by Earl
“Don’t mind her,” sighed Oberton. “Women have peculiar ideas at times.” He lit his pipe and puffed at it furiously, blowing curling blue wreaths of smoke to the ceiling. Then he faced the young man with a glittering look.
“Tearle, I’m about ready now to search out the secret of psychic perception. So far we’ve just been doing preliminary work. From now on I’m going to put you through intensive tests designed to reveal the manner in which your psychic powers work. In a way, you’ll be a mental guinea-pig. I won’t announce any of our results to the scientific world until I have some definite theory of how extra-sensory perception operates. So far I have only vague ideas. These will crystallize as I go along.”
He pointed his pipe stem at Tearle dramatically.
“Mind-reading—unlimited clairvoyance—two-way telepathy! We’ll startle the world! I can’t help being melodramatic about this. You, Warren Tearle, are the key to unlock that vast, untouched domain of mind for mankind. You are Columbus at the shores of a new, psychic world!”
CHAPTER III
Tearle’s Strange Power
WARREN TEARLE left the presence of Professor Oberton feeling like he had drunk a bottle of champagne. It all still seemed like a dream. He was to be lifted from poverty and obscurity to fame and fortune. All the world would soon hear of him. He might not be dominant of personality, but people would look up to him.
Warren Tearle had no altruistic thoughts of the benefits to science, and ultimately to mankind. His reflections were purely personal ones. He was made of common clay, as all humans are, and made no pretense of being otherwise. He was a psychic giant, but otherwise no different from others.
He straightened his tie, flecked a thread from his new suit, and reflected that it would be nice asking Darce to dinner that evening—if he only had the nerve. He set his lips grimly. He would, even if she had one or more of her admirers there. If she turned him down, he would walk out airily, for why should such trifles bother him—a man the world would hear about?
As usual, Darce was trying to make up her mind between her three most persistent male satellites. They all turned as Tearle came into the room.
One of the college boys looked him up and down in mock amazement. “Well, if it isn’t Romeo in the flesh!” Another said, with a leer, “Here’s our competition!”
The third bleated, “We don’t stand a chance with Darce while he’s around!” Trying to ignore their sallies, Tearle stopped before the girl. She looked at him half wonderingly.
“Darce, I—” he began, and choked. “Sir!” said one of the college boys sonorously, “if you are attempting to win the heart of this fair lady, it shall be horsepistols at dawn!”
The following burst of laughter shook Tearle’s remaining self-composure to shreds. He saw that Darce had to smile too, though she valiantly tried not to and hid it with her hand.
“Good night, Darce,” mumbled Tearle, running out with face flaming.
“Damn fool!” he told himself out in the hall. “Why don’t you just ignore their rude wit? After all, the world is going to hear about you!”
But the words tasted flat now. Tearle occupied himself on the way home with a wish-fulfillment wherein he was confounding those terrible three with rapier-like thrust of language—and triumphantly taking Darce out.
PROFESSOR OBERTON’S tests with Warren Tearle in the next month were intricate, and to himself, illuminative. He measured the speed of Tearle’s perception and found it to approach that of light.
This he determined by a simple enough test. He took Tearle to the physics laboratory and seated him before a turntable that could be rotated as high as 5000 times a second.
A number was painted on it, unknown to Tearle, and the plate whirled at its highest rate of speed. Tearle had the answer without any trouble. Oberton assumed that his psychic perception of the number, therefore, must have occurred in the tiny split second that the number paused at each part of its rotary motion. The test was tried with Tearle miles away from the turntable in a speeding car, with a result still closer to the speed of light.
“I’m gradually building a theory of psychic perception,” announced the scientist one day, pacing up and down before Tearle and Darce Henderson. “We must assume that in some mysterious subether there lies a vast field of strange force. Like gravitation in our three dimensional universe, which permeates all matter and space, this new force permeates, besides matter and space, all mind!
“This psychic-field is something which so closely links all parts of the known universe together that a full perception of the field would mean a full understanding of all things! But unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, man has little powers of extra-sensory perception, so that he has but a glimmer now and then of the things and thoughts going on around him which he can neither see nor hear nor feel nor taste nor smell.”
The scientist puffed silently at his pipe for a moment. Darce Henderson and Warren Tearle sat motionlessly, trying to assimilate his theory.
“You, Warren Tearle,” went on the professor, “are peculiarly gifted with the psychic sense. Why, I don’t know.
I haven’t even the slightest idea just how you grasp extra-sensory impressions, nor what part of your brain or body is concerned. Perhaps it is some subatomic phenomenon that the physicists will eventually discover.
“However, through your remarkable results I’ve been able to map, so to speak, the psychic field. There are three parts, or levels, to it. In the first level, one is able to detect simple clairvoyant symbols and simple telepathic impulses. All people have this first level ability, in greater or lesser degree. In the second level, one is able to detect almost any concrete telepathic message.
“A month ago you passed into the second level, when you were so suddenly aide to detect any objects, instead of just the often-used symbols. Like a child learning to use its legs, you suddenly learned how to walk in the second level.”
The scientist took a breath and went on.
“The third and highest level would be wonderful to achieve. It would be like tapping the main power-source that serves the universe. I don’t know exactly what it would mean—perhaps unlimited psychic perception in the mind-world. It would be like atomic-power in the material world. All human thought, even the most subtle and hidden, would probably be detectable. Transversely, a telepathic-impulse injected directly into the third level would undoubtedly reach all the mind-world. I have a suspicion that the great leaders and generals in history had unconscious contact with the third level and were able to command their followers through its tremendous power.”
Professor Oberton, eyes shining, faced Tearle squarely.
“And maybe, for the first time in history, you and I will achieve that miraculous third level by deliberate and scientific means, and explore some of its stupendous possibilities! We will continue developing your psychic power toward that goal!”
Darce Henderson stood up suddenly.
“Professor,” she said tensely. “You must not go too far! You are dealing with tremendous powers and—”
“Quiet!” snapped the psychologist. “Miss Henderson, I’m fully aware of what I’m doing.”
The girl shrugged and walked slowly to the door. Before she closed it behind her, she turned once and looked at Tearle strangely.
“That girl has too much imagination,” said Oberton with a forced chuckle. Then, before Tearle could speak, he went on. “Now let’s try some word transfer. See how rapidly you can speak out the sentences I think of.”
They settled themselves and after a moment, with his eyes staring out of the window, Tearle spoke.
“Affective functions are mainly physiological in the human nervous system. Metabolism requires certain modifications of the chemical exchanges between phagocytic cells—”
Tearle spoke on, hesitating only over the pronunciation of words he had never heard or seen in his life before, plucking them from Oberton’s mind.
Finally the scientist held up his hand as
a signal to halt, but Tearle, unseeing, went on. “Lord, this is pretty weird I wonder myself sometimes what it will lead to Darce might be right, but then—”
Tearle started suddenly and jerked his head around, facing the professor in bewilderment. The latter stared at him wide-eyed.
“Tearle!” he gasped finally. “You began giving my involuntary thoughts! That’s third level—you must have reached it!”
He sat down and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief excitedly. “Too late to start anything today. But tomorrow we’ll begin an exploration of the third-level phenomena of the great psychic force-field!”
Professor Oberton, if he had not been so disturbed himself, would have noticed a queer look in Tearle’s face, a combination of puzzled incredulity and half-fearful wonder. Tearle said goodnight and walked from the room stiffly. Almost like a robot he stalked toward the outer office. His mind felt as though it wanted to soar—
When he entered Darce’s office, the three college boys whom he had seen so many times were there, noisy and boisterous. They caught sight of him and turned to bow stiffly, in mockery.
“Monsieur!” said one. “Allons, ze master-mind!”
“Senor!” said the second. “I am honaired!”
“Milord!” said the third. “Your bawth is ready!”
Warren Tearle did not flush and grin self-consciously as he usually did. Nor did he shuffle toward the door, with shoulders drooping. Instead, he stood erect before them, unflinching.
“I,” he said slowly and firmly, “am taking Miss Henderson to dinner!”
The three college boys looked at one another blankly. Darce’s eyes riveted on Tearle’s face and slowly widened.
“How charming, I’m sure!” said one of the college boys.
“Little boys should be seen, not heard,” said the second sarcastically.
“Scram, chump!” growled the third.
“Beneath the moonlight of the bay,” spoke Tearle in measured tones, “Where the wild lilies sway; there I’ll speak my love for you; and it shall be ever true!”
He turned to the girl. “They compose poetry for you, Darce!”
One of the college boys choked and turned a vivid scarlet. He clutched at his inner coat pocket, jerked out a piece of paper with writing on it, and then hastily jammed it back in again. He tried to face his companions, failed, and left after a hurried excuse.
Tearle faced the second college boy. “You don’t write poetry to Darce, but I wonder what you think of her?” His eyes bored into those of the other. He continued, “She’s a conceited, arrogant dame and I only take her around to show her off and impress people with my taste!”
Though Tearle had said the words, it was the college boy whose face turned all colors of the rainbow. “I didn’t say that!” he sputtered. “I didn’t say that, Darce!”
“Of course you didn’t,” returned Tearle. “No one said you did, either!”
Realizing his blunder, the college boy shrugged in pretended nonchalance and left without a word. The remaining young student edged toward the door. “I—” he began.
“You only have thirty cents in your pocket and hoped Darce would go Dutch with you tonight?” suggested Tearle. The young man vanished.
“Now, for Heaven’s sake!” cried Darce. “What is this all about? What has come over you? What—”
“Will you have dinner with me?” asked Tearle quietly.
“I don’t think I will!” returned the girl, swinging her chin up defiantly. “I don’t like the way you treated those poor boys, and I’m indisposed!”
“Will you have dinner with me?” said the unsmiling Tearle in a dry, strange voice. His steady, grey eyes, unblinking, stared into hers. The girl felt momentarily dizzy.
“Why—why, yes, I’d be delighted!” she said.
CHAPTER IV
Tearle Demonstrates
WARREN TEARLE sat at the table with a faint, unhumorous smile on his lips. All through the dinner it had been frozen there. His eyes kept roving over the throng in the large, gilded dinner-dance place. He had answered Darce’s conversation attempts only with grunts. At first she had been angry, then puzzled, and last frightened. This was not the same Warren Tearle she had known in the past months! There was a strange look in his eyes, as though he were listening to silent voices, and were amused.
“What are you doing!” she gasped suddenly. “Reading thoughts?”
He grinned.
“Look!” he pointed to a waiter treading his way between the tables, bearing a large platter of steaming soups. Suddenly the waiter seemed to deliberately tip the tray, spilling hot soup over a half dozen people.
“I didn’t mean to do it!” stammered the waiter. “Somebody told me to!” Then he fainted dead away in the midst of indignantly shrieking guests.
“Let’s go!” said Darce. “Come to my dormitory room at the college. I want to talk with you!”
A half hour later they were there, and Warren Tearle began speaking in that same dry, unemotional voice, while he paced up and down like a caged tiger.
“I have reached the third level of psychic perception! I now have practically unlimited clairvoyance and telepathy. It was like having dawn come, after the dark night. Professor Oberton had some inkling of what it would mean, hut he had no idea of how much power it gives. I can read thoughts, Darce, as easy as pie. But more than that, I can give commands that must be obeyed! The example of the waiter is only a trifle.
“My mind is now in direct contact with what the professor called the main field of the psychic world. It is a sort of crossroads of all thoughts, all ideas, all minds, all things! I can see and hear what I wish. But more, I can force my will where I wish, carried by the tremendous power of the third level!”
He stopped and faced the girl. A new, dominant Warren Tearle had replaced the old. His shoulders were square.
“Darce!” he said, “come here and put your arms around me. Say that you love me!”
Outraged, the girl tried to resist, but some strange force seemed to bend her will to his. She could not keep her arms from encircling him, nor her lips from saying, “I love you, Warren!”
He grinned triumphantly. Then suddenly he pushed her away, rudely. “Oh, I know it’s a farce!” he growled. “But it gives you some idea of the power—mental power—that I have at my command!” His eyes became cold, glittering bits of stone.
“I’m going to develop my powers. One of these days the whole world will hear of me—and from me—”
He began pacing again and talked on and on, feverishly, deliriously, drunk with the thought of the new-found powers in his grasp. Finally the girl could stand it no longer and shrieked for him to stop.
“You’re a madman!” she cried.
“Far from it,” he returned coolly. “I’m just beginning to realize my great destiny!”
“A wish-fulfillment, that’s all it is!” Darce’s lips trembled, but determination was in her voice as she went on. “I’m going to be cruel. Your inferiority complex, your inhibitions, your secret yearnings, are overwhelming you, in one big mental upheaval. You want to be a leader and ruler simply because you know you never can be!”
“I have power!” ground out Tearle. “Mind power! And that is far more effective than cannon or bullets or money. Look, I will show you—”
He snapped on the radio and tuned to a commentator speaking rapidly.
“Silence!” said Tearle in his dry, queer voice. “Silence, I say!”
The veins stood out on his forehead as this incredible command rang out. The commentator’s voice spluttered, went on chokingly for a few more words, then stopped. For a full three seconds there was no sound from the radio. Then Tearle relaxed and the commentator’s voice went on, a bit puzzled and worried.
“He was forced to obey that command because it came with the great energy of the third level of psychic force,” said Tearle. “Now, do you believe I can do what I want to—and that I can be a leader?”
Darce shu
ddered at the odd, dancing light in his eyes. She could almost see the mind behind them going to ruin.
“I knew it!” she said in a hopeless calm. “I knew it would happen! But you’ll see all this in a different light, tomorrow, at the laboratory—”
“I won’t be at the laboratory tomorrow,” interposed Tearle. “Tomorrow, I’m going out in the world as a leader—as a power!”
Darce looked at him pleadingly.
“Warren, it’s a dangerous thing to think like that,” she cried. “You’ll go mad! Don’t you see? What you must do is continue your work with Professor Oberton and help him map the psychic-field completely. There are pitfalls in psychic-exploration, which you can expose. That way you will be doing good—”
But she knew she was talking to empty air.
“Doing good!” Tearle laughed harshly. “What good has the world ever done me?”
He brushed the girl aside and left abruptly. The expression on his thin face was one of sardonic anticipation.
CHAPTER V
The Power of Third Level
PROFESSOR OBERTON and Darce Henderson did not see Warren Tearle for a month. Then he came in one day. They noticed immediately the swaggering manner he had acquired, and the flush of some deep triumph in his face.
“Tearle!” exclaimed Oberton. He hastily locked the door. “Sit down, Tearle. I must talk to you. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, but found you’d moved to an unknown address.”
The scientist went on nervously.
“Now, Tearle, what is all this foolishness you’ve been up to? You’ve come to your senses, haven’t you, and now you and I will continue our scientific research in psychic—”
Tearle held up a hand. Though he hadn’t said a word, Oberton choked and stopped as though by kingly command.
“Listen to me,” said Tearle in a hard, confident voice. “In the last month I’ve laid the foundation for an empire. Not a military empire, for they don’t last. A financial empire! Money is the greatest power today. I’m going to amass a greater fortune than has ever been known.”
