Baldy

by Henry Kuttner

  Thanks, he sent back mockingly.

  The short cut saved time, and he was long-legged. As yet there were no plans. He did not try to think of any. Escape and help; details later. The paranoids came after him for a short distance.

  No use; he'll make it. Get my copter.

  Right. We'll trail him.

  They went elsewhere. Barton felt their brief questions touching his mind, though, and concentrated on running. He could not easily escape the paranoids, now that they knew him. Nor would they again lose touch with his mind.

  The landing field was still vacant, except for his own helicopter. He got in and sent the plane southwest, a vague thought of Sue Connaught guiding him. Melissa could not help; he didn't even know where she was. But Sue was in Conestoga, and between the two of them--

  Also, she had to be warned. He reached for her mind across the dark miles.

  What's wrong?

  He told her. Get a weapon. Protect yourself. I'm coming in.

  Plan--

  Don't try to think of any. They'll know.

  And Melissa, frightened, the psychic scent of fear strong in her thought. How can I help?

  Don't reveal where you are. If--we fail, tell the truth to other Baldies. These paranoids must be destroyed.

  Sue: Can I intercept their copter?

  No. Don't try. They're following, but not overtaking.

  A grotesque silver shape in the moonlight, the pursuing helicopter raced in Barton's track. He improvised a bandage for his wounded arm. After consideration, he wound many heavy strips of cloth around his left forearm. A shield, if--

  He could not plan his tactics; that would be fatal. Telepaths could not play chess or any war game, because they would automatically betray themselves. They could play skip-handball, but that had a variable factor, the movable backboard. If a random factor could be introduced--

  Vargan's eager question touched him. Such as?

  Barton shivered. He must, somehow, manage to act on impulse, without any preconceived plan. Otherwise he would inevitably fail.

  He called Melissa. Are they using the secret band?

  No.

  If we fail, it's your job. Vorgan and Smith must die. This is more important than merely killing three men. If other paranoids get the idea, if they, too, learn the secret wave length, this suicidal movement will grow. And non-Baldies will inevitably find out about it, sometime. That will mean the annihilation of every Baldy on earth. For the humans can't afford to take chances. If we fail to check the paranoids-it means the end of our whole race.

  The lights of Conestoga glowed. No plan yet. Don't try to think of one.

  There must be a way, Vargan urged. What?

  Sue broke in. I'm coming up in my copter.

  The zoo was below, dark now, except for the silvering moonlight. Another plane, gleaming bright, lifted into view to intercept them. Sue thought: I'll ram them--

  Fool, Barton thought. Don't warn them! But it was a new idea, thrust suddenly into his own mind, and he reacted instantly. Mechanical controls are not instantaneous. By Vargan's sudden decision to drop to a lower level, where a collision with Sue's plane would not be fatal, he had put himself too close to Barton. And Barton's hands stabbed at the controls.

  Vargan read the thought as fast as it was conceived. But his copter could not respond with the speed of thought. The flying vanes meshed and crackled; with a scream of tortured alloys the two ships side-slipped. The automatic safety devices took over-the ones that were not smashed-but only low altitude saved Barton and his enemies from death.

  They crashed down in the central zoo area, near the shark's tank. Vargan read the thought in Barton's mind and telepathed to Smith urgently: Kill him! Fast!

  Barton scrambled free of the wreckage. He sensed Sue hovering above, ready to land, and told her: Turn your lights on-the spots. Top illumination. Wake the animals.

  He dodged away from the two figures closing in on him. He ripped the bandage from his upper arm and let the smell of fresh blood scent the air. And--he yelled.

  From Sue's copter beams of light glared down, flaring into cages, dazzling bright.

  Kill him, Vargan thought. Quick!

  The asthmatic cough of a lion sounded. Barton dodged by the tank and tossed his blood-stained bandage over the railing. There was a flurry of water slashed into foam as the great shark woke to life.

  And, from cage and tank, from the beasts waked into a turmoil of light and sound and blood-smell-came the variable.

  Sue had got her siren working, and its shattering blast bellowed through the night. Patterns of light blazed erratically here and there. Barton saw Smith pause and shake his head. Vargin, teeth bared, ran forward, but, he, too, was shaken.

  Their thoughts were confused now. For this wasn't chess any more. It was skip-handball, with a variable gone wild.

  That beasts have instinct, tropism, a terrible passion that is primevally powerful. Even nontelepaths find the hunger-roar of a lion disturbing. To a Baldy--

  What blasted up from the great tank was worst of all. It shook even Barton. The paranoid minds could not communicate, could scarcely think, against that beast-torrent of mental hunger and fury that poured through the night.

  Nor could they-now-read Barton's mind. They were like men caught in the blazing rays of a searchlight. Telepathically, they were blinded.

  But Barton, a trained naturalist, had better control. It wasn't pleasant even for him. Yet his familiarity with tiger and shark, wolf and lion, gave him some sort of protection against the predatory thoughts. He sensed Melissa's terrified, panic-stricken withdrawal, and knew that Sue was biting her lips and trying desperately to keep control. But for half a mile around that mental Niagara, telepathic communication was impossible except for a very special type of mind.

  Barton had that type of mind.

  Because he could read the thoughts of Vargan and Smith, and because they could not read his, the duel ended in his favor. He had to kill the pair before help came. The paranoids secret had to be hushed up forever.

  And, with the sharp blade of his dagger, he finished his job. Smith died silently. From Vargan's waning mind came a desperate, passionate cry: You fool! To destroy your own race--

  Then silence, as the copter's siren faded, and the spotlights blinked out. Only beast-cries, and the turmoil of water in the enormous tank.

  "They'll hush it up," Barton said. "I've done that much already, since yesterday. Luckily we've got a few Baldies high up in the judicial. I didn't tell even them too much, but they have the general idea. It'll be passed over as a personal quarrel. The duello's legal, anyway."

  Afternoon sunlight glittered on the Ohio. The little sailboat heeled under a gust of wind, and Sue moved the tiller, in response to Barton's thought. The soft susurrus of water whispered under the keel.

  "But I can't reach Melissa," he added.

  Sue didn't answer. He looked at her.

  "You've been communicating with her today. Why can't I?"

  "She's... it's difficult," Sue said. "Why not forget it?"

  "No."

  "Later on--in a week or so--"

  He remembered Melissa's demure, feminine gentleness, and her frightened withdrawal last night. "I want to be sure she's all right."

  "No--" Sue said, and tried to conceal a thought. She almost succeeded, but not quite. Something, a key, a pattern, showed in her mind.

  "An altered matrix?" Barton looked at her. "How could she--"

  "Dave," Sue said, "please don't touch her now. She wouldn't want it--"

  But with the key at hand, and the locked door ready to open. Barton automatically sent his thought out, probing, questioning. And, very far away, something stirred in response.

  Melissa?

  Silently Sue watched the tiller. After a long time, Barton shivered. His face was strained; there were new lines around his mouth.

  "Did you know?" he asked.

  "Not till today," Sue said. For some reason neither of them wanted
to use telepathy at the moment.

  "The... the business at the zoo must have done it."

  "It isn't permanent. It must be a cycle."

  "So that's why she was able to tune in on the secret wave length," Barton said harshly. "This mutation--it runs very close to the line sometimes." He looked at his shaking hand. "Her mind--that was her mind!"

  "It runs in cycles," Sue said quietly. "What I wonder now is--will she talk? Can her thoughts be picked up by--"

  "There's no danger," Barton said. "I stayed in long enough to make certain of that. Otherwise I wouldn't have stayed in at all. In this state, she has no memory of what happens when she's rational."

  Sue moved her lips. "She doesn't know she's insane. She just senses something wrong. That's why she wouldn't tell us where she was. Oh--Dave! So many of us, so many mutants, gone off the track somewhere! It's a horrible price." He nodded slowly, his eyes grave. There was always a price, somehow. And yet, if paying it brought security to the mutants—

  But it hadn't, really. For Barton saw clearly now that an era had finally ended in the life of the Baldy race. Till yesterday the path had seemed clear before them. But yesterday an evil had been unveiled in the very heart of their own race, and it was an evil which would menace the peace of the world until one race or the other was wiped wholly off the face of the earth. For what a few telepaths had stumbled upon already, others would discover in the future. Had, perhaps, already discovered. And must not be allowed to retain.

  Thou, O son of man, I have set a watchman unto the house of Israel.

  We must be on guard now, he thought. Always on guard. And he knew suddenly that his maturation had taken one long forward step in the past few hours. First he had been aimless, open to any possibility that knocked loudest at the doors of his mind. Then he had found the job he was suited for, and in its comfortable adjustment thought himself adult at last. Until yesterday--until today.

  It was not enough to hunt animals. His work was laid out before him on a scale so vast he could not see it clearly yet. but its outlines were very clear. He could not do the job alone. It would take many others. It would take constant watchfulness from this hour on, over the whole world. Today, perhaps for the first time in nearly two thousand years, the Crusaders were born again.

  Strange, he thought, that it had taken a madwoman to give them their first warning. So that not even the mad were useless in the progress of the race. Strange that the threefold divisions of the mutants had so closely interwoven in the conflict just passed. Mad, sane, sane-paranoid. And typical that even in deadly combat the three lines wove together interdependently..

  He looked at Sue. Their minds reached out and touched, and in the deep, warm assurance of meeting was no room for doubt or regret. This, at least, was their heritage. And it was worth any price the future demanded of them-this knowledge of confident unity, through any darkness, across any miles. The fire on the hearth would not burn out until the last Baldy died.

  Three

  It was snowing.

  Now there was nothing at all but snow. The world was entirely shut out by the whirling white flakes. Until now, even though I couldn't communicate with my people, I'd had the solid earth around me, and I'd been able to see the barrier peaks overhead. Now I was completely shut off and alone.

  There was nothing I could do. I huddled in my blankets and waited. The air was a little warmer, but it wasn't cold that would kill me--it was loneliness.

  I began to feel that all my previous life had been a dream, and that nothing really existed except myself.

  My thoughts began to whirl. I couldn't stop them. I knew I was nearly at the breaking point. The snow whirled meaninglessly around me, and my thoughts whirled too, and there was nothing to stop them. There were no anchors.

  Except in the past.

  I went back again, trying to find something solid. The time after Barton, while Barton was still alive. The time of McNey and Lincoln Cody. The one unverified story in the Key Lives, because there was an hour in McNey's life which no other telepath had seen, and which had to be filled in by inference alone. But the telepaths who had known McNey for so long and so intimately were well qualified to fill in the missing details.

  It was complete, the story of the Lion and the Unicorn. I reached back into the time and the mind of McNey, forgetting, for a while, the snow and the loneliness, finding what I needed there in the past, when McNey waited for the paranoid Sergei Callahan to enter his house....

  The Lion and the Unicorn

  The best way of keeping a secret is to avoid even the appearance of secrecy. McNey whistled a few bars of Grieg, and the vibrations set delicate machinery in operation. The dull amber of the walls and ceiling changed to a cool transparency. Polaroid crystal did tricks with the red glare of the sunset above the Catskills. The deep, cloudless blue sky hung empty overhead. But Barton's helicopter had already arrived, and soon Callahan would be here, too.

  That Callahan would dare to come, and alone, gave a horrible clarity to the danger. Twenty years ago a dagger would have ended the matter. But not permanently. Barton had used steel, and, while he had not completely failed, he had not succeeded either. The menace had grown.

  McNey, standing by his desk, brushed a hand across his forehead and looked at his wet palm curiously. Hypertension. The result of this desperate, straining attempt to get in contact with Callahan, and the surprise of finding it far too easy. And now Barton as the catalyst-mongoose and snake.

  There must be no clash-not yet. Somehow Barton must be kept from killing Callahan. The hydra had more than a hundred heads, and the Power as well. There lay -the chief peril, the tremendous secret weapon of the mad telepaths.

  But they weren't mad. They were paranoid types, coldly logical, insane in one regard only, their blind warped hatred for nontelepaths. In twenty years, thirty, forty perhaps, they had-not grown-but organized, until today the cancerous cells were spotted throughout the towns of America, from Modoc and American Gun to Roxy and Florida End.

  I'm old, McNey thought. Forty-two, but I feel old. The bright dream I grew up with-it's fading, blotted out by a nightmare.

  He glanced in a mirror. He was big-boned, large-framed, but soft. His eyes were too gentle, not suited for battle. His hair-the wig all telepathic Baldies wore-was still dark, but he'd buy a graying one soon.

  He was tired.

  He was on leave of absence from Niagara, one of the science towns; but there were no furloughs from his secret job. That was a job many Baldies held, and one no nontelepaths suspected-a combination of policing and extermination. For paranoid Baldies could not be allowed to survive. That was axiomatic.

  Over the ridge lay the town. McNey let his gaze travel downward, across pine and sumac groves, to the pool in the brook, where trout hid under shadowed overhangs. He opened part of the wall and let the cool air enter. Absently he whistled the phrase that would start the supersonics and keep mosquitoes at a respectful distance. On the flagged walk below he saw a slim figure, trim in light slacks and blouse, and recognized Alexa, his adopted daughter. The strong family instinct of Baldies had made adoption a commonplace.

  The fading sunlight burnished her glossy wig. He sent a thought down.

  Thought you were in the village. Marian's at the show.

  She caught the hint of disappointment in his mind. Intrusion, Darryl?

  For an hour or two--

  O.K. There's an apple-blossom sequence in the pic, and I can't stand the smell of the stuff. Marian asked me--I'll catch a dance or two at the Garden.

  He felt wretched as he watched her go off. In the perfect telepathic world there would be no need for secrecy or evasion. That, indeed, was one of the drawbacks of the paranoid system-the mysterious, untappable wave length on which they could communicate. The thing called the Power. It was, McNey thought, a secondary characteristic of the mutation itself, like baldness, and yet more strictly limited. It seemed that only the paranoid Baldies could develop the Power. Which implied t
wo separate and distinct mutations. Considering the delicate balance of the mental machine, that was not improbable.

  But true rapport was vital for a complete life. Telepaths were more sensitive than nontelepaths; marriage was more complete; friendship warmer; the race a single living unit. For no thought could be hidden from probing. The average Baldy refrained, from courtesy, when a rapport mind went blurred; yet, ultimately, such blurring should become unnecessary. There need be no secrets.

  Both Marian and Alexa knew of McNey's connection with the organization, but it was a tacit understanding. They knew without words when McNey did not want to answer questions. And because of the deep trust that comes from telepathic understanding, they refrained from asking any, even in their thoughts.

  Alexa was twenty now. Already she had felt the reaction of being an outsider in a world complete in itself. For Baldies were still intruders, no matter how much rationalization was used. The great majority of humanity was nontelepathic-and fear, distrust, and hatred lay latent in that giant tribunal that daily passed judgment upon the Baldy mutation.

  Capital punishment, McNey knew very well, was the sentence contingent upon a thumbs-down verdict. And if the thumbs ever turned down--

  If the nontelepaths ever learned what the paranoids were doing--

  Barton was coming up the path. He walked with the lithe springiness of youth, though he was over sixty. His wig was iron-gray, and McNey could sense the wary alertness of the hunter's thoughts. Technically Barton was a naturalist, a big-game hunter. His quarry was sometimes human, however.

  Upstairs, Dave, McNey thought.

  Right. Is it here yet?

  Callahan's coming soon.

  The thoughts did not mesh. The semantic absolute symbol for Callahan was simpler in McNey's mind; in Barton's it was colored by associations from a half-lifetime of conflict with a group he hated, by now, almost pathologically. McNey never knew what lay behind the violence of Barton's hatred. Once or twice he had caught fleeting mental images of a girl, dead now, who had once helped Barton, but such thoughts were always as inchoate as reflections in rippling water.