by Various
Sometimes he wondered why he didn't go in for some nice, peaceful job of work--like rocket testing, for instance.
* * * * *
Fredericks, downstairs, was deciding to do things the subtle way. The man upstairs--Jones, Brady or whatever his name was--deserved what he was going to get. Psi powers were all very well, but there were defenses against them. Briefly he thought of the man who'd sold him the special equipment, and wondered why more criminals didn't know the equipment existed. It worked; he was sure of that. Fredericks knew enough of general psi theory to know when somebody was handing him a snow job. And the equipment was no snow job.
A force shield, that was the basic thing. A shield with no points of entrance for anything larger than air molecules. Sight and sound could get through, because the shield was constructed to allow selected vibrations and frequencies. But no psi force could crack the shield.
Fredericks has sat through a long explanation. Psi wasn't a physical force; it was more like the application of a mental "set," in the mathematical sense, to the existing order. But it could be detected by specially built instruments--and a shield could be set up behind which no detection was possible. It wasn't accurate to say that a psi force was blocked by the shield; no construct can block that which has no real physical existence. It was, more simply, that the shield created a framework inside of which the universe existed in the absence of psi.
That wasn't very clear, either, Fredericks thought; but mathematics was the only adequate language for talking about psi, anyhow. It had been the theory of sets that had led to the first ideas of structure and rationality within the field, and the math had gotten progressively more complex ever since.
Psi couldn't get through the shield, at any rate; that was quite certain. And very little else could get in, or out. There was only one point of exit. Unholstering his gun and aiming it automatically keyed the shield to allow passage of a bullet, and the point of exit was controlled by the gun's aiming. It was efficient and simple to handle.
But Fredericks wasn't depending on the shield alone. There was a binder field, too--a field which linked him to the surrounding area, quite tightly. That took care of the chance that the Psi Operative would try to pick him up, force shield and all, and throw him out a window or through the roof. With the binder field in operation, no psi force could move him an inch.
A plug gas mask, too, inserted into the nostrils. The shield plus the mask's pack held two hours' worth of air--just in case the Psi Operative tried to throw poisonous molecules through the force shield, or deprive him of oxygen.
And then there was the blindfold. Such a simple thing, and so effective.
* * * * *
Upstairs, the Psi Operative caught the sequence of thoughts. Did the FBI have to do such a thorough job, he wondered bitterly. The equipment, he knew, would do everything Fredericks thought it would do. It was important that Fredericks go up against the Operative thinking he was completely protected--in that way his final defeat would be most effective. He'd have guarded against every possible failure--so, when he failed, there would be nothing to explain it.
Except the "fact" that the Psi Operatives were supermen.
He gritted his teeth. It would be nice, he reflected, to be a real superman. But any talent has its limits. And, even allowing for that, only Donegan and a very few others could handle the full theoretical potentials of their talents. In theory, a telekineticist could move any object with his mind that he could move with his hands. That was a rough rule of thumb, but it worked. The larger objects were barred by sheer mass; no matter what kind of force you're using, there's a limit to how much of it you can apply.
The smaller objects--molecules, electrons, photons--simply took practice and training. First the object had to be visualized, and the general structure memorized. Then the power had to be controlled carefully enough so that you moved just what you wanted to move and not, for instance, shift the Empire State Building while trying to lift a molecule out of its topmast.
It was possible, in theory, to create full sensory hallucinations by juggling electron streams and molecules within the brain. But memorizing the entire structure of the brain was a lifelong task, since you also had to allow for individual variation, and that meant working with "tracking" molecules inside each brain before any work began. Most Operatives stuck to one area--usually, as most effective, sight or sound.
He was a sight man. He could create any visual hallucination, as long as the subject was within a twenty-five-foot range. Beyond that, control of the fantastically small electrons and photons simply became too diffused.
But Fredericks had a shield. And in case the shield didn't work, he was coming with a blindfold.
The Psi Operative had no weapons, no reinforcements, no chance to run--nothing except his psi talent, which Fredericks had defenses against, and his brains.
But there had to be a way out.
Didn't there?
* * * * *
The desk clerk looked young and comparatively innocent. Fredericks ambled over, taking his time about it. The clerk looked up and smiled distantly. "Yes, sir?"
"You've got a man registered here," Fredericks said, in crisp, official tones. "He gave the name of John P. Jones--"
The clerk was consulting a card file. "Yes, sir," he said brightly. "Room 1014."
"He's at work on an FBI matter," Fredericks said. "Naturally, this is private and confidential--"
"Naturally," the clerk said in a subdued tone. "But I--"
"I'm assigned to work with him," Fredericks said. "You understand."
"Of course, sir," the clerk said, trying to look as if he did.
Fredericks took a deep breath. "I know he's here, but I don't know his room number," he said. "Some red-tape mixup."
"He's in 1014," the clerk said hopefully.
Fredericks shook his head. "Not that," he said. "The real room number. Look, I've got to get to him immediately--"
"Of course, sir," the clerk said. "Identification, sir?"
Fredericks grinned and fished in pockets. Naturally, he didn't come up with a thing, FBI identification was infra-red tested, totally unmistakable and unavailable to non-Operatives under any circumstances whatever. "Got it here some place," he muttered.
The clerk nodded. "Of course, sir," he said. "No need to waste time. I understand."
Fredericks stopped and stared. "You what?"
"The room, sir, is 1212," the clerk said. "Would you like me to accompany you--"
"No thanks," Fredericks breathed. "I'll find it myself." The man was too easy to find, he thought savagely. It ought to be tough to find him--but it's easy.
Remotely, that idea bothered him. But what difference did it make, after all? He had all the protection in the world. He had all the protection he was going to need. And all the time to fire one shot. Doing it blindfolded was going to be tough, but not insuperably tough. Fredericks had spent a week practicing, and he could locate a fly by sound within two inches, nineteen times out of twenty. That, he thought, was going to be good enough.
Upstairs, the Psi Operative thought so, too.
There had to be a way out, he told himself desperately.
But he couldn't find it.
He couldn't even come close.
* * * * *
On the way to Room 1212, he flipped on the shield, the mask, the binder field. Now let the superman try something, he thought wildly. Now let him try his tricks! He attached the blindfold as he got off the elevator. He could see Room 1212, three doors down the corridor, twenty steps--and then the blindfold was on. From now on he worked in the dark.
He felt the skeleton key in his palm and flipped the shield off for a second; then the key was in the lock, the shield back on, protecting him. The door opened slowly.
He heard it shut behind him. Then there was silence. He drew his gun.
"Go ahead," a muffled voice said from his right. "Go ahead and try something, Fredericks."
He whirled and al
most fired--but voices could be thrown. He listened again. There was silence ... not quite silence ... a movement ... a rustle--
Breathing was faint but unmistakable. It gave him a new direction. Breathing couldn't be faked.
He pictured the Psi Operative, in one flash of imagination, trying to get through the shield, sweating as he strained helplessly against the force shield, the binder field, the mask, the blindfold--oh, there was no way out for the poor superman, no way at all.
And Psi Operatives didn't carry weapons or anything else. They depended on their powers, and that was all.
And he'd neutralized those powers.
The breathing gave him the direction. He turned again, bringing the gun up, and fired six shots without a second's break between them. There was a sound like a gasp, and then nothing.
Nothing at all.
Grinning wildly, Fredericks whipped off the blindfold and switched off his shield in one triumphant motion. There, on the floor--
There, on the floor, was a nice gray rug with nobody at all lying dead on top of it. In the half-second it took Fredericks to see that, the Psi Operative moved. Fredericks tossed the empty gun at him and missed; the man was coming too fast. He guarded his face but the Psi Operative didn't go for the face. Instead his hands went swinging up and out and back.
The sides of the palms landed neatly on the twin junctions of Fredericks' arms and shoulders. Fredericks let out a shriek as his arms turned to acutely painful stone, and the Psi Operative stepped back and moved again in one blinding motion. This time the solar plexus was the target for one balled fist.
And then, of course, it was all over.
* * * * *
"Of course it was simple," Donegan said. "Anyone could have thought of it--and I knew you would."
"All the same," the Psi Operative said, "I nearly didn't."
Donegan nodded. "If you hadn't," he said, "we'd stationed a man downstairs who'd memorized your room. He could have done the job, too."
The Operative blinked. "Who?" he said.
"Desk clerk," Donegan said.
"Why didn't you tell me--"
"Now, use your head," Donegan said. "If you'd known you were all right, you'd never have thought of the answer. You had to prove you could do it--prove it to yourself as well as to me."
"But--"
"And you had to prove you could beat him on his grounds, too, as well as yours," Donegan went on. "You had to take him, not only with psi forces, but with the only weapons a Psi Operative is allowed to carry."
"Fists," the Operative said. "Sure Judo and Karate are standard subjects--every Operative has to know them. What's so tough about that?"
"Nothing," Donegan said. "Nothing at all--except for Fredericks. He's been beaten on your ground, and on his own. Now he knows he's licked. Standard operating procedure."
"I guess so," the Operative said.
"And after all," Donegan said, "now that you're going up a grade--"
"Now that I'm what?"
"That," Donegan said, "was your promotion test, friend. And you passed."
There was a second of absolute silence. Then the Operative said: "And it was all so simple."
"Sure," Donegan said. "Simple enough so that you get a promotion out of it--and Fredericks gets sixty days for attempted assault."
"Not ADW--assault with a deadly weapon--because we've got to keep up the myth," the Operative said. "Psi Operatives are untouchable. No such thing as a deadly weapon for a Psi Operative."
"Which is nonsense," Donegan said, "but necessary nonsense. I wonder if Fredericks will ever figure out how you got him."
"I wonder," the Operative said. "He'll know about karate, of course."
"Karate's hand-to-hand fighting." Donegan said. "That was his field. No, I mean our field. Psi."
"It makes a nice puzzle for him, doesn't it?" the Operative said, and grinned. "After all, I didn't touch him--couldn't, in any way. He'd shielded himself perfectly from any telekinetic force--and I had no weapons. I couldn't even get to him barehanded because of his shield and the binder field. He had me located--no tomfoolery about that. He fired six shots at me, point-blank at can't-miss range."
"But you got him," Donegan said.
"Sure," the Operative said. "Simplest thing in the world."
"All you had to do--" Donegan began.
"All I had to do," the Operative finished for him, "was use my mind to move the bullets--as he fired them."
* * *
Contents
THE MAN WHO PLAYED TO LOSE
By Laurence Mark Janifer
Sometimes the very best thing you can do is to lose. The cholera germ, for instance, asks nothing better than that it be swallowed alive....
When I came into the control room the Captain looked up from a set of charts at me. He stood up and gave me a salute and I returned it, not making a ceremony out of it. "Half an hour to landing, sir," he said.
That irritated me. It always irritates me. "I'm not an officer," I said. "I'm not even an enlisted man."
He nodded, too quickly. "Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said. "Sorry."
I sighed. "If you want to salute," I told him, "if it makes you happier to salute, you go right ahead. But don't call me 'Sir.' That would make me an officer, and I wouldn't like being an officer. I've met too many of them."
It didn't make him angry. He wasn't anything except subservient and awed and anxious to please. "Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said.
I searched in my pockets for a cigarette and found a cup of them and stuck one into my mouth. The Captain was right there with a light, so I took it from him. Then I offered him a cigarette. He thanked me as if it had been a full set of Crown Jewels.
What difference did it make whether or not he called me "Sir"? I was still God to him, and there wasn't much I could do about it.
"Did you want something, Mr. Carboy?" he asked me, puffing on the cigarette.
I nodded. "Now that we're getting close," I told him, "I want to know as much about the place as possible. I've had a full hypno, but a hypno's only as good as the facts in it, and the facts that reach Earth may be exaggerated, modified, distorted or even out of date."
"Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said eagerly. I wondered if, when he was through with the cigarette, he would keep the butt as a souvenir. He might even frame it, I told myself. After all, I'd given it to him, hadn't I? The magnificent Mr. Carboy, who almost acts like an ordinary human being, had actually given a poor, respectful spaceship Captain a cigarette.
It made me want to butt holes in the bulkheads. Not that I hadn't had time to get used to the treatment; every man in my corps gets a full dose of awe and respect from the services, from Government officials and even from the United Cabinets. The only reason we don't get it from the man in the street is that the man in the street--unless he happens to be a very special man in a very unusual street--doesn't know the corps exists. Which is a definite relief, by the way; at least, off the job, I'm no more than Ephraim Carboy, citizen.
I took a puff on my cigarette, and the Captain followed suit, very respectfully. I felt like screaming at him but I kept my voice polite. "The war's definitely over, isn't it?" I said.
He shrugged. "That depends, Mr. Carboy," he said. "The armies have surrendered, and the treaty's been signed. That happened even before we left Earth--three or four weeks ago. But whether you could say the war was over ... well, Mr Carboy, that depends."
"Guerrillas," I said.
He nodded. "Wohlen's a jungle world, mostly," he said. "Sixty per cent water, of course, but outside of that there are a few cities, two spaceports, and the rest--eighty or ninety per cent of the land area--nothing but jungle. A few roads running from city to city, but that's all."
"Of course," I said. He was being careful and accurate. I wondered what he thought I'd do if I caught him in a mistake. Make a magic pass and explode him like a bomb, probably. I took in some more smoke, wondering whether the Captain thought I had psi powers--which, of course, I didn't; no need
for them in my work--and musing sourly on how long it would take before the job was done and I was on my way back home.
Then again, I told myself, there was always the chance of getting killed. And in the mood I found myself, the idea of a peaceful, unrespectful death was very pleasant.
For a second or two, anyhow.
"The Government holds the cities," the Captain was saying, "and essential trade services--spaceports, that sort of thing. But a small band of men can last for a long time out there in the wilds."
"Living off the country," I said.
He nodded again. "Wohlen's nine-nines Earth normals," he said. "But you know that already."
"I know all of this," I said. "I'm just trying to update it a little, if I can."
"Oh," he said. "Oh, certainly, S ... uh ... Mr. Carboy."
I sighed and puffed on the cigarette and waited for him to go on. After all, what else was there to do?
* * * * *
For a wonder, the hypno had been just about accurate. That was helpful; if I'd heard some new and surprising facts from the Captain it would have thrown all the other information I had into doubt. Now I could be pretty sure of what I was getting into.
By the time we landed, the Captain was through and I was running over the main points in my head, for a last-minute check.
Wohlen, settled in the eighty-fifth year of the Explosion, had established a Parliamentary form of government, set up generally along the usual model: bicameral, elective and pretty slow. Trade relations with Earth and with the six other inhabited planets had been set up as rapidly as possible, and Wohlen had become a full member of the Comity within thirty years.
Matters had then rolled along with comparative smoothness for some time. But some sort of explosion was inevitable--it always happens--and, very recently, that nice Parliamentary government had blown up in everybody's face.
The setup seemed to be reminiscent of something, but it was a little while before I got it: the ancient South American states, in the pre-Space days, before the United Cabinets managed to unify Earth once and for all. There'd been an election on Wohlen and the loser hadn't bowed gracefully out of the picture to set up a Loyal Opposition. Instead, he'd gone back on his hind legs, accused the winner of all sorts of horrible things--some of which, for all I knew, might even be true--and had declared Wohlen's independence of the Comity. Which meant, in effect, independence from all forms of interplanetary law.
