Harry left the last group quickly, remembering his own glancing encounter with the girl. There were things the original Electra hadn't known. The arrival of Dave with more beer offered a welcome break, but he couldn't shake his mood. Briefly, he relaxed in listening to a rocket fuel chemist banging away on the battered piano; the man was patching a boogie bass onto a Wagnerian theme and doing a good job of it. But then a highly respected mathematician who had been one of the original members but now rarely attended meetings came over, and the piano was forgotten in some nonsensical argument about telepathy as related to information theory.
Harry got up and moved back to the kitchen, which was another mistake. The room was deserted except for a stoutish stranger in a loud sports jacket and Dr. Philip Lawson, a tall figure with a roughly chiseled face, a black mustache, and a thick head of snow-white hair. Lawson was a regular here, having been sponsored by Dave Hillery after the doctor had managed to save Tina from some female trouble without charging her. He seemed generally well liked, but Harry found his almost excessive friendliness disconcerting; he'd exhausted his excuses to the doctor and started repeating before the frequent calls and invitations had finally stopped.
Lawson looked up, and his deeply etched face broke into a sudden smile. "Harry! Meet Ted Galloway of the Voice. Emmett brought him around and then stranded him. Ted, Harry Bronson's the inventor of that new engine—the man Fred was telling you about."
The reporter seemed to be the sort of human cipher that Emmett usually discovered. Harry shook hands rather uncomfortably, aware that Emmett's briefing had probably carried more details on the trust fund that enabled Harry to work on engines than on the seriousness of the work itself.
But Galloway seemed pleasant enough and more interested in the meeting than in whatever he had been told previously ."I'm frankly out of my depth here," he confessed. "So I've been getting a little background from Dr. Lawson."
"Don't let the Primates throw you," Harry suggested, opening another beer. He could remember his own confusion when he'd first been invited to a meeting almost ten years before. "Some of that babble is backed up with solid information, but most of it is just bluff. You get to know which is which after a while. Anyhow, it's all in fun. Talk for talk's sake."
Lawson chuckled with an amiability that didn't match the strained attention in his eyes. "Just what I told him, Harry. I've been filling in what snippets of fact there are on psi—Rhine's work, mostly. Pull up a chair."
Harry groped for another excuse, but was saved by the entrance of Dave. The little man broke in with an account of his troubles with the typewriter Harry had promised to look at. Lawson looked disappointed, then shrugged and turned back to Galloway.
Dave's apartment across the hall was surprisingly cheerful. Cheap but tasteful use of drapes and paint, together with clever lighting, made it the envy of many with far more to work with. It was already occupied by Tina and five others, busy with poker; the game must have been going on for some time, since they were already dealing baseball.
Tina raked in a pot and smiled at Harry. "Want in?" He shook his head. "Never touch it. I always lose." That was the literal truth; until he'd given up, he had made a perfect record of invariably guessing the other hands wrong. He followed Dave into the bedroom-office where the ancient Adler stood, accepted Dave's few tools, and then settled down. A single experiment showed that the trouble lay in a misadjusted escapement. He'd never worked on an Adler before, and the ease with which it broke apart for service fascinated him. As he began unscrewing the escapement module, Harry felt at peace for the first time since he'd come here.
He'd begun his education in snooty schools designed to turn him into an ornament to society—a man of considerable charm and no conceivable use to the world. But the Army drafted him and sent him to the motor pool to service engines, possibly because his ignorance of the subject was absolute. And there he discovered that machinery was the one thing for which he had a true passion. When he was released, he switched from Harvard to MIT.
He'd been lucky in having to alter his whole sense of values while he could still make the adjustment, though he hadn't felt very fortunate during his first few months in the Army. He'd gone in as an unformed youth and managed somehow to come out as an adult with the potential for making his own decisions and accepting the results. He hadn't enjoyed the process, of course; but since then he'd seen too many who refused to adjust to the realities of life, and he was generally pleased with himself.
Now he felt a glow of appreciation for the workmanship of the old machine. He hardly looked up when Dave brought him a cup of coffee and a better light. It was a beautiful typewriter, the Adler, though worn and ill used. He was just finishing putting it together after cleaning out the last bit of eraser grit when he heard the pounding of feet down the stairs, indicating that some of the meeting was breaking up. The poker game was still going strong as he washed his hands and headed back for his coat.
Most of the members were gone, bat a music session had started in the front room, with a guitar and banjo added to the piano and a trumpet blaring raucously over them. The freedom from complaints about noise was the one good reason for keeping the old place as a meeting hall. The trumpeter jerked a thumb toward the window and swung into a few bars of "Jingle Bells." Harry saw that it was snowing again, fine hard flakes whipping across the ice that had formed from the first fall.
In the middle room, Galloway and Lawson were trying to listen to the news on a portable radio while Dave was shouting into the telephone. The little man's face was worried until he saw Harry. Then he dropped the instrument back onto the cradle and swung around.
"I was just going after you, Harry. Man, it's rough out there. Everything's stalled. How about that front-drive wonder buggy of yours? Will it go?"
Harry nodded. He had snow treads on the front wheels, and the car should handle anything that could be navigated. "Why?"
"Because Manhattan's frozen up tighter than a witch. The subway men are pulling a sick-out to take advantage of this for their stalled contract negotiations. The bus at One Hundred Seventy-eighth Street isn't running—nothing is moving. And Doc Lawson's got to get back to Teaneck. I know it's asking a lot, but—"
Harry groaned to himself, but he knew he was stuck. He'd brought it on himself, too; he'd done too much talking about the wonders of the car after he first got it. He brushed aside Lawson's faint protests, deciding that he might as well appear gracious, however he felt. "What about you, Mr. Galloway?"
"He's coming with me," Lawson answered. "I promised to show him some things he might use in a story. But look, I can put up at a hotel. . ."
He obviously didn't mean it. Harry hoped his own protestations of pleasure sounded a little more sincere. They seemed to work, anyhow; the doctor seized on them with a curious look of delight. Harry buttoned on his coat and waved a general good-bye to those who were still there.
As they creaked down the stairs, the blare of the trumpet faded, and everything was silent except for the snores of a drunken, bloody-nosed man outside the blanket-stuffed door. Harry stepped over him, reaching carefully for the step beyond.
Henry!
Only the fact that it was a short half flight saved him. His foot missed the step, and he felt himself lurch downward. Somehow, his flailing arms caught the wall at the bottom landing and kept him from falling onto his face. But the terror that gripped him for long seconds had nothing to do with falling.
Then it began to pass, more quickly this time, and he was aware of the two men supporting him. He shook his head sharply. "I'm all right. Just slipped."
"Could happen to anyone here," Lawson agreed quickly with professional assurance. But the doctor's eyes were searching him, and there was a strange tension in the hands on Harry's arms. "Lucky you caught yourself. Sure you're okay?"
Harry nodded, noticing that the drunk was still undisturbed. He muttered something and headed toward the outside. His heart was pounding, and the sweat on his forehead
seemed to freeze as the outer air hit him. But the chilling wind was somehow bracing and normal. His hands were only slightly unsteady as he twisted the key to start the motor. A moment later, he turned on the heater fan and felt the welcome warmth begin drying his damp skin.
Lawson was still studying him, but now seemed to relax. On the back seat, Galloway bounced up and down appreciatively and grunted in pleased surprise. "What kind of car is this, Bronson? And how come you got heat like that? My bus takes fifteen minutes to get any steam."
"It's a Citroën," Lawson answered. "And I gather the heat has something to do with Harry's free-piston engine. He's probably changed the whole car by this time."
Harry's respect for the doctor increased suddenly. But he shook his head, glad to turn his mind to something familiar. "No other changes. Why ruin a good design, just to tinker? But you're right, this is the handmade prototype of our engine."
A free-piston engine fired its fuel between two opposing pistons that did no work themselves, but simply served as a source of superhot exploding gas. That was then allowed to expand somewhat, cooling enough to feed a simple turbine that provided the real power. But an added advantage was that some of the gas could be bypassed to an exchanger that gave almost instant heat. Lawson's guess as to the mechanism showed a clever mind—a far more thorough grasp of mechanical principles than could have been expected from the man's normal conversation.
Now the slush was melting from the windshield, and Harry swung the car out onto the choppy ice of the street, Skidding a little until he got the feel of the powdery dust of snow over it; he poured on more power, and the front wheels brought it under control. He turned up Tenth Avenue, traveling with the timed lights, passing occasional trucks or cars that were creeping along with thunking chains. More often, he passed abandoned cars that had skidded or been stuck. As he moved uptown, the snow began thickening in the air.
The bridge was nearly deserted, slick and treacherous, with a nasty wind coming in gusts over the river. Once in New Jersey, though, it was somewhat easier going, since the road had been less chewed up before the freeze. They swept down a curving hill into Teaneck, and Lawson pointed to a neon sign in front of a big house set back from the road, then indicated a driveway. As Harry turned in, he saw that the sign carried Lawson's name.
"The mark of the quack," the man said, with more amusement than bitterness in his voice. "I also pay for a listing in the Manhattan phone book, though I can't practice there. I was a surgeon once—a good one. Now my patients are mostly women over forty. The really sick I send elsewhere; the others get terrifying diagnoses and slow but sure wonder cures only I can give. It pays—it should at my fees—and it may even help them psychologically. So now you know what I am. I suppose you'd rather not come in for a drink?"
It had been a deliberate trap, neatly equating refusal with insult, but Harry could see no way to avoid it decently. "I shouldn't," he said, but he was already getting out of the car.
Lawson muttered something about the housekeeper and maid being asleep and began leading them up a beautifully hand-carved walnut stairway toward his private study. Then for the third time, the nightmare voice screamed in Harry's mind.
Henry!
He groped for the balustrade, fighting against the gibbering nonsense not quite voiced in his mind. This time his defense was quicker, and it was over almost at once. But Lawson had seen, and one of the man's arms was around Harry's shoulders. Worry was no longer concealed in his voice, though he wore a touch of his professional smile. "Sinus attack?" he asked, glancing at Harry's slightly misshapen nose.
Harry seized on the explanation, nodding quickly while he moved away from the other's support. Maybe it was sinus trouble, some pressure on a nerve; he'd never been bothered by such things before, but it was more logical than his growing feeling that he was being possessed by... "I'm all right now."
"I'll give you something that will fix you up for the moment," Lawson decided as they started upward again. "But you'd better see a doctor—a better doctor than I am now—if this keeps up. In here."
He led them through a door on the second floor into a small sitting room done in white leather and fruitwood, with a bedroom off it. He took their coats, then mixed drinks from a small bar. He added a pinch of some white powder to one glass and handed it to Harry. "Just a mild sedative. It won't hurt you or keep you from driving," he explained.
Harry sipped it doubtfully; but there was no taste of drugs, and the liquor helped to dispel the aftereffects of the waking nightmare. He downed it. The tension began leaving, while a sense of vague well-being replaced it. But there was no feeling of drowsiness. Maybe Lawson knew what he was doing.
The doctor had turned to Galloway and was pointing to a crudely designed device of wood and brass under a glass cover. "The original psionics machine. Magic diagnosis." He lifted the cover and began demonstrating. "Put one drop of the patient's blood—blood is life, you know—one drop in this pan and cover it; it's window dressing to impress him, of course. Rub this rod with a piece of catskin and touch it here; that charges the gold-leaf electroscope until the leaves repel each other and fly apart. Then put one hand on the flat brass plate and make a series of passes across your body—yours, not the patient's, for full magic effect—with the other. When the leaves fall, that's it. Spot the gimmick?"
Galloway was frowning uncertainly, but Harry nodded. "Of course. It works like a crude lie detector. When you think you've hit the trouble, your hand sweats. That lowers your resistance enough for the thing to discharge through you. But who'd fall for it?"
"Most patients. I use one in my office. Of course, I also give a regular examination afterwards, but this is what they pay for. It has also convinced a fair number of men who want to believe in psi."
Harry refilled his glass from the bar, studying the simple device. He'd heard it cited as proof of psionics, but had never seen a model before. It was a relief to find Lawson discussing it frankly. "Another example of the will to believe making fools of observers, eh?" he asked.
"Is it?" Lawson grinned at him, his face sharpening. "Harry, I've diagnosed things with this that I couldn't figure out without it. Not too surprising, of course—it works like a oulja board, bringing out what's in the back of the user's mind. But now tell me how that mind can spot a tumor too small to show on a plate and completely masked by other things that fully account for the symptoms! I consider this little gadget more worthy of study than anything Rhine came up with. You can say it works by bringing out what we know by subliminal observation—but then we'd better study such observations! Too bad I can't demonstrate it for you. But as I promised Ted, I can show you Rhine's main test. Here."
He dragged a deck of cards from a drawer and spread them. There were five each of five simple symbols—cross, circle, and such. "Pure guesswork should give you five right guesses to the pack. Want to try it, Ted? Harry can deal them and you call them out while I check. Run through it three times and let's see what score you get."
Harry had started to rise, putting his drink down; he had no desire to fool with any of the rigmarole. But the cards were in his hands before he could protest. Lawson stepped back with paper and pencil, gesturing for him to start, and Galloway was waiting. Damn it...
Then he began dealing while Galloway called and Lawson checked the answers against the cards. It was over sooner than he'd expected, and Galloway turned bis eyes toward the doctor with a plainly hopeful expression.
Lawson shook his head. "Fourteen—within normal limits for guesswork. Ted, you can put down your reporting hunches as superstition. You're a neutral as far as psi goes, at least by this test. Want to get even by testing Harry here?"
Seeing the hurt look on Galloway's face, Harry made no protest at changing places. It was only fair, after all. Anyhow, while the results would be only chance, no matter what they showed, this test was elementary and not like some of the mumbo jumbo involved in most of the discussions he'd heard. He tried honestly to let his mind r
elax and began calling whatever came to him first
Lawson totaled the score without expression while Galloway refilled their glasses. Then the doctor dropped into the chair opposite Harry, wiggling his metallic pencil slowly back and forth. "I didn't have to count, this time. An absolute blank—not one correct answer," he said.
Galloway was obviously pleased. So was Harry.
"I guess that proves I'm a complete blank to psi," he said, trying to make a joke of it.
"If it isn't blind luck—and that's just too good a negative score—it proves you're loaded for bear with psi powers," Lawson told him. Galloway frowned, but the doctor nodded. "That's right. A negative score is as important as a positive one. It indicates the mind can tell, but is either hiding from itself or covering up for some reason. Otherwise, you'd be bound to get a few right. Were you ever a wonder child? Learn to talk or read at some incredible age—things like that?"
"No," Harry answered. Then he sighed. Inevitably, sooner or later something always came up that made telling the truth necessary, and he should have been used to it by now. "I don't know. My parents died in a wreck, so I'm told, but I can't remember them. I seem to remember a fire—maybe the car burned—but nothing before that. I was ten then, and my first real memory is of my guardian coming to visit me in the hospital and telling me I had nothing to worry about! I've had a mess of psychological probing, but nobody could do anything about my memory. Those first ten years are simply a blank."
At least Lawson had enough sense not to start oozing sympathy about something that was long ago and now only unemotionally connected with Harry. He nodded. "Traumatic amnesia. Rare—most cases are faked—but it does happen, and it's sometimes permanent. I wonder if that has anything to do with your complete negative attitude toward psi? A block set up, perhaps, because you got a presentiment before the accident, confused cause and effect, and have been blaming yourself for what happened. I could probably find out if you'd let me hypnotize you and erase the block—something a lot easier than trying to cure your amnesia. Care to look at this pencil and let me try?"
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