But Kanus’ eyes began to glow. “I have the plan,” he announced. Turning to Kor
“You must push the development of this instantaneous transporter to the ultimate. I want a working device immediately. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my Leader ”
Rubbing his hands together joyfully, Kanus said, “We will have our army appear in the Acquatainian capital. We’ll conquer the Cluster from within! Wherever they have a dueling machine, we’ll appear and conquer with the swiftness of lightning! Let the Star Watch plant their hostages on the frontier .,. they’ll gather cobwebs there! We’ll have the whole Cluster in our fist before Spencer even realizes we’ve moved!”
Kanus laughed uproariously, and all his aides laughed with him.
All except Romis.
Professor Leoh slouched unhappily in a chair at the dueling machine’s main control desk. Hector sat uneasily on the first few centimeters of the desk edge.
“We have adequate power,” Leoh said, “the circuits are correct, everything seems normal.” He looked up, puzzled, at Hector.
The Watchman stammered, “I know … I just.. well, I just can’t do it.”
Shaking his head, Leoh said, “We’ve duplicated the conditions of your first jump. But now it doesn’t work. If the machine is exactly the same, then there must be something different about you.”
Hector wormed his shoulders uncomfortably.
“What is it, my boy? What’s bothering you? You haven’t been yourself since the night you caught Odal.”
Hector didn’t reply.
“Listen,” said Leoh. “Psychic phenomena are very difficult to pin down. For centuries men have known cases where people have apparently teleported, or used telepathy. There are thousands of cases on record of poltergeists—they were actually thought to be ghosts, ages ago. Now I’m sure that they’re really cases of telekinesis: me poltergeist was actually a fairly normal human being, under extraordinary stress, who threw objects around his house mentally without even knowing it himself.”