Telempath

by Spider Robinson

  “And their chances of surviving?”

  “I believe excellent. No Musky with whom I’ve ‘spoken’ has displayed the slightest aggression. I don’t know what goes on in whatever they use for heads, but apparently the ability to communicate is enough to raise you from the class of ‘them damn crazy vermin’ to ‘potential people.’ I can’t say I’ve ever really communicated with them—half the time both sides get confused as hell—but we always part amicably. Our ambassadors may be a long time getting understood, but they’ll be safe enough while they’re trying. They might even be able to get an interim cease-fire in Fresh Start and surrounding areas.”

  I paused, took a deep breath and looked carefully at all three. “So there you go, people. There’s the story, there’s the chance of peace and the hope of the race. What do you say to a way to end the War and give the survivors—for the first time in history—clean technology, not to mention a new and rich culture to exchange with and learn from? The Muskies are an ancient and wise people who never knew war until men taught it to them—let’s make peace with them and get on with the business of rebuilding the world. What do you say?”

  And so it was all said, and I shut up to give them time to think it over. In the sudden silence, I saw Dalhousie’s features go slack again, a sure sign that he was thinking at full speed. Phinney was frowning furiously, chewing hell out of a good lipstick job and drumming silver fingernails on the tabletop. Krishnamurti stared with a fixed intensity at that same tabletop, as if fascinated by the interplay of grain on its surface.

  It was the noisiest silence I ever heard.

  And while I was supposed to be studying my inquisitors, I found myself distracted by my own thoughts and emotions. The sincerity in my last words astonished me. To be sure, my life literally depended on the Council’s decision—but I was startled to discover the priority that had in my feelings. With something like shock I discovered that ending the War was more important to me than my personal survival, that I would willingly die to bring about peace. The suspense I felt in regarding my inquisitors was not for myself alone but for my people, for the idea of humankind. For someone like me it was a hell of a realization. I wouldn’t have been willing to die to kill Wendell Carlson, back when that seemed the prime motivation of my life—I undertook the task because I believed I could do it. Hara-kiri’s not my style—or at least, it hadn’t been. Altruism at your age, old son? You’ve been hanging around Wendell too long.

  Or maybe just long enough?

  I yanked my attention back to the tactical situation, confused and off-balance. Krishnamurti was looking directly into my eyes, and I started.

  “A very good try, Isham,” he said slowly, and my heart sank. “It very nearly worked. Your story has a kind of internal consistency which belies its basic absurdity. But it won’t wash.”

  Dalhousie had been ready to agree; he back-pedaled mentally. “What are you saying, Sarwar?”

  Krishnamurti smiled for the first time that morning. “Come now, George. You haven’t been taken in by this ridiculous story? Use Occam’s Razor, for heaven’s sake. Isham here is sent to New York to execute Carlson. He returns, admitting that he failed and was held prisoner for an indefinite time by Carlson and his Musky friends, admitting that they drugged him, and the first thing he does is to murder his father. He flees back to his alien companions and the exiled renegade, and is brought back here only by force, over Musky opposition from what Collaci told me last night. In defense of all this he claims that Jacob was a madman, Carlson is a saint, and the Muskies are misunderstood creatures with whom we picked a fight. He advises that we drop our defenses and make a peace which will in one stroke solve all the problems of mankind. Isn’t it obvious he’s been brainwashed in some way by Wendell Carlson? Isn’t it obvious that he is a tool in that psychopath’s plan to destroy his own kind, a plan that began eighteen years ago and is not yet complete?”

  “But…” George began.

  “Think, man,” Krishnamurti pushed on, with just a bit too much determination for a man interested in examining a question fairly. “Think. Did you really believe the tape that Isham left behind after he murdered Jacob? Do you believe that Jacob Stone, who built Fresh Start with his own two hands, was the madman, and a bearded hermit in New York the savior of mankind? Do you—?”

  “It’s true,” I said flatly, hopelessly. “Guilt built Fresh Start. Dad’s guilt. And Wendell’s may yet save it.”

  “A good try indeed, Isham. I wish we could take the time to reverse your brainwashing and return you to sanity. I really do; I’ve always rather liked you. But it is a matter of urgent political necessity that we execute you at once.” His lips curled up in the ghost of a sad smile. “Perhaps it is as well. If I had murdered the most loved and needed man in the world, I would rather die convinced my action was correct.”

  “I would rather,” Phinney said icily, “that he die in full knowledge of his crime.”

  “Now, Helen,” Krishnamurti soothed, “vengeance is pointless; if Jacob had realized that, he might be alive today. Reparation will do quite nicely. Let’s patch up the mess his death caused and get on with the job.”

  “Get Collaci in here,” I said suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “I want him for a witness.”

  Krishnamurti frowned. “I see no useful purpose…”

  “You’re going to take my life and I don’t get to call a single witness?”

  This time it was Dalhousie who spoke. “Dammit, we’re dragging this out. We’ve heard what he has to say, Sarwar, and we know what we have to do. Let’s finish up.”

  Krishnamurti nodded. “Isham Stone,” he began formally, “You have been tried for the murder of Jacob Stone and found…”

  “Excuse me,” I said. No point in yelling “Hey rube,” with the door closed the room was soundproof. I rose, turned my back on them and grasped my chair with my only hand. I came around fast, whipping the chair like a flail and letting it go at once. It cleared Krishnamurti’s head by three inches, so quickly he never had time to duck, and shattered the picture window. As glass exploded out into the garden I continued my pivot, springing headlong toward the library door. It opened as I was in mid-air, the two Guards spilling into the room with rifles at the ready. But I was already between the jutting barrels, clamping one head under my stump and slapping the other into it savagely. The impact carried all three of us out into the hall, where we landed in a heap. The Guards stayed down. I was up at once, my hand prominently empty.

  Collaci came through the shattered window in a ball, rolling as he hit the floor. He finished on his feet half-shielded by a bookshelf, and if I’d even looked like having a weapon the machine pistol in his hand would already have cut me in half. I grinned at him.

  “Hiya, Teach’. I wanted you here, and they wouldn’t call you.”

  He nodded. “So you did. You always did have a weakness for histrionics, son.” He turned to Krishnamurti, who still sat frozen in the same position he’d held when the chair whistled past his ear. “Not trying to shut me out, are you, Krish?”

  Krishnamurti began furious denials, and my grin widened. My primary purpose in summoning Teach’ was already fulfilled—he’d listen to the “trial”-transcript tape now if he had to steal it, and perhaps he’d have brains enough to see that my proposal was logical and necessary. “What do you want, Isham?” he asked, cutting off Krishnamurti’s excuses, and I went on to my secondary purpose—the faint hope that I might still reach the Council.

  “I want to ask you a question, Teach’, a question neither Dad nor these three would ever have asked, even of themselves. In your professional opinion as Chief of the Guard, as a Musky-fighter of twenty years’ experience, how much longer will the human race survive if the War continues?”

  He was startled, but he didn’t need to make any calculations. His eyes got hard and cold, and his voice came out like a computer-construct. “Without a major breakthrough in long-range detection and destruction, a ma
ximum of ten to twelve years.”

  Dalhousie and Phinney paled, but I could see Krishnamurti deciding to disbelieve. No good—for now, at any rate. “I advise negotiation, folks,” I said, and gave up. I’d done my best. I could only hope they’d think over what I’d said.

  “Take this man away and guard him well,” Krishnamurti snapped at Collaci. “He stands condemned. Execution will be tomorrow at dawn in front of the Gate. Don’t allow him to speak with anyone—at all.”

  Teach’ looked at him for a long time, no readable expression on his face. “You’re the boss,” he said at last, and waved the machine pistol at me. “Let’s go, son.”

  “Sure thing,” I agreed, and we started for the door. As we reached it, a thought struck me and I turned, slowly enough to avoid startling Collaci’s trigger finger.

  “Helen,” I said softly, and she looked up in surprise. “I’m sorry, Aunt Helen.” I wasn’t entirely sure what I meant—but I meant it.

  She bit her lip. “Go away, Isham.”

  I nodded and left the Council behind, heading for the light of day. I hoped Teach’ had a joint on him. I needed one.

  Chapter Ten

  There was a terrible hollow-gut feeling in me as I left Gowan’s house. Very little of it had to do with the awareness of mortal danger. The largest element was ego-bruise. People who knew me had ordered my death. Hell, they were practically my aunts and uncles—they’d watched me grow up. They say an impersonal killer is a terrible thing—Collaci makes a lot of folks uneasy. But as we walked through the cool quiet of the West Forest I reflected that personal involvement doesn’t make killing much prettier. A vagrant flutter of thought began: Who are you to talk? but something smothered it before it really came to my attention. My limp increased.

  Collaci took his instructions literally. Krishnamurti had said “Let him see no one,” and Teach’ did his level best. We collected two entirely trigger-happy Guards outside the house and, rather than going straight to West Avenue and through the heart of Northtown, Teach’ led us through the forest, around behind his own house, turned east past Dalhousie’s place and brought us out of the forest at the big intersection of the Loop with South and West Avenues. At that hour it was deserted—the herd going to work had passed nearly an hour ago. I heard the truck in the distance, but it was heading away from us.

  Where we stood the huge granite foot of the Nose took a big bite out of the southern sky (if you’ll pardon a triply-mixed metaphor); beyond it, downwind of course, lay the factory-lab complex of Southtown. In that complex the bulk of Fresh Start’s population were now hard at work rebuilding the world—or trying to. I felt sudden kinship with them, and fear for them.

  To our left, the two-story bulk of the Tool Shed cut us off from the view of any slugabeds in the dorms of Northtown. The Shed is an immense brick warehouse in which virtually all precious and irreplaceable scientific equipment and tools are stored when not in use—everything from titration flasks and microscopes to metric wrenches and thermocouples. Given the universal antipathy toward cities and other Pre-Exodus centers of civilization, those tools are just too precious to risk. The Shed has a small stockade on its flat, high roof, from which a Guard with some excellent firepower was regarding us with a bored eye. Another sign of unrest in the kingdom. The building had survived countless Agro raids in the old days, but it had not been deemed necessary to man the battlements for years now. It gave me a hell of an idea.

  The trigger-happy Guards actually made it easier. As I was trying to work out a plausible approach, I stepped quite accidentally in a pothole. With a small cry of genuine fear, I went down heavily. Knowing the Guards were on edge, I rolled sideways as I hit, which would have been fine except that Collaci also knew his men were edgy and struck both their gun barrels aside as I went down. One flailing barrel tracked me as I tumbled, and a slug smacked into the earth by my head. I lay still, oh very still, and blinked at Teach’.

  “You didn’t think I’d let these clowns shoot me?” I asked plaintively.

  “You didn’t think I’d let them?” he returned sourly, and glared at his men. “Come on, son. On your feet.”

  I got up, limped tenderly off the road and sat down in the shade, next to a bracing strut of the right-hand loading dock.

  Collaci looked disgusted. “Isham…”

  “Teach’,” I broke in wearily, “you can pick me up and carry me the last couple of hundred yards, or you can wait two minutes while I get my breath back. Besides, I think my heel is coming off.”

  He sighed, and turned to the ape who’d nearly shot me. “Go to the Hospital and have a paramedic sent to Gowan’s home—Cole and Jalecki’ll be needing skull transplants. Then go on home and get some sleep.” The man turned to go at once, mortally embarrassed. “Andrews.” He turned back. “Your reaction time is commendable. But next time just kick his teeth in—it’s not such a final mistake.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get.” Teach’ came and sat near me, sitting with instinctive caution on my armless side. My idea was taking shape. A flat stone under my right thigh decided me. I shifted slightly so that the stone was between my legs, then pulled my left foot up on my lap with a great show of weariness.

  “Feet hurt,” I wheezed, and examined the shoe mournfully. The heel was indeed coming off—I decided I was a hot-damn commando but a terrible cobbler. “Now I’ve gotta walk around like a duck.” I worked the heel the rest of the way off.

  “Not much further.”

  “You know, Teach’, a few months ago I’d have been good and pissed off at old Andrews there. But I did a very similar thing myself in New York when I first arrived.” I inspected the heel and its protruding nails disgustedly, and dropped it in my lap. It slid to the ground between my thighs. “It’s not good to think with your adrenals—but sometimes you can’t help yourself.” I gazed at the mountain, and shielded my eyes against the sun. “Got a joint?”

  “Smoking a lot lately,” he said, lighting and passing a rather large doobie.

  “Only when I get uptight.” I took a deep hit, carbureting with air, and passed it back.

  “Ride your nervous system,” Collaci advised. “Don’t let it ride you.”

  I exploded. It was easy—I actually was a bit uptight. “God DAMMIT,” I bellowed, “I have lost an arm, killed my father, found out that my best friends on earth are Wendell Carlson and the Muskies, been busted and dragged a couple hundred miles, been condemned to death by my aunts and uncles, and my fucking heel has come off!” I reached between my legs, grabbed the flat rock and hurled it at the mountain. “I don’t need a laconic flatfoot telling me to stay on top of things!”

  It was a critical moment. I had no idea how closely the stone resembled a broken-off heel—for all I knew it was bright blue—nor could I sneak a glance as I flung it. I used my eyes to hold Collaci’s—but what about the remaining Guard?

  At any rate, my aim was good. Instead of landing on rock, where it would have made the wrong sound, the stone landed in a patch of scrub grass where it made no appreciable sound at all. “…See?” I finished, hoping he didn’t.

  He looked at me evenly, not speaking, and I flushed convincingly. He passed me the joint. I took another toke and stared at the ground.

  “I think you’ve got your breath back, son,” he said finally, and rose, unholstering his pistol. I made a song and dance out of getting to my feet, managing to palm the heel and slap it against the underside of the loading dock without being seen—difficult without another hand to misdirect with. To my intense relief the nails sank relatively silently into the big platform, nothing shuffling my feet couldn’t cover. The heel remained when I took my hand away, visible only to a man lying full-length under the loading dock.

  Since all this involved leaving the joint hanging from my mouth, I took another huge hit. Then, under the prodding of Teach’s gun, I started walking east again, straining to still look harassed when I felt triumphant. Trying to walk with one leg stiff and the other missi
ng a heel supplied the necessary irritation—a double limp that wasted energy and slowed me up enough to keep Collaci chivvying me to hurry. We passed the empty athletic field, the Pantry (an enormous food warehouse bursting with fruits, grains and vegetables), and finally the Hospital, just short of the mouth of the Linkin’ Tunnel. It was there that Teach’s luck ran out.

  Three people stood just inside the Hospital door, two visiting farmers and a Techno woman. Since the Hospital must always be well ventilated, the door was naturally open, and they saw us at once.

  I guess there just aren’t too many one-armed black men around—they recognized me, and their conversational buzz died as though the needle had been lifted off the record. There went the secrecy—for efficient information dispersal, you just can’t beat idle chatter.

  I felt a brief impulse to shout out the results of my trial, and I believe if I had been acquainted with any of the loitering three I would have. Even less than I liked the idea of my execution did I like the idea of a lid on it. Let the people know the truth.

  But I reflected, and the impulse passed. An informed populace would be no help to me in the next twenty-four hours, and a pissed-off Collaci would actively hamper me. The hell with the people. Hi there. Just out for a walk with my good friend Teach’, and this gorilla here kindly consented to carry my bazooka for me. Say, have you seen my keen new stump? I gave the three what I hoped was an enigmatic smile and passed on. Collaci said nothing, but the idlers scattered when they saw his face.

  On the opposite corner of Main, beyond the tunnel, stood Security Headquarters, a rather small sturdy ferrocement building colloquially known as “the cop on the corner.” Directly across South Avenue, to our right, a wooden stairway led up the steep slope of the Nose to a heaped-rock emplacement on the north face. From this bunker embrasures ran in either direction, disappearing almost at once among the rocks—Line Two, Fresh Start’s second line of defense. Any Musky raiding party that gets past the armed men at Line One (between Northtown and the Lake) runs into more sharpshooters and a wall of alcohol-jet flame when it reaches the Nose—only rare individual Muskies ever threaten the dozens working, plugged, in Southtown.