Part 7 (1/2)

”No!” Mary shrieked.

”Not him!” Elmer said.

I stood up to face them. ”Yes,” I said. ”I _do_ have the Stigma. The only lie was that I was the Lodge's counsel. I'm not.”

”What then?” Keys demanded.

”I'm Grand Master of the Manhattan Chapter,” I told him. ”And you, like every Psi who is made aware of the existence of the Lodge, are now subject to my orders.”

”Not me,” Elmer said. ”You ain't got the Stigma.”

I fired a lift at an ashtray on the table beside him, and it sailed in an arc toward the kitchen and crashed against the wall. My TK was certainly a lot better than it had been in the morning. Well, I'd spent an hour or so warming up before they had come in.

”_Who_ hasn't got the Stigma?” I said.

He looked at Keys. ”You didn't do that,” he said. ”You _couldn't_!”

Keys was openmouthed. ”What a bruiser!” he marveled.

”So I've got the Stigma, Elmer,” I said quietly. ”Now why won't you do what I tell you?”

”Ah don't do what _anybody_ tells me!”

”What do you hate and fear the most?” I asked him.

”Snakes, ah reckon,” he decided.

”Show him a snake, Mary,” I said. Her face twisted in indecision. I rammed a lift in under her heart--I know it hurt her. ”Show him!” I snapped.

Elmer didn't jump more than three feet. Mary gave all of us the same hallucination. Her first try was a pretty sad kind of a snake, but it was bigger than the nine-by-twelve rug it squirmed on, and was making right for Elmer's legs, hissing in a horrible fas.h.i.+on.

”Enough,” I said. ”That's how, Elmer. And if that doesn't trouble you, how about this?” I gave him a sample of what TK means when it's clamped on the mitral valve. A heart attack is no joking matter, and just before he hit the deck I eased off.

”Now,” I said, ”will you do what I tell you, or do I have to kill you outright?”

He sank down to his knees, resting his palms on the carpet so recently vacant of illusory snake. ”Yo' got me convinced, suh,” he admitted.

”No mo', you hear?”

”Any more protests?” I said. I got none. ”Here's what we have to do,”

I went on, and spelled it out for them. At last they were ready to go, three shaken young people. ”I repeat--absolute secrecy--none of you is a telepath, so only your lips can give you away if you keep your thoughts screened around TP's. Later that may change--the Lodge is preparing to come a little more into the open with Psis.”

My whole members.h.i.+p nodded and left me. I was shaking from head to foot.

We had things to do in the forenoon, and I didn't try to see His Honor Judge Vito Pa.s.sarelli until after lunch. But the docket was crowded, and there was no chance until after court had adjourned, which was well on toward four o'clock. His Honor was hanging his robes on a clothes-tree as I came into his Chambers, and he nodded me politely to a chair, just as if our last words hadn't been pretty heated.

”Mary Hall?” he asked, fumbling around to find his in-Chambers gla.s.ses. He's too vain to wear them on the bench.

I nodded an answer to his question as he came back to take a creaky horse-hair swivel, relic of more judges and years than I like to think about. ”I'm here as her counsel,” I said.