“Yes,” Mutreaux answered. “Rothman put pressure on him, to take pressure off Pretty Blue Fox; the police out in California were probing a little too deeply, we felt.”
“But they’ll know after a while that it’s spurious,” Patricia said. “That vug E. B. Black will get into his mind telepathically.”
“It won’t matter then,” Mutreaux said. “I hope.”
Inside the motel office an air-conditioner roared; the room was dark and cool, and seated here and there Pete saw a number of individuals talking together in muted tones. It looked, for an instant, as if he had stumbled onto a Game-playing group here in the middle of the morning, but of course it was not. He had no illusions about that. These were not Bindmen.
He seated himself, warily, wondering what they were saying. Some of them sat utterly silent, staring straight ahead as if preoccupied. Telepaths, perhaps, communicating with one another. They seemed to be in the majority. The others—he could only guess. Pre-cogs, like McClain, psycho-kinesists, like the girl Mary Anne. And Rothman, whoever he was. Was Rothman here? He had a feeling,
deep and intuitive, that Rothman was very much here, and in control.
From a side room, Mary Anne appeared, now wearing a T shirt and blue cotton shorts and sandals and no bra; her breasts were high-pointed, small. She seated herself beside Pete, vigorously rubbing her hair with a towel to dry it. “What a bunch of jerks,” she said quietly to Pete. “I mean, don’t you agree? They—my mother and dad—made me come here.” She frowned. “Who’s that?” Another man had entered the room and looked around him. “I don’t know him. Probably from the East Coast, like that Mutreaux.”
“You’re not a vug,” Pete said to her. “After all.”
“No, I’m not. I never said I was; you asked me what I was and I told you, ‘you can see,’ and you could. It was true. See, Peter Garden, you were an involuntary telepath; you were psychotic, because of those pills and the drinking, and you picked up my marginal thoughts, all my anxieties. What they used to call the subconscious. Didn’t my mother ever warn you about that? She ought to know.”
“I see,” Pete said. Yes, she had.
“And before me you picked up that psychiatrist’s subconscious fears, too. We’re all afraid of the vugs. It’s natural. They’re our enemies; we fought a war with them and didn’t win and now they’re here. See?” She dug him in the ribs with her sharp elbow. “Don’t look so stupid; are you listening or not?”
Pete said, “I am.”
“Well, you gape like a guppy. I knew last night you were hallucinating like mad along a paranoid line, having to do with hostile, menacing conspiracies of alien creatures. It interfered with your perceptions, but fundamentally you were right. I actually was feeling those fears, thinking those thoughts. Psychotics live in a world like that all the time. Anyhow, your interval of being a telepath was unfortunate because it happened around me and I know about this.” She gestured at the group of people in the motel room. “See? So from then on you were dangerous. And you had to go right away and call the police; we got you just in time.”
Did he believe her? He studied her thin, heart-shaped
face; he could not tell. If telepathic talent it had been, it certainly had deserted him now.
“See,” Mary Anne said quietly, swiftly, “everyone has the potentiality for Psionic talent. In severe illness and in deep psychic regression—” She broke off. “Anyhow, Peter Garden, you were psychotic and drunk and on amphetamines and hallucinating, hut basically you perceived the reality that confronts us, the situation this group knows about and is trying to deal with. You see?” She smiled at him, her eyes bright. “Now you know.”
He did not see; he did not want to see.
Petrified, he drew away from her.
“You don’t want to know,” Mary Anne said thoughtfully.
“That’s right,” he said.
“But you do know,” she said. “Already. It’s too late not to.” She added, in her pitiless tone, “and this time you’re not sick and drunk and hallucinating; your perceptions are not distorted. So you have to face it head-on. Poor Peter Garden. Were you happier last night?”
“No,” he said.
“You’re not going to kill yourself about this, are you? Because that wouldn’t help. You see, we’re an organization, Pete. And you have to join, even though you’re non-P, not a Psi; we’ll have to take you in anyway or kill you. Naturally, no one wants to kill you. What would happen to Carol? Would you leave her for Freya to torment?”
“No,” he said, “not if I could help it.”
“You know, the Rushmore Effect of your car told you I wasn’t a vug; I don’t understand why you didn’t listen to it; they’re never wrong.” She sighed. “Not if they’re working properly, anyhow. Haven’t been tampered with. That’s how you can always sort out the vugs: ask a Rushmore. See?” Again she smiled at him, cheerfully. “So things aren’t really so bad. It’s not the end of the world or anything like that; we just have a little problem of knowing who our friends are. They have the same problem, too; they get a little mixed up at times.”
“Who killed Luckman?” Pete asked. “Did you?”
“No,” Mary Anne said. “The last thing we’d do is kill a
man who’s had so much luck, so many offspring; that’s the whole point.” She frowned at him.
“But last night,” he said slowly, “I asked you if your people had done it. And you said—” He paused, trying to think clearly, trying to sort out the confusion of those events. “I know what you said. ‘I forget,’ you said. And—you said our baby is next; you called it a thing, you said it was not a baby.”
For a long time Mary Anne stared at him. “No,” she whispered, stricken and pale. “I didn’t say that; I know I didn’t.”
“I heard you,” he insisted. “I remember that; it’s a mess, but honest to god, I have that part clear.”
Mary Anne said, “Then they’ve gotten to me.” Her words were scarcely audible; he had to bend toward her to hear. She continued to stare at him.
Opening the door of the sun-drenched kitchen, Carol Holt Garden said, “Pete—are you in there?” She peered in.
He was not in the kitchen. Bright, yellow and warm, it was empty.
Going to the window she looked out at the street below. Pete’s car and hers, at the curb; he had not gone in his car then.
Tying the cord of her robe she hurried out of the apartment and down the hall to the elevator. I’ll ask it, she decided. The elevator will know whether he went out, whether anyone was with him and if so who. She pressed the button, waited.
The elevator arrived; the doors slid back.
On the floor of the elevator lay a man, dead. It was Hawthorne.
She screamed.
“The lady said no help was necessary,” the Rushmore circuit of the elevator said, apologetically.
With difficulty Carol said, “What lady?”
“The dark-haired lady.” It did not elaborate.
“Did Mr. Garden go with them?” Carol asked.
“They came up without him but returned with him from his apartment, Mrs. Garden. The man, not Mr. Garden, killed
this person here. Mr. Garden then said, ‘They’ve kidnapped me and they’ve killed a detective. Get help.'”
“What did you do?”
The elevator said. “The dark-haired lady said, ‘Cancel the last request. We don’t need any help. Thank you.’ So I did nothing.” The elevator was silent a moment. “Did I do wrong?” it inquired.
Carol whispered, “Very wrong. You should have gotten help, as he said.”
“Can I do anything now?” the elevator asked.
“Call the San Francisco Police Department and tell them to send someone here. Tell them what happened.” She added, “That man and woman kidnapped Mr. Garden and you didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Garden,” the elevator apologized.
Turning, she made her way step by step back to the apartment; in the kitchen she seated herself unsteadily at the table. Those stupid, maddening Rushmore circuits, she thought; they seem so intelligent and they actually aren’t. All it takes is something unusual, something unexpected. But what did I do? Not much better, I slept while they came and got Pete, the man and woman. It sounds like Pat McClain, she thought. Dark-haired. But how do I know?
The vidphone rang.
She did not have the energy to answer it.
Trimming his red beard, Joe Schilling sat by his vidphone, waiting for an answer. Strange, he thought. Maybe they’re still asleep. It’s only ten-thirty. But—
He did not think so.
Hurriedly, he finished trimming his beard; he put on his coat and strode from his apartment and downstairs to Max, his car.
“Take me to the Gardens’ apartment,” he instructed as he slid in.