Occasion ... for Disaster
approaching it in our experiments. I am hopeful that, in the near
future--"
"Well," Malone cut in desperately, "sure. Of course. Naturally."
* * * * *
Dr. O'Connor looked miffed. The temperature of the room seemed to
drop several degrees, and Malone swallowed hard and tried to look
ingratiating and helpful, like a student with nothing but A's on his
record.
Before O'Connor could pick up the thread of his sentence, Malone went
on: "What I mean is something like this. Picking up the mental
activity of another person is called telepathy. Floating in the air is
called levitation. Moving objects around is psychokinesis. Going from
one place to another instantaneously is teleportation. And so on."
"The language you use," O'Connor said, still miffed, "is extremely
loose. I might go so far as to say that the statements you have made
are, essentially, meaningless as a result of their lack of rigor."
Malone took a deep breath. "Dr. O'Connor," he said, "you know what I
mean, don't you?"
"I believe so," O'Connor said, with the air of a king granting a
pardon to a particularly repulsive-looking subject in the lowest
income brackets.
"Well, then," Malone said. "Yes or no?"
O'Connor frowned. "Yes or no what?" he said.
"I" Malone blinked. "I meant, the things have names," he said at last.
"All the various psionic manifestations have names."
"Ah," O'Connor said. "Well. I should say." He put his fingertips
together and stared at a point on the white ceiling for a second.
"Yes," he said at last.
Malone breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "That's what I
wanted to know." He leaned forward. "And if they all do have names,"
he went on, "what is it called, when a large group of people are
forced to act in a certain manner?"
O'Connor shrugged. "Forced?" he said.
"Forced by mental power," Malone said.
There was a second of silence.
"At first," O'Connor said, "I might think of various examples: the
actions of a mob, for example, or the demonstrations of the Indian
Rope Trick, or perhaps the sale of a useless product through
television or through other advertising." Again his face moved, ever
so slightly, in what he obviously believed to be a smile. "The usual
name for such a phenomenon is 'mass hypnotism,' Mr. Malone," he said.
"But that is not, strictly speaking, a _psi_ phenomenon at all.
Studies in that area belong to the field of mob psychology; they are
not properly in my scope." He looked vastly superior to anything and
everything that was outside his scope. Malone concentrated on looking
receptive and understanding.
"Yes?" he said.
O'Connor gave him a look that made Malone feel he'd been caught
cribbing during an exam, but the scientist said nothing to back up the
look. Instead, he went on: "I will grant that there may be an
amplification of the telepathic faculty in the normal individual in
such cases."
"Good," Malone said doubtfully.
"Such an amplification," O'Connor went on, as if he hadn't heard,
"would account for the apparent ... ah ... mental linkage that makes a
mob appear to act as a single organism during certain periods of ...
ah ... stress." He looked judicious for a second, and then nodded.
"However," he said, "other than that, I would doubt that there is any
psionic force involved."
Malone spent a second or two digesting O'Connor's reply. "Well," he
said at last, "I'm not sure that's what I meant. I mean, I'm not sure
I meant to ask that question." He took a breath and decided to start
all over. "It's not like a mob," he said, "with everybody all doing
the same thing at the same time. It's more like a group of men, all
separated, without any apparent connections between any of the men.
And they're all working toward a common goal. All doing different
things, but all with the same objective. See?"
"Of course I do," O'Connor said flatly. "But what you're suggesting--"
He looked straight at Malone. "Have you had any experience of this ...
phenomenon?"
"Experience?" Malone said.
"I believe you have had," O'Connor said. "Such a concept could not
have come to you in a theoretical manner. You must be involved with an
actual situation very much like the one you describe."
Malone swallowed. "Me?" he said.
"Mr. Malone," O'Connor said. "May I remind you that this is Yucca
Flats? That the security checks here are as careful as anywhere in the
world? That I, myself, have top-security clearance for my special
projects? You do not need to watch your words here."
"It's not security," Malone said. "Anyhow, it's not only security. But
things are pretty complicated."
"I assure you," O'Connor said, "that I will be able to understand even
events which you feel are complex."
Malone swallowed again, hard. "I didn't mean--" he started.
"Please, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said. His voice was colder than usual.
Malone had the feeling that he was about to take the extra chair away.
"Go on," O'Connor said. "Explain yourself."
Malone took a deep breath. He started with the facts he'd been told by
Burris, and went straight through to the interviews of the two
computer-secretary technicians by Boyd and Company.
It took quite a while. By the time he had finished, O'Connor wasn't
looking frozen any more; he'd apparently forgotten to keep the freezer
coils running. Instead, his face showed frank bewilderment, and great
interest. "I never heard of such a thing," he said. "Never. Not at any
time."
"But--"
O'Connor shook his head. "I have never heard of a psionic
manifestation on that order," he said. It seemed to be a painful
admission. "Something that would make a random group of men co-operate
in that manner--why, it's completely new."
"It is?" Malone said, wondering if, when it was all investigated and
described, it might be called O'Connorizing. Then he wondered how
anybody was going to go about investigating it and describing it, and
sank even deeper into gloom.
"Completely new," O'Connor said. "You may take my word." Then, slowly,
he began to brighten again, with all the glitter of newly-formed ice.
"As a matter of fact," he said, in a tone more like his usual one,
"Mr. Malone, I don't think it's possible."
"But it happened," Malone said. "It's still happening. All over."
O'Connor's lips tightened. "I have given my opinion," he said. "I do
not believe that such a thing is possible. There must be some other
explanation."
"All right," Malone said agreeably. "I'll bite. What is it?"
O'Connor frowned. "Your levity," he said, "is uncalled-for."
Malone shrugged. "I didn't mean to be--" he paused. "Anyhow, I didn't
mean to be funny," he went on. "But I would like to have another idea
of what's causing all this."
"Scientific theories," O'Connor said sternly, "are not invented on the
spur of the moment. Only after long, careful thought--"
"You mean you can't think of anything," Malone said.
"There must be some other explanation," O'Connor said. "Naturally,
since the facts have only now been presented to me, it is impossible
for me to display at once a fully constructed theory."
Malone nodded slowly. "O.K.," he said. "Have you got any hints, then?
Any ideas at all?"
O'Connor shook his head. "I have not," he said. "But I strongly
suggest, Mr. Malone, that you recheck your data. The fault may very
well lie in your own interpretations of the actual facts."
"I don't think so," Malone said.
O'Connor grimaced. "I do," he said firmly.
Malone sighed, very faintly. He shifted in the chair and began to
realize, for the first time, just how uncomfortable it really was. He
also felt a little chilly, and the chill was growing. That, he told
himself, was the effect of Dr. O'Connor. He no longer regretted
wearing his hat. As a matter of fact, he thought wistfully for a
second of a small, light overcoat.
O'Connor, he told himself, was definitely not the warm, friendly type.
"Well, then," he said, conquering the chilly feeling for a second,
"maybe there's somebody else. Somebody who knows something more about
psionics, and who might have some other ideas about--"
"Please, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said. "The United States Government
would hardly have chosen me had I not been uniquely qualified in my
field."
Malone sighed again. "I mean ... maybe there are some books on the
subject," he said quietly, hoping he sounded tactful. "Maybe there's
something I could look up."
"Mr. Malone." The temperature of the office, Malone realized, was
definitely lowering. O'Connor's built-in freezer coils were working
overtime, he told himself. "The field of psionics is so young that I
can say, without qualification, that I am acquainted with everything
written on the subject. By that, of course, I mean scientific works. I
do not doubt that the American Society for Psychical Research, for
instance, has hundreds of crackpot books which I have never read, or
even heard of. But in the strictly scientific field, I must say
that--"
He broke off, looking narrowly at Malone with what might have been
concern, but looked more like discouragement and boredom.
"Mr. Malone," he said, "are you ill?"
Malone thought about it. He wasn't quite sure, he discovered. The
chill in the office was bothering him more and more, and as it grew he
began to doubt that it was all due to the O'Connor influence. Suddenly
a distinct shudder started somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulders
and rippled its way down his body.
Another one followed it, and then a third.
"Me?" Malone said. "I'm ... I'm all right."
"You seem to have contracted a chill," O'Connor said.
A fourth shudder followed the other three.
"I ... guess so," Malone said. "I d-d ... I do s-seem to be r-r-rather
chilly."
O'Connor nodded. "Ah," he said. "I thought so. Although a chill is
certainly odd at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit." He looked at the
thermometer just outside the window of his office, then turned back to
Malone. "Pardon me," he said. "Seventy-one point six."
"Is ... is that all it is?" Malone said. Seventy-one point six
degrees, or even seventy-two, hardly sounded like the broiling Nevada
desert he'd expected.
"Of course," O'Connor said. "At nine o'clock in the morning, one would
hardly expect great temperatures. The desert becomes quite hot during
the day, but cools off rapidly; I assume you are familiar with the
laws covering the system."
"Sure," Malone said. "S-sure."
The chills were not getting any better. They continued to travel up
and down his body with the dignified regularity of Pennsylvania
Railroad commuter trains.
O'Connor frowned for a second. It was obvious that his keen scientific
eye was sizing up the phenomenon, and reporting events to his keen
scientific brain. In a second or less, the keen scientific brain had
come up with an answer, and Dr. O'Connor spoke in his very keenest
scientific voice.
"I should have warned you," he said, without an audible trace of
regret. "The answer is childishly simple, Mr. Malone. You left
Washington at noon."
"Just a little before noon," Malone said. Remembering the burning sun,
he added: "High noon. Very high."
"Just so," O'Connor said. "And not only the heat was intense; the
humidity, I assume, was also high."
"Very," Malone said, thinking back. He shivered again.
"In Washington," O'Connor said, "it was noon. Here it is nine o'clock,
and hardly as warm. The atmosphere is quite arid, and about twenty
degrees below that obtaining in Washington."
Malone thought about it, trying to ignore the chills. "Oh," he said at
last. "And all the time I thought it was you."
"What?" O'Connor leaned forward.
"Nothing," Malone said hastily.
"My suggestion," O'Connor said, putting his fingertips together again,