Supermind Part 58

"The s.h.i.+eld started growing stronger," Malone said. "Sure. Her Majesty told me that, though she didn't know why."

"Right," Burris said.

"But, wait a minute," Malone said. "How could I do all that without knowing it? How would I know that some of my thoughts were safe behind a s.h.i.+eld if I didn't know the s.h.i.+eld existed and couldn't even tell if my mind were being read?" He paused. "Does that make sense?" he asked.

"It does," Burris said, "but it shouldn't."

"What?" Malone said.

"Two years ago, you had the answer to that one," Burris said. "Dr.

O'Connor's machine. Remember why it did detect when a person's mind was being read?"

"Oh," Malone said. "Oh, sure. He said that any human being would know, subconsciously, whether his mind was being read."

"He did, indeed," Burris said. "And then we came to the fourth step: to put you in rapport with some psionicist who could teach you how to control the s.h.i.+eld, how to raise and lower it, you might say. To learn to accept other thoughts, as well as reject them. To learn to accept your full telepathic talent. That was Lou's job."

"Lou's ... job?" Malone said. He felt his own s.h.i.+eld go up. The thoughts behind it weren't pleasant. Lou had been ... well, hired to stay with him. She had pretended to like him; it was part of her job.

That was perfectly clear now.

Horribly clear.

"You are now on your way," Sir Lewis said, "to being a real psionicist."

"Fine," Malone said dully. "But why me? Why not, oh, Wolfe Wolf? I'd think he'd have a better chance than I would."

"My secretary," Burris said, "has talents enough of his own. But you, you're something brand-new. It's wonderful, Malone. It's exciting."

"It's a new taste thrill," Malone murmured. "Try Bon-Ton B-Complex Bolsters. Learn to eat your blanket as well as sleep with it."

"What?" Burris said.

"Never mind," Malone said. "You wouldn't understand."

"But I--"

"I know you wouldn't," Malone said, "because I don't."

Sir Lewis cleared his throat "My dear boy," he said, "you represent a breakthrough. You are an adult."

"That," Malone said testily, "is not news."

"But you are a telepathic adult," Sir Lewis said. "Many of them are capable of developing it into a useful ability. Children who have the talent may accidentally develop the ability to use it, but that almost invariably results in insanity. Without proper guidance, a child is no more capable of handling the variety of impressions it receives from adult minds than it is capable of understanding a complex piece of modern music. The effort to make a coherent whole out of the impression overstrains the mind, so to speak, and the damage is permanent."

"So here I am," Malone said, "and I'm not nuts. At least I don't think I'm nuts."

"Because you are an adult," Sir Lewis went on. "Telepathy seems to be almost impossible to develop in an adult, even difficult to test for it. A child may be tested comparatively simply; an adult, seldom or never."

He paused to relight his pipe.

"However," he went on, "the Psychical Research Society's executive board discovered a method of bringing out the ability in a talented child as far back as 1931. All of us who are sane telepaths today owe our ability to that process, which was applied to us, in each case, before the age of sixteen."

"How about me?" Malone said.

"You," Sir Lewis said, "are the first adult ever to learn the use of psionic powers from scratch."

"Oh," Malone said. "And that's why Mike Fueyo, for instance, could learn to teleport, though his older sister couldn't."

"Mike was an experiment," Sir Lewis said. "We decided to teach him teleportation without teaching him telepathy. You saw what happened."

"Sure I did," Malone said. "I had to stop it."

"We were forced to make you stop him," Sir Lewis said. "But we also let him teach you his abilities."

"So I'm an experiment," Malone said.

"A successful experiment," Sir Lewis added.

"Well," Malone said dully, "bully for me."

"Don't feel that way," Sir Lewis said. "We have--"

He stopped suddenly, and glanced at the others. Burris and Lou stood up, and Sir Lewis followed them.

"Sorry," Sir Lewis said in a different tone. "There's something important that we must take care of. Something quite urgent, I'm afraid."

"You can go on home, Malone," Burris said. "We'll talk later, but right now there's a crisis coming and we've got to help. Leave the car. I'll take care of it."

"Sure," Malone said, without moving.

Lou said, "Ken--" and stopped. Then the three of them turned and started up the long, curving staircase that led to the upstairs rooms.

Malone sat in the Morris chair for several long minutes, wis.h.i.+ng that he were dead. n.o.body made a sound. He rubbed his hands over the soft leather and tried to tell himself that he was lucky, and talented, and successful.

But he didn't care.

He closed his eyes at last, and took a deep breath.

Then he vanished.

16

Two hours pa.s.sed, somehow. Bourbon and soda helped them pa.s.s, Malone discovered; he drank two highb.a.l.l.s slowly, trying not to think about anything, and kept staring around at the walls of his apartment without really seeing anything. He felt terrible.

He made himself a third bourbon and soda and started in on it. Maybe this one would make him feel better. Maybe, he thought, he ought to break out the cigars and celebrate.

But there didn't seem to be very much to celebrate, somehow.