night of space and gave both men an identical thought.
Barnett put the thought into words. “Wonder if there’s anything on it worth taking,” he said, frowning.
Agee lifted a white eyebrow hopefully. They watched as the dials began to register.
They would never have spotted the planet if they had taken Endeavor along the South Galactic Trades. But the Confederacy police were becoming increasingly numerous along that route and Barnett preferred to give them a wide berth. The Endeavor was listed as a trader—but the only cargo she carried consisted of several bottles of an extremely powerful acid used in opening safes, and three medium-sized atomic bombs. The authorities looked with disfavor upon such goods and they were always trying to haul in the crew on some old charge—a murder on Luna, larc
eny on Omega, breaking and entering on Samia II. Old, almost forgotten crimes that the police drearily insisted on raking up. To make matters worse, Endeavor was outgunned by the newer police cruisers. So they had taken an outside route to New Athens, where a big uranium strike had opened.
“DON’T look like much,” Agee commented, inspecting the dials critically.
“Might as well pass it by,” Barnett said.
The readings were uninteresting. They showed a planet smaller than Earth, uncharted, and with no commercial value other than oxygen atmosphere. As they swung past, their heavy-metals detector came to life.
“There’s stuff down there!” Agee said, quickly interpreting the multiple readings. “Pure. Very pure—and on the surface!” He looked at Barnett, who nodded. The ship swung toward the planet. Victor came from the rear, wearing a tiny wool cap crammed on his big shaven head. He stared over Barnett’s shoulder as Agee brought the ship down in a tight spiral. Within half a mile of the surface, they saw their deposit of heavy metal.
It was a spaceship, resting on its tail in a natural clearing.
“Now this is interesting,” Barnett said. He motioned Agee to make a closer approach.
Agee brought the ship down with deft skill. He was well past the compulsory retirement limit for master pilots, but it didn’t affect his coordination. Barnett, who found him stranded and penniless, had signed him on. The captain was always glad to help another human, if it was convenient and likely to be profitable. The two men shared the same attitude toward private property, but sometimes disagreed on ways of acquiring it. Agee preferred a sure thing. Barnett, on the other hand, had more courage than was good for a member of a relatively frail species like Homo sapiens.
Near the surface of the planet, they saw that the strange ship was larger than Endeavor and bright, shining new. The hull shape was unfamiliar, as were the markings.
“Ever see anything like it?” Barnett asked.
Agee searched his capacious memory. “Looks a bit like a Cephean job, only they don’t build ‘em so squat. We’re pretty far out, you know. That ship might not even be from the Confederacy.”
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