Part 8 (2/2)

Quickly, before he could wind his way into the maze of problems awaiting him, he asked, ”May I return to speak with you further once I have taken care of the Brethren? I will not announce your presence. I'll buy the farm, if necessary, to a.s.sure the secret of the s.h.i.+p.”

”You are avoiding your decision,” the whispering voice berated him, the tone somewhat accusatory.

”I don't know what you mean.”

”You know perfectly well. You must decide whether or not to go back into the world as you know it, back where you will be a greater freak than ever. A physical abnormality makes a man an outcast in your world. But a mental abnormality-be it either for better or worse, r.e.t.a.r.dation or genius-leads to the same rejection, though even more swiftly and with more vehemence on the part of those expunging the undesirable element.”

Ti nodded, having reached the same conclusion some time ago, even before he had fully developed his psionic awareness through the PBT. Mentally deficient men were d.a.m.ned to lives of ridicule, forced into lives of loneliness in bas.e.m.e.nt rooms or in inst.i.tutions. Society ignored them and patted its own back for, at least, not chaining them in dungeons as once was done. Men falling into the upper limits of genius were scorned by those less fortunate in intellect who demeaned them and their opinions at every possible opportunity. They preferred the blandness of the average. The less-than-average was worthy only of disdain by the middle. The more-than-average was a target of jealous anger and petty accusations. It should not be that way, of course. But it was. And there was nothing he could do, even with his psionic powers, to change the thinking of an entire society.

Then, as if his mind had just finished mulching the fodder of the alien's comments, he turned to other things and suddenly remembered a forgotten morsel, one phrase with more meaning than he had at first attributed to it: ”... whether or not to go back...” Whether or not That implied that he had a choice of leaving the stars.h.i.+p or remaining within its emerald metal walls.

”But I can't stay here!” he said, the words far louder and sharper than they had been intended, ringing on the cold walls with an echo of the panic and excitement building in him.

”Why not?”

Why not...?

He almost laughed at the whispered brevity of that. Why not? The alien had made it seem like a black-and-white question when there were so many shades of gray involved! Should a man retreat from a world because he fears that he cannot easily cope with it? Should a man deny his race, the nature of the soul within him, simply because there is an alternative that may lead to less heartache than continuing as he has continued in the past? Should a man relinquish all the material comforts which have required years to acquire, all the most lavish luxuries of his society, in return for some esoteric, intangible benefits of the intellect which might be gained in the exchange? Should a man leave that which he is certain of for that which is mysterious, unsure?

Yes. His own calm and reasoned reply to the questions he had been posing startled him. Yes, a man should retreat from a world he fears he cannot cope with-if the reasons for his inability to cope lay with the nature of that world and not within himself. Yes, a man should deny his race and the heritage of it if his own race and its history deny him the right of that peace of mind. Yes, a man should exchange material possessions, no matter what the degree of status they represent, for intangible ones if joy lies with the latter and not the former. Yes, a man should tackle that which is mysterious and frightening, for only in that manner can a man ever find satisfaction in himself and in the personal world which he has constructed around him.

”You would accept me?” he asked.

”It would be an easy matter on our part. We have accepted others of far stranger races than yours. Perhaps it would be difficult for you to accept us. You will have to learn and embrace our customs, language, and basic patterns of reasoning-which are all different than yours. It will be far more difficult for you to adjust than it was for me to adapt your language and cultural patterns. Our culture is far more complex. It is possible that, confronted with its intricacy, you could go mad.”

”I doubt it,” he said.

”I agree.”

”But why do you want me? Why bother?”

”There are cubes. They are empty. You are the first psionic of your race. You will make an excellent emissary when the time comes for us to meet the rest of your race. And what reasons, on the other hand, could be argued against your acceptance?”

”But your s.h.i.+pmates-”

”Have heard every word that has been spoken between us, heard with a part of their minds, either as a major focus or a minor point.”

”And they feel the same?”

”They do.”

Timothy looked around the chamber at the hundreds of other dangling cubes, trapped between coppery strands of webbing, like surreal horses on an other-world merry-go-round. He was not frightened or repulsed by the prospect of spending centuries within one of those while his mind functioned in disembodiment on some far and nonhuman world.

”I would like that,” he said.

”There are things you must attend to.”

”Yes. The Brethren. The newspaper. It will not take very much time.”

”When you return, all will have been prepared for your entombment,” the alien said. The greenish cubes glinted with stray pieces of light, their edges soft, now smooth, now struck with light again as they turned slowly, slowly, first to the left, then the right, too slight a movement to be easily discerned.

”I'll hurry,” he said.

When the whisper did not reply, Timothy closed his eyes and gathered about himself the cloak of serenity necessary to a leap into the nonmatter continuum of teleportation. He conjured up a vision of the Brethren farm, of the darkling earth around it.

He teleported.

He had work to do...

CHAPTER 17.

He found himself standing beneath the same willow tree where he had first arrived when he had teleported from the Brethren house in New England, though he had not made a conscious effort to return to the exact same terminus. He drifted quickly across the lawn, onto the porch where he found the slumbering bodies of Richard Boggs and the unnamed henchman who had been sitting in the swing. He entered the mind of the surgically created killer and wiped away whatever knowledge the man had possessed of the stars.h.i.+p and the origins of PBT.

Richard Boggs's mind was somewhat more intricate. The a.n.a.logue which Timothy's own mind established to deal with it was of a junkyard, where rusting, useless articles of the man's life rested in varying states of decay. Richard Boggs was a dreamer, a man with a million schemes all contained within him at once-none of them workable. He would be, until the end of his days, exactly what he was now: a second-rate hired man. In the junkyard, among the rust and the twisted metal, Timothy located that which he wished to expunge, and left the man ignorant of not only the source of the drug, but of its existence as well. When he woke, the letters PBT would have no meaning whatsoever for him.

He drifted into the house and did the same with Thelma Boggs, wiping out all knowledge of the drug and the stars.h.i.+p.

Her mind was similar to her husband's, and the hopeless schemes she had were often ones he had cultivated first.

He went to the three Brethren whose minds he had explored earlier, and took away the selected bits of data from two of them. Moving faster now, more anxious to get this finished, he went outside and eradicated the stars.h.i.+p and PBT from the memories of the rear door guard and from the mind of the man who had been patrolling the white picket fence.

When all of this had been accomplished, within a matter of ten minutes, he returned to the living-room, where the gray-haired Brother who had shot at him through the window lay on his face, his mind as yet untouched. Timothy delved deeply into the ancient library a.n.a.logue and stirred through the thousands of books of thoughts, discarding them, throwing them on the floor when he discovered they were not what he wanted. In time he knew the name of every Brother who knew of the existence of the stars.h.i.+p below the house. There were only four of them, all members of the Inner Circle of the organization. There was Leopold, of course. And three others who. shared in the policy-making of the Brethren structure. He collected their addresses, permanent and alternate, then wiped the stars.h.i.+p and the PBT out of the gray-haired gentleman's memories.

He floated into the darkness, over the dew-damp lawn, taking a moment or two to enjoy the fresh, untainted fragrance of the country air. The anti-pollution laws had slowly begun to have their intended effect on the cities, but they were not nearly so clean as this. He was well aware, as he filled his lungs and savored the crispness, that this might well be the last chance he would have for reverie for the next few centuries-or longer.

He looked at the stars overhead. They no longer seemed cold and distant and uncaring, but warm and close. They were things to be viewed as guiding beacons in the darkness. And soon, quite soon now, he would be there, among them, if only with his psionic abilities. He understood, looking at those far points of light, why the aliens could not simply teleport to their homeworld. Even the superhuman talents of the fully developed mind could not cope with those vast reaches of s.p.a.ce.

He closed his eye, blocking out the stars and concentrating on finis.h.i.+ng what must be done here on earth.

He tensed every muscle.

The night was cool; he left it.

He dematerialized on that Iowa lawn...

... And materialized in the study of the New England house where he had so recently been a captive. The four men were still in the room, much the same as he had left them, though Leopold had awakened and was sitting on the couch with his head propped between his hands, trying-it seemed-to press the fog out of his brain in order to get his thoughts clicking properly once more. Margle was groaning and tossing his head restlessly from side to side, though he was still unconscious. The two apemen, Baker and Siccoli, were as contented as babes newly fallen into slumber.

Timothy slipped into the minds of the two henchmen and erased their knowledge of the existence of PBT. He did the same with Jon Margle, then pinched the nerves in the base of the man's neck again, sending him down into perfectly still sleep.

Next he entered Leopold's mind, as cautiously as possible, fearing that the bloated, roachlike insects that had poured out of the walls of the conscious mind might still be running free. But the things had either been driven back into the walls of the conscious mind or had returned of their own free will. The subconscious must fear and detest the conscious, he thought, as much as the aware portion refuses to have anything to do with the seamier concerns of the subconscious. In this manner, all of us may be schizophrenics in a private way, and thus cope with life far better than if we had to face it straight on, without compromises.

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