by Mark Clifton
effects.
Neither could I object to the Swami's insistence that he sit with hisback to the true North. When he came into the room, accompanied byLieutenant Murphy, his thoughts seemed turned in upon himself, or waftedsomewhere out of this world. He stopped in mid-stride, struck anattitude of listening, or feeling, perhaps, and slowly shifted his bodyback and forth.
"Ah," he said at last, in a tone of satisfaction, "there is the North!"
It was, but this was not particularly remarkable. There is no confusingmaze of hallways leading to the Personnel Department from the outside.Applicants would be unable to find us if there were. If he had got hisbearings out on the street, he could have managed to keep them.
He picked up the nearest chair with his own hands and shifted it so thatit would be in tune with the magnetic lines of Earth. I couldn't object.The Chinese had insisted upon such placement of household articles,particularly their beds, long before the Earth's magnetism had beendiscovered by science. The birds had had their direction-finders attunedto it, long before there was man.
Instead of objecting, the lieutenant and I meekly picked up the tableand shifted it to the new position. Sara and Auerbach came in as we weresetting the table down. Auerbach gave one quick look at the Swami in hisblack cloak and nearly white turban, and then looked away.
"Remember semantics," I murmured to him, as I pulled out Sara's chairfor her. I seated her to the left of the Swami. I seated Auerbach to theright of him. If the lieutenant was, by chance, in cahoots with theSwami, I would foil them to the extent of not letting them sit side byside at least. I sat down at the opposite side of the table from theSwami. The lieutenant sat down between me and Sara.
The general manager came through the door at that instant, and tookcharge immediately.
"All right now," Old Stone Face said crisply, in his low, rumblingvoice, "no fiddle-faddling around. Let's get down to business."
The Swami closed his eyes.
"Please be seated," he intoned to Old Stone Face. "And now, let us alljoin hands in an unbroken circle."
Henry shot him a beetle-browed look as he sat down between Auerbach andme, but at least he was cooeperative to the extent that he placed bothhis hands on top of the table. If Auerbach and I reached for them, wewould be permitted to grasp them.
I leaned back and snapped off the overhead light to darken the room inan eerie, blue glow.
We sat there, holding hands, for a full ten minutes. Nothing happened.
* * * * *
It was not difficult to estimate the pattern of Henry's mind. Sixpersons, ten minutes, equals one man-hour. One man-hour of idle time tobe charged into the cost figure of the antigrav unit. He was staringfixedly at the cylinders which lay in random positions in the center ofthe table, as if to assess their progress at this processing point. Heapparently began to grow dissatisfied with the efficiency rating of themanufacturing process at this point. He stirred restlessly in his chair.
The Swami seemed to sense the impatience, or it might have beencoincidence.
"There is some difficulty," he gasped in a strangulated, high voice. "Myguides refuse to come through."
"Harrumph!" exclaimed Old Stone Face. It left no doubt about what _he_would do if _his_ guides did not obey orders on the double.
"Someone in this circle is not a True Believer!" the Swami accused in anincredulous voice.
In the dim blue light I was able to catch a glimpse of Sara's face. Shewas on the verge of breaking apart. I managed to catch her eye and flashher a stern warning. Later she told me she had interpreted my expressionas stark fear, but it served the same purpose. She smothered herlaughter in a most unladylike sound somewhere between a snort and asquawk.
The Swami seemed to become aware that somehow he was not holding hisaudience spellbound.
"Wait!" he commanded urgently; then he announced in awe-stricken tones,"I feel a presence!"
There was a tentative, half-hearted rattle of some castanets--whichcould have been managed by the Swami wiggling one knee, if he happenedto have them concealed there. This was followed by the thin squawk of abugle--which could have been accomplished by sitting over toward oneside and squashing the air out of a rubber bulb attached to a ten-centparty horn taped to his thigh.
Then there was nothing. Apparently his guides had made a tentativeappearance and were, understandably, completely intimidated by Old StoneFace. We sat for another five minutes.
"Harrumph!" Henry cleared his throat again, this time louder and morecommanding.
"That is all," the Swami said in a faint, exhausted voice. "I havereturned to you on your material plane."
* * * * *
The handholding broke up in the way bits of metal, suddenly chargedpositive and negative, would fly apart. I leaned back again and snappedon the white lights. We all sat there a few seconds, blinking in whatseemed a sudden glare.
The Swami sat with his chin dropped down to his chest. Then he raisedstricken, liquid eyes.
"Oh, now I remember where I am," he said. "What happened? I never know."
Old Stone Face threw him a look of withering scorn. He picked up one ofthe cylinders and hefted it in the palm of his hand. It did not flyupward to bang against the ceiling. It weighed about what it ought toweigh. He tossed the cylinder contemptuously, back into the pile,scattering them over the table. He pushed back his chair, got to hisfeet, and stalked out of the room without looking at any of us.
The Swami made a determined effort to recapture the spotlight.
"I'm afraid I must have help to walk to the car," he whispered. "I amcompletely exhausted. Ah, this work takes so much out of me. Why do I goon with it? Why? Why? Why?"
He drooped in his chair, then made a valiantly brave effort to riseunder his own power when he felt the lieutenant's hands lifting him up.He was leaning heavily on the lieutenant as they went out the door.
Sara looked at me dubiously.
"Will there be anything else?" she asked. Her tone suggested that sincenothing had been accomplished, perhaps we should get some work outbefore she left.
"No, Sara," I answered. "Good night. See you in the morning."
She nodded and went out the door.
Apparently none of them had seen what I saw. I wondered if Auerbach had.He was a trained observer. He was standing beside the table looking downat the cylinders. He reached over and poked at one of them with hisforefinger. He was pushing it back and forth. It gave him no resistancebeyond normal inertia. He pushed it a little farther out of parallelwith true North. It did not try to swing back.
So he had seen it. When I'd laid the cylinders down on the table theywere in random positions. During the seance there had been no jarring ofthe table, not even so much as a rap or quiver which could have beencaused by the Swami's lifted knee. When we'd shifted the table, afterthe Swami had changed his chair, the cylinders hadn't been disturbed.When Old Stone Face had been staring at them during the seance--seance?,hah!--they were laying in inert, random positions.
But when the lights came back on, and just before Henry had picked oneup and tossed it back to scatter them, every cylinder had been laying inorderly parallel--and with one end pointing to true North!
I stood there beside Auerbach, and we both poked at the cylinders somemore. They gave us no resistance, nor showed that they had any ideasabout it one way or the other.
"It's like so many things," I said morosely. "If you do just happen tonotice anything out of the ordinary at all, it doesn't seem to meananything."
"Maybe that's because you're judging it outside of its own framework,"Auerbach answered. I couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic orspeculative. "What I don't understand," he went on, "is that once thecylinders having been activated by whatever force there was inaction--all right, call it psi--well, why didn't they retain it, the waythe other cylinders retained the antigrav force?"
I thought for a moment. Something about the conditional setup seemed togive me an
idea.
"You take a photographic plate," I reasoned. "Give it a weak exposure tolight, then give it a strong blast of overexposure. The first exposureis going to be blanked out by the second. Old Stone Face was feelingpretty strongly toward the whole matter."
Auerbach looked at me, unbelieving.
"There isn't any rule about who can have psi talent," I argued. "I'mjust wondering if I shouldn't wire General Sanfordwaithe and tell himto cut our order for poltergeists down to five."
* * * * *
I spent a glum, restless night. I knew, with certainty, that Old StoneFace was going to give me trouble. I didn't need any psi talent forthat, it was an inevitable part of his pattern. He had made up his mindto take charge of this antigrav
