Mutant, page 6
But the middle group was paranoid—and sane.
Among these telepaths were found the maladjusted egotists, the ones who for a long time had refused to wear wigs, and who had bragged of their superiority. They had the cunning and the utter self-justification of the true paranoid type, and were basically antisocial. But they were not mad.
And you can’t put Them in cages. For they were telepaths, and how can you cage the mind?
They finished with Brazilian chocolate cake, demi-tasse and Mississippi liqueur, made by the monks of Swanee monastery.
Barton touched his cigarette tip to the igniter paper on the pack. He inhaled smoke.
“It’s not a big conspiracy, then.”
“These things start small. A few men—but you see the danger.”
Barton nodded. “I see it, O.K. It’s plenty bad medicine. A few paranoid-type Baldies, working out a crazy sabotage scheme— Tell me a little more first, though. For instance, why me? And why you?”
To a nontelepath the question might have been obscure. Sue raised her brows and said, “You, because you’ve got the reflexes I spoke of and because I had the luck to find you before I got desperate enough to look for a substitute. As for me”—she
Mutant
54
hesitated—”that’s the oddest part. No one could have stumbled onto them except by accident. Because telepathy, of course, isn’t tight-beam. It’s a broadcast. Any receptive mind can pick it up. The minute enough people band together to make a city, that’s noticeable. And the minute Baldies get together and form any sort of organization, that’s noticeable too. Which is why paranoids never made much trouble, except individually. Banding together would have meant running up a flag—one that could be seen for miles.”
“And so?”
“So they’ve got this special means of communication. It’s secret, absolutely unbreakable code. Only it isn’t merely code. Then we could detect and trace down, even if we couldn’t break it. This is telepathic communication on an entirely new band, one we can’t even touch. I don’t know how they do it. It might be partly mechanical, or it might not. Children have a higher perceptive level, but we can catch their thoughts. This is mental ultraviolet. Do you realize the implications?”
Smoke jetted from Barton’s nostrils. “Yeah. It wrecks the balance of power—completely. Up to now, decentralization has kept peace.
Nobody dared band together or get too big for their boots. They could be detected. But these bichos are wearing invisible cloaks.”
His hand clenched. “It could become world-wide! The one form of organization we can’t fight!”
“It’s got to be fought,” she said. “It’s got to be smashed. And fast, before anyone suspects. If non-Baldies ever find out, there’ll be a wave of anti-Baldism that could wipe Us out. If that should happen, people wouldn’t stop to sort out the social and the antisocial groups. They’d say, ‘We’ve been nursing a viper, and it’s got fangs.
Kill ’em all.”
Outside the window a man on horseback clattered past, hoofbeats making an urgent rhythm in Barton’s brain.
“How many are there?”
“I told you it’s just beginning. Only a few more. But it can spread. I suppose the immediate difficulty is in their training neophytes in
Mutant
55
their special trick telepathy. That’s why I think it must be physically self-induced. Gadgets can be detected. And mobility would be necessary; they’d never know when they had to get in touch with each other. You can’t pack around a big gadget.”
“You could camouflage it,” Barton said. “Or it might be pretty small.”
“It might,” she said, “but there’s this little girl—Melissa Carr. She tapped their wave without a gadget. She must be some mutant variant.”
“Melissa Carr?” echoed Barton. “Where does she come in?”
“Oh, I haven’t told you. She’s my contact. I’ve been in touch with her off and on for a week or so, but it was only yesterday that she let slip, very casually, what she’d learned on that special thought band.”
“She isn’t one of them, then?”
“I’m sure not. It’s very odd. Even the way she reached me first—”
Sue had been dressing for a party, and the tentative fingering question had crept into her mind. “It was like Cinderella, somehow.
I could feel the pleasure she took in the dress I was wearing, a Mozambique model, and the Karel bag. She strung along with me mentally all evening. And after that—” After that communication had been established. But it had been days before Melissa spoke of the telepathic signals she had inadvertently tuned in on.
“She guessed what they meant, but she didn’t seem much impressed by the danger. I mean, it didn’t strike her that something ought to be done. There’s some mystery about Melissa; sometimes I’ve even thought she might have been a member of the group once, and pulled out. Sometimes she won’t answer my signals at all. But now that she’s told me about this—Faxe—I think I’ve convinced her of the danger. Sam Faxe. He’s one of the paranoids, and from what I’ve learned, he’s trying to sabotage some experiments in Galileo.”
“Why?”
Mutant
56
“That’s what I don’t know. Apparently the paranoids are so familiar with their basic plan that they don’t need even to think about it.
Their thoughts deal with immediate action. And always on that special wave length we can’t catch. Only Melissa, as far as I know, can get it, and she must have been born receptive.”
“Some are,” Barton agreed. “Mutants certainly vary a lot, far more than nonmutants. As for this long-term scheme, you know the paranoid type. They figure Baldies were made to rule the world.
They look on ordinary humans as a lower species. And if they’re trying to sabotage experiments, that’s significant. I wonder what sort of experiment this Galileo business is?”
“I don’t know,” Sue said. “Melissa’s very shaky on technology.”
“I can find out through Denham. He lives in Galileo.”
“That’s where I met him. But maybe you can get more out of Melissa than I can. It isn’t wise to”—she hesitated, substituting a familiar word for the unimaginable mental terms—”telepath her too much, but it’s necessary, of course. If you feel any probing, sheer off right away.”
“Has there been any?”
“No. Not yet. But we must keep in the dark.”
Sue hadn’t asked Barton if he would help; she knew that he would.
Preservation of the race had been implanted in every Baldy, though in the paranoid type it had been warped and distorted. Now Sue’s mind reached out, searching, questioning, seeking the lock to fit her key. And almost immediately the answer came. It was like one hand drawing two others together, Sue mentally introducing Melissa Carr to Barton. He felt something fumble, shy and almost gauche, and then they—locked. He sent out friendliness and warm assurance. Instantly he was conscious of a strong femininity that amounted almost to sexual attraction. Half clear, half clouded, he sensed what Melissa Carr meant to herself: the intangible consciousness of living ego, different in each individual, and the softness of curling hair—hair? Wig—and the softness of a mouth against fingers drawn gently across them. A demure withdrawal
Mutant
57
that had in it shades of color and scent, and then something that was the equivalent of a curtsey, purely mental, and with an oddly old-fashioned flavor. After that, he knew he could never mistake Melissa Carr’s mind for that of another Baldy.
This is Dave Barton, Melissa.
Recognition and pleasure-shading. A question: trust? So much danger—
Utter trust, yes— strong affirmative.
Many—(different)—messages
coming strongly
Shadow of menace of Sam Faxe
Urgency
Shadow of menace of Sam Faxe
Cannot speak—another symbol for
speak—long
Possible personal danger
And all these gradations of meaning at once, three minds interlocking like a color wheel, focusing to the central white spot of revelation and truth. There were no barriers, as in oral conversation. Like light the thoughts intermeshed and wove in question, answer, and statement, and despite the concentration, all three had time for the more intimate shadings that took the place of tonal values. It was the capacity for such rapport that made round-table debates so popular among Baldies; the logical and aesthetic play of minds that could ultimately resolve into an ecstacy of complete common awareness. Physically there was no polygamy among Baldies, but mentally the social group had expanded, lending an additional depth and richness to their lives.
But this was merely a hint of complete rapport. Barton was searching for clues in what Melissa told him. He was no technician either, so he was going at it from another angle; that of the
Mutant
58
naturalist, trained in probing protective coloration, skilled in unraveling the predator’s tangled tracks.
How many?
Three.
No more?
Three—and images of Galileo and other towns, symbols of names and identities. A feeling of shadowy communion, links of hatred—
And suddenly, in her mind, he sensed something curiously, disturbingly familiar. He did not know what it was. But momentarily it broke the smooth flow of communication, while he searched.
It was nothing; he concentrated again. Three?
Known name Sam Faxe
Sym
Power-lust
bol
Heavy lethargy
There were other evoked connotations, but he thought he would know Sam Faxe now.
The other symbols, resolving into names: Ed Vargan, mixed with a curious concept of size-difference; and Bertram Smith, where there was sensed a cruelty akin to that of the blood-drinking carnivores.
Though with a difference; Barton had reached into the mind of a weasel when it was feasting, and the sheer flood of ecstacy had almost frightened him. Smith was intelligent, though he, like the others, had that singular quality of—of what?
Darkness. Distortion. Blindness.
Yes, Sue thought, they’re blind. Blinded by their paranoia. They can’t see this world at all—as it’s meant to be.
Mutant
59
And Melissa’s visualization of the three: vicious small things running through the dark, teeth bared. She identified them, Barton realized, with—what?—with mice; she had a horror of mice, which to her were far more horrible than insects or snakes. Well, he could understand phobias; he himself was abnormally afraid of fire. Most Baldies were phobic in one degree or another, a penalty paid for increased mental sensitivity.
He thought: “I” must move fast. If they communicate, they may go into hiding. “I” must kill them at one stroke. Can they read your mind?
They do not know Melissa Carr exists.
But if one is killed, they will be warned. You must be kept safe.
Where are you?
Refusal, definite refusal.
It would be best to tell me, so—
No one can find me as long as I don’t think my location. There are no directional finders for telepathy. The concept she expressed meant more than telepathy; it was the symbol for a whole race and its unity.
Can you locate Vargan and Smith?
Certainly; they spoke freely in their private wave length; Vargan is in Rye; Smith is in Huron.
How is it you can catch their wave length?
Puzzlement. A helpless mental shrug. Born to me?
Barton thought: When one of them dies, the others will be warned.
Listen carefully. Be sure to relay their plans. They must not escape.
Melissa thought of the three small, gray, vicious things scuttling across the floor. Barton grinned tightly.
Mutant
60
See how they run, he told her. See where they run to. His hand touched his dagger. It was not a carving knife, but it would do.
There was not much more. Melissa relayed some of the paranoid thoughts she had caught, and Barton’s guess at the menace of the paranoids was confirmed. They were deadly, in the long run, to the whole mutant group. Individual deaths did not matter much, in this era of the duello, but to risk the good will of the entire race was mad-dog tactics. Nor did there seem to be any motive. Sheer malice? It was not logical, and paranoids are always logical, though their structure is founded on a false keystone. The single clue that would give the whole a meaning was, so far, lacking. Nor could Barton find it by turning to his training as a naturalist. Animals do not commit sabotage. Nor do birds foul their own nests.
After Melissa had left them, Sue showed her impatience. “I want to help,” she said, orally now. “There must be some way.”
“There isn’t. You said yourself that this takes a very special skill.
You’re a biologist. You don’t react instantly, the way I do, and if you were along, my attention would be diverted. I’ve got to concentrate.”
“You’ll kill them, then?”
“Certainly I’ll kill them. Luckily there are only three, according to Melissa. She wasn’t lying; I could tell that.”
“Oh, she’s honest,” Sue agreed. “But she’s certainly hiding something.”
Barton shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What this calls for is prompt action. I can’t do much investigating. If I plant any thoughts or questions in non-Baldy minds, the paranoids will start wondering.
I’ve got to eradicate those bichos before the infection spreads.
There are plenty of paranoid Baldies who’d join a movement like that, if they were able to master the secret wave length.”
“So what’ll I do?”
Mutant
61
“It doesn’t matter,” Barton said, “now. Your job’s finished. It’s my meat now.”
They stood up together. Outside, on the village sidewalk, he left her, with a handclasp that held a deep significance. All around them the casual, evening life of the town was moving, brightly lighted and symbolic of the vast, intricate check-and-balance system that held civilization together. The civilization that tolerated Baldies, and, though perhaps a little grudgingly, gave them a chance to work out their own salvation. Both of them were thinking of the same thing: how easily that ordinary throng could be integrated into a blood-hungry mob. It had happened before, when Baldies were still new to the world, and the danger still smoldered.
So Barton went off alone, with the unspoken commission of his whole race commanding him to do what since birth he had been conditioned to do. The race was important; the individuals were not.
His helicopter had already been serviced, and he took off for Galileo, on the Atlantic Seaboard, still thinking about what he had to do. He was so abstracted that only automatic radio signals kept him from colliding with other copters. But, finally, the lights of the technicians’ town glowed on the horizon.
Like all the communities devoted to technology, Galileo was larger than most villages. Scientists were peaceful folk, and no tech-town had ever been dusted off. Niagara, with its immense source of power, held more people than Galileo, but the latter had a far larger area. Due to the danger of some of the experiments, the town sprawled out for miles, instead of being the tight, compact village that was the general American pattern.
Because of this there was surface-car transport, an unusual thing.
Bartin guided himself to Denham’s house—there were no apartments, of course, in a highly individualistic though interdependent culture—and by good luck found the man at home.
Denham was a mild, round-faced Baldy whose wigs had year by year grown grayer until his present one was shot with white. He greeted Barton warmly, but orally, since there were people on the street, and Baldies were tactful about demonstrating their powers.
Mutant
62
“Dave. I didn’t know you were back. How was Africa?”
“Hot. I haven’t had a game of skip-handball for six months. I think I’m getting soft.”
“You don’t look it,” Denham said, with an envious glance. “Come on in. Drink?”
Over a highball they talked non-essentials, except that they didn’t—
talk. Barton was feeling his way; he didn’t want to tell Denham too much, especially since Sam Faxe was here in Galileo, and he went all around the subject without finding out much. It proved more difficult than he had expected. Eventually they ended in the game room, stripped to shorts, facing a vertical wall, scooped into innumerable convolutions, divided into segments that jiggled erratically. There they played skip-handball. It was easy to tell in advance how hard Denham would swat the ball, but there was no earthly way of judging the angle of reflection. The two bounced around a good deal, getting plenty of exercise, and carrying on a telepathic conversation as they played.
Denham indicated that his favorite game was still crap shooting. Or roulette, by preference. Either of them he could play with his non-Baldy friends, whereas bridge or poker— uh! Who’d play poker with a mind reader?
Games that depended on luck or pure muscle were OK., Barton agreed, but there weren’t many of the latter. Wrestling or boxing involved pre-planned thought. But many Olympic trials were possible: shot-putting, high-jumping, racing. In those you didn’t face your opponent. Any war game, like chess, was impossible.
Well, Denham thought, your vocation’s a sort of war game.
Game hunting? Barton let his mind skim over the field, settling on a tiger after a heavy feed, lethargic, and with the deep consciousness of power as in a silently humming dynamo. He tied that in, subtly, with a hunger, and with something, vague and unformed, that was similar to the symbol by which Melissa knew Sam Faxe. His thought then paralleled the identity of Faxe as one musical chord
Mutant
63
parallels its complement. If Denham knew Faxe at all, he’d probably respond.
And he did. A sense of elation mounted in Barton as he caught the stray fragment, filtering out nonessentials, squeezing it dry of the accumulated Denham-detritus: What remained was a fat, less competent interpreter who served as liaison man sometimes between technicians of different language-groups. Barton hastily changed to another subject so that Denham would not attach any importance to this particular mnemonic ideation.
