I could “talk” to Uncle Alf now, of course, as well as to Sugar Pie. But I didn’t, except when all three of us were talking together; telepathy is an imposition when it isn’t necessary. I never called Sugar Pie by myself, either, save for a couple of test runs for Doc Devereaux’s benefit to establish that I could reach her without Unc’s help. That took drugs; Unc would wake up from an ordinary sleep if anyone shouted on that “wave length.” But otherwise I left: her alone; I had no business crowding into a little girl’s mind unless she was ready and expecting company.
It was shortly after that that Pat got married.
Xl SLIPPAGE
My relations with Pat got steadily better all during that first boost, after Dr. Devereaux took me in hand. I found out, after I admitted that I despised and resented Pat, that I no longer did either one. I cured him of bothering me unnecessarily by bothering him unnecessarily-he could shut off an alarm clock but he couldn’t shut off me. Then we worked out a live-and-let-live formula and got along better. Presently I found myself looking forward to whatever time we had set for checking with each other and I realized I liked him, not “again” but “at last,” for I had never felt that warm toward him before.
But even while we were getting closer we were falling apart; “slippage” was catching up with us. As anyone can see from the relativity formulas, the relationship is not a straight-line one; it isn’t even noticeable at the beginning but it builds up like the dickens at the other end of the scale.
At three-quarters the speed of light he complained that I was drawling, while it seemed to me that he was starting to jabber. At nine-tenths of the speed of light it was close to two for one, but we knew what was wrong now and I talked fast and he talked slow.
At 99% of c, it was seven to one and all we could do to make ourselves understood. Later that day we fell out of touch entirely.
Everybody else was having the same trouble. Sure, telepathy is instantaneous, at least the trillions of miles between us didn’t cause any lag, not even like the hesitation you get in telephoning from Earth to Luna nor did the signal strength drop off. But brains are flesh and blood, and thinking takes time… and our time rates were out of gear. I was thinking so slowly (from Pat’s viewpoint) that he could not slow down and stay with me; as for him, I knew from time to time that he was trying to reach me but it was just a squeal in the earphones so far as making sense was concerned.
Even Dusty Rhodes couldn’t make it. His twin couldn’t concentrate on a picture for the long hours necessary to let Dusty “see” it.
It was upsetting, to say the least, to all of us. Hearing voices is all right, but not when you can’t tell what they are saying and can’t shut them off. Maybe some of the odd cases in psychiatry weren’t crazy at all; maybe the poor wretches were tuned in on a bad wave length.
Unc took it the worst at first and I sat with him all one evening while we both tried together. Then he suddenly regained his serenity; Sugar Pie was thinking about him; that he knew; so being, words weren’t really necessary.
Pru was the only one who flourished; she was out from under the thumb of her sister. She got really kissed, probably for the first time in her life. No, not by me; I just happened to be wandering down for a drink at the scuttlebutt, then I backed away quietly and let the drink wait. No point in saying who it was, as it didn’t mean anything-I think Pru would have kissed the Captain at that point if he had held still. Poor little Pru!
We resigned ourselves to having to wait until we slid back down closer into phase. We were still hooked ship-to-ship because the ships were accelerating to the same schedule, and there was much debate back and forth about the dilemma, one which apparently nobody had anticipated. In one way it was not important, since we would not have anything to report until we slowed down and started checking the stars we were headed for, but in another way it was: the time the Elsie spent at the speed of light (minus a gnat’s whisker) was going to seem very short to us-but it was going to be ten solid years and a bit over to those back Earth side. As we learned later, Dr. Devereaux and his opposite numbers in the other ships and back in LRF were wondering bow many telepathic pairs they would have still functioning (if any) after a lapse of years. They had reason to worry. It had already been established that identical twins were hardly ever telepairs if they had lived apart for years-that was the other reason why most of those picked were young; most twins are separated by adult life.