Supermind
soon.” He hoped, as he went out the door and down the corridor, that
he was telling the truth there, at least. He’d sounded fairly
confident, he thought, but he didn’t feel quite so confident. The
secretary was busy on the switchboard when he came out into the
anteroom, and he went by without a greeting, his mind busy, churning
and confused.
He felt as if his head were on just a little crooked. Or as if, maybe,
he had a small hole in it somewhere and facts were leaking out onto
the sidewalk.
If he only looked at the problem in the right way, he told himself, he
would see just what was going on.
But what was the right way?
“That,” Malone murmured as he hailed a cab for the ride back to 69th
Street, “is the big, sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. And how much
time do I have for an answer?”
11
“Boyd?” the agent-in-charge said. “He went out to talk to Mike Sand
down at the ITU a while ago, and he hasn’t come back yet.”
“Fine,” Malone said. “I’ll be in my office if he wants me.”
The agent-in-charge picked up a small package. “A messenger brought
this,” he said. “It’s from the Psychical Research Society, and if it’s
ghosts, they’re much smaller than last time.”
“Dehydrated,” Malone said. “Just add ectoplasm and out they come,
shouting _boo_ at everybody and dancing all over the world.”
“Sounds wonderful,” the agent-in-charge said. “Can I come to the
party?”
“First,” Malone said judiciously, “you’d have to be dead. Of course, I
can arrange that—”
“Thanks,” the agent-in-charge said, leaving in a hurry. Malone went on
down to his office and opened the package. It contained more
facsimiles from Sir Lewis Carter, all dealing with telepathic
projection. He spent a few minutes looking them over and trying to
make some connected sense out of them, and then he just sat and
thought for awhile.
Finally he picked up the phone. In a few minutes he was talking to Dr.
Thomas O’Connor, at Yucca Flats.
“Telepathic projection?” O’Connor said when Malone asked him the
question he’d thought of. “Well, now. I should say that—no. First,
Mr. Malone, tell me what evidence you have for this phenomenon.”
Malone felt almost happy, as if he had done all his homework before
the instructor called on him. “According to what I’ve been able to get
from the PRS,” he said, “ordinary people—people who aren’t
telepaths—occasionally receive some sort of messages from other
people.”
“I assume,” O’Connor said frostily, “that you are speaking of
telepathic messages?”
Malone nodded guiltily. “I didn’t mean the phone,” he said, “or
letters or things like that. Telepathic messages, or something very
like it.”
“Indeed,” O’Connor said. “Mr. Malone, I believe you will find that
such occurrences, when accurately reported, are confined to close
relatives or loved ones of the person projecting the message.”
Malone thought back. “That’s right,” he said.
“And, further,” O’Connor went on, “I think you’ll find that the—ah—
message so received is one indicating that the projector of such a
message is in dire peril. He has, for instance, been badly injured, or
is rapidly approaching death, or else he has narrowly escaped death.”
“True,” Malone said.
“Under such circumstances,” O’Connor said coldly, “it is possible that
the mind of the person projecting the communication might be capable
of generating immense psionic power, thereby forcing even a
non-telepath to recognize the content of the message.”
“Good,” Malone said. “That’s wonderful, Doctor, and I—”
“But,” O’Connor said sharply, “the amount of psionic energy necessary
for such a feat is tremendous. Usually, it is the final burst of
energy, the outpouring of all the remaining psionic force immediately
before death. And if death does not occur, the person is at the least
greatly weakened; his mind, if it ever does recover, needs time and
rest to do so.”
Malone let that sink in slowly. “Then a person couldn’t do it very
often,” he said.
“Hardly,” O’Connor said.
Malone nodded. “It’s like—like giving blood to a blood bank. Giving,
say, three quarts of blood. It might not kill you. But if it didn’t,
you’d be weak for a long time.”
“Exactly,” O’Connor said. “A good analogy, Mr. Malone.”
Malone hated himself for it, but he felt pleased when O’Connor praised
him. “Well,” he said, “that winds up Cartier Taylor’s theory pretty
thoroughly.”
“I should think so,” O’Connor said. “I am surprised, Mr. Malone, that
you would put any credence whatever in that man’s theories. His
factual data, I will admit, is fairly reliable. But his theories are—
well, they are hardly worth the time it takes to read them.”
“I see,” Malone said. “It did seem like a good answer, though.”
“It undoubtedly is a good one,” O’Connor said. “It is clever and has
the advantage of being simple. It is contradicted, Mr. Malone, only by
the facts.”
“Sure,” Malone said sadly. “But—hey. Wait a minute.”
“Yes?” O’Connor said.
“One person couldn’t do this alone, at least, not very often and not
without serious harm to himself. Right?”
“That is what I said,” O’Connor agreed. “Yes, Mr. Malone.”
“But how about several people?” Malone said. “I mean, well, let’s look
at that blood bank again. You need three quarts of blood. But one
person doesn’t have to give it. Suppose twelve people gave half a pint
each. Suppose twenty-four people gave a quarter of a pint each.
Suppose—”
“There is,” O’Connor said, “a point of diminishing returns. But I do
see your point, Mr. Malone.” He thought for a second. “It might just
be possible,” he said. “At least theoretically. But it would take a
great deal of mental co-ordination among the participants. They would
have to be telepathic themselves, for one thing.”
“Why?” Malone said, feeling stupid.
“Because they would have to mesh their thoughts closely enough to
direct them properly and at the correct time.” O’Connor nodded. “But,
given that, I imagine that it could be done.”
“Wonderful,” Malone said.
“However,” O’Connor said, apparently glad to throw even a little cold
water on the notion, “it could not be done for very long periods of
time, you realize.”
“Sure,” Malone said happily.
“By the way, Mr. Malone,” O’Connor said. “Does this have anything to
do with the hypothesis you presented to me some time ago? Mass
hypnotism, as I recall—”
“No,” Malone said. “I’ve given that idea up for good. I think this is
being done on an individual basis—working on one person at a time.”
Then another idea hit him. “You say these people would have to be
telepaths?”
“That’s right,” O’Connor said.
“Then wouldn’t Her Majesty know about them? If they’re telepaths? Or
is there some kind of a mind shield or something that a telepath could
work out?”
“Mind shield?” O’Connor said. “Ah, yes. Miss Thompson might be fooled
by such a shield. It would have to be an exceptional one, but such
things do seem to be possible. They belong to the realm of mental
disciplines, of course, rather than psionics.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “But there could be that kind of shield?”
“There could,” O’Connor said. “The mind which created the shield for
itself would have to be of tremendous power and a really high order of
control. A strong, sane mind might conceivably create such a block
that even Miss Thompson, let us say, might believe that she was
picking up a real mind, when she was only picking up surface thoughts,
with the real thought hidden behind the telepathic block.”
“Fine,” Malone said. “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Dr. O’Connor.”
“I am always happy to put my extensive knowledge of science at your
disposal, Mr. Malone,” O’Connor said.
Malone watched the image collapse without really seeing it. Instead,
he was busily talking to himself, or rather to his other self.
“Well, now, Sir Kenneth,” he said. “Let’s pull all the facts together
and see what happens.”
“Indeed, Mr. Malone,” said Sir Kenneth Malone, “it is time that we
did. Proceed, Sirrah. I shall attend.”
* * * * *
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Malone said. “We know there’s
confusion in all parts of the country, in all parts of the world, I
guess. And we know that confusion is being caused by carefully timed
accidents and errors. We also know that these errors appear to be
accompanied by violent bursts of psionic static—violent energy. And
we know, further, that on three specific occasions, these bursts of
energy were immediately followed by a reversal of policy in the mind
of the person on the receiving end.”
“You mean,” Sir Kenneth put in, “that they changed their minds.”
“Correct,” Malone said. “I refer, of course, to the firm of Brubitsch,
Borbitsch and Garbitsch, Spying Done Cheap.”
“Indeed,” Sir Kenneth said. “Then the operators of this force,
whatever it may be, have some interest in allowing these spies to
confess?”
“Maybe,” Malone said. “Let’s leave that for later. To get back to the
beginning of all this: it seems to me to follow that the accidents and
errors which have caused all the confusion through the United States
and Russia are caused by somebody’s mind being changed at exactly the
right moment. A man does something just a little differently than he
decided to—or else he forgets to do it at all.”
“Correct,” Sir Kenneth said. “And you feel, Mr. Malone, that a
telepathic command is the cause of this confusion?”
“A series of them,” Malone said. “But we also know, from Dr. O’Connor,
that it takes a great deal of psychic energy to perform this
particular trick—more than a person can normally afford to expend.”
“Marry, now,” Sir Kenneth exclaimed, “such a statement does not seem
to have reason in it. Changing the mind of a man seems a small thing
in comparison to teleportation, or psychokinesis, or levitation. And
yet it takes more power than any of these?”
Malone thought for a second. “Sure it does,” he said. “I’d say it was
a matter of resistance. Moving an inanimate object is pretty simple—
comparatively, anyhow—because inert matter has no mental resistance.”
“And moving yourself?” Sir Kenneth said.
“There is some resistance there, probably,” Malone said. “But you’ll
remember that part of the Fueyo training system for teleportation
involved overcoming your own mental resistance to the idea.”
“True,” Sir Kenneth said. “Quite true. Then let us say that it
requires enormous power to effect these changes. What is our next
step, Mr. Malone?”
“Next, Sir Kenneth,” Malone said, “We have to do a little supposing.
This project must be handled by a fairly large group, since no
individual can work it. This large group has to be telepathic, and not
only for the precise timing O’Connor specified.”
“There is another reason?” Sir Kenneth said.
“There is,” Malone said. “They’ve also got to know exactly when to
make their victim change his mind. Right?”
“Absolutely,” said Sir Kenneth. “Now, Sirrah, where does all this
leave us? We have had the orderly presentation of the case; where,
Sirrah, is your summation?”
“Coming up,” Malone said. “We’ve got to look for a widespread
organization of telepaths, with enough mental discipline to hold a
mental shield that Her Majesty can’t crack, and can’t even recognize
the existence of. We thought she’d found all the telepaths. She said
so, and she obviously thought so. But she didn’t. These are strong,
trained—and sane.”
“Aha,” said Sir Kenneth.
“Her Majesty,” Malone said, “found us only the crazy telepaths, the
weak ones, the nuts.”
“Fine,” said Sir Kenneth. “And this, Mr. Malone, leaves us with only
one question. Her Majesty—may God bless her—stated that she first
spotted these flashes of telepathic static by listening in on our
minds.”
“Our mind,” Malone said. “I hope.”
“Very well,” Sir Kenneth said. “This means that some force is being