“Why should I help make you any tougher than you are?” Sams inquired.
She explained that Service operators had been giving her too much attention lately. She didn’t like the idea of having someone prying around her like that.
Sams grunted. He hated the Psychology Service.
“Been up to something they don’t approve of, eh?” he said. “All right. Let’s see if we can have a few surprises ready for them next time. You want to be able to spot them without letting them spot you, or send them home with lumps—that kind of thing?”
“That kind of thing,” Telzey agreed. “I particularly want to be able to work through my own screens. I’ve noticed you’re very good at that. The lumps could be sort of permanent, too!”
Sams looked briefly startled. “Getting rather ferocious, aren’t you?” He studied her. “Well, we’ll see how much you can handle. It can’t be done in an hour or two, you know. Drop in at the ranch early this weekend, and we’ll give it a couple of days. The house is psi-blocked, in case somebody comes snooping.”
He added, “I’ll behave. Word of honor! This will be business—if I can sharpen you up enough, you might be useful to me some day. Get a good night’s rest before you come. I’ll work you till you’re begging to quit.”
Work her relentlessly he did. Telzey didn’t ask for time out. She was being drilled through techniques it might have taken her months to develop by herself. They discovered she could handle them. Then something went wrong.
She didn’t know immediately what it was. She looked over at Sams.
He was smiling, a bit unpleasantly. “Controlled, aren’t you?”
Telzey felt a touch of apprehension. She considered. “Yes,” she said, “I am. I must be! But—”
She hesitated. Sams nodded. “You’ve been under control for the past half hour. You wouldn’t know it now if I hadn’t let you know it—and you still don’t understand how it’s being done, so there’s nothing you can do about it, is there?” He grinned suddenly, and Telzey felt the psi controls she hadn’t been able to sense till then release her.
“Just a demonstration, this time!” Sams said. “Don’t let yourself get caught again. Get a few hours’ sleep, and we’ll go on. You’re a good student.”
Around the middle of the second day, he said, “You’ve done fine! There really isn’t much more I can do for you. But now a special gimmick. I never expected to show it to anyone, but let’s see if you can work it. It takes plenty of coordination. Screens tight, both sides. You scan. If I spot you, you get jolted so hard your teeth rattle!”
After a few seconds, she said, “I’m there.”
Sams nodded.
“Good! I can’t tell it. Now I’ll leave you an opening, just a flash. You’re to try to catch it and slam me at the same instant.”
“Well, wait a moment!” Telzey said. “Supposing I don’t just try—I do it?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll block. Watch out for the counter!”
Sams’s screen opening flicked through her awareness five seconds later. She slammed. But, squeamishly perhaps, she held back somewhat on the bolt.
It took her an hour to bring Sams around. He sat up groggily at last.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Never mind. Good-bye! Go home. You’ve graduated. I’m a little sorry for the Service.”
Essentially, there were five things she’d been able to tell the Psychology Service about the mystery psis. They were associated with a crime ring and probably controlled it. Then they’d set a retired scientist, who had no conscious awareness of their existence, the task of developing psi machines for them. They used a psi beast to seek out and destroy people who might talk about them. Finally and most importantly perhaps, they might be a mutant strain. Telzey’s mental contact with them had been momentary, but she retained impressions of thought forms with a distinct quality she hadn’t sensed in human minds before.
A machine copied the impressions from her memory. They were analyzed, checked against Service files. They did have a distinct quality, and it was one which wasn’t on record. Special investigators with back-up teams began to scan Orado systematically, trying to tap an incautious mentality which might match the impressions, while local criminal organizations were scrutinized for indications of psi control. Neither approach produced results.
The Service went on giving Orado primary attention but extended its calculations next to the Hub worlds in general. There the sheer size of the Hub’s populations made difficulties immense. Psi machines were regarded by many as a coming thing; on a thousand worlds, great numbers of people currently were trying to develop designs which would really work. Another multitude was involved in organized crime. Eccentric forms of murder, including a variety which conceivably could have been carried out by Telzey’s psi beast, were hardly uncommon. Against such a background, the secretive psis might remain invisible indefinitely.
“Nevertheless,” Klayung, who was in charge of the Service operation, told Telzey, “we may be getting a pattern! It’s not too substantial, but it’s consistent. If it indicates what it seems to, the people you became involved with are neither a local group nor a small one. In fact, they appear to be distributed rather evenly about the more heavily populated Federation worlds.”
She didn’t like that. “What kind of pattern is it?”
“Violent death, without witnesses and of recurring specific types—types which could be explained by your teleporting animal. The beast kills but not in obvious beast manner. It remains under restraint. If, for example, it had been able to reach you in Melna Park, it might have broken your neck, dropped you out of your aircar, and vanished. Elsewhere it might have smothered or strangled you, suggesting a human assailant.
There are a number of variations repetitive enough to be included in the pattern. We’re trying to establish connections among the victims. So far we don’t have any. You remain our best lead.”
Telzey already had concluded that. There were no detectable signs, but she was closely watched, carefully guarded. If another creature like Bozo the Beast should materialize suddenly in her college bungalow while she was alone, it would be dead before it touched her. That was reassuring at present. But it didn’t solve the problem.
Evidence that the psis had found her developed within ten days. As Klayung described it, there was now a new kind of awareness of Telzey about Pehanron College, of her coming and going. Not among friends and acquaintances but among people she barely knew by sight, who, between them, were in a good position to tell approximately where she was, what she did, much of the time. Then there was the matter of the ComWebs. No attempt had been made to tamper with the instrument in her bungalow. But a number of other ComWebs responded whenever it was switched on; and her conversations were monitored.
“These people aren’t controlled in the ordinary sense,” Klayung remarked. “They’ve been given a very few specific instructions, carry them out, and don’t know they’re doing it. They have no conscious interest in you. And they haven’t been touched in any other way. All have wide-open minds. Somebody presumably scans those minds periodically for information. He hasn’t been caught at it. Whoever arranged this is a highly skilled operator. It’s an interesting contrast to that first, rather crude, trap prepared for you.”
“That one nearly worked,” Telzey said thoughtfully. “Nobody’s tried to probe me here—I’ve been waiting for it. They know who I am, and they must be pretty sure I’m the one who did away with Bozo. You think they suspect I’m being watched?”
“I’d suspect it in their place,” Klayung said. “They know who you are—not what you are. Possibly a highly talented junior Service operator. We’re covered, I think. But I’d smell a trap. We have to assume that whoever is handling the matter on their side also smells a trap.”
“Then what’s going to happen?” Klayung shrugged.
“I know it isn’t pleasant, Telzey, but it’s a waiting game here—unless th
ey make a move. They may not do it. They may simply fade away again.”
She made a small grimace. “That’s what I’m afraid of!”
“I know. But we’re working on other approaches. They’ve been able to keep out of our way so far. But we’re aware of them now—we’ll be watching for slips, and sooner or later we’ll pick up a line to them.” Sooner or later! She didn’t like it at all! She’d become a pawn. A well-protected one—but one with no scrap of privacy left, under scrutiny from two directions. She didn’t blame Klayung or the Service. For them, this was one problem among very many they had to handle, always short of sufficiently skilled personnel, always trying to recruit any psi of the slightest usable ability who was willing to be recruited. She was one of those who hadn’t been willing, not wanting the restrictions it would place on her. She couldn’t complain.
But she couldn’t accept the situation either. It had to be resolved.
Somehow . . .
II
“What do you know about Tinokti?” Klayung asked.
“Tinokti?” Telzey had been transferred from the car that picked her up in Beale to a small space cruiser standing off Orado. She, Klayung, and the car driver seemed to be the only people aboard. “I haven’t been there, and I haven’t made a special study of it.” She reflected. “Nineteen hours liner time from Orado. Rather dense population. High living standards. World-wide portal circuit system—the most involved in the Federation. A social caste system that’s also pretty involved. Government by syndicate—a scientific body, the Tongi Phon. Corrupt, but they have plenty of popular support. As scientists they’re supposed to be outstanding in a number of fields. That’s it, mainly. Is it enough?”
Klayung nodded. “For now. I’ll fill you in. The Tongi Phon’s not partial to the Service. They’ve been working hard at developing a psi technology of their own. They’ve got further than most, but still not very far. Their approach is much too conservative-paradoxes disturb them. But they’ve learned enough to be aware of a number of possibilities. That’s made them suspicious of us.”
“Well, they might have a good deal to hide,” Telzey said.
“Definitely. They do what they can to limit our activities. A majority of the commercial and private circuits are psi-blocked, as a result of a carefully underplayed campaign of psi and psi machine scares. The Tongi Phon Institute is blocked, of course; the Phons wear mind shields. Tinokti, in general, presents extraordinary operational difficulties. So it was something of a surprise when we got a request for help today from the Tongi Phon.”
“Help in what?” Telzey asked.
“Four high-ranking Phons,” Klayung explained, “were found dead together in a locked and guarded vault area at the Institute. Their necks had been broken and the backs of the skulls caved in—in each case apparently by a single violent blow. The bodies showed bruises but no other significant damage.”
She said after a moment, “Did the Institute find out anything?”
“Yes. The investigators assumed at first a temporary portal had been set up secretly to the vault. But there should have been residual portal energy detectable, and there wasn’t. They did establish then that a life form of unknown type had been present at the time of the killings. Estimated body weight close to seven hundred pounds.”
Telzey nodded. “That was one of Bozo’s relatives, all right!”
“We can assume it. The vault area was psi-blocked. So that’s no obstacle to them. The Phons are badly frightened. Political assassinations are no novelty at the Institute, but here all factions lost leading members. Nobody feels safe. They don’t know the source of the threat or the reason for it, but they’ve decided psi may have been involved. Within limits, they’re willing to cooperate with the Service.”
He added, “As it happens, we’d already been giving Tinokti special attention. It’s one of perhaps a dozen Hub worlds where a secret psi organization would find almost ideal conditions. Since they’ve demonstrated an interest in psi machines, the Institute’s intensive work in the area should be a further attraction. Mind shields or not, it wouldn’t be surprising to discover the psis have been following that project for some time. So the Service will move to Tinokti in strength. If we can trap a sizable nest, it might be a long step toward rounding up the lot wherever they’re hiding.”
Klayung regarded Telzey a moment.
“Because of its nature,” he remarked, “this isn’t technically even a classified operation. It’s one that has no official existence. It isn’t happening. After it’s over with, it won’t have happened.”
Telzey said, “You’ve told me because you want me to go to Tinokti?”
“Yes. We should be able to make very good use of you. The fact that you’re sensitized to the psi’s mind type gives you an advantage over our operators. And your sudden interest in Tinokti after what’s occurred might stimulate some reaction from the local group.”
“I’ll be bait?” Telzey said.
“In part. Our moment to moment tactics will depend on developments, of course.”
She nodded. “Well, I’m bait here, and I want them off my neck. What will the arrangement be?”
“You’re making the arrangement,” Klayung told her. “A psi arrangement, to keep you in character—the junior Service operator who’s maintaining her well-established cover as a law student. You’ll have Pehanron assign you to a field trip to Tinokti to do a paper on the legalistic aspects of the Tongi Phon government.”
“It’ll have to be cleared with the Institute,” Telzey said.
“We’ll take care of that.”
“All right.” She considered. “I may have to work on three or four minds. When do I leave?”
“A week from today.”
Telzey nodded. “That’s no problem then. There’s one thing . . .”
“Yes?”
“The psis have been so careful not to give themselves away here. Why should they create an obvious mystery on Tinokti?”
Klayung said, “I’m wondering. There may be something the Phons haven’t told us. However, the supposition at present is that the beast failed to follow its instructions exactly—as the creatures may, in fact, have done on other occasions with less revealing results. You had the impression that Bozo wasn’t too intelligent.”
“Yes, I did,” Telzey said. “But it doesn’t seem very intelligent either to use an animal like that where something could go seriously wrong, as it certainly might in a place like the Institute. Particularly when they still haven’t found out what happened to their other psi beast on Orado.”
What were they?
Telzey had fed questions to information centers. Reports about psi mutant strains weren’t uncommon, but one had to go a long way back to find something like confirming evidence. She condensed the information she obtained, gave it, combined with her own recent experiences, to Pehanron’s probability computer to digest. The machine stated that she was dealing with descendants of the historical mind masters of Nalakia, the Elaigar.
She mentioned it to Klayung. He wasn’t surprised. The Service’s probability computers concurred.
“But that’s impossible!” Telzey said, startled. The information centers had provided her with a great deal of material on the Elaigar. “If the records are right, they averaged out at more than five hundred pounds. Besides, they looked like ogres! How could someone like that be moving around in a Hub city without being noticed?”
Klayung said they wouldn’t necessarily have to let themselves be seen, at least not by people who could talk about them. If they’d returned to the Hub from some other galactic section, they might have set up bases on unused nonoxygen worlds a few hours from their points of operation, almost safe from detection so long as their presence wasn’t suspected. He wasn’t discounting the possibility.
Telzey, going over the material again later, found that she didn’t much care for the possibility. The Elaigar belonged to the Hub’s early colonial period. They’d been physical giants with p
si minds, a biostructure believed to be of human origin, developed by a science-based cult called the Grisands, which had moved out from the Old Territory not long before and established itself in a stronghold on Nalakia. In the Grisand idiom, Elaigar meant the Lion People. It suggested what the Grisands intended to achieve—a controlled formidable strain through which they could dominate the other humans on Nalakia and on neighboring colony worlds. But they lost command of their creation. The Elaigar turned on them, and the Grisands died in the ruins of their stronghold. Then the Elaigar set out on conquests of their own.
Apparently they’d been the terrors of that area of space for a number of years, taking over one colony after another. The humans they met and didn’t kill were mentally enslaved and thereafter lived to serve them. Eventually, war fleets were assembled in other parts of the Hub; and the prowess of the Elaigar proved to be no match for superior space firepower. The survivors among them fled in ships crewed by their slaves and hadn’t been heard from again.
Visual reproductions of a few of the slain mutants were included in the data Telzey had gathered. There hadn’t been many available. The Hub’s War Centuries lay between that time and her own; most of the colonial period’s records had been destroyed or lost. Even dead and seen in the faded recordings, the Elaigar appeared as alarming as their reputation had been. There were a variety of giant strains in the Hub, but most of them looked reasonably human. The Elaigar seemed a different species. The massive bodies were like those of powerful animals, and the broad hairless faces brought to mind the faces of great cats.
But human the prototype must have been, Telzey thought—if it was
Elaigar she’d met briefly on the psi level in Orado’s Melna Park. The basic human mental patterns were discernible in the thought forms she’d registered. What was different might fit these images of the Nalakian mind masters and their brief, bloody Hub history. Klayung could be right.
“Well, just be sure,” Jessamine Amberdon commented when Telzey informed her parents by ComWeb one evening that she’d be off on a field assignment to Tinokti next day, “that you’re back ten days from now.”
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 234