“To accomplish what?”
“What do you think?” Weldon asked. “The report passed eventually through the proper hands, was properly initialed, then filed with DEDCOM’s earlier abortions and forgotten. Special Activities continued, by its more realistic standard investigative procedures, to attempt to find out what had bogged down the colonization program. As you’re aware, the department didn’t make much headway. And neither has the program.”
“The last is very apparent,” Lowry said, looking puzzled.
“But the fact that you’ve failed to solve the problem seems a very poor reason to go back now to the theory of a rogue telepath.”
Weldon blew out a puff of smoke, said thoughtfully, “That wouldn’t have been too logical of us, I agree. But our failure wasn’t the reason for reviving DEDCOM’s theory.”
“Then what was your reason?” Irritation edged Lowry’s voice again.
“The unexpected death, five years ago, of one of the world’s better-known political figures,” Weldon said. “You would recognize the name immediately if I mentioned it. But you will not recognize the circumstances surrounding his death which I am about to relate to you, because the report published at the time was a complete falsehood and omitted everything which might have seemed out of the ordinary. The man actually was the victim of murder. His corpse was found floating in the Atlantic. That it should have been noticed at all was an unlikely coincidence, but the body was fished out and identified. At that point the matter acquired some very improbable aspects because it was well known that this man was still alive and in the best of health at his home in New York.
“It could have been a case of mistaken identification, but it wasn’t. The corpse was the real thing. While this was being definitely established, the man in New York quietly disappeared . . . and now a number of people began to take a different view of DEDCOM’s long-buried report of a hypnotizing telepath who could assume the identity of another person convincingly enough to fool even close friends. It was not conclusive evidence, but it did justify a serious inquiry which was promptly attempted.”
“Attempted?” Arlene Rolf asked. “What happened?”
“What happened,” Weldon said, “was that the rogue declared war on us. A limited war on the human race. A quiet, undercover war for a specific purpose. And that was to choke off any kind of investigation that might endanger him or hamper his activities. The rogue knew he had betrayed himself; and if he hadn’t known of it earlier, he learned now about the report DEDCOM had made. Those were matters he couldn’t undo. But he could make it very clear that he wanted to be left undisturbed, and that he had methods to enforce his wishes.”
Dr. Lowry blinked. “What could one . . .”
“Ben,” Ferris Weldon said, “if you’ll look back, you’ll recall that a little less than five years ago we had . . . packed into the space of a few months . . . a series of the grimmest public disasters on record. These were not due to natural forces—to hurricanes, earthquakes, floods or the like. No, each and every one of them involved, or might have involved, a human agency. They were not inexplicable. Individually, each could be explained only too well by human incompetence, human lunacy or criminal purpose. But—a giant hotel exploded, a city’s water supply was poisoned, a liner . . . yes, you remember.
“Now, notice that the rogue did not strike directly at our investigators. He did that on a later occasion and under different circumstances, but not at the time. It indicated that in spite of his immense natural advantages he did not regard himself as invulnerable. And, of course, he had no need to assume personal risks. By the public nonspace and air systems, he would move anywhere on earth within hours; and wherever he went, any human being within the range of his mind became a potential tool. He could order death at will and be at a safe distance when the order was executed. Within ten weeks, he had Special Activities on the ropes. The attempts to identify him were called off. And the abnormal series of disasters promptly ended. The rogue had made his point.”
Arlene said soberly, “You say he attacked some of your investigators later on. What was that about?”
“That was a year later,” Weldon said. “A kind of stalemate had developed. As you’re aware, the few operating telepaths in the government’s employment are a daintily handled property. They’re never regarded as expendable. It was clear they weren’t in the rogue’s class, so no immediate attempt was made to use them against him. But meanwhile we’d assembled—almost entirely by inference—a much more detailed picture of this opponent of mankind than DEDCOM had been able to provide. He was a freak in every way. His ability to read other minds and to affect them—an apparent blend of telepathy and irresistible hypnosis—obviously was a much more powerful and definite tool than the unreliable gropings of any ordinary telepath. But there was the curious point that he appeared to be limited—very sharply limited—simply by distance, which to most of our trained telepaths is a meaningless factor, at least this side of interplanetary space. If one stayed beyond his range, the rogue was personally harmless. And if he could be identified from beyond his range, he also could be—and by that time almost immediately would have been—destroyed by mechanical means, without regard for any last-moment havoc he might cause.
“So the first security island was established, guarded against the rogue’s approach by atmospheric blocks and sophisticated somatic barriers. Two government telepaths were brought to it and induced to locate him mentally.
“It turned out to be another mistake. If our unfortunate prodigies gained any information about the rogue, they didn’t live long enough to tell us what it was. Both committed suicide within seconds of each other.”
“The rogue had compelled them to do it?” Arlene asked.
“Of course.”
“And was this followed,” Dr. Lowry asked, “by another public disaster?”
“No,” Weldon said. “The rogue may have considered that unnecessary. After all, he’d made his point again. Sending the best of our game telepaths after him was like setting spaniels on a tiger. Ordinarily, he could reach a telepath’s mind only within his own range, like that of any other person. But if they were obliging enough to make contact with him, they would be instantly at his mercy, wherever he might be. We took the hint; the attempt wasn’t repeated. Our other telepaths have remained in the seclusion of security islands, and so far the rogue has showed no interest in getting at them there.”
Weldon stubbed his cigarette out carefully in the ashtray beside him, added, “You see now, I think, why we feel it is necessary to take extreme precautions in the further handling of your diex projector.”
There was silence for some seconds. Then Dr. Lowry said, “Yes, that much has become obvious.” He paused, pursing his lips doubtfully, his eyes absent. “All right,” he went on. “This has been rather disturbing information, Ferris. But let’s look at the thing now.
“We’ve found that diex energy can be employed to augment the effects of the class of processes commonly referred to as telepathic. The projector operates on that theory. By using it, ordinary mortals like Arlene and myself can duplicate some of the results reportedly achieved by the best-trained telepaths. However, we are restricted in several ways by our personal limitations. We need the location devices to direct the supporting energy to the points of the globe where the experiments are to be carried out. And so far we have not been able to `read the mind’—to use that very general term—of anyone with whom we are not at least casually acquainted.”
Weldon nodded. “I’m aware of that.”
“Very well,” Lowry said. “The other advantage of the projector over unaided natural telepathy is its dependability. It works as well today as it did yesterday or last week. Until a natural telepath actually has been tested on these instruments, we can’t be certain that the diex field will be equally useful to him. But let’s assume that it is and that he employs the projector to locate the rogue. It should be very easy for him to do that. But won’t that simply—in your phrasing—put him at the rogue’s mercy again?”
Weldon hesitated, said, “We think not, Ben. A specialist in these matters could tell you in a good deal more detail about the functional organization in the mind of a natural telepath. But essentially they all retain unconscious safeguards and resistances which limit their telepathic ability but serve to protect them against negative effects. The difference between them and ourselves on that point appears to be mainly one of degree.”
Lowry said, “I think I see. The theory is that such protective processes would be correspondingly strengthened by employing the diex field. . . .”