Psi-High and Others (Ace G-730)

by Alan E Nourse

  XIV

  Febhuahy 15, 2135.

  The day of the Hearings, to consider the charges and petition formally placed before the Senate by The Honorable Daniel Fowler, Independent Senator from the great state of Illinois. The long oval hearing room was filling early; the gallery above was packed by 9:05 in the morning. TV boys all over the place. The Criterion Committee members, taking their places in twos and threes, some old, some young, some rejuvenated, some not, sitting down at one end of the oval. Then the other senators—not the President, of course, but he’ll be well represented by Senator Rinehart himself, ah yes. Don’t worry about the President

  Bad news in the papers. Trouble in New Chicago, where so much trouble seems to start these days. Bomb thrown into the lobby of the Hoffman Medical Center out there, a bomb of all things! Shades of Lenin. Couple of people killed, and one of the doctors nearly beaten to death on the street before the police arrived to clear the mob away. Dan Fowler’s name popping up here and there, not pleasantly. Whispers and accusations, sotto voce. And “Moses” Tyndall’s network hookup last night—of course nobody with any sense listens to him, but did you hear that hall go wild?

  Rinehart—yes, that’s him. Well, he’s got a right to look

  worried. If Dan can unseat him here and now, he's washed up. According to the rules of the government, you know, Fowler can legally petition for Rinehart’s chairmanship without risking it as a platform plank in the next election, and then if the Senate votes him in after the Hearings, he’s got the election made. Dan’s smart. They’re scared to throw old Rinehart out, of course. After all, he's let them keep their thumbs on rejuvenation all these years with his criteria, and if they supported him they got named, and if they didn’t, they didn’t get named. Not as simple as that, of course, but that's what it boiled down to, let me tell youl But now, if they reject Dan’s petition and the people give him the election over their heads, they’re really in a spot Dan wants that chairmanship—

  How’s that? Can’t be too long now. Look there, Tyndall just came in, Bible and alll Let’s see if he’s got any tomatoes in his pockets. Ol’ “Moses” really gets you going—ever listen to him talk? Well, it's just as well. Damn, but it’s hot in herein the rear chamber, Dan mopped his brow, popped a pill under his tongue, puffed savagely on the long black cigar. “You with me, lad?”

  Carl nodded.

  “You know what it means.”

  “I don’t care what it means. I'm with you. There's youi buzzer, better get in there.” Carl turned back to Jean and the others around the 80-inch screen, set deep in the wall. Dan put his cigar down, gently, as though he planned to be back to smoke it again before it went out, and then walked through the tall oak doors.

  The murmur in the gallery above rose to a roar of applause as he was recognized, and suddenly someone was on his feet, and then another, and the whole gallery rose in a standing ovation. Dan waved and took his seat, grinned across at Senator Libby, leaned his head over to drop an aside into Parker’s ear. Rinehart sat with a face of stone as the applause died and a gavel banged and the president of the Senate said, “Will the clerk please read the charges and petition that concern this chamber this morning,” and then the charges, read off in a droning nasal voice-

  —Whereas the criteria for selection of candidates for subtotal prosthesis, first written by the Honorable Walter Rinehart, senator from the great state of Alaska, have been found to be inadequate, outdated, and utterly inappropriate to the use of this life-sustaining technique that is now possible—

  —And whereas that same Honorable Walter Rinehart has repeatedly used these criteria, not in the just, honorable, and humble way in which such criteria must be regarded, but rather as a tool and weapon for his own furtherance and for that of his friends and associates—

  Dan waited, patiently, as the voice droned on. Was Rinehart’s face whiter than before? Was the hall quieter now? Maybe not, but wait for the petition—

  —The Senate of the United States of North America is formally petitioned that the Honorable Walter Rinehart should be dismissed from his seat as chairman of the Criterion Committee, and that his seat should be yielded to the Honorable Daniel Fowler, senator from the great state of Illinois and author of this petition, who has pledged himself before God to seek, through this committee in any and every way possible, the extension of the benefits of subtotal prosthesis to all the people of this land and not to a chosen few—

  Screams, hoots, catcalls', wild applause, all from the gallery. None below—senatorial dignity forbade. And then Dan Fowler stood up (an older Dan Fowler than most of them seemed to remember) and requested the floor. And they listened, incredulous, as the familiar, rasping voice rose in the hall: "You have all heard the charges which have been read. I now stand before you, formally, in order to withdraw them.”

  Slowly then, measuring every word, he told them. He knew that words were not enough, but he told them. “Only 70,000 men and women have undergone the process, at this date, out of over five hundred million people on this continent, yet already it has begun to sap our strength. We were told that no changes were involved, and indeed we saw no changes, but changes were there. The suicides of men like Kenneth Armstrong did not j’ust happen. There are many reasons that might lead a man to take his life in this world of ours—selfishness, self-pity, hatred of the world or of himself, guilt, bitterness, resentment—but it was none of these that motivated Kenneth Armstrong. His death was the act of a bewildered, defeated mind, for he saw what I am telling you now and knew that it was true. He saw Starships built and rebuilt, and never launched. He saw colonies dying of lethargy, because there was no longer any drive behind them. He saw brilliant minds losing sight of goals and drifting into endless inconsequential digressions, lifetimes wasted in repetition, in re-doing and re-writing and re-living. He saw what I too can see: a vicious downward spiral which can only lead to death for all of us in the last days.

  ‘That is why I withdraw the charges and petition of this Hearing. This is
  XV

  It seemed there would be no end to it, when Dan Fowler had finished. “Moses” Tyndall sat staring as the blood drained out of his sallow face; his jaw gaped, and he halfrose from his chair, then sank back with a ragged cough, staring at the senator as if Dan had been transformed into a snake. Carl and Terry were beside Dan in a moment, clearing a way back to the rear chambers, then down the steps of the building to a cab. Senator Libby intercepted them there, his face purple with rage, Dwight MacKenzie, bristling and indignant, in his wake. “You’ve lost your mind, Dan, you’ve simply—”

  “I have not. I am perfectly sane.”

  “But Tyndall! He’ll turn Washington into a grand revival meeting, he’ll—

  “Then we’ll cut him down to size. He’s my candidate, remember. He’ll play my game if it pays him well enough. But I want an Abolitionist administration, and I’m going to have one.”

  Libby was shaking his head. “There isn’t a sane man in the country who’ll support you. You’ll be whipped so badly you’ll never win another election.”

  Dan ground out his cigar under his heel, and started down the steps. “Fine. Then I’ll fight it after I’m beaten. And when it comes to a fight, I’m no slouch.”

  In the cab he stared glumly out the window, his heart racing,' his whole body shaking in reaction now. “You know what it means,” he said to Carl for the tenth time.

  “Yes, Dan, I know.”

  “It means no rejuvenation, for you or for any of us. It means proving something to people that they just don’t want to believe, it means cramming it down their
throats if we have to. It means taking away their right to keep on living.” “I know all that.”

  “Carl, if you want out, you, or anybody, now’s the time.” “Correction. Yesterday was the time.”

  “Okay then. We’ve got work to do.”

  XVI

  Up in the offices again. Dan was on the phone immediately. He knew politics, and people, like the jungle cat knows the whimpering creatures he stalks. He knew that it was the first impact, the first jolting blow that would win for them. Everything had to hit right. He had spent his life working with people, building friends, building power, banking his resources, investing himself. Now the time had come to cash in his investment.

  Carl and Jean and the others worked with him—a dreadful afternoon and evening, fighting off the newsmen, blocking phone calls, trying to concentrate in the midst of bedlam. They labored to set up a work schedule, listing names, outlining telegrams, drinking coffee, as Dan swore at his dead cigar like old times once again, and grinned like a madman as the plans slowly developed and blossomed. The snowball was rolling.

  Then the phone jangled, and Dan reached out for it, and it was that last small effort that did it. A sledge-hammer blow, from deep within him, sharp agonizing pain, a driving hunger for the air that he just couldn’t pull into his lungs. He let out a small, sharp cry, and doubled over with pain. They found him seconds later, still clinging to the phone, his breath so faint as to be no breath at all.

  He regained consciousness hours later. He stared about him at the straight lines of the ceiling, at the hospital bed and the hospital window. Dimly he saw Carl Golden, head drooping on his chest, dozing at the side of the bed.

  There was a hissing sound, and he raised a hand, felt the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. Even with that help, every breath was an agony of pain and weariness.

  He was so very tired. But slowly, through the fog, he remembered. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, drenched his body. He was alive. Yet he remembered clearly the thought that had exploded in his mind in the instant the blow had come. I’m dying. This is the end—it’s too late now. And then, cruelly, Why did 1 wait so long?

  He struggled against the mask, sat bolt upright in bed. “I’m going to die,” he whispered, then caught his breath. Carl sat up, smiled at him.

  “Lie back, Dan. Get some rest.”

  Had he heard? Had Carl heard the fear he had whispered? Perhaps not. He lay back, panting, as Carl watched. Do you know what I’m thinking, Carl? I’m thinking how much I want to live. People don’t need to die—wasn’t that what Dr. Moss had said? It’s such a terrible waste, he had said.

  Too late, now. Dan’s hands trembled. He remembered the senators in the oval hall, the people in the gallery, the brave words he had shouted. He remembered Rinehart’s face, and Tyndall’s, and Libby’s. He was committed now. Yesterday, no. Now, yes.

  Paul had been right, and Dan had proved it.

  His eyes moved across to the bedside table. A telephone. He was still alive, Moss had said that sometimes it was possible even when you were dying. That was what they did with your father, wasn’t it, Carl? Brave Peter Golden, who had fought Rinehart so hard, who had begged and pleaded for universal rejuvenation, waited and watched to catch Rinehart red-handed, to prove that he was corrupting the law and expose him. Simple, honest Peter Golden, applying so naively for his rightful place on the list, when his cancer was diagnosed. And then the auto accident, never definitely linked to Rinehart, but no real accident either. Peter Golden had been all but dead when he had finally whispered his defeat, begging for help and giving Rinehart his pledge of perpetual silence in return for life. They had snatched him from death, indeed. But he had been crucified all the same. The life they had given him had been a living death, which was why in just a few short months he had quietly withdrawn and curled up and died once and for all, in spite of his rejuvenation, loathing himself for his betrayal of all he believed in. And you watched it all, didn’t you, Carl? You and your mother watched him die, inch by inch, and couldn’t find a way to help him. Rinehart had stripped him of everything and found a coward and traitor underneath.

  Coward? Why? Was it wrong to want to live? Dan Fowler was dying. Why must it be he? He had committed himself to a fight, yes, but there were others, young men, who could fight. Men like Peter Golden’s son.

  But you’re their leader, Dan. If you fail them, they wiQ never win.

  Carl was watching him silently, his lean dark face expressionless. Could the boy read his mind? Was it possible that he knew what Dan Fowler was thinking? Carl had understood before. It had seemed sometimes that Carl understood Dan far better than Dan did. He wanted to cry out to Carl now, spill over his dreadful thoughts, but he knew he could not do it.

  There was no one to run to. He was facing himself now. No more cover-up, no deceit. Life or death, that was the choice. No compromise. Life or death, but decide now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not in five minutes—

  Now.

  And there was the flaw, the one thing that even Paul hadn’t known, perhaps the universal flaw: that given the choice, a man will choose life. That life is too dear, that a man loves life—not what he can do with life, but life itself for its own sake—too much to choose to die. There was no choice, not really. A man will always choose life, as long as the choice is really his. Dan Fowler knew that now.

  It would be selling himself, as Peter Golden did. It would betray Carl, and Jean, and all the rest. It would mean derision, and scom, and oblivion for Dan Fowler.

  Sorry. But that was the way it had to be—

  Had to be?

  The pain began again in his chest.

  He looked at the telephone on the bedside stand. An easy aim’s length away. Reach out, pick up the receiver, a single call to Dr. Moss. So easy—

  As easy as crossing back across the gulf from Death. That flaw—universal? Maybe not. There were others, throughout history, who had chosen the other path when the cause was great enough. Martyrs, all of them. But what comfort to be a living traitor?

  He looked again at the telephone as the pain swelled up, almost overwhelmed him. His hand moved toward it, almost involuntarily. “Carl. Carl! Help mel Hold my hand backl”

  "Gently, Dan.” Carl held his hand.

  "You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I know. But I don’t need to hold your hand, do I? Not yours—”

  The pain swept higher and this time did not stop. “No, lad, not mine,” Dan breathed, as Carl felt the tension in his arm relax, and his hand go limp. And in the last flickering instant before the darkness, “Thank you, lad.”

  XVII

  Jean Fowler came into the room moments later as Carl Golden wept, silently and fearlessly. She stared ;it Dan, gray on the bed, and then at Carl. One look at Carl’s face and she knew too.

  Carl nodded slowly. "I’m sorry, Jean.”

  She shook her head, tears welling up. “But you loved him so.”

  “More than my own father.”

  “Then why didn’t you make him call?”

  “He wanted to be immortal. Always, that drove him. Greatness, power, all the same. Now he will be immortal, because he knew we needed a martyr in order to win. Now we will win. The other way, he knew we would surely lose, and he would live on and on and on and die every day.” He turned slowly to the bed and brought the sheet up gently. “Maybe this is better, who can say? This way he will never die.” Together they left the quiet room.

  PSI HIGH

  I

  The alien’s ship skimmed down like a shadow from the outer atmosphere and settled gently and silently in the tangled underbrush of a hillside overlooking a bend in the broad river. There was the hiss of scorched leaves, the piping of a small, trapped animal—then silence. It was dusk,

  with the sunlight just departing the hilltops around; here

  in the cut leading down to the river the gloom of darkness was settling.

  Somewhere across the hills a dog howled mournfully. Night b
irds made small rustling sounds through the scrub and underbrush. The alien waited, alert and tense, but he was not listening for audible sounds. If his race had ever possessed hearing, it was long since lost; they had no need to hear. Instead he sat with his cold yellow eyes half closed, waiting to feel any flickering touch deep in his mind, any whisper of surprise or wonder or fear that his powerful thought-receptors might pick up from the dark hills around the ship. Because that, above all, was critical: that his arrival here be entirely undetected. Everything depended on that.

  He waited and waited as no thought-fingers caine to touch him. At last he relaxed, grunted his satisfaction and scorn. Foolish of him to worry. On his world, any unidentified ship approaching within two light years of their sun would be detected and destroyed without hesitation or mercy. No such technology here, and even if the stupid cattle-people who lived here had seen his ship, they wouldn’t believe it. The alien stretched back against the couch, allowing his long, tight muscles to relax. Scouts had landed here a dozen times before, and always the reports were the same: the natives thought ships such as his were a delusion, figments of their own imaginations! No, there would be no problem here when his work was finished and the full-scale invasion began. Already the preliminary studies were completed, the plans worked out in the finest detail; and then, soon, his people would be rich with food and slaves once again, and he would even be allowed to touch the robe of the leader himself! He gloated in anticipation. There was no possible flaw, no way these dull, cowering Man-things could detect or hinder the secret, silent invasion that would come, except for one thing—

  The thing he was here, alone, to evaluate.

  A people without psi-presence were helpless to defend themselves against a race of powerful telepaths such as his. They would not even know they were being invaded until they were overwhelmed. This planet was a primitive world, indeed, with a ludicrously primitive people, but some few of them had psi-presence already developing. Crude, rudimentary, feeble, but just possibly enough to throw invasion plans awry.