The yoli was having a curious experience. Shortly after Telzey and Keth rejoined Osselin, it had begun to pick up momentary impressions of another yoli somewhere about. Greatly intrigued because it had been a long time since it last encountered or sensed one of its kind, it started searching mentally for the stranger, broadcasting its species’ contact signals.
Presently the signals were being returned, though faintly and intermittently. The yoli’s excitement grew. It probed farther and farther for the signals’ source, forgetting now the telepath it had punished for trying to touch its master. And along those heedlessly extended tendrils of thought, Telzey reached delicately toward the yoli mind, reached it and melted into it, still unperceived.
It had taken time because she couldn’t risk making the creature suspicious again. The rest wasn’t too difficult. The yoli’s intelligence was about that of a monkey. It had natural defenses against being controlled by another’s psi holds, and Telzey didn’t try to tamper with those. Its sensory centers were open to her, which was all she needed. Using its own impressions of how another yoli, a most desirable other yoli, would appear to it, she built up an illusion that it was in satisfying communication with such a one and left the image planted firmly in its mind along with a few other befuddling concepts. By that time, the yoli was no longer aware that she existed, much less of what she was up to.
Then finally she was able to turn her attention again to Osselin. Caution remained required, and she suspected she might be running short of time. But she could make a start.
The aircar floated three thousand feet above foggy valley lands—Fermilaur wilderness, tamed just enough to be safe for the tourist trade. Tongue tip between lips, Telzey blinked at the clouds, pondering a thoroughly ugly situation. There was a sparse dotting of other cars against the sky. One of them was trailing her; she didn’t know which. It didn’t matter.
She glanced impatiently over at the comm grille. Keth Deboll was in conference somewhere with Osselin. She’d left a message for him at his residential tower to call her car’s number as soon as he showed up. She’d left word at her own tower to have calls from him transferred to the car. In one way or the other, she’d be in contact with him presently. Meanwhile she had to wait, and waiting wasn’t easy in the circumstances.
Chan Osselin couldn’t sense a telepathic probe. Except for that, she might have been defeated and probably soon dead. She’d found him otherwise a difficult mental type to handle. His flow of conscious thoughts formed a natural barrier; it had been like trying to swim against a current which was a little too strong. She kept getting pushed back while Osselin went on thinking whatever he was thinking, unaware of her efforts. She could follow his reflections but hadn’t been able to get past them to the inner mind in the time she had available . . . And then she’d been courteously but definitely dismissed. The guided tour was over, and the men had private business to discuss. Shortly after she left them, she’d lost her contact with Osselin.
She’d absorbed a good deal of scattered information by then, could begin fitting it together. As she did, the picture, looking bad enough to start with, got progressively worse—
Normally, even people who accepted that there might be an occasional mind reader around had the impression that telepathy couldn’t pick up enough specific and dependable information to be a significant threat to their privacy. That might have been the attitude of the top men in COS up to a year ago. Unfortunately, very unfortunately for her, they’d had a genuine psi scare then. They spotted the psi and killed him, but when they realized how much he’d learned, that they almost hadn’t found him out in time, they were shaken. Mind shields and other protective devices were promptly introduced. Osselin hated shields; like many others he found them as uncomfortable as a tight shoe. When an Askab lady provided him with a guard yoli, he’d felt it was safe to do without a shield.
He still felt safe personally. That wasn’t the problem. COS had something going, a really important operation. Telzey had caught worried flashes about it, no more and not enough. The Big Deal was how Osselin thought of it. They couldn’t afford the chance of having the Big Deal uncovered. Keth Deboll was a notoriously persistent and successful snoop; a telepathic partner would make him twice as dangerous. The fact that the two had appeared on Fermilaur together might have no connection with the Big Deal, but who could tell? COS was checking on both at present. If they couldn’t be cleared, they’d have to be killed. Risky, but it could be arranged. It would be less risky, less suspicious, than carrying out a double mind-wipe and dumping them on some other world, which might have been an alternative in different circumstances.
And that was it! Telzey wet her lips, felt a chill quivering again through her nerves, a sense of death edging into the situation. She didn’t see how they could be cleared. Neither did Osselin, but something might turn up which would make it unnecessary to dispose of them. The Amberdon girl’s demise, or disappearance, shouldn’t cause too much trouble, but Deboll was another matter. Too many people would start wondering whether he hadn’t been on the trail of something hot on Fermilaur, what it could be. This would have to be very carefully handled! Meanwhile COS was taking no chances. Neither of the two would be allowed to leave the planet or get near an interstellar transmitter. If they made the attempt, they’d get picked up at once. Otherwise, they could remain at large, under surveillance, until the final decision was made. That should turn up any confederate they might have here.
The final decision was still some hours away. How many, Telzey didn’t know. Osselin hadn’t known it yet. Not very many, in any case . . .
Osselin himself might be the only way out of this. Their information on psis was limited; they thought of her only as a telepath, like the other one, and didn’t suspect she could have further abilities which might endanger them. She had that advantage at present. Given enough time, she should be able to get Osselin under control. She’d considered trying to restore mental contact with him at long range, wherever he happened to be. But she wasn’t at all certain she could do it, and the yoli made it too risky. Its hallucinations should be self-sustaining for some hours to come if nothing happened to disturb it seriously. She had to avoid disturbing it in resuming contact with Osselin, which meant working with complete precision. A fumble at long range could jolt the creature out of its dreams and into another defensive reaction.
She didn’t know what effect that would have on Osselin, but at the very least it might give him the idea to equip himself with a mind shield as a further safeguard until they’d dealt with the telepath. She’d be stopped then.
She had to be there, with Osselin, to be sure of what she was doing. If she got in touch with him and told him she’d like to talk to him privately, he’d probably want to hear what she had to say. But he’d be suspicious, on guard. It would be easier for Keth to find a plausible reason for another meeting, easier if Keth was around to keep some of Osselin’s attention away from her . . .
The comm grille burred. She gave a gasp of relief as her hand flicked out to switch it on.
IV
Keth took a little convincing then. He’d set their aircar down on a grassy hillside, and they’d moved off until it was a hundred yards below them. He’d turned on this and that antisnoop device. From eight feet away, their voices were an indistinguishable muddle of sound, their features blurred out.
“We can talk,” he’d said.
Telzey talked. He listened, intent blue eyes blinking, face expressionless. Twice he seemed about to interject something, then let her go on. Finally he said, “Telzey, you’re obviously not joking, and I don’t believe you’ve suddenly become deranged. Did you ever try to read my mind?”
“Yes, once. Half a year ago. I thought you were up to something and I wanted to find out what it was.”
“Oh? What did you find?”
“That you use a mind shield, of course. I didn’t waste any more time.”
Keth grunted. “All right! You’re a telepath. If the
situation is what it looks like, we have a problem. The check on me won’t tell COS anything. Adacee isn’t leakproof, but all they’ll learn there is what I told Osselin. I came to Fermilaur to get a good story. Nothing specific. Any story as long as it’s good enough. Can they find anything in your background to confirm that you’re a mind reader?”
Telzey shrugged, shook her head. “I’ve been careful. What there was has been pretty well covered up. It’s very unlikely they’ll find anything. The trouble is Osselin’s already pretty well convinced of it—he goes by the yoli’s psi sense. And, of course, they can’t prove that I’m not one.”
“No. Not without linking you into a lie-detector system. If they go that far, they’ll already have decided to go all the way with us. At any rate, they haven’t made up their minds yet. I parted from Osselin on apparently friendly terms. If the verdict’s favorable, nothing at all will have happened.”
“Unless we try to reach a spaceport,” Telzey said. “Or try to get in touch with somebody somewhere else.”
“Yes, they wouldn’t allow that. And, of course, they can seal off the planet as far as we’re concerned. In effect, they own it.” Keth considered. “There’s a man I might contact here, but that would only pull him into the trouble. How about other, uh, functional telepaths?”
Telzey shook her head.
“Starting cold, it probably would be hours before I located one. We don’t have that much time. They mightn’t want to help anyway. It could cost them their cover.”
Keth rubbed his chin. “If it gets to the point of running, a space yacht might get us off.”
“COS Services handles the yacht rentals,” Telzey reminded him.
“Not what I was thinking of,” Keth said. “Plenty of people come here in private yachts. Last year, I got out of a somewhat similar situation that way. It shouldn’t be impossible to borrow one, but it probably wouldn’t be easy.” He reflected. “That Big Deal of COS—the story they think we might be snooping around here for. You got no clue from Osselin what that might be?” She shook her head. “There’s an awful lot of money involved, and there’s something illegal about it. They’ll protect it, whatever it takes. They think you might have picked up some clues to it somewhere and brought me to Fermilaur to help dig up more. But that’s all I can say. Everything else connected with it was too blurred to make out.”
“Finance, politics, business—the big money areas,” Keth said, watching her. “Nothing about some secret Hub-wide system to gather hot inside information at top levels there.”
Telzey stared at him. “Oh, my!” she said after a long moment.
Keth said, “You went white, Telzey. What is it?”
“That guide I had this morning! Usurul.” Telzey put her hand to her mouth. “I was reading her mind. There was something odd going on. I didn’t think there was any connection, but I wanted to check with Uspurul again to be sure. I tried to get in touch with her an hour ago. COS Services said she was on another assignment, couldn’t be reached.”
“You don’t think she’s on another assignment?”
“Uh-uh! No. She didn’t know it, but she’s connected with their Big Deal! Hot inside information—When they started checking this afternoon on what I’ve been doing here since I landed, they’d have picked her up to see what a telepath could have got from her.”
Keth said, “The kind of lie detector that pushes unconscious material to view . . . So just what did you learn from her?”
Telzey recounted the essentials. Keth nodded slowly. He’d paled somewhat himself.
“That will have tipped the fat into the fire!” he said.
A secret Hub-wide information gathering system on the distaff side was . . .
Wives, mistresses, daughters of the Federation’s greats streamed in to Fermilaur. Were tagged on arrival, maneuvered into making a remodeling appointment if that hadn’t been their intention.
“Anesthesia, unconsciousness, in-depth interrogation,” Keth said. “Anything they know of significance is filed immediately. The ones who can be typed as foolproof COS agents and have sufficiently valuable connections go home under a set of heavy compulsions, go to work. When their work’s done, they come back, get debriefed. Leaving no trace of what’s happened, in case of subsequent checks. Yes, a big setup! COS’s capital investment program should be spectacularly successful!”
Now and then suspicion might turn on an unwitting agent. When it happened, the agent appeared to go into amnesic withdrawal and committed suicide at the first opportunity. It wasn’t something the people involved would want to talk about. But there’d been such a case among Keth’s acquaintances, and he’d learned of another very similar one, discovered both women had gone through remodeling centers on Fermilaur in recent months. It seemed worth following up. He’d come to Fermilaur to do it.
“I dislike turning my back on a story before it’s in the bag,” he said. “But I can pick this up at the other end now. We’d better get set to run while we can, Telzey! The decision they’ll reach is to do us in. From their viewpoint, there won’t be much choice.”
“A yacht?” she said.
“Yes. Noticed a few boat parks while I was moving around this morning, and—”
“Keth, how much chance would we have of getting away?”
He hesitated, grimaced.
“It depends. Even odds perhaps, if we act now. Less if we wait.”
She shook her head. “We can do better! Chan Osselin’s really top man in COS, isn’t he?”
Keth looked at her. “Yes. Barrand’s president of the association. I’ve heard Osselin could have the job any time he wants. What he says pretty well goes anyway. Why?”
“You’ve got to think of some reason to see him again immediately, with me. I need more time to work on him, to really get into his mind.”
“What will that do for us?”
“If I get through to him, Osselin will get us off Fermilaur,” Telzey said. “He’s in a better position to do it than anyone else.”
Keth considered her.
“It seems you’re something more than a telepath,” he remarked.
“They don’t know it.”
“All right. How much time would you need?”
She shook her head.
“An hour . . . thirty minutes . . . twenty minutes . . . two hours . . . I don’t know. It’s always different, and Osselin isn’t easy. But we’ll have much better than even odds there!”
“Well, there’s no need to arrange for a meeting,” Keth said. He looked at his watch. “We’ve got a dinner appointment at Osselin’s house two and a half hours from now, our local time. He emphasized that I was to bring my charming young friend along. Two people want to meet us. One’s Barrand, the COS president I mentioned. The other’s Nelt, vice president and executive officer. They and Osselin are the trio that runs COS. Presumably the decision on what to do about us will be made at that time.”
“Yes, probably,” Telzey said. “But let’s get there early, Keth.”
“By about half an hour? I’m sure Osselin won’t object. I’ve thought of further details about the projects he showed me that I’d like to discuss with him.” He added as they turned back to the aircar, “But we’re not scratching the space yacht idea just yet!”
“We’re not?”
“No. COS might decide to lower the boom before we have a chance to sit down to dinner this evening. And you see, there’re three special yacht types. Racing boats—”
The three yacht types had one thing in common: an identical means of emergency entry. It was designed for use in space but could be operated when the vessel was parked if one knew how. Keth did, though it wasn’t general knowledge. “It’s quick,” he said. “We can do it from the car. Since we haven’t spotted the people who are trailing us, they’re doing it at a discreet distance. The chances are we’ll be inside and going up before they realize what we’re thinking about. So let’s put in the next hour looking around for yachts like that! If the situ
ation looks favorable, we’ll snatch one.”
Telzey agreed. Keth was an expert yachtsman.
It appeared, however, that no yachts in that category happened to be in the general area that day. After an hour, Telzey transferred her belongings to the residential tower where Keth was registered. It seemed better not to become separated now. They settled down to wait together until it would be time to go to Osselin’s residence.
V
Osselin’s yoli was still in timeless communion with the yoli of its dreams but beginning to show indications of uneasiness. The imagery had become static and patchy here and there. Telzey freshened it up. The yoli murmured blissfully, and was lost again.
Since their last meeting, Osselin had added a piece of pertinent equipment to his attire—a psi recorder, disguised as a watch and fastened by a strap to his brawny wrist. Its complex energies registered as a very faint burring along Telzey’s nerves. She’d come across that particular type of instrument before. It was expensive, highly touted in deluxe gambling establishments and the like. It did, in fact, indicate any of the cruder manipulations of psi energy, which had earned it a reputation for reliability. One of its drawbacks was that it announced itself to sufficiently sensitive psis, a point of which the customers weren’t aware. And here it was no real threat to Telzey. The psi flows she used in investigative work were well below such a device’s registration levels.
Barrand and Nelt had showed up presently, bringing two stunning young women with them. The girls, to Telzey’s satisfaction, were gaily talkative creatures. Barrand was short, powerfully built. Nelt was short and wiry. Both had mind shields. Both wore psi recorders of the same type as Osselin’s, though theirs weren’t in sight. And like Osselin they were waiting for the tactile vibrations from the recorders which would tell them that psi was being used.
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