Part 7 (1/2)

There weren't very many Controllers on Earth, percentagewise. Of the three and a half billion people on Earth, less than an estimated one-thousandth of one percent were telepathic. But that made a grand total of some thirty-five thousand people.

Spread, as they were, all over the planet, it was rare that one Controller ever met another. The intelligent ones didn't use their power; they remained concealed, even from each other.

But _someone_, somewhere, was finding them and betraying them to the Psychodeviant Police.

As more and more data came in on the La.s.ser case, Houston began to get an idea. If there were a really clever, highly intelligent, megalomaniac Controller, wouldn't it be part of his psychological pattern to attempt to get rid of the majority of Controllers, those who simply wanted to lead normal lives?

And, if so, wasn't it possible that both his cases--the official and the unofficial--might lead to the same place: La.s.ser & Sons?

It began to look as though Houston could kill both his birds at once, if he could just figure out when, how, and in what direction to throw the stone.

In the middle of the seventh week, a Controller in Manchester, England, was mobbed and torn to bits by an irate crowd before the PD Police could get to him. There was no doubt in Houston's mind that this one was a real megalomaniac; he had taken over another man's brain and forced him to commit suicide. The controlled man had taken a Webley automatic, put it to his temple, and blown his brains out.

The Controller's mistake was in not realizing what the sudden shock of that bullet, transmitted to him telepathically, could do to his own mind. In the mental disorder that followed, he was spotted and killed easily.

There was still no word from Dorrine. She had flown back to the States a week after Houston had returned, but she had had to get back to England after three days. Since then, he had had three letters, nothing more.

And letters are a d.a.m.ned unsatisfactory way for a telepath to conduct a love affair.

The one other factor that entered in was The Group, the small band of sane, reasonable telepaths who had begun to build themselves into an organization--a sort of Mutual Protective a.s.sociation.

Personally, Houston didn't think much of the idea; the Group didn't have any real organization, and they refused to put one together. It was supposed to be democratic, but it sometimes bordered on the anarchic.

He stayed with them more for companions.h.i.+p than any other reason. When Dorrine had come back for her short stay, Houston had met with them and tried to get them to help him trace down the megalomaniac Controller who was doing so much damage, but they'd balked at the idea. Their job, they claimed, was to get enough members so that they could protect themselves from arrest by the Normals, and then just let things ride.

”After all,” Dorrine had said, ”things will work themselves out, darling; they always do.”

”Not unless somebody helps them, they don't,” Houston had snapped back.

”Someone has to do something.”

”But, Dave, darling--we _are_ doing something! Don't you see?”

He didn't, but there was no convincing either the Group or Dorrine. She was pa.s.sionately interested in the recruiting work she was doing, and she thought that the Group was the answer to every Controller's troubles.

And then she had rushed back to England. ”I'll be back soon, Dave,”

she'd said. ”I think I have a lead on a girl in Liverpool.”

So far, the girl hadn't been found. Controllers didn't like to give themselves away to anyone, so they kept a tight screen up most of the time.

It seemed as though everyone on Earth was in deadly fear all the time.

The Normals feared losing their ident.i.ties to Controllers, and the Controllers feared death at the hands of the Normals.

And death or the Penal Cl.u.s.ter were their only choices if they were discovered.

Houston worried about the risks Dorrine was taking, but there was nothing he could do. She was doing what she thought was right, just as he was; how could he argue with that?

Houston went on with his job, putting together facts and rumors and statistical data a.n.a.lysis, searching out his quarry.