Part 2 (1/2)

Out of boredom, though, he plugged away, walked past the disdainfully-staring eyes of neighbors to the village library, and withdrew dusty microfiles on robotry. Eventually he had acquired a little skill at contemplating what, essentially, remained a mystery to his easily-tired mind. It was not completely satisfactory but it would be enough to get him a better-than-average menial job when he had finally accepted his new condition.

At long last a letter came from Ted on Mars. It said:

Guilty by a.s.sociation, that's what I am! When it first happened I was furious with the two of you but resignation has its own consolations and I've given up the ranting. Of course, I've lost my job and my new one will keep me from Earth a longer time but the real loss is not being able to think on Earth Central once a day. As you know, it's a funny civilization here anyway. As yet, there's no local telepathic Central but all Active Communicators are permitted to think in on Earth Central once a day--except for the big shots who can even telepath social engagements to each other by way of Earth! Privileged but a pretty dull crowd anyway.

Oh yes, another exception to the general ration, Suspendeds like me.

Funny thing about that, seems to me there are more Suspended from the Earth System all the time. Maybe I'm imagining it.

As lovingly as ever, your son, Ted. (NO. _More_ than ever!)

Rhoda really went to pieces for a while after that letter but, oddly enough, all recriminations soon stopped. She began going into the city every day and after each visit seemed a little calmer for having done so.

Finally Connor could no longer remain silent about it. But by now all conversations had to be broached by tactful beating around the bush so he began by saying he had decided to take a lower level job in the metropolis.

Rhoda was not surprised. ”I know. A good idea but I think you should wait a while longer and do something else first.”

That made him suspicious. ”Are you developing a new kind of unblockable ESP? How'd you know?”

”No,” she laughed. ”Some day we will maybe and people will use it better this time. But right now I'm just going by what I see. You've been studying Max and I knew you were bound to get restless.” She became thoughtful. ”What you really want to know, though, is what I've been doing in the city. Well, at first I did very little. I kept ending up in theatres where we Suspendeds can go. That gave a little relief. But since Ted's letter it's been different. I finally got up the courage to see Dr. Newbridge.”

”Newbridge!”

”Connor, he's a great man. You should see him too.”

”My mind may have smaller scope outside the System but what's left of it isn't cracking, Rhoda.” Working himself into a spasm of righteous rage, he stalked out into the garden and tried to convince himself he was calmly studying the rose bushes' growth. But Sheila and Tony Williams came down the lane that skirted the garden and, as their eyes moved haughtily past him, his rage s.h.i.+fted its focus. He came back into the house and remained in sullen silence.

Rhoda went on as if there had been no interruption. ”I still say Dr.

Newbridge is a great man. He dropped out of the System of his own free will and that certainly took courage!”

”He willingly gave up his advantages and privileges?”

”Yes. And he's explained why to me. He felt it was destroying every Subscriber's ability to think and that it could not last. Some day we would be without anything to do our thinking and he wanted out.”

Connor sat down and stared thoughtfully out the window. Max had just lumbered into the garden and, having unscrewed one hand to replace it with a flexible spade, was starting on the evening schedule for turning over the soil at the base of the plants. He would go methodically down one flower bed, then up the next one, until all had been worked over, then would start all over again unless ordered to stop. ”Are we to end up the same way?” Connor shuddered. He slapped his knee. ”All right, I'll go with you tomorrow. I've got to see what he's like--a man who'd voluntarily surrender ninety percent of his powers!”

The next morning they rode into the city together and went to the Harker Building. It was in an area dense with non-telepaths each one showing that telltale cleft of anxiety in his forehead but briskly going about his business as if anxiety were actually a liveable quality. Newbridge had the same look but there was a nonetheless rea.s.suring ease to the way he greeted them. He was tall and white-haired and his face frequently a.s.sumed an abstracted look as if his mind were reaching far away.

”You've come here,” he said, ”for two reasons. The first is dissatisfaction with your life. More precisely, you're dissatisfied with your att.i.tude toward life but you wouldn't be willing to put it that way, not yet. Secondly, you want to know why anyone would willingly leave the System.”

Connor leaned back in his chair. ”That'll do for a starter.”

”Right. Well, there aren't many anomalies like me but we do exist. Most people outside the System are there because they've been Suspended for supposed infractions, or they've been put out through guilt by a.s.sociation, or because they were born into a family already in that condition. Nothing like that happened to me. From early childhood I was trained by parents and teachers to discipline the projective potential of my mind into the System. Like every other paraNormal, I received my education by tapping Central for contact with information centers and other minds. But I was a fluke.” His dark blue eyes twinkled.

”Biological units are never so standardized that _all_ of them fall under any system that can be devised. I functioned in this System, true, but I could imagine my mind existing outside, could see my functioning _from the outside_. This is terribly rare--most people are limited to the functions which sustain them. They experience nothing else except when circ.u.mstances force them to. I, though, could see the System was not all-powerful.”

”Not all-powerful!” Connor exploded. ”It got rid of me awfully easily.”

His wife tried to calm him. ”Listen, dear, then decide.”