Part 4 (1/2)
_What?_ Her thought carried astonishment. _Why, Dave--he'd_ have _to be!
How else could he have controlled this Sir Lewis--whatsisname--Huntley?_
_Well--I've got a funny idea_, Houston replied. _Look at it this way: So far as we know, there are two Groups of telepaths. There's our own Group. All we want is to be left alone. We don't read a Normal's mind unless we have to, and we don't try to control one unless our lives are threatened. We stay under cover, out of everyone's way._
_Then there are the megalomaniacs. They try, presumably, to gain wealth and power by controlling Normals. And they get caught with monotonous regularity. Right?_
The girl caught an odd note in that thought. _What do you mean, ”monotonous regularity”?_ she asked.
_I mean_, Houston thought savagely, _why is it they're all so b.l.o.o.d.y stupid? Look at this Harris guy; he is supposed to have taken over Sir Lewis's mind in order to get a thousand pounds. So what did he have Sir Lewis do? Parade all around the city to pick up a PD Police net, and then give his address to a cabman in a loud voice and lead the whole net right to Harris! How stupid can a man get?_
_It does look pretty silly_, Dorrine agreed. _Have you got an explanation?_
_Several_, Houston told her. _And I don't know which one is correct._
_Let's have them_, the girl thought.
Houston gave them to her. None of them, he knew, was completely satisfactory, but they all made more sense that the theory that Harris had done what the PD Police claimed he'd done.
Theory Number One: The real megalomaniac Controller had taken over Sir Lewis's mind and made him draw out the thousand pounds and head west on Leadenhall Street. Somehow, the Controller had found out that Sir Lewis was being followed, and had steered him away from the original destination, heading him toward the innocent Robert Harris. That implied that the Controller had been within a few dozen yards of the net men that afternoon. A Controller can't control a mind directly from a distance, although orders can be implanted which will cause a man to carry out a plan of action, even though he may be miles from the Controller. But in order to change those plans, the Controller would have to be within projection range.
Theory Two: Robert Harris actually was a megalomaniac Controller; with a long record of success behind him, who had finally grown careless.
At that point, Dorrine interjected a thought: _Isn't it possible that he wanted to be caught?_
Houston mulled it over for a minute. _A guilt-punishment reaction? He wanted to be punished for his crimes? I suppose that might account for part of it, yes. But if he'd been so successful, what did he do with all his money?_
Dorrine gave a mental shrug. _Who knows? What's Theory Number Three?_
Number Three was the screwiest one of all, yet it made a weird kind of sense. Suppose that Sir Lewis himself had had a grudge against Harris?
The whole thing would have been ridiculously easy; all he'd have to do would be to act just as he had acted and then give evidence against Harris.
The thing that made it odd wasn't the actual frame-up (if that's what it was); these days, every crime was blamed on a Controller. A man accused of murder simply looked virtuous and said that he would never have done such a thing if he hadn't been under the power of a Controller. Ditto for robbery, rape, and any other felony you'd care to name.
An aura of fear hung over the whole Earth; each man half suspected everyone with whom he came in contact of being a Controller.
So it wasn't that the frame-up in itself was peculiar in this case; it was simply that it wasn't Sir Lewis Huntley's style. If Sir Lewis had wanted to get Harris, he'd have done it legally, without any underhanded frame-ups. Still, the theory remained as a possibility.
_I suppose it does_, Dorrine agreed, _but how does that tie in with our own Group? What about Jackson and Marcy? What happened to them?_
_I don't know_, Houston admitted, _I just don't know_.
Jackson and Marcy had been members of the Group of telepaths who had banded together for companions.h.i.+p and mutual protection. Both of them had been trapped by the PD Police in exactly the same way that Harris had been trapped. They were now where Harris would be in a matter of hours--in the Penal Cl.u.s.ter.
Their arrests didn't make sense, either; they had been accused of taking over someone's mind for the purpose of gaining money illegally--illegal, that is, according to the new UN laws that had been pa.s.sed to supersede the various national laws that had previously been in effect.
But Houston had known both men well, and neither of them was the kind of man who would pull such a stunt, much less do it in such a stupid manner.